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Attack of the Time Sinks

I woke up to an empty house today, and continued my clicker games until my FedEx package arrived at the Dollar General up the road. As soon as I got it back to the house, I got to work applying my screen protector with the liquid, optically clear adhesive. The packaging of the phone ended up making it a dirtier and dustier project than I like, but I eventually got everything together.

The sticker at the top of the phone that was supposed to prevent the adhesive from seeping into the speaker did basically nothing, and appeared to even draw the liquid into it with surface tension. Next time I’ll have to line the phone with some masking tape or something, because it was a bit of a pain to get it all out. It made me pretty nervous, but it all worked out alright in the end. The biggest disappointment was a wave of discolored area in the screen. Unfortunately I didn’t turn the phone on before applying the screen protector, so I have no way of knowing if it’s caused by the adhesive, or if the screen itself is defective. Rather than remove the screen protector now, I decided to give it just under a year to crack or chip. As the end of the phone warranty approaches, I may have to peel the protector off and see what’s really going on.

I eventually had to leave to get the girls from school. I took them back to my house, and they rode their bikes to Oakland Heights until it was time for me to take Autumn to her Monday night school. Eaddie and I went to my parents’ house to work on some leftovers until it was time to get Autumn again. Then we made it up the hill for the evening.

Summer spent the evening on the couch setting up her replacement phone after her original Pixel 3 died. We never could get it going again, so it’ll be sent back tomorrow. The girls went to bed pretty soon after they got home, and I stayed up late getting my new phone prepared to port my old Sprint number over tomorrow.

Entertain the swarm.

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Federal Disappointment

I only slept in a little while after staying up until after three clicking for those stupid paperclips. I fixed up some leftovers for brunch, and sat down to prestige in that game, and continue clicking cookies in the other. The girls spent most of the day doing chores until Summer went to the gym. Then Eaddie wanted to go to my house to go skateboarding while I cleaned up.

We didn’t stay at my house long, and I picked Eaddie up at the high school after she met her little boyfriend there. Summer beat us home and had started cleaning house. Then once Noah got home from work, we went to my parents’ house for a quick dinner.

FedEx never did deliver my new phone because it only just arrived in Mississippi today. Hopefully it arrives here tomorrow, for real. Everyone else would be back to work in the morning, so I finished up my second run of Universal Paperclips until bed.

Where’s my heated steering wheel?

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Chow, Man

Autumn got up and made unleavened pancakes and eggs for breakfast this morning. Then we finished Cobra Kai. It’s been an incredible show, so we’re anxious to see the next season when it comes out. As the day carried on, Summer eventually got dressed for the gym. I took the time to go home and clean up before coming back before dinner.

Noah came over for the evening, and we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made chow mein with broccoli and cauliflower, which was great. Surprisingly, every one of the kids chowed down on it. Dad smoked the pork I brought over yesterday, but we weren’t sure if it was really done. He finished it up in the oven as we headed home for the evening.

Everyone went to bed pretty quickly, because Noah had to work early the next day. Eaddie came and sat on her computer with me for a little while, and we raced each other in QWOP for a little bit. Then I burned some time on Cookie Clicker and Universal Paperclips.

Actively idle.

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NERF THIS!

Melinda was dropped off a bit early this morning, so I just barely made it there in time to get into place. Ben showed up late, so I ended up waiting for him outside, and then came in once everyone was in the shop area. They had a short meeting, and then I had Zach and Gary shoot the disc launchers at her. They sort of chased her into the hallway, where I was waiting in my trench coat with my battery powered dart Gatling gun.

The assault was short lived, and we spent way more time hunting down the projectiles than we did shooting them. I really do think it would be more fun to have just a single shooter and a pocket full of darts. Who knows what we’ve escalated now though.

They didn’t have any projects for me, so I spent all day at the junior high trying to get anything at all prepped. They’re still waiting on laptops for so many teachers, and Matt has been super high strung about it. He did at least start enforcing some record keeping, so they know how many kids keep losing or breaking things.

Five of us went to Sam’s for lunch, and when Greg ordered the gumbo, I knew I had to try it. She brought out a good sized bowl full of gumbo, along with another bowl full of rice. It was less than half the price of my usual order, and super delicious. Did I miss out on the fried, fishy goodness? Yes, but the gumbo was piping hot and full of flavor.

The afternoon creeped along, and I ultimately only got one device deployed all day long. It was pretty dumb, especially since after all that fuss, Matt didn’t even make the teacher give up the student device she was using. She even had an entire laptop cart full of unused devices that she had to keep in the room to meet the class requirements, even though the kids will never use them.

I worked a little late, then picked up Autumn on the way home. We went to my house for a little while, then ran through Walmart on the way to her house. She said they didn’t have anything to eat at home and wanted to make taco salads, so we spent about 20 times what I was expecting to spend when we walked into the store. It took us a while, but we eventually made it up the hill just behind Summer and Eaddie.

Autumn got to cooking, and I left to deliver a big piece of pork to Dad for smoking tomorrow. I dawdled a bit on the way back, angry about being duped into buying dinner while they truthfully had a refrigerator packed to the brim with food. I stopped at Lowe’s to hunt down a couple deals, then got gas before going back. When I walked in, Autumn fussed about being tired, but the food was done. We had to press her to finish even prepping the vegetables correctly, because they looked like they had been sliced by a three year old.

After dinner, Autumn went to bed and Eaddie stayed on the couch while we watched Cobra Kai. We made it all the way through to the last episode, which we’ll probably finish tomorrow. I really hope the next season makes it out soon.

Kobra Kai Karate?

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More Phones, More Problems

I went to the high school again first thing this morning and did a bit of work while just generally being available for Mike to ask questions. It wasn’t long though, before I got an urgent work order from the junior high regarding some trouble in their cafeteria. I headed across town and got them going pretty easily, and even got a cookie for my troubles.

The library seemed a little terse today with their new duties, and I don’t really know what they have to be upset about. I guess it’s just resistance to change, which is common anyway. I went to lunch pretty late since I was on a roll on closing out work orders. I just grabbed a free Whopper and some onion rings, then ate at home.

I went back to the high school for a little while after lunch, but then had to meet Kyle and Greg for a touch panel swap at Sequoyah. Gary had already helped Kyle load up the truck by the time I got there, so we just met Greg at the school as the buses were loading. The SMART E70 came down without too much trouble, and it was about the best time I’ve ever had removing one.

The girls were staying in, so I left work a little late after chatting with Ben for a little while, then went to my parents’ house for dinner. I needed to pick up some batteries for my Nerf gun, so I went to Walmart and wandered through the aisles for a little while before coming home for the evening.

Summer’s phone died on her earlier in the day, so she had to file a warranty claim. My new Galaxy S21 Ultra was supposed to be here tomorrow, but now the shipping information says it’s delayed without any additional information. Hopefully it arrives early next week so I can get it set up in time for the trip.

Okay, so what do you need.. besides a miracle?
Nerf. Lots of Nerf.

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Imperotive

It felt super cold today from how wet it’s been. I went to the high school first thing, and sat in with Mike all day. I tried to just be there so he could ask his questions, and guide him on a few work orders. He’s still having trouble keeping on task and closing out some of the simpler ones, so hopefully we can break him out of that before the start of school when it becomes much more overwhelming.

Lunch came around pretty quickly, and I picked up some Arby’s and surprised Summer at work. After we ate, I went to the shop and ended staying there the rest of the day, poking at Impero and contacting support so we can spin up another server to support all of the client connections we have.

The girls went to dinner with their father, so I went home and waited for Summer to get off work. She ended up just going home afterward anyway, which was a better choice all around anyway. Becky came by and dropped off a tiny painting she made me for Christmas, and we chatted for a little bit before I went to my parents’ house for dinner. Then it was back home for a cold, quiet evening.

Peek-a-moo!

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Adminton

Summer had to leave for Little Rock early this morning, so I took the kids to school. This time we even made it on time! I stuck around the junior high all morning since there were plenty of tickets for me to close. That office still doesn’t feel like mine, and it’s definitely not as useful. I’ll have to rearrange to make sense of all the crap that’s in there now.

Melinda wanted to go to lunch, so Josh suggested Morelos. Once we all agreed, she mentioned wanting pizza, so we went to Brick Oven instead. The service was actually pretty quick today, so we made it back relatively close to time. Then I tinkered in the shop until Ben sent me back to the junior high to meet with Matt, Janie, and Kelsey about their 1:1 device policies and procedures.

It took a little while, but eventually he understood what I was trying to explain, and I think tensions dropped a lot as we finished because he realized we weren’t hurting as badly for devices as everyone originally thought. Ultimately what I learned was that things are dumb because nobody wants to think through the policy and then enforce it until everything goes to hell, and then everyone just individually comes up with something that works until someone else tells them otherwise. If we had just assumed control of the project, I think things would have worked out better, and I doubt anyone would have bucked.

Eaddie had her flute lesson, so I dropped her off and got Autumn. Then they wanted to go on to karate early, so I dropped them off and went to my parents’ house to drop off the Fiero title. I wasn’t really hungry after the big lunch, but I ended up having a little bowl of curry before heading home to clean up.

The girls stopped by on the way home since Autumn failed to pack everything she deemed necessary, and then I continued to clean up clutter around the kitchen. It’s been slow progress as usual, but still working in the right direction.

Be gone, sticky mug!

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You Too Shall Pass

We got a bit of a downpour last night, with lightning, thunder, and the works. My power went out just long enough to turn all the living room lights on, and evidently something happened to at least one of the stoplights on the way to work, because it defaulted to either flashing yellow or red. I started the day off at the shop and quickly got pulled into looking at other peoples’ problems. We just have too many freshies and not enough support for them. They’ll be great if they stick around a while, but it’s too tempting to go somewhere that pays better for similar work.

Gary, Zach, and Greg wanted to go to Linhs for lunch. The food was great, but the service has been severely lacking lately, for similar reasons. I think I’ve seen new servers working every time I come in, and everyone she hires seems very green. It took us an hour and a half to get out of there, but nobody complained.

I spent the afternoon with Mike at the high school, and tried to show him a few other things. I’m sure he’s capable, but he really is kind of all over the place. I imagine he’s acting exactly like I did when I started, which is understandable. Working for the school is a whole different kind of beast. We left later than we should have to get a TV to mount downstairs. Of course we had to mount a plywood board first, since it was a drywall installation. We actually made pretty good time for it just being the two of us, but we didn’t get any of the new cabling run. We also forgot to remove the black tag from the box before we threw it in the dumpster.

As soon as we got back to the shop, I hopped in the car and went to pick up the girls that were still at the high school, and took them to my parents’ for dinner. We just had some quick leftovers before I had to get Autumn back to the high school for Monday night class. She failed her biology class, so for the next seven weeks she’s going to be eating up an hour and a half of our time every Monday evening.

I decided to treat Eaddie to some ice cream at Bocadillos since she passed all of her classes, and I guess that’s the bar we had inadvertently set. Then we went back to my house for a little while since we had more time to kill. When we got back to the high school, I ran back to the dumpster to retrieve the black tag we threw away, and then we waited for Autumn to make her way through a big crowd of students as they left for the evening.

Summer is leaving me on kid duty tomorrow morning since she has to drive to Little Rock, so I took the girls home to clean up, and then we all came back to my house for the evening. Hopefully tomorrow I can close out some of my own tickets.

Much disappoint.

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Entitlement

The girls got up this morning and went home so I could clean up around the house some more. I semi-randomly wandered around and cleaned up clutter, throwing out a fair amount of trash in the process. I looked some more for the title for my ’84 Fiero, but all I found were old check registers and medical bills.

When dinner time came around, I went to my parents’ house for shrimp noodle soup. Then I headed back home a little melancholy. I spent some more time cleaning in the kitchen, and what would you know, I found the title. It was on the kitchen counter all this time, because evidently I couldn’t find a better place for it.

It’s been all carrot and no stick for too long.

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Eat It, Fix It, File It, Find It, Wipe It, Roll It, Fail, Upgrade It

I met Josh and Aaron at Waffle House for breakfast this morning. We had a really good time catching up over coffee, and we collectively realized that we’ll have to just schedule something every month, like the old folks that congregate for breakfast at Hardee’s every Sunday.

When we left there, I stopped by Mark’s for about an hour and finished up some work for him. I was successful with everything I had to touch today, which was a relief. Hopefully the Outlook sync finished up fine after I left. There was still plenty of the day left to waste unintentionally, so I went home to try and clean up while the girls were gone.

I filed some old paperwork, but couldn’t find my old Fiero title. I assumed it never left my parents’ house. Summer came back by for a little bit to help, but I had already lost my way for the most part. While I was running around the house, I had trouble getting music to play on the speakers I wanted. I ended up pulling out an old router and wasting the rest of the afternoon trying to set it up as a range extender to see if better WiFi coverage would help.

The girls eventually came back over and we went to my parents’ house for spring rolls. Dad picked up Nova for dinner as well, and then we all sat down to watch Rustlers’ Rhapsody. I didn’t realize how old it was until I looked it up later, but I should have known.

When we got back home, I completed my wireless repeater setup and put Summer to bed. Finally, Eaddie and I ended the night with the last episode of the first season of House.

What’s so great about you is you always think you’re right. And what’s so frustrating about you is you are right so much of the time.