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IMPOSSIBRU!!!

The high school had a tornado drill this morning, so I started at the shop just to avoid it. When I finally did get to the high school, most of my day was taken up with interruptions and being dragged out of my office to look at something. I spent way too long messing with a touch panel and dock situation, and not enough time doing other older work orders.

Nobody had said anything by the time lunch rolled around, so I just kind of left campus and tried to wing it. I stopped by the taco truck I’ve seen up the road, but they were closed on Mondays. Then I started toward Taco Bell before switching gears to try the Impossible Whopper at Burger King. The app experience was absolutely horrible, and it didn’t matter whether I wanted to place the order online or use a coupon in the restaurant. It took me about 15 minutes just  to get the order in.

Once I finally got my order, I headed to see if I could commandeer Summer for a few minutes. We split a shitty taco, some nuggets, onion rings, and the two burgers. I’m not sure what I expected with the taco, but it was an absolute abomination, and whoever thought it was a good idea should be fired, re-hired, and then fired again. The nuggets and rings were bomb. The burgers were more or less indistinguishable, but I think the takeaway is not so much that we can make fake beef taste good. The lesson here is that Whoppers are terrible. Sure, they managed to make a vegetable patty that tasted like a Whopper, but why would anyone want that?

After lunch was literally more of the same, getting pulled back to the same room for hours, fighting with the same touch panel and display issues. I really just hope the next time she comes around, I’m legitimately in the middle of something so she doesn’t think she can just come and fetch me any time she wants. I ended the day playing with the IVR a bit more, and finally switched the career center over to their automated menu.

When I got home, I pretty much immediately got to checking water quality in the aquariums. Much to my surprise, everything was great! The 10 gallon shrimp tank was within acceptable ranges of everything, but the Imagitarium had perfect numbers. No ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates at all. The carbonate hardness was up a bit, and it had even turned a bit alkaline, which is great for the shrimp. The Tums really worked some magic in both of the tanks.

Eventually I headed up to Summer’s for the evening, and made us salads for dinner before settling down with an episode of Battlestar for bed.

Frakking toaster thinks it’s human!

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Eggs Mark the Spot

When I got out of bed this morning, I knew I had to do something for breakfast. I’d been craving a Casey’s breakfast pizza for a while, and we had a whole leftover cheese pizza in the fridge. I figured I only had a few eggs to lose if it didn’t turn out well, so I cracked them onto the bacon pizza first and threw them into the oven. That turned out pretty well, but I forgot to add extra cheese to the top. With the bacon gone, I was truly down to just the cheese pizza left, so I cut up some summer sausage to throw on top, followed by egg and cheese, and then some chopped up green onions. That time I broiled them and the egg whites didn’t quite cook all the way, so I had to finish them without the broiler. Another success.

Summer decided to tackle the lawn while Noah played video games and I kept digging through my old photos to eliminate duplicates that were taking up space. I finally got down below the 19GB limit I’ll have next month, but I still don’t have a lot of headroom. Hopefully I can score some more promo space somehow in the near future.

I ended up taking a long bath with some Stardew Valley for a while, and I’m not sure I can get into it on mobile. I really just wanted a bigger screen and controller. The girls came home around that time, and it wasn’t long before we had to head out for dinner with my parents. Summer took Autumn to Walmart for some things first, while Eaddie and I went back to my house to take care of the shrimp.

Mom made chow mein, which is one of our favorites. Autumn made some mini burritos out of some leftovers. After dinner, the girls went home to get ready for bed while I cleaned up after the cat. I got done early enough that I could go back to Summer’s for an episode of Battlestar Galactica before bed.

This bath sheet is heavy and ridiculous, and I love it.

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Catching Death

Dead relatives seem to be going around at Summer’s shop. She got a call sometime in the night that lead to her having to work today, which meant that none of the many plans we had to choose from would come to fruition. I slept super late and got up to play with the shrimp some more. I managed to catch the ninth cherry and get it moved over, so now it’s just a waiting game to see if any others come out of the woodwork. They all seem to be getting along fine in the smaller tank though, and they’re much easier to find and count now.

I spent all afternoon sifting through my Google Drive and Photos to try and save some space, because evidently my 100GB HTC promotion runs out next month and I’ll either have to cut down what I’m storing online or pony up some cash for a storage plan. At least I still get free full-resolution uploads for having a Pixel.

Eventually I got cleaned up and went to Summer’s where she and Noah were settling in for some television. I made a couple salads, and we watched some Battlestar before bed.

If I could tuuuurrrn back time!

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Mandio Cart

I forgot my phone at home this morning, but at least I made it there on time. Jason was out, which shouldn’t have surprised me since he actually had us scheduled yesterday for projects today. I was sent with Amanda to pick up a couple unused carts from Oakland and London. If I had known they were such small carts, we wouldn’t have taken the trailer, but it did still make things easier on us. I even managed to swing by and get my phone on the way. When we finished with the carts, we had to hang a touch panel at Crawford for Allen, and Amanda and I made short work of it.

On a whim this morning, I suggested Taco Bell for their new toasted cheddar chalupas, and it stuck. Allen, Gary, Ben, and I all had the same thing for lunch, and it was a hit. It didn’t even seem as heavy as I expected it to be, and the tacos were extraordinarily fresh and crunchy. I spent too long fighting with their app and ended up having to order at the counter like some kind of plebeian, but it was worth it for that warm, fried, cheddar shell.

After lunch we split up to do our own work orders, and I fought with my latest software deployment some more. It never finished overnight, and I nearly gave up, but I kept throwing changes at it until it worked once, and then I deployed it to the lab. So far, so good. I finally got that sound system lowered as well, but I cheated and didn’t even bother mounting the wall mount. She had a full size filing cabinet right there underneath it, and there was just enough slack in the cabling to pull it down, so I set the amp there instead.

After work, I went to the shop to visit with Summer, and messed around with her computer some to try and make things better for her. It was so hot upstairs, and I could tell the heat was making me a little cranky. When we left there, I couldn’t even take the short way home because of the county fair traffic. I had to make a huge loop all the way around town. I found one more cherry shrimp in the kitchen tank, which brings my total to eight in the Imagitarium and one stubborn and hard to catch shrimp still in the kitchen tank. Then I got frustrated with a corrupt Tabs Outliner file and had to recover from a January backup before Summer got here from the gym.

We settled in for some Battlestar Galactica, and then it was off to bed. Dad wanted to leave super early for the civil war thing, and we just weren’t having any of it, so we’re sleeping in instead.

Ocular migraines are weird.

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I’ve Got a Package for You

I don’t know how, but I lost about 15 minutes this morning somewhere. At least it was nice weather, so I picked the Grom for the day. Today was the day for people to come and fetch me from my office. First it was a needy one from down the hall, and then it was maintenance from opposite ends of the campus. They came and got me while I was on the phone with Becky talking about her impromptu retirement and move to Asurion. We walked for what seemed like forever, but I did get to see the balcony at the Center in all its pitch blackness. The office makes for a nice, spooky hideaway. Once I fixed that wireless issue, it was off to the arena for more of the same, plus some printer fudging.

Lunch was there before I knew it, and I squeaked out just in time to catch Allen and Gary heading to McDonald’s. I tried the Bacon Big Mac after fighting with their WiFi and app for a while, and I was quite pleased with it. It didn’t hit me like a ton of bricks either, which was odd and satisfying.

When I got back to the high school, I dug into some software and got to brag about how smartly I created an uninstallation/upgrade package. Feelsgoodman.jpg

I rode home and unboxed a huge package from Amazon with a bunch of Tide PODS and aquarium goodies. The hang-on breeding boxes seemed really great, so I set one up for a betta in the bathroom, and then netted out three cherry shrimp to move to the Imagitarium. It seems like I lost several more of them, but it’s possible they’re just hiding really well in all the vegetation. Summer and Eaddie came over as soon as they could after their trip around town. Autumn had another appointment in Little Rock before a football game tonight, and Summer had to go by the shop to take care of some things at the end of the day.

Tech’s Family Night was happening at the train depot, and Summer wanted to go for the announcement of the winners of Paint the Town Green and Gold. The food truck selection was abysmal, but I managed an Old Post Bar-B-Q sandwich with great success. Eaddie went blue with some shaved ice. We weren’t there too long before we spotted a furry playing with any dog it could find. Then it was time for the announcements. Summer won Best New Participant with her painting and crushed cars at Superfast, and she was so excited to run up on stage.

We didn’t stick around for the pep rally since Eaddie had homework and I’m pretty sure we all hate pep rallies. It was back to my house until Autumn finished with the band. Summer started falling asleep on the couch while Eaddie spent like seventy two hours writing a single paragraph. I worked on the aquariums a bit more until they left and I got ready for bed myself.

I simply cannot express to you in words how low of a priority this is for me.

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Wiki Wild… Wiki Wild Wild Documentation

With a good start on wireless hotspots yesterday, I thought I’d start this morning finishing their setup. I got a little frustrated and a little more sidetracked as I had to refer to the hidden and overdocumented instructions. Between at least three network shares with countless folders, email, Google Shared Drives, and individually shared Google documents, sometimes finding what you really want can be an absolute nightmare. I’ve been talking about wanting to start a Wiki for a long time for its ability to interlink other articles, and today was the day to break ground.

Zach, Gary, Allen, and I went to Wendy’s for lunch, and then Gary showed me how to start up a virtual machine on our servers. It was pretty straightforward, but fun to finally dig into. Next will be setting up a web server with PHP and a SQL database. Right now I’m just saying words, but hopefully soon I’ll have a better understanding as I find my way to documentation Valhalla.

I spent the rest of the afternoon digging into more Avaya stuff, and testing how my new IVR behaves. In retrospect I could have done some more testing before, but now that I’ve been able to collect the recording and create the call map, I can dig into the nuances of how all the pieces connect together. My next big sell will probably be a complete tear-down and reconstruction of the entire district’s worth of phone extensions, and I’m giddy just thinking about it.

When I got home, I took care of some housekeeping before running to Walmart for cat food. Then it was off to Summer’s to hear about her day at headquarters in Little Rock.

Turn on by holding the power button and go through the tutorial, (push buttons for next until the dashboard shows the signal strength, battery level, and icons).

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Cellulations

I approached today quite a bit more casually, but still managed to get quite a bit done. It’s likely that I’m not prioritizing properly, but at least I got things closed. I need to hunker down and churn through some 1:1 laptops soon though, because they’re going to stack up on me pretty quickly.

Summer invited us all to the shop for hot dogs during Paint the Town Green & Gold, but nobody else showed up. I mostly stood out in the sun with Ben and just watched cars go by. I was hoping Summer would have a chance to step away and just eat with me, but no such luck. I headed back a bit early since it was so hot, and I had some things to take care of at our office before going back to work. The afternoon went by pretty quickly as I wrapped up the day swapping devices on our Verizon wireless account. I couldn’t tell any particular rhyme or reason for the replacement devices we received, but overall it was pretty painless.

When I got home, I started some laundry before heading out to get the girls from karate. Then we met Summer at Cici’s for dinner before heading back home. Once laundry was stowed away, it was off for an early bedtime.

I like me better when I’m with you.

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The Fastest Day Ever

I slept pretty well last night and was able to jump right into the day. The morning absolutely flew by. I got enough done that I felt really accomplished, and even spent some time remoting in to assist Heather with a deployment. That was two labs worth of testing software resolved. It felt like I had only been there for half an hour before lunch time. I lucked out and caught Summer on a slow day so she could meet me at Arby’s for lunch. The poor old lady at the register seemed new, but was kind. The tiny girl that came to help her a couple times as she struggled seemed like she was super frustrated by it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but thinking back she looked a lot like the daughter of one of the big wigs from back when I worked at Domino’s. Surely it wasn’t.

After lunch, I had to babysit the interns for a period while the girls in the library were out. I took them downstairs to help move a lab worth of computers from under the desks to behind the monitors. I originally intended to leave them to do it alone, but as we got going, I just stayed and helped complete the job. I was surprised we were able to get it all done in one day. I worked on some other stuff for a bit until Ben came by to look at the fire panel at vo-tech. I met him there and tried to learn anything, but oldschool telephone stuff still just confuses the hell out of me.

Eaddie came to the high school today, but she just had to chill out while I was with Ben. Then a bit after quitting time I had to take off to pick up Autumn from her practice. We were a bit later than I wanted to be, but I didn’t want to just leave Ben either. Once I had everyone, we headed straight to their house so they could take care of whatever it is they had to do. Autumn first claimed homework, then reported near-immediate completion when she wanted to sit down and play Minecraft. I played with them for a bit, and then switched to my phone to kill time until Summer got home.

I hadn’t been home, and it was too late for dinner by the time Summer got there, so I left and spent the rest of the evening taking care of the shrimp before bed.

We’ve got an escape artist!

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Painted Town Projections

Summer left this morning for the gym and then went to the shop to decorate for the Tech pride event. It took me a while to get around, but eventually I made it out to meet her, bringing one of her big Bluetooth speakers from her house for some tunes. Disappointingly, Alex was the only one that showed up to help, so there was a lot more time and work involved than any of us really wanted to put into it. I was immediately hot and cranky, but I contributed a little by getting a proper projector so they didn’t have to keep cutting shapes out for their overhead projector.

By the time we finally left, I felt completely sapped and sleepy from the prolonged heat. I just sat down at home and couldn’t do much of anything. I hated that I couldn’t be more excited to help her, but that kind of stuff just isn’t me. I felt guilty for feeling like I just burned the whole day, but normally when we sacrifice getting the important things done, we’re at least doing something fun instead. Maybe karma earned me the huge scratch across my glasses from tossing my blankets around to sort the bed.

Some days I just pray to the god of sex and drums and rock ‘n’ roll

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Sleeping In at Home

Summer had to work today, which meant I got to sleep in at home for the first time in a long while. I started the morning with the shrimp and just kind of lounged around all morning and early afternoon. When I finally got around, I tinkered with the computer some and got to play with PRTG, which is something I installed but then sort of abandoned last year. I even had a little fun adding some custom device icons.

Eventually I got around to bathing, then waited a bit until Summer got here from the gym and a shower. We went to my parents’ house for duck soup for dinner, and then came home for a few tense episodes of Battlestar Galactica.

No, no, no. It’s “frak.”