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Bring Your Daughter to Work Day

Autumn wanted to go to work with me today, so I let her come help with the laptop processing. She ended up being a huge help, and even spent less time griping about the work than Heather. Having her there filled the little gaps where Heather and I were previously tripping over each other. The downside to that improved efficiency was that there was basically no downtime at all. We were basically moving the entire day, so we pretty much finished sorting all the laptops out.

Ben texted that they were heading to Bocadillos for lunch, so I took Autumn there instead of Chick-fil-A where she had been asking to go all morning. We’ll probably end up there tomorrow to make up for it. I wasn’t even hungry, but ate anyway and ended up regretting it. I really kind of preferred just working straight through lunch.

At the end of the day, Ben stopped by to see our progress and chat for a bit. The logistics of getting 875 laptops to the junior high are still a bit daunting, and there are a lot of options on how to handle which laptops will be returned for the lease. At least I can take comfort in knowing I still have some time left to file the warranty claims.

Autumn and I headed to my house to change, then went to Walmart to pick up some stuff for dinner. She made both teriyaki and Buffalo sauces for some chicken and rice. I helped a bit, and made some broccoli to green things up a bit.

When Summer got home from the gym, we ate and then packed up to head to my house for the evening. We had to stop by her parents’ house first to meet her sister and niece. Eaddie decided to bail on us and stayed the night there, so Autumn came back with us and we watched an episode of Game of Thrones before bed.

What do we say to one more episode?
“Not today.”

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Squatsville

Today was day two of the great laptop imaging race of 2020. We found our stride a bit quicker this time, and got up to around 600 laptops done. I also discovered that the warranty is good until the middle of August for most of our laptops, which was a tremendous relief.

After work, I went home to decompress for just a little bit before meeting the girls at my parents’ house for dinner. Autumn and I went out for a short swim before dinner while Mom finished the eggplant soup. Eaddie and I ate soup, and Summer and Autumn had some leftovers instead.

Eventually we made it up to Summer’s for the evening. I got a massive cramp in the front of my right thigh, which seemed like a really weird place to cramp. I figured it was from the two days worth of squats moving laptops around. I still prefer that to the hundred depot laptop claims I’ll have to file.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or more!

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Unhelpful

Evidently I forgot to change the pickup time on my breakfast pizza this morning, so by the time I got to Casey’s, they had given up on me and put my pizza in the warmer. The guy pulled all the slices out and boxed them up for me, but was going to short me a slice they had sold to someone else. I’m sure it was inadvertent, but I called him out on it and he gave me another slice of something else.

Heather got to the high school a bit late, and we did our best to find a groove with inspecting and re-imaging all of the old laptops. I’m not sure she really understood what kind of damage I was trying to call out, but that may have been my fault for poorly explaining the different things I’ve seen.

Lunch time snuck up on me, and she left for about an hour and a half, then returned with lunch to eat there. I just worked straight through and found a good groove. By myself, I was better able to find the bottleneck in our process. There were still things I wanted to change in the process, but I gave up on some of them for time and sanity’s sake.

I stayed a couple hours late just trying to finish up the fourth bin of laptops, then headed to my parents’ house for dinner. They got home just before I did, and Mom made up some shrimp soup. I was pretty beat from doing squats all day to lift and drop laptops, so I was pretty lame until we ate dinner, and then I headed home for the night.

Zach was already at my house when I got home, and had the Fiero up on jack stands. As I bounced around the house cleaning up, he pulled the fuel filter and verified that it wasn’t clogged. He said his next suspect was the fuel pump itself, but he wasn’t quite sure how best to tackle that project. The city code prevents me from just leaving it up on stands, which feels really stupid if it’s not in the grass.

As the sun went down, he put the car back down and I decompressed with just a little bit of Overwatch before bed.

I still think maybe Thanos was on to something.

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Impromptu Father’s Day

Julie was on vacation, so Summer and I decided planned a quick and easy Father’s Day lunch with my parents. She baked a bunch of bacon while I baked potatoes to make a twice-baked potato casserole. Then we took that along with the smoked turkey over to my parents’ house.

It was a pretty quick, late lunch, but everything was really good. The cold turkey was awesome on the potato bread buns. After lunch, I dropped Summer back off at home so she could do some chores, then I went home to do a little of the same.

Eventually Summer came over for the evening with some Sonic Blasts, and we watched some Forged in Fire until bedtime.

That sounds too much like a Disney villain.

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Give ’em the Quintuple Bird

Summer had to go by the shop to take care of some stuff today, so I took some time to do some much needed aquarium maintenance. I’ve got a pretty good plant die-off in the shrimp tank, and I think I just need to avoid floaters in that tank since they grow too fast and keep light from getting to the plants below.

After a shower, I ran across town to see if the Ridgewood Brothers had anything left for the day. They were winding down and cleaning up, so I helped Grant take down the canopies and then spent a really good amount of time catching up with Robert. It blows me away how much those guys remember from back in the day, but I’m guessing still being in that circle helped keep a lot of those memories alive. I hate that I had to step out of it for so long, but I’m happy to have an opportunity to peek back in occasionally.

As they finished cleaning up, I picked up their last five pounds of smoked turkey and headed to Walmart for a few things. Then I headed up to Summer’s to make some salads for dinner. When we finished, I decided to take it upon myself to clean up the three bananas she had left on the counter all week that were as dark as the night. I don’t remember, in my lifetime, having ever made a banana bread by myself. It’s possible that either Robert or Grant could recall a time at Papa John’s when I somehow concocted a way to bake one in the oven using some kind mixture of pizza dough and banana peppers, but as far as I can tell, tonight was my first.

It. Was. Awesome.

I just found a recipe online that looked relatively simple, and got to it. The streusel on top really made it, and I got through the whole ordeal without having it spill out into the bottom of the oven.

We watched a bit of Forged in Fire until Summer couldn’t keep her eyes open, and we called it a night.

I can’t wait to start cold turkey tomorrow.

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Rinse and Repeat

I spent most of the morning duplicating flash drives for next week’s imaging party. Heather will be with me then since they’re going to be her laptops next year, but today it was just me by myself finishing up what I started at the beginning of the week.

Gary and I ran by Wendy’s for some lunch, and I had some trouble with the app. There was no line at all, so I just ended up ordering off of the menu for about four times what I would have paid for my promotion through the app. Then I spent all afternoon shopping for more flash drives.

After work, I stopped by the shop to see Summer since she seemed busy all day. She had a lot going on, so we chatted for a little bit before I headed home to meet Zach. He eventually came over after interviewing at the shop, and started working on the Fiero again. We got some brake fluid into the clutch reservoir, and I was able to get the car in and out of gear. The starter worked, but the fuel pump never made a sound.

Zach’s father and grandfather came over to look at it for a little bit as well, and then they all left for dinner. When Summer finally got home after her long day, I went to Zaxby’s to pick up some dinner. I heard a pretty loud wreck from the end of the block, but it was too dark to really see anything.

I wrapped up the evening with some Overwatch with Johnny and Aaron. The kids are gone all weekend, so tomorrow is my chance to clean up at home.

Bite off more than you can chew; What can you do?
DARE TO BE STUPID

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The Breakthrough

I finally did it. I made a successful imaging task sequence. What’s more, the problem-step was early enough that I could fix it in one of my later sequences to quickly skip back through all the other additions I made.

Allen came back to the shop for lunch and wanted Bocadillos again, so I let him and Gary talk me into going for the third day in a row. It worked out in our favor though, because one of the school board members was having lunch there and decided to surprise us by sneakily going up and paying for our meals.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on into the evening copying flash drives and tinkering with the group policy setting that’s causing some weird issues with the Start Menu. It all comes down to what should be an unnecessary shortcut for staff that can’t seem to use the search function successfully.

I had to stop by the high school to pick up more flash drives before getting waxed out tomorrow, and then I went home to relax for a while. I got a surprise gift in the mail from Jennifer all the way from New Mexico to put up next to Becky’s other paintings. Then I tried to play some Overwatch, which lead to a lot more troubleshooting an issue with my display drivers to fix a flickering screen.

Eventually I made it up to Summer’s where I caught an episode of The Punisher with Eaddie before bed.

It wasn’t even procrastination so much as poor timing.

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Step Back

I still didn’t really get anywhere today in my imaging process. Time is running out, and I’m getting pressure from the custodians, of all people, to get my work done.

Summer came to see me, and then we went to Bocadillos for lunch. It was obvious the bosses weren’t around today, and the change to Latin music was pretty funny after the pop party we attended yesterday. I’m guessing the Christian music will come back around tomorrow.

I worked late, and then Summer brought me one of their boomboxes to loan to the high school for their drive-through retirement party for Bruce. I headed on home and waited for her to bring the girls over from her parents’ house after mowing the lawn.

Autumn wanted to go to Dollar Tree for something, but forgot what when we got there, so I bought a guilt-trip scrub brush. Then they wanted Subway, so we picked up one of the worst bags of food I’ve ever gotten from a Subway before. The sandwich I got for Summer and myself looked like it had been cut an additional time or something, and I would have probably had better luck eating my half with a fork.

Eaddie and I wrapped up the night with an episode of The Punisher, and then it was off to sleep.

We’ll get ’em tomorrow, buddy.

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Unaccomplished

I spent all day banging my head against the wall with my image task sequence. It’s such a slow process to build the media that I only get to test it a couple of times per day, and I’m running out of time. Tomorrow I’ll just have to start over and make smaller changes each time.

A big group of us went to Bocadillos for an excellent lunch, but outside of that I didn’t see many people all day. The Great Technology Hunt of 2020 is still underway.

After work, I had Zach come over to start looking at the Fiero. We went to AutoZone together to pick up a replacement battery, and we could tell the car wanted to turn over, but the clutch was completely shot. There was a very small amount of resistance on the first push, but after that there was none at all. It wasn’t until then that Zach said he didn’t really know anything about clutches, but I figure I don’t have much to lose outside of money for replacement parts.

He didn’t stick around for very long, and I figure I’ll eventually have to just let him have the keys so he can work on it during the day while I’m gone. Once my load of laundry finished, I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. I grabbed some Zaxby’s for dinner on the way, and we made salads at home with some chicken strips. Then it was an early evening to bed.

I don’t remember the Fiero being this close to the ground…

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Middle-Aged Mutant Ninja Tech Dudes

Our department sign came down at some point over the weekend, and somehow found a way to make itself more relevant than ever. Most of the group was out chasing iPads while I spent the day troubleshooting my OS deployment package. I felt pretty good about the changes I made, but it was pretty time consuming to compile the packages and actually test the changes.

Gary helped guide me a bit between working on his own things, and when the time came, we ran to Slim Chickens to pick up some lunch. My Cayenne Ranch Chicken Sandwich was unsurprisingly spiceless, but tasty enough, though seemingly smallish. I asked for fries, but got fried pickles instead somehow. They were alright, but overpriced. The chips were great, but I knew that going in.

The afternoon was mostly more of the same, but I had to leave before my final USB drive was finished. I stopped by the shop to check in with Summer, then ran home to do a little cleaning and start some laundry. Zach stopped by to chat about the Fiero and his ride he picked up. He still wants to work on my car, so I guess we’re going to give that a try tomorrow.

I eventually made my way up to Summer’s for the evening, and I cleaned up some leftovers for dinner. Eaddie and I watched an episode of The Punisher, and then it was off to bed.

When they move your office location due to departmental cutbacks.