Screwed by being early

In short, I got to the DMV at 10 for my 10:40 appointment.* And at 4:30 for a 5 o'clock meeting at Hole 2.** Both were mistakes.

*DMV: Good thing because all the parking was taken up by the long line of people without appointments, I had to park 2 blocks away WTF is a DMV office doing in a residential neighborhood?

5 minute wait to be screened outside the building (they had a table & 2 reps set up there). Got in line behind about a dozen people, including an entire 5-member family whose Middle Eastern Dad needed to hold all the paperwork and they were only there for their adult daughter. After 10 minutes more, the rep chased me away, she said come back at 10:30 earliest. So I waited and came back. The other rep processed my paperwork and gave me a number F068. They were currently serving F030. And G40. And A 12. And B7.

Numbers were called in order for each letter, but the letters came up randomly.

My number was called at 11:40, on the other side of the building.

The nice lady was personable, but not particularly efficient. It took another 5 minutes to find out that because my license was not due to expire for more than 60 days, I had to take the test.

WTF?

Logic says if I am there before my license expires, I should be covered by the last test. If I had waited till September, I would not have to take the test. I'd wasted too much time to try this again in 2 months, so she directed me to the line for a photo and the test. That line was only 5 people deep, about 5 minutes.

The test was on a computer, started out as touch screen then needed mouse clicks. Easy to read, well-designed but I failed the first time because I chose the more cautious answers to 4 questions. 3 wrong is the limit. Photo guy said wait 2 minutes and take it again.

I waited 2 minutes by my phone's clock, but it said to wait 2 minutes. So I watched the boring instructional video. Passed the second time, very few repeat questions.

Back in a longer line, 10 more minutes just to sign the temp license.

12:10, on the road to work.

No aircon in The Hole, a note from facilities said they sent someone at noon and it was fine. Lies. It was way hot by then, and the HVAC unit outside was silent.

Plowed through a bunch of tests, they all passed. NP asked me to double check a couple of hers, she had installed a new build this morning which broke her tests. They worked on my machine with yesterday's build.

Lunch at 1-ish, beef & 5-grains. But middle sister called, so I had to wait to scarf it down.

Back to The Hole, Boss had mistakenly sent a sync calendar item for 3:30. I messaged her, she verified that the meeting was at 5, for the Asia guy. No sync.

** 4:30 I drove to Hole 2,  parked next door where I could plug in my car, and sat on the patio with some caramel corn and waited for the gang to show up.

They never did.

Found Boss & NP and a bunch of people I didn't know in a meeting room upstairs. Not a meeting I was invited to.

Boss came out in a few minutes to sync, and gave me an assignment to write up my tests for Asia Guy, which meant going back to the Hole for an hour instead of home. Saw a message sent 3 minutes to 5 canceling the meeting.

The car battery was down to 10% so I drove to Pear Ave Google and plugged it in, and grabbed something resembling dinner. Much eye candy. Home at 7:20, traffic was slow on 101 all the way, but I lucked out with a green light at the IFH.

Home, had some ice cream, shot up some extra insulin and took a nap.

Message from new finance person asking about my unemployment between Arris and Google. Not really an issue since I didn't miss any payments for anything what with severance, social security and unemployment insurance.

Watched PTI and a few minutes of the other sports show.

Re-arranged things around the coffee table so Spook was more accessible and not lying on top of a speaker wire. This meant adding an HO train set to the laundry room counter pile for Goodwill, and throwing away a box of hardware for roof mounting a TV antenna. It also meant a lot more fighting. She's now back on the small tree where she belongs.

Changed the laundry room litterbox and Spot immediately made a dump on it the size (and smell) of New Jersey. He doesn't get it that scratching the side of the washer will not cover up his mess.

Plans for tomorrow:
August Fool's Day - flip the calendars
Work
Escalate the aircon ticket
Call BofA - 3 weeks later where is my $2k???
Try for a manicure appointment
Home, maybe label the photos

More upgrade foo

He just doesn't get it. Asia Guy keeps sending updates with the same build number. And now the test suite erased all the results from the UI because it treats a different build as a new project.

So tomorrow we need to do a lot of needless spreadsheet work to figure out what we've already tested. Which I think is almost everything. NP was under the mistaken impression that the UI gave the right numbers.

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Morning - got up on time, out early. Spot escaped, I had to carry him back from #6 porch.

AG called at about 9:30. I suggested he talk to the guy who hired him, whom he likes, about moving to a different manager, but hiring guy is on vacation.

Called BofA, it took an hour and 4 different reps to verify that the last time I called they dropped the ball. This time they claim I'll see my $2k in 2-3 days.

Email from new loan broker, a choice between a fixed 15 year or a 5/10 split. The numbers do not make sense - the total interest paid is less on the 5/10 than on fixed, even though the fixed rate is lower than the 10 part of the 5/10 split. Like my current loan, it starts low and goes up.

It looks like it will cost $2300 to get the refinance. The last broker wanted about $1k plus 1% of the loan amount.

The 5 part is a lower rate than my current 5 part, so I may lower the monthly if it gets done soon.

Three good looking contract offers came in, but one was a company I've already been working with, one was in Santa Monica, and the third is doing desktop support at a university. I suspect the pay rate for the last one is lower than what I'm getting now. We'll see.

Google officially notified us that we're moving next door to Hole 2 next Friday. The blurb contained the same BS about what a nice neighborhood it is and how there is a food truck for lunch across the street. As if that is a good thing.

Lunch was beef & broccoli, no time for dessert as I cleaned up the Kindle app to clear out the Hugo nominees.

Back to the Hole, between the UI issue and the 80° heat, I stopped working at about 3:30. 4:30 Asia Guy meeting I was there on time but the rest of the gang was late.  I had planned to sit in the corner and be quiet but Boss was not there and Asia Guy aimed most of his questions at me. I tried to deflect them to NP but without much success.

After the meeting NP and I worked out how to figure out which tests are left.

Then I went next door since my car was plugged in there, badged myself in and took a tour of our side of the building. I don't see how any of that space will work as a test lab. The conference rooms are all named for Beatles songs. Hole 2's rooms are named Blue Screen of Death & other computer crises. Leaving the building, the doors stuck. It took a while and hitting the disabled button to get out.

Home, traffic was horrible.

I had brought my personal laptop to work, charged it up but had no time to run updates so I did that before dinner. Reheated a chicken drumstick and the leftover steak and some veggies. Hgl was low so I had two servings of ice cream. And some Famous Amos cookies.

Watched PTI and Happy Hour. Now that I have no time Tivo is filling up.

Worldcon emailed the new schedule, my panel is still Sunday afternoon with four amazing musicians
Did not see the art show meet and greet so I emailed the programming director and she replied that she thought it was private, but she checked and it is public, so now I have something Friday night on my schedule.

The cats had spent a lot of the day at peace, but now they are at war. Grrr.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Complain about the aircon again - copy the managers
Try to figure out which tests have not been run
There may be yet another build
I may take a long lunch by the lake
3:30 tour of the new digs with boss & NP
4:30 or 5 Asia Guy conference call
Manicure (no appointments available today)
Home