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Foaming

I got to work a little bit early this morning, but breakfast was already pretty picked-through, and definitely not as good as yesterday. It was quieter today though, I think because teachers were stuck in the auditorium for a large part of the day. I used my time to try and clean up some things before I got, but it’s getting harder to keep my spirits amicable.

Lunch wasn’t great either. I remembered the Junction Cafe having pretty awful chicken strips, and I was right. I don’t know how they got them so flat or dried out, but at least there was some food left over from yesterday.

I got the fish fed once I got back into town, and then headed home and played with the dogs. Then I took them out for a long run to my parents’ house for some water, and then the long way through the new neighborhood and the basin area. Stilgar was pulling and huffing pretty hard, and started to foam at the mouth quite a bit. I was a bit worried, but we tried stopping by some sprinklers along the way, and he managed to keep going. I gave him a good misting from the hose once we got back to the house, since he’s not allowed a bath for the time being.

I was pretty hot myself, so I rode back to my parents’ house for a quick swim before coming back home. Eaddie suddenly said she didn’t want to go to see Five Finger Death Punch next week even though I triple-checked with her before I submitted payment, so I really want to make her go anyway. It’ll be a lesson in maintaining a working calendar for her schedule.

Besides, we’ve got to start practicing now if we’re going to survive another Trump presidency.

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Badges?

Teachers were back, which meant breakfast and lunch was provided at work today. I got there a couple minutes early and made a plate to take back to my office. There was no way I could have done anything important, because I had visitors all day long. I made an ID badge or two, and suddenly word got out and a I practically had a line of people wanting their picture taken. We’re almost out of RFID tags too, so I’ll leave it up to the next guy to figure out what to order.

We had El or La Something for lunch, which was pretty good. There was a mountain of chips and salsa left, but it all got cleaned up before Kim or I could go back for more. We had our fill though, and I made it through the end of the day with more food than I’d had at work since probably last year.

Just before I left, I snagged “Possum” on his way out the door, and mentioned my grief with the superintendent. I raised the concern about lost devices and how I had been wronged, and he basically said he just does whatever the superintendent or board president want. What’s the point of being on the board if you don’t use your own thoughts and considerations?

I made it to the old house to take care of the fish, and then got home to check on the dogs. Summer took them in for castrations this morning, so they were still drowsy when I got there. Muad’Dib was hiding under the shallow part of the porch where Chani died, which only had me a little nervous. He came out and let me feed him a little bit by hand, and I pet them for a while before going in to eat some leftovers for dinner.

When I came back out later, the dogs were feeling well enough for a walk, so I took them to my parents’ house. They did really well, but Stilgar kept getting distracted and wanted to do his own thing. Muad’Dib was the one that was feeling more affected by the drugs anyway. We made it back home and I ran a bath for Stilgar, because Summer didn’t tell me that he wasn’t supposed to get wet for a week or two.

I gave the dogs lots of attention until bedtime, and then I actually made it to bed on time, fairly exhausted. I haven’t even had the energy to do any more job searching since last week, so hopefully one of the leads I have now will lead somewhere.

You don’t need no stinking badges!

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Cook and Clean

Summer had to go to work today, and Eaddie spent the entire day locked away in her room. I got up and made some eggs with RO★TEL® for breakfast, which was great. I went out to see the dogs for a bit, and they were relatively calm, though I discovered someone had chewed up one of my grill covers and ripped the VELCRO® off completely on one side.

I cleaned up around the house and cleaned up a whole lot in the kitchen before Summer got home. Then she went out to do some yard work. Dad needed some help removing the diving board to work on the pool light, so I took the dogs for a run to their house. The dogs did great, but the bolts were completely rusted, so I took the dogs back home and got my impact wrench. We just ended up snapping the bit though, so we ran to Leonard’s to get an impact bit that did the exact same thing.

Failing that, I rode back home and finished some leftover pasta for dinner. Then I laid on the couch with Summer for a while and started to doze off a bit. I tried getting to bed super early, but just barely made it after 10. The dogs have their neuters in the morning, so I had to make sure they didn’t have any food or water after midnight. Then it was off to sleep.

Unparked

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Walk and Roll

I slept fairly well after a long day yesterday, and got up at a decent hour to make some breakfast for myself. Summer got up and found that Stilgar had pulled the fountain apart and chewed up the spout and the intake filter. After feeding them, she took the dogs for a walk and then went to the store with Eaddie to get stuff to make burritos for dinner. I went through boxes of stuff to try and make room to bring home more stuff from the old house. My office badly needs to be organized, especially in case I actually get one of these work from home jobs.

Summer went to the gym, and then took Eaddie out to walk the dogs again in the afternoon. I started cooking some refried beans in the Instant Pot, and eventually got the taco meat going as well. We had to send Eaddie to the store for olives and tomato sauce, and then Dad rode a bottle of fish sauce over on his bicycle.

Dinner turned out pretty good, and afterward I took the dogs for a slow ride on the Onewheel. It wasn’t miserably hot by then, and they did much better than Friday night. We rode to my parents’ house and I kept them on a short leash. Then we took a different route home through Promenade Circle. They got a little slow, but overall did really well.

Once we got back home, I finished putting away the leftovers and started getting ready for bed. It wasn’t as late as I thought it was, but I still didn’t get to bed early on account of some dawdling and some email and bill housekeeping.

You have to separate them by color, just as people should be!

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Lobby Hobbies

Summer and I woke up way early today so we could get to Tulsa for her service appointment. We stopped in Ozark to charge and I got a little snack for breakfast, and I managed to squeak up to the service center just before our appointment at nine. They didn’t have a loaner for us, but instead offered to let us take test drives in two hour increments.

We ended up hanging out in the lobby until lunch. There were a bunch of people there, but we were there the longest by far. They had a Cybertruck that we could climb around in, but nobody could drive it. We watched as several people stopped to look at it. I kind of liked it, but Summer made a face.

I found an Indian buffet for lunch, so we borrowed a brand new Model 3 that had ten miles on the odometer, and drove across town to eat. The food was really good, but I wished there was more meat. They love their bones, which was annoying but flavorful. We headed straight back to the service center after that.

They got the windshield replaced, but it wasn’t until about 4:00 that they asked for details about the air conditioner, which was the original reason for the warranty claim. They couldn’t find anything wrong, and of course the car had been inside all day, so it wasn’t hot enough to reproduce the failure. They did recharge the refrigerant, and said it was something like 38 grams low, so maybe that will make some difference.

We finally headed home, charged in Ozark, and then Summer finished the last leg of the trip. Eaddie and Eli were at the house and rearranging her room. Summer went to bed, and I responded to a couple requests for interviews, which felt very reassuring. We’ll get this ball rolling eventually.

1.9% is tempting, but let’s find work first!

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Unintegritous

I ran a little late this morning, guilt-free. I even got a burrito on the way in. Good vibes only.

My morning was eaten up by people stopping by the office, and about a thousand phone calls from Denice. She seemed unsympathetic when I finally told her it was the next guy’s problem. Then I spent the afternoon packing up most of the rest of my things. I even had the maintenance guys smile at the cameras while I carried out a Dell box full of my crap, just to have some evidence that I wasn’t stealing anything.

When I came back in from the car, they mentioned that they were having a called board meeting tonight, so I ended up sticking around for that. It was pretty quick, with an unshared agenda and a motion to pass it all. Among those things, were staff changes, and then one specific item that they did call out, which was a flat pay rate of $50,000 for the Technology Coordinator position. Of course, before that was the recommendation to hire the guy from Western Yell County School District. I had no say in the matter.

The best I could do was one-up them on integrity once more. After they concluded the meeting, I waved to the president of the board and thanked him for the opportunity to serve his district. He came over to shake my hand, and I mentioned expressing a desire to speak with them prior to all of this. He went on about a military background that dictated he should follow the recommendations of their superintendent.

Afterward, I had Harry sign my timesheets for July, and he apologized and spoke words of validation for my feeling slighted. Then he basically blamed it on the board in saying that he couldn’t tell me what happened in executive session, or tell me what he was “directed” to do. Everyone’s pointing at someone else, and they’re all guilty of being idiots.

In the end, I asked what he wanted from me, and Harry said I could continue working on into the first couple weeks that their new guy starts. He acted as though he was helping me out, and even offered to write me a glowing recommendation for my exemplary professionalism against all odds. I’ll even get paid at the new hourly rate for the $50,000 stepless salary that the new guy is getting. Bully for me.

I went home, fed the fish, and picked up some fries from Arby’s and a sandwich from KFC since Eaddie brought home pizza, but not enough for me. Then I wanted to take the dogs out for a therapy run, but they were on the absolute worst behavior they’ve ever shown me. They were both constantly pulling on the leash, and Stilgar was constantly running in circles around the stop signs, getting tangled up. I kept having to kick him back around the correct direction. The coup de grâce was when I had to stop and pick up the third poop of the night, and Stilgar pulled on the leash and tangled me up enough that I dragged it across the open bag of poop. From then on, they were dragged behind me on a short leash all the way home. From now on, it’ll be short leash discipline runs until they straighten out.

I’ve had it up to here.

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Three Blind Eyes

Today was a short day at work. I got in and immediately started tinkering with the router’s VLAN settings. I thought I had some of it figured out, and connected to a guest network, and even got the captive portal working for guests. That was when things started to break. For some reason, all of the access points dropped off of management, and a couple of the custodians came in to harass me about the wireless being broken. I was able to get everything back to “normal” again, and then sent a long email to the superintendents informing them of some changes and the fact that I was leaving after lunch.

Summer got home before I did so she could get ready, and once I got home we loaded up for a trip to Rogers. We stopped for a snack and charge in Ozark, and then got to the Walmart Amp where we had dinner at Chuy’s just down the block. This ended up being perfect parking for the concert. It wasn’t much more of a walk than we usually make, but there weren’t any hills or stairs to climb.

Arizona was an odd band. I thought I might like them, but the more they played, the less I was into it. Yellowcard was my favorite. I got one of their shirts. The girls both got Third Eye Blind shirts. Eaddie really liked their part of the concert. They put on a great show, but I didn’t know most of their songs.

After the show, we actually got out super quickly and hit the interstate without stopping in any traffic at all. We did have to stop and charge in Lowell and again in Ozark because I misunderstood what the app was trying to to tell me, but we got home without any trouble. The dogs were sad and staring in the back door when we walked in, so I fed them but had to get to sleep.

Smile big for everyone, even though you know what they done.

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Rogue Tech

It was kind of a weird and quiet day at work, feeling like I’m caught in limbo with zero oversight and literally no administration present. I’ve been a little bit concerned, or at least cautious after being told that people might have tried to throw me under the bus somehow, but I’m really working on my own terms right now. I could potentially even rack up a bunch of overtime and they would be stuck paying for it. I did see where Samuel had logged in to some of our systems, and given the lack of trust I have for Todd, I don’t really know what to think. I’d left his accounts active just because I wasn’t sure if I was sticking around, but he really has no business in my stuff while I’m there.

I’ve sent a steady flow of applications out, and gotten a few automatic rejection letters. I think only one of them was from a place I was excited about, but there haven’t been too many exciting places either. Other than that, my biggest accomplishment was getting my USG-Pro-4 to successfully re-adopt to my network. Now I’ve just got to figure out how the heck to configure the VLANs for it again without breaking everything else in the process.

Summer made shredded chicken tacos for dinner, so I fed the fish and stopped by the Neighborhood Market again for some slaw mix. It wasn’t really necessary because I think I was the main person to eat any of it. The kids were being numbskulls, so I stepped out with the dogs and a beer while they ate. After I came in to eat, they went out to walk the dogs. Noah disappeared to the guest room after Summer upset him when she pressed him to apply for jobs making more than minimum wage. We’re not running a charity, but she hasn’t told him that to his face.

When Eaddie and Eli got back from walking the dogs, they said Muad’Dib still had some energy, so I took him for a run on the Onewheel to my parents’ house. I picked up some baking dishes from them, and then took a long route back. By then the dogs were pretty tuckered out and quiet for the rest of the night. I wrapped up as quickly as I could, and then it was off to bed.

I’d walk with my people, if I could find them.

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Conspiratorial

I ran a little late to work, but who cares? Muad’Dib lost his collar, but I couldn’t crawl under the deck to get it until I got home from work.

I kept pretty busy, and even ran down to the elementary building a couple of times. Jill came through and was about as helpful as usual. Todd passed through and was uncharacteristically quiet. Becky stopped in and behaved cryptically, suggesting that I had been thrown under the bus somehow. I don’t even know what they could have against me, but given the lack of response I’ve had during my entire time there, and the behavior I had already witnessed, I’m not going to fight to stay for the same rate of pay. I made my stand clear to everyone, for better or worse.

I must have fifty applications out in the wild by now, and Indeed makes it so easy to apply to a dozen more every day. There have been a few that got me properly excited, but still the vast majority have been remote. I’ll need to clean up my office space for that to work.

I left a little late after fighting my USG-Pro-4 again. Summer chopped the leftover rotisserie chicken up with some fruit and stuff, and wanted me to pick up some more lettuce. I fed the fish and then ran through the Neighborhood Market on the way home. Eli was there to eat with us, and then we sent him and Eaddie out to walk the dogs. Evidently they ran into Noah on the way out, so they all went together.

I followed up with some more applications, and pressed Noah to apply for a custodial position at the school. I’d do anything to get him out of here.

Appreciation in lieu of compensation, but sometimes not even that.

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Breakfeast

I got up this morning and wanted to make a big breakfast for the girls, so I ran to the Neighborhood Market for a bunch of stuff. One of the things I really wanted to try and reproduce was the jungle juice from Boma, the restaurant from our Animal Kingdom Lodge stay. I also really wanted to make some waffles, and we already had everything for that, but we needed some bacon and sausage too.

Everything turned out pretty good. Eaddie took her friend home after that, and Summer went to the gym before coming back to mow the lawn. I tried to help with some other yard work, and I figured out the edging wheels on the string trimmer for her.

The day went by pretty quickly. Once we were cleaned up from working outside, Summer and I started watching Logan. I had to stop near the end to run the dogs, and then pick up some more food for them. Eaddie was out late with Eli, and went to bed pretty quickly once she got home. I took some NyQuil and we finished our movie, and then it was off to bed so I could go to work for the last few days there.

Right or wrong, it’s a brand. A brand sticks.