Category: Uncategorised

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Rinse and Repeat

I spent most of the morning duplicating flash drives for next week’s imaging party. Heather will be with me then since they’re going to be her laptops next year, but today it was just me by myself finishing up what I started at the beginning of the week.

Gary and I ran by Wendy’s for some lunch, and I had some trouble with the app. There was no line at all, so I just ended up ordering off of the menu for about four times what I would have paid for my promotion through the app. Then I spent all afternoon shopping for more flash drives.

After work, I stopped by the shop to see Summer since she seemed busy all day. She had a lot going on, so we chatted for a little bit before I headed home to meet Zach. He eventually came over after interviewing at the shop, and started working on the Fiero again. We got some brake fluid into the clutch reservoir, and I was able to get the car in and out of gear. The starter worked, but the fuel pump never made a sound.

Zach’s father and grandfather came over to look at it for a little bit as well, and then they all left for dinner. When Summer finally got home after her long day, I went to Zaxby’s to pick up some dinner. I heard a pretty loud wreck from the end of the block, but it was too dark to really see anything.

I wrapped up the evening with some Overwatch with Johnny and Aaron. The kids are gone all weekend, so tomorrow is my chance to clean up at home.

Bite off more than you can chew; What can you do?
DARE TO BE STUPID

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The Breakthrough

I finally did it. I made a successful imaging task sequence. What’s more, the problem-step was early enough that I could fix it in one of my later sequences to quickly skip back through all the other additions I made.

Allen came back to the shop for lunch and wanted Bocadillos again, so I let him and Gary talk me into going for the third day in a row. It worked out in our favor though, because one of the school board members was having lunch there and decided to surprise us by sneakily going up and paying for our meals.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on into the evening copying flash drives and tinkering with the group policy setting that’s causing some weird issues with the Start Menu. It all comes down to what should be an unnecessary shortcut for staff that can’t seem to use the search function successfully.

I had to stop by the high school to pick up more flash drives before getting waxed out tomorrow, and then I went home to relax for a while. I got a surprise gift in the mail from Jennifer all the way from New Mexico to put up next to Becky’s other paintings. Then I tried to play some Overwatch, which lead to a lot more troubleshooting an issue with my display drivers to fix a flickering screen.

Eventually I made it up to Summer’s where I caught an episode of The Punisher with Eaddie before bed.

It wasn’t even procrastination so much as poor timing.

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Step Back

I still didn’t really get anywhere today in my imaging process. Time is running out, and I’m getting pressure from the custodians, of all people, to get my work done.

Summer came to see me, and then we went to Bocadillos for lunch. It was obvious the bosses weren’t around today, and the change to Latin music was pretty funny after the pop party we attended yesterday. I’m guessing the Christian music will come back around tomorrow.

I worked late, and then Summer brought me one of their boomboxes to loan to the high school for their drive-through retirement party for Bruce. I headed on home and waited for her to bring the girls over from her parents’ house after mowing the lawn.

Autumn wanted to go to Dollar Tree for something, but forgot what when we got there, so I bought a guilt-trip scrub brush. Then they wanted Subway, so we picked up one of the worst bags of food I’ve ever gotten from a Subway before. The sandwich I got for Summer and myself looked like it had been cut an additional time or something, and I would have probably had better luck eating my half with a fork.

Eaddie and I wrapped up the night with an episode of The Punisher, and then it was off to sleep.

We’ll get ’em tomorrow, buddy.

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Unaccomplished

I spent all day banging my head against the wall with my image task sequence. It’s such a slow process to build the media that I only get to test it a couple of times per day, and I’m running out of time. Tomorrow I’ll just have to start over and make smaller changes each time.

A big group of us went to Bocadillos for an excellent lunch, but outside of that I didn’t see many people all day. The Great Technology Hunt of 2020 is still underway.

After work, I had Zach come over to start looking at the Fiero. We went to AutoZone together to pick up a replacement battery, and we could tell the car wanted to turn over, but the clutch was completely shot. There was a very small amount of resistance on the first push, but after that there was none at all. It wasn’t until then that Zach said he didn’t really know anything about clutches, but I figure I don’t have much to lose outside of money for replacement parts.

He didn’t stick around for very long, and I figure I’ll eventually have to just let him have the keys so he can work on it during the day while I’m gone. Once my load of laundry finished, I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. I grabbed some Zaxby’s for dinner on the way, and we made salads at home with some chicken strips. Then it was an early evening to bed.

I don’t remember the Fiero being this close to the ground…

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Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Tech Dudes

Our department sign came down at some point over the weekend, and somehow found a way to make itself more relevant than ever. Most of the group was out chasing iPads while I spent the day troubleshooting my OS deployment package. I felt pretty good about the changes I made, but it was pretty time consuming to compile the packages and actually test the changes.

Gary helped guide me a bit between working on his own things, and when the time came, we ran to Slim Chickens to pick up some lunch. My Cayenne Ranch Chicken Sandwich was unsurprisingly spiceless, but tasty enough, though seemingly smallish. I asked for fries, but got fried pickles instead somehow. They were alright, but overpriced. The chips were great, but I knew that going in.

The afternoon was mostly more of the same, but I had to leave before my final USB drive was finished. I stopped by the shop to check in with Summer, then ran home to do a little cleaning and start some laundry. Zach stopped by to chat about the Fiero and his ride he picked up. He still wants to work on my car, so I guess we’re going to give that a try tomorrow.

I eventually made my way up to Summer’s for the evening, and I cleaned up some leftovers for dinner. Eaddie and I watched an episode of The Punisher, and then it was off to bed.

When they move your office location due to departmental cutbacks.

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Post up and Roll Out

We all slept pretty well last night after such a long day. As soon as Dad was free, I met him at my house to replace the wooden support posts by the front door. It was so hot and humid, but we made relatively short work of it, and I think it looked pretty good.

I cooled off a while inside while Summer and the girls went to get supplies together, then I met them at my parents’ house to swim for a bit before dinner.

Julie came over, and Mom spent all morning getting things together for beef spring rolls. Even Autumn did well with an alternative meal of beef and noodles with some vegetables since she didn’t care for the rice paper. Then Mom made strawberry shakes for dessert.

We poked around the house for a little bit after dinner, and I tried out my old Ninja Turtles suspenders that I never actually wore during my childhood because I hated suspenders. Then we all headed back up to Summer’s for the evening.

In hindsight, maybe we should have measured the distance between pillars.

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COVID Springs and Corona Falls

I got up as early as I could will myself out of bed this morning and got ready for a day out of town. The girls were ready and waiting for me, so I picked them up and we stopped at Arby’s for lunch before hitting the road. We ate at the park across the street, then I had to send off some pirate mail, and finally we were off to Magic Springs.

The drive always seems faster than Little Rock just because it’s more fun going through the mountains. Summer informed me an hour into the drive that she didn’t bring her swim suit, so we stopped by Walmart in the Village so she could buy another one. They didn’t have a great selection, but we pieced one together that worked well.

The parking lot seemed absolutely packed when we got to Magic Springs, but I got pretty lucky with a spot close to the gate. We made our way through the season pass processing for Autumn, got all of our souvenir bottles, and started down the hill toward the roller coasters. We got down to the bottom and realized that they had signs up on a lot of the rides that masks were required, and they didn’t hand any out at the front, so we had to walk all the way back up to the car.

By that time, we were all so hot that we just wanted to go to the water park, so we rented a locker and got changed, then made our way around to the lazy river. That thing was packed to capacity, and they were limiting people to one loop at a time since there was a line of people waiting for tubes. I never could really figure out why they offered tube rentals, since they have tubes available at all the slides. They weren’t allowed in the wave pool, so I don’t even know where else they were relevant.

Eaddie got a nose bleed on a trip to the restrooms, so I hung out with her for a while, then Autumn and I went to go get some drinks. They loaded two $5 coupons on each of our passes as a means of compensation since they refused to refund anyone due to the pandemic. I assumed it was $10 that spent like cash, but it was a use or lose it in one transaction. The girl at the counter was so nice that she ended up just giving us four drinks for free so I didn’t have to go back for money or burn my coupons.

We spent a little time in the wave pool, then did another water slide before changing and going back to the roller coasters. It was much cooler by that time in the afternoon, and we had a pretty good time. Pretty much nobody was social distancing though, so I’m pretty certain we all have COVID now. We could hear the concert in the background, but none of us had any interest in staying late for some fellow named Zach Williams.

By the end of the day we had all worked up some pretty good appetites, so I found a restaurant called Colorado Grill. We made our way across town and had some of the best chips and salsa I’ve ever had. The fajitas were amazing, and the girls had a couple huge burritos that looked really great too. Our fajitas came with some barbecue ribs on top that seemed kind of pointless. I would have preferred more fajita stuff, especially after I rolled a saucy rib down my shirt and onto my pants.

On the way out of town, we stopped by the fountain to fill up some water bottles. Shelby spotted me and stopped to say hi, and then we headed straight home and off to bed.

I knew we should have stopped for a funnel cake.

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Docking Request Accepted

We actually had a proper team meeting this morning with some updates from Ben, and then Zach telling us what to do while he’s on vacation for the next two weeks. I think the others were sent off to collect devices at the elementaries, but Ben helped me load a truck full of new docking stations to deliver to the high school. Allen immediately volunteered to help me swap them out, so he and I got the delivery done and a plan made before lunch.

Most everyone met back at the shop, and we went to Linh for lunch. Then Allen and I went back to the high school to start our deployment. It took us a little bit to get into a groove, and I had to make a trip back to the shop for the new video adapters, but we got a decent amount done before quitting time.

When I got home, I played some Overwatch to kill time until Summer got off work. She didn’t get home until pretty late though, and I got buried in several hours of trying to re-image a MacBook. I finally had to fall back on piracy just to get a recovery image, and it took me a few tries to get it to work, but by the end of the night I had a working MacBook from nearly a decade ago.

By then it was too late to get out, only to have to come back again in the morning. I got things ready and tried to get to bed at a decent hour so we could leave for Magic Springs before midday.

Hi, my name is Michael and I haven’t played Animal Crossing in two days.

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Spitting Image

Right after I got into the shower, they started working on the water lines down the road and I lost all of my water pressure. I practically had to jump around just to get wet. It was really humid this morning, but otherwise the weather was really nice. I rode the bike to work again, but I really need to take it in for scheduled maintenance. We still didn’t have any projects to do, so I spent all morning working on the wiki again. I think I finally got it to a place where I could be happy with it, so all that’s left is to get people to start creating articles for procedures and documentation.

Zach and Greg went to pick up Arby’s for lunch, and then Gary helped me dissect the imaging task sequence so I could rebuild it with a few changes for next year’s leased devices. I felt really happy with my level of understanding, and I even got in a little learning about subnetting on the side.

At the end of the day, Gary had to go to Sequoyah to do some more fiber switching, so I joined him again. As we left the shop, I looked up and saw the brightest, cleanest, bluest sky I think I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t see a cloud, a jet trail, or anything else in the sky at all. It was just pure blue.

When we finished, I stopped by Leonard’s to pick up a pry bar, Casey’s for a free water, and the shop to see Summer, all before heading home to play some Overwatch. The evening went by pretty quickly, and I eventually headed up to her house for the night.

Summer and Autumn were watching TV in bed, so Eaddie and I watched an episode of The Punisher before going to bed ourselves.

This season is a laugh track away from being a sitcom.

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Sitting in an Office and Doing Stuff

It was way cooler outside today after all the rain, so I decided to take the bike in to work. They didn’t really need me for group work, so I stayed at the shop and worked on things in my office. It was really quiet all day, and I only took a break to pick up lunch with the guys.

We had Tacos 4 Ever again, and this time I tried the nachos. At first I was worried that they looked small, but they really packed a lot into that foil dish. The chips got soggy too, so there wasn’t a lot of air taking up space where the precious food could go. It was packed densely with lots of meat and flavor.

I spent most of the afternoon tinkering with the wiki again, and I think I’ve been fighting incompatible versions with the VisualEditor extension. I stayed late again just because I felt like I was making a little bit of progress, and then Ben ran me off again.

The ride home was nice and I wished I could have just ridden off somewhere, but I had to get home and out of work clothes. Then I just didn’t feel like getting back out, so I played some Overwatch and sold some turnips on someone else’s island.

Eventually I made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and the girls were back home from their father’s. Summer was already in bed though, so I just laid around with her until my own bedtime.

Make sure your output correlates with the input.