So, we have replaced the mainboard, the graphics card, the memory, removed and/or replaced everything else and reloaded the operating systems twice in P’Bot’s computer and it still hangs randomly, and in some cases reprodicibly. I’m blogging this from P’Bot’s car on the way to find someone with a CPU so we can eliminate/confirm that as the cause.
. Just found out I’ve overstayed my visa (again) by four days already. Got to make an emergency trip to Burma (via Ranong) tomorrow. It’s tipping it down, so I’ll have to put on the waterproofs and take the CBR. Another day, another 2000baht lost because I’m a foreigner in Thailand. Still, no big problem.
Then, on Monday, a trip up to Prachuab to sort out my work permit, which will cost another few thousand baht. I’ve already done 3000baht on accounts fees and 1500 on tax this month. It’s going to be tight again, but I can cover it.
As of now, I’m finishing this blog entry off from my laptop, three days later…
Visa run went as to be expected. Got drenched, but enjoyed the ride. Mee went too, and regretted it, as she’s now suffering from a nasty cold. Luckily, my old bike jacket from the UK served it’s purpose well, and I remained mostly dry and healthy. Have since found a potential route to getting a one-year extension, so I don’t have to leave the country every 90 days. Fingers crossed, but I doubt it’ll come to much based on previous experience.
Found an old mate who used to be my best mate when I was growing up around Thame. He’s back living in the UK, doing the same kind of work as me. It’ll be interesting to catch up with him (on-line, at least) and find out what’s happened in the last few years.
Saturday (yesterday), helped P’Bot with his karaoke gig, which was a birthday party for a guy in a house just across a few buffalo fields from his house. We had to use P’Chai’s machine, as P’Bot’s machine is still randomly hanging. We also couldn’t find a monitor splitter cable in time, so we had to use just one monitor on the stage, and control it all from behind the mixer desk. Luckily the fonts are nice’n’big :) I really should reverse-engineer the karaoke software and re-implement it in GTK, so we don’t have to mess about using Windows Me (or 98)!
Lots of stuff building up in my GNOME sysadmin folder which I just haven’t had time to look into. However, I have made a little more progress with Mango, which I hope will be a web interface to the GNOME LDAP server, for sysadmins (like Christian Rose) to use to manage account requests (new CVS/Shell accounts, SSH key additions/updates, contact info updates etc), of which there seem to have been a huge increase recently (especially since pserver became unavailable for a few days).
This week, I expect to be spending much of Monday supporting a Thai client, and any time leftover will be working through some normalish priority bugs for a UK client. When that’s done, I have to chase two UK clients for the latest revision of the requirements specs for a couple of projects, so I can finish one off and start the other one. If nothing comes of them, I have some low priority jobs sitting in my Thai customer’s work queue which I could chew through. Or, I could try to get back on top of gtranslator or some of my GNOME sysadmin todos, or implement the requirements I drew up for a decent replacement ‘golder.org’ homepage, or start implementing one of the other ‘internal’ projects I have had on the back-burner for lack of time.
Oh, and so I don’t get locked into the computer for the whole week, I have the chore of having to go and get a couple of passport photos of me in a suite and tie (apparently I mustn’t smile or they’ll reject it!) and take them to the labour office in Prachuab Kirikhan to order my new (Prachuab county) work permit, and then call into Thap Sakae on the way back to find out why my phone bills are still going to the old address, and formally register my interest in ADSL! When the work permit arrives, I will have to provide some kind of report of my personal finances (I think they want bank statements) and put that together with a load of other assorted company paperwork and take that to the Immigration office in Darn Singkhorn, to request a one-year extension to my visa.