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Say, “No” to “No!”

I decided to go in for a half day today since I had a few things I wanted to take care of before the three-day weekend. Everyone started at the shop, but then I was off to the high school. I stopped at Casey’s for a free slice, then got to work on testing printer deployment to users instead of computers. It took me way longer than I expected, and I think the point of failure was initially drivers. By the afternoon, I had it working on at least one computer.

I left a while after lunch time once I reached a stopping point. I cleaned up some leftovers at home before trying to earn some loot boxes in Overwatch. It was pretty frustrating to work so hard for them, only to get almost exclusively duplicate items. Eventually I started working on cleaning up a bit around the house before Summer was ready to get gas.

I met her at Shell to use my 30¢ discount, then came home again to continue cleaning until she brought the girls over for the evening. We had planned to go to Harbor Freight, but I think picking up dinner took a bit longer than expected. On top of that, the girls had gotten a bit too comfortable in their disobedience and needed some firm direction. You know you’re off track when they start suggesting their own punishments. It will only get more strict from here.

We ate our Popeye’s and put off Harbor Freight for the following morning. I got a little distracted while the girls watched some TV, and then we called it a night.

Go ahead and add the number to Child Protective Services to your contact list, because you’re gonna need them if you act like that again.

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Captaining 101

We skipped the shop this morning and got Autumn straight into imaging laptops. It took me a little bit to get any traction with any particular task, but I got a few miscellaneous things accomplished throughout the day.

Allen called for lunch, so Autumn and I picked up some Arby’s and took it back to the shop for him. The fast food deals have been pretty rockin’ since Coronavirus came to town. As long as it’s only a looming fear and doesn’t kill anyone I particularly care about, it can stay around as long as it dadgum wants, man.

It was a short afternoon with more of the same. Then I had to take Autumn to physical therapy again. While she was there, I stopped in to Mark’s office to take care of a failed email import task. That didn’t take long, then I got Autumn and we went to see Summer at work.

I needed an oil change, so we made Autumn pull my car into the bay under much duress. We couldn’t figure out why she was so adamant that she wasn’t going do what we told her, but Summer didn’t take any guff. She did slightly run over an employee, but he lived.

From there, we spent a little time at my house with the cat, then went up the hill to start making dinner. I cleaned the grill and cooked some chicken breasts for salads. Autumn, always having to be different, made a little wrap instead. While I was grilling, I made her come outside so I could talk at her about her feelings earlier in the day, and I think she ultimately appreciated the gesture. The chicken also turned out great, and the salads were awesome. Afterward, Summer watched a little bit of Moana with Autumn, then went to bed. I wasn’t terribly far behind.

At least someone accomplished something today.

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Docked Out Till We Clocked Out

I woke up this morning with a knot on my head, and no idea how it got there. I didn’t remember hitting my head last night, but I did hit it pretty hard a couple weeks ago when we were unpacking student laptops. I couldn’t imagine why it would start throbbing and grow into a lump again today after all that time, but there it was.

Autumn tried to stay home today, but I refused to let her. We went by the shop first thing to see if we could take Kyle with us again. Then we let him image student devices while we swapped docking stations. We left him just before lunch to meet the others at the shop. Then Allen joined us for Cici’s.

After lunch, we got some additional new-hire paperwork signed for Autumn, then went back to the high school to continue with docks. Kyle needed a break from that monotony, so I traded him for Autumn and let her image laptops while Kyle and I finished docking stations.

We got almost all of them finished, but had a couple that were checked out to inverted room numbers, and I think a couple that I will have to swap out tomorrow. We got a little bit lost in some of the older parts of the building, and even locked ourselves out once, so we had to walk around the safe room to get back in.

Autumn and I finished up with one last dock at the indoor practice facility, then went to my house for a while so I could put some ice on my head. The knot just sort of swelled up and hurt worse throughout the course of the evening. We stopped by Walmart so she could get some bath stuff and some chicken to cook for dinner, and then we headed up to their house for the evening.

Summer got home in the middle of Autumn making her chicken pasta. It didn’t take too long for us to eat and split up again. Summer and I chatted for a while and watched some more car reviews before bed.

Ahoy hoy, Captain!

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Work Permitted

Autumn and I got up to go to work this morning, and did our best to find a groove. She started imaging student laptops while I put out a few fires. There was a power transformer issue over the weekend that left our main switch closet downstairs without power, but that was an easy fix by the time I got there. Kayla was in and out to bring me returned teacher laptops.

We met at the shop for lunch, and went with Zach and Greg to Las Palmas to eat. Afterward, we stopped by central office so Autumn could sign her tax paperwork, but Cindy had just stepped out for lunch. Instead, we shipped back off to high school to accomplish as much as we could. Autumn replaced a couple laptop LCD panels, which I thought was a good break from imaging laptops, and wasn’t as scary for her as it might have seemed without any prior experience.

Kyle was supposed to come by to help, but only showed up just as Autumn and I were leaving for her physical therapy appointment. It was nice to be able to give a quick 20-second rundown of how to image devices and then leave without having to explain things in more detail. I dropped Autumn off and went back to the shop to get Autumn’s paperwork, but she’ll still have to sign it in the morning.

I went back to the high school so Kyle wouldn’t be sitting there without any other direction, but we didn’t have long left in the day. He took off shortly after quitting time, and I wasn’t terribly far behind. I ran home to change, then met up with Mark again to take care of a few issues they had uncovered.

We finished up right about the time that Summer and the girls were done, so I met them at my parents’ house for bún thang. Summer was pretty bad off with nerve pain again, so we didn’t stick around terribly long. I stayed to chat for just a little longer, then met the girls at their house for the evening.

Time to over-analyze for maximum-output decision making.

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Ruby Steaks

Twoscore ago, my parents made the brilliant choice to hitch up and start a life together. Julie was out of town, but Summer and I thought it would be fun to grill some steaks for them after the letdown of the year yesterday at Logan’s. She left to go to the gym and mow the lawn while I cleaned up a bit at home. The girls would be back in time for dinner, so we had their father drop them off at my parents’ house.

When she was ready, I picked Summer up and we headed to Walmart for a quick run-through for the meats. My parents had everything for mashed potatoes, broccoli salad, and some other vegetables, so we got steaks, kielbasas, some smoked cheddar sausages for Autumn, and then some frozen shrimp at the last minute.

I had a little trouble with the heat on the grill, and I think I overcooked Mom’s strip steaks. The others seemed to come out a nice, pink, medium rare. I had a porterhouse all to myself, and the tenderloin side just melted in my mouth. I knew I ate too much, but I had some making up to do after those sirloin atrocities from yesterday.

We didn’t stick around too long since the kids were exhausted. Summer still felt pretty nauseous, so we headed back to their house where she climbed straight into bed. Eaddie and I stayed up a little while playing more iMessage games, and eventually I headed to bed.

Without you, none of this would have been necessary.

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Logan’s Roadkill

Summer and I decided to run to Conway today instead of going all the way to Hot Springs. I was hoping to score a deal on some Nest cameras, among other things. She went to the gym while I got ready at home. I accidentally spilled a bunch of water in the kitchen and had to clean it up first, so I took a frustration break in Overwatch before we headed out.

Our first stop was Logan’s Roadhouse for a late lunch because we were both super hungry. It was the absolute worst food I’ve ever had from a Logan’s. I let them talk me into a choice sirloin that I could barely even cut with a serrated knife, much less chew. Worse yet, the steak didn’t even have any flavor. It was truly awful. Even the potato was bad, with Summer feeling like they were overcooked and dry, and me thinking the opposite that they were undercooked. The service was great, but I wasn’t going to send the food back. I just cut my steak into tiny little pieces, mixed it up with the potato and A1, and swallowed it whole.

Our next stop was Home Depot to see if they had my Nest cameras. We wandered around the store for a bit and ultimately ended up at a register with a piece of paper off of a tear-off calendar-like display. I went to talk to the manager as she got into the locker to look for the goods, and she was the polar opposite of helpful. She didn’t seem to understand a word I was saying, and just had a completely garbage attitude. Maybe it was the masks, because I know I was sick of mine just from our first store visit.

Next up was Kohl’s to burn a $5 reward, bringing a blouse for Summer down to just over a buck. This was our first win of the day, but the mask was really wearing on me by this point. Our next stop was Sam’s, where we just picked up a couple small things and left. On our way out of the shopping center, we decided to stop at Rita’s Italian Ice. This was our second win of the day, because the custard and Italian ice were both amazing.

On the way home, I remembered wanting to get a carwash, so we stopped by Splash and got a quick detail. They were pretty dead, so they had the job done faster than I could pepper my lunch potato.

Summer didn’t feel great most of the afternoon, so when we got home, I put on Fun with Dick and Jane until she was ready to go to bed. Then I played some iMessage games with Eaddie to end the night.

Now all I can think about is an actually-tasty steak.

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Is This What White People Sound Like?

I went to the shop first thing this morning to try and recruit some help moving all of the old laptops from my office to The UPS Store. Josh and Kyle drew the short straws, so I got the truck and we headed out. We managed to get it all into the back of the truck, except for a half box of laptops that we forgot to grab.

Once that was done, I dropped Josh and the truck off, and then Kyle and I went back to the high school to replace some docking stations. It got me a little out of my groove I was in, but we got a lot accomplished and I appreciated the help. He was only working the half day, so he cut out at lunch and I went back to my office for the afternoon.

I still had a leftover sandwich in the fridge, so I ate that while I worked. All of my flash drives accepted the new laptop image, so hopefully I can start on that next week. I got a couple huge boxes of parts in, but it was all for Heather’s new laptops, so I’ll have her come take them away eventually.

After work, took the last few laptops to The UPS Store and encountered a loud, ignorant couple that was just hellbent against wearing masks. It seemed like they were just out for an argument, because he was wearing a completely open mesh mask that I guess was intended to comply with the most generic definition of the word. The girl at the counter asked them to step away, and they both immediately started spouting off about how the CDC said surgical masks didn’t protect against COVID-19, and asked on whose authority was his mask deemed unworthy. I’m sure if they had done a little more digging on that same internet where they found their information, they would have learned that idiots and assholes are not protected classes of people, and that private establishments like The UPS Store aren’t infringing on their rights by not serving them. I spent the rest of my evening winning arguments and delivering sick burns to them in my mind.

I stopped by to see Summer on the way home, and then finally broke out my new carpet cleaner to make my living room a little less gross. It seemed to do a really great job, and really made me want to continue on cleaning the rest of the house. It did pull up a lot of carpet lint, but I figured at its age, that wasn’t enough of a reason to stop cleaning. I felt like the room looked a lot better when I was done.

Summer headed over after work while I ran to Walmart to pick up some wet cat food. Split has lost a ton of weight from his formerly fat and floppy self, so I imagine he’s finally on his way out after 15 years. He really took to the canned food when I got home though, so maybe he was just having trouble with the dry stuff.

I warmed up the leftover nachos with some extra salad stuff and watched Forged in Fire with Summer until she started to fall asleep on the couch. I think even I was more tired than I realized.

The lady asked you to leave….

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One, Two, Three O’Clock, Four O’Clock, Dock

I went in this morning and scrapped the flash drives I made yesterday in favor of making new ones with current Windows Updates. While that processed, I got a cart together and started replacing docking stations. I just kept chugging along, well into lunch. I missed the email that Ben sent out offering to buy everyone lunch to welcome Kyle to the team. He called me just after I found it, and I ran to Linh to meet them.

After lunch, I chugged away at more docks until I finished the bottom floor. That left me just enough time to start copying more flash drives before heading home to change. Then I went by Mark’s office again to help his other staff with their questions.

When I got back home, the house was a balmy 85 degrees, and it was clear that my air conditioner was doing nothing but pushing hot air around. Summer went home, and I picked up some Taco Villa for dinner on the way.

Summer had Forged in Fire on, but otherwise it was an uneventful night. At least it was cool in her house.

Start a dockin’ round the clock again…

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Commendearing Cow

I did it. I got up nearly an hour and a half early this morning in commitment to a joke that only served to entertain myself. I had the time, so I stopped in to Casey’s for a free breakfast slice on the way to work. When I got there, the new guy was already standing awkwardly downstairs outside the basement doors. I guess nobody told him we’ve been starting at 9am, so he showed up at 7:45am.

We went inside, and I invited him into Ben’s my office, where I planted my pirate flag and sat down in his my chair. We chatted for a few minutes while I opened up my laptop to check some email, until Ben and Greg walked in together. Ben came in and without any hesitation just knocked my pirate flag off his desk and pushed me out of his chair. I was really hoping we’d have an hour to chat alone, but with Kyle starting his first day and others trickling in, it just didn’t happen. We all sort of openly groaned about how disappointed we were in his response to the board last night, but I guess that’s just what we get for trying.

I made my way to the high school and started on a few things there. Most of it blurred together into a haze of meaningless work, but I know I got a couple docking stations swapped. It was uncharacteristically quiet for my hallway, but I wasn’t going to complain. I made my way back to the shop in case anyone wanted to have lunch, and Allen suggested Cici’s. He got Greg and Josh to go, and even Kyle and Melinda decided to join us. Summer took the day off from work and met us there to eat.

Kyle was kind of super awkward, though seemingly familiar. He kept making jokes about all the cops and Army fellows coming in because they heard about my act of piracy this morning, but I never saw anyone from the Navy.

After lunch, I started to go back to the high school but got roped into helping Allen get the bus yard gate open. I thought it would be an easy task, but then we both got trapped and had to call on Gary to let us out. I guess our garage door opener was failing, so he had to borrow one from maintenance to let us out.

Once I finally got back to the high school, the afternoon went by pretty quickly. I started pumping out flash drives for the student devices, and it was time to go before I knew it. I headed home to meet Richard from Dependable, and he poked around my air units to check for leaks. I’m not even sure he checked whether it was low, but he ended up adding some dye before he left, and said he would be back in a few weeks.

Summer came back shortly after, and I started picking up a tiny bit while she watched TV. I washed my comforter, warmed up some egg rolls, and made myself a salad with what she brought over. We spent the evening shopping and dreaming about cars, and it just made me sad to know how poor I am.

You know it’s going to be a long day when you start by commandeering the whole department.

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Fumble

I had to get gas first thing this morning, so I decided to Treat Yo Self to a Wendy’s Maple Bacon Chicken Croissant on the way back to work. It was delicious, if not a bit of a greasy mess. Work was a bit stressful first thing just because teachers are still trickling in, and my math hallway always seems to be super needy. I can’t tell if it’s just because they’re closest to me, or if it’s because they legitimately just have more software needs than other departments.

Ben texted me to say that five of them were going to Linh for lunch, and I didn’t want to miss out on the group meal even though I wasn’t really hungry yet. I just had a couple spring rolls since they were mostly iceberg lettuce anyway. While we were there, I mentioned trying to put things into motion that would get us some attention from the school board. I figured that would help right the ship, but it’s possible I misjudged the point of failure.

After lunch, I tinkered with my flash drives and came to the conclusion that any speed difference beyond the initial copying of data to the drives was negligible. The $10 extra per flash drive ($400 in total) would only really save me about four minutes (half the time) of making and updating each of the drives.

I went by the shop at the end of the day so I could return the one failed drive that I had, and tried to help Ben with an imaging issue on a brand new laptop model. Then I headed to Mark’s office to help a couple of the others there. We got a fair bit fixed in a short amount of time since it was less teaching and more doing, even though I had to tinker with it a bit myself to even figure out what I was doing.

When we finished, I went home for a little bit to wait for Summer to get off work. Then I met her at her house to make up some leftovers for dinner. It felt good to clean up the couple of things we did. While we were there, I got a couple messages about the school board meeting and tried to check out the live stream. Unfortunately there was no way to scrub back in time, so I had to wait for the stream to finish before I could go back and watch it.

Summer and I headed back to my house for the evening, and she settled right into bed. I tinkered online for a bit longer than I should have, but it looks like this captain has some work to do.