Tag: anxiety

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Testees

I really hardly did anything today, but it still seemed to go by pretty fast. Oakland started a week long session of all-day ELPA testing, and I’m being made to sit through the whole thing. I had just a couple of things come up there that I could work on, but the rest of the time I was burning through my phone battery. I was down under 40% battery well before school even let out.

I met Dale and Allen at Arby’s for lunch, but that was pretty uneventful. It was kind of nice to chat with Dale for a minute after Allen left though. On the way back, I stopped by the house to pick up my new Rocket League stickers from Sticker Mule.

I spent a little bit of time at the shop chatting with Ben before heading home to clean up. I had to stop by Walmart for some bacon on the way up to Summer’s for dinner, where she grilled pork chops and fried some potatoes and Brussels sprouts. After dinner, we watched an episode of Parks and Rec with the girls before they went to bed. Then I spent the rest of the evening contemplating esports and the Arkansas Activities Association. I never anticipated so much bureaucracy.

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Fly

Gary had to help get League of Legends to work again this morning. I guess they moved some DNS entries around on their update server, which broke SSL encryption for us again. I’m mostly just parroting words, though. He made the blinky thing workie again. Then he took me to the other basement.

I met Allen at KFC for too much food. I still wish they’d reinstall a tray rail along the buffet. They’re just asking for trouble without it. Then I spent the afternoon at the junior high contemplating organized sports. Being under the AAA umbrella means that players can only play for four years, which means 8th graders can’t actually compete. Fortunately that doesn’t seem to mess me up too badly, because I don’t think anybody has actually stepped up to play in the tournament yet. Matt wants to just throw a couple kids in, but all I see is throwing money into a hole.

After work, I wasn’t hungry enough for phở, so I skipped going to my parents’ house and went to Walmart in the rain to get Grey some wet food. On the way out I drove past a guy with no legs scooting himself across the parking lot between cars on a skateboard, so I’d say things are going pretty spectacularly for me.

Back home I got Grey to eat a little bit before trying to play a custom game of League of Legends with Kang against some bots. For some reason it ran horrendously on my computer, and I just left frustrated. I don’t understand why it drops so many frames, yet Overwatch, Rocket League, and even PUBG will run fine. Generally upset about my computer, I got up and did the dishes and then came back to play some Overwatch with Jack and Johnny, and then Clint after Johnny left. Still fewer wins than expected. Must be tired.

“I don’t listen to a whole lot of classic metal, but if I decided to explore it more, I would definitely listen to more Metallica.”

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Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I had a decent start to the day, and managed to close out a few more work orders. I’m up to just 20 behind Amanda again, but I’ve got to keep on chugging along. I’m still not sure how she got nearly 100 more to beat me, but I’m going to assume it was work that wasn’t done properly before, and that had just caught up to her. Gary had time in the morning to help me get an email group made for esports, which made things a lot easier.

Zach, Sara, and I met at Taco Bell for a relatively light lunch. Then I made it to the junior high to take care of a few things before picking at a few more esports things. I have an account set up now for money, so I can start accepting donations and the like for kids to compete, or presumably purchase necessary equipment. I’m hoping I can get some donations by way of accessory sponsorships and swag giveaways, but I’ll probably need to clarify what is actually legal before I take too many actions.

After work, I ran home to clean up after the cats. While that was going, I pinched off a piece of Ludwigia and replanted it so I’ll hopefully grow an additional stem in the aquarium. It’s looking pretty nice the way it’s growing in, and I can’t wait to see how it does if I can ever find the time to start some CO2.

As soon as I finished those chores, I ran up to Summer’s to get Autumn to help grab a couple pizzas from Little Caesar’s. We pulled in just as Summer was leaving with hers, but we still had to wait a few minutes for ours to come out of the oven. We ate, and I finally got my first esports newsletter out to the members. I also selectively spammed a few key people with the hopes of catching a little bit of positive publicity. I really hope it goes well, but trying to enlist a proper team is proving difficult with such a short timeframe. To compound that, evidently I need to confirm that our school allows 8th and 9th grade students to compete in “high school” sports. It all seems like semantics to me, but in the end it’s just frustrating to everyone involved. It sure seems like a lot of work and money just to play a free-to-play game.

This is fine.

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Coach Brain

I spent virtually the entire day trying to compose an email. There was a lot of fact checking and gathering of second through 20th opinions as well. I truly shirked my tech duties all day for the sake of a solid esports launch. Even after all of that though, I still haven’t actually had my first after school meeting yet. All of this was just to send out a survey and set up a Discord. There are so many moving parts, and it’s great to be on the front and back end of the whole process, but it just means twice the work along with the glory.

Zach chose Morelos for us, so he and Sara drove while Allen and Brice rode with me. We made it there and back in plenty of time in spite of Allen’s whining. After lunch I was approved to unblock Discord from our firewall when, much to Gary’s sarcastic amusement, a certified teacher agreed that he told him so about classroom management being the issue and not the communication tool itself. School let out two hours early, but I made it to the junior high just in time to get everything set up for conferences.

It didn’t seem like there were a bunch of parents there, but I had several stop by my little area to talk about it. I handed out just a few more flyers, but most everyone that stopped by was at least a little bit aware of esports. Evidently there was something on the news about it last night, so it seemed like most of them expected it. Still, it was nice to get a little bit of face time along with a whole lot of validation from parents, teachers, and principals.

I finally left around 7:30 and went to my parents’ house for a leftover egg roll salad. Then it was home for the evening to play with Discord some more. I think, like everything else, I’m making it more complicated than it has to be.

I’ve decided that being called “Coach” is gross, and have promoted myself to the Director of Esports position.

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V-Games for V-Day

Oakland was pretty crazy with Valentine’s Day stuff this morning, so I was just in and out. I spent a bit of time at the shop trying to organize my thoughts about esports, and then made it to the junior high just before the 8th graders went to lunch. I grabbed my flyers and waited nervously in the lunch meeting room. As soon as Matt made the announcement, the kids started pouring in. It was pretty rowdy, and I was a little disappointed in how little most of them knew about the games being offered. I got a bunch of questions about adding shooters, and I just kept having to point them to the fact that we’re going to have a hard enough time convincing parents that video games are good for school without throwing violence in with it.

The 9th graders seemed way more prepared. Hands shot up for all the games, and there were plenty of people that already played them at home. It ended up being almost entirely a question/answer session. I was glad that Summer and Hannah came to the 8th grade lunch for support though, and even Autumn brought a couple friends. I felt like I had a pretty decent handle on the introduction the second time, but the hardest part is still ahead. I spent all afternoon running around the building getting input from different people about how to get the word out to parents. Once I can get my mind to slow down a bit, I’ll be able to enlist the EAST project kids to do most of this legwork.

I never did make it to a lunch, and I spent the end of the workday setting up AppLocker for League of Legends so I can restrict who can actually run the game. I got to chatting with Ben for a little bit before I left, and then headed home to meet up with Summer. Once I got a hold of my parents, everyone agreed on my suggestion of Taco Villa for a Valentine’s Day dinner. It was a relatively easy way to avoid the craziness of all the sit-down restaurants today. I forgot to grab cash on the way out the door though, so we had to run back home for that before we got the food.

I think we all ate too much. I confirmed that I still don’t love tamales, especially that aren’t homemade. There was a lot of cheese. Everywhere. When we got back home after dinner, I felt like I slammed into a brick wall of exhaustion, but had to finish washing a load of socks. Summer went home to receive the girls as I stayed in to wind down as quickly as possible.

Here’s to the last 80.

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Greasy Peasy

Today I mostly caught up on things I’ve been needing to do at work. I started at Oakland mostly to check on the frogs, but got an ocular migraine that knocked me out of service for a few minutes. From there it was off to the shop to discuss smart things with Gary and Zach.

Allen, Brice, and I wanted to go to KFC for lunch, but they were doing renovations in their lobby, so we went to Long John Silver’s instead. The food was good, but seemed lacking somehow. I just didn’t feel stuffed the way I normally do there.

After lunch, I went to the junior high and took care of several things. I got a call this morning from the shipping company that was supposed to deliver Summer’s phone for FedEx, and the guy told me they lost it and to call FedEx to file a claim, so I started that process in the afternoon. That became really dumb really fast, so I got Summer to log in for me and I chatted with Google Fi customer service for some help, and got the old “I’ll escalate this for you” answer. Still no new information.

I wrapped up the day with a few things at Oakland before heading home to get some things, and I left for Summer’s. While she was at the gym, I took the kids to Walmart because Autumn wanted to shop for some Christmas presents. I couldn’t really see that she got much of anything, but I got a couple thing I needed, and Noah carried the 35 pound bag of cat food for me, so overall I called it a success.

Summer ordered some Domino’s and met us at the house just shortly after we got there. Then we played some Mario Party until everyone was ready for bed.

You’re killing my, killing my, killing my time.

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Baron Grinnit

I spent most of the morning at Oakland taking care of a few things before heading to the shop. Once there, I helped Ben move an enormous desk from the hallway into one of the offices for Brice to use as an office. It does feel a little odd that Amanda never got an office when she had all the elementaries, but I’m also guessing she probably never asked. He seems to really want an office space, and we have the extra rooms. I am a little surprised that such nice furniture just appeared for him, but I think I have a chance to grab something too if I hurry.

Dale, Allen, Ben, and I went to Taco John’s for lunch, and then I went to the junior high for the afternoon. There wasn’t a whole lot going on there, but I spent some good time messing with a testing software deployment that evidently needs updating. More on that tomorrow.

After work, I ran to PetSmart to grab some of the smallest crickets I could find and took them to Oakland for the frogs. They seem small enough, but several of the crickets were already dead. I dropped a few live ones in with the frogs, and we’ll see if any are left in the morning.

From there, I ran home for a bit and started a campaign on Breath of the Wild before heading to the high school for Autumn’s band concert. The PAC was packed, and I’m surprised they didn’t pass around a collection plate. Somehow I managed to survive and we went to Taco Bell for dinner afterward.

Back at home, I continued my campaign for just a little bit longer before bed.

So let me get this straight. Link gets a cell phone, then asks Ganon for help getting down the mountain?

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Charade of a Parade

Today felt like Friday all day long. I had quite a bit of time to socialize throughout the day while having to move around through the building for work orders. Allen wanted to go to lunch but wanted someone else to decide where, so I suggested Wind Taste. My offer struck a chord with his newfound love for the place, so we both had the General Tso lunch special that was just killer.

The Christmas parade was happening, so we were released at 3, but I ended up sticking around a while anyway. Summer really wanted me to go to the parade with her, but every fiber of my being just wasn’t okay with being there. I got frustrated and angry on the way home as I encountered traffic and blocked intersections everywhere I went. I hate this time of year for it, and I feel like nobody really understands how much it really negatively affects my demeanor.

I headed home instead of finding a place to park, and found some warmer clothes to wear. It ended up not being as cold as I expected, or perhaps I was just dressed appropriately. I left to arrive just before the roads were closed and parked at Stoby’s facing the street for a quick getaway. There was a train parked right on the tracks downtown, but it backed out of the intersections after almost no time. I don’t know if they just had to reschedule it for traffic, or if it was unloading something, but they didn’t go anywhere. I made my way to the presbyterian church downtown and met up with Summer, who was surprised to see me. I was a little upset that she kept hounding me to go, then told me not to worry about it (probably out of frustration at me), told me she didn’t feel like going herself, and then planned to go without me anyway.

In the end, we were in a terrible spot to see anything. We were right by the road, but the floats were separated with way too much empty space between, and none of the bands we saw actually played anything in front of us. Autumn walked by as her father ran into the street to take a picture of her as though somehow being in a live mid-performance was better. She clutched her flag and marched ahead speechless, because that’s my luck. Overall the parking experience was less bad than I anticipated, but the parade was significantly worse than I expected. I hate them. I hate them all.

Summer was hungry, so we ate at Stoby’s before we headed home. A rollercoaster of anxiety and anger, followed by a downward spiral into madness for the evening. But I picked up Into the Breach for the Switch and played a tutorial round, and it looks freaking awesome. So there’s that to look forward to. I also picked up tickets for They Shall Not Grow Old for Dad and myself, which I’m excited to watch.

Pageantry is child abuse!

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Wild Deal Chasing

Summer got up and hit the gym. I finished a bunch of mashed potatoes and stuffing from several weeks ago. Both were accomplishments in their own way.

Once I was ready, I picked Summer up at her house and we went to Gamestop to do some Christmas shopping for the quiz bowl team’s adopted Whirlwind. They didn’t have any Nintendo 64 stuff, so we went to Game X Change and picked up a console, a couple games, and an extra controller. From there, we headed to PetSmart to look around. Summer got some turtle food, and I drooled over more aquarium stuff. I spent a good amount of time trying to accumulate enough in purchases to use my $10 off $50 coupon, but in the end I found myself frustrated with the higher prices negating the savings of the coupon, and I put everything back.

We were both pretty hungry at that point, so I ordered some snacks from Sonic that we picked up on the way back to her house. The girls arrived shortly after we did, and Autumn packed a bag for her grandparents’ place since she has a blood sugar test in the morning. Mom made curry for dinner, so Eaddie and I headed that way while Summer dropped Autumn off.

Eaddie said she had just eaten and wasn’t too hungry, but she still enjoyed some curry. Summer went a little light, but I went back a couple extra times. Then it was back to my house for the evening. Eaddie took a shower before we all sat down and watched a couple episodes of The Office before bed.

Hang on a sec. Your mom and I are trying to have a fight!

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Home Sweep Home

Summer and I got up and played some more Torchlight II this morning. I put on The Christmas Chronicles for the girls while they munched on whatever they could find for breakfast. Eaddie still wasn’t feeling the best, but she pretty well kicked it by the end of the day. Evidently she had a rough night though, and I had to get my carpet/upholstery cleaner for her bed.

While I was at home, I started up some laundry, cleaned up after the cats, and did some work on the aquariums. I didn’t get to visit PetSmart like I wanted, but I guess it was just as well. I don’t have the time or space to put much more effort into my tanks anyway. I got to a stopping point and headed back to Summer’s with the cleaner, then went to my parents’ house with Julie for some leftovers.

After dinner, I headed back home and did some more laundry and picking up. There’s still so much more to do. I also got a reminder that I have to call Sunday night to find out what day I have to go to Little Rock for what I’m assuming is jury duty selection. I’m tired of coming back home to so much anxiety.

At least I was successful in my controlled laundry shrinking experiment.