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Workin’ Truck

I took the Murano in to Orr before work this morning for an oil change and brake fluid recall. I missed my time to catch a ride to work with Summer, so I got Zach to come pick me up. Then I took the work truck to the junior high and worked until lunch. Summer and I grabbed a quick Thanksgiving lunch in the cafeteria, and then I met everyone at the shop so our Belkin rep could take us out for Fat Daddy’s.

After lunch, I helped Gary and Zach clean a bunch of stuff out of the server room before heading back to the junior high. I got several things done to be ready for testing tomorrow, so I don’t anticipate much trouble. I am however still aggravated with another reported 25 missing headsets in my computer labs. It’s insane and unnecessary.

Orr called a couple times throughout the day. First was to ask if they could service my in-cabin air filter. I noticed some foam blowing out of my air vents over the summer, so I had them go ahead and do that. Then I got another call to say they had to order a part, and wanted to know if they could keep my car overnight. Since I agreed to that one, and Ben couldn’t let me take the other work truck home for one night, I had to get a ride home from work. Daddy to the rescue. He picked Eaddie and me up at Gardner, dropped her off for karate, then took me to the high school so I could snag Summer’s car while she was at a quiz bowl scrimmage.

I ran home to change before picking her and Autumn up, then dropped them off at Karate and the gym before heading home to do dishes so they could eat here tonight. I guess I spilled some rinsing agent in the dishwasher the last time I filled it up, so I started to get some suds leaking out of the front and had to get the carpet cleaner out to suck it all up. Once it settled down, I went to karate to see if Eaddie wanted to go shopping with me. She didn’t, so I went to the Neighborhood market for some rolls, picked Summer up from the gym, then picked the girls up from karate and headed home.

We watched the ending of Scooby-Doo while we ate the leftovers, and then the girls headed home for bed. I decided I’d rather ride the bike to work in the cold than lose an hour of sleep. Then Julie called to talk about black Friday deals, and we ended up talking for over an hour before bed. She said she was working nights for the outage and offered to take me in to work in the morning after she gets off, which worked out perfectly for me because I don’t fit into any of my leather any more.

Look, I’m a man of substance. Dorky chicks like you turn me on, too.

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Get Lost

This morning was kind of slow because Dell sent a tech out to replace a power supply for me. I didn’t want to leave the shop if he was about to give me back my machine, so I stuck around. It didn’t fix the issue though, and in the end he thought there was a problem with the CPU or motherboard, so I didn’t even get to return the computer. I read up a bit on Lanschool – just enough to remind myself that I hate things, and then went to Quiznos with Zach and Sara.

I spent the afternoon at the junior high, mostly tracking down missing peripherals in one of the labs. It’s super annoying that teachers just let the kids do whatever they want, and I’m really only support for the equipment they do have, not the equipment they don’t have. They should never have missing equipment. It’s ridiculous.

Nearing the end of the day, I finally ran an HDMI cable for Matt and hooked his docking station to his TV. I couldn’t test it without his laptop, so hopefully it works right. Then the girls and I waited for Summer to get home from her trip so we could go eat at my parents’ house. We had to run by my house for some batteries first, and then we made it for bún bò Huế. Autumn had some leftover chicken alfredo, and Mom ate some seaweed.

I had forgotten again about my Murano service tomorrow morning. I never did hear from anyone after I scheduled it online, so I’m going to be upset if they don’t get me in. I didn’t want to leave my car in the freezing rain overnight because it would slow me down even more in the morning, so I dropped the girls off at home and then came home myself to clean up and go to sleep.

Can we just donate our tiny bonus to the PAC instead?

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Minigiving

Summer hit the gym first thing this morning while I got up and ready. I picked up some La Huerta to go for lunch and we ate that before making mashed potatoes for my Thanksgiving with friends in the evening. Summer did most of the work but didn’t even get to come enjoy it with us.

The day went by super fast until I had dropped everyone off. First it was Summer at the high school where she and Hannah would head to Rogers for their PD. Then I dropped the squabbling girls off with their grandparents. John and Melissa lived just a few blocks away from there, so I joined them super early. John and I made a quick run to Kroger for some extra things, and then Veronica and her crew showed up. Travis didn’t show up, mostly expectedly. We had high hopes though.

It was really nice to catch up with everyone. After the fact, I wished I had made more of an effort to offer my phone up for pictures, but we all look younger in blurry photographs anyway. It’s crazy how time flies.

I stuck around to chat for a little while after Veronica’s family left, and was ultimately sent home with a ton of leftovers for the rest of the week. It was a really good time.

*Decade-running gags*

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What imperative does a grey box have to interact with another grey box?

Summer got up and took Autumn to an eye appointment this morning. I slept in a little while, then got up and moved her new TV cabinet into place and hooked everything up. Her TV didn’t fit in the cabinet, so it had to sit way up high on top of it. She made breakfast when she got back, but had to go help her mother because her car wouldn’t start.

After she got back and ate, I headed home to clean up and waited for her to come over. I played a little more Rocket League and had a shower. Once the girls’ father picked them up, she came over and we went out to New China for dinner. When we got back home, we watched an episode of Black Mirror, followed by Ex Machina. Both were pretty trippy, but I’m not sure they had quite the suspense we were looking for.

Actually that’s someone else’s quote.

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Miranda, the Hacker

The veterans day assembly was this morning, so we didn’t have a meeting. I wonder when the rest of us will get an assembly for getting real jobs out of high school. Without any other group projects planned, I spent my time imaging a laptop for Sheri so I could set up a docking station for her before lunch.

Kevin called me before I got out of the shop and said they thought Matt’s account had been compromised. I told him to just reset his password, and we could investigate afterward. Not even five minutes had passed before they called Heather for help. After almost no research, I found out that Matt had used a Google Form last year for computer lab issues, and though he stopped pushing it on the staff, someone else had bookmarked it and used it. This created an email from him to Miranda that she responded to, making him think someone had emailed her from his account. Somehow he felt it more likely that he was hacked than for someone to use his form again.

Crisis averted, I headed to Oakland to set up the docking station, and then met back at the shop to take a load of people to Buffalo Wild Wings. Afterward, I went back to Oakland and finished some work orders. Before I left, Sheri told me she needed help finding her circle. I had no idea what she meant until she pointed at the Start button on her old Windows 7 laptop. I got her pointed in the right direction, and taught her some two-finger gestures to use, then headed back to the shop for the end of the day.

We got to leave work 30 minutes early for the parade I wasn’t going to, so I went home and played several losing rounds of Rocket League before going to Summer’s for the evening. I grabbed some light Taco Bell on the way, and then went to bed relatively early.

Freeto Breeto

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Network of Cards

It’s a little terrifying watching Jason and Brice mess with SCCM. I’m kind of just sitting back and hoping for the best. Hearing them talk about it doesn’t inspire the same kind of confidence I get from Gary, but I guess that’s just a whole different level.

I spent most of the day at the junior high getting things done. I took a slightly early lunch with Summer since she had the afternoon off for some training. While we were at Wendy’s, Matt called her griping her out for not doing something that she definitely did. She fussed over it, and how she had covered her bases with Joe, so loudly that the lady behind us came up and said she didn’t know who Joe was, but even she was aggravated at him.

I spent the rest of the school day at the junior high before ending my day at Oakland. I finished up a few things a bit late, then went home to change before heading to Summer’s. Nick was going to pick the girls up from karate to bring them home, so I stopped by Little Caesar’s to grab a pizza for Summer and myself. We polished that off, then binged The Office until bedtime.

Only one season remains.

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Doing Things All Day Long

I spent most of the day at the shop today. It took me half of the morning to set up a Verizon hot spot for the junior high, and then Zach, Gary, and I went to Wendy’s for lunch.

When we got back, Zach warned me about a lockdown drill at the junior high, so I killed some more time in the shop chatting with Gary and learning a few things before heading over there. Then I closed out a few more work orders before heading out.

As we were getting ready to leave, Summer asked if we could pick up a TV stand from her mother’s church. Even with only a closeup picture with no context clues, I could tell there was no way we were going to get this thing into my car, so I called Allen and asked to borrow his truck. I met everyone at the church, and from there it was surprisingly easy to get the thing loaded in spite of how large and heavy it was.

We unloaded the TV stand at Summer’s house and brought it in through the back door because it was a bit easier. Her TV won’t fit in it, and it’s a bit tall to put the TV on top, but I’ve seen more ridiculous setups. It is a pretty nice stand, anyway. From there, I went to get Allen some gas before dropping off his truck with a bowl of chili that Summer made.

From there, I had to stop by Bác Vân’s house because she called saying her cable was out. She let herself get super frustrated without television and never bothered to call the cable company or me. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong, but power cycling the cable box fixed the issue. Then I ran to my house to change and headed to Summer’s for the evening.

The kids ate almost all of the chili and I was concerned at first that there wouldn’t be enough left for Summer and me, but it actually ended up being really filling. Summer, Noah, and I watched Bo Burnham’s What, and then sent everyone to bed.

I can’t believe you’d even write that!

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One Last Call for Alcohol

I spent today closing out work orders. One by one, they fell. I got hung up for a while on a phone that I’m not entirely convinced is broken, but I still don’t know how to fix it. Needs more knowledge.

Dale, Jason, and Zach were most of the way through their meals by the time I met them at Taco John’s. Then I closed out some more work orders in the afternoon. I’m back in the teens, and ready to start closing out some really old ones that I’ve left open simply due to low priority.

After work, I went home and started boiling my Antworks gel so I could fill up my ant farm again. I’d never used it before, but the ant colony in my bathroom convinced me to break it out again. I’m pretty sure I don’t have a queen, but hopefully they’ll do something and not just die overnight.

There’s always time for Jello.

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Empty the Toy Box

Allen called me early this morning wanting help hanging a touch panel, so I left Oakland and met him and Brice at the shop. They had most everything loaded up, but I caught a couple things Allen forgot before we left. Unfortunately I didn’t catch everything before we got to London, and we were missing a driver we needed for the tool box as well as the actual mount for the touch panel. To aggravate me further, traffic was utterly retarded with what little drizzle we had for rain. I was stuck behind someone going 10 miles under the speed limit on the way back to town, and then on the way back to London I kept getting stuck by people driving slowly or not paying attention and swerving or parking at green lights.

We finally got the panel hung and it started to rain a bit more. We stopped at the dumpster to throw away our trash, and then Allen backed into someone else’s truck. It wasn’t a gentle bump either. He smashed into it with a major thud. Miraculously we couldn’t see any damage to either vehicle. We figured the trailer hitch hit the tire and just stopped us cold, but I had to assume there must be some alignment issue after that hit. Allen went inside to report himself, and then we made our way back to the shop.

By that time I was so incredibly frustrated that I decided to dump both tool boxes and rebuild them from scratch. I think it took me a little over three hours, but I got all the random nonsense cleaned out and organized. It’s amazing how empty they look when they only have what they’re supposed to have in them. I finally left the shop and was going to grab some lunch, but ended up only getting some nuggets on the way to the junior high since school was almost out. I finished the day there, and even worked a couple hours late just because I wanted to get a loaner laptop set up for Tracy since her hard desktop hard drive died this morning.

Summer got some chicken grilling at her house, so I ran to Walmart to get some squash, zucchini, mushrooms, and a bell pepper to skewer, and we had a pretty great dinner. I didn’t stay long though, because I still had to set up the loaner laptop. It took me practically until bedtime, and then I headed home in the fog to go to sleep.

There’s a black cloud hanging over my head and it’s pouring down, pouring down.

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In the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

We slept in today, then left for Conway around lunch time. We were both pretty hungry once we got there, so we went straight to Logan’s and had their prime rib. Everything tasted pretty awesome, but Logan’s usually does. Then we went to Target for several hours.

First we picked up some clothes that were on clearance, and got a $10 promo gift card with our purchase as well. I was feeling super tired and thirsty after everything we ate, so we sat in the Starbucks/snack area for a while with an Icee. I saw Coylene walking up and beat on the glass to get her attention so we could wave at her. She stopped by for just a second, and then I put our clothes in the car before going back in to spend our new gift card.

We spent way longer than I expected in there, and just kept picking up more and more clearanced stuff. Then I saw Jonathan round the corner with his daughter, so I waved him down to chat for a bit. I hadn’t seen him or Dylan in years, so it was nice to catch up, if only briefly.

Once we finished up there, we went straight to Lowe’s to pick up the rest of my TIKI torches. Some of the ones there were in pretty rough shape, so after some haggling I got the girl there to knock the price down on some of them. Overall I was happy with how the transaction was finalized, and we loaded up to head home.

Back in town, Summer went to pick up the girls and head home, and I played a few rounds of Rocket League just to get one more golden pumpkin crate before the event ends tomorrow. Then it was a quick email to NVIDIA to try and return my two RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition cards before bed.

The boys in the back are called macaws.
Because of their claws?
No, because they’re macaws!