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Out Came the Sun

I got to work this morning, and the maintenance crew had stuff laid out to tear up the ground around the basement. I thought I’d leave and work from the high school again, but since they weren’t actually doing anything in our office and most everything was dry, I ended up sticking around. I kept reasonably busy, and the time just flew by.

I took Gary, Zach, and Thomas to Wendy’s and tried some new chicken sandwich with a fried mozzarella patty and marinara, and wasn’t super impressed. I kind of just wished I had gotten a burger. Then it was back to the shop where I spent most of the afternoon putting together three pages worth of meeting minutes from Monday.

I ended the day at Crawford to try and clean up a few work orders, but only actually closed one before quitting time. I went to see Summer at Superfast, but then she sent me to Walmart to pick up pork chops, broccoli, and cauliflower. I went home briefly, and then met her at her house where we remembered that the girls actually had a quiz bowl night at Zaxby’s.

Dinner was good, but Summer kept getting irritated at anything I said. Easily the most frustrating part about our relationship is that she often seems incapable of accepting any form of constructive feedback. Eaddie eventually showed up, but disappeared into the bathroom after saying that Autumn would be later. She had to take Adam home, after evidently being gross in the Zaxby’s parking lot. Between that and the mysteriously leaky bottle of Fireball, we just want her gone.

Eaddie and I ended the night with two more episodes of Breaking Bad. The drama has gotten so heavy, but there’s still so far to go. I remember there being a lull at some point, but I don’t think it ever got bad.

F is for Frustration!

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I Forgot My Floaties

There was a line of cars in front of our shop this morning, but I didn’t quite put it together why they were there. Our office had flooded again, in a bad way. Of course my office got the worst of it. Gary sent me off to the high school instead to work with Jacob, though he never actually showed up until near lunch time.

Just as I was getting ready to go back to the shop for lunch I got a text from another Jacob, evidently the primary Tesla mobile service tech for the state. He was on his way to work on the Model 3 in the rain, so I went to the bus shop to see if I could borrow a bay to keep out of the weather. Dale was just leaving, so he let me pull right in. Just a few minutes later, I spotted the little Tesla service van across the field and called to direct him to me.

They were two really young guys in full Tesla rain gear, and they confirmed my issues and got right to work testing the doors repeatedly. They adjusted the door bumpers, then pulled some trim and checked some wires. It took a little bit to warm up to me, but then we got to talking a bit while they worked. Jacob had a broken shoulder from mountain biking, so TA was there from North Carolina to help. Jacob said he was actually from Heber Springs, which surprised the heck out of me for a Tesla tech that covers the whole state. We had a good chat, and a laugh about how bad Enhanced Autopilot is. Then they were on their way.

I went back to the shop for a minute just as the others got back from lunch. They were still pulling tons of water out of the office, since it had been raining all day. There was no end in sight, as we watched the water line drift right back out away from the wall as it seeped up from the ground. I went to KFC to get a bit of lunch and relax, and then headed back to the high school to finish out the day.

Summer wanted to go to Walmart, so I met her there right after work and we picked up a bunch of random stuff. Then I went home to change before going up to her place. That was when I started having trouble charging my car. I spent quite a while digging out my charger and moving it to different outlets. The two most convenient ones were reporting no ground connection, but inside the house, the mobile charger appeared to be fine. I finally got to my third outlet in the garage, and was able to get charging again.

When I got to Summer’s, Eaddie was baking brownies. Summer finished up her TV show and then went to bed since Eaddie wanted to watch Breaking Bad with me. We watched two episodes, which got me to bed a bit later than I wanted, but it was just getting really good. I should probably take some time off tomorrow anyway, to investigate my rogue outlets.

I wander’d off by myself
In the mystical moist night-air
And from time to time
Look’d up in perfect silence
At the stars

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THE SYSTEM IS DOWN

Thomas messaged us about an hour before work this morning to let us know that there were district-wide reports of an internet outage. I walked in just a couple minutes after Ryan got there and said it was back up, but I could tell something wasn’t acting right. It became clear pretty quickly that things were very broken. I mostly just stayed out of the way, but I wanted to follow along with the troubleshooting process for my own learning. I ended up just doing my own thing in my office, but I was proud of myself for coming to the conclusion that it was likely a firewall issue. Evidently a patch from the manufacturer broke everything, and the guys spent nearly all day coming up with workarounds until we could get an answer from them.

I kept surprisingly busy for as broken as things were. Lunch time came around and Zach said that Thomas had ordered pizza, but he wasn’t sure if we were invited. I let the working crew eat first, and then came along and picked some up afterward since there was plenty to go around.

Near the end of the school day, I made it over to Crawford and saw Shavon for the first time in quite a while. Everyone I spoke to seemed overly positive, and it was too early for me to tell if it was just in the water, or if there really was something to it.

It had started to rain quite a bit, and that continued on after work. When I finally left, I stopped by Superfast to see Summer before getting Eaddie from robotics. Then the two of us went to my parents’ for some mango soup. After we ate, I took Eaddie back to my house while I ran next door to help Bác Vân with her phone. Bác Trân had texted me earlier in the day to say it was making noise at him, but we never did find anything wrong with it.

We made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and I tried to get to bed fairly early. Autumn came in late from a basketball game, but that was it for the night.

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YSOBLUE

Today was Ryan’s first day back, so Zach and Gary were buzzing with that for most of the day. I spent the first part of the morning stressing over what I might rile up in our CPPC meeting, but when we finally met, I didn’t even have to do any talking on account of everyone else being so outspoken. The only one point of contention that I will simply never understand was that nobody seemed to think you should get a day of leave refunded if the school closes while you were out. That just made no sense to me at all. School was closed. How do they possibly justify that your leave still has to be docked.

That nearly got us to lunch, and a big group of us went to La Chiquita. That was a no-frills table full of fajitas, and a surprising amount of leftover cheese dip. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon fighting a software update deployment. I think I finally sorted it out, but I felt bad because I had completely missed it from a work order from several days ago.

At the end of the day, Zach went out to the front of the building with me to help replace a panel on the road sign. I had to call support and finagle some firewall settings, but we got it done without too much fuss. Then I headed home to change before going by Superfast to check on Summer. She was just about to head out, so I continued on to my parents’ house for dinner.

Mom made mango soup, so Dad got that warmed up for us. I didn’t stay for too long though, because the arts center was hosting a percussion ensemble concert that Summer wanted to see. I met all of them there, and a bunch of Eaddie’s friends came to sit with us while Autumn and Adam were off in the back somewhere. The concert was surprisingly long, with a surprising age range of students, but they did a good job.

I went home and discovered that my car charger had gotten loose enough that my car stopped charging last night. I fixed that and headed up to Summer’s for the evening, where everyone was pretty much heading straight to bed. Summer and I crunched some numbers and felt confident enough to cover a car payment, so she ordered a Model Y in the app, which I thought was a worse experience than doing it on the website. She didn’t even get a little hedgehog meme. Oh well.

Gotta act rich to be rich. First thing’s first: Make a bunch of money.

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Charge Test

I got up and made breakfast this morning by frying up a bunch of leftover bits and pieces of things with some eggs. It turned out pretty good, and even Autumn seemed not to hate it. She surprised us with improved grades so as not to lose her car or privileges to see her boyfriend, so we were pretty pleased with that. Summer had plans to meet some girls from work in Conway, and Eaddie wanted to go shopping with me while Summer did that.

I headed home to clean up, but then Summer said her plans had to be postponed. Eaddie still wanted to shop, so I picked them up and let Summer drive the Model 3 to Conway to get a feel on the interstate. I brought along my mobile charger to see if I could charge from her front porch, and then I looked for a NEMA 14-50 plug at the Splash in Conway once we got there. Unfortunately there wasn’t one available, but we could at least slow charge on a regular outlet available outside.

From there, we went down the road to The Mighty Crab and got some crab, shrimp, and crawfish boiled. The food was good, but I left pretty hungry. The crab was problematic and frustrating to eat, but the food all tasted good. It made me want to host a seafood boil myself.

After we ate, we went shopping across town. We started at Kohl’s, where they were having a pretty good sale on clearance items. Then we walked down to Shoe Carnival and TJ Maxx before going across the street to Old Navy. We closed them down, and then made our way back across town to Las Delicias. I had a “bubble wrap,” which was basically an inverted waffle with ice cream. I ultimately wished I had gotten a regular cone, just because it was so bready. The waffle flavor just overpowered the ice cream, so I couldn’t really enjoy the flavors I picked.

I drove us home, I changed, and then Summer drove us home in the Montego. Going back to such a rickety vehicle after driving the Murano and then the Tesla, I think Summer finally agreed that it was time to put the Montego behind us.

Burnin’ Bills

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Y Not?

Eaddie left with some friends for a robotics fund raiser super early this morning. It took me a bit to get back to sleep, but I vaguely remembered Autumn leaving a few hours later for a basketball trip. Summer got up and let me sleep in a bit because I was super exhausted. When I finally got up, we priced a Model Y out of curiosity, since the tax credit limits were changed to include the performance model.

She ended up having to go to work for a while, so I went home to clean up and tinker around for a while. When she finally finished, I let her drive the Model 3 to her parents’ house so we could try and get their old Pathfinder’s alarm system disarmed, and the SUV running. I managed to take care of it after a single honk, and then the engine cranked just fine. The tires were dry rotted, but the motor purred just fine, so Summer followed me to PDQ for some air. We couldn’t get the valve stem caps off of the left tires, so I drove it lopsided to Superfast where Alexis helped us change the valve stem.

With that out of the way, we went to Taco Villa for dinner. That place never slowed down, so we ate and then ran back to my house to get the gas burners. I met her at Shell and we filled up, and then continued up to her house for the evening.

Eaddie showed up shortly after we got home. Autumn made it back a little while after that. They ate, and then Eaddie wanted to watch an episode of Breaking Bad before bed. I guess I feel reasonably accomplished, even if we really only did one of the things I had planned.

Juggle Bucks

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Third Missed

We had a fairly brief meeting this morning, and then I was assigned the junior high for the day. Gary and I ended up chatting in the shop for a while though, and then I did a bunch of tickets from my office until lunch time. I didn’t really plan to be in there for that long, but the time just flew by.

I took Zach and Gary to Taco John’s, and we all ordered something other than our usual tacos since it wasn’t Taco Tuesday. The parking lot appeared to be really full, but there weren’t that many people there. I guess it was just a lot of staff.

As soon as we got back to the office, I headed to the junior high and was surprised to find Kyle pulling in just ahead of me. I ended up walking him through the whole building to show him where everything was, and then we went back to his new office for a bit. Wight came with some new copiers, so we had to walk back up to the gym to set theirs up with PaperCut, which went fairly smoothly. Then we chatted for a while until quitting time. His view of the new work hierarchy seemed to mirror what I’ve been feeling for a little while, which was a bit of a disappointment.

I headed back to my office to finish up some paperwork, and then went home for the day. Eaddie ended up going to the movies with some friends, so I waited around until she was ready for me to get her. We came back to my house just briefly, and I checked that the Montego’s tire still had air pressure. Then we headed up to their house for the evening.

Autumn had a basketball game, so she came home a little bit later. I helped Eaddie find the name of a song for which she only had a small portion of the sheet music, and then we watched a couple episodes of Breaking Bad until bedtime.

Could it be better?

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Disabled

I woke up to the news that school would be in session today. I don’t think we really got any new precipitation overnight. Right after I got to work, Gary came into my office and questioned me about imaging troubles at the high school, so I messed with that for the entire day. I forgot my backpack with my laptop at Summer’s house, so she brought it by for me and I tested imaging over the network as well as with a flash drive without too much trouble.

Lunch time showed up pretty quickly and we went to Brangus. Thomas said something about a student needing help with a device for use offsite, so as soon as we got back to the shop, I left for the high school to meet up with Jacob. The device issue was easily resolved, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out his imaging issues there. It ended up being an issue with old devices getting disabled, so they couldn’t rejoin the network properly during imaging. Another easy fix.

The junior high was supposed to be testing our new chat support system at the end of the day, but quitting time showed up first and I had to drive back to the shop for my leftovers before going home. I didn’t do a whole lot there, but just tried to keep warm until Summer got home from work.

When I finally left for the evening, I sensed a flat tire, so I turned around and went back home to inspect it. Both front tires were low, but the front passenger tire was down to about 10 PSI. The driver side was down to about 20, and the rear passenger was down a bit as well. I topped them all off, tripping a breaker in the process, and then forgot to plug my Model 3 back in before I left the house again. Fortunately it shouldn’t lose much charge being parked overnight.

Summer was watching loud baking shows when I got to her house, so I went to the bedroom for some quiet until the girls got home from helping with some band thing at the middle school. Then Eaddie got frustrated trying to find her math study guide and had me edit out the answers from a copy she had online. Once that was done, she came back out and spied my blog entry, and I gave her a quick tour of my website.

Maybe we’ve got a second fan of the site!

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Iced In

We were told not to report to work today, so I didn’t have to stress about burning a day of leave. Summer had meetings online for most of the day, so Eaddie came into the bedroom and we powered right through the second season of Breaking Bad. I got out long enough to make a couple bacon, egg, and cheese bagels for Eaddie and myself, but otherwise nobody but Summer got up to much.

Autumn went a bit stir crazy and came out long enough to aggravate Summer, but none of us were sympathetic after hearing the yelling through the door. Summer didn’t let her leave to see her boyfriend, so she just holed up in her room all day.

Eaddie did a bit of last-minute homework as everyone else got ready for bed. Surrounding schools were a mix of open and closed, so we all waited with baited breath to see what would happen.

Postcipitation

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Bull Sleet

I got up this morning and cautiously tried to de-ice the car, fully willing to take the day off. It actually wasn’t that bad though, so I made it home and into the office. Gary, Zach, and Greg were there, but that was it for a while. Eventually Thomas and Tammy showed up. I spent most of the morning taking a practice Net+ test with Greg.

By the time lunch rolled around, the precipitation was starting and the folks at the main office were all abuzz. They ended up sending everyone home without docking a day, which makes for an interesting level of unfairness when dealing with others who chose to take a day of leave. In the past we’ve recovered those days because time given by the district should be given to everyone, but not so with the new chief.

I made it home easily, but by then the sleet started to come down pretty hard. I headed straight up to Summer’s for the evening while she and Autumn braved going to Walmart for dinner supplies. I only barely made it up the hill in her car, and Eaddie, Summer, and I watched some Breaking Bad while Autumn cooked some Hamburger Helper for lunch.

Eventually we played a game of Catan, which went as slowly as it usually does. We had a little bit of drama after Summer skipped my turn, but she felt better after she ultimately won. I just kind of milled back and forth for most of the early evening. Eaddie helped Summer with dinner, and we all sat down for meatball subs. Then we played a game of Pictionary, which was actually really fun. Autumn kept complaining about it and saying she wanted to quit, but then she’d play a round and be laughing as much as any of us.

Eaddie and I wrapped up the night with some more Breaking Bad until we finally got word that I wouldn’t have to report to work due to the weather. The district seemed to be having a pretty rough time on Facebook, and whoever was in charge of the district’s account apparently “liked” a comment that was blasting the superintendent. Perhaps surprisingly, I’m sympathetic to this particular event, but I still feel how I feel.

Light her up!