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Don’t Get Testy

I started out at the shop this morning so I could finish my LockDown browser deployment. I got the last piece I needed in order to put the whole thing together, and it worked. Once that was done, I had to leave the shop before I got too annoyed with anyone that was either not doing anything at all or too stupid to remember how to do what they were doing yesterday.

Most of the rest of my morning was spent shuffling around Verizon Jetpacks that reeked of cigarette smoke and unemployment. Evidently we lost two outright last year, and four more were damaged or not working for one reason or another. Lunch came and went, and nothing sounded good so I seized the opportunity to ride on through on another Soylent.

The afternoon rolled on pretty quickly, and then Eaddie rode the bus over to me after school. We went to my parents’ house for some fish soup before I had to take her to karate. She’s been aggravating me with her lackadaisical responses any time we ask her to do anything, and today was no exception. She had 20 minutes to finish eating before karate. Then she had 15. Then she had 10. Then she had 5 to get dressed. Then she was 10 minutes late to karate and still wouldn’t even walk quickly to the front door of the establishment. I cannot imagine why someone with so much uncontrollable, spontaneous energy would have to drag her feet after being asked to do anything and everything, and things are about to get really serious.

I came on home after that and started taking care of the fish again. I put Fatty back into the community tank since I’ve lost enough of the other inhabitants over the years that she shouldn’t be stressed. I still need to put together some bigger tanks for the other two bettas, and I can’t decide if I want to put one in the Imagitarium to take to work. I’ve still got the Fluval Edges to work with as well, and the Miracle-Gro® Performance Organics™ All Purpose Container Mix seems to be doing quite well for my plants. I like the Black Diamond sandblasting media as a substrate cap as well, though I wish I had the coarser stuff.

For some reason, out of all the still water in my house, a mosquito laid eggs that hatched in my Imagitarium. I sucked a bunch of larvae out in a massive, first water change in that tank, but I wish I could have just dropped a fish in to take care of it. The nitrogen cycle is stupid. Hopefully after tomorrow it will be ready for some fauna, but at least so far the plants have really taken off.

I’m gonna count to one.

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Super Seedy Supersedence

I got some pretty solid sleep last night after kicking off the weighted blanket that was keeping me hot. I still can’t wait for winter just to use it full time. It was a little slow moving this morning, and then Heather called for some help first thing. I ended up chatting with her for quite a while, and I hope she doesn’t feel quite so overwhelmed with the new job.

There were a few new work orders for me, and I took care of some of the older ones before breaking for lunch. The morning seemed to go by so fast, even with taking lunch a bit later. Summer couldn’t get out, so I went to pick up Wendy’s for us. The app ordering experience was pretty awesome, so I’ll have to start using it now. I got the bacon jalapeño cheeseburger again, and she got her usual Baconator. We ate upstairs, and then I had to head back to the shop to get some direction.

Gary helped me look at a couple problems I’d been having. We didn’t get anywhere, but it’s nice to know I’m not crazy. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon working in SCCM to build a deployment to uninstall any old versions of some software in order to install the newest versions. I actually really enjoyed tinkering with it, but it did seem like it took way more time than it was worth. I guess the alternative is to use James’s method of touching every single device.

After working late, Summer brought Eaddie to me so we could get dinner with my parents. Dad grilled some pork chops, and Mom made fish soup. We all had fish, and then Eaddie did some math homework there before we left. Once we got back home, Summer and I watched an episode of Battlestar, and then it was off to bed.

Frakking toasters…

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Unbirthday Pie

We managed to sleep in a bit today, and it really helped. We ate some leftover French toast, then watched some more Battlestar Galactica in bed while the kids got up and around. Before we knew it, lunch time came around and Julie brought pizza for Dad’s birthday. We met everyone at their house to eat, and then Autumn and Noah played some Magic: The Gathering in the floor while the rest of us sat around.

Noah had to go to work in the evening, so Summer took everyone home to get ready for that, and I headed home myself to do my weekend chores. Murderface seems to look a little better, but he’s still got some weird scales out of place. I need to move the fat betta back into the community tank so she’ll have some more room. It looks a lot better without the duckweed in there too. The Imagitarium is looking quite nice, and I did a full panel of tests on the water quality for the first time. It took quite a while, and then I tried to learn about the general hardness and carbonate hardness a bit since I plan to keep shrimp in it.

The night went by super quickly, and I ended it with some more browsing for CPAP supplies. I get so angry over how much of a racket it is, but I’m super dependent on my machines to sleep.

And I still need new glasses, too….

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Le Tired

Summer had to work again today, so I slept in as long as I could. I was still super sleepy but couldn’t go back to sleep because of how bright it was, so I got up and ate a leftover chicken sandwich someone left in the fridge, then some cereal. Eaddie and I finished the second season of Daredevil, and then I went home to clean up while they cleaned house for Noah to come over in the evening.

I almost fell asleep watching the fish tank at home, but then got myself up to change some more water out for my possibly sick Murderface betta. I didn’t get a whole lot else done, but did manage a shower before Summer was ready for me to come back. Autumn wanted to cook hot dogs over the fire pit, so I loaded some wood up and went to get Noah from work on the way up to their house.

Summer and Autumn pulled up from getting groceries at the exact same moment that Noah and I got there, and then I went to try and start a fire. I didn’t realize how much it rained, or that it was supposed to rain again tonight. The wood was all waterlogged and wouldn’t catch at all, so we gave up and tried the grill. Summer was out of propane, so our last resort was the George Foreman grill. The kids ate and then wasted their evening on YouTube while Summer and I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica before bed.

It’s day 93, and I’ve forgotten what it was like to feel rested.

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Up and at Em!

I got up a bit early today so I could swing by the shop to get the stuff I needed to run a new HDMI cable first thing this morning. Then I continued on home to get ready before going to the high school with everything. Mason offered to help me, so Jason let me off the hook for the meeting this morning for not having to pull anyone else out with me. It didn’t take very long because it was a short run and there was already some panduit on the wall. Then it was off to take care of other random work orders.

Brice and Amanda wanted Brangus for lunch. Eight of us in total made it there this time. My steak tasted a bit funny but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. On the way back, I stopped by Oakland to give Leslie a new power cable for her speakers. Then I continued on back to the high school.

I left pretty close to on time after a slightly frustrating and loud conversation with Dan, but I think we were both just feeling frustrations from different angles. After I got home, I received an email from him thanking me for the insight, which felt nice. It’s probably worth another conversation in the future after I had some time to kind of stew on it a bit, but I hope I expressed a genuine desire to be helpful without giving in too much.

While I was home, I took care of the fish and then sat for quite a while just relaxing in front of the shrimp tank. The snail population has just exploded, and though I appreciate the lack of algae, I think it may be time to do something about them. No other tank of mine has nearly this many, though I guess the shrimp tank is pretty jungly.

Once the girls got home, I headed up there and heated up the leftover pizza for dinner. Then Summer and Autumn went to sleep while Eaddie and I sat up watching Daredevil. She fell asleep part way through the last episode we watched, and then we both called it a night.

I seriously just taught you how to do something that I learned by myself in middle school, and that’s not even the most frustrating part!

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Hackerman

I loaded everything up this morning and headed to central office for a new picture. I went ahead and took a normal photo for the website first, but then the coat went on, the collars went up, and the Matrix glasses and Lazer Tag helmet topped it all off. Josh seemed genuinely excited to be doing something fun and different. He even asked me to stick around to take some other creative shots after he finished portraits for the last few people walking in. I felt a little silly, but I figured it would be worth it. Even Ben walked in and caught my hijinks and had to laugh. As we finished up, Josh made the comment that he wished I had the gun to go with it. I told him I was moving in with him if I got fired for it, retrieved it from the trunk of my car, and we took the shots.

With that out of the way, I stopped by the shop to check on things there, then ran by the middle school to pick up some scrapped Chromebook chargers to use for something at the high school. I ran into Sara there, and she wanted to pick my brain about esports. We ended up talking for quite a while, laughing at how we were both far enough behind that sitting around chatting all day wouldn’t even make a noticeable difference. When I finally left the middle school, I stopped by Oakland to see if I could swipe an unused laptop dock and say hello to everyone for a minute. Then I had to head on to the high school to fix a vo-tech phone I had evidently broken yesterday.

I did a few more things at the high school before heading to Morelos to meet Zach and Allen. The carnitas were pretty great, and I took a taco salad to Summer afterward. Zach bought my lunch because he said it was easier than trying to explain in broken English how to split the check. I stopped by the shop to pick up some things, then headed back to the high school to churn through some more work orders.

The girls took the bus over after school, and I took them home with me so I could take care of some things. My wireless was out, which turned into having to update some things that took too long. I eventually just gave up on having it done, and we went to CiCi’s to meet Summer. She ended up not feeling well enough to eat out, so we got some Little Caesar’s on the way up instead. The girls did their homework, and Summer and I tried to watch the new Rocko’s Modern Life on Netflix. I didn’t love it, but it did satisfy what little nostalgia I had just from remembering the show existed. Finally it was off to a slightly early bedtime.

I’ll have to come back again and dual wield these things.

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Third Wind

I went to bed early last night but tossed and turned for a couple hours before I finally fell asleep. It wasn’t too much later that I woke up to the sound of the cat retching in the floor, so I had to get out of bed to clean that up. Then I tossed and turned, wide-eyed from about 3am until about 5:45, when I finally jumped out of bed and drove to Waffle House. I sat at the bar by myself with only one other customer in the restaurant, surprised that there weren’t more people there for breakfast. Running on so little sleep, I knew what I had to get. Bacon cheese burger with hash browns scattered all the way with chili and gravy. It was full-on punishment for the betrayal I felt as my body refused to go to sleep. The cook was a rockstar, but accidentally threw some hash browns on the grill for a regular customer that ended up not wanting them. He offered them to me for free, so I mounded them on top of my already sloppy plate and destroyed it all. No mercy.

It was a super fast breakfast with nobody else there, and I made it home just in time to hear my alarm clock start buzzing. It was go-time. Full morning routine and out the door a full 10 minutes early. I made it to school and got up into the building way early and jumped right in. Then I was assaulted by the library when some testing didn’t go as planned. Failures exaggerated, our pseudo hero jumped in to “save the day” and “take the credit.” Gary showed up in the middle of it all and had to go hide in my office for all the screaming.

With that crisis out of the way, Gary and I wandered around vo-tech taking care of phones. The Mac internet issue ended up not being my problem, which was nice. Then it was back up to the office for our second crisis. Just as class let out, one of our internet circuits went out for just a few minutes and I had a line of people out my door wanting to know what we were doing to fix it. Without even having enough time to identify the failure, we had people wanting to know an ETA for a fix so they could plan their next period. Gary rage-quit and went back to his office for good reason, but I was no stranger to dealing with people in a self-induced panic. Boom, more work orders closed.

I continued on with work orders until lunch when Allen invited me to Smackin’ Wings. I met him there, along with Gary, Zach, and Ben. We had entertainingly, lovingly hateful conversations, making sure we made it fully around the department. Then I had to load up a computer lab worth of computers to take to the high school. Allen helped me move them to the dock to load them into my car, and then I cut him loose to do his own things. I got lucky and ran into my intern while looking for a dolly to bring the computers inside, then got a bit of sass from my mohawked maintenance guy for knocking on his dungeon door. I get personal space, but I still felt slighted. I may have to take his internet.

Ben met us to help set up the computer lab, which ended up taking the rest of the day. We fought the switch configuration a bit, and even had trouble toning out a line, and ended up switching ports in the room for one that was labeled at the switch. All done except for the deployments. Then I closed out a few more things before walking out.

Finally home, I just continued my work streak and cleaned up all of the aquariums. It looks like Murderface has a bit of hole-in-the-head, but I’m not certain. Gotta keep his water changed more often, especially since I never test it. Those snails are messy. Once everything was cleaned up, I headed to my parents’ house to pick up some props for picture day. Then it was off to Summer’s for promised head scratchies to ensure absolute sleep tonight.

All the angles.

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There’s No Good Time

I made it in to work just a little early this morning, still pretty groggy from waking up a few times last night. I made up my own parking space in the grass again, but I can already tell it’s going to be trouble when it rains. I’m not looking forward to it at all, but I guess I’ve got the sick leave to burn if I wanted to just not work every time the weather is bad.

I spent a little time on some stuff in my office, then wandered around the campus for a while to clean up some work orders. Zach stopped in since he was there working on something else, and we went down to the ATCC for a bit to scope out a couple things. Then I left him to go close out a couple things at the multipurpose facility before lunch. Summer wanted to join us for the $5 salad bar, but we had to wait until 1 o’clock for her. I picked Zach up on the way off campus, then we got her from the shop, and made our way to Ruby Tuesday. Our server goofed and Zach got a free meal just because he didn’t want to ring out another guest because of some fraud prevention system. To me that sounded a bit broken, but we tipped him for it.

After dropping everyone off, I headed to the shop for a bit to set up a new laptop and then research some of my more time consuming work orders. Ben eventually came around the shop and asked when we could set up a desktop computer lab, and I just had to tell him there is no good time because I feel like I’m drowning in things to do as it is, so we’d just have to make the time and sacrifice something else. Then we sat down and he showed me the system to create IVR systems in Avaya. It looked really fun, and I can see myself borrowing some of our outbound numbers in the future, assuming I ever find any free time ever again.

I worked a little late to finish making the user accounts for the new vo-tech phone lines, and then went by my parents’ house for just a few minutes. They weren’t really doing much and I wasn’t hungry since we had a big, late lunch, so I sat there for a few minutes before Dad decided we could move the boat onto the paver stones I bought. We couldn’t really push it around by hand, so we actually had to hook it up to my hitch and drive it a couple feet, but it wasn’t too bad. It was hot and humid outside though, so by the time that was over I was ready for bed. I went home and laid down for a while before getting back up to finish my evening routine, then crashing a few hours early.

For Allen Dot Hopgood, press 1.
For Amandy Bolton, press 60,000.net.
Para Pancho, oprima el numero tres.
For Customer Relations, push all of his buttons.

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On the Subject of Drowning

I got out a bit early this morning to bring Doug home after dropping his car off at the Cogswell Collision Center. He had a little fender bender the other day and asked me to give him a ride back. I actually made it to work just a few minutes late, which I thought was pretty impressive. It was all downhill from there.

All day I felt like I was just scattered and scrambling to make sense of it all. Ultimately I got several things closed out, but I’m still getting covered up with work orders and I haven’t had a chance to touch any of the 1:1 devices. The stack of repairs isn’t getting any shorter, and the anxiety is mounting. I didn’t even take a lunch, and opted for a bit of Soylent halfway through the day instead. It got me to the end of the day without too much trouble, which I guess was ideal.

Eaddie took the bus to the high school so I wouldn’t have to get her from the shop, and we went to my parents’ house for more spring rolls. I helped slice up the smoked pork and shrimp while Eaddie played on her phone. We didn’t waste any time, and ate as soon as everything was ready. Julie came by and finished up her beef spring rolls too.

I decided to take Eaddie out for ice cream after dinner, and we settled on Bocadillos for something different. She got an ice cream cone with mint chocolate and Nutella. I got a churro with strawberry cheesecake ice cream. It was all delicious and expensive. Then we stopped by my house so I could change before making our way to their house for the night. Summer spent all evening at Tech for some kind of involvement fair, so we made another stop to get her some Taco John’s for dinner. I was upset to hear they “couldn’t do Potato Olés” for some reason, but I don’t think they charged the whole combo price either.

It sounds like they’re still shaking things up at Splash, so it’ll be exciting to see what happens next. Right now all I can think about is my pillow.

House slippers in the summer just make me sweat.

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Rollin’ in Greens

We didn’t sleep in very long this morning considering how late we got in, so I felt a little drowsy pretty much all day. Summer went home to clean up, and then Bác Vân called me out to get a bunch of plant material for Mom. I got everything loaded up, showered myself, and then went by their house to drop everything off before going up to Summer’s. I couldn’t wait for our “early” dinner, so I finished up a bunch of salad greens there before we headed over to my parents’ house.

The girls wanted to swim, so they went outside for a bit until it started lightly storming. I skimmed a little bit of sleep in Summer’s lap for a while, but ended up feeling more tired for it because of my apnea. I did at least feel relaxed though. Julie came over to eat too, and we all had beef spring rolls, except a predictably fussy Autumn who ate Mom’s famous “chicken nuggets.”

After dinner, the girls went to swim a little more before they headed home. I came home myself and made a really early night of it.

The fun weekends are always the shortest.