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Dent See That Coming

I didn’t sleep super well last night, but I made it in to work a little early anyway. It felt like there was more traffic than usual, but I couldn’t tell why. I dawdled a little bit, but I didn’t seem to be the only one. Then I made my way to Crawford to close out a ticket there. I only had about an hour to kill until lunch by the time I got back to the shop.

I considered not going, but felt hungrier as the minutes ticked down to 11:30, and we went to La Chiquita. Their lunch fajitas are only seven bucks on Monday, so it’s hard to beat. Then I tried to stay busy for the rest of the afternoon. Right at the end of the day, Ryan started questioning me about our imaging task sequence, and I almost felt embarrassed. I bounce between projects so often, and it’d been quite a while since I’ve actually done anything with it. As soon as the clock hit 4:30, he was ready to run out the door though.

Zach and Greg were outside talking to the maintenance guys when I left, so I pulled over to chat. I bumped up into Zach a little by accident, and in turn he stumbled and sat on my hood, which surprisingly pushed in a little spot right above the emblem. I didn’t even believe them at first when they said it was dented, but eventually I caught the right light and I could see it. It shouldn’t be anything to push back out, but I felt incredibly stupid for it.

Eaddie had left her phone at home, so when I finished chatting with them, I went up to get it for her. I thought I’d be picking her up from robotics to take her to her grandparents’ house, but she changed her mind on account of homework. Instead, Summer brought her home. Then the two of us went to my parents’ house for some grilled pork chops and noodles.

Mom wasn’t feeling great, so she was on the couch for most of the time we were there. We chatted with Dad for a while though. We finally got back to my house to swap cars, and then headed up to the girls for the night. Eaddie was stressing a bit over Valentine’s day, but that didn’t last long.

Once Autumn and Summer went to bed, Eaddie and I watched an episode of Breaking Bad. I’ve been getting hyped up for what comes next, but we haven’t had time to watch very much. At least now I have a lead into the spinoffs.

Just improvise!

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Get Grounded

I got up this morning and grilled little burritos for everyone. Autumn of course only ate half of hers, since it had more than beans and cheese in it. Afterward, Summer made it to the gym. I should have left right away, because then I could have avoided Autumn asking permission to go out to eat dinner with their father. I felt like she was scheming as usual, so I left it up to Summer.

When I got home, I started pulling switches apart and climbing up into the attic to trace wires. There was only one line of Romex coming into the garage light switch, and it went straight up to the light, which then went to either western outlet. This confused me, because I couldn’t find where it went back to the breaker box. After some poking around, I figured the northwest outlet went to the outside light and then up to the breaker.

Summer showed up for a bit, and I showed her what I was working on. Then she left and Dad came over to help. We continued poking around the outlets and eventually pulled three unconnected ground wires out of the north outside light switch. With them disconnected, I have absolutely no idea how the outlet ever worked at all for charging my car. If it was never ever grounded, then it should have always failed.

Once we had that all patched up and at least reporting correct, we moved inward. Most of the outlets inside the house reported some kind of issue, either with an open ground, or voltage where there should be none. We did a bit of trial and error, but never actually got anything fixed. It did make me feel quite a bit better about doing the work ourselves, though. It shouldn’t be terribly difficult to fix it all ourselves. The trick is to not wait until it’s hot.

Eventually Dad headed home and I went back to Summer’s for the evening. The girls went out for dinner, so Summer warmed up some leftovers for us. When the girls got back, we had to get on to Autumn for talking back and sneaking around with Adam, who she took to dinner with their father. It’s clear she’s still manipulating information, but that entire side of the family is TA.

Summer and I watched a bit of YouTube comedy for a bit, and then I took a shower to get some of the grime off of me before bed. I’d love to get a good night of sleep for once.

Srsly, YTA, literally, no cap.

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Not Grounded

Both of the girls had school stuff today, so Summer and I had the day to ourselves. Autumn left to help at an away robotics tournament, and Summer had to get Eaddie to the high school for all-state band in Conway. She wanted to go to the movies, and we couldn’t decide whether to go here or in Conway. Eaddie thought she might finish super early and be bored all day, so we leaned toward Conway, then to go here, and ultimately not go to the movies at all.

I went home and climbed up into the attic to investigate wiring. It looked like both of my wall outlets in question went straight up to the outlet above the garage door opener. It showed to be an open ground as well, and I could trace it back to right around the light switch. It may be a super easy repair after all.

By the time I got cleaned up and ready to go out, Summer just wanted to stay in. I pressed her, and we met at Shell for gas before going to Colton’s for an early dinner. I didn’t think I overstuffed myself, but I felt super full the rest of the evening. We came home and she watched TV on the couch and then in bed until she fell asleep.

Eaddie ended up making sixth chair in the first band, so we were pretty pleased with her. Once they got home, we wound down pretty quickly. Eaddie had a bit to chat about, and then it was off to bed.

It’s like it has its own field of McGravity.

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Soggy Fries From the Burger Guys

Our meeting was a little unconventional today, with furniture moved and Thomas coming in a bit late with the donuts. Gary left to get some, but I called him back to the shop as soon as Thomas showed up. After our chat, I had questions for Gary about our firewall failure earlier in the week, and Ryan had input. I can tell there’s a lot of opportunity to learn from both of those guys just by sitting in the room.

I closed a bunch of old tickets throughout the day, and it was nice to be rid of them. We left for lunch at CJ’s about half an hour early in three vehicles, and it was a good thing because two busloads of kids showed up right behind us. I was really surprised when the girl at the register remembered that I usually get all of the extra grilled toppings. I skipped them today, because I knew I would already be paying twelve bucks for a burger that was in no way special at all. The fries were pretty awful today, too.

A little while after lunch, I had to run home on the way to Crawford, where I closed out a few more tickets before school let out. Then the remainder of the workday was pretty quiet with Thomas out. Brody stopped by to chat with us, and then I headed on home.

I went straight to Summer’s after I changed, and started cooking some taco meat for burritos. Autumn was at a basketball game, so the three of us enjoyed a quick dinner and then started watching Breaking Bad. We had to call Autumn home after she ended up at her boyfriend’s house after the game. Then I think we finished three episodes before Eaddie decided she was ready for a bath and then bed.

The whole thing’s contaminated!

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Out Came the Sun

I got to work this morning, and the maintenance crew had stuff laid out to tear up the ground around the basement. I thought I’d leave and work from the high school again, but since they weren’t actually doing anything in our office and most everything was dry, I ended up sticking around. I kept reasonably busy, and the time just flew by.

I took Gary, Zach, and Thomas to Wendy’s and tried some new chicken sandwich with a fried mozzarella patty and marinara, and wasn’t super impressed. I kind of just wished I had gotten a burger. Then it was back to the shop where I spent most of the afternoon putting together three pages worth of meeting minutes from Monday.

I ended the day at Crawford to try and clean up a few work orders, but only actually closed one before quitting time. I went to see Summer at Superfast, but then she sent me to Walmart to pick up pork chops, broccoli, and cauliflower. I went home briefly, and then met her at her house where we remembered that the girls actually had a quiz bowl night at Zaxby’s.

Dinner was good, but Summer kept getting irritated at anything I said. Easily the most frustrating part about our relationship is that she often seems incapable of accepting any form of constructive feedback. Eaddie eventually showed up, but disappeared into the bathroom after saying that Autumn would be later. She had to take Adam home, after evidently being gross in the Zaxby’s parking lot. Between that and the mysteriously leaky bottle of Fireball, we just want her gone.

Eaddie and I ended the night with two more episodes of Breaking Bad. The drama has gotten so heavy, but there’s still so far to go. I remember there being a lull at some point, but I don’t think it ever got bad.

F is for Frustration!

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I Forgot My Floaties

There was a line of cars in front of our shop this morning, but I didn’t quite put it together why they were there. Our office had flooded again, in a bad way. Of course my office got the worst of it. Gary sent me off to the high school instead to work with Jacob, though he never actually showed up until near lunch time.

Just as I was getting ready to go back to the shop for lunch I got a text from another Jacob, evidently the primary Tesla mobile service tech for the state. He was on his way to work on the Model 3 in the rain, so I went to the bus shop to see if I could borrow a bay to keep out of the weather. Dale was just leaving, so he let me pull right in. Just a few minutes later, I spotted the little Tesla service van across the field and called to direct him to me.

They were two really young guys in full Tesla rain gear, and they confirmed my issues and got right to work testing the doors repeatedly. They adjusted the door bumpers, then pulled some trim and checked some wires. It took a little bit to warm up to me, but then we got to talking a bit while they worked. Jacob had a broken shoulder from mountain biking, so TA was there from North Carolina to help. Jacob said he was actually from Heber Springs, which surprised the heck out of me for a Tesla tech that covers the whole state. We had a good chat, and a laugh about how bad Enhanced Autopilot is. Then they were on their way.

I went back to the shop for a minute just as the others got back from lunch. They were still pulling tons of water out of the office, since it had been raining all day. There was no end in sight, as we watched the water line drift right back out away from the wall as it seeped up from the ground. I went to KFC to get a bit of lunch and relax, and then headed back to the high school to finish out the day.

Summer wanted to go to Walmart, so I met her there right after work and we picked up a bunch of random stuff. Then I went home to change before going up to her place. That was when I started having trouble charging my car. I spent quite a while digging out my charger and moving it to different outlets. The two most convenient ones were reporting no ground connection, but inside the house, the mobile charger appeared to be fine. I finally got to my third outlet in the garage, and was able to get charging again.

When I got to Summer’s, Eaddie was baking brownies. Summer finished up her TV show and then went to bed since Eaddie wanted to watch Breaking Bad with me. We watched two episodes, which got me to bed a bit later than I wanted, but it was just getting really good. I should probably take some time off tomorrow anyway, to investigate my rogue outlets.

I wander’d off by myself
In the mystical moist night-air
And from time to time
Look’d up in perfect silence
At the stars

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THE SYSTEM IS DOWN

Thomas messaged us about an hour before work this morning to let us know that there were district-wide reports of an internet outage. I walked in just a couple minutes after Ryan got there and said it was back up, but I could tell something wasn’t acting right. It became clear pretty quickly that things were very broken. I mostly just stayed out of the way, but I wanted to follow along with the troubleshooting process for my own learning. I ended up just doing my own thing in my office, but I was proud of myself for coming to the conclusion that it was likely a firewall issue. Evidently a patch from the manufacturer broke everything, and the guys spent nearly all day coming up with workarounds until we could get an answer from them.

I kept surprisingly busy for as broken as things were. Lunch time came around and Zach said that Thomas had ordered pizza, but he wasn’t sure if we were invited. I let the working crew eat first, and then came along and picked some up afterward since there was plenty to go around.

Near the end of the school day, I made it over to Crawford and saw Shavon for the first time in quite a while. Everyone I spoke to seemed overly positive, and it was too early for me to tell if it was just in the water, or if there really was something to it.

It had started to rain quite a bit, and that continued on after work. When I finally left, I stopped by Superfast to see Summer before getting Eaddie from robotics. Then the two of us went to my parents’ for some mango soup. After we ate, I took Eaddie back to my house while I ran next door to help Bác Vân with her phone. Bác Trân had texted me earlier in the day to say it was making noise at him, but we never did find anything wrong with it.

We made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and I tried to get to bed fairly early. Autumn came in late from a basketball game, but that was it for the night.

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YSOBLUE

Today was Ryan’s first day back, so Zach and Gary were buzzing with that for most of the day. I spent the first part of the morning stressing over what I might rile up in our CPPC meeting, but when we finally met, I didn’t even have to do any talking on account of everyone else being so outspoken. The only one point of contention that I will simply never understand was that nobody seemed to think you should get a day of leave refunded if the school closes while you were out. That just made no sense to me at all. School was closed. How do they possibly justify that your leave still has to be docked.

That nearly got us to lunch, and a big group of us went to La Chiquita. That was a no-frills table full of fajitas, and a surprising amount of leftover cheese dip. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon fighting a software update deployment. I think I finally sorted it out, but I felt bad because I had completely missed it from a work order from several days ago.

At the end of the day, Zach went out to the front of the building with me to help replace a panel on the road sign. I had to call support and finagle some firewall settings, but we got it done without too much fuss. Then I headed home to change before going by Superfast to check on Summer. She was just about to head out, so I continued on to my parents’ house for dinner.

Mom made mango soup, so Dad got that warmed up for us. I didn’t stay for too long though, because the arts center was hosting a percussion ensemble concert that Summer wanted to see. I met all of them there, and a bunch of Eaddie’s friends came to sit with us while Autumn and Adam were off in the back somewhere. The concert was surprisingly long, with a surprising age range of students, but they did a good job.

I went home and discovered that my car charger had gotten loose enough that my car stopped charging last night. I fixed that and headed up to Summer’s for the evening, where everyone was pretty much heading straight to bed. Summer and I crunched some numbers and felt confident enough to cover a car payment, so she ordered a Model Y in the app, which I thought was a worse experience than doing it on the website. She didn’t even get a little hedgehog meme. Oh well.

Gotta act rich to be rich. First thing’s first: Make a bunch of money.

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Charge Test

I got up and made breakfast this morning by frying up a bunch of leftover bits and pieces of things with some eggs. It turned out pretty good, and even Autumn seemed not to hate it. She surprised us with improved grades so as not to lose her car or privileges to see her boyfriend, so we were pretty pleased with that. Summer had plans to meet some girls from work in Conway, and Eaddie wanted to go shopping with me while Summer did that.

I headed home to clean up, but then Summer said her plans had to be postponed. Eaddie still wanted to shop, so I picked them up and let Summer drive the Model 3 to Conway to get a feel on the interstate. I brought along my mobile charger to see if I could charge from her front porch, and then I looked for a NEMA 14-50 plug at the Splash in Conway once we got there. Unfortunately there wasn’t one available, but we could at least slow charge on a regular outlet available outside.

From there, we went down the road to The Mighty Crab and got some crab, shrimp, and crawfish boiled. The food was good, but I left pretty hungry. The crab was problematic and frustrating to eat, but the food all tasted good. It made me want to host a seafood boil myself.

After we ate, we went shopping across town. We started at Kohl’s, where they were having a pretty good sale on clearance items. Then we walked down to Shoe Carnival and TJ Maxx before going across the street to Old Navy. We closed them down, and then made our way back across town to Las Delicias. I had a “bubble wrap,” which was basically an inverted waffle with ice cream. I ultimately wished I had gotten a regular cone, just because it was so bready. The waffle flavor just overpowered the ice cream, so I couldn’t really enjoy the flavors I picked.

I drove us home, I changed, and then Summer drove us home in the Montego. Going back to such a rickety vehicle after driving the Murano and then the Tesla, I think Summer finally agreed that it was time to put the Montego behind us.

Burnin’ Bills

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Y Not?

Eaddie left with some friends for a robotics fund raiser super early this morning. It took me a bit to get back to sleep, but I vaguely remembered Autumn leaving a few hours later for a basketball trip. Summer got up and let me sleep in a bit because I was super exhausted. When I finally got up, we priced a Model Y out of curiosity, since the tax credit limits were changed to include the performance model.

She ended up having to go to work for a while, so I went home to clean up and tinker around for a while. When she finally finished, I let her drive the Model 3 to her parents’ house so we could try and get their old Pathfinder’s alarm system disarmed, and the SUV running. I managed to take care of it after a single honk, and then the engine cranked just fine. The tires were dry rotted, but the motor purred just fine, so Summer followed me to PDQ for some air. We couldn’t get the valve stem caps off of the left tires, so I drove it lopsided to Superfast where Alexis helped us change the valve stem.

With that out of the way, we went to Taco Villa for dinner. That place never slowed down, so we ate and then ran back to my house to get the gas burners. I met her at Shell and we filled up, and then continued up to her house for the evening.

Eaddie showed up shortly after we got home. Autumn made it back a little while after that. They ate, and then Eaddie wanted to watch an episode of Breaking Bad before bed. I guess I feel reasonably accomplished, even if we really only did one of the things I had planned.

Juggle Bucks