Author: gallopingcow

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Hot Diggity Dog

I had a room full of kids waiting on me in the office this morning, but we got them some Chromebooks and sent them along their way. I had been crawling out of bed more and more begrudgingly over the course of the week, and Kim didn’t make any coffee this morning, so I tried out my Aeropress Go. It really only made about half of a cup, but I felt like the scoop was bigger and it probably used more coffee grounds than the regular one. The coffee was good, though.

I continued picking through work orders to close out some older ones, and finally moved some things off of the backburner. One of those things was a door controller with an undocumented password. I mentioned something to Todd about it, and the next thing I know, he called Samuel down to have a look. They showed up while I was on a call with a guy from DIS, but came back around a little later.

Sam sidled up to my computer and hammered away rather belligerently at my keyboard as he discovered my troubles, one-by-one. We eventually took a walk down to the core closet, and I got a little more history and some guidance for what equipment I had. I felt a little better about digging into some new stuff, but then he left after having broken my phone.

The rest of the day was pretty slow. We had hot dogs for lunch, along with some other leftovers that made for a pretty big meal. I left work early, but then got caught in traffic with some busses after a pep rally, so my call with DIS from home didn’t happen. I was only a few minutes late, but I think he misunderstood what time I would be available to troubleshoot his VPN issue.

After a little while, I took my car to the wash, and then to my parents’ house to visit for a moment. I tried to convince Mom to come with me to the Model Y service appointment to test drive an S or X, but for some reason she kept fighting it. The prices just dropped substantially too, so now would be a great time to buy.

When I left there, I drove by the Sherwood house just to check things out again, and Jeremy saw me and waved me down. I stopped and we chatted for a little while, and he seemed super nice. One of the kids peeked out the window at us, but I never saw anyone else. He said they would be out of the house later in the evening, so we would be free to move on in.

I finally made it up to Summer’s, but mostly dawdled the rest of the night. I wanted to go to the house after Jeremy texted me, but it was a bit late. I guess I would have been more productive to go early in the morning anyway. Summer went to bed, and Eaddie didn’t get home until really late from an away game. They also had a Conquer the Gauntlet race in the morning in Tulsa, so I figured I’d have a day to myself to get things done.

How do utilities work again?

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Catching Upwards

I was early again this morning, so I stopped into Sonic for breakfast, and they were super fast. The drive to work was mostly slow while I was stuck behind traffic for most of the drive. I was feeling a bit more caught up and less ragged, which was nice. Nothing remarkable happened over the course of the day, though I think we’ll need to order a lot more Chromebook chargers than I expected.

Julie called me after I got home and said in a lot of words that she decided to delay our impromptu vacation. I headed up to Summer’s kind of late, stopping at Casey’s for a second time in the day to try and find a S’mores coffee. They still didn’t have any. Then I stopped at McDonald’s but only got fries since Summer had just started heading home. I had her warm up the chicken and I made everyone leftover tacos for dinner.

Eaddie came out to do some homework with me, and then it was off to bed a little earlier than usual.

The fact that I can no longer “supersize” my fries because of one asshole’s documentary is absolutely the current world’s greatest injustice.

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79% Deployed

Today was another relatively dull day of scattered students coming in for Chromebooks. We did get down to the elementary for a bit, so I was glad to close out some of those work orders. At one point I had a pretty bad anxiety attack. My vision went dark, and I got super dizzy and sweaty really fast. It took me a little while to shake that one off.

I finally got an answer from Entergy, but not the one I was looking for. I suppose it will let me focus on the school a little harder, but it was disappointing all the same. Summer said Splash was hiring for another IT person, but that work sounds very entry-level with nowhere to go.

I stopped by Casey’s after work, but they didn’t have the coffee I wanted, so I continued home to clean up a bit. Mom had some phở to clean up, so I ran across town to eat and then chatted with them for a bit before heading up to Summer’s.

Eaddie helped me fill out the family calendar with all of her band events, and I went through the house baiting for ants again. Then it was off to bed.

So close, yet so far.

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I Can See Clearly Now the Crack Is Gone

I made it to work early today, but forgot my keys at home, so I was more or less tethered to Kim all day. I had to prod a couple of vendors for some quotes they’ve been sitting on for over a week, and still didn’t get responses by the end of the day as promised. We did reach over 70% deployment with Chromebooks, so that was alright. I also fired off what I thought was a pretty slick email denying someone’s request to move some technology.

Otherwise there wasn’t a whole lot to the day. It was busy, but went by much slower than yesterday. I also had to call Fast Glass for an update on my windshield, and was told the glass “just arrived fifteen minutes ago” but they hadn’t confirmed its fit yet. I ran straight to the shop after work and found Shaun working on it, so we would at least get it back at the end of the day. It was a good thing too, because I called Progressive and they would do absolutely nothing to resolve the awful claim experience.

I ran by Superfast to check on Summer, went home to change, and then made it back to get her so we could pick up my car. She went home and I stuck around chatting with Shaun for a while before heading back home to do some laundry.

I picked up some tacos for dinner while I laundered, and then my phone started going off with messages about more school superintendent shenanigans. Evidently Hope had quit, and hung a bunch of dirty laundry out to dry. I messaged her as I fell down that rabbit hole again, and offered to throw any of my fuel on that fire.

Finally I made it up to Summer’s for the evening. She had been asleep for a while. Eaddie pulled into the driveway right after me, having been at school late for band. She stayed up and did homework while I fought their ant problem, and eventually made it to bed.

Moving Day Aproaches

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We’re Halfway There

Taco John’s had a deal on breakfast burritos today, so I stopped there before heading to work. It was pretty boring without salsa, but at least it was clean enough to eat on the drive. As soon as I got to work, Kim said she had to run an errand, so I was without her for an hour or two. I continued handing out devices until we finished ninth grade in the afternoon. Only about half of the high school has picked up their Chromebooks, so hopefully teachers will take it upon themselves to initiate parent contacts next.

Otherwise I didn’t get out of the office, and it was a pretty fast day. I ran to Fast Glass as soon as I left, but that place was a ghost town by the time I got there. My car was still in the bay, and we’re feeling pretty frustrated by the lack of service.

I headed home after that, and used my carpet cleaner to try and clean up the trunk of the Model Y. I don’t know that it made any real difference, but I felt better. I hate that the shape of the cargo mat allowed for spillage. Then I continued up to Summer’s house for the evening.

Eaddie wanted to go to her tutor, Kim’s, flute recital at Tech, so I warmed up some tacos for Summer and myself. Then we sat around the rest of the evening until bedtime.

Ding dong.

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Spiral

Today was a bit of a struggle. I finished up a super old biscuit with egg and cheese out of the ridge before going home for a bit. I showered and then came back to get Summer, who wanted to spend her day cleaning house. I took her to Lowe’s and Walmart to poke around for any seasonal deals. Lowe’s didn’t have anything of interest at all, but Walmart had a barbecue prep cart that I had been eyeing since last year.

We picked up some groceries and headed home to start dinner. When we unloaded, we discovered the chicken had leaked all over the trunk, so I had to pull the rubber liner out and clean up where it had jumped the lip onto the carpet. Once that was cleaned up, I came inside and started the chicken for tacos in the Instant Pot. That didn’t take very long at all, but after days of constant frustrations, I finally just shut down for a bit.

After we ate and I had some time to cool down, we went back to Walmart to pick up one of the prep carts. Then we came home and it was eventually off to sleep.

My inner monologue has had it.

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Same Furniture; Different Sales Tactics

I didn’t sleep great last night, but at least the length of sleep was nice after feeling highly irritated all night. Summer went to the gym and I went home after climbing my way out of a coffee grinding rabbit hole, so I could shower before a day of shopping. Mom wanted to go look at some furniture, so they met us at Summer’s house and we went to Hank’s, Good Deal Charlie, Sofa City, Peters, failed at Stroud’s because they were closed, and finally Cleo’s. Afterward, we ran through the junk shop briefly before I learned that Julie and Kevin were already waiting for us at Brown’s.

I had brought the car down to that side of the mall, so we took Mom while Dad went to get his car, and met him at the restaurant. Summer wanted to take him out for an early birthday dinner, so we stuffed ourselves silly in the hot back room. Every one of us was sweating back there, and the place was packed. The food was good, but I didn’t realize how badly I overdid it until we got home.

Eaddie disappeared to her room for the rest of the night, and Summer and I eventually ended up on the couch together, and I put on Thor: Love and Thunder. We got about halfway through before she needed a break, and then we finished it in the bedroom before she went to sleep. I got up and dug my way down the furniture rabbit hole. It’s all a racket, but I’d like to find the sweet spot between long-lasting and expensive, or cheap and disposable.

You bet I’m gonna haggle you.

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I’m Surrounded by Idiots

I took the Model Y to work today so Summer could drop my car off at Fast Glass. I wasn’t even sure whether they had my replacement there, but I figured it’s been since June 7th. Once I got to work, we hustled to get laid out in the cafeteria so we could hand out the high schoolers’ laptops. I don’t know what I expected, but only about a third of the students had forms turned in, and not all of them even came down to get a Chromebook. We only handed out 56 out of the expected 121 between juniors and seniors, so I felt a little smug about having my handbook approved by the school board.

Even with such a small group of students coming down, things still got hectic because parents couldn’t count on their fingers to figure out what year their students were expected to graduate. We could just ask for their grade level, but some of those students didn’t even know what grade they were in. I asked one kid his name, and he kept responding in different ways about how he had turned his form in to somebody else, so I just skipped him and went on to the next person that could answer a question correctly.

Susan from Fast Glass called to let me know they were going to be working on my car, but then she called later to tell me they had the wrong windshield, but they only found out after they removed my old one. She offered a loaner car since they wouldn’t get it fixed until Monday, but then said it wouldn’t start, and that I was out of luck.

After lunch, we eventually made it to the elementary to swap out a couple of carts and backfill others that needed more devices. We have more work to do, but it’s hard to be sympathetic to some of those people. I get that not everybody gets to be an astronaut when they grow up, but it’d be nice if a larger percentage of them would grow up and be useful members of society.

Sometime near the end of the day, our core switch stopped responding and I had to go down to the core closet to reset it. I guess I’ll try to dig into some logs later to figure out what happened, but for now I’m focusing on short-term goals, because school.

I raced back to town so I could run by Fast Glass to see why my car wasn’t charging after they plugged it in, and I had to meet Shaun at Linh’s where they were getting some dinner after leaving work before their posted closing time. He was at least nice enough to let me go down to the shop by myself to try and figure it out. As luck would have it, their crappy extension cord wasn’t grounded properly, so I just had to leave it unplugged.

Then I went home to change so I could go to my parents’ house to swim for a bit. I got so hot and sweaty at work all day that I just wanted to float and cool down for a bit. I wasn’t out there long before we had a short thunderstorm. I got out, but my phone was nearly dead, so I went across town to meet up with Summer at Splash. Then we headed to her house where I warmed up some leftover spaghetti before we called it an early night. Eaddie was out late for their first football game, so we never even saw her, but maybe we’ll have a good day tomorrow.

Inconsiderate

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Pain of Glass

This week mellowed out quickly, but that may be from my own intentional ignoring of work orders. Chromebook carts are done, so we enrolled a bunch more devices to shuffle with the elementary. The internet went goofy for a while, but of course I didn’t have the tools in place to explain why. It was just bad for some reason.

I had a video call with a couple of guys from the Department of Information Systems to upgrade our VPN service. That went poorly enough that we’ll have to troubleshoot another time. Fortunately, I don’t know of anyone that actually uses that VPN service. It’s possible that somebody does, but I’ll just have to find out who when it stops working.

Fast Glass called to say that Summer’s windshield didn’t come in. I asked about mine, she said she would call me right back, and of course I never heard another word. That reminded me to go and leave a bad review for River Valley Tinting and Glass after they scratched the window trim on the Model Y back in April.

I made it home a little late and hung out to charge for a while. Julie called to update me on the Entergy job, which is to say that operations are just slower than expected, and that no news is still good news. Then I took the car in for a much-needed wash before I made it up to Summer’s. I had her start baking the casserole from weeks ago so we could try and clean it up. Eaddie came home and went straight to homework, and eventually everyone went to bed.

The scope has changed.

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Delegate

I left the house early today and cruised in to work on Autopilot. Kim was there on her birthday, and we delivered a couple more carts. I tried to take her to lunch, but we ended up just eating cafeteria food. They thought they ran out of orange chicken, so they gave us some chicken strips and fries instead, but then someone else came out the back entrance with some “teacher trays” of orange chicken, so I ate twice. The rice was pretty miserable, but the chicken was good.

Kim spent most of the day cleaning up old work orders, and I was glad that she was taking the initiative to do what she could do without me having to take a walk with her. Of course her days are super short, since she’s gone for lunch duty for what feels like hours, and then she leaves when the kids get out of class. Maybe some day I’ll get bored and actually pay attention to her hours.

I headed home as casually as I had driven in to work, and spent some time charging at home before heading up to Summer’s. Eaddie wanted me to help her with some physics homework, and I tried, but she was already kind of burned out on schoolwork. Eventually everyone made it to bed after an uneventful day.

How does insurance work, anyway?