Author: gallopingcow

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Cap Conference

I didn’t sleep the best last night, but I made it work. I took some sweet rice and a banana for breakfast, but then blended cultures with a cup of Earl Grey with milk. I felt pretty useful when I helped Gary sort a PaperCut issue, and then continued to take Brody’s calls the rest of the day. Thomas came into my office and asked some questions about the last lease pickup that we did, but I felt less good about that conversation. Things lightened up in the afternoon though.

Zach took Gary, Thomas, and me to CJ’s for lunch after not getting to eat there the last time he tried. The food was fine, but the service was slow and I wasn’t really all that hungry. I could have easily skipped, but as soon as I decided that would be what determined when I went out to lunch, the guys started remembering to invite me every single day.

I went by Oakland in the middle of the afternoon, fully forgetting that school would be out an hour early. Fortunately it wasn’t too much of an ordeal getting around, and I eventually made my way back to the shop to end the day. I put Gary’s dual monitor stand together, and discussed the proposed change to the policies regarding job descriptions and how they would be changed in the future.

As soon as I left for work, I had to run home and change so I could meet Summer at the high school for parent-teacher conferences. I didn’t realize that she would have both of the girls there with her, otherwise I would have warned her against it. We needed the opportunity to be frank with their teachers without pressuring any of them to mince their words. Autumn became upset as we spoke to her science teacher, and ended up storming away from the conversation, which I think ultimately benefited us in the long run. Next time we’ll know better than to let her tag along.

I got dragged away a couple of times – once when Charlie wanted to talk about all the people he knew, and again when Ethan wanted to chat CPPC. That got me thinking some more, and I think I’ll have some good things to say during our meeting next week. I caught up with the last conference for Autumn, and then the girls went home so Summer and I could go to the junior high by ourselves.

Eaddie’s conferences went much faster, but she didn’t get out unscathed. Missing work is missing work, and though having the grades helps, there’s no reason to be missing the types of things that she’s missing. Once I took Summer back to her car and we each made it home, we had a video call to chat with the girls about our conversations and expectations. They vocalized an idea to set aside time at home to do homework together, which I think was a great idea, if they could commit to actually doing it every night.

I spent the rest of the evening tinkering with the new bedroom setup. I’m relatively certain the HDMI output on my parents’ old home theater receiver is just outright dead, but I should be able to use it as a dumb analog audio amplifier. I’ll make do.

Sounds good.

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Aparent

The girls let me sleep in a bit today while they did chores. I eventually got up and warmed up some tacos for a really early lunch. Summer brought Eaddie back home after going to the gym. I just hung out at their house all day, not getting into anything much. Autumn decided that she wanted to go to her father’s house, which caused a bit of commotion since we had dinner plans with my parents. She continually pushed us with attitude until she finally finished her chores enough so that she could go.

Noah showed up after a while, and let us know that he lost his job at Walmart. We talked a bit, and I had him start on an application for the school district. Summer made a lime pie, and we headed to my parents’ house to grill some steaks for Mom.

Autumn showed up with plenty of time while I got things cooking. Mom didn’t have any of her usual teriyaki seasoning, so she winged it with some soy sauce and ginger. The food was good, and we all had a little bit of time to visit, but the girls had homework to finish up, so we headed back home before it got too late.

Summer went straight to bed. Autumn went straight to her room. Eaddie came out and did homework next to me, randomly asking for my opinions on her choices or wording. I dug into the wide world of aftermarket MagSafe charging, but never solidly landed on any products in particular. I’m anxious to find something semi-universal that we can implement though.

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS

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Bunsday

I had a bellyache most of the night and into today, and I could only assume it was from the pizza. I tried not to let it keep me down too much, but it still made for a short day. Summer took Eaddie to the high school early in the morning to help with the robotics tournament. She wanted us to bring her some lunch though, so after a while Summer and I went to Popeye’s. We ate a couple chicken sandwiches there, and then ordered one to take to Eaddie. When we got there, the power had gone out and they were outside goofing around until they got it fixed.

From there, we went to my parents’ house to visit for a bit. Mom wanted to grill steaks the next day, so we made plans to come back for that. Then we went to Kroger to find a tomato and some fancy burger buns to eat with the hamburgers that Summer got from a customer in Conway, who also happened to be an old friend of Dad’s from school.

As soon as we got back to my house, Summer left for the gym and I nearly passed out in the bed. I just felt super cold and unbearably sleepy, but I never gave in to my desire to nap. I just laid in bed until I eventually decided to head up to Summer’s.

Eaddie stayed the night with her friend, but Autumn came home from her school trip. Summer grilled the burgers, which we ate with some of my smoked cheese. Then everyone went to bed super early.

Eaddiot.

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…and Then He Threw My Typewriter

We had a long, quiet meeting this morning while kids were out and staff were only present for “professional development.” I was told that our interim superintendent showed up to one, asked if that was the best they could come up with, declared that it was boring, and promptly left. The longer he’s around, the more I like him.

Zach and I ran some reports and crunched some numbers to get a count of how many Chromebooks we needed to order for next year, and then ended up going out into the graveyard to scan and inventory what was out there. Thomas came out about halfway through it and tried to help make some room to stack them on the shelves by throwing an old typewriter at the ground. It had been a running joke that I was saving it, so of course theatrics ensued and we all had a good belly laugh.

Zach suggested Brick Oven for lunch after he and Gary had a successful night there last night. The service seemed particularly slow, but the food was good. Zach and I split two large pizzas for the leftovers. About an hour and a half later, we made it back to work and Thomas made grumblings about going home early.

Gary needed me to set up some dual monitor stands at Central Office, so I borrowed Zach again to help assemble them before we drove across the street. It took two trips, but we got everyone set up, though it was pretty quiet in the office by that late in the afternoon. No work was done after we finished and made it back to the office. I sat in front of Tammy and chattered loudly with the surrounding offices for the rest of the day.

Eventually Thomas sent everyone home about half an hour early. I headed home and continued my quest to move my old computer desk to the master bedroom. Summer and Eaddie showed up as I was about halfway through the process, and watched TV while I continued to work. Eaddie had a date night at the church, so Summer dropped her off while I tinkered with The Martian playing in the background.

Eaddie texted me when her movie was over, and I picked her up. We stopped by my office briefly so I could get a different computer, and made our way home. Summer never saw her come in and started hollering about it, which Eaddie took as a sign that she should mess with her mother. She had a good laugh, and they both went off to bed while I continued to tinker. Half giving up, I finally went to bed myself.

…which is a very odd sentence to say in this day and age.

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To the Window

I ran a little behind in the rain this morning, but there wasn’t much going on. I helped with a few things, and then just tinkered while I assumed it continued to rain. At one point I went out to get a desktop I saved from the recycling, and came back in with some intense pain in my stomach. It actually made me nauseous for a bit, but I guess it was only a gas bubble in a weird place that eventually just went away.

Five of us loaded into my car to go to Zaxby’s for lunch, and I had a bogo deal for some boneless wings that gave me some to take home for dinner later. While we were sitting there, I noticed they had torn down the old building across the street where the new Splash car wash will go. They didn’t waste any time at all getting that project going, though no one was actually outside doing anything at that moment.

The afternoon was pretty quiet as usual. I ran by Oakland for a bit, then came back to the shop and got my tools to help Kyle run a single line across the hall at Dwight for a new wireless access point in a tiny meeting room. Greg was bored, so he drove us over there and we found an existing, unused line to use. It took a moment to tone it out, but it was already terminated and just hanging there on the switch side. We ended up leaving the last little bit for Kyle to do, since there were some people meeting in the room at the time.

After work, I went straight home and started to clean up the bedroom. The girls came by to change for karate, but didn’t stay long. I spent all night excavating and moving junk into the dining room just so I’d have enough room to move my other desk into the bedroom. We should be able to do that part tomorrow.

Prime time!

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Trashcycle

I made it in to work this morning with some of my last returns to the graveyard. Jason had come over from Atkins to pillage some of our trash before it went out, so I didn’t even spend any time in the office at all in the morning. A couple of big guys with a big box truck showed up, expertly parked at our makeshift loading dock, and loaded 12 gaylords full of our electronic waste. The biggest heartbreak was probably all of the student Lenovos that have been absolute workhorses for us for the past four years, going on five. Sure they were showing their age, but they were still great laptops that were super easy to service.

Jacob, Zach, and I stayed in the graveyard all morning to help move all of those piles of junk. That got us to lunch time, but Gary and I were the only two that didn’t have plans. He and I both independently thought about The Gunslingin’ Burger, so that’s where we went. It took them a typical several minutes to cook everything. The burger was good, but the fries were cheap and uninspired frozen crinkle-cuts. Sixteen bucks later, I had slowed down quite a bit. I kept eyeing the Sonic across the street though, and grabbed a Cherry Limeade on the way back to work.

The afternoon dragged on for what felt like forever. I ended up way more sore from the morning than I expected, plus I just felt super sleepy the rest of the day. I did manage to get a little bit of work done, but otherwise the back of the office was pretty quiet all afternoon. I was the last one out the door, and headed straight home to try and stay up.

I went outside again and moved a log to the side of the house so I could tinker with the siding and figure out a way to hang the windchime. I finally figured out how to pull one of the panels out, and ultimately decided to hang the thing with some velcro. I wasn’t completely convinced that was the best place to hang it though, so I may come back later to move it around again.

I took a short break, then did about a mile and a half on the treadmill while watching Love, Death & Robots. It’s been on my list since it came out, but I didn’t realize how absolutely perfect it would be for me. I love sci-fi shorts, so I burned through three episodes before deciding to give it a rest. I can already tell I’ll be really sad when I run out of episodes.

Xerox, Styrofoam, Taser, Thermos

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Graveyard Dead

I unloaded the last of the old laptops this morning, but I still had some other odds and ends to bring back before recycling day. Gary was back at work again, but now with his arm in a sling. I was worried he wasn’t in great spirits at the start of the day, but as we got into it, he seemed to be doing alright.

A bunch of us went to Taco John’s for Taco Tuesday. Then we had everyone come to the shop afterward to help rummage one last time through all the junk in the graveyard. We pulled out a bunch of old Lenovo laptops, which have been absolute workhorses. I almost hate to get rid of them after all this time.

As we finished up, everyone filtered off. Zach and I ended up in my office at one point, and I decided that I just had to have a Sonic slush. I went around the office to take orders, and then Zach and I picked them up in the middle of an apparent controlled burn across town. It was so hazy that it nearly blocked out the sun.

After work, I took some new scrap home to unload, then cleaned up a bit more junk at the house to take back tomorrow. Summer came by after her workout to help me load some into the car, and then I eventually went up to her house, taco in tow.

The girls had karate and got home late. Autumn seemed to be in a much better mood, but I didn’t see Eaddie all night. I forgot my medication, so I just got ready for bed as quickly as I could.

To parts-store, or not to parts-store…

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Mission: Success

It was pretty cold out this morning, but it turned into a beautiful day for a few hours in the afternoon. Work was pretty uneventful for the most part. Zach was out of the office all day. Greg was in his office making a bunch of racket when he spilled coffee everywhere and decided to mount a TV to the wall as his monitor instead. It really looks like a grandpa setup now.

I was talked into Brangus for lunch, where I tried their grilled chicken sandwich. The chicken didn’t look like much, but basically came with an entire salad’s worth of fixings, and it tasted alright. I think I ate too many peanuts though, and I felt pretty stuffed the rest of the day.

The afternoon was equally quiet, if not moreso. I did go by Oakland for a few minutes, but only to drop off a badge holder. Somehow quitting time still snuck up on me, and I was the last one out.

I went home to change, and then met the girls at the high school to talk to their advisors about their student success plans. Autumn didn’t want me there on account of her hatred toward anything remotely challenging, but warmed up to me later in the evening. Summer wasn’t super impressed with our first visit, but I knew what to expect. Eaddie’s went much better, but then I had to take her to the junior high to look for her lost phone.

The junior high had their own evening plans, though it was basically a ghost town with teachers sitting around bored in the cafeteria. Hope helped us look in the office for Eaddie’s phone, but it wasn’t anywhere to be found. I ran through Taco Bell on the way up to Summer’s, but that took an incredible amount of time for no apparent reason.

Once we got to the house, Eaddie found her phone in her backpack. Autumn had brought a very trying friend home, but they stayed in her room until Autumn had to take her home. Summer had brought Popeye’s home for everyone, but had a ton left over.

When Autumn got back home, we had a short heart-to-heart before she went to do homework. Then Eaddie came and looked through some old photos with me until I went to bed.

Life is just a series of choices, one after the next.

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Don’t Forg* So Easily

I slept in for a while today, to the point that by the time I got up and around, the girls wanted to go out to eat. Summer thought Noah and Eaddie wanted to go to New China, but Noah had gone to work. Evidently the rest of them still wanted to go, so that was our plan for the whole day.

As I was getting ready to run home to get clothes, Autumn decided to pitch a fit and say she didn’t want to go if I was going, and that she didn’t like the way I talked to her mother. As someone who frequently has to listen to her scream at her mother, it was difficult for me not to burst into hysterical laughter, but I managed.

I went home and decided to shower before changing, and then made my way back up to their house. As I pulled up, they were all getting into Summer’s car. I didn’t vocalize it, but in hindsight I would have been very angry if they weren’t there when I got back. Summer said Autumn calmed down and apologized, but her apologies mean less than nothing to me. It’s all just more manipulation to get whatever she wants at any given moment. The reason she doesn’t like me is because I can see through her bullshit and I’m not afraid to call her out on it.

As though nothing had ever happened, the three of them climbed into my car and we went to New China. I really didn’t want to take Autumn with us, but I wasn’t going to stir that pot again. We went, ate, and then went straight back home where we sat around for most of the afternoon. Summer had Autumn come out and try and talk to me about her issues, but we didn’t resolve anything. She tried blaming us for her issues as usual, and then just spaced out any time we responded to anything she had to say.

As the evening drew near, Summer went to the gym. Without asking, and instead fussing at me because I was inconveniencing her, Autumn nagged at me to take her to the high school so she could get her car. She wanted to go to her grandparents’ house for some reason, and tried working around doing her chores or homework. Summer called her out on it when she got into my car without the homework.

I dropped her off and continued home to start some laundry and clean out some more old laptops. I spent the rest of the night getting pretty heated in my head.

I’m cleanin’ out my closet.

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Pick Up the Upside Down

I didn’t sleep in a whole lot today considering how late I was out. I eased into it though, and finished up some leftovers for lunch. As I got motivated, I started to pick up a bit around the house. I filed some more paperwork, threw out some other stuff, and tested some laptops to decide whether I wanted to get rid of them. Eventually I had cleaned up enough to do some laundry, and played on my phone intermittently while that was going.

As I finished up a second load, I decided to head up to Summer’s for the evening. I stopped for a taco and burrito, and arrived to find Eaddie and Noah playing Switch on the couch. Summer was in bed, and evidently Autumn was home without her car because she threw up on her Quiz Bowl trip today, and Summer didn’t want her driving for some reason.

It was an early night to sleep, with nothing else going on. I was tired anyway.

Nike.