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Meeting the New Doctor

I had to go in for my 6-month checkup today, and my old nurse Stephanie had left some time ago. They actually scheduled me with Doctor Carter, whom I’d never once met. I got to sleep in a little, then went straight to the clinic where they got me back behind the door in record time. I still had to wait a while for the doctor to see me, and once he got there he basically went on a 20-minute rant about how I can’t eat starchy, fried foods. Both times in my life that I’ve had to meet a new primary care physician, that’s all I get. This time was probably the worst with assumptions about the kind of diet I have. Just tell me to exercise and move on with it.

When I finished up with that mandatory meeting, I went to Superfast for an oil change and to convince Summer to go to lunch with me before I had to go to work. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had left my car idling in line for a while, but after the oil change I had to get a jump start to get moving again. We stowed my car in the back bay for a charge, then took hers to Denny’s for a couple free Beyond Burgers.

Steven and his coworker were there for lunch as well, and they seemed to be having a better time. Summer seemed genuinely surprised that our service was horrible, but I’ve only very rarely had a good experience there. The food is always fine, but it’s always incredibly slow. It took us half an hour to get our drinks, and mine wasn’t even what I ordered. Our waitress actually brought them out with our food, so we just scarfed everything down at once. The burger was decent, but they were definitely disguising it with a fancy bun. The bun was great, but it was about three times the size of the burger patty. The patty itself tasted okay, but was a bit too tender.

With lunch out of the way, we headed back to the shop so I could go to work. Alex evidently tightened my battery terminal, so I didn’t have any trouble the rest of the day. I went by a nearly empty shop for a little while, then went to the high school and spent a good hour walking back and forth, getting in my steps, to work on the sign. I still couldn’t get the radio to talk, so I gave up again. The rest of the afternoon went by super fast as I did mostly things for which I did not have a proper work order.

After work, I went home to change and then ran by Superfast again for a tire rotation. Then I went to AutoZone to have them check my battery. I thought Alex had just adjusted the charger earlier in the day, but Summer said he actually moved the connector down the terminal, so the tester at AutoZone read my battery as low, but healthy.

By the time I finished there, Summer was on her way home with the girls. I stopped by Dollar General to kill a little time and ended up buying a rake. I joked with the cashier that this is why I’m normally not allowed out of the house. Then we had huge salads for dinner and watched The Matrix Revolutions.

Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose.

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Deep Diving

I didn’t really have anything new come in today, so I got to spend my time working on some older work. I started at the arena messing with one of their Crestron iPads. Then I tinkered around in Group Policy for a while because I couldn’t figure out why a printer wouldn’t deploy properly. I ended up heading back to the shop, but lunchtime snuck up on me. Gary and Heather were going to Taco Villa, so I tagged along and we brought food back to the shop. Then Gary helped me pick through my Group Policy issue. It all came down to a rogue space in the share name of the device.

Back at the high school, I finally got the Crestron app working after receiving a call back from our vendor. Then I ended the day setting up a bunch of computers in the field house. Autumn and her friend were at the high school for the Harlem Globetrotters, but Summer came to get them and I just went home.

Dad and I talked a bit more about my clogged drain pipe this morning, so I dug out an old, long piece of aluminum to shove down the hole. I poured some more boiling water down the hole to fill it up, and then shoved the stick down as far as I could go. It bent around the angled pipe almost perfectly, and I managed to clear the drain. I still wasn’t sure if there were any roots inside it, and the closet flange was still offset on the pipe, so I left it for another day. I ran by Lowe’s to check out some parts to fix it, and to pick up a windchime on clearance.

Heather had told me during lunch that the Globetrotters event was free for employees, so I tried going out there to check it out. There was a huge line of people, and none of the other employees I talked to knew anything about it being free or even discounted. I wasn’t even aware that it was a charity event, so that made me feel even less good about trying to get in. I ended up going home and doing more research on toilet repairs until bedtime.

Still not hard. Just gross.

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Rooting For You

We started testing today, so it was pretty quiet. It sprinkled for most of the day too, so I didn’t make it down to the field house. Gary had a few minutes to call me and help with some things I had been tinkering with, and I think I learned a bit, and maybe even proved myself a little.

I took an early lunch to meet Ronda, Steven, and a coworker of his at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. It was pretty quiet there today, but it’s possible that was just due to how early we were. I went by the shop for a little bit afterward, then went back to the high school in the rain.

I guess I was a bit too ambitious, because I didn’t quite finish all I wanted to before quitting time. I actually ended up staying pretty late, fighting with a replacement computer I deployed. I actually didn’t even finish, so I’ll have to check on it in the morning as well.

Dad left me a big, flat drain tape to run up under the house, so I met Summer at home to see what we could do. The girls sat in the car the whole time because I don’t think they realized how long it was going to take me. I ran the snake all the way up the sewer pipe without too much trouble, so I had to coil it all back up and go down from the inside of the house. It wasn’t too difficult in spite of how gross the toilet mounting bolts looked. They were so rusted that I could just about pull the whole thing straight up.

With the toilet out of the way, I could see a bright orange root snaking around the drain. Inside was a literal wall of cat poop, completely blocking the pipe. Water could only seep out the drain, and a lot of that was probably my fault for flushing dry cat poop out of the litter box. I’m about at the point that I’m ready to quit using that half-broken automatic CatGenie and go back to a regular box. I called Dad, and we decided to get Roto-Rooter back out to properly snake the drain.

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up a bit, then went to Summer’s for the evening. All the extra work running around the house made me hungry, so I cleaned up some random leftovers and eventually made it to bed.

Well, shit.

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Hot Swaps

I made it to work a bit early this morning and went straight to work swapping out computers so I could take the older ones to the old fieldhouse. Other work kept coming in as well, making it a super busy day for me. Allen wanted to go to lunch, and was actually willing to go five minutes late because I was in the middle of working on something. I met him at Arby’s, and luckily found a pretty good meal-for-two coupon in my car.

After lunch was just as busy, but I was still mostly fighting with imaging the old computers I pulled out. I didn’t get them to the fieldhouse today, but I can have an intern help me tomorrow. When I got home, I started right away on cleaning the cat box. That’s when the trouble really started.

The toilet in my guest bathroom slowed down after a few flushes, and eventually stopped up almost completely. Gross water came out from the bottom, so I know the seal is broken. I spent a while cleaning everything up again, but I’ll probably try and pull the toilet tomorrow to see what’s going on down there.

The remainder of the evening went by pretty quickly as I parsed more email and skimmed through articles of varying interest.

The handyman can, ’cause he fixes it with tape…

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Eat Your Damn Eggs

I got up this morning and cut up some fresh tomatoes and serrano peppers to scramble into some chopped bacon and eggs. Mom used to make something like that, but I’ve always just cheated and used a can of Rotel. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but after cooking off all the liquid, I thought it was perfect. We barely had enough rice for everyone, but Autumn initially refused to touch it anyway. She came into the kitchen and got really quiet when she saw me cooking, which was a good indication that it was about to get dramatic. Summer turned on her Mom Voice™ and made her sit at the table until she ate the bowl I fixed her. A bunch of yelling later, and Autumn called out to me that she actually liked it as we all let out a collective eye roll.

We spent the rest of the day watching TV. The girls each spent a bit of time cleaning up house, and I pulled all the literal trash out of the junk drawers. We sobbed through a bunch more Glee, and had leftovers for dinner. I wanted to be more productive, but I guess it was my own fault for not just getting up and going home.

Who started this tagline tradition anyway?

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Just a Formality

I couldn’t sleep in much today because of how bright it was in my room, so I spent most of the day pretty tired after my long night. Summer took Eaddie home, so I got straight to cleaning up for the day. After my shower, I finally tested out my new faucet and found that it leaked pretty badly at the drain. After mopping up all the water under the sink, I spent a little while tightening up all the connections until it didn’t really seem to leak any more. I’ll have to test it some more later, but I think it will probably be good enough when used normally and not pumping water into the bowl as fast as I can.

I had to go to my parents’ house to get some red envelopes for the kids, but Bác Vân came over and asked to borrow a bunch of money on my way out. I typically don’t have instant access to that much cash on a weekend without any notice, so I wished her good luck and many learned lessons. When I got to my parents’ house, Dad was recovering from feinting a bit after his surgery. I didn’t have time to stick around for very long because Summer had lunch ready, so I grabbed some envelopes and headed up to their house.

Summer’s mom was there finishing up Autumn’s dress, so I had lunch and just sat around with the kids. When she left and after we had all eaten, Summer and I went to Walmart for some stuff for dinner. Once she had that going, we watched some TV until Autumn’s date for the formal arrived. We missed the really good lighting, so I just did the best I could with what we had. Then we settled in and watched Glee until the dance was over.

Suzanne was in town and stopped by for just a little while to watch one episode with us. Then we chatted for just a little bit more before she left. Autumn eventually made it home, and the girls all crashed. I played some Overwatch with Clint, Josh, and one of his friends, then went to bed myself.

Well, you’ve missed the golden hour, so you get the tasteful yellow glow of a porch light.

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Sink Some Time Into Something

Jason started us off with a pretty lazy morning. I didn’t hear it, but I was assigned to pull some cable with Allen at Sequoyah. The line was supposed to already be there, but needed to be re-routed through the cafeteria. We found the coiled up cable without too much trouble, but the ceilings were high and even our longest ladder from the shop wasn’t tall enough to be of any use at all. To get started, I attached the tone generator on the end we had, then went to the closet to find the other end. I spent 10 or 15 minutes going through the nest of cables coming into that tiny switch closet, but couldn’t find it. When I went back to the other end, Allen had unhooked the tone generator and started trying to route the cable. He said he thought I went to the bathroom, even though he watched me hook up the tone generator and test that we had a tone coming through the line.

Once we got the tone generator back on the line, both of us went back to the closet and still couldn’t find a tone, so I started poking around in the ceiling and ultimately found where the line had been cut just inside the hallway, less than 20 feet from where we needed it to be. Allen wanted to run an extension from another drop in a nearby closet, but I refused. I traced the line back to see what else I could do, and then we took everything back to the shop for lunch.

Gary, Heather, Zach, and I walked to Smackin’ Wings and Things for the Philly cheesesteak fries. It took them half an hour to get our food to us, which was pretty typical. I didn’t really care much for the special, and it didn’t feel quite as loaded as anything I’ve had there before. I finished it just because it wouldn’t have been any better reheated, but I walked out filled with more regret than fries.

After lunch, I stayed at the shop and re-imaged the four computers Jason imaged for me because he used the 2016 LTSB version instead of the newer 2019 LTSC. I guess maybe he had forgotten that none of our Adobe licenses are compatible with the 2016 release, but he got really snippy and ridiculous when I told him what I was doing. As soon as I told him I’d just deliver them myself, he and Allen disappeared as if by magic, to I know not where.

When everyone left, I delivered my computers to the high school and headed home. My new bathroom faucets came in, so I decided to be handy and start on the replacement project since the one in my master bathroom had gotten to leaking quite badly. I had just barely gotten started when Summer arrived with Eaddie. Autumn was staying with her grandmother so she could finish her dress for the dance tomorrow. The remaining three of us headed to Lowe’s for some supply hoses and silicone. I ended up spending about three times as much on hoses as I wanted, but they didn’t have anything cheaper than the stainless steel braided lines.

We ended the evening with a late dinner at New China, and then headed home where I continued my work in the bathroom. The girls seemed pretty tired and passed out kind of early, but it took me a few more hours to break out all the old corroded faucets. I managed to get everything in place though, and I didn’t appear to have any water leaks. The silicone needs 12 hours to cure, so I won’t get to actually test the faucets until tomorrow. At least the spare bathroom won’t be as difficult since it already has new supply lines that aren’t rigid copper.

The more I tear apart, the less mystical it all seems. I may fix my bathroom yet…

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Cool Winter Drizzle

I really didn’t want to wake up today, but the bells, they were a’ringing. Zach stopped by my office pretty early in the day, and spent quite a while at the high school. Ben showed up just moments later, so I made them some popcorn while I worked on laptops. Ben left, and Gary came to us so the three of us could go to lunch together. We met our new guy, Greg, at Morelos and he and Zach spent most of the time going on about duck hunting.

The afternoon went by pretty slowly as I milled around working on different things. I felt like I’d lost a little bit of direction, and just wanted to go home when I started to get really sleepy. When I did finally get home, I noticed I’d lost at least two or three adult shrimp over the past few days, so I bumped up my thermostat a few degrees assuming it as the cold. The tiny heater in that tank doesn’t seem to work, so I may have to get a new one.

Eventually I left the house to run some things by my parents’ house. They were out shopping, but I had to get the girls from karate anyway. We headed up to their house for some leftover chili before bed.

$4700 in lighting?!?

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What an Ice Day to Be at Work

The surrounding districts, and even Tech closed today, but not us. We were going to tough it out. I didn’t really expect to be let out, but hearing everyone else fuss about it convinced me that I wanted to stay home too. Just as I pulled out of the driveway it started to sleet, but it all melted as soon as it hit my windshield. It wasn’t until I got to the parking lot that my wipers kicked on and smeared the water across my windshield, instantly turning it to a sheet of ice. I wandered into the high school and worked on some laptops.

Jason called out for lunch this time, but by the time I got back to the shop it sounded like he wasn’t a part of the conversation. Allen, Gary, and Ben were up for it though, and the four of us went to Mulan’s for some hot soup and the like. When we got back to the shop, I milled around for a while and had Gary and Ben walk me through some of the automation processes to get a better understanding of how student data is managed between all of the different systems.

Later in the afternoon in the library, Karen made a comment about an inconsistency in the Technology job title in our recent board meeting notes, and we kind of laughed about how nobody even knows what our title is supposed to be, much less what we actually do. Then I tried explaining what I had learned just an hour before about our different synchronization scripts to her and Amber to further emphasize that we don’t “just work on computers.” It’s an incredible amount of planning and learning how other people’s products work so that we can seamlessly integrate them with our own stuff. I’ve had people argue that they have to know a lot, or have an education to do their jobs out there. Maybe it’s an inflated sense of pride for some of the people in my department, but what about those of us that basically have to learn how to do all of their jobs on the fly in order to fix what isn’t working? I’ve never been a part of any department that had to know so much about so many things spanning across the rest of the entire organization, yet people get pissy about only getting a 2-minute primer on how to use their desk phone. Guess what! If you can’t remember the two minutes worth of tips that would have fixed your issue, you get the whole manual!

When I left work, it was still drizzling out, but not quite icy. I went straight home and dove into another couple hours worth of documentation of troubleshooting that I’ve done to my Nanoleaf Aurora light panels. I really didn’t appreciate the copy/paste from the FAQ that I got from support, so hopefully my lengthy response will garner some positive attention.

As I wrapped up for the night, I remembered it being a Hog Wild Wednesday for 10 cents off fuel at the Shell, so I ran across town to top off. In retrospect, I should have stayed out of that miserable weather for the 60 cents I saved. But then again, I am an idiot.

No. No, it’s not something we just run every night like magic. We built that shit from the ground-up.

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Cold Night In

It was super cold all day, and it’s not over yet. I had a few new work orders today, along with a handful of older ones to clean up. It kept me busy up to lunch when I went back to the shop to talk to Ben. Zach and Gary picked Chick-fil-A, so I had their tasty, probably-bad-for-you Spicy Southwest Salad. I’d been wanting to use my free nuggets promo anyway, and the salad’s one of my favorites. I see no reason to ever get a chicken sandwich there again. Amanda was there picking up a DoorDash delivery and snuck up behind me. It was good to see her out and about, and actually dressed up for work instead of slumming it in a hoodie.

Most of my afternoon was spent rebuilding a package for engineering because some driver software wouldn’t install without intervention. It was probably a good thing that I didn’t stick around very long after work, because my car choked when it tried to start. I went straight home and put it onto the charger to see if it would help. It was probably a good thing that it actually took a while to get up to the 100% mark, but I never saw it switch to trickle mode. Hopefully an overnight charge will keep me going tomorrow.

I spent the rest of the evening on some aquarium chores, a little cleanup, and then catching up on email articles I’d been wanting to read. I still usually skip the super wordy ones, but sometimes I find some really interesting, educational ones on subjects that I would otherwise never care to research on my own.

Når eg på Helvegen går og dei spora eg trår er kalda, så kalda.