Category: Uncategorised

Uncategorised

Downtime, Downtown

I was actually early for work today, but I got a text from Kim just as I was pulling in that the internet was down. I spent the entire day trying to get the switches to respond again, and nearly overheated in the server room. I had to take a break for lunch, but ended up there again at the end of the day. I installed a pretty big upgrade on the Ubiquiti controller, which I had been saving for some downtime. Forced downtime won, but I couldn’t tell if the upgrade actually helped or not. I had Kim call DIS to try and get some help, but as soon as she got to an agent, she handed the phone to me, not even waiting long enough to hear that the poor girl couldn’t troubleshoot, and would only be submitting a ticket for us.

I eventually got the switches back online after school let out, and then I got into some fast traffic to get home quickly. Robert called from DIS, and we scheduled a call for the morning to check for the cause of the day’s outage. I fed the fish and grabbed a couple things, and then ran home to get the Onewheel.

Dad wanted to know if anyone wanted to go out for my birthday, so I rode the Onewheel across town to the carwash to find Summer. Along the way, I spotted a couple girls at James Park that looked like they stepped straight off the streets of Grand Theft Auto. Then I crossed the tracks and rode through the Superfast lot before crossing the street and coming into the back side of the wash.

Summer was slow to leave work, and was back and forth on whether she wanted to eat. In the end, Mom wanted New China, and the two of us met them there.

I thought about riding the Onewheel home after that, but Summer made a B-line for the passenger seat again. I drove us home, and settled down pretty quickly after a tough day.

Did I just get catcalled by a daywalking prostitute?

Uncategorised

Bringing It Down

I woke up fairly early this morning and made French press coffee for Summer and myself. I’m excited to try out the new grinder, because I’ve always had coffee that was too fine for pressing and left a lot of sediment. It just feels dusty.

Summer went to the gym, and then both girls went shopping while I was in the shower. It was pretty clear we weren’t moving anything else again, and I don’t know why I ever think anyone is going with me. I ended up taking the Onewheel out to my parents’ house for a bit, and then back over to the Neighborhood Market to drop off some recycling.

Summer was in her feelings for most of the day, and wanted to make dinner alone. I guess Eaddie wanted some kind of chicken alfredo lasagna, but Summer made it with a rotisserie chicken from Walmart. Eaddie had Eli over, but didn’t even wait for him to arrive before making a plate.

I did laundry, but overall it’s just another wasted weekend.

Hue’ve gotta be kidding.

Uncategorised

Dam Skate Park

Summer went to the gym and Eaddie went to a robotics tournament today. A little after Summer got back, we decided to go to Old Post so she could practice the Onewheel on level ground. She did really well, and got to turn around in the road and ride around on the sidewalk a little bit. On the way back home, we stopped at the Neighborhood Market for some brats and fries for a late lunch or early dinner.

Eaddie got home from robotics and wanted to go out on her bicycle. I fried and grilled some food, and then went out on the Onewheel myself for a bit as it got dark. I tried stopping by Ridgewood to see Grant, but they were busy and I didn’t want to be a bother.

Summer and I watched Modern Family when I got back, and Eli came over to hang out while Eaddie made brownies. Everyone went to bed at pretty reasonable times except me. For some reason I just kept getting sucked into time-wasting.

Woah, again!

Uncategorised

Keeping the Road Warm

I ran really late and really fast this morning after barely remembering to pay the mortgage before jumping into the shower. It was a pretty quiet day though, and I was excited to have two more kids pay fines for damaged Chromebooks. I tinkered with SCCM and some other things, and then Kim left for the afternoon. I hesitated to dig too deep into anything new, but hopefully we’ll be ready to deploy some computers next week.

After work, I took a leisurely drive home behind a bunch of idiots driving WAY under the speed limit. I fed the fish and stuffed some things into the trunk. I thought I’d go out on the Onewheel, but had a bit of a stomach ache and had to sit it out for the night. Summer eventually texted to say she wanted to go to Walmart, so I went to the wash to pick her up while Eaddie stayed home to go to the art walk downtown.

We followed each other so we wouldn’t have to backtrack and pick up the other car. Summer was fussy about buying some new clothes, and we didn’t end up buying much of anything. She didn’t even want to look at groceries. Instead, we left and went to Dairy Queen for dinner. It was a stark difference from the service Eaddie and I received the other day. It was just children working, and none of them seemed to be communicating well enough to run a restaurant. We got food, and it was hot, but it took way too long for that kid to assemble two chicken strip baskets.

After that, we made it home and Summer settled in while I took the Onewheel to my parents’ house. Dad wanted to try out an antenna, so I rode to the end of the street with another radio to test. It was pretty cold outside, so I didn’t stay very long before heading home. There, I sat in the dark and played on my phone for hours until bed.

Pity Potty

Uncategorised

Testing my Patience

Late but early again. They surprised me with more testing, and I had a call with tech support for our crappy FlySense vape detectors. Without knowing more about what wasn’t working, I just accepted the guy’s response that for some reason, several people weren’t subscribed to specific devices. The management website seemed bad.

The noise came roaring in around lunch when testing was over. I just had to stop and put my head down for a minute while it was unbearably loud. At least the meatloaf wasn’t bad, though we didn’t get much of it. They threw a couple steak fingers in to make up for it, so I didn’t even get a salad today like I usually do.

I spun my wheels a lot in the afternoon, unable to make up my mind on a naming convention for new computers. I’d like it to be different enough to be glanceable, but everything I’ve tested just kind of looks bad. I guess that’s what I get for using serial numbers, but somehow it didn’t seem so bad in the past. I guess at this scale, it doesn’t really matter what we name them. They’ll just be glad to have something that actually works.

It rained on the way home, but was only sprinkling when I got into town. I met Dad at Bác Vân’s to get my old Atari from her house. Doug had apparently moved out completely. I loaded enough other stuff from my old house to fill the trunk, and then headed home to where Summer was finishing up dinner. Eaddie got home and I started some laundry, and we sat down for a nice chicken spaghetti that was baked a bit for some crispy cheesy goodness.

I thought we might go back out so I could show off my leap year t-shirt in public, but it continued to get colder and rainier all night. I just wrapped things up, and then wrapped up in bed.

Why is there so much email?

Uncategorised

Pizza Cake

I ran a little late again this morning, but rolled into work early enough that I didn’t have a problem taking a beat to make a coffee. I knew the day couldn’t hold a candle to the success I had yesterday, so and Kim was back after a day off, so I didn’t even try. I still got a couple more deployments made though, and overall it was a pretty decent day.

Dad met someone at the old house to look at some remodeling, but I missed them by the time I was off work. I fed the fish and then pretty quickly headed home to get Eaddie for dinner. Summer was working late, so the two of us decided to go to Pizza Hut for a change.

I started a load of laundry and we went to eat. Zach and his family were there with Gray’s basketball team celebrating a tournament win, and he came over to chat a bit before we ordered. Then Eaddie and I had a really good chat about life and stuff. I tried to save some leftovers for when Summer got home, but all she got was bread sticks and chocolate donut bites.

The girls settled in pretty early, and I saw another offer from Tesla to buy back my car. I accepted at a loss of a little over $8,000, which is still less than how much they dropped the price of the car after I bought it. A big part of me is excited to see the next performance Model 3, but another very present part of me is curious about home solar. Finances may need some time to settle, but how neat would it be to have both?

We’ve had one, yes. What about second winter?!

Uncategorised

Gummy Victory

It’s ironic how running a little late can sometimes result in a modified routine that lands me at work a little earlier than usual. A lack of traffic helped. Kim was out to take one of the kids to get a tooth pulled, so Denice and I were the only two in the office all day. That meant a wild mix of tunes and some real focus time in SCCM. Accordingly, I had great success after learning that you can’t join a computer in OSD to the default OU. This stuff is probably documented somewhere, but I don’t understand any of the reasoning behind any of it. You just have to know it’s that way because the way it is.

I continued to suck down hot tea and honey, knowing I couldn’t possibly beat the success I’d had in the morning. I could have just left for the remainder of the week after that. I tinkered with Software Center and made a deployment for Microsoft Office, which went way better than the time I did it at RSD. I ended up leaving close to quitting time and then getting stuck behind idiots the rest of the entire evening any time I drove anywhere. I seriously had better luck everywhere on the Onewheel.

Once I got back to town, I loaded a bunch of stuff into my car and headed home. Eaddie was helping with the junior high concert and Summer was late coming home from Greenbrier, so I went out on the Onewheel until she got home. I didn’t realize she was going to be so tired or fed after work, otherwise I would have eaten earlier.

I picked up some tacos, and then redeemed a $0.95 single-topping mini sundae from Freddy’s. For some reason they saw it fit to expire my birthday coupon a full week before my birthday. The app experience and the customer service were both poor enough to warrant a review. I topped the thing with some more goodies once I got home.

Eaddie eventually made it home and started working on some school work with Summer. Our ceiling fan remote died and Eaddie wanted some more strawberries, so I took the Onewheel out again well after dark and grabbed what we needed from the Neighborhood Market. Summer is going to be hot, but I’m loving riding this time of year. Maybe I should move to California.

If I had a nickel for every time I thought something was working correctly, I could almost afford a stick of gum.

Uncategorised

Midwhenter Concert

I barely got out of Casey’s with my life today, much less my free coffee. There was a huge line of people at the checkout, and then I had to jump out into traffic to leave. Kim was late after getting her shot and not taking a sick day. I spent the entire day fighting SCCM again, and finally found someone with the same problem I had with my distribution point.

I got pretty sleepy in the afternoon, and just gave up at a stopping point in the afternoon. Eaddie had her midwinter concert in the evening, so I went to feed the fish and grab a few more things before heading home. Nobody else would be coming home for dinner, so I ended up going to my parents’ house for spaghetti before taking Dad to the concert to meet Summer.

We ended up beating her there because she got stuck at work. It was a pretty good concert though. I think both bands actually sounded better than the last high school concert we watched. Afterward, I dropped Dad off at home and then took a lap around the block on my Onewheel while Summer settled in for the night. Eaddie went out to eat with friends, and it was a pretty late night for a Monday.

I preferred the birthday speeches.

Uncategorised

Greyvy

Summer was snoring pretty badly this morning, so I got up and went to the couch to start my morning. When she got up, she started cooking sausage gravy and I came out to cook eggs for breakfast. I got frustrated when she muddled packaged gravy mix with the sausage, which ended up being way too rich and sweet, so I added flour and water to even things out.

I was a little cranky and depressed for the rest of the day, so I just tried to make some space. I took a shower while Summer went to the gym, and once she got back to clean house, I went to the old house to try and pack up some more stuff. I ended up spending most of my time just going through papers and things, throwing out anything that was irrelevant or out of date.

I took a quick break to run to Harbor Freight, but they were out of the free reach tools that I wanted. It would have been nice to pick up trash while on the Onewheel, though I don’t actually see myself riding too many places where that’s a problem anyway.

When I made it back home, the girls hadn’t eaten anything, so I deep fried some French fries and warmed up the old leftover steak. We really should have committed to cleaning that up over a week ago, because it wasn’t good tonight.

We’ll do better tomorrow.

Uncategorised

Teenager Berries

I took some guaifenesin last night to dry up the crud in my chest, and it seemed to work pretty well. I woke up early and then dozed off a bit after Summer got out of bed. She went to the gym and Eaddie went to a band thing at Tech, so I got around to some coffee and eventually a shower.

Summer wanted to clean house a bit and then cook fajitas for dinner, so we went to the Neighborhood market to get groceries. I cleaned and cut up strawberries for shortcakes when we got back, and some of the berries had seeds with leaves on them. One of them in particular reminded me of a patchy high schooler’s beard, or a transition gone awry. I left it out to sprout and see if we could get any strawberry plants out of it.

Once Summer got the shortcake into the oven, we went outside so she could try riding around on the Onewheel. She got her first few falls and scrapes out of the way, but overall did a great job of moving slowly down the road and making turns. I just kept emphasizing that it was better to bail early than try and ride it out when you’re just getting started, because skill at bailing, running it out, or even falling is just as important as skill at riding.

Eaddie eventually made it home after also going to my parents’ house to rake some more leaves, but then she wanted to go out on her bicycle. Evidently Eli came over as well, and I rode around the block to find him walking alongside her on the bicycle toward my parents’ house. I popped in to say hello, and then headed back home to cook.

We considered putting the leftover chicken and some fresh veggies on the flat top to grill outside, but I ended up just heating it up on the skillet over the stove instead. I didn’t have very much room, but it worked alright and didn’t take as long to get heated up as it would have taken outside for such a small amount of food. I also cooked some black beans in the Instant Pot that turned out pretty good, though next time I’ll let the “bean/chili” setting finish instead of following some arbitrary recipe I found online.

The four of us started to play a game after dinner, and I excitedly brought out Hail Hydra, but I think it wanted at least five players. Eaddie kept fussing that she didn’t remember anything about Hydra anyway, and wanted to watch the movie instead. We all settled in and watched Captain America: The First Avenger, though Summer went to bed partway through. I enjoyed revisiting the movie, but seeing all of the hokey 3D stuff without 3D glasses felt a little silly. It was a silly movie anyway.

Eli left and Eaddie crashed as soon as the movie was over. Summer stayed up in bed to watch baking shows until I finished my own chores. I guess we plan to make more food tomorrow.

And why not? We like to eat.