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Traverse Engineering

I had points to burn at McDonald’s today, so we stopped in for a sausage biscuit on the way out of town. It wasn’t awful, and it was the friendliest service I think I’ve ever had at any McDonald’s ever. Everything looked clean, and I even got a “good morning” when I walked in the front door. We made it to work pretty casually without a clear goal, and ended up tinkering in Traverse for most of the day.

It was a long and boring day, otherwise. I went downstairs to talk to Rhonda about her issue a couple times, and I think I learned some stuff. We took a super late lunch for some cheap Wendy’s, and then I decided to pick up a snack at Sonic on the way back. There was an old lady at the drive-through window that I’d never seen before, and she was so excited to see Muad’Dib. She gave him a little whipped cream pup cup, and he was just as happy as he could be. I made him eat it slowly, so he still had most of it when we got back to the office. I was surprised that he turned away from it as soon as Charles came upstairs, but that just shows how much he gets fed down the hall.

It was a short afternoon after that, but I had a decent place to start again the next morning. We came home pretty casually as well, but witnessed a close call with a car cutting off a motorcycle when we got back into town. Everyone drove away, but there was a lot of head shaking.

Eaddie came home just after we got there, and said she was packing up to go to Oklahoma with Eli. Summer made it home from the gym to see them off, but later in the evening they decided to wait to leave in the morning. Summer took a shower while I ran Muad’Dib, and then we met at my parents’ house for egg roll salads. My parents were watering plants for most of that time, but eventually made it in.

We didn’t get home until after dark. Summer was exhausted from a few nights of poor sleep, and I felt okay but hadn’t been doing much better. I did okay to get to bed at a reasonable time, so hopefully we’ll finish the week strong.

What’s new?

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Where Did That Bring You?

We stopped by Hardee’s again, and for the first time that I’ve ever seen, they were having some kind of issue behind the counter. The drive through was lined up, and there were a bunch of people inside waiting as well. I had to wait several minutes to get my biscuit, so we didn’t get to work until almost eight. I tried to jump back into the import project, but then I kept getting pulled away to different things. By the end of the day, I had to push it back to Greg to match the data properly.

I took a really late lunch to Ortega’s by myself, and then the afternoon went quickly. We had to get home so Summer and I could go catch the Endgame encore before it left the theater. I was disappointed we wouldn’t get the IMAX exclusive bonus scene, but since the movie only played in IMAX for a week, our only weekend was tied up in band concerts.

Eaddie and Eli were home, so we left Muad’Dib with them. I cleaned up a bit, and then Summer and I made it to UEC for our movie. We got our preferred seats, free popcorn, and a free drink on discount night, so it was a cheap date. I would have loved to see it in IMAX again, but we got three bonus scenes, so that had to suffice.

We made it home to the smell of some salmon that Eaddie cooked, and headed to bed.

Back to me.

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All That for a Line Graph?

I had a terrible time getting to sleep last night. Maybe it was how late I slept in, but I laid in bed, wide-eyed, for at least two hours. Luckily the morning wasn’t too rough, and we got out in time for a Hardee’s burrito and still made it to work a little early. I talked to Charles about pushing a config to the controller, and his response was to just send it, so I did. That was the most excitement I had all day, after the burrito.

I spent a good part of the day tinkering with PRTG, trying to get it to show my data after that. I did finally get some graphs going, but it wasn’t easy or intuitive. We took a late lunch to Taco Bell and ate relatively light, then got back to work to try and clean up some HubSpot data.

Near the end of the day, I got a message out of the blue from Jack. We chatted for a bit, and it sounded like he needed a motorcycle ride. I went back and forth with him for a little bit, but had to pack up to head home. Traffic was rough and unpredictable, so that had my attention for a slow drive home.

I cleaned up a bit before Summer got home, and then I warmed up some pizza for her before taking Muad’Dib to my parents’ house for dinner. I warmed up some leftover bún bò Huế and Mom came in to fix me a bowl. I had a really bad anxiety attack while I had my head in the fridge looking for veggies, and that knocked me out for a bit. I got super lightheaded and woozy for a bit, and just had to sit back in a chair for a while.

After I ate, Muad’Dib and I continued on his run in the dark. The air felt great, and he had a good time before jumping up into bed with Summer for the night. I cleaned up a bit more and prepped for work quickly so I could get some better sleep.

Sun’s gettin’ real low.

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No Game

I slept through some more wild dreams last night. I don’t know if the quality of my sleep has had anything to do with it, but I don’t think I’ve dreamed this much since childhood. Summer got up to let Muad’Dib out, and I ended up sleeping pretty late. I got up in time to take my morning meds, and Summer wanted to go run the neighborhood to prep for her 5k this coming weekend. I ate some cheese and crackers and messed with my Steam Frame accessories for a bit since my Arcturus vision camera came in.

I wanted to try and see the Endgame encore locally since we wouldn’t be able to make it to a better theater, but Eaddie had a concert in the afternoon. We got cleaned up and took Muad’Dib to stay with my parents and then went to New China for a quick lunch before the concert. We were a hair late to a packed parking lot, but they were still practicing when we got in the doors. We found seats on the front row, so I don’t know what all the cars were there for.

The concert was pretty good, but Summer said Eaddie didn’t care for the last piece and suggested we could leave early to catch the movie. I didn’t really want to miss part of it, or slip out between songs, or rush to get to the theater and find good seats, so we ended up staying until the end with plans to go to the late showing of the movie.

We picked up Muad’Dib and Mom gave me more basil for pesto, so we headed home and I got that going. I had trouble with my first big batch, but it eventually turned out. The second went much quicker, but by then we were rushing to get to the theater again. We left Muad’Dib at home and Summer got the car ready to go.

I had forgotten the late show was in auditorium eight, so that was a bit of a disappointment – but not as much of a disappointment as it was when we sat there for 15 minutes past the start time for the movie, and a young lady came in to tell us the projector was broken and they wouldn’t be able to start the show.

We got a refund for the tickets, but I had to push for a couple extra vouchers for the popcorn and drink they couldn’t refund. We made it back home and I took Muad’Dib for a short run to my parents’ house to drop off some redneck tupperware. I let Muad’Dib lead us back home through a shortened reverse route.

Summer was getting ready for bed, so I cleaned up some more in the kitchen and finished up a few more things before finishing up surprisingly early.

Wrap it up!

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Masse in the Clouds

We slept in a little bit today, but I got up with Summer when she took Muad’Dib out. I made some coffee, and showed her the Steam Frame. She actually got into a game before I did, and started playing PUNCH FIT in the living room. It looked like she was enjoying it, so I tried it out for a couple jabs and had fun. It was nice, since I hadn’t had any luck with anything else I’d tried on it at that point.

A while back, Netflix invited me to preview some unfinished content, so Summer and I sat back and watched a movie that was available. They put a watermark over the screen with my email address, which was a bit distracting in some scenes. Otherwise, the movie was terrible. We just couldn’t relate, or even understand who the target audience might be.

After a while, Eaddie got up and left to spend the day with friends. I cleaned up a bit, Summer went to the gym, and I got dishes done and took a shower. Summer brought Little Caesar’s home for a late lunch afterward, so we ate and then got ready to go to Mt. Nebo for Brass in the Clouds.

We picked up Dad and made it up the mountain to a massive crowd. We couldn’t see the band at all where we were sitting, so I guess if we really want good seats, we need to be up there for lunch. Muad’Dib was a pretty good boy and did reasonably well off leash when we were in transit. I kept him on the leash while we were seated so he wouldn’t get bored and wander off.

It was dark by the time we headed home. We dropped Dad off and I got Summer inside so she could go to bed. I finished putting together a shoe bench and eventually got to sleep.

Completed!

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PL-Seas

I got out a hair early this morning and had a pretty relaxing drive in with my last breakfast burrito for the week. I planned to go up to the mix room to hook up to the PLCs, so I cued Charles up for that. I had to leave Muad’Dib in my office, and I went up to meet Charles, who had trouble getting his laptop on. It seemed like the battery was just bad and reporting a bad status, but I had mine with the software I thought we needed.

It took me a while, and eventually Charles left me up there to do my own thing. I went through three different versions of the Crimson software, and couldn’t get it to connect over a direct USB connection. Strangely enough, when I finally got it to connect, I discovered I could have done the same from my desk.

I went back to the office to tinker with it some more, and spent all day pretty focused on that project. I completely forgot that they were providing boxed lunches from a local burger fundraiser, so we went downstairs to eat with everyone crammed around the little breakroom table. I didn’t really get my fill, but Summer wanted to go to Brown’s for dinner, so it worked out well.

The afternoon was super quiet because I was there by myself for the last couple hours. I eventually got my configurations that I wanted to push to the Red Lion controller so I could monitor the PLCs, but I didn’t want to do it at the end of the day on a Friday. I ended up getting locked in, but we made our way out and got home through some pretty fast, but still annoying traffic.

My Steam Frame came in, but I had to set it aside to take Summer to dinner. Muad’Dib waited in the car, and we both filled up pretty quickly on a mound of fried food. I wasn’t as impressed today, but I’d also had worse. We came back home and walked Muad’Dib up the cul-de-sac before Summer went back inside. Then I took him on a run to my parents’ house.

Mom had a bunch of basil for me, so we picked the leaves off of that for pesto. Then Muad’Dib and I made it home to put Summer to bed. I unboxed my Frame and tinkered with it on the couch for a while, but I never actually got to play anything at all. The UI seemed a little goofy, but I had zero experience with a full VR headset outside of the old phone boxes you could strap to your face. I couldn’t get Rocket League to run, so I ended up downloading a bunch of other free VR tools to try later.

Eaddie came home pretty early for a Friday, but pretty much went straight to bed. I started to feel pretty exhausted, so I didn’t stay up late.

I’ve been Framed!

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Modbus?

I felt myself get warm and cozy this morning, but I fell back to sleep and woke up just minutes later from a super deep, dream-filled sleep when my alarm went off. I remember finding a clam in a small grotto, but then being in some weird, dark alley or basement area with my buddy Brandon, talking to a vendor selling a variety of large mussels to eat. I felt like I was having to wake up from the dead, and crawled around on the floor to stretch and try to wake up.

I got out the door a little later still, but had time for a burrito. I realized it was a mistake to sub cheddar for the nacho cheese, because the hot, melty, gooey breakfast burrito was way better. We made it to work after fighting traffic that wanted to come to a complete stop on the onramp.

I was pretty excited to get into PRTG and my PLC project again, but of course the more I learned, the more I discovered that every path I had taken over the past couple days was probably wrong. Furthermore, I had asked Charles’s vendor buddy about the Modbus protocol when I first started, and he replied that the controller didn’t support it. Now that I understand a little bit more about the different components, I feel more confident in saying he was wrong.

We went to Taco Bell for lunch since we hadn’t been in a while, and then it was a long, dragging afternoon. The drive home was pretty easy, but the car wanted to take the second exit instead of the third for some reason. I couldn’t tell if there was backed up traffic or something, but I didn’t fight it.

Summer was hungry when she got home from the gym, and wanted to get some Chinese. I had a big lunch, and suggested the Spices food truck instead of a buffet. She jumped at the chance, so we loaded up and went to eat at the picnic tables there. Muad’Dib was laser-focused on the cat and kept trying to chase it under the truck, so I had to zap him several times. Sometimes something just gets into him and he goes out of control like that, and I have to assume the cat said something ugly to him.

We shared some noodles and I had a little cup of soup. Then we took Summer home and went on a run in the dark. Dad gave Muad’Dib a bunch of spaghetti noodles, and we eventually made it home to get ready for bed.

Wrong so many times I became right again.

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Bloody PLCs

I had a rough start this morning, but not as rough as Summer. Autumn called her around three in the morning, crying about unbearable abdomen pain. Summer told her to call the emergency room if it was that bad, and then drove to Clarksville to meet her there. She didn’t get back home until after noon.

I managed to get out in time for another breakfast burrito, then made it to work for our first staff meeting in a couple months. As usual, I had been fretting a bit about it for nothing. It was fairly short with a couple new projects to work on.

I spent most of the day trying to learn a way to pull data from a PLC controller to dump into PRTG. It can’t do it natively, but evidently there may be a way to do it through another container I could spin up on my Docker VM. We took a break for some Sonic, and then I actually built out the tool, but couldn’t get it to connect to the PLC before quitting time.

I told Summer I wanted to make sure she got a good dinner when she got home. She had gone in to work for a bit after getting an afternoon nap, so we stopped by the lube to see her on the way home. Once we got home, I had to get cleaned up before she got home, and then we ended up going to Ridgewood Brothers.

It was super nice outside, so we had a good time at the picnic table. We ate too much, and then came home to drop Summer off before Muad’Dib and I did a quick run around the neighborhood. Dad got home just after we got there, but Mom didn’t wake up from all my banging around. We didn’t stay long since it had already gotten dark.

There was a bit more cleanup since Eaddie left food in the trash and we got ants again. Summer went to bed, and I finished up early.

red red red

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Taco Tuesday

Hard to believe it, but for as many times as we’d been to Taco John’s on a Tuesday, the title wasn’t taken. We left a little early so I could pick up a breakfast burrito, but their terrible app had them walking it out to me about ten minutes late. We got to work nonetheless, quiet as ever. Shane hit me up early about the approval process I built out, so he got to test it for me. There was more to do with it, but as usual, the problem is deeper than that.

Between permissions structures and the network, I feel like my work will never be done. Maybe that’s good. Who’s to say. I bounced between a few things throughout the day, then went to Ortega’s by myself I thought the girls downstairs might want to go this week, but nobody said anything. While I was there, Nicole spotted me from across the restaurant and came to say hi. She was out on maternity leave forever.

The afternoon dragged a little bit. I was there a little late, but made it home easily. Summer was home a tad early, and then Eaddie came home for a bit. I got a big package that was supposed to be a motorcycle stand, but ended up being a case of 192 one-ounce amber glass spray bottles. I took Muad’Dib for an early run, took my parents a solar light, and then made it back home before dark.

Eaddie took off, Summer went to bed, and I did my usual cleaning up and prep before bed.

Lace ’em up!

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MisgAIded

I spent all day fighting with Power Automate to get my approval process working, and a big part of it was broken because I had the wrong email connector. For some reason there was no warning about a certain v3 connector that simply wouldn’t work, and Copilot kept telling me to try fixing it the wrong way. Finally, Gemini set me straight and I had it working by the end of the day.

Somewhere in there, I took a really late lunch. We were headed to Sonic, but the app wouldn’t let me submit my order, so I ended up at Wendy’s instead. I refused to go to Sonic without being able to redeem my rewards, and Wendy’s had free chili. I ate fairly light and then finished up the quiet afternoon.

Summer was having a dumb day and wanted a drink, so I stopped by the liquor store for her on the way out of town. When I got home, I started prepping sandwiches for us, and we had a nice dinner of pesto chicken on pretzel buns. That cleaned up a lot of the leftovers, which was great. Then I took Muad’Dib on a quick run to try and beat sundown.

It was still pretty dark when we got back. Summer settled down for bed and I cleaned up and prepped for work before crashing.

60.1%!