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You are maddeningly inconsistent.

I got really frustrated with several things at work today. The first task I was given was something that was scheduled for Jason to do yesterday, but he didn’t do it then because presumably he and Allen spent the afternoon watching a girl at the UPS Store properly pack the leased laptops he was supposed to ship back. The man is either completely devoid of any common sense, or a complete genius. I’ve never seen someone hand off so much of his own work in my life.

After Amanda and I finished that task for him, we went to Sequoyah to pull cables and rearrange a room for a new teacher there. This was frustrating for a few reasons. Firstly, the room was already in perfect form with the SMART board in the middle of one wall and the computer desk in the middle of an adjacent wall. Secondly, the technology committee is supposed to be there to deny requests like this that aren’t backed by any real instructional need. Thirdly, I felt like Ben should have stood his ground as a part of the committee. I get that the principal there may not make requests very often, so requests should be taken seriously. It was the fact that this particular room should have been the template for the setup of every other room in the district. The new layout made no sense, and I was made to feel like I was taking crazy pills just because Amanda didn’t want to try and convince her principal otherwise.

I left for lunch with Dale and Ryan at Chick-fil-A, then came back and completed the job with Amanda. I’m sure that I probably let myself get too upset over it, and at the end of the day I’m paid to do a job, so I completed the job. It was just compounded frustrations with specific coworkers.

That’s about the time Jason told Amanda and me that we wired too many of the laptop carts the other day, and that we would have to go undo the work we had just done.

That was right after he blew up in front of me about not being able to image a computer with Ryan’s new setup, even though he’s been told specifically how to do it correctly multiple times.

Home and beer in a quiet house.

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Carte Blanche

Amanda and I spent all morning wiring more laptop carts. We got all but one cart completely finished by lunch. Allen picked me up to go to KFC, and when we got back, Jason told us we didn’t need all of the carts wired. I’d like to be able to say we were at all surprised by this news. I’d really like to.

I went to Oakland in the afternoon to take care of some work orders there. Then after work, I went to Superfast to pick up Eaddie to swim at my parents’ house. It was a bit menacing outside, so we watched an episode of The Flash inside and finished up right as Summer got there after her workout. We all swam for quite a while, then headed home for the evening.

Summer and Eaddie stopped at Sonic for some dinner and we watched an episode of The Office before bed. Prime day has so far been mostly disappointing, but all the better to pay what bills I already have.

Do you pay my automo’ bills?

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Sweat Child o’ Mine

I got up this morning and spent a while making a big egg and hash brown breakfast. Everything turned out pretty good, and I learned some things along the way. It’s all about the low, slow heat when it comes to the hash browns.

The girls got stuck watching The Flash literally all day long. Summer and I dug the 55-gallon aquarium out of the garage and started cleaning it up to take to her house for Autumn’s turtle, Apollo. We even managed to get her outside to help scrub the tank for a bit.

It was super hot outside, but it wouldn’t have been so bad in the shade if it weren’t for the humidity. Even my house struggled to keep up as the inside temperature reached four whole degrees warmer than the thermostat was set. I don’t know if it froze up, or if it was low on refrigerant, but it cooled off in the evening after leaving it off for a while.

After we dropped the tank off at Summer’s, we all went to my parents’ house for some hot dogs and eggplant soup for dinner. The girls got stuck there watching the finale of Harry Potter. I’m sure I probably have, but I can’t remember ever consuming that much passive entertainment all at once. They’ve just been completely gripped by this stuff today.

When the movie finished, I took the girls back home and headed home to a cool house. I’ll have to keep an eye on things tomorrow in the heat to see how it does. I didn’t feel particularly sleepy, and it was cool enough outside that I got the bug to install my Nest Hello. I finally found the correct breaker to switch off and got to work. Everything went pretty smoothly, and I’m pretty happy with the install except for the narrow passageway up to my front door. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up moving the whole installation to the gate next to the garage.

I’d rather live with the constant threat of my island blowing up than sweating to death every summer in this humidity.

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One Time at Band Camp

I got up this morning and had to get ready for Autumn’s band camp concert. I hadn’t been to one since my sister played the flute, so this was a bit of nostalgia mixed with a whole lot of anxiety. I made it out alive though, and we celebrated with La Huerta.

Summer insisted on mowing the lawn in the middle of the day, so I went to get her some Powerade, then went home to take care of my own house. I was so drowsy all afternoon that I had trouble staying awake, but I managed to get some stuff done. Summer and Eaddie came over once they were done, and I snooped around my breaker box for a bit to try and find the doorbell chime. I couldn’t ever get it to power down, so I’ll probably just kill the whole house tomorrow so I can install my Nest Hello.

They watched more of The Flash while I played some Overwatch with Clint and Jack until bedtime. Eaddie’s completely obsessed with the show, and I’m a little sad I didn’t get in on it with them, but there are plenty of other shows for me to watch.

Take two Advil and wake up in the morning.

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Making Cardigan

I didn’t even realize it was Friday until someone at work said something about it. This week has really flown by. Luckily today was a relatively easy day. We all shuffled out into the graveyard to make Chromebook carts. It was an all-day affair, and we had several fans blowing to keep from breaking too much of a sweat out there in the heat.

Jason, Allen, and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, and I had probably the best food and service I’ve ever had there. We got our food in about 10 minutes, our waitress kept our drinks topped off, and everything was hot and fresh. Somehow it almost made sense for it to be Friday the 13th for them.

While we were gone on vacation, central office decided we get to go home at 3 on Fridays, so I headed home and started cleaning up my desk. I found my HSA card and made sure it was activated so I can use it soon. Now I’ve just got to find my insurance card.

Keno came on and we played a couple rounds of PUBG before I headed to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie’s been watching The Flash, and I’m a little jealous she got to it before me because it’s been sitting in my queue for years. Maybe someday I’ll catch up on everything.

Maximum Fun

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Iunno…

Dale was ready to roll this morning, and he and Ryan ended up pushing everyone else to get to work. We loaded up two groups of three and headed to Center Valley to replace eight touch panels. Ryan and I did four touch panels in the time that it took Jason, Zach, and Allen to do three. Dale took care of inventory for both groups since we didn’t need the extra hand. I wish we could get points for good work.

Dale, Allen, and I went to New China for lunch since we had a relatively light afternoon. I’m not sure what anyone else did, but Dale, Ryan, and I went to the high school to image a couple labs and reroute some cables into ceiling drops. I was just glad to be there so they couldn’t gripe about me not working along with the rest of the crew.

After work, I stopped at the car wash to clean all the grime off of the Murano from our trip. Then it was home for the evening. I spent some more time re-looking in every corner of my house for my box fan that seems to have completely vanished. Then I tracked down a leak in my air conditioner that was leaving puddles in the floor of my closet. Dad’s eagle eye spotted a drain plug that simply fell out, so tomorrow I’ll have to try and find a new one that fits.

Google it.

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Won’t you take me to Junkytown?

Today had me beat. We spent all day taking down projectors and SMART boards from the high school, and almost every single room was really hot with no air circulation. The heat, plus lots of boards mounted to drywall instead of brick made for a difficult and sweaty time. We filled up two truck beds before lunch and had to unload them into an already full graveyard. Someone got wise and asked if we could take the projectors and mounting booms to the scrap metal yard, and we got a little over 30 bucks for it all. For technology that really probably wasn’t all that bad, I found that to be pretty frustrating.

After a quick lunch at Quiznos, we jumped right back into it at the high school. The guys at the scrapyard indicated to our guys with the first load that there needed to be more metal than what they got, so Zach and I drove to a different scrap yard in the afternoon. They didn’t want to pay anything at all, but they offered to let us throw them into a junk pile. It kind of broke me a little inside to be throwing that stuff away when presumably it could be sold or donated to someone in need. Summer gears are turning, though, and we have to move the merchandise.

When we got back to the shop, we were told we had a truck coming with several pallets of stuff for us, so we all had to wait outside and clean out more room in the graveyard to store the new stuff. That took us the rest of the work day, so there was no hope of going home early for most of us. Somehow Jason managed to disappear somewhere, and Dale waved goodbye as he drove off.

I went straight to my parents’ house to have a swim in the pool for a while. Summer and Eaddie came over to join me eventually. I left for a bit to get cheap Kroger gas with Dad and Julie, and then it was back to swim. Mom made pork and shrimp spring rolls for dinner, so we stayed for that. Everyone else was pretty tired by then, so we came back to my house to crash.

Where the heck did I put that box fan?

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Phở Real?

More heavy lifting today. This morning we managed to install three touch panels before 10AM. We were on such a roll that we went to CJ’s for lunch on the way back out to drop off four more panels and remove a whole bunch more. We ran out of mounting hardware, which makes the 50 TVs and touch panels in our warehouse completely useless until we get more, which had Dale reeling all afternoon. Removing old setups in the afternoon at least served to let the painters in between hardware to patch up the walls.

After work, Summer and Eaddie came over to go to my parents’ for phở. They both really liked it, and the spaghetti squash salad, and the avocado dessert drink. Eaddie even managed to make it through the whole meal with chopsticks.

We picked Noah up on the way back to my house, and we landed on watching the Get Smart movie remake from 2008. None of them had ever heard of it before, and I had never seen the new movie. I didn’t love it compared to the original, but I also haven’t seen the original since I was a kid. After showing them a compilation of the old show on YouTube, I was proud that Summer at least identified the voice of Inspector Gadget.

Sorry about that, Chief!

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“We’re ready master.” “I’m not ready!”

Back to work. I woke up pleasantly ahead of schedule and made it to work a few minutes early. It was a pretty light day, with just a couple touch panels to install in the morning, and then the afternoon to myself at Oakland. I guess as far as coming back to work, this wasn’t too bad.

After work, I came home and set up my mini fridge. Summer came over to take me to meet Autumn at band camp for dinner, but I ended up not going. As I got the fridge set up to the point that I had to let it cool down, Mom texted for me to come clean up some leftover spring rolls. I ate and ran, coming home to fill the now-cool fridge with drinks. I ended up removing a couple shelves to get things to fit the way I wanted. It’s a silly convenience, but I like the way it looks with how it’s stocked.

Summer and Eaddie got here just as I was finishing up there, and we had some of Dad’s banana bread with ice cream before bed. I feel exhausted for what little I’ve done today.

I miss being away.

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ANT-onio Banderas

I tried not to sleep in too late today so I wouldn’t ruin my first morning back to work tomorrow. I guess it worked, because I’m exhausted now after a day in Conway.

I went to Summer’s to pick everyone up, and we headed to the movie. We picked up some cheap snacks first, and then grabbed our best seats for Ant-Man and the Wasp. I was a little worried at first, because the guy sitting next to me seemed to have negative comments for every single commercial that played before the trailers. He calmed down by the time the lights came down though, so all was well. The movie was great, and it really stoked everyone for the next Infinity War.

After the movie we went to Sam’s Club to try and exchange my succulent that rotted. They didn’t have any more, but they gave me a refund for half of the two plants, which was perfectly fine. We roamed around for a while, and I ended up picking up a super cheap mini fridge like the ones I’ve been eyeing for a while. It was about 25% cheaper than what I’d been watching on sale, so I couldn’t turn away.

We came straight back home where Summer grilled some brats and fried some potatoes for dinner. The Sam’s salsa we picked up was a disappointment, but everything else was awesome. Then we watched a couple episodes of The Office before I had to head home.

Aaron came online shortly after I got home, so we played one round of PUBG before bed. I didn’t die without at least one kill, so I call it a successful return.

You can do it. You can do anything. You’re the world’s greatest grandma.