Sidetracks

Today was pretty hectic for being in the office. It started quiet enough, and I thought I was actually going to get my project done, but then the calls just kept coming in. Brody was having a hard time remembering how to do things for himself, and it eventually got me in trouble.

Gary came back to the office to fetch me for lunch, and the two of us went to Wendy’s since nobody else was around to go. Zach had apparently spent the entire day walking around with some new access control people that want to replace all of the electronic door locks in the district.

When we got back, Brody called me about a printer issue that ended up with me remoting into the computer he was looking at. What I didn’t realize was that he was remoted into the PaperCut server from there, so I had a ripe case of RDP Inception and didn’t even realize it. I ended up accidentally deleting a bunch of printers from the server, which required us to roll the server back to the last nightly backup. The fix was simple enough, but the whole server had to come down for us to fix it, which caused problems for everyone, everywhere.

I left work frustrated that I wasn’t able to complete my own task for all the calls I kept getting. Eaddie was at Oakland waiting for me to pick her up, so I couldn’t even stay late just to finish up. I picked her up and expected to go home to clean, but she was hungry, so I ended up taking her out for a dinner date.

Summer had to work late and Autumn was still coming back from a Quiz Bowl tournament, so Eaddie and I went to La Huerta to eat. She was super chatty, and we had a good time. We weren’t back home for very long before Summer came over to get her, and left me to start cleaning up the bedroom on my own. I didn’t get as much done as I could have, but I got a bunch of little things done in a lot of places. At least the bed is uncovered now, but I can’t say much about the floor. I’ll have to make a decision tomorrow about running some speaker wire, because I really want the speakers to all be functional for Friday.

Sidetracked? We’re not even on the right train!

Sounds Clean

I slept in for about an hour today, then went home to clean up before Summer’s doctor appointment. She came over, and we went across town to Millard Henry. I couldn’t go back with her this time for some reason, so I just waited the little while it took. Then we picked up a prescription and went to see Dad for a few minutes.

We were both pretty hungry by then, and it was almost lunch time, so we went to Popeye’s for some super fresh fried chicken. Brice and his work crew were there, so we did that dance before we got our food. Then we ate and headed on home to spend the rest of the day cleaning house.

Summer put in some work in the guest bathroom. I think she put a lot more work into it than I really wanted, but it does look better for now. I did some laundry, washed dishes, and then helped her clean up the dining room. Autumn came through a couple times and dropped off some cleaning supplies before going home to cook dinner.

With the dining area ready for an actual meal, we left to have dinner with the girls. Autumn made some taco meat for burritos or soft tacos, and it was a pretty short evening. Summer and I were both beat from all the work we did. There’s still so much more to do, but there always is.

Goodnight, Muad’dib.

Better Than It Sounds

I made it in to work a couple minutes early this morning, and it was a pretty quiet day. I didn’t hear much from anyone until lunch when a big group of us went to La Huerta. Thomas ended up buying, and then I went to Oakland to take care of a couple things before their two-hour early dismissal for conferences in the evening.

As soon as I got back to the shop, it was time to meet Josh to help Brody install a sound system in the new art room. We weren’t particularly fast, but nothing too bad happened. We just sort of took our time and made it work.

After work, I met Eaddie at the house and helped her get the bicycle down to ride for a bit. Then we went to Walmart to pick up a few things for dinner on the way up to their house. Summer had thawed out some brats to grill, and we had a quick and easy dinner.

It was a relatively early night to bed for everyone. Even I was feeling particularly tired, so I didn’t fuss too much over anything else.

You little brat.

Sofa, so Good

I didn’t sleep in much today. Summer got up and went to the gym, and I went home to start cleaning things up. After her workout, she picked up an order from Little Caesar’s and came over to help. We finally got everything off of the couch in the bedroom and carried it out into the living room. I had forgotten how bad of shape it was in, but we’re still six months away from the next bulk item pickup day.

With that out of the way, I could continue moving things around inside while she pressure washed the patio furniture and the concrete pad out back. I felt pretty drained just going back and forth inside, picking apart things that had been sitting around for years. Eventually Summer finished up and headed back home. I ended up following after her once I got to a stopping point.

Summer made some quick stir fried noodles that the three of us ate while Autumn was trying out for the wrestling team. Then we showered, and Eaddie and I finished the night with a couple episodes of House until bed.

Now I just need more places to store things.

We’re Duned

I went home to shower this morning, then picked up Zane for our trip to Little Rock. As we pulled in to get the girls, I had him duck down in the back seat to surprise her. I was a little disappointed that she didn’t scream, but her reaction was very typical Eaddie.

We had to stop in Conway first, so I could pick up an order from Kohl’s. Then we continued to Little Rock and went to Tokyo House for lunch. The kids didn’t eat a whole lot, which left me holding everyone else up while I ate. I wasn’t just going to not eat all of the things though.

Next we went to The Promenade at Chenal to kill some time until the movie. We only went into a couple of the stores, as everyone balked at the prices of everything. The new Bath & Body Works was probably the most reasonably priced store on the premises, and we didn’t even walk in. I kind of thought we’d eat there and then just lounge around, but instead we just meandered around and then went into the theater really early.

The movie was very long and slow, so I knew the others wouldn’t really be that into it. I didn’t know what to expect, but really thought we’d get farther along than we did. I felt like the movie covered about as much as I had read of the book as a child. I never did make it very far, and it ended just as it got to the exciting bits.

As we waited for Amber to get there to pick up Zane, we walked to Maggie Moo’s and had some ice cream. It gave us about the perfect amount of time to wind things down for the day. Once she got there, I got to share some of the pictures I had taken throughout the day, and then we headed home.

Eaddie and I stayed up late and watched a couple episodes of House. I stayed up to make sure Autumn made it home from her Sadie Hawkins dance, and then made it to bed.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

Mouse Toss

It was a little warmer today, but still cool out. It made for a really great day to be moving stuff around outside, which we did. We ordered several hundreds of computer mice and headphones, and split them up for delivery to every campus. Even Thomas came out to help us toss mice into the trucks, which ended up being super fun. I had some sort of back pain going on all day, but it started before we did any of that, and I never felt much worse throughout the day.

They ended up going to lunch about half an hour early, but I made the mistake of meeting them at Fat Daddy’s in London. I’ve just never ever been impressed with their food there, but for some reason the others like it. The problem today was that they tried to meet Brody at Dwight, but Brody showed up at Crawford on accident. I just waited outside the gas station/restaurant until they showed up, and then ordered a sloppy, overpriced, uninspired plate of nachos.

It was a relatively quiet afternoon, and I didn’t get too deep into much of anything. We put a couple metal shelves together for our storage room. Then near the end of the day, Gary brought me a basket of hotspots he found and asked me to test them. All but one appeared to work normally.

When I left work, I stopped by the shop to find that Summer had already left. From there, I had to wait for a train, then made my way home to set up the storage stuff I had ordered from Kohl’s. Summer and Eaddie came by to Eaddie could try on an old Papa John’s uniform as a Halloween costume. Then they left so Eaddie could go to her boyfriend’s birthday party for the evening.

Eventually the kids made it back to town, and I picked Eaddie up at Zane’s house. Summer was still awake when we got there, but we closed her up in the bedroom while we watched an episode of House before bed.

Beanelephant

A Do Be

Weeks are flying by. I barely remember what I’m doing at work. Tomorrow is Friday already. I spent a little time with Greg trying to help with an Adobe issue he had, but we didn’t get anywhere. Most of us took a break and went to CJ’s for an overpriced lunch and a disappointingly small patty of meat. There’s just no way that’s a third of a pound of meat.

When I got home, I drove myself crazy trying to use lasers and a compass to align my speakers. Compasses don’t work great around enormous magnets.

It’s curtains for me!

Speaking of Unboxing

It was another quiet day at work today. I didn’t hear much from anyone, and just kept busy in my office. I actually closed quite a few work orders, which was nice. It’s starting to look like I’m not doing much, but I made an effort to create work orders for all the little things I did today.

Gary fetched me for lunch, and I met the guys at La Chiquita after I finished my chat with Dell to get a depot kit. Then I stopped by to see Summer briefly before going to Oakland. Things were pretty quiet there too though, and eventually I made it back to the shop to finish the day.

I ended up being the last one out of the office, but I wasn’t really that late. I went by to see Summer again, and then went home to spend some time cleaning up. I finally unboxed the last two speaker towers I had in the corner, and got them ready to place. Then I picked up and stored some stuff that’s just been sitting out for ages. Progress feels pretty good, but I know another wall is approaching fast.

You know, from this angle, it kind of does look like I have a problem!

to the

I woke up absolutely dreading getting out of bed this morning. I was absolutely beat, and needed another several hours of sleep, but I willed myself up and into the shower. It was pretty quiet at work, but I still spent most of my time working on other peoples’ issues. I finally got the CPPC minutes sent out to the applicable email groups, and immediately afterward, Thomas asked me to remove the “Assistant to the Director of Information Systems” line in my email signature. I wasn’t particularly surprised, but it still kind of made me feel uneasy about my life there. It all started when Ben moved me into the office to the right of his, literally making me his right-hand man. We joked about how people in the district just made up their titles with seemingly nothing to back them up, and went with the Dwight Schrute “to the” moniker.

I worked through lunch since nobody said anything to me about it other than Brody, who actually took lunch about half an hour late. By that time, I was two minutes away from the Pixel 6 launch announcement, so I just stayed and watched that in my office. Then after lunch, I eventually made my way to Oakland and finished out my day.

When I left work, I went straight to the high school to pick Eaddie up for karate. We went to my house for just a bit before deciding to meet Summer at a taco truck for dinner. Eaddie really wants to quit karate, so we didn’t make her go, and I think Summer will finally let both girls drop out. Eaddie, particularly, will still have ways to be active. Autumn needs more encouragement, so I’m not sure whether we’ll let her drop out, but for now at least, she has plenty of afterschool activities that keep her occupied.

Summer couldn’t stay until we got our food, so Eaddie and I ate on a bench there and had what were probably very funny and awkwardly inappropriate conversations in front of other patrons as they came through. Then we took Summer’s food back home and waited for her to get off of work.

I finally got my missing grill parts in from China, so I put that together while we waited. Then a little while later, Summer called to say she didn’t realize we were going to my house to wait for her, and that she had gone to her house instead. Autumn came over instead, and picked Eaddie up to go home. I stayed behind and watched a Pixel Superfans stream, which didn’t really provide me any more insight into the device. The price for the smaller device was lower than I expected, but the Pro is about where I thought it would be for the storage size I wanted. I’ll have to wait and see if Google Fi has any deals around Thanksgiving time.

Black Friday will finally look right in photos on the Pixel 6!

Let’s See What We Can Stirrup

I got to sleep in for about an hour compared to my normal work alarm since Summer wanted me to go to her appointment with her. She went in to work for a bit, so I got up to a hard boiled egg for breakfast before going home to shower. Then I picked her up and we went to Millard Henry. The appointment took a little while, but it wasn’t ridiculous. They did a good job of spacing patients out so there was hardly anyone inside while we waited.

After the appointment, we stopped across the street so I could give Aaron a projector remote. Then I dropped Summer off at work before going to McAlister’s to pick up some lunch for us. She wanted Stoby’s, but I had a free potato that expired at the end of the month, and I couldn’t trust that I’d ever end up eating there otherwise. I went back to the shop to eat with her, and then headed home for the day.

I was on my feet for the rest of the afternoon and on into the late evening, rearranging furniture and cleaning things up. I opened the garage and back doors to let the cooler air flow through the house all day long. I felt pretty good about what I accomplished, but there’s still so much more. At least now I have room for the loveseat, while still having an exit path out the back door. I ended the night cleaning some more carpet, but this time it was in a different area, so I didn’t go crazy.

This felt like an incredibly long day.