Category: Uncategorised

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Microbe Machine

I slept pretty hard, pretty late today after aching so badly last night. I was still tender when I got out of bed, but got better throughout the day. I ate the rest of the fried rice I made yesterday, and then got to working on the washing machine again. I could never get the pulsator out, even after getting a ratchet strap under the thing. The girls particularly needed to do some laundry, so I had to give up and put the thing back together.

Summer went to the gym before it started snowing, and I filled the entire wash tub up with hot water and bleach to try and clean out the grime that was higher in the tub. I got a lot of crap out, but still continued to get more and more all day long. I also ran a whole jug of white vinegar through a similar wash, but after countless self-cleaning cycles, I was still getting dirt. It was better, but still gross enough that I didn’t really want to run my clothes or towels through the thing.

Eaddie spent most of the day in her room, and Summer watched TV in the sun room all afternoon after the gym. They eventually came out and ate some leftover pasta, but I made some Instant Pot bean soup from a couple old ham hocks, and ate by myself. Schools are closed tomorrow, so we’ll all get a snow day tomorrow. Maybe we’ll play some games or something.

Cause the washer still won’t be clean.

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Float On

Eaddie left for all-region early this morning. I woke up pretty hungry, so I fried some rice with the veggies from Christmas, and then threw some egg in it. Then I reorganized and moved some stuff around the house and Summer went to the gym. I had a shower and then went out on the Onewheel to get a little bit of time in before the big freeze. I went to my parents’ house first, and then felt comfortable enough with my figure-eights that I decided to go up and around Inglewood on the sidewalk. I saw Joe out canvassing the neighborhood for school board.

All total, I got a little over seven and a half miles in. There were a few places where water was constantly moving across the road, so I kept trying to find new paths to stay dry. I also rode through the new subdivision, and the roads and sidewalks there were all super cheap, sunken in, and generally crappy. Then just as I was getting back home, I was carving pretty deep to try and dry the tire off when I got a really fast wobble that threw me. Luckily I was just in front of the neighbor’s house, so it was a short walk down the driveway. I didn’t injure myself, but I got progressively more sore throughout the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Summer wanted to cook some seafood pasta for dinner for Eaddie and Eli when they got back, so we went to the Neighborhood Market where we ran into my parents again. We picked up what we needed and headed home to see the kids. I had stepped out back to check the murder basement for water, and it had flooded about eight inches up the wall, so Dad came over with some rubber boots to plug in the sump. It worked great, but there wasn’t a port hole for the hose, so I had to keep going back outside to check until it was done.

Everyone ate, and I spent a little more time on the washing machine. I still couldn’t get the pulsator out, so I think I’m just going to have to give up and bolt the thing back down. Not that it matters; that thing’s not going anywhere. I crawled into a heated bed early just to rest from the pain. A lot of it is just soreness in my legs from such a long ride, but it was a lot of fun finally getting a feel for the control of the board. We’ll see how the bruising looks tomorrow.

Alright, already!

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It’s Log, Log, Log!

The heavy rain last night brought the cold, and our trash can was filled with water. Kim was back to work after basically paying cash for a new home, and I just don’t think she has any idea how wealthy she really is. Just a little bit of money management smarts and discipline, and she’d be living the high life.

I got my SSL certificate updated in the morning, which was exciting. Being able to SFTP into the VM to clean up those files made my life a whole lot easier than scrolling up a command line. From there, I still had to double-check that everything was working, and make sure I didn’t have any other alarms that might cause trouble in the future. With any luck, I’ll be gone by the time this certificate expires.

We had the cleanest sloppy joes for lunch, and I ended the day finally getting an order placed for some electronics that the teacher absolutely will not use. She’s simply not capable. She’s overwhelmed and scattered as it is, and I just don’t think there are any souls out there with enough interest or aptitude.

It was a cold and damp drive home, where I loaded up some more stuff to take to the new house. More winter weather is on the way, so I’ll have some things I can unpack if we don’t leave the house. Summer stayed home not feeling well, and Eaddie beat me home from school. We watched Iron Man and I made a couple burritos.

Julie and Kevin stopped by to pick up some drinks they had left. The girls went to bed pretty early, and I decompressed to some random YouTube garbage for most of the evening. I ended up playing a short round of Oxygen Not Included, but the computer locked up again. I wonder if it’s thermals, but it’s cold, and the game isn’t very demanding.

What rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs,
Rolls over your neighbor’s dog?
What’s great for a snack, and fits on your back?

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SSH IT

Today was the warmest day in a little while, but I was stuck inside trying to fix a broken security certificate. Kim was out for the signing on their new house, which meant I could sit in the dark and actually concentrate on what I was doing. I don’t know if it was just by happenstance, but it did seem like fewer people came through the office. I did still get a few visitors and calls, but otherwise I kept my head in my reading. I chatted with Gary for a while, which was helpful, but in the end I still wasn’t successful. I don’t know what I was missing.

I’d had it by the end of the day, and headed quickly home to bring another carload of stuff to the new house. Once I got everything inside and found a change of clothes, I went out on the Onewheel for just a few minutes of daylight. The ride to my parents’ house had my right foot hurting, but on the way back I think I finally found my stance. I was a bit more wobbly, but I think once I have some muscle memory it will be fine. Unfortunately, I won’t really get a chance to ride again for a little while on account of the cold moving in.

Once I got back, I made a burrito for dinner and then unpacked what I had brought home. Then I spent a little more time messing with the washing machine, but still couldn’t get the pulsator out. I couldn’t tell if the pop I heard was new, or something just shifting the same way as yesterday. I finally settled in and played Oxygen Not Included until the computer locked up again. Storms rolled in later in the evening, and I wished I had checked the murder basement for flooding before it started. I’m sure I’ll need to get the sump going this weekend.

Just keep digging….

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Expiration Month

I was a little slow getting out of the house today, but I made it to work on time after passing a bunch of slow trucks. I also had some trouble getting started on any projects, and just kind of jumped from one unimportant thing to the next for a while. They were serving mac and cheese as an entree for lunch, so I brought a leftover T-bone to chew on as well. I forgot a knife, but I figured it out.

Later in the afternoon, I discovered that the SSL certificate for my VMware expired over the break, so Tomorrow Michael will have to figure that out. I left a little late and picked up my last dresser from the old house to take home. Eaddie and Eli were at the house tooting their horns in the bathroom like a couple of weirdos, so I took a ride to my parents’ house on the Onewheel.

I didn’t stay long, and on the way home I tried some different foot placement to mitigate the foot pain and find a good balance point. I was feeling comfortable enough that I kind of sped over some drainage ditches on the way home, and got a pretty bad wobble that I was able to ride through. Only momentary terror.

The girls ate while Eli and I watched them. Then Eaddie avoided doing homework for the rest of the evening. I played a couple cycles in Oxygen Not Included, and then it was off to bed.

Gotta renew that CompTIA cert too. Ugh.

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DecrepiTech

I had a super bizarro dream last night, in which I was somewhere with some people and also Elon Musk. I was talking to him, and though I was supposed to go do things with the other people, Elon invited me to go to somewhere in Arizona to see or do something. Whatever it was, it was urgent, and he said we had to pack and leave immediately by car. After going back and forth and deciding that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I loaded up for the 19 hour drive, and he handed me a burner flip phone to contact him, since he obviously didn’t give out his real phone number to anyone. Then I questioned whether he had a jet that could get us there faster.

That was the end of the weird, anxiety-ridden dream, and then I got up for work. It wasn’t quite as cold or rainy, but it was really windy for most of the day. I spent a good chunk of it trying to get a couple old, but barely-used laptops ready to give to a teacher that doesn’t have a clue how to use them with her students. As soon as she said she wanted an old, decrepit laptop with admin accounts on Windows, Linux, or MacOS, I had to roll my eyes.

I eventually had to meet with Blake and discussed more of the same, with regard to her needs to fulfill the requirements for a grant. I wish she would just stick with learning how to do the very fundamentals of her job instead of continually biting off more than she can chew.

Kim spent the entire day fretting about whether she would have to pay a deposit on utilities for the new house. I got pretty frustrated that she wouldn’t just shut up and get it done, and every time she called to talk to some poor representative over the phone, I had flashbacks of some of the worst customer interactions I had at the call center.

I left work a little bit late just because I had a hunch on unlocking an iPad that was brought to me quite a while back. I made it back to town quickly to feed the fish and load a trunk load from the old house. Then I went by Taco John’s for a bunch of tacos because Summer was home from work, and Eaddie was bringing someone over to study.

Summer and I finished eating before the girls got there, and then I’m not sure how much school work they completed between all the giggles. I Onewheeled over to my parents’ house in the dark to get some Liquid Wrench, but I wasn’t quite sure how well that would work either. I think the actual point where the parts are fused together may not be connected to the hole where the bolt goes.

After that, Eaddie took her friend home and things wound down pretty quickly. I played a couple days on Oxygen Not Included, and then dawdled until bedtime.

Hang ten?

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Crying Over Spilled Beer

It was cold and rainy all day, and I had to go back to work.

It was awful.

Casey’s has free coffee on Mondays right now, so that helped, but then a hard acceleration out of Dardanelle had me spill a little in the car.

At least it was a loaner.

I got to work pretty early, and things were fairly quiet. I spent a lot more time submitting purchase requests than I expected, and way more time trying to fix some broken PowerShell scripts than should have been necessary. One of them will run manually, but not from the Task Scheduler, and I still don’t know why.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to address a needy and incredibly unprepared teacher that is so far out of her depth, she’s only able to survive by clinging to thermal vents on the sea floor. I cannot believe she is paid more than the minimum teacher salary now.

The place was a ghost town by the time I left at four, and I drove home quickly in the rain. I fed the fish, grabbed my air shim, and headed home to try and pull the pulsator out of the washing machine. Summer made it home early after having dinner with both of the girls, and told me stories about all the ways Autumn is using the people around her, and how Gerald continues to enable her.

What a shit show.

I ate her Sumo leftovers mixed with some of our own from home, and then we watched some Young Sheldon until I spilled a little bit of beer on the carpet. I got the shampooer going and pulled some black water out of the carpet, showing just how important it is to regularly vacuum and mop the home.

Eaddie went to bed so early that I hardly realized she had gone. Then Summer went to bed and had to remind me that I have to do this all over again tomorrow.

1981 McGregor 25 ft sailboat – $5,000

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Griddle Me This, Batman

We awoke to a crash in the middle of the night when the squeegee fell off the shower wall again. It happens infrequently enough that I forget to check it to make sure the suction cup is still holding. Luckily we got back to sleep reasonably quickly, but then I was the first to get up, to revert back to my working sleep schedule. I thought I’d get up even earlier to buy eggs and make breakfast, but by the time everyone else was up, we just sent Eaddie for the eggs and I made tuna pitas.

Eaddie wanted to have a friend over, so they spent most of the morning and early afternoon cleaning up the house. We got most everything unpacked and did some rearranging, and then Eaddie left to pick up a friend. Summer and I took the Christmas trees down, I took a shower, and then we went to Lowe’s hoping to find a storage bag for the display model tree we purchased, since we didn’t get a box with it. They appeared to have been sold out for a while and inventory had already been rearranged, so we left for Walmart. I got to try out Smart Summon on the loaner, and it worked pretty well. I definitely wouldn’t feel comfortable using it in a busy parking lot though.

We looked for storage at Walmart as well, but didn’t have any luck there either. We ran into Eaddie and a group of friends while we were shopping for dinner, and that’s when I learned that we were having all three of them for dinner rather than the one I was expecting. We got stuff to grill a bunch of burgers and met them back at the house.

I quickly made and measured out the burgers, but then had trouble starting the grill again. The charcoal was just super cold, and wouldn’t ignite. It took me several tries, and once I had a glowing ember, I used the leaf blower to keep it spreading. I used the flat top to cook the burgers, and deep fried some seasoned fries as well. Overall I was pretty happy with the meal, and Summer and I got things cleaned up faster than the time it took to get the grill hot. I’m going to make Eaddie eat a bun without a burger for dinner later, since she didn’t consider how carefully I divided the meat to account for the number of buns we bought.

Eaddie left to take at least one of her friends home while Summer and I wound down for the night, and I was satisfied enough just getting to bed before midnight.

Hamburguesas de Sabor Razonable

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Knives Out, and Beaks Bloody

Evidently Eaddie finally pulled an all-nighter to get her sleep schedule back in order. I didn’t realize that when she came out of her room in the morning, it was before she actually got any sleep. I had a coffee and started running more cleaning cycles on the washing machine since I still couldn’t get the pulsator out. Summer got Eaddie back up so she could go to another escape room with some friends, and we decided to try the new Old South for dinner when she got back.

More than anything, I missed the old Dixie Cafe. Old South is fine. The food is fine. The new location seems way better, and they’ve been busy, but the food was average at best. We had a minimal amount of service from our waitress, and all of my food was cold. I’ve got to remember never to get their prime rib, and to stick with chicken fried something with gravy. At least the girls liked their food alright.

Afterward, we went by the old house and I loaded up three boxes full of DVDs to bring home. We didn’t end up watching any of them, and instead we streamed Knives Out. I really enjoyed it, and the sequel is out on Netflix, so maybe I can convince the girls to watch it tomorrow.

Think of a community theatre production of a tax return.

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Out with the Wash

I woke up to some wet snow this morning. It covered the deck, but it still just sounded like soggy rain everywhere else. I rearranged the fridge a bit and had some V8 and then a hot chocolate. Eaddie beat me to the shower, and I didn’t want to risk being out of hot water, so I piddled around for a while.

Summer made it home early with some leftover pizza from work, so Eaddie and I ate some of that. Summer was gross from power washing the wash, so then she took a hot bath which pushed me back even further. I eventually got my hot shower and then played just a few minutes of Oxygen Not Included before my computer locked up. It didn’t seem to be running poorly, so I don’t know if it was thermals or something else, but I could never get it to run again after that one time.

Summer had done some laundry and got the washing machine full of dirt and sand, so I spent a while trying to take the pulsator disc out for cleaning. It was really stuck, and I was afraid of tearing it up any further, so I figured I’d go to bed and give it another try in the morning.

DC68-03172B-03