Tag: anxiety

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Hi, Sharks

I didn’t sleep well, and was predictably tired getting out this morning. I was a few minutes late, but showed up as the guys were checking out our new shop building that has finally been cleaned out. Humorously, I was still the first one to my desk to begin work. I had a bit of a false start when I accidentally joined my call with PRTG an hour early. When the call finally did start, I had audio trouble and had to join from my computer and phone for anyone to hear me.

The morning ran long as nobody came around for lunch. I was going back and forth with Maggie about what to eat when she suddenly said David was coming from Howard to treat us to an impromptu lunch at Saltgrass Steak House. I was excited to try that, but she talked him into going to Longhorn instead because she liked their lunch better. My New York strip ended up being absolutely terrible because it was overcooked and unbelievably tough. I had to saw it into thin strips just to chew the thing.

It took us a while to get started because we waited for Jim to join us, and then Maggie behaved embarrassingly with our waitress, asking multiple people for an extra plate and receiving too many, and then getting out of her seat to chase down our server to ask for something near the end of our visit. She’s been a very involved secretary, which I appreciate, but her lunchtime habits are unhinged.

We made it back to the office and I finished out the day mostly struggling to troubleshoot my audio issue. I finally left and made it home to take the dogs out for a quick run. We visited my parents, and then Stilgar had to lay down in the creek for a bit while we were in the basin. They behaved well though, and got hot dogs at home.

Once I cleaned up, I had to pry Summer out of her chair so we could take the Model Y to Superfast and finally fix the piece of the bumper that was out of place. I was right, and it was relatively easy to do, and it should have been done the day of the accident to prevent further damage to the paint.

We took a moment and let the car drive us around town to cool down from my frustrations, and unboxed a couple of fun things from Amazon Vine. Julie called about an earlier text message about a loan to buy an airplane. We discussed that with a predictable tone before I finally got to wind down for bed. Eaddie came in late, as seems to be the norm. I did well to crawl into bed before ten.

High risk; No reward

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Let’s Carve a Smile on that Face

It was a quiet, slow drive in today. I had a little note from Randy in my chair, thanking me for being a part of the team. I figure he was required to write it, but it was nice all the same, and the words felt genuine because they mirrored the comments he’s made to me ever since I started.

The guys came and went, but mostly went, leaving me alone for lunch. I went to Rally’s and had a pretty disappointing burger because they were out of bacon without any recourse for my prepaid online order. I ate it at my desk and waited for others to come around.

Randy texted and asked me to take care of a printer issue upstairs, so I rebuilt that from scratch. The HP printer has an incredibly annoying requirement to read a PIN from a hidden label inside the machine in order to get to the remote settings. It was clear that the initial deployment wasn’t done correctly, or at least not completely. She shouldn’t have any more issues now though.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as we tackled various puzzles. I left a little bit late, and traffic was relatively light but unnecessarily slow. I got stuck under the speed limit for a few miles, and then got behind a gravel truck that was spewing pebbles through Conway.

Eaddie and Eli were practicing their instruments when I got home. I immediately took the dogs out for their run, ran through my parents’ yard, around the basin, and back home. They did pretty well and got their hot dogs afterward. Then I jumped right into making burritos for dinner.

I got pretty heated at Summer and the kids after I called to them several times. Evidently it’s my fault for not explaining to them that I won’t call them unless I want them to come to me. Nobody offered to help; nobody said they were on the way; nobody said thanks; nobody told me to pound sand.

I ate and excused myself to try and wrap up the rest of my evening. Dad eventually showed up to eat, and then we got to carving pumpkins. The mallet and “cookie cutters” I got from Amazon Vine were ridiculed at first, but ended up being a “hit” once they started using them. They were difficult to extract, but with some care, they worked really well. We got everyone cleaned up and shuffled off, and I made a speed run for bed.

Burrito Stuff

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Runner-Up

Summer left early this morning for another run. I didn’t let myself sleep in very late, but I was tired all day from it. Eaddie had service hours or something at Fall Fest, so she left after Summer got home, just before the two of us were ready to leave for lunch.

Summer wanted to walk Fall Fest, so we drove to Stoby’s to try and eat first. I immediately gave up as soon as I saw the parking lot, and we ended up at Morelos instead. I didn’t really want Mexican, but the food was good. Then we went straight to Fall Fest and walked a block. We found Eaddie about halfway through it and watched her and Eli help little kids play a giant beer pong game. I really didn’t want to be there in the crowd, but we made it around one block before Summer was ready to go.

When we got home, Summer took a nap and I tried cleaning up some more before taking the dogs out for a run. I made it a slightly longer one with a different route just to mix things up.

Once Summer got up, we went to Kroger for some carving pumpkins, and then the Neighborhood Market for some other groceries. I ate some leftovers when we got home, and the kids came over for a while. Summer and I watched a couple episodes of Agatha All Along while the kids went out for a little longer. Then it was off to bed.

I’ve got a Notion

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Down the Road

I slept really late today, so I showered as soon as I got up and went to get Summer from the wash for lunch. We just went across the street to Zaxby’s and then I dropped her back off so I could go home to clean. I considered going by the old house, but I really needed to clean up the new house first because we’d run out of room again.

I got most of the kitchen cleaned up and started to organize some of the paperwork that kept ending up on my desk. I thought Summer was going to come home a little early, which had me stalled out a bit. I took the dogs out for a good run, aside from when Muad’Dib refused to drop a mummified, flattened squirrel puck. We got back home and I fed them before getting back to cleaning.

When Summer got home really late, I gave her a bit to wind down before she wanted to start Agatha All Along. We watched two episodes and then she went to bed. I tried to stay up to see Eaddie after her football game, but I was already getting pretty tired before I had an anxiety attack that knocked me down another peg.

Te Veo

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Chuy Fajitas

I was super tired this morning, but I managed to get out of the house early enough that I could pick up a coffee from Starbucks. I got a Pecan Crunch Oatmilk Latte thinking the oatmilk wouldn’t upset my stomach, but I still felt a little bit gurgly for most of the day. I was early enough to the office that the back door was deadbolted, so I walked around to the front to get in. I later learned this was unnecessary, because my office door key also opens that door, but I also learned that you have to push or pull the door a bit while turning the key.

Maggie and Jay showed up, and Jay went to the middle school just long enough to decide he wanted to take the rest of the day off. They were having parent-teacher conferences, but he said he just didn’t see anyone around and decided he’d rather spend the day elsewhere. I worked on SCCM some more, but didn’t get very far. In fact, after going to Chuy’s for lunch with Maggie, Kyle, and Jim, I learned that the SCCM server had disappeared from vSphere entirely. It was still operational, but I couldn’t actually remote into it.

I gave up, and Maggie and I left at three. The Model Y got Full Self-Driving in the morning without any warning, so I let it drive me home. I stopped in Conway thinking I had a deal for Long John Silver’s, but after I got there I realized that none of the local restaurants were participating in the deal. I continued on home, brought in a huge stack of boxes of Vine stuff, and eventually got out with the dogs.

They were behaved pretty well, and boy did they want to run. They maintained an average pace of 8.8mph with a top speed of 20.4mph. It was a wild ride, but it was great fun. They just kept going, I guess because of the cooler weather. I thought they would be worn out, but after some treats and food back at home, they got wound up again late in the evening.

Summer got home a little late, but earlier than she originally thought. She has a 5k run in the morning, and then a yoga class with Eaddie later in the day. Eaddie was out late but then came to talk to me for a bit when she got home, just as I was going to bed.

Old people bedtimes

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Remap

I got out early today and had a leisurely drive to work. I made myself some coffee and tried to clear out some PRTG alarms while Kyle and Gary were waiting for the phone call with Windstream and IK Electric. Kyle gave up before the call even started, and went to his office to take the call. Gary seemed to know a bit about the phone, but I thought he was the one who called Kyle about it yesterday for help. Maybe it was Jimmy. I can’t tell any of those old guys apart yet.

I just kept chugging away, trying to be productive. I was on my own again for lunch, so I went to Arby’s for another deal. Then I spent the afternoon redesigning the PRTG map to make it more readable on the TV in the office. Maggie seemed to like the improvements anyway.

Dad babysat the restoration guys that went to the old house, and I left work a little bit early so I could get to The UPS Store back home and return some Amazon items. Coming into the parking lot, I guess the curb was sharp enough to push in the tire, and the back wheel bit the curb. It took a big chunk out of the wheel and also cut a strip of the rubber, though it was still attached. I haven’t been happy with the wheels on that car at all.

Summer was getting ready to settle into a bath when I got home, so I took the dogs out for a really good run, up to the point where another dog chased us from the end of my parents’ street all the way to their house. They were riled up while they sniffed around the yard, and then we continued our usual route through the basin trail. They got hot dogs and new chew toys, courtesy of Amazon Vine. Then I tinkered with the security cameras a bit before bed.

Tik tok, on the clock.

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Bathroom Blitz

I ran behind, but got out of the house early enough that I didn’t have to speed quite so much on the way to work. It was pretty chilly out, but that wouldn’t affect me in the office. Maggie was hungry, so she talked me into trying Panera Bread for breakfast. They had a four sandwich deal that worked out for the two of us and Charles.

It was a fairly leisurely day, but I still feel like I’m not really prioritizing correctly. I spent a lot of time rearranging PRTG again until Kyle came to the office to go out to lunch. He, Maggie, and I went to Eat My Catfish, which tasted good but had pitiful portions. The single catfish fillet I had was basically a quarter of a small fish.

The afternoon got a little bit exciting when the inbound DID numbers quit working, at least a part of the time. Maggie got on the phone with Windstream and IK Electric to see if anyone could see what went wrong. Kyle hung around the office for the rest of the afternoon too, but nobody in our department carried any stress over any of it.

Dad said the restoration people would be coming over the next day to start working on the bathrooms, so I ran home as quickly as I could and took the dogs for a quick run. They were super good, and then Summer got home just as we finished, so we went to the old house to bring the last remaining fish tank to the new house. We got it set up, moved the water and everything. Then I went back again to clean out the rest of both bathrooms. It took me a while, and I was up about two hours later than I wanted to be, but I guess I can nap on the way to work.

Are you ready Steve? Andy? Mick? Alright fellas, let’s go!

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High Schooled

I don’t know how the cops manage to single out particular vehicles for traffic stops in the morning. We nearly had a dead stop after Conway this morning because someone got pulled over. I got in and started messing with SCCM, but then Kyle called for some help replacing a switch at the high school.

I made it across town and it wasn’t too bad. He really only needed me as an extra set of hands, so I pulled a flatbed cart with the switch chassis across the campus. We looked for some rack screws to mount the old temporary switch, but instead just set it on top of another shelf. After sitting around and waiting for Kyle to investigate his issue for a while, he discovered that the problem lied in a configuration change that he made, so we moved everything back to the production switch.

At that point, I was late for lunch with no plans or lunch buddies. I tried texting Ben to see if he wanted to meet, but he responded after I had already made it across town to Arby’s. I ate my roast beef and then went into the Walmart for a few minute to investigate their clearance section. I found a couple things for the girls, grabbed some apple cider, and headed back to the office.

Instead of getting back into SCCM, most of my afternoon was occupied with more PRTG, since it was evident that it has been correctly identifying failures for Kyle before he has been aware. Hopefully making those maps highly visible for everyone will make them all more aware of their systems.

The drive home was a little slower because the Model Y’s range had diminished for some reason. I don’t know if it was the temperature, but I barely made it home with 5%. I stopped by the old house to check on the fish, and Dad had been by to move some of my stuff into the shed next door. Once I finally made it home, I took the dogs out for a pretty quick run. They were super good, and I kept trying to teach them directions.

Near the end of the run, they both had to poop at the exact same time with absolutely no warning, so I got that cleaned up and we made it home. They both got their own hot dogs for being so good, and then Summer and I watched some WandaVision before bed.

In a real magic act, everything is fake.

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Peptolk

I felt pretty sick to my stomach all night, and it didn’t get a whole lot better this morning. I actually slept about half an hour late since I planned to power through my morning routine after showering so late in the evening. I foolishly thought I was ahead and could stop by Starbucks on the way out of town, but I was actually the latest I’ve ever been. Maggie and Jay were the only ones in the office though, as the old men were outside smoking.

Maggie ended up leaving early to take her kid to the dentist, so I was actually in the office by myself for nearly the entire day. I grabbed some McDonald’s for lunch to try their Chicken Big Mac. It was fine, but it really just made me want a regular Big Mac more.

The afternoon was dull until I finally left a little bit early. I stopped in Blackwell for some beer and then made it home. I took the dogs out for a longer run than usual, stopping to visit with Dad, then out to sniff around the pond. We went past the basin and then turned back around to go through it again on the way home. We passed another girl, her baby, and two large off-leash dogs that came by for a sniff. They made my dogs pretty jumpy, but they weren’t bad.

We made it home and they did super well, so they each got their own hot dog after dinner. Then I had a couple burritos before settling in. I cleaned up a little, got a couple more security cameras up, and then did some shopping before bed.

The worst kind of liquidity.

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Productive Household

Summer had to go to Greenbrier this morning, and I woke up with a pretty bad stomach ache before she left. I just stayed up, hoping I would be able to get to bed early in the evening, but procrastination finds a way. I spent the morning paying a bunch of bills and then trying to clean up around the house. Summer wasn’t gone terribly long, and then we hung the towel rack in Eaddie’s bathroom.

I made burritos for Eaddie and myself since Summer had already eaten and was cleaning her side of the house. Noah came over after work and generally made himself at home. I took the dogs out for a run around the block a couple times, and eventually got wound down for bed after everyone else beat me to it.

Sure, help yourself.