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March On

I finally got my request submitted to attend this year’s Arkansas Conference of Technology, and Blake came into the office to ask me to commit to staying for the rest of the school year. I understand that the budget for this year was made, and I know that I haven’t had long to prove myself, but I also feel like my department has really been set back from the direction I wanted to go. I told him honestly that it’s not my intention to leave, but that I was still kicking myself for not taking the $70,000 offer I got earlier in the year. I’m even more upset that I didn’t join Brody at Clarksville. This year is full of regrets, and there’s no confusion about how I feel toward my new school. There is a lot of work to be done, and they’re barely paying me enough to submit tickets to DIS to let them handle it. In the end, he said he would get me a PO, so I’ll be going for both days of the main conference, as well as both pre-conference days. It’s an investment in me, and I feel I’ve earned it whether I stay or go.

It was otherwise a pretty quiet day. I made plans to meet with John at the house after work to sign an invoice, for which he was expecting half of the payment before I actually knew what that payment would be. That was on him. After I met with him at the house, I took my car to the old house to charge and then took the Shadow to the high school for the marching assessment. It got cold fast, and I was pretty much immediately ready to leave, but it wasn’t awful. Mark and Laura actually came up and sat by us, and we chatted very briefly. She evidently knew my name from my own firing, and Mark laughed saying, “me too!” It’s harder to find a good lawyer at Technician pay though.

After the marching assessment, I went to the house to pay some bills before finally heading to the new house for the evening.

Actually, I thought there’d be more fire.

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Highly Illogical

Johnny called me for some help this morning on my drive to work. Apparently they have just been blacklisting Chrome extensions instead of whitelisting, so students have been getting around all of their policies. Easy enough of a fix. Denice had people meeting in her office all day, so I had my earbuds in early. Then after lunch, Kim and I went to the elementary to close out a few work orders. It’s frustrating that she’s clearly not going through them and closing them out. She seems to just come to work to socialize, and I’m just not paid enough to supervise her.

I wrapped up the day and headed home to charge for a while. Summer cooked dinner, but I showed up just as she finished eating. Then I sat on the porch for most of the evening until I came in to do my chores before bed.

Dys

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Getting Used to Home

Summer got up and went to the gym this morning, and I got around to do some laundry. I forgot a couple towels at the old house, so I ran across town to get them and complete the set. When I got back to the house, I took Summer around the block to look at a TV stand someone had left out. It didn’t look any better than the ones I have, so we left it and went back to the house to continue cleaning up.

Most of the day was pretty uneventful. I fixed a chair, sliced my hand trying to bang out a dent I put in the dryer, we went to the Neighborhood Market for some dinner to grill. Later in the evening, Summer snuck off to assemble the bed frame while I mounted a new smoke detector twice. I was certain the first time was where I wanted it, but went back and did it again with a laser level when I noticed it was at least an inch off of center.

Things are very slowly coming together, but sometimes the new habits we’re trying to form are a moving target. Summer thinks that I have to have things done my way because I think that my way is the only right way to do them. The part of the process that she’s never been around to experience are the 700 other ways I tried to do them first. Any one of them might have been perfectly fine, but you should always try to do them better the next time.

You see, I measured it wrong 499 different times.

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Bratty Satty

I woke up in an anxiety attack this morning and had a headache for most of the morning. I tried to get moving on something productive, but I just felt off for most of the day. I grilled some brats for lunch before Eaddie left to go to Eli’s for his birthday. Then I was going to clean the carpet in the small office nook by the bedroom while Summer went to get her hair trimmed, but then Dad wanted to come by and take a look at the old refrigerator.

We got the parts out, but couldn’t really test that they were bad. Based on the behavior of the compressor trying to kick on, I ordered a new start relay. After that, I finally got started on the carpets, very slowly. Then Summer got hungry and wanted Little Caesar’s, so she picked that up while I finished the carpet.

The night seemed to go by really quickly. I soaked in a bath for a while just to try and refresh myself before bed. Eaddie got home late, and Summer was already in bed. I tried not to stay up too late because I figured I had a whole weekend to make up on Sunday.

Back in the day, we had to browse the internet by candlelight!

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Homestaying

I slept in and woke up to a dreadful dream this morning. I was in my parents’ driveway when I saw a kangaroo hopping down the street. As I went to investigate, another one came up and started nuzzling me for pets. They were just a diversion for a crime ring of car thieves though, and they stole my Model 3 and replaced it with another Fiero. The Fiero actually looked like it was in really good condition, but I was still upset about my Model 3, so I tried to locate it with GPS. Failing that and running around in the street to chase the flatbed trucks that were hauling off other vehicles, I finally gave up and looked to make an insurance claim. That was when I realized I was past due by a couple weeks, and I woke up dreading that the insurance wouldn’t cover me either, and that I was just out of luck.

I never quite got over that feeling, but I started milling around the house and picking at little things to clean or fix up. I eventually had a shower and met Summer downtown for the homecoming parade. Sheri stopped to talk to me for a bit, and we sat down with Hannah and Dylan. Sandy and her crew came by as as well, and we were a the minimum amount of social for the occasion. We failed to see Eaddie play anything as they marched by because Summer had us on the wrong side of the street, plus the band quit playing right before they got to us.

After the parade, Summer went to get Eaddie some food while I went home to charge and take care of the fish and plants. When I got back to the house, I grilled some more brats for dinner, and then I continued to fidget with things all around the house, long into the night.

If nothing else, it’s good to practice interviewing.

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Pixel8ed

I slept reasonably well through the night, so I was surprised at how tired I was when I woke up this morning. I had another annoying shower, fighting with the hot water again. Then it was a McChicken Biscuit kind of morning for the drive to work. It was a bit of a struggle getting Kim to focus, which was especially bad since Denice was in the office for most of the day. Summer sent me a picture of the back of her car where someone must have hit it with something and gouged the paint a bit. She tried to look through the dashcam footage, but couldn’t find anything.

I spent my entire day working on VMware again, and with Gary’s help, I got my log files cleaned up, and everything was working again. I learned quite a bit, but there’s still so much more. They had a pep rally in the afternoon, and then school let out for a three-day weekend that I really needed.

After work, I ran straight to the new house to get my Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel Watch 2. I spent most of the evening setting them up, until the girls got home and I went out to find some food. I went to the Neighborhood Market to see if they had anything interesting in the deli. They did not. Then I went to Kroger and ended up getting some brats to grill.

Summer was asleep by the time I got back, so I ate by myself, tinkered for a while longer, and then finally went to bed late.

Every day, there’s something new.

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Bashed

I was exhausted this morning, but I made it to work early again. Eaddie ended up sleeping in and going to school around lunch time, and I was so mad and jealous at the same time. I had to dig into my VMware issues some more, but still didn’t have a fix. It looks like I’ll have to learn some more command line stuff to really fix it. It was a long day, but thankfully my coffee got me through it.

Afterward, I went straight home to charge for a while. I ended up just figuring dinner on my own because Summer made chicken salads, and I was tired of salad after eating one every day at school. I took the Shadow out, and it was a cool night for my first ride in months. I felt bad that I hadn’t taken the bikes out earlier, but I just haven’t had a good opportunity for it in a long time.

I tried going to Taco Bell at first, and it looked like they had remodeled and duplicated the Chick-fil-A method of multiple drive-through lines. Those were packed, but I wanted to dine inside anyway. When I went into the restaurant, there were about a dozen other people standing around waiting for food, and I didn’t see a single person eating anything. I decided to dip pretty quickly, and ended up going to McDonald’s for an equally poor experience. Employees were yelling at each other across the restaurant, my fries weren’t very fresh, and my Quarter Pounder wasn’t made correctly at all. The lady behind me was traveling through, and went Super-Karen because she wasn’t happy with how her food was made either. She kept muttering to herself, and I realized pretty quickly I was in CrazyTown.

I took the bike back home after I ate, and took the Model 3 for a wash before going to the new house. Summer was helping Eaddie study for tests, so I took care of my own chores and made it to bed roughly on time.

It’s the state of the civilization for me.

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“Cheer Up,” My Friends All Say

Today was my first drive in to work straight from the new house. I wasn’t quite early enough to make it to the old house first to feed the fish, so I figured I could take care of them after work. I was fairly productive until lunch time when kids started screaming at the tops of their lungs right outside my door. I really have no idea how I’m expected to get any work done in there, and it made me furious. On top of that, I was constantly up and down at my desk to let visitors in for Denice. Productivity was down in an already ailing department.

I left just a little bit early to get home to change before the concert. Eaddie was wishy-washy about going because her band teacher made an announcement that anybody who didn’t show up to practice couldn’t march at the homecoming game. I told her there was no way they would keep their star performer from marching, and she finally agreed to go with me.

We headed out of town later than I wanted, and stopped in Ozark to charge and get some food. We ran into Alisha and Joshua there, who were also on their way across the state for the concert. They wanted to make it for the gate opening, but we didn’t arrive until The Get Up Kids were near the end of their set. After that, I knew one song by Motion City Soundtrack. I knew the most songs from New Found Glory. The lead singer from The All-American Rejects was super weird, but he kind of made me think of what I might be like if I had lived in the spotlight as long as he had.

Overall, everyone was entertaining. It was a packed house, but we managed to get out in a reasonable amount of time. We stopped in Lowell for a quick charge just long enough to use the restroom and get a drink, and then continued to Ozark where I charged enough to get me to work the next morning. Eaddie slept the whole way home and never got out of the car. I wrapped up quickly once I got home, so I shouldn’t be much shorter on sleep than a typical late night.

There’s a place, somewhere that’s between dream and awake.

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Imbalance

I was a little bit behind this morning, and I still had a mix of my routine at the new house and at the old house. I never brought shoes over, so I had to wear flip-flops to the old house to feed the fish, brush my teeth, and then get to work on time. I jumped right on some super old requisitions that I had, and then spent like two hours on printing asset tags. That basically took me through lunch, when I had to work with earbuds because of the noise. I hate my new office arrangement so much.

I spent most of the afternoon in PowerShell trying to figure out why our existing scripts were screwing up student accounts in Clever. I ended up staying super late after a day of hearing Kim on her phone, but I think I got most of it fixed before testing tomorrow.

My car seemed to be taking a bit longer to charge than I expected, so I was home for a while before I finally went to Taco John’s for dinner. Then I went back to the house to kill some more time, pay some bills, and charge before going to the new house for the night.

I just want to pay my gas bill.

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Snoop 8-Double-0-Double-g

I got up this morning and made myself a coffee in my shiny new, white Ember Mug. Summer wanted me to smoke some ribs, so I had to get an early start for the over six-hour process. When she got up, she seemed to be having a rough day, and we could never quite put a finger on why. I think we both just feel a little stuck in a house that we can’t fully unpack in yet, and to be honest, I think maybe she’s starting to feel how I’ve felt at her house for the past several years.

I got the ribs onto the smoker, but struggled to get anything connected or updated properly. The Ember Mug refused to update its firmware, just as my other one did for years. Then the Gravity 800 smoker wouldn’t connect to the new wireless network. It took me nearly two hours to get everything connected properly.

Eaddie left for band practice pretty early in the day, so Summer and I ran to my old house for my barbecue spray bottle. We had to get back to spritz the meat, but then we went to Zaxby’s for some lunch before going to Walmart to pick up some potatoes and Brussels sprouts for dinner.

When we got back to the house, I wrapped the ribs for two more hours on the grill. Then I unwrapped them for one last hour with a maple glaze. I was pleased that we got rid of a whole bottle of Larry the Cable Guy seasoning and the ribs didn’t turn out too salty.

We also moved the cabinets out of the laundry room and into the building out back. I’m having trouble coming up with a good name for it, and I think we need another “shed” for lawn equipment. Eaddie brought Eli over for dinner, and nobody complained about any of the food. Afterward, I cleaned up the kitchen and got the smoker prepped for next time.

Just as I finally had a chance to settle down, Eaddie made it back home and came into the bedroom to tell me she had gotten a flat tire. She had some story about getting scared by another vehicle, which didn’t seem to make any sense. We went out to take a look, and the front-passenger wheel was sitting on the ground with a completely flat tire. We didn’t see a tear in the tire anywhere, and I especially don’t know how she managed to hit the front and not the back. Luckily Summer will be able to take her to school in the morning, and get the tire replaced tomorrow.

I need a substantial break, and that dog needs to shut the hell up. These new neighbors are ruining our outdoor vibe.