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Rapping Up Before the Weekend

Ben was out this morning, so with Melinda working from home, Greg and I just hung out at the shop all day. I kept pretty busy, and even successfully helped someone remotely. The morning went by pretty quickly, and then Greg gave me some leftover pulled pork he brought.

Ben came around in the afternoon and did some work in his office, and then came back to the shop and chatted with me for a while. We got my virtual machine working for the Watchfire sign software, which was my biggest success of the day. Then I went home for the weekend.

Summer came over right after work, and I ran to Taco Villa to get her some nachos before we eventually sat down to watch Captain Fantastic. I thought it was a pretty great story, but I couldn’t remember how it ever made its way to my watch list in the first place. It was nice getting to mark out something completely new.

If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, then there is a possibility that you can contribute to making a better world.

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Secretariat

I was supposed to do some experiment work with Ben today, but he and Greg were mostly out of the office this morning. I just assumed I should stick around to answer the phone, so I spent the whole day in the office just picking at random things.

Gary came by in the afternoon and chatted for a little while until Ben showed up, and then we finally upgraded LanSchool to see if the changes improved anything. They didn’t appear to make a difference.

When I finally left, I ran by Taco Bell since I assumed Summer hadn’t had lunch either. We ate in the office, and then I went home to wait for her. The girls spent the night with a friend, so I did a little work on the aquariums until Summer showed up.

My poison ivy worked up a pretty decent infection in my right leg, so it was a pretty uneventful evening from there. I spent a really long time looking at modern lighting fixtures from China. Everything seems to just be rebranded cheap stuff from China. It’s not even worth buying things at the store.

No assembly this year. No matter, we have another retiree that would have gotten the employee of the year award anyway.

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Adobe House

Today was warm and humid, but you couldn’t tell from indoors. I had to go upstairs into Gardner this morning to redeploy some Adobe Acrobat packages. I couldn’t tell what, if anything, was actually broken because every installation I touched was installed as a one-off instead of deployed in SCCM.

I didn’t even bother taking a lunch break, and instead ate a leftover soft taco that Greg didn’t want because it had lettuce in it. Then I went to the high school to close out a few tickets for the day.

Eaddie reminded me that she had a private flute lesson, so I went home to change and then picked her up. The lesson wasn’t very long, so I just waited in the car playing Animal Crossing to complete my daily tasks. Then we went back to my house because she wanted to ride the motorcycle to see Summer. We stopped at Casey’s momentarily for a freebie, and then I dusted the pollen off of the bike.

Summer called her just as we were about to leave, and said she took the rest of the day off with a headache, so we stayed at my house for a while and finished the second season of Iron Fist. We were pretty confused by the ending, but it did open up the possibilities for future seasons. Unfortunately that’s unlikely now that Marvel is in the House of Mouse.

We finally headed back up to Summer’s and picked at some leftovers for dinner. Everyone went to bed pretty early.

YouTube Music is awful in ways I just can’t even seem to express effectively.

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Free, Zing!

It was cold and rainy all day today, and really mostly worth it for all the freebies. I redeemed a free pizza and water bottle at Casey’s on my way to work, and the breakfast pizza had everything on it, including both breakfast meats and extra cheese. It was incredibly delicious.

I was sent to Oakland to help with a file conversion, and chatted with Erica and Sheri for a little while before heading back to the shop. Then Greg wanted Taco John’s for lunch, so I redeemed a free combo there as well. After lunch, I spent some time playing with the sign again before ending the day at the high school.

Eaddie was still asleep when I got home, so I woke her up and we watched Iron Fist until she was just screaming to go home. I made a salad, and we all watched an episode of Game of Thrones before bed.

No, wait – it’s at least a C+!

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Just Get It Done

I picked up another breakfast pizza this morning, and headed to the office. My working from home days are coming to an end with the impending stress of a new 1:1 device lease. Ben had a meeting at central office this morning and at the very least confirmed that we are going to get more Windows devices instead of Chromebooks next year. He also confirmed that, though we’ve not backfilled a higher paying lead technician position, they’re not ready to offer raises or a second tier for those of us that put in the extra effort.

Being the only one at the office, I worked right through lunch, and ended the day at the high school for a work order. Then I went home and ate some leftovers before picking up Autumn for her physical therapy. She decided to stay the night with her grandparents, so I went by the shop to see Summer for a bit before going back home to clean up.

It was nice and cool out, so I took Summer’s string trimmer out and cut down most of the back yard. I ran out of juice very near the end, but that was mostly around some sticks and branches anyway. The yard looked loads better, and when it dries I should be able to burn the rest of the rubbish.

My next project was to sift potting soil for future aquariums. I cleaned out a couple buckets, put on some rubber gloves, and sat in the driveway with a piece of metal mesh until Summer and Eaddie got there for the evening. Then we watched an episode of Glee before putting Summer to bed. Eaddie and I finished with a couple episodes of Iron Fist.

I don’t want my dirt to get dirty. I just finished sorting it!

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Happy Mother’steak

I beat everyone else up this morning and ordered some breakfast pizzas for Summer to pick up while I took my shower. The kids finished watching Back to the Future Part III, and then I took them to Walmart so they could get something for Summer while I picked up what I needed for our family dinner.

They all went outside to play cards in the weather while I baked potatoes. Then Eaddie and Noah wanted to ride bikes to my parents’ house, so Summer took them while I drove with Autumn.

The kids wanted to swim in spite of our warnings that the water was ice cold, so they ran around outside while Julie and I got things cooking inside. Summer helped me scoop potatoes out so I could twice-bake them, and Dad got the charcoal going so Julie could grill the steaks she picked up at the butcher in Centerville.

Dinner was pretty great, though I had the same frustrations I always have with steak dinners. The steaks always end up cold by the time we get salads and everything else ready to eat. That’s why I prefer to eat the salad while I’m cooking everything else, and then have my steak right off of the grill.

Eaddie and Noah really wanted to ride around on the bikes some more after dinner, so Summer finally relented and let them ride to Sequoyah until we were ready to leave. Then she rode out to them while Autumn and I drove everything else back home.

Summer dropped Noah off and took Eaddie home, then Autumn and I followed after some cleanup at my house. Then we watched an episode of Iron Fist before bed.

I’m glad we could all make time to meat like this.

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Game of Throws

Summer got up and made sausage, bacon, and eggs for breakfast. The kids got up and just hung out until Summer was ready to herd them out to the park. I got a little woozy and had to skip out on the fun, so I went home and spent my day cleaning up around the house.

Everyone else showed up for a late dinner time, so I ran to Taco Bell with Autumn for a couple party packs. After we ate, I started making some more ice cream just to use up the milk and cream. We all wrapped up in the living room and watched the second and third episodes of Game of Thrones, and I think everyone’s starting to really get hooked.

I’m going to have to do something about my media server soon.

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Chasing COVID

I had to work at the high school today for the senior laptop pickup. Gary volunteered to join me, and we both beat Amber to our table in front of the Center. It was a really cool morning with a ton of wind that lasted all day long. It could’ve been a great day on a larger boat than mine. Instead, we were stuck handling a bunch of gross laptops and dealing with the public.

The pickup process actually went relatively smoothly, though it was apparent that we were making it all up as we went along. People kept wanting to drive past us even though it was pretty obvious that we all formed different stations that everyone needed to visit. Lots of staff was just kind of sitting around not doing much, but I’m sure they were just told they had to be there.

The high school bought pizza for everyone, but it got there pretty late. The biggest rush came in the afternoon when we joked that all the seniors were finally getting out of bed. All total, we collected around 200 laptops, which left about 1,000 still out in the wild. My hope was to have the option of selling them before pickup time, so we wouldn’t even have to do most of this work. I can already start to see how much work I have ahead of me, and those further up the chain still haven’t even decided what platform of devices we’ll be using for the next round.

The one fun thing I got to do today, besides just hang out with Gary, was play with the new sign. I was pretty proud of the animations I put together, and it was cool being able to change it quickly on the fly. In the end, it’s not my job, and maybe that’s what made it so much fun.

When I finally left, I went by Wesley’s to help with a personal laptop. Nothing was really wrong with it, but they needed some basic help getting it connected to their wireless, adding desktop icons, and connecting their wireless printer. The latter took most of the time because it was a pretty old laptop, and it took forever to do anything on it. I felt bad asking a friend for money at all, but they ended up giving me double the pittance I asked for. It was good conversation with good people anyway.

I ran home to clean up a bit, and realized I got a pretty good sunburn under the clouds. Everything just kind of felt tender and warm, but hopefully some lotion will keep my skin from peeling. Bác Vân was out in the garden and dug up a couple pecan saplings and some kind of flower for me to take to Summer’s.

It was dark by the time I got up to her house, but I had to go plant the plants before I could go inside. As I dug, I discovered under the grass was mostly rock. Maybe shale. I couldn’t tell in the dark but it was solid. I’m not sure any of the plants will survive. When I finally got inside, the kids were all watching Game of Thrones without me. I fixed myself a grilled chicken salad since the calzones Autumn put together didn’t sound very good after pizza at lunch, and my stomach was already feeling a bit sour from it anyway. Then I went back outside and sat in my car for some quiet time, and blew off some steam in Animal Crossing.

Can’t I just bury some money in a hole instead of going to work?

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Show Me a Sign

I woke up pretty early this morning and had some time to ease into the day. The girls got up and headed out so Summer and Eaddie could take Noah out on a hike while I went to work.

The high school was grilling burgers and hot dogs for teacher appreciation week, and I had to go there to work on the sign anyway, so I drove out there and set up on one of the picnic tables. It wasn’t quite the drive-through they advertised, but it was nice to see some people out at the pavilion. When everyone left, I headed to the shop to catch up with Ben while I tinkered with the Watchfire sign software.

I ended up accidentally overwriting the sign with a playlist of every single premade animation that was included with the software and had to drive back to the high school to fix it, because there was no password required to upload new content. I got there just in time to see a giant cross on a hill, with the words “ACCEPT CHRIST” across the front of it. Being a public school, I felt a bit of panic as I corrected the display.

Once I got something more appropriate uploaded, I ran by Julie’s to try and help configure her new modem/router/MTA box from Suddenlink. She was told, and the documentation showed, that she could change the SSID and password, but the web interface appeared to be disabled. We ended up calling Suddenlink to threaten cancellation to lower her bill, but the retention department was closed for the day. I stuck around to play with her new GoPro for a little bit and show her how the mounting works.

As dinner time approached, I ran home to take care of a few things and then headed up to Summer’s for the evening. When I got there, I found a couple moles right by the house that one of the stray cats appeared to have messed with. I scooped them up into a little bucket and brought them in for mole jokes and so the girls could see them up close. I ended up releasing them by a tree in the back yard, but I wasn’t sure one of them was going to make it. All it would do is lay there breathing heavily, so I assumed it took some internal damage from one of the cats.

The steaks Summer grilled turned out really good, and we had a nice dinner together. Afterward we played a Harry Potter: Potions Challenge Game that ended up being pretty dreadful. It upset Autumn a bit because she really wanted everyone to love it, but I could tell right away that it wasn’t worth the wooden box it came in.

As we wound down, I convinced everyone to finish the first episode of Game of Thrones, and then everyone went to bed.

They say winter is coming.

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Sign of the Times

I unintentionally slept in super late today. Summer took the rest of the week off, so she was up doing things long before I got around. When I did finally get up, I rushed to check on the Stalk Market in Animal Crossing, then sat down to try and get some work done.

The high school got their new sign installed, and now they want to use it to showcase their virtual graduation somehow. I watched a recording of the training Ben got on the software, and though 500 slides seems like a lot, they weren’t really taking into consideration the fact that animations take up around 100 frames of that. It certainly felt to me like we were oversold and under-delivered.

It took me all day to get the beefy software downloaded and installed, I’m guessing mostly due to the large file size of all the animations. I didn’t pay too much attention to the noise the girls were making, but I know Autumn did spend a good portion of the afternoon preparing dinner.

She made an orange chicken dish that called for freshly battered and air-fried chicken breast chunks. The air frying was a no-go for me, but the overall dish was pretty good. If I’m going to “fry” something, I’m going to fry it. Toaster ovens need to stay in their lane.

After dinner, Summer tried to get the girls to complete some chores and I headed home to clean up for their impending arrival. My Gorilla Ladder arrived via UPS in what amounted to a tattered plastic trash bag, so it got roughed up a bit more than I would have liked. It really won’t make any difference when I use it though.

When the girls got here, I made some popcorn for Autumn, then pulled out my old Cuisinart ice cream maker. I picked up a couple clearanced strawberry ice cream mixes at Walmart a while back, and finally had the milk and cream to put it all together. I think I should have split the batch, but as I pulled some out for us to eat, the stuff that was left in the bowl iced up quite nicely for storage.

Autumn and I were going to start Game of Thrones, but she got sleepy about three minutes into the first episode, and gave up. I put Summer to bed, and Eaddie and I watched another episode of Iron Fist. It was much better than the first episode of the season, and actually got me wondering about the future episodes. Time will tell.

In five years, I see myself with the same job title, about the same salary, and significantly more responsibilities.