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The Thinking Den

It was a pretty quiet day today, which was good because I burned most of it trying to figure out what broke in SCCM. I just stayed in my office with some music, and repeatedly imaged a laptop to see why it wasn’t doing some certain steps in the task sequence. The newbies came through several times and I helped when I could. Mike was particularly goofy today. Gary was still on a pretty good high with having a new car, and he drove me to Linh’s for lunch.

Zach and his door crew didn’t finish in time to meet us, so the two of us just ate there and then took him some to go. Then I dug through log files all afternoon to no avail. I stopped by Casey’s on the way out, then went to the shop to see Summer for a bit before going to my parents’ for dinner.

They were just eating leftovers, so I finished up the spring rolls and then went home for the night. My major accomplishment for the day was cleaning out my personal email, which at least didn’t require any deep thought. At some point, I froze myself out when my Nest thermostat decided I wanted to be cooled to 72º in early spring when the evening temperature is set to drop to the low 60s. Aaron popped online and bounced around in TeamSpeak, which caught my attention. I talked to him for just a little bit, and then it was off to bed.

And for a brief moment, I thought I’d just learn to become an electrical engineer on YouTube.

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Caustic for $200

This morning started out pretty rough. I had trouble getting to sleep last night in spite of how exhausted I was. When I finally made it to the shower, I discovered my towel had been used to wipe off what I assume was someone’s face cream that bleached the blue right out of the towel. I screamed in rage at the situation because this made the fifth or sixth time that this exact situation has happened within a relatively short amount of time, and it feels like nobody’s getting the goddamn memo. Chemicals are bad. That feeling was amplified because I put a cheap hand towel in the bathroom for them, and for some reason they still went for my bath towel. I had finally broken down and bought a really nice, complete set of everything, and it felt like nobody values any of it.

Work was fine, except that I had to cover the middle school for Josh while no fewer than three of them fixed a total of one door. I struggled to find my way around, and had at least one medium-level moment of embarrassment because hardly anyone there knows me. When I made it to the shop, I slowly discovered that I would be on my own for lunch. I considered just finishing a Soylent, but thought I’d take Summer lunch instead.

Wendy’s was a shitshow of mouthbreathers that simply didn’t have the capacity to maintain both a drive-through and inside counter. It was the same kid that was working last time, and he looked equally flustered. It’s not entirely their fault, because evidently nobody wants to work at all right now. Summer’s basically been short staffed since she started, and everyone there is burned out on hours. I ended up just eating my half of the lunch alone in her office before going back to work.

The afternoon was a little more quiet. Gary brought his new Carvana purchase in: a 2019 Nissan Altima that was used as a rental car in its past life. It had relatively low miles and looked to be in pretty good condition. We were all really happy for him as he discovered automobile features from the early 21st century. The afternoon went by pretty quickly from there as I tinkered with some things in my office.

The girls walked home from school, so I basically just came home to pick them up. We dropped Autumn off at her Explorers meeting, and then Eaddie and I went to my parents’ house for rolls. Summer and Julie showed up when they each got off from work. Tensions were manageable but awkward. Everyone filtered out, and I finally headed home for the evening.

Relaxation is requiring quite a bit of force these days.

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The Easter Boomer

I’ve felt pretty exhausted lately, and last night was no different. I slept super late today, and only got up in time for a little leftover brunch before having to get ready for a late Easter lunch with my parents. Summer made some deviled eggs, and the girls caught the irony. We let Autumn drive us all, and Bác Vân and Doug beat us there.

It was a relatively limited menu compared to our usual, but it was a great meal with much reduced stress. The girls enjoyed overhearing the adults ponder racially-charged social nuances, and it was a good time for all. After we ate, Autumn dropped Summer and Eaddie off, and I went with her to Walmart for a couple things. What should have been a pretty quick trip turned into both of us wandering around alone. It was hot and aggravating, because even when we weren’t browsing and just on a mission to pick up something specific, she felt the need to take off and leave me.

When we finally got back to their house, I loaded up and came home for the night. My left foot had been hurting all day for some reason, and the rising temperatures got me pretty lethargic and cranky. I ended up sitting on the couch for a couple hours and watching some Home RenoVision DIY videos.

Just before an early bedtime, I got out my new MonoPrice tube amplifier and hooked it up in the garage just to test it out with some old speakers. The speakers work great, and I think the amp will look super cool on top of the two larger speakers stacked on top of one another.

Nice weather means they’re sold out of tennis rackets.

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Burninating the Countryside!

Summer had to work for a little while today, so Autumn and I got up and had breakfast at Hardee’s. We had a pretty good chat, then dropped a sandwich off for Summer on the way home. Eaddie eventually got around to eat and came outside to help Autumn and me burn the brush in the back yard. I was a little surprised how well it burned, considering how much green was back there. The trick now is to mow it regularly so it doesn’t get bad again this year.

As the fire died down, Eaddie went through and clipped down larger plants that didn’t burn down. Autumn moved some of the ash around to try and level the ground, and found a box turtle that we accidentally roasted. I dug a hole for her to bury it, and then went to clean out the garage. Once the girls were tired of working in the yard, Autumn came inside and Eaddie took off on her bike.

Eventually I got the girls back home to clean up, and we had to sit down for a family chat about wanting to go to their father’s for the weekend. I still had to get cleaned up myself, so we started Eaddie on mowing the lawn. Summer went to the gym, and I stopped by to give Robert another Cyberathlete Professional League sticker I found. He gifted me a little bit of brisket, and finally I headed home to shower.

I started feeling pretty sick after my shower, with a bit of a chill and some general wooziness. I made my way up to Summer’s for the evening, but there was so much noise in the house that I had to break out the XM4s to just chill out in silence for a bit. Summer took Eaddie to get Dairy Queen since I was killing her vibe. Then everyone went to bead.

Burninating the peasants!

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No, I Said Get the Cardigan!

We sort of had a team meeting this morning, mostly about the questionable future of the department. I think most of us are pretty nervous, and it would do a whole lot of good to promote internally just for the sake of morale alone. We finally split up for a couple tasks, and I went to the junior high with Brody to round up some old laptop carts.

I think Josh and Kyle were supposed to bring us a truck and trailer to return the carts to the graveyard, but they never made it by lunch. Somehow lines were crossed and they ended up burning the whole morning trying to image a lab at the middle school.

Everyone that was there today went to lunch together at the Ridgewood Brothers. It was nice to have some solidarity, and of course the food was great. Then after lunch we finally got our carts. It took three trips, and we still didn’t finish, but we had to call it quits in order to make a touch panel delivery to Center Valley before quitting time.

Zach met Brody and me out there, and we hung the touch panel as quickly as we could before time to go home. Then I went by the shop to take Eaddie home so she could ride her bike. By the time we got there, we both agreed that traffic was being too stupid for her to risk it, so we stayed in and watched House instead.

Summer came over with fundraiser chicken dinners, and then Eaddie and I went to get Autumn when they were done. I took them home to clean up and pack, and then we came back to my house where everyone immediately collapsed into bed.

In retrospect, I may have in fact just been carjacked.

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10 Hours Sitar Music with Crickets

I made it in to work early so I could light my incense and smoke the place up. It didn’t really pay off as much as I had hoped, but everyone enjoyed the Texas Instruments computer I set up on Melinda’s desk. It was otherwise a very quiet day, and one where I struggled to do much. With Ben on the way out, and it being that time of the year when everything gets really slow anyway, it’s just been really hard to do work.

Gary, Greg, Brody, and I went to Fat Daddy’s for lunch, and I was talked into getting this monster of a sandwich. It was okay, but truly I’m spoiled on barbecue. We may even go for Ridgewood Brothers tomorrow. I want to try the bacon burnt ends.

As the day came to a close, I made my way home for a little bit before taking the girls to karate. Then I went to my parents’ and helped Dad put a couple tarps over their plants to prevent them from freezing. Once the girls were done, I took them home and we ate some take-and-bake pizza from the school and watched an episode of Glee before everyone was off to bed.

I’m just numb to chirping now.

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Fool Me Once… Shame on….Shame on You

It’s been cooling off this week, and I could really tell this morning when it started to sleet on my way to work. It didn’t stick at all, and just melted away instantly, but I was definitely caught off guard by the sound of it hitting everything around me outside.

I’m still recovering from re-imaging my laptop, which meant I had to build a Microsoft Office installation for myself. That and a bit of tinkering with some other things got me through to lunch at Western Sizzlin with the boys. Afterward I packed up and went to the high school to help Mike sort depot boxes. We ended the day with the lift in the band room since we finally got our lamp in.

Autumn went to the gym again, so Summer left work and took Eaddie as well. That left me to go home and clean more in the garage. Nearly forgetting to plan my shenanigans, I pulled out my old TI-99 for deployment at work. Not just the base computer though. Oh, no. I brought out the Expansion System as well. That thing was heavy. I needed some help repairing the video cable though, so I packed up and took it to my parents’ house.

Dad got me sorted with some solder and hot glue. Then he pulled out my tiny old CRT television, and things booted up perfectly. Unfortunately I didn’t have the necessary Microsoft Multiplan 5.25″ floppy, so all I can really do is look at the loading screen, but it’ll serve its purpose. He went with me to the office to help stage everything, but just as we finished setting up, Melinda walked in. It was in the dead of night, so I really thought she was there to stage her own pranks, but she was just there to pick up some things. She’ll be out tomorrow, but I was hoping to land the prank on her the next day. Unfortunately she walked right in and saw it, so it’ll just have to be for fun with the rest of the gang tomorrow.

I dropped Dad back off at home and finally headed home to finish up the last of my plotting. Tomorrow should be fun.

Duuuuuude…..

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Computer Chores

Today was almost entirely spent taking care of old, stacked-up chores on computers. I finally wiped my work laptop and got it loaded back up to where I needed it. While that was going, I had to poke around on the SCCM server to make some space so I could see if that was the reason I wasn’t able to build a task sequence image yesterday. I took lunch with Zach, Greg, and Gary at Las Palmas where they’ve started charging more if you pay with a card.

After lunch was more of the same, but at least it was quiet. The girls had a ride to karate, so I just went home after work until time to pick them up. Then I cooked some spaghetti noodles for the leftover sauce. The girls all went to bed pretty early, so I spent hours cleaning up email and picking through Autumn’s Disney receipts to calculate what she owes me. She figured a little under $300. I calculated a little over $600. Looks like there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

This is the first time I’ve been outright unable to hear a high frequency sound that I used to hear, and it made me feel old.

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Treasure Hunt

I’d been out of work so frequently lately that I forgot my backpack this morning. This was a problem because I actually took my laptop home over spring break, and I needed it for work. I ran back home, then ended up at the high school for the morning to help Mike replace some laptop screens, which turned out to be pretty simple.

Summer and I had a lunch date, but I had to be back to the shop in time for training right after, so I quickly ran to get her and get to Mulan’s. The food was super good today, which made me that much sadder that I didn’t have time for dessert. I barely made it back in time. Karie was already at the shop and had already started, but it was just a refresher for me anyway. She kept it short, because the real TLDR is that we have to fix things without looking at anything.

I stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, and had to go hunting for all the things Melinda took out of my office. She found the cricket and hid it in the ceiling right above me, which wasn’t at all creative. I felt like I was annoying others more than anything, since I had to go through their things to find my own. She took so many things that I didn’t even remember what all was missing, but I think I found it all with some help from the others that were less than excited by her shenanigans.

The girls walked to Oakland after school, so I picked them up and took them home after work. Then I dropped Autumn off for her third last day of Monday night school. I stopped in to fix a couple computers in Ethan’s lab, then met Summer at the house so we could watch the newest episode of Falcon and Winter Soldier with Eaddie. As that ended, they had to leave and get Autumn.

I just relaxed for the rest of the evening. My blood pressure has been high without my medication, so I’m starting back on it in the mornings to see if it makes any difference compared to taking it in the evening. Hopefully the anxiety attacks don’t return, but if they do at least I’ll be prepared with a better explanation for them.

April Fools is coming…

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Path of Logical Hoarding

I woke up this morning and jumped right into organizing again. It was a cool, sunny day out, which was perfect for rummaging in the garage. While I was out there, I saw Uncle Giao, Erica, and Nova pull up at Bác Vân’s, and he brought out a couple old helmets for me. The girls showed up just after that, and we decided to go out for lunch to Linh’s with them.

The service was spacy, slow, and just generally bad. I keep thinking there must be something she can do to improve the experience, but it’s just always bad now. The food was fine, except for two very obvious black hairs entwined both in Summer’s shrimp fried rice and my phở. Things weren’t going well enough for us to really feel comfortable sending anything back though.

Steven and Ronda stopped by the restaurant to drop some wine off for Summer. Then Summer had to take off early to hold an interview at the shop. When we all finally left, I stopped by the house and picked up some old brake fluid, and took it to Summer.

The afternoon was more cleaning and organizing while Summer and Eaddie went for a bike ride and Autumn went to hang out with Harry. She’s been constantly asking to go to church with this kid, and I’d be alright with it if it was actually making her a better person instead of just trying to manipulate us into letting her do what she wants to do.

When Summer and Eaddie got back, they headed home and I went to Arby’s for a quick dinner. Then I wrapped up outside and came in to archive Summer’s skydive media. Time really accelerated after that, and before I knew it, it was well past bedtime.

Let’s build a new structure, dedicated to this hobby of collecting things!