I feel like I’ve been running around a lot lately at work. I definitely travelled the halls a lot more today than what I would consider typical. I keep getting more and more grunt work and less that I can actually learn about, so that’s frustrating.

After working late, I went by my parents’ house to see if Dad had a suitable RCA connector that I could use to fix the preamplifier in the junior high cafeteria, but I didn’t have any luck there. I tried to help clean up some leftovers there, then came home and couldn’t find a suitable connector in any of my old electronics here either. It’s crazy/not-crazy to me that our home theater contacts don’t do any repairs, but I guess it’s not worth the effort for them to keep parts like that on hand. I remember the days of going with my dad to the TV repair shop or Radio Shack for parts. Now you just buy a whole new thing.

I muddled around the house for the rest of the evening and eventually made some hot tea before refunding my Star Wars tickets. I’ll give my new Pixel another day or so to get the update before I box up the old one to ship back for a refund as well.

You can count on it, I’m where you left me

I’ve decided to take a refund on my seven tickets to the opening night of Star Wars. Ben’s having a Christmas shindig at his place that night that I’d rather go to, and I could only find a couple takers for tickets anyway.

I worked late messing with the A/V rack at the junior high, and left when I got to a point where I needed a part.

Whiskey sour ’til bed.

I’d be a better man, better man, better man

I got my second Pixel 2 XL today. Only because they offered it with a $100 credit this time, and they let me return the old one without question. In fact, one of the options for the return was that I found a better price somewhere else.

Fortunately, the tempered glass screen protector I ordered came in as well, so I was able to install it with very little fuss. The new Pixel is mostly set back up like the old one, but I’m a little behind on my Android version. I can’t wait for my dbrand skins to come in now, but I’m nervous about installing my first one.

I didn’t do much else all day. I got a load of laundry done. Kept a couple chairs from floating away. Made some green tea.

That all changed when I met Lucy.

After leaving work early yesterday for the parade, we’ve come to the time of the year where everyone takes off of work. I never take the extra vacation days because I feel like I’d be wasting them, and would rather just be at work.

There were only a few of us there today, so we didn’t have any group projects. I went and visited my buildings and got a few things done. Jason told us to go home at 2:45, but I ended up staying until about 4:30 anyway before going to my parents’ house for dinner.

When I got home, I tried working on my network some more. I got the file share working again, but my modem is definitely dead, and only one of my two ethernet ports on my PC is working, and even it’s only working at 10Mb. I’m may have to talk myself out of building a new machine pretty soon, because I have too many other projects.

She’s been dancing with the devil all night.

It’s been a real struggle since my modem blew. I still haven’t heard anything from Suddenlink about the damage.

I spent all day at the junior high, even having cafeteria lunch in the library. We got to leave early for the Christmas parade, but I ended up sticking around for a while after anyway.

I came straight home after work to fight some more with my home network. After trying out a dozen different drivers at different speeds, I was able to get my gaming PC connected over ethernet, but at greatly reduced speeds. I got to chatting on #woot on irc.gamesurge.net and came to the realization that my first PC was built in January of 2004. My second and current gaming PC was built in January of 2011. If I’m to keep with my seemingly scheduled system failures, then it looks like I’m due to build another one this January.

I guess it is Christmas, but I’ve done nothing but buy things all year. On top of that, I don’t really game as much as I used to anyway. I would like to play around with some VR, but I feel like over the past few years I’ve mostly grown apart from my gaming group. I could sink a good amount of money into a new computer and be set for another seven years, but for what? Even when I built this one, I mostly used it for Chrome. Even if I did get more into gaming again, can I really afford to shut myself in even more?

Goals should be assessed.

At least the house talks back today.

I woke up this morning to no internet. My home life is so integrated, I couldn’t help but to be affected by the lack of service. I had gotten my wireless working again when I went to bed, but everything was completely down by the time I woke up. Somehow my router had gotten worse overnight, and could no longer detect the connection to my modem. I spent a while trying to bring it back to life, but ultimately gave up so I could get to work.

There wasn’t much going on at work, but I did get to learn a little bit about AppLocker. I stayed late to make up for some time and then drove by my parents’ house when I got off. As I pulled up, my parents were on their way to the funeral home to pay their respects to my fourth grade teacher’s husband. I only just vaguely remembered that period in my life, so I passed on visiting myself.

I really wanted to go to Dixie Cafe at some point today before they closed for good. Growing up, I had a very different version of “home-cooked” or “comfort food” than others around here. Even when we went out to eat, we usually ended up at a Chinese restaurant. There was a lot at Dixie that I never got at home, so it was really exotic food for me. I loved their appetizer sampler with their fried pickle spears, chicken strips with gravy, fried mushrooms, and fried cheese sticks. I always went through a couple baskets of their rolls and jalapeño cornbread. I only had a couple people that would ever go there with me, so it was really nostalgic for me, and now it’s gone forever.

Instead, I came home and warmed up some leftover eggrolls while I worked on my network. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite alone as when I walked into a dark, cold house that couldn’t talk back to me. I’ve grown beyond accustomed to my smart home, and it invoked a real emotional response when I came home and it was completely dead. After a bunch of trial and error, I remembered my pocket aces. When I worked at NEW, I had at one time required a customer ship us a router that he had claimed on his service plan. For some reason, I felt fit to keep this scrapped equipment. It was only one letter off of the model number of my router, so I thought it might be useful for parts. He shipped it to me without a power supply or even the screw-on antennae, but those parts from my fried router fit perfectly, and to my surprise the router booted up without issue. I performed a firmware update and got it running my home network in no time.

After I got my lights and other essential equipment back online, I settled in with my old friend Tom Collins and finished The Avengers. It really was a fun movie, and it reminded me of how far we’ve come in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I can’t wait for the next movie in the collection.

No one likes a one-upper.

Waking up was weird this morning, and that was just the start of it. Just as I was getting into my routine, the power went out and I had to do everything in the dark. It’s weird that I never really lost power during the brief storm, but the lightning fried so much of my stuff.

I went in to work about an hour late after stumbling through my morning, and managed to get a decent amount of stuff done. I met some of the guys at Quiznos for lunch, then went to my parents’ house after work for dinner.

When I finally got back home, I ran through the trial and error of trying to get my home back online. At this point, I’ve found that the storm took out my brand new modem, two ports on my router, and the ethernet ports on my computer. I’m frustrated to the point that I feel like I’m ready to climb into the attic to get some real wiring done. The hard part is choosing a location for the brains of the operation. For now, I’m sacrificing media storage for the ability to turn my lights on and off.

I’m truly living in the future.

…or all of the things.

Work was worklike. I spent all morning at the junior high, then stopped by Subway for a late lunch. I wanted to try out their reuben. It was okay. Super loaded up with subpar deli corned beef, but not enough of anything else. I ran into Michael there as I was walking in, and let him jump ahead of me so he could get back to school. Then when I got to the end of the line, he paid for my $11 sandwich. It all happened so fast, and I felt a little bit terrible, because I’m pretty sure my sandwich cost almost twice what his cost.

After work, I went to my parents’ house for some more chow mein, then came home for more laundry. I had just gotten settled in when it started to storm. The storm passed pretty quickly, but right in the middle of it – BANG! Lightning struck super close. I never really lost power, but things went a little funky for a bit. It wasn’t long before I realized my brand new modem had fried. After all the trouble with my internet, the coax to my modem was set to bypass the surge/backup battery. It’s completely dead. I called Suddenlink to have service switched back to my old modem, but now I’m having additional trouble getting my wired devices back online. At least two heavy pieces of equipment don’t seem to be talking to the network, so I’ve got my work cut out for me.

I hate, hate, hate this kind of thing, especially when it should have been prevented. There’s no reason for me to have to bypass safety equipment in order to use Suddenlink’s service. Enough for tonight though. I’ll have to figure it all out tomorrow or something.

SUPER HATE