Author: gallopingcow

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Hi, Sharks

I didn’t sleep well, and was predictably tired getting out this morning. I was a few minutes late, but showed up as the guys were checking out our new shop building that has finally been cleaned out. Humorously, I was still the first one to my desk to begin work. I had a bit of a false start when I accidentally joined my call with PRTG an hour early. When the call finally did start, I had audio trouble and had to join from my computer and phone for anyone to hear me.

The morning ran long as nobody came around for lunch. I was going back and forth with Maggie about what to eat when she suddenly said David was coming from Howard to treat us to an impromptu lunch at Saltgrass Steak House. I was excited to try that, but she talked him into going to Longhorn instead because she liked their lunch better. My New York strip ended up being absolutely terrible because it was overcooked and unbelievably tough. I had to saw it into thin strips just to chew the thing.

It took us a while to get started because we waited for Jim to join us, and then Maggie behaved embarrassingly with our waitress, asking multiple people for an extra plate and receiving too many, and then getting out of her seat to chase down our server to ask for something near the end of our visit. She’s been a very involved secretary, which I appreciate, but her lunchtime habits are unhinged.

We made it back to the office and I finished out the day mostly struggling to troubleshoot my audio issue. I finally left and made it home to take the dogs out for a quick run. We visited my parents, and then Stilgar had to lay down in the creek for a bit while we were in the basin. They behaved well though, and got hot dogs at home.

Once I cleaned up, I had to pry Summer out of her chair so we could take the Model Y to Superfast and finally fix the piece of the bumper that was out of place. I was right, and it was relatively easy to do, and it should have been done the day of the accident to prevent further damage to the paint.

We took a moment and let the car drive us around town to cool down from my frustrations, and unboxed a couple of fun things from Amazon Vine. Julie called about an earlier text message about a loan to buy an airplane. We discussed that with a predictable tone before I finally got to wind down for bed. Eaddie came in late, as seems to be the norm. I did well to crawl into bed before ten.

High risk; No reward

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Let’s Carve a Smile on that Face

It was a quiet, slow drive in today. I had a little note from Randy in my chair, thanking me for being a part of the team. I figure he was required to write it, but it was nice all the same, and the words felt genuine because they mirrored the comments he’s made to me ever since I started.

The guys came and went, but mostly went, leaving me alone for lunch. I went to Rally’s and had a pretty disappointing burger because they were out of bacon without any recourse for my prepaid online order. I ate it at my desk and waited for others to come around.

Randy texted and asked me to take care of a printer issue upstairs, so I rebuilt that from scratch. The HP printer has an incredibly annoying requirement to read a PIN from a hidden label inside the machine in order to get to the remote settings. It was clear that the initial deployment wasn’t done correctly, or at least not completely. She shouldn’t have any more issues now though.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as we tackled various puzzles. I left a little bit late, and traffic was relatively light but unnecessarily slow. I got stuck under the speed limit for a few miles, and then got behind a gravel truck that was spewing pebbles through Conway.

Eaddie and Eli were practicing their instruments when I got home. I immediately took the dogs out for their run, ran through my parents’ yard, around the basin, and back home. They did pretty well and got their hot dogs afterward. Then I jumped right into making burritos for dinner.

I got pretty heated at Summer and the kids after I called to them several times. Evidently it’s my fault for not explaining to them that I won’t call them unless I want them to come to me. Nobody offered to help; nobody said they were on the way; nobody said thanks; nobody told me to pound sand.

I ate and excused myself to try and wrap up the rest of my evening. Dad eventually showed up to eat, and then we got to carving pumpkins. The mallet and “cookie cutters” I got from Amazon Vine were ridiculed at first, but ended up being a “hit” once they started using them. They were difficult to extract, but with some care, they worked really well. We got everyone cleaned up and shuffled off, and I made a speed run for bed.

Burrito Stuff

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Afternoon, Evening, Night

I woke up with a stomach ache around six this morning and thought I might stay awake. Then I laid back down and slept until just after noon. Summer was up on the couch doing some work or something, but got up after a while to go to the gym. Eaddie must have been gone for church, and I milled around and tried to pick up a bit more.

I kept finding more and more to do, and realized a few hours later that I still hadn’t taken a shower, but it was time to take the dogs out for a walk before it got dark. Mom said she had eggplant soup, but didn’t give me a time, so the dogs and I ran by their house first to see when food would be done. Dad was watering plants, so we finished the run and then I drove back over to eat.

Summer apparently didn’t care for the eggplant, so she stayed home and Eaddie was gone all day. I hurried home to finish cleaning so we could carve pumpkins the following day. I invited Diana, but wasn’t sure if she would make it. Most of the kitchen was cleaned up, and I got dishes done. Then it was time to wind down again.

These short days are killing me.

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Runner-Up

Summer left early this morning for another run. I didn’t let myself sleep in very late, but I was tired all day from it. Eaddie had service hours or something at Fall Fest, so she left after Summer got home, just before the two of us were ready to leave for lunch.

Summer wanted to walk Fall Fest, so we drove to Stoby’s to try and eat first. I immediately gave up as soon as I saw the parking lot, and we ended up at Morelos instead. I didn’t really want Mexican, but the food was good. Then we went straight to Fall Fest and walked a block. We found Eaddie about halfway through it and watched her and Eli help little kids play a giant beer pong game. I really didn’t want to be there in the crowd, but we made it around one block before Summer was ready to go.

When we got home, Summer took a nap and I tried cleaning up some more before taking the dogs out for a run. I made it a slightly longer one with a different route just to mix things up.

Once Summer got up, we went to Kroger for some carving pumpkins, and then the Neighborhood Market for some other groceries. I ate some leftovers when we got home, and the kids came over for a while. Summer and I watched a couple episodes of Agatha All Along while the kids went out for a little longer. Then it was off to bed.

I’ve got a Notion

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Down the Road

I slept really late today, so I showered as soon as I got up and went to get Summer from the wash for lunch. We just went across the street to Zaxby’s and then I dropped her back off so I could go home to clean. I considered going by the old house, but I really needed to clean up the new house first because we’d run out of room again.

I got most of the kitchen cleaned up and started to organize some of the paperwork that kept ending up on my desk. I thought Summer was going to come home a little early, which had me stalled out a bit. I took the dogs out for a good run, aside from when Muad’Dib refused to drop a mummified, flattened squirrel puck. We got back home and I fed them before getting back to cleaning.

When Summer got home really late, I gave her a bit to wind down before she wanted to start Agatha All Along. We watched two episodes and then she went to bed. I tried to stay up to see Eaddie after her football game, but I was already getting pretty tired before I had an anxiety attack that knocked me down another peg.

Te Veo

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The Definite Articles

I slept in today since I knew I’d be up late. Johnny called with some SCCM questions and woke me up, so I got around to making some coffee to start the day. Summer could tell I was irritated with her, but there was nothing to be done for it. She went out for a run, and after we got cleaned up, we headed out for the day. Our first stop was Arvest to deposit the insurance check we got for the lady that clipped the Model Y. Then we stopped at Arby’s to get some lunch on the way out of town.

I wished we hadn’t eaten so much, because we were still stuffed by the time we got to Van Buren. We met Jesica at The Vault and split an appetizer with some drinks. It was nice getting to visit again after such a long time, but wearing my contacts was a mistake. My vision being cloudy just kind of made the whole room feel small, and it was hard to focus on things.

After a couple hours, we let her go so we could find our way to TempleLive in the old Masonic temple. There was a fence around it, so I found it difficult to spot until we drove around the block. We had enough time before the show that I thought we might try to do some shopping, but we ended up going back to park and just waited in line outside the front door.

We didn’t have to wait long before they let us in. It was a small group of people there, but it filled up quickly. We found the lounge downstairs was empty, so we headed on in to the pit in front of the stage. It was a small area, so we just leaned against the back wall and waited.

The first band up was The Props, and I thought they did an incredible job. The lead singer had some pipes on him, and though the acoustics and my earplugs made it difficult to really hear the lyrics, I thought they were good enough for a follow. They only had 73 subscribers on YouTube, so I felt like I was really getting in on the ground floor.

Between sets, I spotted my old classmate Matt as he passed right in front of us. I stopped him on his way back and we chatted briefly. Evidently he knew I had been at the school district in the past, because he asked if I was still there. We exchanged numbers and then got back to the show.

The Struts came out and put on an excellent show as well. I couldn’t believe how many people in the venue had actually seen them before. Summer and I later ran into our junior high coworker Leslie and her husband on the way out, and she said he had seen them six times, but this was only her fourth time. We loved the venue aside from Summer freezing her butt off. I was worried it would be hot, but they had the air blowing hard.

We had tickets for the “afterparty” in the lounge, but it was noisy, we didn’t love what little we heard of the band they had downstairs, and we were tired. The Props were up by the merch, so we stopped there and they each shook my hand before taking a photo with us. It was really cool to be able to interact with them, and they were all so excited to have driven out from LA just to play the one show.

It was a quick getaway with the crowd that would fit in such a small venue. I let the Model Y drive the whole way, city and all. It took us to Ozark to charge, and then all the way to the house. Full Self Driving loves empty roads. Eaddie was up just long enough to take a shower, and then the girls were out. I fought droopy eyelids to complete my evening, and then I went to bed as well.

I’m caught up with your acrobatics.

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Elon, Take the Wheel

I let the car take the onramp all the way to the offramp this morning, and only had to intervene once when it stupidly tried to pass in the right lane a block before it would have had to turn into the office parking lot. I just don’t get why it does obviously stupid things when it does so well at other times.

Randy wasn’t feeling well and ended up leaving after lunch. Nobody else came around, so I just went to Arby’s by myself and hung out there for the hour. I didn’t get into anything super complicated, and actually spent most of the morning waiting for Randy to show me a couple things, so I’m still feeling a little bit lost a lot of the time.

The morning happened to go by super quickly, so of course the afternoon dragged on. I decided to take the next two days off for recovery, so I headed home and then immediately took the dogs out for a walk. We went backwards this time, and went to the pond first to get a bit muddy. Then we stopped by my parents’ house before going up the hill and through Pinewood before making it home, where we took one more lap around the block before stopping.

Eaddie and Eli ate salad crap that Summer brought home, and I left out of frustration when I found an empty condiment shelf in the refrigerator. I ended up going to KFC to pick up a Famous Bowl, and then I went to the city park to eat at a picnic table. I sat there and enjoyed the weather for a while before going to the old house to check things out. There weren’t any toilets, so I ended up leaving sooner than I expected.

I didn’t want to go home though, so I immediately started Full Self Driving without a destination, just to see where the car would take me. I wondered if it would choose turns, or if it would just keep trying to drive straight as long as it could. It ended up taking a right at the stop sign, which made me think it was going to default to taking me home. It made it all the way across town, but then took the first exit out of the roundabout, which put me back on 12th Street all the way to Glenwood. There, it took its only left turn the entire night, and took me up to 2nd Street. There, it took another right and got through the stops all the way to the traffic light. It tried to proceed through green, but then hit the brakes hard right in the middle of the intersection because it couldn’t see the street. There just happened to be another car coming from the other direction, so the headlights probably didn’t help the matter. I pressed the accelerator to carefully nudge it through the intersection, and it continued on as if nothing had happened.

It ended up at sort of a dead-end, so it took a right and went nearly all the way to Oakland Heights before it took a sudden right to get back over to Detroit. Then we headed north, all the way over the tracks, and then took the first right out of the traffic circle on that side of town. It took me around the Parker Road bend, then all the way up the steep hill to get to Highway 124. We drove by the girls’ old house and ended up on the intersection of 124 and Weir Road. It took me back toward town all the way to Main Street before taking a right and going all the way over the bridge. After we made it through downtown, I finally told it to take me home, and it did. We made it just over 15 miles over the course of 35 minutes with absolutely no interventions, and I really only stopped because the battery was low and still hadn’t recovered from my drive back from work.

Summer was already in bed. Eaddie saw Eli out, I took out the trash. Eventually sleep.

Adventures with Machines

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Final Test

Full Self Driving took me all the way from the onramp to the office this morning, with only one intervention when it wanted to move into the passing lane in front of a car, but wouldn’t take the shot when the person coming up behind me in that lane flashed their lights to let me merge over. Apart from that, it was hands in my lap the whole way, with only a few directed lane changes by signaling.

I really just tinkered all day again, since I was waiting for Randy to get me some instructions on how to reach our servers that had been migrated to Hyper-V. There were a couple techs in and out of the office pretty much all day, so things were always relatively fresh, though I was still just stuck in my corner doing my own thing.

Summer was in town for a meeting of her own, so she came to the office and then we drove separately to Red Lobster for lunch. I tried their unlimited salad and chowder, but only had time for one salad and two chowders. Our server was kind, but acted like the chowder was somehow being “prepared” in a way that took more time than ladling it out of a crock pot. There is no possible way that endless shrimp is what caused them to go bankrupt, because I don’t think I’ve ever managed to get more than two refills in a visit. They were always so incredibly slow, no matter which restaurant we visited.

The afternoon was mostly dull as I spent my time pausing sensors in PRTG in preparation for our trial license to expire. I didn’t want to be forced to pause 100 free sensors at a time until I managed to find the 100 I was most interested in seeing. Randy, still fresh off of his vacation, was fairly over being at work, so he shooed us out a couple minutes early.

Summer made it home early for Eaddie’s marching assessment, so I stopped by McDonald’s and Arby’s for a couple of deals for dinner. Then I ran the dogs quickly before dark, and Dad came over to get me to go see the band.

Autumn had found Summer and sat next to her, and immediately moved over to talk to me once I was seated. She made a big show about how she wanted to apologize in a blanket statement for “everything” she had done to me, and expressed how it had been weighing on her all this time since we kicked her out of the house. I just told her I wanted her to work hard to be successful, but she was content being an absolute parasite and claiming success in the way of “all As in nursing classes.”

Eye-roll.

No lessons have been learned, and she’s still only apologizing for selfish reasons to make herself feel better. I’ll believe it when she’s not trying to weasel her way out of caring for her two elderly “roommates” that are paying her nearly half of my salary just to carry on existing.

The bands did great, and we squeaked out as soon as UCA finished their set at the end. I could have done without, but Dad drove. I went home with Summer since she drove herself, and then we went to bed as quickly as we could make it.

It’s always Green Hill Zone.

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Second Lunch; Worse Than the First

I let FSD drive me to work today, and I basically didn’t touch the wheel after Atkins. I kept waiting for there to be a steering wheel nag, but it just didn’t happen. I got the typical “pay attention” warnings if it looked like I wasn’t staring straight ahead for too long, but otherwise my hands were in my lap for the entire drive. I intervened once when I was nearly all the way to work, in order to prevent it looking stupid in heavy traffic. Then I had to whip into the office parking lot quickly because it couldn’t find the entrance with an oncoming truck. Otherwise it performed reasonably well on the highway as long as I was dictating lane changes. That’s still an issue that makes it look like a first-time driver.

Randy was back, and full of piss and vinegar, which was more funny than scary. He gets on rants and just lets it fly, which is only different from my usual accompaniment in that he’s much louder. I don’t mind, and I at least feel like we have the same struggles. He sort of helped me with access to stuff I had been missing since he left, and then he hung around the main office area complaining about all the email he’d gotten.

There was a non-union organization representative that brought us pizza from American Pie Pizza for lunch, and it reminded me of Brick Oven. I liked it, but after I’d eaten my first slice and a bite of the second, Jim called Randy and wanted to go out to eat. Randy said we were going to second-lunch, and at this point I’m still mostly in it for the camaraderie, so I summoned the Model Y and we took it across town. Maggie said she was too nervous to ride with FSD, so she drove separately.

The place Jim wanted to go was closed when we got there, so we rerouted to Señor Tequila, which I thought was fine, but not good. I figured it might be authentic with such little English being spoken, but it was just like any other middling Mexican restaurant. The beans were runny and the chips lacked salt. Otherwise the food could have used a bit more kick. I tried the tamale, and it was fine. The restaurant was also awkwardly quiet. I just wished I had stayed with the pizza instead.

We finished up the afternoon and I tried to close out some stale tickets, and then I headed home. I had to stop at Kohl’s to pick up an order on the way, and then I had to take a break before taking the dogs out on their run. It was already getting dark quickly, so we stopped briefly to see Dad and then continued up the hill and around the block a couple times. They did alright, but not great. I was also aggravated to see pots scattered in the yard and the edge of Stilgar’s pool all chewed up when I got home. They got some chews since I haven’t gotten any more hot dogs, and then I came in to clean up and wrap up before bed.

Cornel West, he’s our guy! If he can’t win, then why’d we try?

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Tiny Boxes

I was surprised to be the first one awake today after staying up so late. Eaddie got up and left for church, and Summer and I eventually got up and made some coffee. We played with the dogs for a bit, and then she wanted to go to the gym. I got up and around for a shower and started cleaning up all the Vine stuff that’s been littering the dining room. Once Summer got home, we went out to New China for lunch.

When we got back to the house, I left her to clean and mop while I went to the old house to pack up some more stuff. I expected there to be more empty boxes than I found, so I only assembled one box from the front bedroom. Then I boxed up a bunch of tiny stuff from my computer desk before heading back home in time to walk the dogs.

They were a little more rambunctious today, but overall did fine. We walked through my parents’ yard and got some water while they were out, and then went around the basin. They got super excited and started chasing some kids on bicycles, so I had to pull them back pretty hard. It would have been way worse if they weren’t running straight forward at them.

I fed them once we got home, and then Summer and I wound down while we finished cleaning up inside. We only saw Eaddie briefly after lunch before she left for practice, so maybe we’ll see her tomorrow. I fortunately got sleepy really early, so I looked forward to nearly seven hours of sleep.

Windown