The nautical garb came to work today.  The librarians wanted to take photos of peopel reading banned books.  I couldn’t help but take the opportunity to throw them for a loop, so I donned the nautical garb and grabbed Moby Dick.    The picture turned out pretty well I think.  I had a great number of compliments on it.  I even had a few of the non library staff give me a wide berth when they saw me.  ARrrrrrr!!!      I really think I should have left it on for the remainder of the day.  What better way to attend a “Brand Identity” presentation than dressed like a pirate?   I think one of these day’s I’m goign to have to come in in a kilt too just to really throw them for a loop.

Today I was informaed that I would be needed in the new science building.   I spent the day sorting molecular model kits, and labeling tons of chemicals.   I am so sure that was worth the tax payers money.

Back from gencon. On my way to bristol. Sigh…

About 30 miles from Indianapolis and Gencon.

Wow what a weekend. Read on if you are adventerous…  Its a long one folks…

(more…)

I really love paperclips.

Ok, stop looking at the screen so funny.  I almost never use a paperclip for holding paper together.  I just love the convienece of paperclips when I need small pieces of stiff wire.  Yesterday, quite by accident, I got pulled in to consult on a damaged color laserjet 4650.   The paper pickup assmbly had been damaged by improper removal of a paper jam.  During that jam removal part of the printer that holds a paper guide door (comes into play when duplexing) was broken off.  After some time Ron and I found all three pieces of the guide while Calette was looking up the replacement part on HP’s website.

While looking the broken part over I decided I could probably fix it with a little ingenuity.  I came back to my desk grabbed my locktite superglue like compound, and returned to the broken printer.  Once there I “cut” a paperclip into small pieces the right size to act as support “splints” and glued them on the sides of the broken assembly. Just to make sure the rough areas where the breaks occured didnt cause anything to bind, I then coated the inside with a piece of book tape. (really heavy duity, scotch tape) We then left the glue to dry overnight. Around 11 today  I reassembled the printer. (The repaired part slid right into place perfectly. I was worried that it might break again while trying to get it into place.)  Then after a little mishap with popping a door spring loose that then required the printer to be dismantled even more than the 1st time, I re-assembled the printer again. Once the diagnostics, and calibration finished, I ran the paper path tests and held my breath.   “Ok everyone, cross your fingers”.  You know, it’s really funny to watch an office full of people simultaniously cross their fingers…
The printer quietly printed the 1st side, and without missing a beat, printed the second side of the page as well.

So, as I said in the beginning, I love paperclips.

My warranty replacement drive has arrived.  It is actually a better model, that also includes the firewire interface.  I followed their return directions exactly, and now I have parts left over form the old drive that do not fit this drive.  Oh well.  I did end up with a new firewire cable, and an additional USB cable in the deal.  Also this drive has fancy blue LEDs and anything with blue LEDs is automatically cool.

The drive is formatted, and installed and I setaside and area on it for using it for an additional backup device.  So now all important data is now backed up to 2 seperate external drives again.  Both drives are in a cool room, and both drives are powered off a UPS. Here’s hoping for long data life.

Just in case anyone cares, all of my mortgages are now paid off thanks to the massive turnip windfall of over 2 million bells last friday.   No more debt to Tom Nook and I still have around 700K bells in the bank to buy random thigns from him.

Why is it that certain people, who have more degrees than anyone ever needs, are so fricking lazy and non committal that they can’t even be bothered to remember how to login to do thier job!!!  Then while trying to figure it out manage to trash the computer which happens to reside at another campus…