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Switch it Up

Summer wanted to take the Tesla to Little Rock today, so I had to take the Murano. It got me there much more stressed than usual, and I did not arrive feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as usual. I think if it hadn’t been so quiet and relaxed in the office all day, I would have been far more tired. I snacked a bit in the morning, so I wasn’t super hungry by lunch. Nobody came around to eat anyway, so I ended up going down the road to Louisiana Famous Fried Chicken to get something to eat by myself.

This place was an old Hardee’s with some new colors. For being such a targeted restaurant name, they had a strange mix of stuff. They had fried chicken on the bone, gumbo, jambalaya, fried rice. It was kind of wild. There was a nice black lady at the counter that had no problem scolding the sketchy, jittery fellow that didn’t quite get all of his trash into the can on his way out. In the back were a couple of brown guys, but I couldn’t tell what kind. They didn’t quite look Indian, but maybe Bangladeshis. I’m working with limited international experience.

I got jambalaya with some fried okra, and both tasted good, but the jambalaya didn’t look anything like the picture. It seemed to be missing some sausage, among other things. The shrimp in it was tasty though. I left a little bit hungry through, having gone à la carte, so I grabbed some fries from McDonald’s across the street on the way back to the office.

Maggie brought her daughter to the office after a dentist appointment, so the lights were out for nearly the entire day. I added all of the switches to PRTG manually, since the automatic scans just produced a bunch of other trash. I ended up leaving late because I got a call from Progressive about our auto claim. Evidently I should have just called GEICO directly instead of dealing with our insurance, since I wasn’t at fault. Later on the stressful drive home, I got a call from GEICO to get the claim started on their end.

I had felt a bit gurgly all day, so I took a break when I got home, and then took the dogs for a run to my parents’ house to eat. Summer watched a couple movies on the couch while I was gone, and then I sat outside with the dogs for a while when we got back. I got them some new food that was on sale on Amazon, and then cleaned up the kitchen a bit before bed.

This is incane.

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Do Not Be Alarmed

I was a little late to work today, but I passed Randy along the way, and he was groggy anyway. Strangely enough, I’ve got the hour drive to wake up, so I arrive all bushy-tailed. Nobody jumped into anything right away, but I poked at PRTG some more. Then I got an email reminder from Ben that he was leading an APSRC call, so I hopped on that to listen in. It was all the same stuff that everyone has been screaming at us for years, but evidently a lot of people don’t even know their districts are members of the APSRC, so they wanted to highlight themselves as a resource.

Time flew by pretty quickly, and we went to Cotham’s for lunch. I almost can’t resist the hubcap burger there. I could normally take or leave a burger at a restaurant, just because I can make one at home for a fraction of the price, but there’s something special about the hubcap.

As we left, a girl came up to me to say that she had hit the Tesla. I hate that the alarm notification on my phone sounds exactly like every other notification, so I didn’t even realize something was wrong. I got out to look, and sure enough, she left a big, black streak across the front driver-side corner. We exchanged insurance information and phone numbers, and then Jim guided me back to the office “the slow way.” It was interesting to see some of those quieter roads that I’d never really traveled before, and to see how they connect to the places that I had.

The afternoon went by quickly as well. I took a bunch of pictures and filed an insurance claim. Otherwise it was almost more social than work until quitting time. I headed straight to the old house to get some things, then stopped by Superfast to show Summer the damage to her car. It wasn’t awful, but there may be some broken clips where the bottom of the bumper is out of place slightly.

On the way home, Mom called and offered bún thang, so we dropped the Tesla off to charge and then I drove Summer over there to eat. The soup was still frozen, so Dad took me outside to fly the DJI FPV. He said he had flown it up high over our house and up the mountain to John’s, so I took it up towards our house and lost the signal. It came back though, and we recovered it without any trouble. I got it up to just over 60mph and buzzed overhead before circling around and landing a couple times.

Summer was inside finishing up some work on her laptop. I helped assemble bowls and we ate quickly so I could get home to run the dogs. Eli was still there helping Eaddie with a project. Summer got ready for bed, and I took the dogs out for a run in the dark. Stilgar was significantly more rambunxious, but we made it back home alive. The kids finished up, and I did my best to make it to bed for as close to seven hours of sleep as I could.

I just… I have to have my few minutes in the bed watching my show.

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Not My Band

I was the first one up this morning, but Summer was right behind me. I made some coffee for us, and then we cleaned up a bit more while Eaddie left for church with Eli. She wanted us to go to a Tech Symphonic Wind Ensemble concert in the afternoon, and we had some other errands to run as well, so Summer and I got ready to go by the time she got back.

Our first stop was Diana’s for the open house. We met her realtor, who knew us by name, and we got to show Eaddie the house. There wasn’t anyone else around, and we weren’t sure it was going to be very popular based on the location. Diana saw us on camera and made a comment about my Eagles shirt, and then we were off to Tech for the concert.

It was a long, but good show. I enjoyed the songs more than I typically do, but at this point I hate going to high school band concerts. It’s always way better going to the competitive ones that Eaddie is a part of. She had to stay for practice in the youth ensemble afterward, so Summer and I left her to go get dinner at Mulan’s. Then we went to Walmart for a few more things, Zaxby’s to get some food for Eaddie, and finally Casey’s for free coffee day before making it back home.

The sun was going down quickly, so I left the girls to go get gas while I ran the dogs. We went a bit backwards from our usual route, ending up at my parents’ house to visit with Dad briefly before coming back home. We settled in quickly, and it’s back to working sleep deprivation for me.

Imagine complaining about communism at a Chinese buffet.

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Pizza and Dogs

I woke up around one or two in the morning to the dogs going absolutely berzerk right outside the bedroom, so I yelled at them through the side door. They would run into my line of sight, and then immediately run away again, so I had to grab a flashlight and follow them to see what all the commotion was about. In the distance, I could see two glowing eyes of a medium-sized possum, terrified and motionless as they barked at it. I shooed the dogs away and hoped it would scurry off, but it just sat there motionless. I ended up grabbing a shovel and scooping it up against the fence. It started to waddle a little bit, and climbed up the rabbit wire we placed to keep the dogs in, but it wouldn’t go any farther than that. I had to scoop it up and carry it out the front gate, where it slowly trundled off into the night.

Summer let me sleep in a while, and then I got up and started to pick up in the kitchen. I warmed up the leftover fried chicken for her so she could go out and mow the lawn, and then I took a shower so we could go to the store. I was craving Cici’s, so we went there to eat first. I thought the food was pretty good today. Afterward, we went to Walmart for a relatively big shopping trip, since we hadn’t been in a long time.

When we finally got back home, I took the dogs out for another good run. They were a bit more excitable than the past couple days, but they did alright. We stopped by my parents’ house, and then went up the hill again to get back home. They got some food, and then I came in to rewatch WandaVision with Summer until she was off to bed.

Roll back!

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Noticed for Two Weeks

I was out of bed so many times last night that I lost count. I slept horribly, and barely squeaked in to work because of it. Fortunately, I’ve never worked in a more relaxed environment, and Randy wasn’t even in today. Jay and Maggie were in the office a bit, but otherwise it was super quiet until lunch time. I actually left for a McCafé frappé in the morning.

It was the last day for one of the other guys in the building, and evidently he cooked for everyone pretty frequently, so he threw his own going-away party by cooking lunch for them one last time. He fried some catfish, smoked some ribs, and grilled some pork chops. There was a big tray of mac and cheese, some of the best collard greens I’d ever had, and some fries and fried okra as well. There were even a couple cakes for dessert.

Maggie ended up taking a half day, and I took a couple calls from Jim about some trouble his teachers were having that appeared to be hallucinated. I haven’t been hugely impressed so far, but the longer I’m there, the less surprised I am.

I ended up taking off a few minutes early myself, and stopped in Conway to check on Summer before making it home. Eaddie was out for a ballgame, so I took the dogs out for another awesome run in the sprinkling rain. It felt great outside, and they were super well behaved. I still wish they’d be a little more obedient all of the time, but overall they’re super good on walks, and they’ve been running a whole lot more now that the weather isn’t so suffocating.

Summer beat us home, and we ate some leftovers after she had a bath. Then we laid on the couch and watched some YouTube and an episode of Modern Family before bed.

But why aren’t you guys better?

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Long Drive Home

I ran a little behind again this morning, but the long drive gave me plenty of time to make it up. I helped Randy with some more of his admin stuff and then spent the rest of the day tinkering with PRTG. I was feeling pretty tired the whole day, so I knew it was going to be rough by the evening. I ended up just picking up some Sonic down the road, and picked up drinks for Maggie and Randy. They had a deal on coneys, and I also had a really good peach and vanilla slush.

The afternoon was quiet, but it’s always quiet where I am now. I left right on time so I could meet Summer in Conway for dinner. I went by the wash first to check on her, and then took the car to charge at a nearby hotel. Then she picked me up and we went to Texas Roadhouse for some steaks. I still wasn’t very impressed with the steak or the ribs. It wasn’t bad, but most of it just tasted really dry.

We stopped at Target for some dog food on the way back to the car, and then she made me drive the Murano back home. I always knew Autopilot made it easier, but I was absolutely beat by the time I made it home. I quickly changed and then took the dogs for a run around the block. They were great again, and ran even harder than they’ve run before with fewer breaks. I got them fed, and then it was off to bed as quickly as I could get there.

Reruns

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Watchtower

The guys were socializing this morning while I tinkered around in SCCM. Then as I moved on to PDQ, we suddenly started having network issues. Randy and Kyle left for the core closet, where they later reported that some new equipment being installed caused a loopback. With that fixed in the late morning, things calmed down a bit.

Maggie and I went to Taziki’s for lunch in the mall, and the food was really good. She was super excited to have someone else that would eat there, because evidently the old men in the group always want pizza and barbecue. I love being able to go to all these new places for lunch.

The afternoon was a bit more casual and quiet. Randy came back and chatted with us for a bit, and the morning’s antics inspired me to finish setting up a PRTG server to monitor our network and servers. I didn’t even realize how quickly time had passed, and I had to jump up and leave as Jay walked out.

Eaddie had parent/teacher conferences today, but Summer left work to attend them early. I got home just as Eaddie arrived with some little hockey pucks from Little Caesar’s. We ate a mix of that and some leftovers, and then I took the dogs for another really great run. I don’t know if it’s the weather, or maybe the repetition is finally paying off, but they’ve been super well-behaved. We stopped to visit with my parents, then continued up the hill and back home. I gave them some good pets and treats, and finally Summer and I watched some more TV before bed.

Coco for Cuckoo Puffs!

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You Can Take Rally’s Out of the Hood

I squeaked into work this morning, and I think I’m even more consistent with my arrival time now than when I worked five minutes away. The guys sat on the other side of the partition for a while, and Randy debated his Chromebook strategy with them. I had to be careful not to ruffle too many feathers, but it was the same old story. They didn’t seem super anxious to work any harder. I still think people will grow to meet your demands if you’re consistent in holding them accountable.

Nobody showed up for lunch, so I went to Rally’s by myself. I ordered online and got my food reasonably quickly, but I felt super out of place when I saw the other people that had walked up to the window. The fries looked soggy, but tasted alright. I even tried their mozzarella sticks and found them to be pretty tasty, even without the marinara sauce they failed to give me. Then I found they had mismade my burger, so I went back to the window again to ask for a correction. A guy named Omar came up to the window and gave me some grief about it, and said, “we don’t have onion straws, so you wouldn’t have got ’em anyway.” I offered to let him just squirt some barbecue sauce on my partially eaten burger, but he called for it to be remade anyway.

I tinkered with SCCM and VMware the rest of the afternoon, and fought traffic the entire way home after work. Dad had the trees cut down in the front yard at the old house, so I stopped by to have a look and grab a few things. I didn’t care much for the look of it, but I suppose now there will be fewer tree-related problems.

The car was pretty gross from all the bugs I encounter on my regular commute, so I stopped to wash it on the way home. Summer was getting ready to take a bath when I got there, so I ate my leftover remade burger from Rally’s and discovered that they did have onion straws after all. It was even pretty good reheated. Then I took the dogs for probably the best run I’ve ever had with them. They ran the whole way to my parents’ house and sniffed around there for a while. Then we went through the basin and back up to the house without any fuss. I didn’t even have to scoop any poop!

I fed the dogs, loaded them up on treats, and then settled in to watch a couple episodes of Modern Family with Summer until bedtime. Eaddie made it home a little later, but I only barely caught sight of her as she came in and ducked straight into her room.

…but you can’t take the hood out of Rally’s.

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Fun Without Hinges

I was a little slow out the door this morning, but I got to work on time. Not that anyone would have noticed. I spent a little time in the morning finishing up the Google Classroom cleanup I had to do for teachers that had left. Then I started tinkering with SCCM again.

They took me to another new place for lunch. This time it was Gadwall’s, and I had a big plate of chili cheese nachos. They were fairly good, but also fairly expensive. I was just happy that for the price, it was a pretty big plate. It occurred to me as we chattered that I’ve really missed being around people that haven’t acclimated to the unhinged things I sometimes say. It was a solid reminder of how hilarious I am, and how those who are around me more often are taking that hilarity for granted.

I was by myself for a part of the morning, and most of the afternoon. My big success was discovering the incompatible version of my Configuration Manager. Once I found the correct install for that, my laptop was able to connect to the server, which should speed up any work I do in that system.

After work, I ran back to the Target on our side of town to look for another Pixel Watch. I didn’t have any luck with that, but I did pick up a shirt for Muad’Dib and a big pool float that were both on clearance. Then I headed to Kohl’s in Conway to pick up an order before finally heading toward home.

Summer had a rough day at work and wanted Wendy’s for dinner, so I picked that up once I got into town, and we ate together before I went out with the dogs. They were super excited and had torn into a bunch more stuff in the yard. They ran the entire way to my parents’ house again, which tells me that we really need to get them out even more than we do.

I visited with Dad briefly for a walk around the yard, and then we headed home. I got a little upset to the stomach, but also had at least three separate anxiety attacks throughout the day, so I really wanted to get to bed early to get some rest. As I was just going to bed, Noah called from the ER, but it seemed to be more due to the fact that he needed a doctor’s note to keep his job. I talked to him a little bit and gave him what advice I could, but maybe we’ll hear more about it soon.

No crap.

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Doggy Paddle

I got up pretty early this morning, but things went pretty slowly after that. The girls eventually got up, and Eaddie left for church with Eli. I made a “grilled cheese bacon, egg, and cheese” sandwich out of some frozen grilled cheeses and leftover bacon that I found. Then Summer and I wanted to take the dogs to the lake to see how they’d like the water.

We waited around for Eaddie to get home in the afternoon, and we loaded everyone up to go to the marina. We walked around a little bit at first, and the dogs had to run around sniffing everything. Then, as we predicted, Stilgar dove right into the water. Muad’Dib was a little slower, but eventually did get all the way in on the boat ramp. Stilgar would have tried to swim to the other side of the lake if he hadn’t been on the leash. We let them run around to play, and I even let Muad’Dib off of his leash for a little bit. I wasn’t quite confident in Stilgar’s recall to let him go, but he stayed on the long leash.

After we had enough of the water, I rode them around the loop on my Onewheel to dry off. We encountered a persimmon tree right by the road, and they absolutely loved those. I had one off of the ground, and it was pretty sweet. I tried not to let them eat too many of them though, for fear that some of the seeds would get stuck coming out.

We made a couple loops, and then Stilgar passed something bright orange. I thought maybe the persimmons had just gone through him that quickly, but when I picked it up, it seemed really hard. I couldn’t tell what it was, and I wasn’t willing to dig through the poop to figure it out. We finished our loop and packed everyone in to go home.

The dogs got fed as soon as we got back, and then they were pooped out. I went and got some KFC for the rest of us, and then the girls retreated to their televisions. I took a late shower and wound down pretty quickly. It was a fun day, but the weekends feel particularly short now.

Three months of driving…