Good morning OG. Just dropping last nights pics as I go between service calls. I think I may just flip them this weekend and see how they do. Hope everyone is having a great day. 
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Your plants always look incredibly healthy and “photo perfect” 
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You had mentioned that you provide IT support at multiple facilities and, it made me wonder, how much commuting do you need to do on a daily basis? Are the facilities close to each other, or spread out across a large region?
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I cover 3 hospitals that are high volume, their 14 off site locations which are low volume and a childrens centre that is also low volume. So most of my time is spent in the 3 hospitals which are around 40 or so km apart. I do bounce around allot.
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Thanks @CADMAN and @Mad_Barry
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That sounds huge! That could result in quite a bit of driving, depending upon the client’s needs for assistance, or how well the latest Microsoft updates applied 
Very cool. Are you a one man army? Or, are you part of a larger team who handle the same facilities? I love IT work, but I have found that I am impatient with those who …“require continual assistance” 
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IT support is a secondary job for me. I did IT for over 20 years. My last IT job had me covering a territory and doing second level support for other techs. We handled POS systems, McDonald’s, Gas stations, a number of other POS customers and 2 large banks. I repaired everything from pc’s, laptops, monitors, servers, printers and basically anything that had a power cord. Being on call for server support was killing me. I was there 13 years and they started organizing out all the staff that had been there a while to bring in cheaper techs. My last week there was 96.5 hours so I was actuality happy to be shown the door.
My manager there changed companies and ended up at a managed printer services company. I was off taking a break before looking for a new job and a guy that ran a different managed print services company came after me online. Turns out he had 2 techs and they both quit so he was doing all the service calls himself. I could not make him go away and made a bunch of demands that he met so ended up working there for a year. I then quit after my 1 year obligation was met and came to work for my old manager at the managed print services company he was at who proceeded to buy the company I just quit. So now I cover the printer fleet and do all the installs and repairs on them. This includes fax over the network and a security solution that has users tap a badge to use the machines. I also monitor the 600 plus printers/copiers and replace all the toners when they get below 10%. This takes it all off the healthcare workers backs.
Since I have a background in IT I sold them on the idea of signing a separate contract for us to do IT support for them. This was interesting since we are not an IT company and I am the only one doing it in my company but all my IT calls are billable so we earn extra money. I do everything from repairing laptops to PCs to building med carts. So I suppose one could say my days are usually pretty busy.
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Yes, this!
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good way to try the seed sorter see if you missed any
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Can I send my PS3 to u to fix lol just kidding shipping probably be an arm n leg lol
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Yeah, that would be a waste. You can buy one now shipped from Canada with some games for $112.
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That’s awesome man! I’ve been in IT most of my career, and support for a bunch of that, and the one thing I know is, I hate printers! You have the patience of a Saint my friend, lol.
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I see, you get to do all the cool stuff 
I dont know how anyone can pull off those kinds of crazy weekly work hours you were, I am usually drained after an 8 hour day. That sort of a schedule woukd be a path to a burnout for me. Similar to your layoff, I was previously laid off as the company outsourced its whole IT team to Romania It was being touted in the HR magazines at the time… why pay US wages when you can get an outsourced highly-skilled engineer for 1/4th the pay. It made for a positive experience overall, though, I got out of IT and into devops, which for me was a plus because it is less customer-facing.
You have had quite the unique experience, working so long for the same boss and, having worked with him at two separate gig’s. That is not something that happens much any more.
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Yeah, the hours were crazy. Worst part was they were all over the place. Get home at 6pm, get called out at 8pm. Get home at midnight, get called back out at 3am. It was difficult at times to say the least. But I did love parts of that job. It allowed me to get my hands into so many different things so I was always tearing apart something new.
I ended up spending over 20 years working with Darren between the 2 companies. He is a great manager and friend so I was very lucky. Getting into managed print services was a good move for me. Mon to Fri, no more on call. I also never see my bosses. I just manage the territory and they leave me alone. Was pretty much the same in IT. Just manage the territory and rarely had to see anyone but my customers. The VP of the company is my boss now since Darren left and I think I have seen him once this year. He is also a really great guy so I have been lucky. I dig the independence with my job. Nobody looking over my shoulder or trying to “manage” me or my tasks. Just dump it on me and I will reply “I will take care of it”.
It’s been pretty successful for my company too. I have dug us deep into this healthcare organization and we are a vital part of their workflow. By adding IT support that they can lean on when volumes go up, taking care of some software solutions and even replacing their toners for them, they don’t need to think about any of those things. I even put my sales hat on from time to time. Sold them around $375,000 in new equipment 3 years ago and just gave them a quote for another $350,000 that’s awaiting approval. They also have a fleet of Zebra printers for labels and wrist bands so I got certified in those as well so I can do warranty service on them. They cannot even order parts for them so it’s one more thing we do for them.
I am hoping to ride this job out all the way to retirement but time will tell. One of the best parts for me is they put the Ewaste bin in my office so when they throw out stuff, I pull it out of the bin. I get a few broken units, use the parts to make good ones and donate them to kids and folks who can use them. Been giving out tablets and laptops for years now. It helps folks out while at the same time, keeping my brain occupied. It’s a win, win.
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Ok everyone, got an update on the BOGBubble. I am getting some yellowing that I have been fighting. Tried increasing nitrogen but this seems like a zinc issue to me which I was discounting as that’s normally a PH issue. I figured my PH was on point after replacing my pens probe. When the yellowing didn’t seem to go away I did some reading and realized the calibration solution I was using is also past it’s date. I ordered some new solutions and calibrated my pen again. Turns out the nutes I fed the last 2 days where at a PH of 6.4 which is way to high in coco as high PH tends to lock out zink. On the bright side, I now have good calibrations solutions and dropped the PH of my nutes down to 5.8 which I will use to flush out the plants. Still plenty of life in these plants so this should be a small hiccup and easily corrected. Anyway, here they are today. Going to put off flipping a few days to let them get some zinc into them. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.
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Good catch on the solution Doug, that could have caused you to run in circles no doubt. Cant wait to for this flower run to get going, should be alot of fun to watch
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Good catch @DougDawson. I just recalibrated my pen a few days ago after a long tjme, but I didnt know the powder expires? Or do you mean you mixed that with water a while ago and as a solution it expires?
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Hey @Zett , I don’t know if the powder expires but if I had to guess I would think it didn’t. You would have to research that. My Apera pen came with 3 calibration solutions but they are liquid and ready to go. This is the replacement kit I got. Comes with the 3 calibration solutions, a bottle of storage solution and a cool stand that will hold all the liquids for testing. They are good for 2 years according to Apera.
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