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Swag Bag

I woke up a couple times last night, and at one time in particular had a bit of trouble getting back to sleep. Eventually Summer got up and took the girls to school, and I headed home to get ready for our bike ride. After trying unsuccessfully to nap a bit, I took a shower and then Summer came over to help load up. We headed to Fayetteville via Highways 21 and 16, stopping first in Lamar for a quick breakfast snack, then a drink in St. Paul, and finally a McDonald’s in Elkins before coming into greater Fayetteville.

When we landed at Baum Stadium, Summer was in awe of all the bikes there, but being the middle of a Friday it actually wasn’t that busy yet. We wandered through the vendors and picked up a bunch of shirts and other swag. Surprisingly no pens, but I did get a pair of AARP sunglasses for providing my name, home address, phone number, and email on the pretense that I would learn something about identity theft. I hope this isn’t one of those hard lessons, but I guess neon yellow sunglasses are worth it.
 
Summer got her hair braided at Flo’s Chop Shop, and then we made our way to Dickson street. It was every bit as thunderous and ridiculous as I remembered as we coasted downhill surrounded by people revving their idle engines. We walked down to a big food court and had an awesome seafood giro and eventually a couple big plates of barbecue. We never did make it to the fanciest of funnel cakes before we were both stuffed and the sun began to set. We got quite a bit of “higher quality” stuff this year, but I was surprised not to find a large Geico gift tent.

Maybe I’ll go again with Allen tomorrow.

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G.C. Phone Home

I spent all morning working on switching a single handset to a new Avaya model. The instructions were straight forward and overly simple, but that seems to be the only way to get others to follow them. Jason emailed me for status on several of my work orders that already had notes on them. I got a little upset, but mostly talked myself down from that just because I know I’ve had over 30 work orders since school started, while everyone else is down to almost nothing.

Sonic was doing 50 cent corn dogs, so I grabbed lunch there and ran into Keith at the drive-through. He got out and chatted with me for a bit, and then I was off to the shop to meet Ryan for some help with a couple issues I had with the phone swap in the morning. We got it halfway figured out, but he or I will have to talk to Ben about the other half later.

When quitting time finally came around, Summer left Eaddie with me, and we went home to clean the bike up before dark. We started by riding a quick loop around town before stopping at the car wash. Once I got my chain cleaned and lubed up, we went to Wendy’s so I could get a half salad for dinner, and I got Eaddie some fries to dip in a Frosty. She loved riding the bike so much, but we had to get home for the evening.

On the way back and still hungry, I picked up a couple spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy’s after Hardee’s told me all of their chicken strips were frozen. I’m still not sure if that was just a polite way of telling me she wasn’t going to make them for me, or if they actually batter them in the store and can’t make them unless they’re thawed out. After eating, Summer and I went to the junior high to pick up Autumn, and somehow we made it back out in record time. Even more surprisingly, everyone settled into bed pretty quickly once we got back home. Hopefully tomorrow will be a nice day for a ride.

Wait… which one is farther?

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Smokey Smoke Chickie Chick

One of the school board members set up in front of the building to cook lunch for the staff today, so after bouncing from Oakland to the junior high, I ended up back at Oakland for lunch. Then I wasted most of the afternoon fighting with a couple of iPads and Jamf, which wasn’t fun or educational.

After work, I went home for a while before heading to Summer’s for the evening. It’s starting to get way colder at night, and I find myself wishing again that it didn’t happen so quickly.

Mount St. Helens is about to blow up, and it’s gonna be a fine, swell day.

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Always Be Closing

I finally got Oakland’s sign completely functional this morning. It probably took me better than a full day’s worth of time to get it going, but it felt good to figure it out by myself, and I learned stuff in the process.

Dale and I met for a Taco Tuesday lunch, and then I ran home to get my new Sticker Mule custom stickers. They didn’t quite live up to the quality that I was expecting because the edges were clearly cut on a vinyl printer/cutter, but I assumed they weren’t truly die-cut from the beginning anyway. They were cheap, and it was neat to see the process. It really makes me want to tool up and buy an industrial plotter myself, but I know it would end up just being a bunch of dickbutts in the end, and I’d be out the money without any real desire to be an Etsy entrepreneur.

I rode back to the junior high and spent the afternoon closing miscellaneous work orders, finally trying to make some headway on the 30 I’ve been floating all year. I’ve got more bigger projects that I need to complete as well without work orders, but I’ll just have to figure out how to juggle it all.

After work, I went home for a while until it was time to pick the girls up from karate, and then we went to their house for the evening. Summer grilled some awesome pork chops along with a fresh cucumber avocado salad that we ate with chips.

It’s hard trying to become a sticker person.

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Under Circumstances

I felt like I was on a pretty good roll today, but then I got hung up working on Oakland’s sign for what felt like hours after my already late grab-and-go lunch.

After work, I met up with the Stottmans at Miguel’s viewing. Veronica seemed to be doing really well, but she’s always been a really strong person. It was nice to see those familiar faces again from such a long time ago at NEW. If only it had been under better circumstances. It really made me regret not making it when everyone got together for Maria’s sweet sixteen. I guess there’s not always next time.

Contemplating plans for tomorrow, I grabbed a quick dinner at Arby’s before cleaning up at home and settling in for the night.

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Sunday None Day

We didn’t do anything today.

Summer’s neck hurt, so I finally set up the neck traction device for her. I’m not sure it did anything, but I think at best it’s more of a long-term therapy device anyway.

Melissa called and told me that Veronica’s husband passed away, so I’ll have to go visit tomorrow.

I did even less after the girls went home, and spent the rest of the evening fighting sleep.

Stop wasting time.

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Don’t go in the pimped out fridge, Jack…

Summer and Autumn went to the high school for a quiz bowl tournament today. I slept in until I heard Eaddie moving around, then got up and made some rice with eggs and Rotel for breakfast. We pretty much sat around and watched Arrow all day until the others got home. Then Summer went to the gym for a workout and returned with a bucket of chicken for dinner. We watched Race to Witch Mountain, then went to bed.

It was the Buddha. He was unavailable.

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Fall Rain

I had a super relaxing morning with Dale and Zach today. We had to move some equipment around at the high school, and then I walked with Zach to try and track down a kid that threw a bang snap down a stairwell. We never saw him, but the cops tracked him down eventually. Then I got to climb up onto the roof with Zach to run down some cable he thought was damaged. I’ve always wanted to climb up onto the roof of one of those buildings, and it was a good day to do it. It wasn’t too hot because of all the rain we were about to get.

We went to Western Sizzlin for lunch, and the help I needed disappeared until it started to rain, so I just went to the junior high to finish up some work orders until quitting time. When I left, I went to my parents’ house to see if I could snag a CPAP air filter, and when the girls finished what they were doing, we went back for dinner.

Everyone was pretty tired, so we went straight to bed once we got back to my house. Now the trick is to not waste tomorrow.

I woke up in a new Bugatti.

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Blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind!

I thought I might get lucky with Oakland’s sign this morning, but it looks like I’ll have to spend some more time outside with it. The junk from Vantage LED can’t be set manually elsewhere and have it remember the settings, so I’m guessing I’ll have to go out with an alternatively-powered monitor to see what I’m doing before plugging it into the LED sign. The more I deal with that hardware, the more I absolutely hate it.

If that wasn’t enough for the morning, I frustrated myself more by spending 15 minutes trying to get the Sonic app to let me spend some of the extra $40 it had previously charged me, but it refused to let me complete my order. I don’t know what the deal was, but I just kept getting hungrier. I ended up running by Wendy’s for some chili cheese fries and free single with cheese. These really are the best cheap lunches I could ask for.

I kept busy all afternoon at the junior high, then came home and had to clean up after the cats. They’re really cramping my style. Between constantly ruining furniture and carpet, they basically just exist solely to turn my money into shit. On the bright side, Jessica’s bougie fish could suddenly eat when I brought home some of his flakes from work. Over a week and he doesn’t eat a bite, and I bring home pink flakes and he won’t stop. I’ve just had it with animals.

Summer had me pick up some Arby’s on the way to her place, and after finishing Aladin we watched several episodes of The Office until bedtime. Michael’s left the show, and now I get to relive all the strangeness that happens after. I don’t even really remember what happens, or if I ever even finished the series. Better late than never.

Don’t you dare turn that down!

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One Man’s Job is Another Man’s Work

I finally received the replacement sign computer for Oakland today from Vantage LED. Right out of the box, the standard power cable was completely dead. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a dead one before, yet somehow I wasn’t surprised to find one from them. The computer wasn’t set up for our specifications, and they told me it wouldn’t keep a configuration unless it could verify functionality first, which means I’ll have to plug it into the sign and run another monitor out there to use as a display to change the settings before plugging it into the sign. It’s the most janky setup I can imagine, and the invoice listed the device at $2,000. The video cable was invoiced at $75. Total bullshit.

I eventually made my way through McDonald’s and Wendy’s for a drive-through mix-n-match lunch, then got a few things done at the junior high. Then Jason called and wanted me to help Allen run a USB extender across a room. Evidently he was too busy, and me with over twice as many work orders as the next highest tech made the most sense. I didn’t mind the work, but the logic there just makes me shake my head.

After work, I came home and made some popcorn with the new popping oil we got at Sam’s. It was pretty good, but it’s still missing that buttery goodness I’m looking for. Once the girls got home, I ran through Chick-fil-A and Wendy’s for another mix-n-match cheapo dinner, filled up on some gas, and went to visit with them before bed. Team Lift first thing in the morning.

The internet made me this way.