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Deadlines

The crew had a little training meeting this morning, but I just stayed in my office and continued working on my Autodesk deployment. It took me all morning, but I finally got the idea to build it on a non-domain computer so AppLocker wouldn’t keep interfering.

Kyle was the first one to ask me about lunch today, and suggested Ridgewood Brothers before we walked out and learned that the rest of the crew was going out to London. The joke was on them though, because the weather was cool enough, and the line was short enough that we were actually in and out faster than they were. Even Josh joined us at a picnic table there.

After lunch, I had to run across the street to help Judy for a bit. Then a little while later, Zach, Greg, and I went to Oakland to install a touch panel. When we got back to the shop, I finished up my deployment and just hoped that it would work over the weekend as intended.

I ran by Superfast to see Summer for a bit, then went home for a few hours before making it up to her house. She was already watching TV in bed, so I laid down with her for a few minutes before going back out to watch House with Eaddie for a while until she couldn’t stay awake any longer.

Well that’s one way to get rid of a character…

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Manualdesk

My entire day was eaten alive by a surprisingly uncooperative Autodesk Inventor deployment. There’s no reason that software these kids are using should be over 10 gigs. It took forever to download, extract, build a deployment package, and then finally incorporate that into Configuration Manager. I even stayed a couple hours late, but for whatever reason it just wouldn’t install. My only break was a lunch trip to Bocadillo for a beef chimichanga with Zach and Gary.

It would have been one thing to fight and test different things all day, but this took all day to build, and then didn’t actually start failing until the end of the day. I just wanted to shoot myself. Unfortunately I couldn’t even get it to install manually on a single device, so Monday’s deadline for such a massive deployment is no good.

At least apple pie is almost in season again.

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Wild Bus Chase

Today was a little bit weird. I spent all morning chasing my tail trying to fix something that appeared to not be an issue. I tried to go light for the day, so I had half a Soylent for breakfast and then the half grilled chicken salad at Brangus for lunch. My only saving grace was the pile of peanuts I ate, but then I spent all afternoon smelling like an elephant.

I made it back to Oakland for a bit before school let out and closed up what I could. Then they chased me out as they got ready for dismissal. The shop cleared out really fast, and I left to get some gas into the Shadow. I was never certain, but I was pretty sure the main tank died on me as I pulled into Brangus, and I didn’t want to risk running out.

When I got home, I dug out all of the old pairs of jeans I could find since the ones I’ve been wearing had all worn out and started to critically fail. None of the stiff ones I just received fit even a little bit, so they’ll probably all go back.

Eventually I made it up to Summer’s for the evening. They got home just after I got there, and then I sat and ate a bowl of roast by myself because they were all preoccupied. Afterward, Summer and Autumn went to bed and Eaddie and I watched several episodes of House. Rewatching the whole series, it’s uncanny how I let it shape my late 20s.

Saving lives is just collateral damage.

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You Get a Raise! You Get a Raise! Everybody Gets a Raise!

I had my meeting with Judy this morning, along with Zach and Thomas. Pending board approval, we’ll both be promoted to the Network Tech title. Zach was uncharacteristically quiet through the whole event, and I would have thought he’d do a better job of showing some appreciation or excitement, especially with the news that his would be retroactive to the start of July. Oh well.

Lunch was light with just a couple spring rolls from Linh’s. Then I went to Oakland for the afternoon to try and knock out as much as I could. I still didn’t get the bulk out like I wanted, but I made a little progress before taking off at the end of the school day.

I was the last one out at work, and went home to change before going to Walmart to pick up the last couple of things we needed for dinner. Then I ran up to Summer’s to get the Instant Pot going for chicken tacos. Summer wanted me to get Eaddie to karate, so I was rushing through the whole prep only to have her leave work to take Eaddie herself.

Dinner was finished right as they got home, so at least that much was perfect. The tacos were pretty good, but I had to limit myself to four. All I wanted to do was continue eating them, but even four was too much. Hopefully I’ll feel a little lighter tomorrow for it.

Well, actually, that’s all. Just the two. Nobody else gets a raise.

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Excessage

I don’t think I slept great this weekend, because I kept getting up out of bed last night as well. I didn’t want to let myself sleep in too late, but I just felt so tired. I cleaned up the last of the taco meat that Summer had, and then took Eaddie home with me as soon as she was ready.

She was supposed to go ride her bike to her friend’s house to work on some homework together, but she didn’t leave for a couple hours. I picked up a little bit in the other bedroom, then took a shower once she did leave. By the time I got out, Summer and Autumn had gotten what they needed from the grocery store and I met them at my parents’ house.

What was supposed to be some super simple grilled sausages for dinner ended up being pretty frustrating. First, about half of the zucchini I brought over fell right through the grill because Mom cut too much meat out of the middle of them and they slipped right through the grates. Then the new jalapeño cheddar sausages I wanted to try from Sam’s were super greasy and caught the whole grill on fire. Everything else was pretty burned after that. All the while, I had to hear Autumn in the background continue to be generally obtuse and uncooperative.

Summer got in the pool for a little bit on her own, but I was busy sweating over the fire. I didn’t get to swim until after we all ate outside. I think I’m learning that I simply don’t care for eating around round tables. With several exceptions, I tend to also become frustrated by having too much other stuff on the table when we’re eating. The sausages had way too much cheddar inside of them, and the cheese overpowered the rest of the flavor. By the time it was all over, I just wanted to make a lap in the pool to cool off. I just felt increasingly tired and aggravated all day long.

The girls went home to get ready for school. I stuck around for just a little bit before going home myself. I was sleepy enough to just go to bed, so I didn’t even risk staying up any later. I only got out for a couple minutes when Bác Vân called me over to get some egg rolls.

-Cap’n Crankypants

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Big Fun in Little China

I slept in a while today after sleeping pretty heavily last night. Autumn had gone to work and Eaddie was still in bed while Summer watched TV. I eventually got up and choked down some questionably old fish tacos before going home to clean up. Once Autumn got home from work, I headed back to pick the three of them up to go see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in Conway.

We stopped in at Game Point first to browse around and kill some time before the movie. Eaddie really didn’t want to go in, so we let her sit in the car. Before too long it was time to head across town for the show. The Cinemark was completely out of butter somehow, which I didn’t even think was possible. What followed was the driest movie popcorn I’ve ever had, but somehow still not the worst.

It felt like there was about an hour of mostly commercials and previews before the show, but eventually we got our movie. I thought it was incredible, and I found myself getting a bit weepy during the old style fight scenes with the traditional movie style martial arts. I just thought the whole thing was really beautiful.

After the movie, everyone was in the mood for Chinese, so we went a few doors down to China Town. Autumn ate frustratingly little and then continued a downward spiral of attitude the rest of the night. We hand-picked our playlist for the drive home, I stopped by my house briefly to take my contacts out, and then we took the girls home.

Summer had to yell at Autumn a bit before they both went to bed. Eaddie and I stayed up to watch a couple more episodes of House until she fell asleep in my lap again. Then I finally made it to bed.

Did America make you soft?

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Road Warriors

Summer and Autumn took off early this morning for Bixby, Oklahoma. I didn’t wake up until they had already gotten there after a three hour drive, so I called Summer just in time to wish them luck. Eaddie slept all morning, so most of the day was a bust for me.

When Eaddie did finally wake up in the afternoon, she didn’t want to go anywhere like she planned the night before, so I left and went by the Ridgewood Brothers to deliver some coupons from Superfast. They were already sold out by one o’clock, which was a surprise. Evidently everyone was loading up for the three-day weekend and ordered their food in bulk.

Summer and Autumn were nearly back home by the time I got to my house. I ate some leftovers and cleaned up, and before too long it was time to pick Summer up for our drive to Paron for a wedding. I had some trouble finding an outfit I was happy with, but settled on something mostly new. I couldn’t get comfortable, but I didn’t have a whole lot of choices given the heat and the occasion.

It was a beautiful drive for the most part, through the hills and some small mountains. We made it to the Cold Springs Events Center about half an hour early, but there were plenty of others already there. It was a neat looking venue, and they kept the wedding gracefully short. For the reception, we found a table with at least one other person Summer knew from work. At that same table was a woman that reminded me of my sister every time she opened her mouth. Then another guy at the table that I think someone said was her brother said something, and it was like I could hear myself.

The food was some of the best I’ve had at a wedding reception. We filled up, hung out for a couple quick pictures, and then made our way out. It was a dark drive back home at higher speed since I wasn’t trying to drive slowly to avoid getting there too early. We stopped by my house so I could change, then came up to Summer’s where she crashed almost immediately. Even Eaddie went to bed early, leaving me alone in the dark again.

Well no, it sounds awful when you put it like that.

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Good News Everyone!

We actually had a bit of a team meeting this morning, which was nice to break up how busy it’s been. I picked at a few different things to close out some old work orders, but didn’t make it to Oakland like I really had kind of intended. Most of the others went around to other buildings to clean out the tech offices that had accumulated a bunch of old crap. When they got back, everyone else came out to help unload the truck and trailer.

By then it was lunch time and someone made the call to go to Sam’s. Almost everyone went, and Thomas ended up buying. To make things even better, Brody only ate about half of his food before giving me the rest to take home, so I have plenty of fish for the weekend.

The afternoon went by pretty quietly as well. Thomas came and sat in my office for a few minutes after work to chat, and Judy emailed to say she had good news. We’ll have a meeting with her next week to see what that means. All in all, I think it was a pretty good work week.

I went by the shop to see Summer on the way home. Autumn was there too, but left when I did to go get gas. I went home to change and thought I was going to pick up Eaddie, but Summer ended up getting her after work. I came up to their house for the evening, but Summer didn’t get her mashed potatoes and coleslaw from KFC, so I drove her back to get them.

Everyone just kind of picked at the food before going off to do their own things. Summer crashed early in preparation for her long drive and obstacle run at Conquer the Gauntlet tomorrow. Eaddie and I stayed up until about midnight watching House until she fell asleep in my lap. With nothing else to do, I finally made it to bed myself.

Three day weekends are best when surrounded by four day weeks.

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Filed Under Completed

I made it in to work several minutes early today and just kind of eased into things. I knew I wanted to actually take action with a lot of work, but I still had a bit of trouble finding where to really chip into it all. I poked around a few different things at first, then went to Oakland to tend to Aimee and her fussy preschool cohorts. The girl that quit evidently stripped a bunch of stuff out when she left, and even took the USB cable for the touch panel.

I ended up leaving for lunch about 15 minutes late and met Gary and Zach at Arby’s. I tried their new Prime Rib Cheesesteak, which was loaded up a bit more than I expected, but was overly chewy and gooey. I actually found myself wishing it had less cheese on it. Summer had me drop some food off for her on the way back to work, and I continued to dig into the Print Nightmare exploit patch that we had to work around in order to resolve print issues for everyone.

Ultimately I fixed that issue and closed a whole bunch of work orders, so I felt pretty good by the end of the day. I left a little bit late and went to my parents’ house to deliver a patio table cover that I ordered for them. I ate a little turkey roll for dinner just to keep things really light, and then helped Dad move the oven out and into the trunk of his car so he could return it.

From there, I headed home to clean up a bit. The laundry room and kitchen had gotten a bit out of control, so I took care of that and then filed a bunch of paperwork. I even took the time to finally make folder labels with a proper label printer, so everything looks really nice now.

File the rest of that under “To Be Filed.”

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Bring Your Ex-Employee to Work Day

I went home to clean up, then picked Summer and Autumn up to head to Little Rock for another appointment at Children’s. We were early, so we picked Ben up at his office and ate at Cotham’s again. The three of us couldn’t resist the burger, but Ben had the chicken fried steak this time. I also ordered onion rings for an appetizer. All of the food came out super fast, and though the fries weren’t as good as last time, the burger was again incredible. I’ve made up my mind. I must own a flat-top grill.

We finished up a bit early, but we went ahead and dropped the girls off at the hospital so they could get in for the appointment. Then Ben showed me the way back to his parking garage. We walked up a couple flights of stairs, through a breezeway, and above the news studio, which was really neat. I vaguely remember going there, or somewhere similar on a field trip as a child. When we got back to his office, we sat for a little bit before he had me help fish a cable through some conduit in the wall. It was already run through the ceiling, but had to be dropped and terminated, which is kind of my favorite part anyway.

For the next couple hours, we sat in his office and just worked on our own things. I had my work laptop and picked through some email and a couple work orders. We talked about some of the scripts he had running in the past, and the reasons we had for doing certain things the way we did. His predecessor Kendal came in periodically from across the hall as they worked on something, frequently making comments about some “mothership” that I found amusing.

The girls eventually finished up and I picked them up to head toward home. We didn’t play around any more in Little Rock, opting instead to head through to Conway to shop at Sam’s. We walked nearly the entire store before heading out. There was some kind of wreck that had traffic completely stopped on the interstate going the other direction. That was stuck for hours as we drove across town to get a car wash.

Summer went inside to chat for a few minutes, and then we continued home. We had to pick up Eaddie from her friend’s house, and from then everyone settled in surprisingly slowly. I ate some leftover lasagna while Summer had the last half of her burger from lunch. Time just seemed to move a little differently.

Like an annoying little sibling???