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Pique Productivity

It was loud at work again today, with the girls chittering in the back office for much of the day. Kim seemed to be at least a little bit active, though I’m still not sure what she spends her hours doing. I mostly read up on Windows Deployment Services, since I only had experience with its bigger brother. I think my big win for the day was simply adding network drivers to the currently-deployed image. It still didn’t add the computer to the domain like I expected, but at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if that was simply never set up properly in the first place.

I went to the old house briefly for a quick charge and to feed the fish before going to my parents’ house. Mom made phở, and Eaddie came to join us after school. Summer was home with a bad back, so we didn’t bother her. After we ate, Dad came over to the house to help with a few things.

He had come to the house earlier in the morning to babysit the electrician while they got some wires started. While he was there, he poked around with a handful of things. One of those things was the wonky ceiling fan that needed to be re-mounded to the ceiling. Then I had him help me mount the back plate of the Tesla Wall Connector to the garage wall in preparation for another visit from the electrician tomorrow.

I did my best to wind down quickly after we finished all of that. The girls made it to bed early, but I’ve struggled to do that so far this week. I hate that it takes me so long to become hyper productive. I just need longer days.

Dig in and settle.

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Enough of Ceilings

I knew I’d have a long day at work by myself, so I stopped by Burger King for a couple biscuits and then McDonald’s for a McGriddle that I actually ate on the drive in. It was super quiet for a training day, but as soon as I got to work I just felt sleepy. It took me a couple hours to get into a groove, and I closed a bunch of work requests.

I ate one of my biscuits a little before lunch time and saved the last one for the next day. My last task for the day was discovering that some idiot used the wrong power adapter to power a speaker amplifier and nearly made me climb up into the ceiling to check out a perfectly good speaker.

After work, I went home to charge for a while before stopping by my parents’ house. Dad had gone to the house to help wire my doorbell, thinking I was home for the day. I didn’t stay long at their house though, because I was hungry for dinner. I went home to change and ended up at McDonald’s for a ridiculous bag of food. Two Big Macs, 20 McNuggets, and two medium fries were as much as the meal I wanted plus some nuggets to try with their new sauces.

I ended up taking it to the old house to finish charging. I didn’t regret adding the nuggets, because the new sauces were great. The Sweet and Spicy Jam was my favorite. I begrudgingly finished the fries and nuggets since they started really fresh and wouldn’t have been any good cold, but I saved the other Big Mac for later.

Summer went with Eaddie for orchestra tryouts, and Eaddie made first chair. I went home and poked my head up into the attic to see if I could find a path to the front door for the bell wire. Failing that and not feeling comfortable on the popsicle stick ladder, I came back inside and tinkered with another Nest Hub for the kitchen.

John called and said they would be over in the morning to start on the electrical work, so I got the new Tesla Wall Connector out. The girls got home and Summer went straight to bed. I chatted with Eaddie for a little bit, and was late to bed after fighting with the Arvest website to pay the mortgage. I guess I’ll have to start calling some other people to see if I can get anyone at all out to the house to fix the ceiling.

Rzlfrzl

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Powered Up

We had a nice, quiet morning again today. Summer had coffee on the porch, and I got up for some coffee and cereal myself. Eaddie wanted to bake cupcakes, so Summer went to the gym and brought back stuff for that while I reorganized the kitchen a bit. Eaddie left for a little while for band practice, so Summer worked on her nails for a while. I took a shower and finished cleaning up the kitchen, then went to the old house to pick up some surge protectors for the many, many electronics we still have to hook up.

I was there a bit late, but my car needed to charge as well. I stopped to wash the car on the way back to the new house, and Summer was mopping when I got there. She didn’t cook dinner, so I warmed up a leftover stuffed pepper. I got more of Summer’s office nook set up, and we’ll get the full office set up as soon as we have a car charger here.

Eaddie was up a bit late, but Summer is chaperoning a band trip with her tomorrow. Kids are out of school for me tomorrow, so I’ll be climbing around in the ceiling a bit.

Light it up!

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Three Chairs for Seating!

We started out this morning being fairly productive. I had some coffee and a frustratingly cool shower, and then we went to my house to pick up some things. We got a couple computer chairs loaded up, along with some other random stuff. Summer wanted Mexican afterward, so she took us to Morelos for lunch. We saw Beth and Mark there and chatted with her for just a brief moment, and then we made our way to the house.

Eaddie was gone to a robotics tournament all day, and Summer wanted to take a nap when we got back, so I picked up around the house for a little bit and watered my plants. I wanted to get back out for some more stuff, but I just couldn’t get Summer motivated. Then once Eaddie got home, we snacked a little bit and then settled in for the night.

Summer and I watched Old Dads on Netflix, which I didn’t really like as much as I thought I might. Summer fell asleep in front of her baking shows after that, and I dawdled on the computer for too long before bed.

Unpack to pack.

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JosWEIGH 2023

Work was quiet, apart from a breakout rendition of the “Happy Birthday” song during lunch at the peak of the elementary kids’ lungs. I wasn’t super motivated, and was still a bit scattered. The kids that clean the trash cans after lunch are getting worse and worse with handling the cans out by my car, so I’ll probably need to park somewhere else if I can find room.

I left as close to four as I could manager, and headed home to charge for a while. Josue texted that he was coming to town, so I fed the fish and ran to the new house to get Summer and pick up some food to grill for an impromptu visit. We picked up some chicken legs and brats at the Neighborhood Market, and had a pretty good dinner and conversation. It wasn’t fancy, but it was nice to have someone over for a bit, and I hadn’t seen Josue since Summer and I went to Hawaii with my family.

After we ate, I showed him around the house. Then we went for a drive in both of the Teslas. Then we walked around the outside of the house to show him the yard and the outhouse. It was a nice visit, and then everyone was off to bed. I dawdled a bit too long and had trouble staying awake to blog. Hopefully this weekend is productive.

Of course. Gotta maintain that ratio!

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Wiped Out

I slept in a little bit this morning, but tried to get productive relatively quickly. It was difficult, and I wasn’t super successful, but I did get some things done. I ate some leftovers when Eaddie left to meet with her robotics team. Dad came over to help replace the refrigerator part, but that didn’t actually resolve the issue. John stopped by to let me know he wasn’t actually going to be doing any work today, which seemed like it could have been a text. I was pretty aggravated by that, but whaddya do?

I cleaned up some more leftovers for lunch after Dad left, and was frustrated some more just by things in the kitchen. Then I decided to shampoo a single strip in the office nook just to see if I could get any more dirt out. It ended up not being too bad, so I decided to move Summer’s desk up into that area where it was still dry.

By the time all of that was done, I had to sit down for an interview with a couple people in Wisconsin for Rockline. It was a pretty long-winded interview for me, and I wasn’t quite sure how much I would enjoy going to work every day, especially if I have to drive to Booneville four days a week. I doubt the price will be right, but we’ll see.

Summer made it home late while I was cleaning up in the kitchen. She bathed and I got some bills and other paperwork organized and out of the dining room. It wasn’t long before she was asleep, and I actually made it to bed on time for a change.

I could do with some cheese.

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Noisy Day

I spent a lot of the day by myself because Kim kept disappearing. I keep having to go through and close old work orders from a month ago that I feel like she should have done, but I’m sure she feels like I should have done more myself. It’s just hard for me to focus on random daily requests when I’m also the one that has to do anything even remotely technical. She’s not in there modifying any scripts.

She said Mel was picking up roast beef sandwiches for lunch, so I had her pick one up for me too. It was pretty decent for eight bucks at a gas station. I ate by myself after she brought food back and then left for duty. Then she disappeared for most of the afternoon before leaving early to do something else. I just don’t know what’s going on in her head, but it doesn’t seem like work.

I stayed late to close out a bunch of stuff, and then headed home to charge and feed the fish for just a little bit before heading to the new house. Summer made a pretty good dinner of stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, and citrus green beans. At least all of the components tasted good on their own, but it lacked in cohesion.

The TV never went off the entire evening, so I disappeared to the bedroom to relax in the quiet. It’s frustrating that there’s just nowhere I can go to get away from all of the noise. Kim has started leaving the TV on at work. The kids are loud outside my office door. Summer blasts cooking shows at home. There’s just no retreat.

At least there’s a conference week ahead.

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March On

I finally got my request submitted to attend this year’s Arkansas Conference of Technology, and Blake came into the office to ask me to commit to staying for the rest of the school year. I understand that the budget for this year was made, and I know that I haven’t had long to prove myself, but I also feel like my department has really been set back from the direction I wanted to go. I told him honestly that it’s not my intention to leave, but that I was still kicking myself for not taking the $70,000 offer I got earlier in the year. I’m even more upset that I didn’t join Brody at Clarksville. This year is full of regrets, and there’s no confusion about how I feel toward my new school. There is a lot of work to be done, and they’re barely paying me enough to submit tickets to DIS to let them handle it. In the end, he said he would get me a PO, so I’ll be going for both days of the main conference, as well as both pre-conference days. It’s an investment in me, and I feel I’ve earned it whether I stay or go.

It was otherwise a pretty quiet day. I made plans to meet with John at the house after work to sign an invoice, for which he was expecting half of the payment before I actually knew what that payment would be. That was on him. After I met with him at the house, I took my car to the old house to charge and then took the Shadow to the high school for the marching assessment. It got cold fast, and I was pretty much immediately ready to leave, but it wasn’t awful. Mark and Laura actually came up and sat by us, and we chatted very briefly. She evidently knew my name from my own firing, and Mark laughed saying, “me too!” It’s harder to find a good lawyer at Technician pay though.

After the marching assessment, I went to the house to pay some bills before finally heading to the new house for the evening.

Actually, I thought there’d be more fire.

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Highly Illogical

Johnny called me for some help this morning on my drive to work. Apparently they have just been blacklisting Chrome extensions instead of whitelisting, so students have been getting around all of their policies. Easy enough of a fix. Denice had people meeting in her office all day, so I had my earbuds in early. Then after lunch, Kim and I went to the elementary to close out a few work orders. It’s frustrating that she’s clearly not going through them and closing them out. She seems to just come to work to socialize, and I’m just not paid enough to supervise her.

I wrapped up the day and headed home to charge for a while. Summer cooked dinner, but I showed up just as she finished eating. Then I sat on the porch for most of the evening until I came in to do my chores before bed.

Dys

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Getting Used to Home

Summer got up and went to the gym this morning, and I got around to do some laundry. I forgot a couple towels at the old house, so I ran across town to get them and complete the set. When I got back to the house, I took Summer around the block to look at a TV stand someone had left out. It didn’t look any better than the ones I have, so we left it and went back to the house to continue cleaning up.

Most of the day was pretty uneventful. I fixed a chair, sliced my hand trying to bang out a dent I put in the dryer, we went to the Neighborhood Market for some dinner to grill. Later in the evening, Summer snuck off to assemble the bed frame while I mounted a new smoke detector twice. I was certain the first time was where I wanted it, but went back and did it again with a laser level when I noticed it was at least an inch off of center.

Things are very slowly coming together, but sometimes the new habits we’re trying to form are a moving target. Summer thinks that I have to have things done my way because I think that my way is the only right way to do them. The part of the process that she’s never been around to experience are the 700 other ways I tried to do them first. Any one of them might have been perfectly fine, but you should always try to do them better the next time.

You see, I measured it wrong 499 different times.