alan j quinn

34 years ago today I stepped into a plane in Dublin Ireland and emigration to America. However, the weather in NY City that day was whole lot better than what mother nature served up today!

• Got the change your password emails so I figured I should.
• Change my password with no issues.
• Few minutes later while figuring out an issue in a Revit file I discovered the back up and temp folders were corrupt so I could not delete or write to the same location as the app was trying to use into in the corrupt folders. Save as to a new location and all is working as expected. However, I still cannot delete the offending folders, which is an issue and will require a call to IT, which never ends well.
• Tried to log into anther app and was told my password was incorrect. Made sure I used my new password and lock myself out!
• Called IT and they unlocked my password and said go ahead and log in with your old one. However, he assumed I was logging into my PC and not the app, so that did not work. He asked “Should I reset your password”? What I wanted to say was no “please send me a bowl of rise as I’m hungry”….but my inner voice or reason was screaming so I said “yes please”. He did and it failed again. I told his again what I was doing and he said you need to restart (again). He gave me a new password and I typed it in as he was talking but that failed……however, he paused in the middle and continued telling me more of the password! I started typing again and hit enter but that failed……however, he was still not finished! I asked that he repeat the entire new password and say “I’m done” at the end….you know to make sure he was done talking. He spoke and I started writing on paper this time…..I waited a few seconds and he continued talking….I waited a few more seconds and all was quite….I asked if he was done and he said yes…apparently he missed that step in the script…but in all fairness it was my script , not his. I entered the new password and it worked.
• I said can you remain on the phone while I change my password to something normal as I’m considering working from home tomorrow and you cannot update your password via the VPN, as the nuts that feed the VPN are different nuts to the ones that they feed the hamsters on the network servers……which is odd as its all the same system. But I knew better and wanted to make sure I have the right nuts. However, wonder boy script reading IT persons said “you cannot change your password for 24 hours”…which means I have to come into the office tomorrow if I want to change my password….but he assured me my temp password will be fine if I work from home….ya right sure….tell me another one will ya.
• Anyhow back to Revit, since we have a few users working remotely I suggested moving the Revit file to BIM360, a cloud based system that does not require any nuts to function and is completely outside the nut hungry VPN….which is more like sucking a bowling ball through a garden hose up hill, in the a good Irish rain (soft day thank G@D) why trying to save a Revit file over it. Mind you feeding it different nuts at different time of the day has zero effect on improving the mind-blowing speed. It reminds me of unplugging a (rotary) phone and hoping no one calls while you attempt to suck a few emails at 14.4 kbits/s while at a Bed n Breakfast in (way) upstate VT in the mid-eighties. Needless to say you’d be better off trying smoke signals or carrier pigeons….perhaps a good tracker dog might also work well.  
• Okay, back to setting up that BIM360 project. I logged into the system and where you would normally find the “click here to add a new project” there was nothing….and no messages. Off I went in search of into on the internal dinternet (dinternet is internet to non Irish). You know those user friendly Share Point sites where typing in a few works will return 7,976,876 results….in .0003 of a second. The system tells you this like it’s a good thing! Well yes its really fast but I’ll be retired by the time I find the into I need….many minutes later I discover the correct Channel…yes, we like channels. Pink Floyd said it first and its sill the best “ Got thirteen channels of shit on the T.V. to choose from”….but if it were only thirteen. Once at the right location the nice system told me to click on yet another link to really get the info I needed….nothing like a little tease to get the juices flowing. Finally, I got the correct page and was told that since early Feb 2020 the powers that be decided that we all have to take a class in setting up something we did before and happily directs me to our University site. Now, having grown up in Ireland the word University is not taking lightly….and judging by me bad grammar and spelling I clearly never matriculated (that’s an SAT word there) from one. Our internal University is not anywhere close to what I consider one….but its just a name. So, off I go and log in with my new (temp) password, watch several very long and boring videos, one of which I fairly certain the presenter was either about to off himself or had smoked a bail of grass prior to turning on recorder. Not sure which one it was, but either were good choices IMO. I any event 63 short minutes later I was finished…I know this as the last video said “Congratulations you are now finished”. Thanks for the clarification as since I was on the last video I had no idea where I was in the odyssey.
• One would think that was that…I’d set up the BIM360 project and skip on down through the meadow while whistling a merry tune. Well nut eater and wonder boy script reading IT persons be dammed it’s not over yet. After logging back in the app to set up the project nothing changed. I decided to log out of my PC and back in but that did not help. So, I decided to check the University to insure my latest learning experiences was captured and I could proudly print out my certificate and display for all to see, but no. Not only could I not see my cert, I could find any record of ever taking the class!
• I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ll wait a while to see what happens. Perhaps my company will put out an email saying “Work at home” as precaution to the latest virus that WHO is now calling a pandemic. Great, I will have to come into the office as the VPN is a nut hungry beast and most likely have another conversation with wonder boy script reading IT persons just to change my password so I have finally set up the project all the while wearing a hazmat suit…..which will not allow me to open my phone to retrieve the verification code as you just can’t log into anything anymore as you need a second means of verifying you are you, not to mention my phone is password protected and the finger scanner will not work though my protective gloves! Either way I’m done for, its indeed time for a pint of 4.      

The Cannon Theatre of Littleton MA is putting on The Glass Menagerie. My good friend and theater owner asked for my welding help.

A hour or so later we had theatre prop fire escape. Come support this great theater, for more information go here.