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I’m Surrounded by Idiots

I took the Model Y to work today so Summer could drop my car off at Fast Glass. I wasn’t even sure whether they had my replacement there, but I figured it’s been since June 7th. Once I got to work, we hustled to get laid out in the cafeteria so we could hand out the high schoolers’ laptops. I don’t know what I expected, but only about a third of the students had forms turned in, and not all of them even came down to get a Chromebook. We only handed out 56 out of the expected 121 between juniors and seniors, so I felt a little smug about having my handbook approved by the school board.

Even with such a small group of students coming down, things still got hectic because parents couldn’t count on their fingers to figure out what year their students were expected to graduate. We could just ask for their grade level, but some of those students didn’t even know what grade they were in. I asked one kid his name, and he kept responding in different ways about how he had turned his form in to somebody else, so I just skipped him and went on to the next person that could answer a question correctly.

Susan from Fast Glass called to let me know they were going to be working on my car, but then she called later to tell me they had the wrong windshield, but they only found out after they removed my old one. She offered a loaner car since they wouldn’t get it fixed until Monday, but then said it wouldn’t start, and that I was out of luck.

After lunch, we eventually made it to the elementary to swap out a couple of carts and backfill others that needed more devices. We have more work to do, but it’s hard to be sympathetic to some of those people. I get that not everybody gets to be an astronaut when they grow up, but it’d be nice if a larger percentage of them would grow up and be useful members of society.

Sometime near the end of the day, our core switch stopped responding and I had to go down to the core closet to reset it. I guess I’ll try to dig into some logs later to figure out what happened, but for now I’m focusing on short-term goals, because school.

I raced back to town so I could run by Fast Glass to see why my car wasn’t charging after they plugged it in, and I had to meet Shaun at Linh’s where they were getting some dinner after leaving work before their posted closing time. He was at least nice enough to let me go down to the shop by myself to try and figure it out. As luck would have it, their crappy extension cord wasn’t grounded properly, so I just had to leave it unplugged.

Then I went home to change so I could go to my parents’ house to swim for a bit. I got so hot and sweaty at work all day that I just wanted to float and cool down for a bit. I wasn’t out there long before we had a short thunderstorm. I got out, but my phone was nearly dead, so I went across town to meet up with Summer at Splash. Then we headed to her house where I warmed up some leftover spaghetti before we called it an early night. Eaddie was out late for their first football game, so we never even saw her, but maybe we’ll have a good day tomorrow.

Inconsiderate

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Pain of Glass

This week mellowed out quickly, but that may be from my own intentional ignoring of work orders. Chromebook carts are done, so we enrolled a bunch more devices to shuffle with the elementary. The internet went goofy for a while, but of course I didn’t have the tools in place to explain why. It was just bad for some reason.

I had a video call with a couple of guys from the Department of Information Systems to upgrade our VPN service. That went poorly enough that we’ll have to troubleshoot another time. Fortunately, I don’t know of anyone that actually uses that VPN service. It’s possible that somebody does, but I’ll just have to find out who when it stops working.

Fast Glass called to say that Summer’s windshield didn’t come in. I asked about mine, she said she would call me right back, and of course I never heard another word. That reminded me to go and leave a bad review for River Valley Tinting and Glass after they scratched the window trim on the Model Y back in April.

I made it home a little late and hung out to charge for a while. Julie called to update me on the Entergy job, which is to say that operations are just slower than expected, and that no news is still good news. Then I took the car in for a much-needed wash before I made it up to Summer’s. I had her start baking the casserole from weeks ago so we could try and clean it up. Eaddie came home and went straight to homework, and eventually everyone went to bed.

The scope has changed.

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Delegate

I left the house early today and cruised in to work on Autopilot. Kim was there on her birthday, and we delivered a couple more carts. I tried to take her to lunch, but we ended up just eating cafeteria food. They thought they ran out of orange chicken, so they gave us some chicken strips and fries instead, but then someone else came out the back entrance with some “teacher trays” of orange chicken, so I ate twice. The rice was pretty miserable, but the chicken was good.

Kim spent most of the day cleaning up old work orders, and I was glad that she was taking the initiative to do what she could do without me having to take a walk with her. Of course her days are super short, since she’s gone for lunch duty for what feels like hours, and then she leaves when the kids get out of class. Maybe some day I’ll get bored and actually pay attention to her hours.

I headed home as casually as I had driven in to work, and spent some time charging at home before heading up to Summer’s. Eaddie wanted me to help her with some physics homework, and I tried, but she was already kind of burned out on schoolwork. Eventually everyone made it to bed after an uneventful day.

How does insurance work, anyway?

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Shut In and Shut Up

My office was pretty toasty this morning since the air had been off all night. It wasn’t long before Toby came by and said he needed help with the HVAC server. He got hold of a couple people that directed us to reset some things on our virtual machine that ran the HVAC software, and we eventually got things running again. It took most of the day to cool my office down, but I was thankful to have some air.

Kim was out to take her boys to the dentist, so I shut myself in my office and finished up a bunch of Chromebook carts. I grabbed some chili for lunch and continued enrolling more devices, and then left just a few minutes early so I could get to Gardner before Gary left. I was hoping they had some tech tubs left, but apparently they threw most of them in the garbage and wanted to keep whatever they still had left. I understand not keeping everything, but they had so many brand new tubs that could have been used for something. I’ll never understand the money that’s just thrown away like that.

After talking with Gary for a while, and then briefly with Thomas in the parking lot, I went to both Casey’s stores to redeem some rewards. Then I went home to charge for a while before heading up to Summer’s. I stopped for tacos along the way, and saved some seeds from the Taco Villa hot sauce, hoping I could grow them to learn what kind of peppers they use.

Eaddie was out late for band practice, and Summer went to bed early. I just sat in the dark for quite a while until bed.

The toxicity of our city.

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Transform and Roll Out

I forgot my watch this morning and had to run back home for it. That got me to work right on time after following a slowpoke. Kim was a little bit late, but that gave me time to make a coffee and get into moving some Chromebooks around in Google Admin. I basically spent the entire day building out carts, expecting to roll them out to the classrooms. When we did finally start to deliver three finished carts, we realized that none of those teachers were there. I should be able to get most of them done tomorrow though, now that everything is put together.

It was incredibly hot outside, which didn’t affect me indoors until our air unit started blowing warm air. By the time I left, it was getting pretty toasty inside. I got home and changed, but then had to head right up to Summer’s house for dinner. Noah came over, and Eaddie invited Eli for a spaghetti dinner. Then we played a couple games of Uno afterward.

It was still hot outside in the evening, but I tried to go out and fix Noah’s tailgate handle in the dark. As luck would have it, we didn’t have the socket we needed, so we’ll have to try again at my house later, hopefully when even the dark doesn’t make me sweat.

I was getting ready for bed when I happened to think of the heat and the hungry, thirsty hummingbirds, so I made some more nectar and then went to bed.

Lightning at the End of the Tunnel

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Like Cici’s, but Good

We got up a little bit early this morning and I took a shower so we could take a trip to Greenbrier and Conway. We stopped in Conway for Summer’s backpack first, and then she had to do inventory at the Greenbrier lube. Eaddie and I helped count things so we could finish faster. Then I entered most of it into the computer until I started having trouble deciphering Summer’s notations. Once we finished that, we headed back to Conway and went to Larry’s Pizza, which was incredible. I thought it was reasonably priced, and they had a great variety. The “pizza parade” where they walked fresh pies around the restaurant was really neat, but if you missed that, I think whatever was left would go to the bar.

After eating too much of some really great pizza, we went to Target. Eaddie tried on some swim suits, but we didn’t end up buying anything. I ran into Danielle and her parents, and she fussed about the school district and having her department gutted. I had to kind of giggle inside a little bit because I think most people thought they were overstaffed and overpaid anyway.

Next we hit up TJ Maxx and Kohl’s, but still didn’t buy anything. Summer’s car was struggling to run the air conditioner, so I had to send another service message to get an update. I hate that there’s no way to guarantee a mobile service appointment, and they’re slow to switch it from a local appointment. It’s also never clear if we have to drop the car off for multiple days, or if we can wait in the lobby, since it’s such a long drive.

By the time we finished shopping, it was time to run across town for our movie. We originally wanted to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, but the fact that it was no longer in XD upset me. We decided to watch Blue Beetle instead, which didn’t really impress us much until the final act. It was alright, but it just wasn’t great. At least the graphics weren’t as bad as The Flash.

We made it back home and Noah came over to visit for a while. The new house had been delisted on Zillow, and for some reason some old pictures from the previous owner started showing up, so we got to see it with some different furniture in it. The kids left to go eat, Summer went to bed, and I wrapped up reasonably quickly.

You should know by now.

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Going In on a Saturday

I didn’t let myself sleep in very late in spite of staying up until nearly three this morning. Summer had to go to work for most of the day, so I just hung out at the house all morning. I made a breakfast biscuit and watched some YouTube videos on coffee making technique. Eaddie went out to mow some more, and then left for the Cyclone Extravaganza stuff the school had going on.

I made it home and started some laundry. I got my last three loads done before taking a shower late in the afternoon. Then I went to my parents’ house in the evening for some leftovers. When I finished, I headed back up to Summer’s for the evening and made it to bed relatively early. Eaddie was out late getting food with friends, so I didn’t see her again until after I went to bed.

It’s a lot like going in on a Sunday.

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Remotely Fun

I let myself sleep in a little bit today since I worked from home. I jumped right into it when I got up, which felt pretty nice. Kim seemed to be getting hammered with all kinds of requests, so I felt bad, but she’ll have to learn to ignore the noise if she wants to make any progress. It’s going to be a Jason-level job to get her on task.

About an hour and a half into it, I got a rather demanding email from Harry regarding a testing software deployment. Then he scolded me and set expectations because I hadn’t been approved to work off-site. I responded politely and apologetically, but called out the teacher’s failings of requesting a lab deployment with three days notice in the middle of the first week of school, all without providing a resource for the software itself. I also called out the very poor state of the infrastructure I was charged with fixing, and the fact that I had been misled during my interview about the tools that I would have available to me. Even if it was out of ignorance, the fact remains that my job is difficult because of their poor history with my department.

I headed on home to get ready for the closing on our new house. By the time I got there, Harry had responded positively, so I felt he was more than fair, and handled the situation appropriately. I took my shower and then ran back to get the girls so we could get to Pope County Title for signing.

Alisha was there with Sarah from the bank, who was sitting in for Missy, our loan officer who we have still never actually met. It wasn’t long before we were taken back to sign what we were told was a relatively short stack of papers. I think the only thing we could have done better was pay for the house in full instead of taking out a loan, and if we ever buy another home, that certainly feels possible now. The signing didn’t really take that long, and then we had to go get a cashier’s check from Centennial. My transfer from Discover to Arvest hadn’t been delivered yet, but Sarah said she could run a cashier’s check over to the title company as soon as they did get it.

After we ran the check back and I signed a couple additional, forgotten documents about pest control, the three of us went to see the Ridgewood Brothers for lunch. We ate a ton of food and got to see both Grant and Robert, as well as Kyler, who was just leaving to go on vacation.

I took the girls back to their house and then went to mine so I could finish working out the day. Kim seemed super overrun, but I couldn’t really quantify what she had actually accomplished. I worked on a few different things mostly to get organized, and then pruned what work orders I could. Google Remote Desktop worked intermittently, and I couldn’t tell if it was an issue with the computer or the internet at the school, but most of what I was doing didn’t require that anyway.

Later in the evening I headed back up to the girls, where Summer watched TV until she went to bed and watched more TV. Eaddie hung out with me for most of the evening, looking at eyeglasses online or going through old Google Classrooms that her old teachers had failed to archive appropriately. It astounds me that we allow technology illiterate people to attempt to educate the youth of a society that is ever-reliant on technology. You wouldn’t let a mechanic work on your car if they had only ever raised horses.

I stayed up super late just combing through houseware deals. I wanted to get out to do some shopping, but I didn’t expect anyone else to be up for that. It seems like a good time to start finding some seasonal deals, though.

Things were so much simpler back in the day when we just gave people smallpox blankets and took their land.

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Too Many Things

The crack slowly creeped past the center of my windshield throughout the course of the day. I stopped at Burger King for breakfast, ate mine in the car, and then gave Kim my spare biscuit when I got there. I didn’t really look at work orders at all today, and tried to get carts loaded instead. I loaded four, but then didn’t even finish wiring one more because it didn’t have any cable management. I just kept chugging along as Kim was in and out at random, working about how a paraprofessional would.

The roofers finally came by to fix my roof, but had trouble understanding my English through the doorbell. Luckily Dad came over and got them sorted, and now I have a (hopefully) waterproof roof again. I ended the day by enrolling about as many Chromebooks as I think she’s done all week. I hoped I was mistaken, but I probably wasn’t. Then I raced home to stop by my parents’ house and prompt them for our final walkthrough at the new house.

Summer and Eaddie met Alisha there first, and Julie and Kevin showed up just before we did. Mom didn’t have much nice to say, but I didn’t expect her to. She doesn’t look for the same things in a lodging as I do. Julie kept repeating that we should paint, and I struggled to get my point across that no matter how many times she said it, we wouldn’t just magically find more money to do it while it’s convenient.

As soon as we left, we had to go to the high school for Eaddie’s open house. We went through the main office so I could say hi to Erica, and then I lost the girls when I stopped at the library to see Amber. I spoke with Jazz for a bit while I was looking for them, and then caught up briefly with Ethan right before I finally ran into them in the hall again. I joined them as they finished visiting the last of her classes, and then we headed on home.

Melissa had called earlier in the day to prompt me for the closing process tomorrow. For some reason I assumed that after all the money I was paying them, and all the information they were able to obtain about my assets at other institutions, they could do some magic bank bullshit and just get the required funds themselves, but evidently they want a cashier’s check. Of course that wouldn’t be possible with my savings account, so I had to come up with a way to get access to a whole bunch of money. I finally realized that a transfer of $15,000 or less from Discover to Arvest would only take one day to deliver, so I rolled the dice and we’ll see what happens by noon tomorrow. If we don’t close, we don’t close. The only thing I hate more than lawyers are banks.

I picked up some Taco John’s on the way to Summer’s, and then tried to relax in the quiet dark of the bedroom after I finished eating. Hopefully I’ll be super productive working from home in the morning before closing time.

Last call!

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What My Day Was Like Today:

The crack in my windshield slowly grew toward the center of the glass today. I thought it had grown a bit overnight, and then it was nearly dead-center by the end of the day. Fortunately, someone butt-dialed me from Fast Glass while I was at work, and though they never heard me yelling at them through the phone, they did answer when I called back.

Things seemed to be relatively on fire in the morning. Kim and I ended up going to the core closet to start identifying and mapping out our switches. While we were in there, Brody called for some help with computers dropping off of the domain. I didn’t have a whole lot of advice, but I tried. Once we got the core closet documented, we went to the upstairs auditorium closet where I found three switches. For some reason, the core switch in that closet was unresponsive in the Ubiquiti app, but it was still passing traffic. We found one more random switch in the counselor’s office, and then it was back to other things in my own office.

I got my AeroPress yesterday, so I stopped to make a cup of coldbrew with the coconut coffee I got at the junk store. The grounds seemed a little bit too coarse, because I had a lot of drip-through while I was stirring, but after about a minute, I had some pretty good coffee. It really was pretty simple to clean up too, so I won’t miss having the big, communal coffee pot any more.

I worked right through lunch, and Harry came into my office to let me know the school board had voted to approve my new Technology Handbook. I mentioned my salary again, and he kind of hemmed and hawed a bit, but I pressed that the reason I stayed was because I believed he would fight for me. Then I had to go to the elementary building to meet with a teacher about some Clever sync issues that I fixed. Kim came down with me to look at a couple work orders, and I poked around to look at some access points. They were still complaining about not being able to connect to the wireless in some rooms, and some phones appeared to be dropping connectivity at random. Most of those were problems to kick down the road for later.

The drive home was reasonably quick, and I started up some more laundry before finishing up my hot wings from the other day. I got to Summer’s house a little late, so she was in bed. Eaddie came out to see me though, and then came back out to chat over a modified Hot Pocket while I blogged.

That’s about it.