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Just a Formality

I couldn’t sleep in much today because of how bright it was in my room, so I spent most of the day pretty tired after my long night. Summer took Eaddie home, so I got straight to cleaning up for the day. After my shower, I finally tested out my new faucet and found that it leaked pretty badly at the drain. After mopping up all the water under the sink, I spent a little while tightening up all the connections until it didn’t really seem to leak any more. I’ll have to test it some more later, but I think it will probably be good enough when used normally and not pumping water into the bowl as fast as I can.

I had to go to my parents’ house to get some red envelopes for the kids, but Bác Vân came over and asked to borrow a bunch of money on my way out. I typically don’t have instant access to that much cash on a weekend without any notice, so I wished her good luck and many learned lessons. When I got to my parents’ house, Dad was recovering from feinting a bit after his surgery. I didn’t have time to stick around for very long because Summer had lunch ready, so I grabbed some envelopes and headed up to their house.

Summer’s mom was there finishing up Autumn’s dress, so I had lunch and just sat around with the kids. When she left and after we had all eaten, Summer and I went to Walmart for some stuff for dinner. Once she had that going, we watched some TV until Autumn’s date for the formal arrived. We missed the really good lighting, so I just did the best I could with what we had. Then we settled in and watched Glee until the dance was over.

Suzanne was in town and stopped by for just a little while to watch one episode with us. Then we chatted for just a little bit more before she left. Autumn eventually made it home, and the girls all crashed. I played some Overwatch with Clint, Josh, and one of his friends, then went to bed myself.

Well, you’ve missed the golden hour, so you get the tasteful yellow glow of a porch light.

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Sink Some Time Into Something

Jason started us off with a pretty lazy morning. I didn’t hear it, but I was assigned to pull some cable with Allen at Sequoyah. The line was supposed to already be there, but needed to be re-routed through the cafeteria. We found the coiled up cable without too much trouble, but the ceilings were high and even our longest ladder from the shop wasn’t tall enough to be of any use at all. To get started, I attached the tone generator on the end we had, then went to the closet to find the other end. I spent 10 or 15 minutes going through the nest of cables coming into that tiny switch closet, but couldn’t find it. When I went back to the other end, Allen had unhooked the tone generator and started trying to route the cable. He said he thought I went to the bathroom, even though he watched me hook up the tone generator and test that we had a tone coming through the line.

Once we got the tone generator back on the line, both of us went back to the closet and still couldn’t find a tone, so I started poking around in the ceiling and ultimately found where the line had been cut just inside the hallway, less than 20 feet from where we needed it to be. Allen wanted to run an extension from another drop in a nearby closet, but I refused. I traced the line back to see what else I could do, and then we took everything back to the shop for lunch.

Gary, Heather, Zach, and I walked to Smackin’ Wings and Things for the Philly cheesesteak fries. It took them half an hour to get our food to us, which was pretty typical. I didn’t really care much for the special, and it didn’t feel quite as loaded as anything I’ve had there before. I finished it just because it wouldn’t have been any better reheated, but I walked out filled with more regret than fries.

After lunch, I stayed at the shop and re-imaged the four computers Jason imaged for me because he used the 2016 LTSB version instead of the newer 2019 LTSC. I guess maybe he had forgotten that none of our Adobe licenses are compatible with the 2016 release, but he got really snippy and ridiculous when I told him what I was doing. As soon as I told him I’d just deliver them myself, he and Allen disappeared as if by magic, to I know not where.

When everyone left, I delivered my computers to the high school and headed home. My new bathroom faucets came in, so I decided to be handy and start on the replacement project since the one in my master bathroom had gotten to leaking quite badly. I had just barely gotten started when Summer arrived with Eaddie. Autumn was staying with her grandmother so she could finish her dress for the dance tomorrow. The remaining three of us headed to Lowe’s for some supply hoses and silicone. I ended up spending about three times as much on hoses as I wanted, but they didn’t have anything cheaper than the stainless steel braided lines.

We ended the evening with a late dinner at New China, and then headed home where I continued my work in the bathroom. The girls seemed pretty tired and passed out kind of early, but it took me a few more hours to break out all the old corroded faucets. I managed to get everything in place though, and I didn’t appear to have any water leaks. The silicone needs 12 hours to cure, so I won’t get to actually test the faucets until tomorrow. At least the spare bathroom won’t be as difficult since it already has new supply lines that aren’t rigid copper.

The more I tear apart, the less mystical it all seems. I may fix my bathroom yet…

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Cool Winter Drizzle

I really didn’t want to wake up today, but the bells, they were a’ringing. Zach stopped by my office pretty early in the day, and spent quite a while at the high school. Ben showed up just moments later, so I made them some popcorn while I worked on laptops. Ben left, and Gary came to us so the three of us could go to lunch together. We met our new guy, Greg, at Morelos and he and Zach spent most of the time going on about duck hunting.

The afternoon went by pretty slowly as I milled around working on different things. I felt like I’d lost a little bit of direction, and just wanted to go home when I started to get really sleepy. When I did finally get home, I noticed I’d lost at least two or three adult shrimp over the past few days, so I bumped up my thermostat a few degrees assuming it as the cold. The tiny heater in that tank doesn’t seem to work, so I may have to get a new one.

Eventually I left the house to run some things by my parents’ house. They were out shopping, but I had to get the girls from karate anyway. We headed up to their house for some leftover chili before bed.

$4700 in lighting?!?

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What an Ice Day to Be at Work

The surrounding districts, and even Tech closed today, but not us. We were going to tough it out. I didn’t really expect to be let out, but hearing everyone else fuss about it convinced me that I wanted to stay home too. Just as I pulled out of the driveway it started to sleet, but it all melted as soon as it hit my windshield. It wasn’t until I got to the parking lot that my wipers kicked on and smeared the water across my windshield, instantly turning it to a sheet of ice. I wandered into the high school and worked on some laptops.

Jason called out for lunch this time, but by the time I got back to the shop it sounded like he wasn’t a part of the conversation. Allen, Gary, and Ben were up for it though, and the four of us went to Mulan’s for some hot soup and the like. When we got back to the shop, I milled around for a while and had Gary and Ben walk me through some of the automation processes to get a better understanding of how student data is managed between all of the different systems.

Later in the afternoon in the library, Karen made a comment about an inconsistency in the Technology job title in our recent board meeting notes, and we kind of laughed about how nobody even knows what our title is supposed to be, much less what we actually do. Then I tried explaining what I had learned just an hour before about our different synchronization scripts to her and Amber to further emphasize that we don’t “just work on computers.” It’s an incredible amount of planning and learning how other people’s products work so that we can seamlessly integrate them with our own stuff. I’ve had people argue that they have to know a lot, or have an education to do their jobs out there. Maybe it’s an inflated sense of pride for some of the people in my department, but what about those of us that basically have to learn how to do all of their jobs on the fly in order to fix what isn’t working? I’ve never been a part of any department that had to know so much about so many things spanning across the rest of the entire organization, yet people get pissy about only getting a 2-minute primer on how to use their desk phone. Guess what! If you can’t remember the two minutes worth of tips that would have fixed your issue, you get the whole manual!

When I left work, it was still drizzling out, but not quite icy. I went straight home and dove into another couple hours worth of documentation of troubleshooting that I’ve done to my Nanoleaf Aurora light panels. I really didn’t appreciate the copy/paste from the FAQ that I got from support, so hopefully my lengthy response will garner some positive attention.

As I wrapped up for the night, I remembered it being a Hog Wild Wednesday for 10 cents off fuel at the Shell, so I ran across town to top off. In retrospect, I should have stayed out of that miserable weather for the 60 cents I saved. But then again, I am an idiot.

No. No, it’s not something we just run every night like magic. We built that shit from the ground-up.

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Cold Night In

It was super cold all day, and it’s not over yet. I had a few new work orders today, along with a handful of older ones to clean up. It kept me busy up to lunch when I went back to the shop to talk to Ben. Zach and Gary picked Chick-fil-A, so I had their tasty, probably-bad-for-you Spicy Southwest Salad. I’d been wanting to use my free nuggets promo anyway, and the salad’s one of my favorites. I see no reason to ever get a chicken sandwich there again. Amanda was there picking up a DoorDash delivery and snuck up behind me. It was good to see her out and about, and actually dressed up for work instead of slumming it in a hoodie.

Most of my afternoon was spent rebuilding a package for engineering because some driver software wouldn’t install without intervention. It was probably a good thing that I didn’t stick around very long after work, because my car choked when it tried to start. I went straight home and put it onto the charger to see if it would help. It was probably a good thing that it actually took a while to get up to the 100% mark, but I never saw it switch to trickle mode. Hopefully an overnight charge will keep me going tomorrow.

I spent the rest of the evening on some aquarium chores, a little cleanup, and then catching up on email articles I’d been wanting to read. I still usually skip the super wordy ones, but sometimes I find some really interesting, educational ones on subjects that I would otherwise never care to research on my own.

Når eg på Helvegen går og dei spora eg trår er kalda, så kalda.

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Black Holiday

I took a personal day to hang out with Eaddie since school was out for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Summer had to work. It was quiet when I got up, so I had a pancake and started watching Luke Cage. Ronda messaged me on Marco Polo to say that Long John Silver’s had a for-lease sign up, which made me pretty sad. When Eaddie eventually came out of her room, she watched a bit of TV with me. She didn’t want to leave the house at all, so I left her to her chores while I went home to shower.

I hadn’t been there in a while, so the inside temperature had actually dropped super low. I had to give it some time to warm up before I could do much of anything. Eventually I had my bath and then had to head back out for dinner. I decided to make shredded beef street tacos with chipotles in adobo sauce so we could eat the aging cilantro and sour cream in the fridge.

I got everything loaded into the Instant Pot and sat down to a couple more episodes of Luke Cage while we waited for Summer to get home. Autumn was dropped off with McDonald’s for her and Eaddie, which aggravated me beyond having the already super late dinner. I thought the tacos were pretty good, but I forgot to get the veggie mix out of the fridge again for some reason.

I hate that this whole weekend was just another bust. It was a long one, too.

This is worse than a lack of motivation.

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Gleekout

Today was a day of leftovers and television. The kids got a proper yellin’ after showing some attitude, and fixed it surprisingly quickly. Summer had them clean up house a bit after taking Autumn to the gym. Later she took her to her parents’ house so her mother could make Autumn a formal dress.

I warmed up some more leftovers for dinner, and the three of us watched a bunch more Glee until bedtime.

So you like show tunes. It doesn’t mean you’re gay. It just means you’re awful.

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Dear Journal,

Summer took Autumn to pick up the breakfast pizza I ordered, then took both girls to their all-region band event. She was still feeling sick and came back to nap in the floor while I watched some more renovation YouTube videos. Eventually she had to go take the girls home for lunch and to clean up before their concert.

I cleaned up and took a bath for a while, and eventually left to get stuff for dinner. I stopped by Harbor Freight first to return my broken fireman’s axe that didn’t even make it through one log. Then I went to Walmart for beans and veggies to throw in the InstantPot. Summer wanted a coffee, but Starbucks had a line coiled around the building like a constrictor, so I went back towards McDonald’s instead. She liked the hot mocha just as well, and it probably cost less than half as much.

I started chopping up onions, celery, and carrots to throw in with our old ham bone, then threw it all in the pressure cooker. Clint stopped by while I was prepping, just briefly enough to pick up some network cable and then hit the road again. A couple hours later, we had a pretty decent soup made. I thought it was a bit bland and lacked inspiration, but I was in a little bit of a rush anyway.

Summer, Eaddie, and I binged on several episodes of Glee until we couldn’t take it any more. It was well after all of our bedtimes anyway, and even I felt weepy tired.

Once again, I’ve won!

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On Magical Auras

We didn’t have much of a meeting this morning, as they wrapped up interviews for our two new positions. I went to the high school and just did work until lunch. I thought Allen and I would be going to Smackin’ Wings and Things, but some jackwagon convinced everyone to go to CJ’s instead. I begrudgingly ordered a $12 hamburger and ate both halves because the leftover half would have been terrible.

After lunch, Gary and I went to the arena to take a look at the Crestron controller, but it had miraculously started working after I spoke to our vendor about it at lunch time. He said his wife calls it his magic aura that makes things work as he approaches. I call it not having to waste any more time fixing other peoples’ hardware.

I wrapped up the day chatting with Clint a bit about a cable run he wants to do at his workplace, and then went to run a tiny line just within a single closet for an engineering class. When I got home, I started watching video tutorials on drywall, and found an excellent compilation video clocking in at just over two hours. I made it about halfway through before Summer got here from work.

She was feeling particularly sick, so I made us both some ramen for dinner. Then she crawled into bed and I waited to get the girls from an all-region band event later in the evening. They came home and watched some TV, and then we all crashed a bit early for the weekend.

I shouldn’t need a cross reference book to find a battery.

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Your Lift Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher

I slept so well last night, and though I woke refreshed, I would’ve loved to stay in bed a while. I made it in to work in plenty of time and started picking at my stack of laptops. Things feel just slightly more organized now, and though I still have many in various states of disrepair, I feel a little less stressed over them.

Allen suggested Taco Villa for lunch, and by the time I got back to the shop, Zach and Gary had agreed to ride along. I thought I was going to do the right thing and only eat half of my nachos, but I guess the half I was looking for was on the bottom. When we got back to the shop, I hung out there for just a little while and tried to help with a stuck headphone plug before heading back to the high school.

I had to borrow the lift to get up to the choir projector and replace the lamp. Most of the lamps I’ve replaced out there have been pretty straightforward, but this BenQ was evidently made form over function. Once I found the hidden screw to release the cover, I still had to pry the lid off, and then the lamp didn’t have any rails or anything to slide it into position. I just had to hold it up and get the screws locked down.

On the way back to my office, I got a work order that some kind of cable had come down into the road at vo-tech. I went out to investigate, and it ended up being one of the new fiber lines we’ve just had run out to all the campuses. Someone had run over it and crushed a good portion of it, and I couldn’t tell where it was actually supposed to go, but they’re definitely going to have to run a new line now. Fortunately I don’t think it was actually in use yet, so it won’t cause any outages.

When I got home, I received the bag-in-box Coca-Cola syrup spigot I ordered, and tried making a Coke in my SodaStream. Light flavoring and heavy carbonation tasted pretty good, but I wish the syrup wasn’t so expensive. When I last did the math, it wasn’t significantly less than the cost of a 2-liter per volume.

Next up was moving car insurance around, just in time to run and get the girls from karate. I took them home and snacked a bit until Summer got home, at which point all the girls got ready for bed. I convinced Summer to let Eaddie stay up for one episode of Glee in bed with us, and then it was lights out.

I hate cats.