Tag: anger management

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Coach Cow

It was storming pretty hard this morning, but we got just enough of a break and cared just little enough that we still managed to truck a touch panel to Oakland first thing in the morning. Together, Zach, Gary, and I got the panel hung with only a little unnecessary help from John. It would have helped if we had started with the correct size drill bit, but the important thing is that we got it done.

Afterward, we got the rumor mill going pretty hard, and there were a lot of things left up in the air. Jason’s still going to be out for a while, and apparently they’re letting him use sick bank days for what any reasonable person would feel are seriously inappropriate reasons. I was going to get 50 cent corn dogs with Summer and Ronda, but Ronda backed out, and then Zach wanted to continue our conversation over lunch. The three of us went to Zona K-tracha for lunch, and all ended up getting the same mixed lunch fajitas. The waitress seemed to be new at literally everything she did for us, down to asking if we wanted ice in our waters. The food was good, but inconsistent with our previous experiences. Overall good, but not worth the difference over a closer restaurant to the shop. Previously it had been pretty amazing.

I took care of work orders after lunch, and spent some time setting up an account with PlayVS. Matt and Ben officially gave me the go-ahead to be the coach for the district’s first Esports league team. PlayVS tripled the number of games to three: League of Legends, Rocket League, and Smite. None of us had any real idea how we would start the whole process, so I started by firing off an email to Gabriel, who I had helped pitch Esports to Matt in the first place. My main concern right now is how we will pay to enter the league, and whether we even should for this season with so little time to prepare.

As the day ended, Summer and I were going to meet at my place over some corn dogs while the girls were in karate. Kevin was still in his office working super late, so I thought I’d swing by and bring him a couple, but he had disappeared by the time I got there. I headed home and ate with Summer, then finally ran by the junior high basketball game to feed him there. He was super duper appreciative of that, and we chatted for a while before I headed out. I talked to Ronda and Jennifer at the concession stand for a little bit and ran into Charlie there because his daughter wanted to watch the game. I guess it’s something social to do. I didn’t used to see the appeal, but at least it looked better than an outdoor sport.

When I got back home, I spent some time in the living room with Grey. I think her tumors are getting worse pretty quickly, but she’s not acting totally worthless, so it’s going to be hard deciding when to end it. We’ll just have to take it day by day. Johnny and Aaron got online after a little while and I chatted with Johnny until bedtime.

Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.

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Feeling Flushed

It was a dreary second day of testing at Oakland this morning. Someone brought some toppings to the cafeteria and made some fantastic cinnamon rolls. I had a brown sugar and pecan one at first, and then one of the teachers gave me her fig one that was tasty, though not even half as good as my first. I decided to leave for a regular lunch this time, and I met some of the guys at CJ’s for an overpriced burger. At least the fries were super hot and a little crispy.

After lunch, I took care of some things at the junior high before going back to the shop to deliver a touch panel to Oakland. Just after I got the panel and toolbox out and pulled the truck up, it started to pour down rain, so I had to move the stuff under the awning. Just about then, I saw Crystal pulling the mail van in, so I abandoned all hope and ran the truck back to the lot before she locked the gate. I figured we would just deal with being a little late tomorrow, since Zach, Gary, and I should be able to hang it super fast anyway.

I went home for a bit before heading up to Summer’s for dinner. She picked up a couple buckets of KFC that the three kids destroyed. Autumn originally tried eating leftover buffalo chicken strips instead, but when they turned out dry and rubbery she gnawed on about a quarter of a breast before leaving it to be thrown away. Luckily I spotted it and Summer finished it off, but it’s that kind of wasteful spirit that infuriates me to the point that I want to physically harm her. There’s just no reason someone that age shouldn’t be more thoughtful about those things. They have too many outs when they don’t get their way.

As I finished the last little bit of gravy with a biscuit, I somehow managed to punch a tiny hole into the styrofoam and dripped gravy across the entire house and myself. I just felt so defeated, and ended up taking my shirt off to wash it in the sink. I didn’t stay long, and left after about three episodes of Parks and Recreaetion. I headed toward home to get gas, then clean the cat box and shrimp bowl. I pulled some of the stringy algae out, and thought for a while that I had accidentally pulled out the ghost shrimp as well, just before heading to bed I checked again and found him.

Triumph of the day.

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I don’t wanna be in this family any more!

I spent the morning at the junior high after being away all day yesterday. It was supposed to be another warmer day, but the cloud cover and moisture in the air made it a pretty cold ride in. I worked there until lunch and met the guys at the shop before riding with Zach to Popeye’s. After lunch, he helped me take a little mini Chromebook cart to Oakland before we got sidetracked with a call over to Sequoyah. Apparently they’re adding on to the cafetorium there, and there’s some cabling that runs across the outside of the building that will have to be relocated or removed. There were a couple kids there from Tracer that didn’t seem to be much help, and we ended up waiting for Ben to get there and make the final decision. I think ultimately we’re just going to end up cutting it and seeing what goes down.

When we finally finished there, I worked a bit late on a computer at the front desk of the junior high to try and figure out why it would only work with a static IP address, and the best I could come up with was flaky termination on a patch cable in the switch closet. The computer was a bit janky when I set it back up, but it eventually worked itself out and restarted without issue several times, so I left.

I ran by the bank to see if they had $2 bills for lucky money and ran into Aaron there. I didn’t realize that was his branch, so we chatted for a little bit before we both left. I went to my parents’ house for some red envelopes and then had to run home to get the car to pick up Eaddie from karate. We ran back by my house so I could change and check on the pets, and then headed on to her house.

We watched an episode of Parks and Rec over leftover dinner, and Summer and Autumn put some more work into her National History Day project. Meanwhile, I racked my brain over trying to promote Summer’s Google account to family manager status, and was basically left with account deletion as an only resolution. Unfortunately since Summer was already a parent on Autumn’s family group, removing herself meant that she couldn’t even create a new family group with a brand new Google account for Eaddie until waiting out the 12-month cooldown period between families. Eaddie basically doesn’t have a way to create a new account without lying about her age. Google chat support was worthless and just plain bad, which was a huge surprise.

0/10 with rice.

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Model Citizens

Jason was out again, so we didn’t have any projects today. I spent most of the morning at the junior high helping Ronda update student pictures for the library. Then I met the guys at the shop to head to Western Sizzlin for lunch. While we were there, somehow we got onto the subject of district policy, and Brice made a comment about how it shouldn’t apply to some people and not others. I was quick to call him out on his step 9 salary.

After lunch, I got to do Jason’s inventory job when we got some projector lamps in. While I was there, I modified some of the descriptions and models so they would be easier to find later. Then I went to Oakland for a bit before ending the day at the junior high. It slowed down pretty quickly for a Friday, and I headed home to watch the aquarium for survivors. Mom was visiting with Bác Vân when I got there, so I chatted with them first. Then after nearly an hour of watching the fish tank, I finally found both shrimp had survived, but it looked like all three fish had been eaten. I’ll have to find another home for the final remaining one.

When Summer got home with Autumn, I headed up for the night. Autumn was made to work on her history day project over the Challenger disaster. I tried helping just a little, but tried to take special care that I didn’t put more effort into it than she did. For someone that wanted so badly to model something out of clay, she didn’t seem to have much interest in shaping her rocket. I don’t even remember what my history day project was about, but I know I hated it. Finally, Summer and I ended the night on a couple episodes of Parks and Rec.

That’s enough belly aching for one night.

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MRIs are C❄❄l

Summer got up this morning and took the bookend kids to school while Autumn and I got ready. As soon as she made it back, we took off for Little Rock for Autumn’s MRI. The drive was pretty straightforward until we got into Little Rock and encountered two separate highway wrecks. Once we got to Arkansas Children’s Hospital and fought for a parking spot, the check-in process was really quick, and we didn’t spend more than about five minutes waiting to be called back.

Even the wait in the prep room was short, as Autumn got changed into a hospital gown and picked out a movie to watch. They gave us the option to go in with her, which I jumped on right away. I’d never been in a room with that much money per square foot before. It was pretty impressive, and neat to see how even huge medical equipment gets updated with the times as far as aesthetics and user interfaces go. They pumped audio to her through plastic tubes since having metal in there would have likely killed everyone. Summer nearly froze to death even covered up in half a dozen warm blankets.

After that was done, we went to Tokyo House to eat. Autumn objected to Chinese, which was nice. I didn’t want her to think of the trip in any positive, school-skipping kind of way. If she doesn’t follow basic health guidelines, then we can’t afford to pay to rule out the most expensive things first. I didn’t really feel like I got my money’s worth with those two, but the food was really good. I probably filled up too much on sushi, but I had pretty much everything else too. Some of the fruits were surprisingly and especially good.

The trip home was through pretty heavy traffic for being so early in the day. We stopped by PetCo first and I picked up a couple puny red cherry shrimp and a couple ghost shrimp. I pointed out a tank with only some baby mollies to Autumn, and the girl helping us offered to throw them in for free. I was probably a little too excited and anxious to get them, being fooled by a seemingly extra-healthy tank. The last stop was at Target to pick up a SlickDeal on some Starbucks bottled Frappuccinos I ordered the other day.

When we got home, I dropped the girls off at their house and headed home with my new aquatic buddies. I was super tired, but I had to get them acclimated. I took a break for a little while and installed a new watch face on my TicWatch E. When Summer finished dropping the girls off everywhere they needed to be, she came over and helped me run the gamut of water quality tests. I built out a spreadsheet to keep track of the stats over time, and was shocked at how high my nitrates were. Everything else seemed to be about where I expected it, but I was still worried about throwing shrimp and tiny baby mollies in with my tetras. After a huge water change, I finally dropped the two cheapo ghost shrimp and eventually three out of the four baby fish into the tank. We’ll see how they survive the night.

☃

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I Know Best Because Mother Knew Best

We split up for projects today, but somehow I was left out. I ran upstairs to see if Ben’s group wanted help with running some lines, but they turned me away with three or four of them already going. I ended up just working on little side projects for my own education all day, starting with phones and eventually making it to G Suite.

Nobody really knew what they wanted for lunch all morning, but several of us agreed at the last second that Long John Silver’s sounded good. It took two vehicles to get there, which was a surprising number of people. Afterward I was sent by an achy, breaky backed Jason to go with Dale to help Brice hang a touch panel, or so we thought.

When we got there, I could tell from several feet away that the SMART board’s camera sensors were filthy. I showed him how to run his finger around the reflective border, and as if by magic it immediately began working perfectly. He made a comment about how his electric air duster must not have been enough to clean it, but by the amount of dust I removed, I suspected it would have helped if he had plugged it in at all. Dale and I just sort of rolled our eyes and pushed him not to just swap the board out anyway while we were there. That seemed like it shouldn’t have taken as much convincing as it did, but evidently he had really sold the teacher on getting a new touch panel.

With that overpaid failure to launch out of the way, I spent the rest of the afternoon at the shop fighting sleep and contemplating the use of a guinea pig in a computer lab class such as EAST. I think the more puzzling part was the fact that they had received a grant to get this guinea pig, but needed someone else to care for it over the summer. The mind reels.

After work, I had just made it home and called to make a vet appointment for Grey when Summer said her car wouldn’t start. I ran over to rescue her and Eaddie just as Autumn, who had malingered her way out of class early, was returned by her grandparents. After some more convincing that shouldn’t have been necessary, I took them to O’Reilly to pick up a new battery. Then she tried to have Alex come swap it out for her after he left the shop, but my impatience and annoyance at her lack of faith drove me to borrow tools from Wesley’s office to complete the swap myself before he got there.

We ran to my house so I could lock the battery down properly, and Autumn begged to ride with me back to their house for a little more time away from Eaddie. I packed up a bunch of leftovers, and we headed to her house to eat before everyone settled in to bed. The night wouldn’t have been complete if I hadn’t had to force Autumn to eat more than her own tablespoon of plain steamed rice. I force fed her baby carrots the way I’ve had to force feed pills to my cats, and I don’t plan on having cats ever again.

Hey! Listen!

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Chattin Among Folk

I slept really well last night, but I still woke up pretty tired. At least I managed to work my way out of it without too much trouble. The day started with a surprise 10 Chromebooks for Oakland. Once I got those going, I ended up chatting with Ben for a quite a while before delivering them. Then it was a quick lunch with several of the guys at Taco John’s.

After lunch I talked to Ben some more to confirm my Oakland printers weren’t printing pages in reverse order. Then I headed to the junior high to finish the day. I met up with Gary over there while he was making some changes to our switch configurations. I got a few work orders done and increased my skill in locksmithing by +5. Right at the end of the shift, Gary helped me run through the computer labs to check for missing mice. We counted a total of 10 missing, so I fired off a pretty lengthy email to Matt just as I left.

After work, I headed to Summer’s to finish up some leftovers with her since she wasn’t feeling well. Before I even got there, Matt had responded that he knew where the mice were, but evidently it didn’t occur to him to let his lab manager know, which was more than a little annoying. Several episodes of Parks and Rec helped to calm me down though.

Once the girls got home from karate and dinner with their father, I headed home for bed. Testing is back again tomorrow, so I’ll really get to sink some time into anything.

I wish Google would get their messaging shit together.

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Something Fishy

I should have dug out the battery charger last night so we could charge Summer’s car. I spent most of the morning stressing over whether I would be getting a group gas discount with my parents at Kroger, and after I finally gave up after waiting all day, I found out that Julie used all of the fuel points by herself. I ran on fumes all day long just to end up getting a couple gallons to last me until Wednesday for 10 cents off per gallon.

We started the day by taking Autumn to her friend’s birthday party. Then we stopped by my house for the battery charger and so I could check on the house. To my surprise, the betta was super dead, and looked to have most of the color drained out of her overnight. She was alive when I left last night, so I don’t know what happened so suddenly. I knew she looked a little pale and I wanted to change the water last night, but I figured I’d have time today. It looked like she laid a bunch more eggs again, and then just died. I was super disappointed after nursing her back to health over the course of a month. She seemed really healthy again, so this caught me by complete surprise.

From there, I dropped Summer off at the gym and went back to her house to charge her car battery, shower, and try to plan the rest of my day. Eaddie failed to shower early or quickly enough, so by the time I actually took mine the water was ice cold. As soon as I finished, I went straight to the water heater and raised both thermostats quite a bit. Then I went to pick up Summer at the gym and Autumn at Hourglass Escape Rooms. They just barely finished the room in time, so I was proud of their accomplishment. Finally I took them back home and got things ready to go back to my house and start dinner.

I had a roast thawed out for Saturday, so I had to get it cooked. I tried using an Instant Pot recipe using some of the homemade wine that Allen gave me, and it turned out pretty good. It would have been even better with the dry rub, but I just barely had enough time to get it done for the kids to go back home and to bed. They came over and watched Criminal Minds while it cooked for 35 minutes, then Emogenius while they ate. Then I got dishes started before crashing myself.

So much for planning.

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Blowoverwatch

The girls all went to the high school for a quiz bowl tournament today. I got up early and worked on the file server some more, but couldn’t kick a massive headache and went back to sleep until a bit after noon. Apparently it started to snow, which panicked someone at the tournament, so they shut it down early. Summer brought a bunch of leftover barbecue over, so I had that for lunch when they got here.

The girls, in a truly presidential moment, refused to get along with anyone all day long. Criminal Minds managed to shut them up for a little while, but they started up again just as Summer left to pick up Noah. I didn’t have the creativity I needed to deal with it properly, so I just separated them the best I could and went to my room to continue working on the file server. Then I saw Clint online, so we played a bunch of Overwatch until everyone else in the house passed out. If they don’t figure it out by tomorrow, I swear I’m leaving them on the side of the road.

Let’s try not to make this become cruel and usual punishment.

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Hangin with the Big Earners

We had a bunch of projects for today. I was sent off to Sequoyah with Brice and Allen. Allen was in a mood and didn’t want to go with us though, so he tried to break off and go with Zach and Jason. Then he was basically a jerk all day when that didn’t work. When we got there to hang a touch panel, it looked like they already had a newer projector and I wondered if it was actually still under warranty. Without much of a plan or direction, we ended up cutting and removing some cables to pull a new HDMI cable, but it ended up not working. We needed nearly 70 feet of cable for the room though, so Brice will just have to go back later to swap it out again. We left with a shorter cable across the floor for temporary use. We also had to run an extra audio cable to replace a group of four-plus extensions that were feeding some nicer speakers. It all seemed a little silly, and I wasn’t too excited to be the only one up on the ladder all morning.

I had called out Old Post BBQ for lunch when we were still in our meeting, and though everyone seemed happy with that, nobody else met us there. We did run a bit late, but nobody else even said anything about going anywhere else. Allen refused to sit in a booth with Brice and me, and he weirdly sat at a group of tables with a couple other ladies. I saw Nicole working there, and she helped me identify and order something I saw in a picture frame called The Dagwood. She said if I finished it in under 30 minutes I could get my picture on the wall. It only took me 20, but I declined the photo and we went along our way.

After lunch, I resolved an issue with my HSA for payroll, so hopefully I’m not out anything there. Then I helped Allen run an HDMI cable to resolve a video issue at Center Valley. That likely could have been fixed with software and drivers as well, but he and Jason couldn’t figure it out, so we ran the cable. Then I was on my own, so I finished up a rash of work orders I had gotten from Oakland.

When I finally got home, I was so exhausted but had to clean up the living room a bit. I managed to finish before the girls got here, and even set up Catan because Autumn wanted to play. Eaddie was rowdy and completely uncontrollable all night, and I ended up sending her to bed before we finished the game. I think I got my new network storage box reset, but I’m still having trouble completing the setup, and I’m too exhausted to continue messing with it.

Kids these days don’t even know who Dagwood was.