Life goes on….

And on and on….. We have been blessed with two weeks of absolute quiet…. No Hack Attacks…. I’m not sure how to act!

Oh wait… Yes I do. I’m back to dealing with our favorite idiot who can’t remember how to empty his temp files…. grrr….

I’m on the Dean’s list again. 4.0 average!!!!

It is cold too. Had our first snow storm. Brrr…..  Pete had a fender bender and crumpled his pretty SUV’s bumper. He hit ice. I told him we should have taken my old truck, but… oh well. Mr. Clark got into a fight with a pitbull and we had to rush him to the vet. No real damage besides a puncture wound. Oh, and my nerves.

Off to dinner in a bit…..

Batter, Batter, Batter, SWING!!!

I was suppose to have this week off. Oh wait… I was suppose to have last week off and got delayed to this week. I am so frustrated by whoever the idiot is who keeps hiring the hackers that I coulds scream.

Kevin is keeping up with the installs. I’m handling the stuff I usually deal with, including Mr. “I forgot how to clear my cookies”. Poor George is up to his eyeballs in hack attacks. They seem to like hitting our network around 10pm, just as George is heading off to bed. So, up he gets when the server screams….(insert auuugha noise here) and off he goes to battle whichever idiot is trying to hack the system. It usually takes him about 6 hours to stop the attacks. Plus, reset the network, servers etc.  So far, we have noticed just a few things….

• All the hackers are West Coasties.
• There are at least 5 so far.
• Only one has gotten past the outermost firewall
• We have no idea of what the hell started all of this.
• George is not a terrorist or whatever else the $$$ is telling the hackers he is.

This whole thing is drivng us nuts. George isn’t getting any sleep. It is making him very crabby. I told him to go take a nap today. He actually did it. The hackers don’t seem to attack during business hours which also makes us think that they are doing it on the side. Why we are being attacked like we had some sort of information is beyond us. We are just tired of it. At this point, George is just about ready to call the local branch of the FBI. He has a bunch of info to give them about the hackers.

Meanwhile, when I’m not dealing with Mission Impossible Central, I have been taking classes. 4.0 grade point average so far! Scary class starts next week. Business Algebra…… Pete and George both say they will help. Now to not melt into a bowl full of jello!!!

Hackers part 2

Ok, the idiot didn’t give up. George got peeved enough at him that he actually called the guy at his desk. Tried to tell the guy that hacking an ISP is against the law. Something to do with the Homeland Security Act…

The guy still didn’t get it. Some idiot walked in with a big check, and told the guy that George was some kind of evil genius terrorist. That hacking him would save the planet, etc….

Oh My Bloody Gods.  pounds head on desk repeatedly

I think it took George an hour to convince the guy that he WASN’T the bad guy. I gave up trying to work and went home at noon, because George was still talking to the idiot. Maybe, just Maybe by next week this will all be done and I can get back to work. Better be soon, because billings need to go out and I still don’t know which one is my accounting server!

I am SO Pissed…

The Financial Aid office is at the top of my hit list this week. I think I have taken them copies of my taxes and other financial documents at least eight times. I faxed the first set and they wouldn’t take it because I didn’t add a cover sheet. So, next time I sent it in with Pete. No, that wasn’t good enough either. I had to sign a copy in front of them. Then, they lost my file. I was so pissed by this point that I think I had steam coming out of my ears.

But…. do you know what the last straw was? Their computer crashed. I’m standing there, watching it happen and know I can fix it. I tell them that I can fix it. Oh no! They have to call a professional. So, I leave.

I get back to the office after lunch and there is a phone message…. Can You Guess Who? Yep! College Admissions Office!

So, I put my nice little office id on my shirt, grabbed one of the clipboards and head out. When I get to the office, the gal looks at me and tells me that she still can’t process my financial aid because her computer is still down. I tell her I know, and that I’m here to fix it. She didn’t believe me. So, I show her the id. She looks at it like I forged it. I got pissed and called George, and let him talk to this idiot. I could tell he was mad, because he sounded so polite while he shouted that “Yes, she IS the TECH!”

I got to work, and discovered that the computer had a virus. The ditzy secretary had been cruising the Internet on her lunch hour. Lots of social sites and she picked up a bug. Such fun. Oh, and she hadn’t updated in about six months. This being a Windows machine meant that it took me nearly three hours to download the updates, reinstall the virus software and then bring the machine back up. I took off all of her twee little task bars and set it back to the college standards. That freed up almost a gig of hard drive space. Stupid People!!!

However, my financial aid paperwork is all done and the company is $350 richer. Ha!

Ummm…..

The computer ate my homework?

I lost the story in a handbag?

I was lost on a blind date?

I couldn’t come to work because I didn’t have anything to wear?

Ok, fine. I fell off the blog wagon. I’ve been working my butt off, and barely remembered to call my mom or my sister for the last month. Gahhhhh!!!

We did the worst job I have ever worked on in my life last week, and we are still trying to finish up all the bits. It wasn’t difficult in many ways. It was just horrid because of all the things that were done wrong. Things that we had to fix. And yes, it was our favorite competition. Hughes.

They did a job for a non-profit group. Six months later and lots of tears, one of their volunteers told the boss about us. George bid the job at 4 hours. It took 8. On the day after Christmas. This is just a partial list of what we found and fixed:

• used boxes with reused double sided sticky tape. It still had paint on it from another job!
• Bad wiring!!! OMG’s. You know, the jacks have a wiring guide on the side. They didn’t follow it! Crossed wires that wrapped around other wires and cut wires because they used a pocket knife instead of a punch down tool!!!
• a phone jack splitter and phone jack used to splice phone cable together!!!!
• Cat 5E jammed in a triple loop inside of a wiring box. 4 strands in one box and 2 in another. Some of the wire was so tight, that it was bent in half!
• wall plates not mounted.
• extra cable race-empty!!!!!
• boxes not wired.
• 4 wires where 1 was needed
• 1 wire where 4 were needed

Oh it was a mess. I knew things were bad when George started cussing in Russian. He was so pissed. Worse yet, Hughes charged this group over $1300! George gave them the non-profit rate and the whole repair cost them $350. Plus, it was done and tested on time. The head of the charity was so shocked that she about cried. Didn’t know what to think. He still fumes every time he drives by the place.

Mr. Clark is no longer mad at me for fixing him. He still hollers at me when I am in the shower, but he also knits my hair when we snuggle up in bed.

Oh, and it’s movie night again. George and my brother are coming over tonight.  I think we are watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.

Tuesday… grrrr…..

So, I managed the funeral. I only cried about ten times.

I even managed the music festival. It really wasn’t too bad, but I’m not a real big classical music person. I was amazed at the variety of people there though. Of course my music teacher from high school was there. She’s 90 years older than god. Yet, my friend Betsy, who normally listens to heavy metal and “hair bands” was there too. Guess you can’t always tell what kind of music people will like.

The rest of the weekend wasn’t too busy. I didn’t get a lot of sleep, but blame that on the book I was reading. Nothing special, but I couldn’t put it down. ok, it was a Tom Clancy…

Yesterday… Work was fairly normal. The cookie guy called again. sigh.., I think he does like the sound of my voice. We had a couple of new clients that I had to walk through the installation and set up, but that was about it. When I went home, it got a little crazy. The laundry exploded from the hamper. I swear that someone else came in, wore my clothes and then stuffed them in the hamper. I think I did five loads at my moms! Normally, I have two.

However, today things were crazy. Mom got pissed at Dad. Dad came over to the office to get out of the house at about the same time we had a client call yelling that we’d forgotten his appointment. George and I were scrambling to find the appointment only to discover that it was for next Tuesday. The guy said, “oh.” and hung up. No sorry. Nothing.

Dad finally went home and Kelly showed up. She’s been having boyfriend trouble and decided to pour out her heart today. The phone rang non-stop and even George got cranky. Kevin called at one point to tell us his wife was stuck on a back road and he had to go rescue her. So, we had to cancel all of his afternoon appointments. Did I mention that the phone wouldn’t stop ringing?

I was Soooooo happy to go home! I even took my phone and turned it off! Don’t want to see another one until maybe next week!

Ghost Jammers!

Someone is jamming our WiFi signal! It keeps happening at the same time every evening. George and Kevin have been hunting it and while they think they know what is happening, they still aren’t sure. It could be someone maliciously doing it, or it could be some old ancient Ham Radio operator with dodge equipment. So, they have been going out for the last few nights trying to find the source.

It’s been busy in the office too. Lots of ID-10-T errors. There are days that being the first line in the tech department is a pain in the butt. “Yes Mrs. XXX, you do need to put the disk in the drive.” If I have to explain what’s meant by “Press Any Key” one more time I think I will scream! No, I won’t, but the idea is delicious. One customer of ours calls at least once a week because he’s forgotten how to clear the cookies off of his computer. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was just calling to hear my voice. sigh…

My parents came by and took me out to dinner. They are trying to decide what to do for their anniversary. They don’t want a big party or anything, but they still don’t know what to do. I think I’d go somewhere cool! It’s been really hot and almost muggy. It clouds up, but we don’t get much rain.

More later, I’m exhausted.