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It’s that time of the year again when it’s hard to have both a motorcycle and a job. Driving between my campuses, I just kept wanting to ride away into the summer air.

Brandie called me to chat for a bit as I was talking to Ben after work, and I was tasked with scheduling a lunch for them. Afterward I went to my parents’ house and grilled some ribs and chicken, which turned out quite good I thought.

After getting home, I played a couple games of Heroes of the Storm with Clint before everyone left me.

Employment Wins!

Today wanted to be a lazy Sunday.

My aunt nearly set my entire lawn on fire, which could have easily spread to the trees, and at the very least my storage shed. She had been burning yard waste yesterday and apparently buried the coals under a convenient trail of dry leaves leading up to a huge pile of branches from the tree we had cut down a few weeks before. If I had gotten home even 10 minutes later, it’s likely that I would have been too late.

After putting out the surface fire, I had her help me turn the rest of the rubbish into a pile of mud, which to her protest was not nearly as nice and neat as her dry leaf fuse.

I’m not sure where the rest of my time goes, but it seems to be in a hurry.

WIN 14 FIGHTS TO GET INSTANT PROMOTION

I made myself get up this morning without too much sleep so I could sleep tonight. Not long after I got out of bed, Johnny called and asked if I could be ready to leave the house within half an hour. Normally I couldn’t, but he wanted to go to Conway to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. I didn’t even realize it was opening weekend, but it wasn’t too crowded.

When we got to Conway, we decided to go to the showing at 4 instead of 12:40 since the earlier showing wasn’t in 3D. We went to Eat My Catfish for lunch, which was good but expensive. Then we killed some time at Best Buy before driving out to see a house in Greenbrier that he lived in as a child. We made it back to Conway for the movie and got seats front and center.

On the way home, he stopped by El Parian in Atkins to eat. Then I did some laundry before bed.

My life, my lover, my lady is the sea.

Lots of stuff today.

My dad’s friend John got married this afternoon. Sixty three years, the idol bachelor died today. My cynical side wonders if it’s all for the retirement fund, but certainly there must be true and decent people left after all this time. It occurred to me that if I wanted to have a successful gathering of my own, I would have to arrange someone’s marriage. People seem to show up for that kind of thing, no matter how many times you do it.

I stopped by Apex on the way home and talked to Lori, Will, Eric, and Jesica. Never miss an opportunity to show up when you’re dressed out.

At 8:30, I went to the Dardanelle Club for Hope’s birthday party. I saw others waiting in the parking lot, but I was the first one to walk in and sit at the table. I knew our waitress Holly, but she wrote me down as “glasses pony” so I guess I didn’t leave much of an impression.

It took a while for people to start showing up, but inevitably we had to add tables for Miss Popular. The prime rib was pretty bad, but it was all in good company.
 
After dinner, we went to Front Street and met up with Jonell and her husband Chris. I also ran into my sister and her boyfriend. We pretty much all shut that place down and then went to the rebranded Club 40. It was like stepping back into the 80s with the indoor smoking. I somehow managed to find a table that wasn’t sticky and held it down the rest of the night. Nothing beyond the DC was really my scene. Front Street was awesome outside weather, but the 40 was loud and the air hurt my everything. We pretty much shut this place down too. No strip club, thank the stars.

I gave Jorge and Oscar a ride back to Kelsey’s house, along with a couple other guys I met tonight.

Always.

Last day of testing aside from makeup tests.

First time having lunch with people all week.

Ran into Sarah Hindsman and her daughter that I see in the halls all the time.

Didn’t have movie night again.

Give me a reason to make me smile, ’cause I think I forgot how.

Almost done with testing. It’s been a slow week sitting around waiting for something to break, but they fed us and I got to spend more time just socializing, which was nice. I think the people I support appreciate that I do that. I hope so, anyway. I are not smart, but I are nice.

Not much else going on today. Didn’t see little baby birdies when I looked up at the nest after work. Must have flown off.

They grow up so fast…

Shake my hand and call me friend. Hate will be the death of you.

Five days of testing just feels like too much. I’m getting lazy having to be “on call” to resolve issues as they arise during testing. I think I did finally finish my count of devices in the building, though. I knew it was a lot, but I think the number we’ll replace is actually pretty low. I could probably even work my way through them by myself in my down time, but I’ve completely put off my CompTIA certification at this point. I should just get it out of the way.

After work, I went by our resource officer’s parents’ house to help with a computer issue. They had an ATX mid tower case with the tiniest, completely integrated motherboard I’ve ever seen. It might as well have been in an ultra slim case, but for some reason it was designed almost completely empty.

After that, I stopped by to visit my parents on that side of town before going home. Baby birds were chillin’ when I checked in on them.

I’ve got you under my skin…

Day two of testing was more or less uneventful. The computer I imaged last night was up and running, much to my relief. The principals invited my group to eat lunch with them, where Beacon Printing was grilling burgers and hot dogs. They also gave me an awesome RTIC stainless steel cup with a cyclone etched into the side. Class act.

After school, I stopped in the hallway to talk to one of the teachers and was blown away when he told me that evolution wasn’t even being mentioned in school here. I remember going through high school when my science teacher, Amy Smith, prefaced the lesson on natural selection with how she knew it was a bummer, but she had to cover the material, so just hang on for the ride. I didn’t like that comment then, and based on what I’ve read this evening, it may have even been unconstitutional. I absolutely hate that I am constantly surrounded by what I perceive to be ignorance for the sake of faith. I’ve known enough religious people that weren’t blinded by the idea that their beliefs weren’t necessarily to be taken literally, that I have a reasonable expectation for people to have some sense, but things like this really irritate me. How are we supposed to grow as a civilization with this bible belt strangling the critical thinking out of us? It’s completely insane. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

Imagine there’s no Yoo-hoo…

Today starts the first day of year-end testing with the ACT Aspire. I keep hearing from teachers about how frustrating it is that they’re forced to teach the test rather than teach the kids how to think and learn. They say their pay is based on the test grades, so that’s all anyone focuses on any more. I completely understand the desire to hold educators accountable, and in a lot of ways we completely fail to do that.

Every day I deal with someone that wants all of these neat, expensive toys, but doesn’t take the time to utilize them to even half their potential. Every day I deal with someone that refuses to try and troubleshoot using even the most basic steps before sending the work off to someone else. Every day I deal with someone that doesn’t even consider the inconsiderate nature of their wastefulness.

I try to play the devil’s advocate. It’s a job like any other, and you can burn out pretty easily. The defeatist attitude is incredibly infectious, and sometimes it feels like you have to play the part to fit in with everyone else. As a newcomer, most of the advice I received was that I shouldn’t care too much or work too hard because it wouldn’t pay off. How can someone be so discouraged by the thought that their ability to educate effectively has been castrated, and then turn around and be so unwilling to think critically themselves?

This morning, one of my computer lab teachers was worried she had lost a bunch of passwords she needed for testing. She let out a frustrated yelp just as I was walking in the door behind her. I’ve only ever seen dogs so excited to see me. I looked at the problem, explained to her what to do, and calmed her desperate need to keep clicking the same icon repeatedly as it was taking its time to launch the program. She asked if I ever got frazzled, and my response was simply that the job didn’t pay well enough for me to get frazzled. While true, I probably really owe my calm demeanor to my own defeatist attitude that nothing matters. It’s turtles all the way down, but it sure is peaceful.

After work, I went home to get my replacement video card that had been delivered. EVGA “upgraded” me from my GTX 580 to a GTX 960. While marginally “better,” I don’t feel great about going from a top-shelf card to a budget card. It seems to run everything pretty well, but I just don’t like the huge step down in series in spite of the step up in year model.

I kept having to go back by the school to try and finish imaging a computer from another lab. Between trips, I stopped by my parents’ for dinner because Mom wanted to try cooking lobster tails. They were pretty good, but really salty. I stopped by work again, and the computer still hadn’t finished by around 9, so I gave up and headed home to bed.

Upside: Nielsen sent me 30 bucks.

Did a load of laundry. Watched a thing on Netflix. I didn’t love it, but I was committed.

My parents called me over for dinner. Nothing special there tonight. Just cleanup.
Jesica called and texted. Had a rough weekend. Went to visit. Tried to help.

More laundry. Then sleep.

So many wrongs or rights…