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Time Off

Summer left super early this morning for a quiz bowl trip, so I slept in until about 11. When I got up, Clint and I played some Overwatch until he left to get some food. I took the time to remote in to work to try and turn the bell system time back an hour for daylight saving time. It took me a couple hours to figure out something stupid, but it’s done and it’s documented now.

I spotted some TIKI torches on sale at Lowe’s online, so I bought out all of the Russellville and Conway stores and arranged for local pickup. Conway eventually got back to me when my order was ready for pickup, but Russellville never did. Everything was still showing available online, so I placed the order again thinking that maybe it was just a mistake.

Once Summer got back home, we went to the local store to see what was up. The girl that helped me said they normally contact the customer if something goes wrong, but obviously that wasn’t the case for me. We spent some time wandering through the outdoor area to find the torches, and eventually found them boxed up and ready to go into off-season storage. Some other lady had bought out all of the fuel I ordered, but at least I got my eight torches. Unfortunately, it turned my two gift cards into four gift cards once it was all said and done. We ran into Dale and Neletta while we were there and chatted for a little bit before loading up.

Mom made bún bò Huế for dinner, and I brought the TIKI torches in for them to use. We got lucky because they matched the exact same model that Dad picked up last year, so now we can set the whole back yard on fire in style.

After dinner, we came back home and I played some Rocket League with some of the guys I don’t play with very often until bedtime.

If I could turn back time… If I could find a way…

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League

Jason was out today, which kind of just reinforced our lack of projects for the day. That meant I got to spend most of the morning researching high school esports so I could write a reply email to the kid that contacted me about wanting to start a league. I got really into it for a bit, and kind of hyped myself up, probably too much. I’m too much of a filthy casual to be too serious, but I love the idea of it all the same, and I feel like I know more than most anyone else that will be helping these kids out.

Gary’s birthday is coming up Sunday, so Dale wanted to take him to lunch today. We got almost everyone out to CJ’s, where we spotted a Tesla Model 3 driven by a guy Brice recognized from the plant. That was a mostly quiet and not entirely awkward lunch, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon at Oakland, babysitting an imaging computer.

Ben released us at 3 on the grounds that we could go vote if we wanted to do so. I came home and cast mine into the toilet, and came out feeling like I got more out of the ordeal. Summer came over after her workout, and eventually we went to Zaxby’s to split some dinner. It was still too much food for us, but it hit the spot. When we got home, I caught her up on my esports correspondence before wasting the rest of my evening doing nothing on the internet.

Now I’m going to have to become a history teacher.

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Sensationalism

I had a headache pretty much all day today which kind of gave me a mood, and maybe a bit of an attitude at work today.

Every time I would come through the shop this morning, Brice would be sitting in a chair doing something on his phone. I completely understand having to be babysat until his background check comes in, but I swear he didn’t even move for two hours. He can’t go anywhere near the kids without an escort, but surely there’s someone he could be shadowing or something he could be reading over while he’s sitting in the shop. Maybe I’m remembering my first week with arrogance, but I seem to remember at least trying to keep busy. Maybe he just already gets it and will jump right in once he’s cleared to do so, but that’s when he opened his mouth and said he was coming in 15 minutes early and leaving 15 minutes late every day this week to build up some comp time so he could take a day off next week.

Fucking what?!

We give Amanda enough shit over using all of her time off and having to make up overtime on the weekends to earn comp that I feel absolutely confident saying that in no damn way should this kid be cleared for coming in and sitting on his ass an extra half hour every day of his first week so he can take a day off before he’s even finished training enough to do a day’s work. I mean, we basically already paid him for six days before he started coming in to work in the first place. Did I get that? I honestly can’t even remember at this point.

I holed up at the junior high the rest of the morning and all afternoon. I simply couldn’t. I left him in the shop alone. Heather was at the front desk at least. I really don’t think anyone else was even there. That’s our fault. I offered to train him.

Summer had half of a sandwich left over, so I ate it in her room on her lunch, then sat with the girls in the library while they ate their lunch. I kept busy enough. Maybe even learned a useful thing.

After work, I took Eaddie to karate before heading home to clean up a bit. Then I picked her up and headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Autumn was non-compliant. Eaddie did okay. To wrap up my mood for the day, we sat up and watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show until bedtime.

If only we were amongst friends… or sane persons!

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Pumpkins scream in the dead of night!

I tried to keep a steady pace today, picking up work orders here and there. It was still difficult to find motivation, but I got enough done. I’m still plenty ahead of everyone else in work order count.

Ronda reminded me that Sonic had 50 cent corn dogs today, so I picked up a sackful and brought them back to the library where she, Summer, and I ate them in front of Jessica and her ramen noodles on a plate.

Right as school was about to let out, the house across the street from Oakland started blaring This is Halloween on repeat loud enough that you could hear it from inside the school building. After work, I came home for some light drinking and loaded up The Nightmare Before Christmas. I really just wanted to finish the movie to say that I’d seen it. Now that I have, it mostly reminds me of when I watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show last year and just felt “meh” about it in spite of all the hullabaloo.

And if you aren’t shakin’, there’s something very wrong.

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That Time the Superintendent Took a Shit on My Lawn

During a day of unseasonable warmth, I rode the bike to work again. I got stuck in a polar vortex of doing things for the office at the junior high, which meant I started stacking up work orders from other people. I took a quick Taco Tuesday break with Dale, Zach, Gary, and Heather, and then ran home to get a helmet for Eaddie.

Near the end of the day, Ben sent us a pretty long email basically telling us that Brice was hired on a full four steps higher than any of us were allowed to hire on, which makes him one of the highest paid techs right out of the gate. I was bothered still by his start date a full week before he actually showed up. It didn’t make me much happier to see him sitting in the shop on his phone, but I couldn’t really blame him if he was just there to follow someone else around. I would have liked to see him trying to talk to someone instead though, since he’s got a lot of ground to cover regardless of how much he knows outside of our own policies and procedures. I certainly don’t remember being on my phone a lot during my third day on the job.

Demoralized, I left whatever I had going on to take Eaddie to karate. Summer and Autumn were at a quiz bowl event in Clarksville, so she and I got to ride the bike across town. I stopped by the shop to talk to Ben for a couple minutes, running into Ryan as I pulled in. Then I went to my parents’ house for dinner and to pick up some bánh bao. Zach called a couple times and we chatted about what we should do, and how we could possibly have a productive conversation without the lesser-intelligent bringing up irrelevant nonsense or flying off the handle. We didn’t have any great ideas.

Back home, I had lost power for most of the evening, so I took the opportunity to shuffle around some battery backups. It took me most of the night to fight through everything, and I guess I’m really no better for it.

Tell me again why I can’t be a part of that positive change.

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I challenge you to a Dual!

I rode the bike in this morning because it was supposed to be really nice in the afternoon, and I forgot I was supposed to take the girls home after school. My first stop was Oakland to drop off a stack of iPads that I was conveniently able to fit in my bag. I ended up having to work on them for a while more before I could leave, but eventually I found a fix. Then I went to the junior high to start setting up my last three dual monitor setups.

Lunch time rolled around right as I finished up my first one, so I took a break and rode to Subway across town. It took me 30 minutes just to get through the line, and then I took it home to eat since I had to trade out for the car. I ran back by Oakland again to work on a couple of things, and ended up getting some help from Gary in the self-contained classroom. A couple of the kids were all over us, and one stole a water bottle out of Gary’s bag and drank it. He must have been in a good mood, because he didn’t seem too bothered by the kid, or the fact that I missed a stupid version check on my Chromebooks.

After that, I only had time to get one more dual monitor stand set up before I had to take the girls home. We went by my house first so I could change, and my Google Home Hub was delivered while we were there, so I set it up. I also dug out my gel ant farm in case I still have ants in the bathroom, but all the gel dried up. I tried boiling some water to dissolve the gel and left it to dissolve overnight.

When we got back to Summer’s house, I pulled out all of the leftovers I could find and made the kids eat that. Some stuff got thrown out, and I ate the oldest stuff I could find that didn’t seem like it had completely turned. Then I played a few rounds of Overwatch before bed.

Here Lies Michael: Hater of Waste

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The Curious Case of Bingeman Button

We didn’t sleep in super late today in spite of how late we got to bed. We didn’t get much of anything accomplished either. I made a little breakfast out of what was left in the fridge, and then we basically binge-watched The Office all day. Summer left after a while to take care of some things at home and get dinner started.

I took a shower and discovered an entire colony of ants in my orchid pot. I decided not to spray them, and instead hoped that they would just move themselves in a much cleaner way. If they’re still around tomorrow, I may stick a bunch of them in an old ant farm I never used from years ago.

Eventually I made my way up to Summer’s where I made some rice to go with her garlic herb chicken and mashed broccoli, cauliflower, and cheese. The girls left to go to a trunk or treat event with their father while Summer and I continued our binge until bed.

Uyimbube, uyimbube, uyimbube, uyimbube.

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The Runs

We slept in a while this morning until we had to leave for Summer’s 10K in Little Rock. We stopped by McDonald’s for some chicken tenders on the way out of town, which were actually really good, and then made our way to Conway for our first stop. I had a Shoe Carnival reward burning a hole in my pocket, so Summer scored a couple pairs of boots in a BOGO free sale. I wanted to go to Old Chicago for lunch while we were in town, but we ran short on time and Summer wasn’t hungry enough to eat. We made a quick stop at Dick’s to check for potential kayaks on sale before departing on the last leg of our trip.

Thirsty and still a bit hungry myself, we stopped by another McDonald’s on the way out of Conway for some drinks. The kid brought one of our drinks out, but said they didn’t have the equipment to make the slush I ordered even though there was a giant window cling for it on the front of the store. He offered to make me another of what we did get, but I ended up having to go inside because he forgot to bring the replacement drink out to me after it was made. I guess nobody cared enough to find out why there was another drink sitting on the counter at the end of the makeline.

We finally arrived at the Creep ‘N Crawl 10K/5K shortly after Hannah and Dylan, and spent most of our time waiting in line with the girls for the bathroom. There were some interesting costumes there, but Old Greg was one of my favorites. Some of the costumes definitely didn’t seem run-friendly, but by golly they did it. My number one favorite had to go to a couple of girls that were dressed as a cop and robber, and ran the race handcuffed to one another.

Summer and Dylan took off first in the 10K, and then Hannah took off 15 minutes later. Dylan ended up getting second place in his age group, so he got a tiny trophy. Hannah and Summer both came in squarely in the middle of their categories, but Hannah arrived first since she was only doing the 5K. While we were waiting, I bumped into Officer Beyette, and he offered to take my picture with Hannah and Mr. Peanut, but I declined and said I wasn’t actually with them. I assumed he didn’t remember me from the time I trolled him at Oakland, but it was funny to me all the same.

I started to worry a bit about Summer because she was a fair bit behind her goal time. I expected her right along with Dylan, but the clock just kept on ticking. She ended up getting sick in the middle of the race, but she puckered up and pushed through to the end. I made the trek back to the car to come back and pick everyone up, and we headed to Dave and Buster’s for some evening fun.

They didn’t have Angry Orchard on tap, which was the girls’ choice drink, so we didn’t get to experience the 100 oz tower. The food was pretty decent, the drinks were overpriced, and the games were fun while they lasted. We all decided to hold on to what tickets we earned and, tired from the day’s activities, called it a night and drove on home.

Mission: Disastrously Successful

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New Ryan

Brice finally started today, though I’m still fuzzy on how he started so long after his contract start date. More importantly, I finally found out what my building assignments would be, and it looks like it’s just more of the same. I think they’re expecting Brice to pick up mostly where Ryan left off, and I hope it does work out, but I knew I’d have mixed feelings about it no matter what. Ben said he dreaded the thought of having to have a conversation with Sheri about taking me away from her building, so I guess their constant bragging on me isn’t lost.

Zach, Jason, and I hung a broken(?) touch panel in the coaches’ office, mostly to get it out of the warehouse since nobody else wanted it. Then we hung a new one for Allen before lunch. Everyone but Allen and Heather came to Brangus, but it wasn’t much ado about anything. Afterward it was just back to work orders for me.

After work, I came home and played a few rounds of solo Rocket League until Summer got there. I spent some time cleaning up a CamelBak for her race tomorrow, and then we went to La Huerta to split some fajitas for dinner. I stopped to air up my cold tires on the way home, and then she read her book while I played some doubles with Josh until bedtime.

Dude, you’re making it look like they actually pay us fairly around here!

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Well I don’t want to see you waiting.

Zach griped at me this morning for wasting my time playing with a Firefox deployment I made yesterday. I just need experience fighting with some of this stuff so I can get better at it. There’s always time for work orders later.

Jason texted and asked if I wanted to go to Las Palmas for lunch, so when he and Ben got back to the shop, we met Dale there. My taco salad was hot and fresh, but there’s no denying that the key lime candy at the register was my favorite part.

After lunch, I went to the junior high for a little bit, but ended up leaving to take care of some work back at Oakland before ultimately ending the day at the junior high. Autumn got rained out of color guard at the game, but Eaddie was upset that she wouldn’t get to watch TV at my house, so I took the girls home with me while Summer went to the gym. Josh met me there just long enough to hand over the laptop I picked up for Summer, and the girls settled in for an episode of Criminal Minds.

When Summer got to the house, we went to Burger King for the best family deal coupon in town. I had more burgers than heads for under 20 bucks. We just happened to be on the Halloween episode of The Office, so we watched that before the girls went home for the night. Then I finished laundry and headed to bed myself.

I’m wasting my time agaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiinnnnnn!