Tag: anger management

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Nothing Happened

Gary came by early this morning and told me to go spend the day with Kyle. I actually had quite a bit to do, so this was pretty frustrating to hear. I still barely made it over to the junior high before lunch, because I got stuck trying to get a signature pad working for support services, and then had to run by Crawford to pick up some headphones and, bizarrely, try and help Kevin set up an aim bot for Call of Duty.

When I actually caught up with Kyle, he seemed to be more or less under control. I expected him to have a bunch of nonsense backed up, but it was mostly repairs and he didn’t really need my help with anything. He suggested Quiznos for lunch, but I ended up going back to the shop to pick up a crew for Wendy’s instead.

I went back to the junior high after lunch, but kept having to field high school questions from Jacob. He was clearly frustrated by devices not behaving with SCCM as he expected, but we’ve just been such a revolving door that there’s not much history at the high school after I left the building.

I finally made it back to the office at the end of the day, but then Thomas walked into my dark room and asked me about what happened with Zach after work the other day. I told him I felt terrible, and he seemed sympathetic, but like he was still caught in a position of having to file paperwork. He asked me to email him my side of the story, and I spent the rest of the night fretting over how not to incriminate myself or anyone else. I figure it’s none of anyone’s business what happens after work.

Eaddie had walked to my house to ride her bike, but she was back home by the time I made it there. We left for her house and stopped at Sonic for some cheese sticks along the way. Then I made them burritos for dinner, and drank mine. Autumn came home nonchalantly after an alleged study night at the mall. Eaddie went to bed early for all-state over the next couple days, and Summer was in bed by her usual, early time. I managed to make it to bed over two hours early myself.

Ignorance is bliss.

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Nailed It

It was relatively quiet at work today, but I kept pretty busy. Jacob was looking for answers for Adobe, but I still had none. After a little while, I ended up running to the high school to pick up some depot kits from him. He had completely rearranged the office in a way that didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but I guess it kept him out of the line of sight. I would find it aggravating to walk around all of the shelving when trying to image all of the devices.

When lunch time came around, I took Thomas and Zach to Popeye’s, where Greg met up with us. On the way, I noticed my tire pressure was dropping pretty rapidly, but figured I would patch the tire after lunch. I had just finished eating and Greg still had food left when Zach wanted to run back to work to check on a switch that may have been down. I wasn’t convinced that it was, but he pushed the urgency. We stopped for air since I was down under 20PSI, and made it back to the shop.

After getting settled in a bit, I loaded up some stuff and went to Superfast to see if Justin could get me a better deal on patching the tire. He had me park next door, and then I waited in the Superfast lobby for a while before going back to wait in Hindsman’s. The whole ordeal took about an hour, and I was out for about 25 bucks, so it wasn’t too bad. What upset me was the fact that they replaced my factory valve stem cap with a bright silver one, but I didn’t notice until after I got back to work. I called them and then took a trip back to try and find it, but when the guy came out with a handful of generic black ones, I knew it was pointless. I know it seems ridiculous, but I feel like tire shops just love stealing OEM caps. It makes no sense.

I stopped by Dwight after that, and took care of a few work orders, including a months-old one for a new microphone in the saferoom. It took me a bit to figure out what the manual was showing me, but I got the thing paired and working.

Thomas had me deploy some iPad software when I got back to the shop, just in case we send kids home for inclement weather later this week. I don’t really see it, but I guess a bunch of people are panicked and already sending devices home as “practice.” I finally left when it was time to get Eaddie from her PSAT tutoring, and we went home so I could pack for our overnight trip to Little Rock for Summer’s VIP night and subsequent neuropsychologist appointment.

When we got to their house, I spent the evening shopping for hotels with EV chargers. The new wash on Chenal is supposed to have one, so I should be topped off when we leave there, but I’ll still want to keep it topped off overnight for a stress-free trip home.

Seriously, take the cap off, do the work, and put the cap back on. Why are these guys so bad at this?

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Surrounded by Imbeciles

I was relatively calm this morning, for all the anxiety I had leading up to today. Maybe I was distracted by the fact that my car didn’t recognize me when I was ready to leave the house, and I had to use my physical key card to get to work. Two more work orders came in for the same issue I diagnosed at Dwight yesterday afternoon, so I ran a power supply over there first thing. Then I grabbed some donuts for our CPPC meeting and killed a few minutes with the folks at the Transportation office. I gave Frankie a ride down the block, and then I was told that I was officiating the meeting.

I was actually a little annoyed that Karen told me she had asked Janie to do it, because I figured as the only other elected officer on the committee, it should naturally fall to me. Then I was annoyed when Janie said she hadn’t heard anything of the sort, and that I was supposed to do it. We got things kicked off though, and sped through most of the meeting until we got to the part about the newsletter. Of course Ginni and Jeff walked in super late, and she acted completely ignorant about why I was even mentioning the idea. If I had been better at thinking on my feet, I would have used her own tactic against her and pointedly ask if she had specific questions about what was written on the agenda. I would give anything to shut the idiots up, and have the more intelligent folks in the room say anything at all, but that’s just not how it works there, and I’m sick of it.

It was tough to get motivated the rest of the day. I started to skip lunch until Gary showed up to find a food buddy. He took me to Wendy’s and we ate in relatively awkward quiet. Then after a while I ran to the maintenance office with him just to get out of the basement for a bit.

After work, I stopped by Ridgewood Brothers to see what the guys were up to. I guess one of their friends/fans had brought a turkey leg for everyone to try, so they offered me a bite of that. Then I gave like five of those guys rides up the road in the Tesla. One of the guys on the first trip to PDQ for some drinks just kept going on about it, and it was fun to give them that thrill. The second time, I let Kyler take it for a spin, and then I headed on home.

Eaddie stuck with Autumn after school, so I went home and stared at shrimp for a bit. I had a drink and spent some time cleaning out some of the last remnants of threadlike algae out of the tank until Eaddie called, screaming at Autumn in the background, asking me to pick her up from the gym. I got her home, and then hid in the bedroom when Autumn finally got home. Eaddie poked her head out a couple of times for food, so I munched with her for a little bit, and then resumed hiding until Summer came home and quickly went to bed. I perused jobs for a bit, and found some high-paying ones that I seem to be relatively overqualified for, so as soon as I can find some of that ambition, I’ll probably end up applying.

This entire place is the lowest common denominator.

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Like a Teen With a Learner’s Permit

I thought I was onto something with Metro by T-Mobile this morning. Eaddie and I left the house a little early so we could get to Clarksville, which showed to have the only retail store within 75 miles. When we got there, it was an old Radio Shack, run by a singular, super old guy. It was neat to see a store like that again after losing our Radio Shack nearly 20 years ago. Having Eaddie along prevented me from browsing around more, but it looked like a neat place that made me nostalgic for the times that Dad and I used to go for parts.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the iPhones we wanted, so we made our way out of town, where I dropped Eaddie off at Gavin’s. Then I headed back toward home and decided to stop at my parents’ house for some food. They still had lots of ham left over from Christmas, so I ate that in front of them. Mom got eyebrows tattooed on, but they were incongruent and misplaced. I don’t know why she bothered, but I disliked them very much.

I continued home to do some laundry until Summer finished up at work. Then she came to get me, and we went back to my parents’ house for some spaghetti. It wasn’t ready as early as I expected, so by the time we finished, it was about time for me to head back to Clarksville to get Eaddie.

Summer dropped me off and went on home for the night, and I ran by the car wash to get some of the grime off of my car from the ice a few days ago. The trip on Enhanced Auto Pilot was absolutely infuriating. There were cars and trucks on the road, but hardly any traffic to be concerned about, and plenty of room for navigating between the lanes. Still, I ran into places where my car wanted to continuously change lanes, back and forth, back to back. There was no one to pass, or anything to avoid. It just kept changing lanes, and nearly made me miss my exit.

It was a fun drive through the curves through the hills, but I had to watch for deer. Once I secured Eaddie, we ran home to change and then headed home for the night. Autumn stayed the night at Hannah’s to dog-sit, though she spent the entire afternoon at the pet store. Otherwise it was a relatively early night to bed.

Who is also, possibly, very drunk.

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Washed Up

Summer got up super early this morning for opening day at the new wash in town. I made it in to work several minutes early on account of how sheepish I felt from Friday. I absolutely did not want to be there. It wasn’t bad work though, because Jeff had individual carts set up for each hallway at the middle school, and we all split up to deploy them.

Josh ended up sharing a cart with me since we had so many people there, and we covered one of the sixth grade hallways. We had a lockdown drill in the middle of it, and I made sure to stay in a dark room, but mistakenly thought the window was covered and didn’t hide in the corner. Evidently they saw me, and called me out by name, so I’m just waiting for that writeup too.

Infuriatingly, none of the classrooms we visited were actually doing anything other than holiday activities like drawing or goofing off. One of them was specifically watching Arthur Christmas, which burned after being written up for publishing a FICTIONAL POEM ABOUT TEACHERS SHOWING MOVIES because it would be poor use of instructional time.

Lunch was about as unawkward as possible with Thomas, Zach, and Josh. Most of us got the burrito supreme lunch, which was a pretty great deal. Then we went back to the shop and I spent the afternoon with Jacob. We ran to Dwight to take care of a ticket, and then spent the remainder of the day in my office trying to convince Kelsea to move to Peru.

After work, I stopped by the wash to visit Summer, who was mostly busy with work stuff. They had several cars come in, which was good, but also meant I didn’t get to visit with her much. The wash was really impressive, but I’m still upset that they aren’t cleaning interiors.

From there, I went across town to visit with Mom. She worked really late, so I tried to get dinner warmed up for her before she walked in. I didn’t have to wait long though, and then she was more worried about feeding me than eating anything herself. I got everything warm and ate, and then she finished some soup and kicked me out before it got too late.

Autumn went to her father’s for the evening for some reason, but Eaddie and Summer were home. Eaddie was laying in Autumn’s bed for most of the evening just because her bed was messy. Eventually she came out to play some flute for us, and then everyone was off to bed. I stayed up chatting with Ben for a while just to get some advice in dealing with our new bully superintendent. I ended the night pretty defeated though, so it may just be time to go.

Burned Out

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Spatched

Summer went to work this morning, and I eventually got out of bed and made some rice for the leftover corned beef. Autumn slept on the couch because she got everything out of her storage unit, but didn’t have her room cleaned up with a place for everything. She sat around watching Criminal Minds all morning, and then ate some plain white rice without any of the actual leftovers. I tried to get Eaddie out of bed, but she didn’t want to get up. Neither of them wanted to clean house like I asked.

I eventually left to meet Summer at Superfast so we could get her patched tire back on. I was there with her for a little while after the guys helped swap the tires, since she was ready to leave work a bit early and I thought she might do something with me. She ended up going to the gym, so I went to my parents’ house to prep the turkey.

I’d never actually handled a raw turkey before, but this was actually much cleaner than I expected. I’ve always felt that chickens were super gross and slimy, but the turkey wasn’t slimy at all. It trimmed up nicely, and the random clearanced shears I picked up at Walmart a while back did a great job cutting the spine out. I decided to spatchcock the turkey for my first attempt at smoking one, since it promised a more even cook with the added benefit of speeding up the whole process. I couldn’t have been more pleased with how the prep went.

Mom warmed up some shrimp soup while I was there, so we ate a bit before I headed home. I was supposed to drop the spine and other assorted entrails off at Julie’s house so she could make gravy out of it, but she took forever to respond to my text messages, and said she had left the house to go shopping. I killed a bunch of time cleaning up at home, re-covering the fire pit out back, showering, and getting things generally organized to smoke the turkey. Finally she just had me leave the bag of turkey bits in my mailbox so she could pick it up on the way home.

I had to stop by Lowe’s for an injector, and I decided to throw out my leftover marinade, so I’ll be making my own from scratch in the morning. Just as I left Lowe’s, Summer reminded me to bring my bread maker, so I had to circle back home to get it. When I got to her house, Autumn was still at her boyfriend’s house. Eaddie was working on homework, and Summer was making fruit salad, key lime pie, and deviled eggs. She finished up with a loaf of bread that we thought was a bit overdone. Autumn got back home a little early, and after a little wind-down time, everyone was off to bed.

There’s simply no respect.

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Quarter Panel with Ketchup

I almost made it to my charge limit this morning, and left the house at 75%. I think being able to take a day trip during the weekend and then recoup that energy throughout the week is acceptable. I kept relatively busy today, and went to Dwight in the morning to troubleshoot a display issue. I ended up having to contact Newline support for some firmware, so I went back to the shop and had lunch before going back.

Aramark served us Thanksgiving lunch in the Gardner cafeteria, and most of our crew went, along with a few from maintenance, several from administration, and some others from the surrounding buildings that I didn’t know so well. Gary joked that the superintendent didn’t punch me when she walked in, so I must be in the clear for now. Thomas was going to go back to the shop, but we ended up staying. I sat with our substitute custodian, Anthony, and a couple Chrises from maintenance, since the tech table was a little crowded.

After lunch, I finished up at Dwight and Ian found me in the office again. I guess no one else ever sticks around so long when he starts talking, because he’s always got something to say. I ended up going back to the shop just before school let out, and rode out the rest of the day there. Thomas told us not to wait until 4:30 to leave, but I only got out a few minutes early.

I saw Summer at Superfast, so I stopped in to see her and we went to Walmart to get stuff for her to make chili for work. I found a kitchen faucet on clearance as well, so I picked it up to replace my leaky one. She dropped me back off at my car and I took it home, but on my way back out to go to her house, I noticed a big blob of ketchup on my rear passenger quarter panel. It was all over the place, and obviously intentional, so I had to take it to the carwash.

I spent a couple minutes in the carwash, trying to scrub through what little sentry mode footage I had. I never saw anything suspicious, but the recording hadn’t been working for several days anyway. I was really upset that someone would do something like that to my car for no apparent reason other than the fact that it’s a Tesla. The ketchup was very dry, but I never noticed it throughout the day as I walked to the car. It took me a little while to clean it off, but I had been wanting to wash the car again anyway. Fortunately it didn’t seem to mess anything else up, but it was also dark outside. While I was in the middle of the wash, I had to ride out an anxiety attack. I remember a couple of loud trucks being around, which probably put me a little more on edge on account of why I was at a carwash in the middle of a cold night.

I made it back home to swap cars and headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie had me bring my Yeti microphone over so she could record some flute assignments, but she kept yelling with frustration for most of the evening. Summer baked a cake, but I just laid in bed playing the Stranger Things game on my phone, desperately trying to make it through Chapter 5. When I finally got back up to finish my blog, I had another anxiety attack that I tried to collect some data on. I stopped breathing to see if my oxygen level was just low, but it didn’t seem to be. I’d love to know why I get these now.

This is the kind of stuff that gets people shot.

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Each Morning, We Tell the Robot to Kill

The girls left early this morning to go to the robotics tournament. I eventually got up and ate an old, leftover pancake for breakfast before going home to shower. Summer came over once she was ready, and we went to the high school about an hour before we were supposed to be there. I knew they had plans for food, but I didn’t know what or when.

We found the girls and wandered around the commons and cafeteria. I saw Thomas as soon as we walked in, and evidently he and at least two other administrators were told they had to attend. There were enough people there that I was absolutely sure that nobody cared anything about them. They weren’t volunteering, or otherwise involved in any way, and just mingled and chatted among themselves.

Food arrived at noon, and we ate with all of the other home folks. Other schools had their own plans elsewhere, but we had a mix of pizza and some cheap pastas from what looked like Pasta Grill. The food was pretty good, but I really tried to limit myself to a small plate. After we ate, we had to find positions to work. Evidently a couple other volunteers planned to be there the whole day, so we were kind of extra. Instead of scorekeeping, Summer helped at the queue table, and I submitted final scores in the tournament manager program.

It was a pretty long day, and my job was pretty dull. I basically hit a button once after every match, so the scores would show up on a projector. I helped break down a very small part of the setup when the middle school kids finished. Then we waited so Summer could watch the high school finals.

Summer went on home while I traded vehicles and got some gas for hers. Then I met her back at the house for some leftovers for dinner. Of course everyone else has been picking at the better food while I’m left eating a giant mixing bowl full of lettuce. The girls got home late after finishing the cleanup, and then everyone was off to bed.

But secretly, we’re just afraid to tell it to love.

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Veterinarians Day

I slept longer than usual last night, but still struggled to make it to work on time. We didn’t have much to cover in our meeting, as everyone else was run off relatively quickly, but I stuck around to chat with the newbies for a bit. After that, I just tried to stay productive until lunch time. Roy’s was there to work on our air conditioner up front, so Tammy came back to my office for a bit and I started to tell her the story of Sam the clam. Unfortunately I didn’t get to finish, because Kelsea walked up right as I was wrapping up and I didn’t want to spoil the ending.

Gary, Greg, Josh, and I were the only ones to go out today, and somebody decided on Fat Daddy’s. I actually had a really good burger there, but I still couldn’t imagine what takes them so long to make it. It’s a half hour burger for sure.

The afternoon was really quiet, and got pretty cold with the door hanging wide open all day. I went to Dwight for a bit, and then tinkered all afternoon. I never did get a chance to finish my story, so I guess I’ll have to start over later. I walked out a few minutes early so I could catch Summer at the Veterans Day parade.

I had to park on the side of the street on the south side and then walk across to find Summer. Then she ran across the street at the start of the parade so she could record Autumn with the American flag. I think she would have actually had a better view from where I was sitting, and I got aggravated thinking she was going to spend the rest of the parade over there, but fortunately she came back.

We left in a hurry since I had to run across the street before the traffic started up. I sped home, quite pleased with the zippy, instant torque of my new car. It really made navigating stupid traffic feel much better. I took a moment to relax a bit, and eventually made my way up to the girls for the evening.

Summer kept talking about going out to get food, which further aggravated me on account of how much food was in the refrigerator. Of course they all picked at the tasty stuff, and nobody touched the mixing bowl full of salad that was slowly wilting. In fact, a couple of them didn’t even finish the plates they had made themselves, so I finished those up and then had a salad myself. Autumn never once made an appearance, and Eaddie didn’t stick around for very long. Summer and I looked at some houses for a bit, and then she went to bed really early.

I spent the rest of the evening mostly bored out of my mind. I tinkered on YouTube a bit, and finally got ready for bed so we could go to the robotics tournament in the morning.

How do you say “I don’t understand” in Spanish? “No Nintendo?” I simply do not.

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Hip to Be Cubed

I tried not to sleep too late today, and I think I may have been the first one up. Summer eventually got up and wanted to make monkey bread, so she got stuff to start that, and then fried some potatoes for brunch. I had my Steam Deck recharged, and tried to play a little Fez. It played really well, though the first part of the game that acted like it glitched out kind of had me worried for a second.

Eventually I headed home so I could try and get something done instead of wasting another entire weekend. I almost immediately noticed a tiny leak under my kitchen sink that caused the particle board to swell up and sag even more than it already was. All I could really do at the time was stick a bucket under the drip and leave the cabinet open to try out. Then I got a little bit more stuff shuffled around in the garage, but I need to finish up since I’ve probably only got a couple weekends left before delivery day.

I ended up having a pretty bad, relatively long anxiety attack while doing some sweeping, and had to go inside to lie down on the couch for a bit. Summer stopped by after dropping Eaddie off at a schoolmate’s house to work on something for robotics, and we eventually went to Walmart for dinner ingredients.

As soon as we got back to the house, I butterflied the pork loin into surprisingly thin and tender chops. Summer sautéed some Brussels sprouts and then did a little Shake ‘n Bake, and we ate that with some leftover potato salad and broccoli salad. Dinner was really good, but we never saw Autumn except for when we made her come take out the trash. I think all three of us are just ready for her to get lost.

When we finished eating, I went to pick up Eaddie, and brought her back home to eat. Then she had Autumn take her to the store to get cake mix so she could make cake pops. Summer was in her head, on top of having a headache all day. I got frustrated that she wouldn’t even do the bare minimum to take care of any of it, and nearly went home for the night. I ended up staying and just sitting on my phone on the couch all night until bedtime.

Just do the goddamn thing.