And Then This Happened

The phone rang at 7 am, I pushed the "go away" button. Chicago area code, No voicemail. I figured it was some dumbass Indian headhunter.

At work, same phone number left a message, it was UPS. Apparently someone two days ago dropped off about 37 packages at the Van Nuyes UPS and used my account to ship them 1st day air. It raised a flag because I never ship more than one or two things at a time. I pointed out what should have raised the flag is I live 400 miles away.

This was not completely unexpected because I reveived email two days ago saying my password had been changed, so I went online and changed it to something new.

So, the first guy said he would retrieve the packages and if there was a charge on my credit card he would reverse that. Then I called the main UPS customer service, explained the problem, and had them nuke the account. So far the charge has not made it to my credit card account, which means I can't challenge it. Which is fine.

Only random work to do at the salt mines. Broke some software.

Lunch was at a miso ramen place near Kaiser. I got the basic bowl plus an egg and butter. Waiter was very surprised about the butter. So was I. I got it because a theater friend posted a picture of her buttered ramen lunch on FB. It didn't add anything. Miso soup is served too cold to melt butter or to cook the yolks of a parboiled egg. It was a big bowl, very very salty, but not much carbs for a ramen dish because I started to go into low blood sugar mode after shooting up my usual pre-lunch insulin.

Luckily there was a Baskin Robbins right around the corner. Chocolate fudge and mint chocolate chip. Only got through half of the latter, the fudge was rich enough to level off the blood sugar.

Next stop, Kaiser. Dropped off my nearly full sharps container. Went to the lab and had non-fasting blood tests. They also gave me a cup to pee into, but I had gone to the loo when I first got into the building so there wasn't anything left. Doesn't matter, that test  is a total waste of time. My kidneys are too far gone for that measurement to help.

Sat down at the blood draw, and the nice lady said she was a student trainee, was that okay? Sure. Turns out she is going to DeAnza. I didn;t know they had a med tech program. I know they had at one time a superb theater/dance program, but I suspect most of that may have been hijacked by Foothill, their sister college. Anyhow, trainee was good, a tiny bit nervous but the only reason I noticed is she muffed the final "fold the gauze in half and tape it over the hole in the nice man's arm". She kinda crumpled it. No harm done, and she had the right "this is my job and I belong here" attitude.

Back to work, I was amused to see that a tool which I had written the test cases for, which we farmed out to our group in India to execute, was not working quite right. I absolutely hate this tool, it was a kludge done by someone who has no business building tools, and the results are way awkward to do anything intelligent with. It was good to see a series of bugs had been filed, and typical that the author of the tool refused to accept that they were valid.

In other news, the password cracker CD I gave to Automation Guy worked, so we now have access back for a server which has been locked for ages.

Straight home after work. It was still in the 80s. Not pleased at the sudden heat wave following the sudden chill, because I had just re-lit the furnace pilot light a couple of days ago.

When I got home I put the insulin into the fridge, then  did a few things before going back inside:

- Popped the iceplant flat out of its plastic, which was a challenge because it was all roots under there, and planted it. I need several more if I am to fill the space.
- Planted the last 3 strawberry pots. These are in peat pots so the plants stay inside them.
- Watered everything, including the roses on the other side of the house
- Got the music stand out of the shed, and into the trunk of the car
- Took out the two baritone horns and put the mouthpiece and valve oil from the old one into the case of the new one and put the new one in the trunk
  (and the old one back into the shed)

Fuzzy had left an estimate for me, and if he did everything he priced out it would exactly empty my savings account. But two major items (rebuild the carport steps, wash and paint & caulk the outside of the house) I don't want done right away. Both need to be passed by the park manager, and I don't agree with Fuzzy's concept of an optimal paint job being only two colors. I'll call and tell him the inside work is okay, but save the outside for later. And I need to talk to the manager for guidance.

Did my online stuff, then fired up the Windows 8 machine, attached my USB disk drive and installed the software which supposedly controls the telescope. It was a PIA, because software seems to need to be installed in Windows 7 desktop mode, which Windows 8 is not happy to do. The first piece of software, it turns out, only finds the current location of stars and planets, it doesn't control the telescope. The second piece of software controls the telescope, but it needs current star charts, which it doesn't seem to have. I couldn't get any of the several charts to give a legal location setting. I did manage to get the scope to go in a circle by erasing the target coordinates and pushing "quick go". Once. After that nothing.

I need to read the manual.

A pity, because it is a warm clear night and I really wanted to try it out tonight.

With the UPS incident in mind, I went to all the sites which use the same password as I had used at UPS, and changed them all to different ones. Those are all old accounts, from before I had A System. Pretty much just changed them all to match the new system which has not been hacked. Yet. This was after running both Spybot and Norton full scan on the PC. Both found an item each which might have been responsible, but I'm willing to bet it's just on some script kiddy's pirate list.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Rooster T Feathers for new talent showcase, headlined by the guy who directed Little Shop