Tag: cleanup on aisle 5

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What a Gas

I got a slow start this morning and laid in bed to watch an episode of The IT Crowd. It hasn’t been very good so far, so I’m hoping it gets better, while also not feeling guilty for watching it by myself because I don’t think any of the girls would enjoy it.

The replacement gas cylinder for my Aeron chair came in, so I started to take my chair apart before realizing I was missing parts to the cylinder removal tool. Bác Vân didn’t have a pipe wrench, so I went to my parents’ house to borrow Dad’s. It’s a good thing I took the chair over there, because it took quite a bit of force from the both of us to get the thing loose. In the end we were successful, and I made my way home to reassemble it with the new cylinder.

I spent the rest of the day cleaning up a bit in preparation for the new refrigerator to be delivered. I did some laundry and shuffled some things around a bit. I’m still nervous about getting the thing into the house once, so I think I’m really glad that I decided to have it delivered here rather than to Summer’s, only to bring it back here in the future. It’s going to be a chore getting my old one out and up to her house, but I bought some moving straps that should make it a bit easier.

Summer got word back that our condo time would be cut in half from what she was planning, which was a real bummer. I was skeptical just because we hadn’t received any solid plans yet, and I was doubly nervous leaving town before knowing a real plan. In the end, I figured it would be best to have the girls take the bus to Little Rock for the 5K Run for the Fallen. That would give me an extra day at home to prep for the appliance deliver. In addition to that, my head cold is still making mornings pretty rough, so I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to try and make last minute accommodations. There will still be plenty of time to do things.

Like sitting on solid air.

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I’m a Lumberjack

Autumn got up for a job interview at Denny’s this morning, and by the time I got up and around, she had made it back and gotten a call offering her the job. Summer had to go in for a meeting at work, and then the girls were supposed to meet her at her parents’ house to help trim some fallen tree branches. Autumn insisted that she had to go in immediately to fill out new hire paperwork, so then I was left getting Eaddie across town to help.

We ran by my house first for some gloves and a change of shoes. Then we met up with Summer and got to work cutting up some branches. The damage was a little worse than I expected, but we made quick work of it once we had charged batteries for the comically small chainsaw. I actually had fun slinging it around, but by the end of it all, Eaddie said I had become too comfortable with it. She envisioned me posing, cutting branches behind my back and doing tricks. She was probably right.

When we finished, Eaddie wanted to go to Stoby’s for lunch. She had trouble remembering the name of what she wanted, and kept confusing it for onomatopoeia. Our server was super chipper, but seemed to really have something against pitas and recommended the croissant for my cranberry chicken salad instead. Eaddie was undeterred and got her tuna pita. My croissant was good, and fully loaded with the chicken salad, but could have been made incredible if the bread had simply been toasted and served warm. I couldn’t get pitas out of my head for the rest of the afternoon though, since I now had this incredible idea for a restaurant called Onomatopita. I spent the rest of the afternoon coming up with menu items with unique, themed names based on the sound the animal made in the particular culture whose flavors inspired the dish. I imagined Eaddie ordering a BLUB Pita with a side of POP Kettle Corn and Cherry Vanilla FIZZ.

After lunch, I went home and started some laundry before taking a shower to wash the sawdust out of my hair. Then I fought sleep a while with an energy drink before heading up to Summer’s for a super boring evening until bed.

I’m okay.

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Prepare for Battle

We got the message early this morning that our central office would be closed due to an incoming ice storm, so we had the day off. I slept in a few hours, then got up and continued working on my new desk setup. There was plenty of thunder-sleet, but that wasn’t the only thing freezing. I spent a couple hours troubleshooting an issue with the computer freezing up at random, and finally narrowed it down to an issue with the discrete video card. With that out of the loop, the computer never froze up again.

It took me several tries, but I also finally got my monitor and speakers set up in a way that I think I really like them. I even found a use for a piece of hardware from Apple in the mix. I tinkered with the setup for the rest of the day and into the evening, slowly pulling over peripherals from my old desk. It’s still a tremendous mess, but progress was made.

Arr, jeebee!

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About 180

I got up early today so I could pick Gary up for work. Zach and Thomas went on a trip with Jeff and possibly others to “experience” Avigilon at a couple of other schools, so they were gone pretty much all day. I don’t think anyone was super motivated to work, but I kept occupied. Gary came and spent some time with me, and then Justin came downstairs to talk about maintenance pay. It didn’t seem to take very long to get close to lunch time.

Gary had an appointment to check on his arm, so I took him to that around 11. We thought he was early and wouldn’t actually get to his appointment time until 11:30, but he ended up finishing relatively quickly. I had driven across town to pick up Summer, and we had just gotten some cheese dip at Stoby’s when he called and said he was done. Summer ordered some food for him, and I brought him back to the restaurant for lunch.

The afternoon dragged on a bit. Gary took a half day, so I took him home after dropping Summer off at work. I spent a little time gossiping with the girls up front until Josh came downstairs with a question from one of his teachers in the virtual academy. I took him back to my office for a little research, but couldn’t come up with a real answer from Google’s documentation. Zach and Thomas eventually showed up, and Zach spent a while on my couch before making his way to his office.

Eventually quitting time arrived, and I headed home to try and move my computer around. That went relatively poorly, on account of the questionable reliability of the computer I brought home, the home theater amplifier that wouldn’t receive audio from the computer’s HDMI output, and the awkward size of my monitor and speakers on such a small desk. I thought it was going to be great, but it’s actually pretty awful so far. Now my room is a mess, and I can’t even make it through a blog post without my computer freezing up on me.

But at least it’s quiet…?

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…and Then He Threw My Typewriter

We had a long, quiet meeting this morning while kids were out and staff were only present for “professional development.” I was told that our interim superintendent showed up to one, asked if that was the best they could come up with, declared that it was boring, and promptly left. The longer he’s around, the more I like him.

Zach and I ran some reports and crunched some numbers to get a count of how many Chromebooks we needed to order for next year, and then ended up going out into the graveyard to scan and inventory what was out there. Thomas came out about halfway through it and tried to help make some room to stack them on the shelves by throwing an old typewriter at the ground. It had been a running joke that I was saving it, so of course theatrics ensued and we all had a good belly laugh.

Zach suggested Brick Oven for lunch after he and Gary had a successful night there last night. The service seemed particularly slow, but the food was good. Zach and I split two large pizzas for the leftovers. About an hour and a half later, we made it back to work and Thomas made grumblings about going home early.

Gary needed me to set up some dual monitor stands at Central Office, so I borrowed Zach again to help assemble them before we drove across the street. It took two trips, but we got everyone set up, though it was pretty quiet in the office by that late in the afternoon. No work was done after we finished and made it back to the office. I sat in front of Tammy and chattered loudly with the surrounding offices for the rest of the day.

Eventually Thomas sent everyone home about half an hour early. I headed home and continued my quest to move my old computer desk to the master bedroom. Summer and Eaddie showed up as I was about halfway through the process, and watched TV while I continued to work. Eaddie had a date night at the church, so Summer dropped her off while I tinkered with The Martian playing in the background.

Eaddie texted me when her movie was over, and I picked her up. We stopped by my office briefly so I could get a different computer, and made our way home. Summer never saw her come in and started hollering about it, which Eaddie took as a sign that she should mess with her mother. She had a good laugh, and they both went off to bed while I continued to tinker. Half giving up, I finally went to bed myself.

…which is a very odd sentence to say in this day and age.

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To the Window

I ran a little behind in the rain this morning, but there wasn’t much going on. I helped with a few things, and then just tinkered while I assumed it continued to rain. At one point I went out to get a desktop I saved from the recycling, and came back in with some intense pain in my stomach. It actually made me nauseous for a bit, but I guess it was only a gas bubble in a weird place that eventually just went away.

Five of us loaded into my car to go to Zaxby’s for lunch, and I had a bogo deal for some boneless wings that gave me some to take home for dinner later. While we were sitting there, I noticed they had torn down the old building across the street where the new Splash car wash will go. They didn’t waste any time at all getting that project going, though no one was actually outside doing anything at that moment.

The afternoon was pretty quiet as usual. I ran by Oakland for a bit, then came back to the shop and got my tools to help Kyle run a single line across the hall at Dwight for a new wireless access point in a tiny meeting room. Greg was bored, so he drove us over there and we found an existing, unused line to use. It took a moment to tone it out, but it was already terminated and just hanging there on the switch side. We ended up leaving the last little bit for Kyle to do, since there were some people meeting in the room at the time.

After work, I went straight home and started to clean up the bedroom. The girls came by to change for karate, but didn’t stay long. I spent all night excavating and moving junk into the dining room just so I’d have enough room to move my other desk into the bedroom. We should be able to do that part tomorrow.

Prime time!

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Pick Up the Upside Down

I didn’t sleep in a whole lot today considering how late I was out. I eased into it though, and finished up some leftovers for lunch. As I got motivated, I started to pick up a bit around the house. I filed some more paperwork, threw out some other stuff, and tested some laptops to decide whether I wanted to get rid of them. Eventually I had cleaned up enough to do some laundry, and played on my phone intermittently while that was going.

As I finished up a second load, I decided to head up to Summer’s for the evening. I stopped for a taco and burrito, and arrived to find Eaddie and Noah playing Switch on the couch. Summer was in bed, and evidently Autumn was home without her car because she threw up on her Quiz Bowl trip today, and Summer didn’t want her driving for some reason.

It was an early night to sleep, with nothing else going on. I was tired anyway.

Nike.

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Clean Mess

I got up this morning and piddled around the house some more. There was some filing of paperwork, and more shuffling things around to different places. I still don’t know where I can put everything I’ve hoarded, but I’ve got to make room to move some furniture somehow. I eventually made it to the shower before Summer wanted to take Eaddie out for dinner.

Autumn left to spend the day with her father, so the three of us that remained went to Venezia’s for dinner. Eaddie was invited to the movies to see Sing 2, but wanted to come to my house for the evening, so we went to their house to get some clothes. Summer headed straight to my house, and I took Eaddie to the theater, stopping for my taco along the way. It made Eaddie really angry, but we made it to the theater with perfect timing.

I laid on the couch with Summer while she watched TV until it was time to get Eaddie again. Then the two of us watched the last episode of Hawkeye before bed. I felt like it was one of the weaker shows, and I really hated this version if Kingpin. Daredevil did it so well, and this just made me hate it. I guess that may not matter though, if the story was as short-lived as it appeared to be.

Persistence.

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Iced Out

I woke up this morning and cautiously waited for a notification that never came. Work was happening, in spite of any remaining ice. I went outside in the dark and tried to get into my car, but there was a quarter inch thick sheet of ice wrapped smoothly around my entire door. I managed to get to my door handle, but the more I pulled, the more I felt like I was going to rip the handle right off. It just wasn’t worth the damage, so I opted to work from home for the morning.

I answered some emails, had an hour and a half phone call with Aimee about bus driver pay and benefits, and tried to help someone with a VPN issue. As I wrapped that up, Bác Vân called to offer some sweet rice she made for the new year’s celebration. As I walked next door, I was able to get my car door open, so I started the car and let it defrost while I went nextdoor. She gave me a big bag of fruit and a couple rounds of rice.

Heading in to work was a piece of cake, as the roads were almost completely clear. I arrived just as a big group of the guys were headed to lunch. I wasn’t much interested in La Chiquita, so I just went inside and shared my rice ball with Thomas and Tammy. I didn’t have a lot to work on right away, but eventually the guys made it back from lunch and I went over some CPPC stuff with Zach.

Eventually Thomas came back to socialize with everyone, and after a while he sent us on home for the weekend. I went home and tried to keep up my momentum to clean up a bit. It was less cleaning, and more trying to organize a bunch of random stuff that ended up in the bedroom floor. Time got away from me as I documented healthcare receipts for later HSA reimbursement. Eventually I gave up and took a shower so I could go to bed grime-free.

It’s poteen, me boys!

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Back on Track

I wasn’t as early to work this morning as I had been the past couple days, but I still squeaked in under the wire. We gathered in the shop for just a bit before deciding to get started on a regular workday in spite of an absence of students. Teachers were still there, and were even encouraged to bring their own kids to school with them, so it wasn’t a complete ghost town. I stayed in my office all day anyway, so it didn’t matter much.

I spent most of the day helping others. When I wasn’t doing that, I was turning those helping moments into FAQs in Web Help Desk. It was boring, but maybe it will help in the future.

Most of us went to Nonna Bella’s for lunch. I had the chicken alfredo lunch special, which was pretty good. The price was the best part though. The food took a bit to come out, so we had plenty of time to chit chat around the table.

The afternoon went by super slowly, and then I finally left a bit late after wrapping things up. I stopped by Casey’s for a free deal, then went home where Autumn and Eaddie had just arrived to pick up a hotspot so they could go to their father’s.

I changed, then went to Lowe’s to get the part I needed to mount the track light electrical box. I got really frustrated trying to mount the thing, and didn’t have a great time due to the orientation of the screws, but I eventually got it mounted well enough. I didn’t end up drilling any holes for the toggle bolts, and just went with screw-in anchors instead. They were white, so they actually blended in pretty well in case I ever wanted to remove the track in the future.

When I finally finished setting up the new lights and Hue bulbs, I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. She was already in bed as I expected, so I laid down with her for a bit until she went to sleep. Then I wrapped up and tried going to sleep myself.

Anchors aweigh, my boy.