Category: Uncategorised

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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???

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You’ve Gotta Fight for Your Right

I’ve been so worked up for most of this month over my employment contract, and it finally worked itself up into a head today. Maybe I was just feeling a dark cloud over my own head today, or maybe something really was up, but I’ve just felt really off for the past couple days. I spent the first couple quiet hours in my office before going to Oakland to try and fix some things. Then I made it back to the shop around lunch time and chatted with Kyle outside for a bit.

I ended up not doing anything, and just finished up the last quarter of my Soylent instead. I started working on an email to Judy to see if she could chat with me about my contract, and she actually had some free time to schedule with me. I went across the street and expressed my feelings, concerns, and did my best to make sure she understood I wasn’t trying to rock the boat, but that I felt like I had earned the contract I signed. She did a good job of playing it pretty neutral, but asked some good questions and took enough notes to make me feel like she really did want to help me personally if she could.

After my meeting, I went back to the shop for the rest of the day. Kyle and Greg came into my office for some help, which pretty well burned up any usable time I had left. I wrapped up what I could as everyone filtered out, and then stopped by to chat with Thomas on my own way out. He appreciated that I wanted to keep him in the loop, and I could tell we really agreed on a lot of the things we’ve seen, so hopefully this all works out well in the end.

I went straight to SuperFast to catch up with Summer, and then had to leave to return the canopy that I couldn’t get back to the Ridgewood Brothers yesterday. Then I went to my parents’ house for some surprisingly tough corned beef for dinner. After we ate, Dad and I tried taking his old oven out to swap it with the new one. We had gotten most everything in place to slide in before I had to pick Eaddie up from karate.

Once I had Eaddie, we stopped by her grandparents’ house so she could pick up some things she didn’t take into karate. Then we went back to my parents’ house to finish installing the new oven. Unfortunately once we had it placed, we realized how much space was left around the outside of it. We really needed to buy a size or two up from what Julie got, so we pulled everything back out and stuck the old one back in as quickly as we could.

I had to get Eaddie home so she could do homework, but first I wanted to get my laptop from work, then go home to change. Summer helped her with the homework while I tried yelling at Autumn to keep her from falling asleep. Evidently the hospital wants her a bit sleep deprived so she’ll be super relaxed or even doze off during her EEG tomorrow. I stayed up later than I wanted, but just kept feeling like I was forgetting something all night long.

I don’t know why they can’t write better descriptions for jean sizing. Maybe I’ll just start wearing jeggings instead.

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Another Long Week

This morning already started out pretty rough, and I don’t expect things to get better for a while. I suppose it could be worse, and at least I enjoy what I do, and it provides above-average flexibility. Things stayed pretty quiet most of the morning, with everyone still struggling to keep their work order counts from growing any further. As with the past couple weeks, this morning went by really fast. For the first time in a while, nobody was interested in going out to eat, so I just went to SuperFast a little late to have a couple hot dogs with Summer during their Paint the Town Green and Gold celebration.

After we ate, I stopped by my house for a few minutes before continuing to Oakland. I wasn’t really there to close mass tickets, but instead spent some time troubleshooting a widespread print issue we’ve seen. I didn’t really get any results, unfortunately, so I’ll likely still be working on it some more tomorrow. I fussed a little about how much I’m doing, and Gary kind of snapped back that they could put someone else in my position, but there really isn’t anyone to place there that won’t need months of training just to be a little bit helpful. I think he sometimes forgets that he makes $11 grand more than what they want to pay me, and $8,000 more than what they “accidentally” signed my contract for this year.

Still, I was the last one to leave the office for the day. I did what I could, and at least for the time being, it’ll all still be there for me tomorrow. I went home to change, then went to the shop to pick up the canopy Summer borrowed from the Brothers, Ridgewood. The gate was locked when I arrived to return it, so I continued on to my parents’ house to pick at some leftovers for dinner.

I received a refurbished Dyson fan today, and though it’s far from the worst condition that I’ve ever seen in a refurb, it wasn’t at all good. Paint was rubbed off in several places, and the thing was filthy with the exception of a new filter. There was heavy dust and black, oily smudges all over the thing. I fired an email off to the manufacturer, and hopefully they’ll do something about it, otherwise it may just be returned.

As with most things here, the more you dig, the angrier you’ll be.

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Hate Heat

I woke up pretty early this morning and waited around until Eaddie was ready to go ride her bike. Then I brought her home with me so she could ride, but she ended up sitting in her room here for a couple hours before she left. I cleaned up and then had to run by SuperFast where Summer and her team were decorating for Paint the Town Green and Gold.

They wanted to paint a mural of a football field on their window, so I set up a projector and some paper towel that was thin enough for them to see the projected image on the other side. Eaddie and her friend Aaron rode their bikes there and helped a little bit before going on their way. I eventually left to try and help Dad with his pool pump issue, but he had given up for the moment.

Even being inside Summer’s shop, the heat sapped me and I felt gross again. I cooled down at home until Eaddie made it back home, and then we went back by the shop to see Summer’s progress. They were almost done, so Eaddie and I went on to my parents’ house for spring rolls. Summer met us there once she was finished, and we had dinner.

I hung around for a little while before coming home to wind down. I played tug-of-war with one of the girls that was trying to play music on her Google Home/Nest speaker at their house. It absolutely infuriates me that the stupid speakers are supposed to be able to identify who is talking to them, but there is no way for me to control who has access to my YouTube Music account. It shouldn’t let any of them play from my account, and it’s ruining my suggestions and causing a headache any time we happen to be listening to music at the same time.

It just makes me incredibly cranky.

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Everything Day

We got up this morning and the purse/wallet collection I bought Summer was delivered, so I surprised her with that. Autumn was up and wanted CJ’s for lunch because evidently none of them had ever had it. Eaddie wasn’t interested, but I met Summer and Autumn there. It was more disappointing than usual, with small patties and soggy fries.

I rode back home feeling super muggy, and eventually got cleaned up enough to go shopping with Summer. I picked her up and we went to Walmart to pick up some things for her Paint the Town Green and Gold for Tech next week. Then we went back to get Eaddie so we could deliver her to the bowling alley for a double date.

Autumn had to work in the evening, so Summer and I just went to my parents’ house for beef spring rolls while we waited for Eaddie to finish up. We took a peak at the pool pump that had seized up, then took a bolt with us to find an extracting socket that would fit. Eaddie finished up and we all went up to their house for the evening.

Summer had some laundry to get going, then went to bed while Eaddie and I watched some House. Being school season, Eaddie gets tired really early, so we only got a couple episodes in before she started dragging. I finished up my routine and tried not to get to sleep too late.

Shoulda gotten the rain suit…

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Chained

Within the first couple hours of falling asleep last night, I pinched a nerve in my back that stuck with me the rest of the night and then all day long. I trundled into work for a bit of a meeting that wasn’t much of a meeting. From then on, I was pretty well stuck in my office all day. Everyone disappeared in the morning while I worked on a little bit of everything.

Gary came back to work a little later in the morning, saying he thought he had COVID, but felt back to normal now. For whatever reason, he never could arrange a test with the school nurses, so he just came back to work and stayed to himself all day. People filtered back in for lunch, and the six of us that weren’t Gary went to La Chiquita for some of the best food and service I’ve ever had there. I tried the omelet, which was more of just an egg scramble, and though it didn’t seem very Mexican aside from the rice and beans, I did enjoy it. It was also cheap and filling.

After lunch, we had a little bit of a meeting to cover the flow of data from the state systems, which is something we have to cover from time to time on account of how we never keep employees for very long. Then a group was sent to the junior high to hang some TVs. I stayed behind and did some stuff remotely until it was quitting time.

I ran home to change, and then met Summer and Eaddie at Old South for Dad’s birthday. He and Mom came along shortly, and then Julie showed up once we were seated. From what I could tell, most of the food seemed overcooked and dry, but I enjoyed the taste of my Louisiana redfish in spite of it. I suppose I was expected to get moisture from the liquified butter they brought me.

On the way home, I stopped by Walmart for a bike chain that Eaddie ultimately didn’t use. She decided to ride in the car with Summer to watch part of Autumn’s football game instead of riding her bike. I stayed home to decompress, and then made some ice cream when they returned with milk and cream. We watched a couple episodes of House until Autumn came home, and then everyone went to sleep.

That’s a paddlin’.

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Hot Town, Summer in the High School

Gary was out for a second day in a row, leaving me to poke around all the sync issues we’ve adopted this year. Thomas helped me a bit with one, but I feel like it’s the same thing every day. Discover a new product we use, and then figure out who the heck is supposed to know what to do with it.

Greg wanted Fat Daddy’s since he had to do some work in London, so Zach drove four of us out there to meet him. I had one of the better meals I’ve had there, but it was still just mediocre barbecue. On the drive out, Thomas told us about some of the insane offers they’ve had on their old house, and it’s just nuts how the housing market has exploded up there.

We had an interview in the afternoon, so I just locked myself up in my office until they were done. After a while, I went to the high school to help Brody with some stuff. That was the most frustrating part of my day, because we still didn’t fix the issue. It was also super hot everywhere we went because the air conditioner was out. They had little portable units everywhere with vents going up into the ceiling, but it barely kept the place sufferable. Then we ended the day unable to get into an office out at Votech because we didn’t have a key to their door.

I went home for a bit before going to my parents’ house. I wasn’t very hungry, but I loaded up on some veg-heavy spring rolls. Then I sat outside for a bit while Mom and Dad watered her plants. When I got back home, I was pretty tired but still tried to pick up a little bit before settling in to bed. I hit up the work group text to check on Thomas’s final offer for the house, and it was even better than the one he talked about during lunch. How I just need to talk him into investing it in Doge.

Did somebody say, “moon?”

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The Brains of This Outfit

I barely got a wink last night, but that was probably also the only reason it wasn’t too hard to get out of bed when my alarm went off. I made it in to work a few minutes early and got settled in. Gary was out sick, so I kept up with things in the office. Greg came back after receiving a negative COVID test, but his daughter never actually tested. I decided to run to Oakland for a bit to close out some tickets before making it back for lunch.

Zach really wanted CJ’s, which nobody else was really excited for, except Thomas. At least we got Zach to drive the five of us up there. I got plenty full and stuck around the office for the rest of the afternoon. Things got really quiet downstairs after Thomas and Zach went to the middle school to do some training. Tammy and I left just after quitting time and I headed home for the night.

Still full from lunch, I didn’t even make it to my parents’ house for more rolls. I just cleaned up a bit, both online and in one of the bedrooms. I even listed a single item on eBay – a TV remote for which I’ve never owned the TV. This is a gruelling process. Josue chatted me up later in the evening, starting the conversation with a picture of an old HP Touchpad I got him years ago. I still have a brand new one sealed in the shipping box under my desk. Evidently they’re still going for quite a bit on eBay. Who knows why.

eBay: where everything has value for some reason

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Track Your Time

I walked in to work this morning and immediately fielded two phone calls, which prompted me to create the Super Brody Tracker. Zach had joked that we should write tally marks every time he calls, so instead I built a spreadsheet for hilarity’s sake.

It was otherwise a pretty scattered morning, but I felt good about it. I closed some things, and helped with plenty of others. Summer wanted to join us for lunch, so five of us met her at Stoby’s. They were surprisingly busy and slow, and my burger was less good than usual, but the fries never disappoint.

After lunch, I got some slightly good news about my employment ordeal, but I’m still waiting for further instruction and to plead my case with anyone of consequence. Without any other drivers in my day, I continued on doing all of the things until quitting time.

I ran home to change, and almost immediately had to leave to get Eaddie’s karate gear out of Autumn’s car at the high school. Eaddie had gone to do homework with Maristella, so I had to then pick her up from their house before dropping her off at karate. From there, I met Summer at my parents’ house for spring rolls.

After we ate, I helped clean up and went outside for a little bit, then went on up to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie spent the evening doing math homework while Summer went to bed. Autumn got home and pretty well went straight to bed herself. I wasn’t very tired after such long, good sleep last night, but I did my best not to stay up too late.

There’s no payback like no payback.

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Drowmn

I slept fairly well last night, but not enough. It made for a late start to the day, which had me worried in light of recent events, but it didn’t matter once I got rolling anyway. I spent the morning in my office being super scattered and struggling to accomplish anything of consequence. It reminded me of those giant jawbreakers that were popular when I was growing up. I think I still have mine somewhere, less than half eaten – or licked. I just have to pick one tiny thing and close it, then do the same to another, until eventually things calm down again.

Zach and Gary almost left me behind for lunch, but then came back to get me. We met Brody at Bocadillos for one of the cheapest lunch specials around. I went with three tacos and felt satisfied without overstuffing myself. When we got back to work, I loaded up and went to Oakland for the afternoon.

It was so hot and humid that I felt like I was drowning inside of my mask. The little face cup in my mask just kept condensing my breath, which dripped all over my mouth and made me miserable. I got as much done as I could, and made it back to the office late enough that even Thomas was leaving. I stayed long enough to close out my work orders, then went home for the night.

Eaddie had walked home from school, but left with Autumn shortly after I got there. I didn’t get up to much, but made some ramen for a light dinner, then went to bed really early.

And the spies came out of the water.