Category: Uncategorised

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Glasstric Bypass

I had quite a bit of trouble falling asleep last night, and then it felt like I slept really lightly all night long. Then we had to get up early to make it to Conway for the movie. Summer took the kids home to shower and clean up, and I did the same before heading out to pick them up.

We made it with plenty of time to get seated. It was actually really nice, with only a few other people in the theater. The tickets were quite a bit cheaper as well. We watched Glass after having seen Unbreakable and Split earlier last year. I thought it was pretty amazing, but I think the plot twist did more to aggravate the others. It makes me wonder if they’ll actually continue with more movies, or perhaps a series.

After the movie, we took the kids to Game Point to look around. We let them pick up a couple games, and I even grabbed a couple myself. Then we went to Walmart to see if I could find any of the clearance-priced Chromecast and Google Home Mini bundles. They were all sealed up behind glass, and BrickSeek indicated it was “limited stock” anyway, which likely meant they had none at the $17 price. By the time we left there, we were all pretty hungry, so we started the quest to find someplace to eat.

We drove through greater Conway to find something, and ultimately landed at Golden Corral. It worked out well for everyone to find something they liked, and we all pretty well stuffed ourselves beyond any reason. I actually didn’t overdo it as much as I often do, but I was already pretty full from popcorn anyway.

From there, we went to Sam’s to walk off some of the food. I very nearly picked up a box of Dr. Pepper syrup to use with the SodaStream, but I ultimately passed with a 2-1 vote against from the kids. I’m still not really sure how that happened. Then we went by PetCo to look for some shrimp, followed by BestBuy to cruise for deals. With nothing of interest there, we made a final stop at Target, where we picked up just a few things before heading home.

I dropped them off at Summer’s house and headed home to prepare for their arrival, but Summer said her car wouldn’t start. I dug out the Xbox so they could play their new game and headed to their house for the night. Autumn crawled into bed pretty early while Eaddie watched Noah play Left 4 Dead 2. Summer and I ended the night with a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation.

I have a dream that my four little coworkers will one day work in a department where they will not be judged by the length of their employment, but by the quality of their work.

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Blowoverwatch

The girls all went to the high school for a quiz bowl tournament today. I got up early and worked on the file server some more, but couldn’t kick a massive headache and went back to sleep until a bit after noon. Apparently it started to snow, which panicked someone at the tournament, so they shut it down early. Summer brought a bunch of leftover barbecue over, so I had that for lunch when they got here.

The girls, in a truly presidential moment, refused to get along with anyone all day long. Criminal Minds managed to shut them up for a little while, but they started up again just as Summer left to pick up Noah. I didn’t have the creativity I needed to deal with it properly, so I just separated them the best I could and went to my room to continue working on the file server. Then I saw Clint online, so we played a bunch of Overwatch until everyone else in the house passed out. If they don’t figure it out by tomorrow, I swear I’m leaving them on the side of the road.

Let’s try not to make this become cruel and usual punishment.

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Hangin with the Big Earners

We had a bunch of projects for today. I was sent off to Sequoyah with Brice and Allen. Allen was in a mood and didn’t want to go with us though, so he tried to break off and go with Zach and Jason. Then he was basically a jerk all day when that didn’t work. When we got there to hang a touch panel, it looked like they already had a newer projector and I wondered if it was actually still under warranty. Without much of a plan or direction, we ended up cutting and removing some cables to pull a new HDMI cable, but it ended up not working. We needed nearly 70 feet of cable for the room though, so Brice will just have to go back later to swap it out again. We left with a shorter cable across the floor for temporary use. We also had to run an extra audio cable to replace a group of four-plus extensions that were feeding some nicer speakers. It all seemed a little silly, and I wasn’t too excited to be the only one up on the ladder all morning.

I had called out Old Post BBQ for lunch when we were still in our meeting, and though everyone seemed happy with that, nobody else met us there. We did run a bit late, but nobody else even said anything about going anywhere else. Allen refused to sit in a booth with Brice and me, and he weirdly sat at a group of tables with a couple other ladies. I saw Nicole working there, and she helped me identify and order something I saw in a picture frame called The Dagwood. She said if I finished it in under 30 minutes I could get my picture on the wall. It only took me 20, but I declined the photo and we went along our way.

After lunch, I resolved an issue with my HSA for payroll, so hopefully I’m not out anything there. Then I helped Allen run an HDMI cable to resolve a video issue at Center Valley. That likely could have been fixed with software and drivers as well, but he and Jason couldn’t figure it out, so we ran the cable. Then I was on my own, so I finished up a rash of work orders I had gotten from Oakland.

When I finally got home, I was so exhausted but had to clean up the living room a bit. I managed to finish before the girls got here, and even set up Catan because Autumn wanted to play. Eaddie was rowdy and completely uncontrollable all night, and I ended up sending her to bed before we finished the game. I think I got my new network storage box reset, but I’m still having trouble completing the setup, and I’m too exhausted to continue messing with it.

Kids these days don’t even know who Dagwood was.

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+1 to Security

I slept in a little bit today since I was to work late with Zach. I got the bare minimum done around the house before heading in toward work. I sat in the driveway for a while trying to coax Sonic’s app into working. While there, a murmuration of starlings came through the neighborhood and momentarily stopped in front of me. Eventually I got my food ordered, and I headed to the junior high to eat with Summer.

While at the junior high, I got a few things taken care of. I thought I was supposed to meet Zach at 2, so I arrived at the shop far too early to actually do anything. He actually wanted to start after school was out, so I sat on his couch until we were ready to leave, sipping coffee and trying to stay energized.

We eventually made it to the middle school and got straight to work replacing some of the access control equipment. It took me a while to put the pieces together in my head, but eventually I was able to wrap my head around at least the bits we were servicing. Gary stopped by for a while as well just to see how things were going.

We finished with a little time to spare, so we went back to the shop and took our 30 minute breaks to cap our day. Summer was just out of the gym, so she came by with some Tropical Smoothie for dinner. She was still a little sickly, so she just watched me drink my smoothie until we left.

I headed home to clean up a bit before heading to her place. I cleaned up a couple leftover things, and then we watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica before bed.

There’s a reason why you separate military and the police. One fights the enemy of the state. The other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.

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Closet Racism

Jason was supposed to spend half the day with me “in the field,” but he ended up having me cover his campus for testing instead while he went to work on some of Allen’s stuff. Just as we were discussing that, our usual Dell service tech showed up to replace a power cable in one of my teacher’s computers. I took him over to Oakland and walked him all the way to the back of the building, panting and wheezing. Luckily she was super nice about the random, unexpected interruption, and I took her computer to a nearby closet for service.

As we situated ourselves, the tech learn-ed me about the “Vietnamese Squat” he had to perform to sit in the unusually small elementary school chair. I commented back that yes, my Vietnamese mother had spent many a night squatted over a giant bowl of egg roll ingredients. From then on, it was mostly comments about how the white man had wronged people like the Indians. It was still less awkward than the OSHA presenter that joked about submitting a new hazard pictogram of a guy with a turban to warn of explosive chemicals.

I spent the rest of the morning trying to wipe Summer’s mother’s iPad that she had activation locked, since I had to sit around to babysit testing anyway. A big group of us went to Mulan’s for lunch, and then I eventually made it to the junior high to close a few work orders.

After work, I ran home to get a few things before heading to Summer’s for dinner. She made chicken salads, but we didn’t quite get to eat before her mother showed up to retrieve her iPad and finish the unlock process. I was really impressed with the proximity setup process, and even the camera authentication that would normally show a QR code was made to look more stylized and futuristic. You know, I disagree with Apple on many counts… But you cannot deny they’ve got style.

When everyone finished eating and acting up, we managed to quiet everyone down for the first half of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Evidently Noah watched it recently, and he was upset that Summer decided to stop us right before The Tale of Sir Lancelot.

Why can’t you guys settle down and obsess over your repressed depression like normal teenagers?

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PEBKAC

I had to run by the junior high first thing this morning to help with a student’s laptop for use with online classes. It’s a new thing for us there, and nobody seems to really know what they’re doing. It was still a little disappointing to work on it for an hour before having the student come down and find out she was just looking for her test in the wrong place though.

A bunch of us met at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. Brice joined us but didn’t like their salad bar, so he had to be different and order food. I was just upset that they got rid of the hummus and the raspberry poppyseed dressing. I loved that stuff. I had so many crackers but nothing to dip them in.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as I stayed busy gathering up loose ends. Tomorrow morning, Jason wants to work with me at Oakland to figure out their cafeteria sound system. That ought to be entertaining.

After work, I took Eaddie to Summer’s parents’ house where she was having issues with her car battery. They had to take her mother’s car to Autumn’s appointment in Little Rock, but everything turned out alright. She took the girls to karate and then brought her car over to hook up to my battery charger.

I had a coupon for a free pizza from Papa John’s, so we picked that up and watched a couple episodes of Parks and Rec before she had to head home. The girls went out to eat with their father, but would be home before too long.


I guess they think it’s cold in here.

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Only Half of Us Is Sick

Summer called in to work today, so I took a half day as well since I wasn’t sure how taking the kids to school would work. I slept in about half an hour later than I normally would and dropped the girls off, and drove by work about 15 minutes early. I could have made it work, but I had enough to do at home that I didn’t really get any time off anyway.

I spent most of my time cleaning up after the cats, but I checked on the fish and got a shower myself as well. I finished all of that just in time to run by Linh to get some egg drop soup for Summer. She was up and cleaning house, though still feeling pretty pitiful. I didn’t stay long, because I had to get to work.

There wasn’t really much going on, but I closed a few work orders. Most of what I have left are more complicated projects that will take some time and focus. Autumn had quiz bowl after school, but basically wasted time not participating. It didn’t put me out too much since I had to work until 4:30 anyway. By the time it was all over, we were all pretty hungry. We collectively agreed on pizza, and we picked up some Little Caesar’s on the way back to their house.

We watched an episode of Criminal Minds, then some Parks and Rec, and then everyone was off to bed.

I like saying, “no.” It lowers their enthusiasm.

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Bumday’s a Drag

Summer was super sick all day, so I just sat around with the kids all day. Autumn came out and watched Criminal Minds while Eaddie played Mario Odyssey all day. Summer ended up going back to bed and slept most of the day while we just sat around bored. Eventually I shut everything down and tried to get the kids to do something else constructive, and they went to clean up their rooms a bit. Eventually I went home to clean up and figure out dinner.

I cleaned up after the cats and did some partial water changes on the tanks. One of the lights on my 55 gallon tank had gone out, and I figured out it was the bulb and the starter. Luckily I had a spare from Julie’s tank, so I got it running again. After a shower, I went to Walmart to pick up what I needed to make red beans and rice in the Instant Pot.

Back at Summer’s, I got dinner going while they watched TV. It took me a bit longer than I expected, so I cut up some summer sausage and cheese to eat on crackers as a snack while we waited. Once I could relax and let the food cook, I propped up against Summer and watched the first episode of the first true season of Battlestar Galactica. That ran both of the girls off to their rooms, so we just finished the one episode before dinner was ready.

Autumn snapped at Eaddie when she tried to fetch her for dinner, so Summer didn’t let her have any. The other three of us sat in the kitchen to see how I had done. The beans seemed slightly undercooked again, which was a little frustrating. It wasn’t too bad, but it definitely could have used some more time. I don’t know why dry beans are requiring so much more time than the recipes are calling for, but I’m afraid if I start off that much longer, they’ll end up mushy. It was still plenty edible though, and Eaddie seemed to like it pretty well. There were quite a few vegetables in it, so it seemed at least a little healthy.

After dinner, the girls pretty much went straight to bed. Summer and I went to the bedroom and watched an episode of Parks and Rec before she really started feeling the Nyquil. I emailed work to take a half sick day to help out getting the kids to school and stuff. Hopefully my sinuses don’t flare up more overnight.

Baby snails doo doo doo doo doo doo.

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Short Notice

Summer and Autumn left early this morning for a quiz bowl tournament. I slept in for a little while, but tried not to sleep all morning and got up to watch some Caprica in my boredom. There were still some leftover biscuits with gravy, so breakfast by myself was easy enough. A couple episodes in, Clint sent a message saying he was in town and wanted to know if anyone wanted to meet him for lunch.

I woke Eaddie up and we both jumped into some clean clothes and ran across town to Linh to meet Clint. He was in town to get Landon after an archery tournament. It was nice to catch up a bit, though Eaddie took a while to really wake up. Clint didn’t have time to socialize after we ate, so Eaddie and I came back to their house to shower and clean up for the day.

Eventually Summer and Autumn made it back in to town, and Summer had a really bad head cold. I ran to La Villa to pick up a chicken parmesan for them to split. Eaddie made her bowl of ramen she got from the Oriental food store, and I scraped the bottom of Summer’s plate when she finished. We tried watching an episode of Battlestar, but I had some trouble getting it to play the correct episode. Instead, we watched an episode of Parks and Rec, then I put Summer to bed. Eaddie stayed up watching Home Movies, and then Legends of Tomorrow once I was ready for bed.

Cold, rainy days are sleepy enough without also being travel-lagged and sick.

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Overpromised and Underdelivered

I got an email after work yesterday asking for us to replace a touch panel first thing this morning after I waited all day yesterday with no response. We still somehow managed to get it done without running into any kids, but it was still annoying. Otherwise, I was impressed with how quickly Jason, Brice, and I were able to get the job done. I honestly don’t think I could have been any more proud of them in that moment. Jason did seem to be in a promising mood though, in that he kept offering his guarantee that she would love the new touch panel, and that Sara would offer all kinds of extended training on how to use the new equipment. It got to the point very quickly that I had to start shutting him down on his referrals.

We didn’t have any other group projects, so I spent the rest of the morning taking care of a docking station setup before we went to lunch. Nothing sounded particularly good to me, and Jason really wanted CiCi’s, so he, Allen, and I went there. We cut it really close for our clock time, but we managed. I’m really not excited about having to do it, but it seems like at least Ben is going to have our back on some of the stuff anyway, so in the end it won’t really matter.

After lunch, I took care of a few things at the junior high. When school let out, the place quickly became a zoo of kids coming in for all-region band tryouts. Autumn was a bit upset that she only made second alternate, but she’s not willing to commit to the work needed to improve herself either, so she’s just going to have to figure it out.

I went home for a while after work to do a small water change on the aquariums, and eventually made my way up to Summer’s for the evening. I picked up a dollar burrito and free drink at Taco Bell on the way up, and after eating and finishing up Bridge to Terabithia with the kids, Summer and I watched a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation. Then it was off to bed for quiz bowl tomorrow.

He shows zero initiative. He’s not a team player. He’s never one to go that extra mile. Tom is exactly what I’m looking for in a government employee.