Tag: cleanup on aisle 5

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Soggy Carpet

It rained a bit today, so I drove to work. I had a CPPC meeting pretty early, and that lasted nearly until lunch time. Six of us went to Sam’s, which is usually pretty doable, but they were short today and it took us nearly an hour just to get our food to the table. I got to take a few extra pieces home, which was nice.

The afternoon was pretty quiet, and I ended the day at Oakland to run a touch cable through the ceiling. It was a bit easier than I expected, and I made it out pretty close to quitting time.

I went straight home since I already felt pretty gross from being up in the ceiling, and started cleaning carpets as soon as I got in. I put on an old George Carlin special, and then Minority Report in the background while I cleaned, since Amazon wanted to give me a $5 credit for streaming something out of their Prime Video catalog. It didn’t really distract me at all, but it still took me all night long just because I kept pulling dirt out of the carpet.

This is going to take all month.

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Carpet Diem

I finally finished up what should have been a pretty short and easy project today. I probably could have just worked around the issues much quicker, but I feel like the experience gained was worth more. Hopefully.

We had an issue with Apple computers stealing existing hostnames from our directory, and nobody could figure out why, nor did anyone want to put the effort into retooling our management system. Zach was finally tasked with figuring the crap out, so now I know we’re in trouble.

Several of us went to La Chiquita for lunch, where I had a light, and what I felt was overpriced tamale plate. I used to really not like tamales, but they’re a sometimes-food for me now. After lunch I went by Oakland for a bit, and brought back a list of serial numbers for iPads that were misbehaving.

After work, I went straight to my parents’ house for some eggplant soup. Then I headed home to clean some carpet. My new carpet cleaner is great for quick jobs, but not so great for big ones. The waste tank is just too tiny, and I feel like I empty it two to three times for every clean water tank. I also kept pulling up dirty water, even after two hours on a 3′ x 4′ area. I ended the night with the decision to soak that area and a little farther down with some off-brand oxi-cleaner to see if I fare any better tomorrow.

Just comment-out some lines and call it your own!

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Let Your Hearts Grow a Little Fonderer

I woke up in an anxiety attack this morning, which was a new experience for me. Summer was there, so I just clutched onto her and rode it out. I vaguely remember an unpleasant dream, but I don’t really thing that set it off. We got up after a little while and she took the girls home while I worked on the house. I sort of had a direction I wanted to go, but I didn’t really execute it very well. Hopefully it’s at least staged for next time so I can jump right in.

I think I want to run some new speaker wire soon, and I might as well unbox the other two tower speakers I have left, if only to get the oversized shipping boxes out of the way. I keep getting caught up in the fantasy of moving into a larger house, but I need to remember our goal of just saving money. We could be making even faster progress if we’d focus on those efforts when it comes to shopping and food, but we’re just too comfortable.

Summer and Eaddie came back after a while to ride their bikes to the tennis courts. I kept doing what I was doing on into the late evening, though I slowed down kind of early. My 20-year high school reunion was this weekend, and I’ve been saying I didn’t want to go ever since the five-year. I don’t think I was feeling regret, but maybe a little sadness because I didn’t feel regret?

School wasn’t a particularly fun experience for me. I cycled through a couple close friends from first grade through 12th, but overall didn’t have a whole lot of love for anyone I grew up around. I’m sure there were some people there that I wouldn’t have minded seeing, but overall I felt indifference toward most everyone I saw in the pictures. I don’t know if that makes me a worse human, or just a cranky old man filled with bitter grudges. I’m not sure I care about that either. As far as I’m concerned, the simulation isn’t rendered much beyond my character viewpoint anyway. I hope everyone is doing well for the most part, but I don’t think anybody that I really would have wanted to see was making an appearance.

When I wrapped up at home, I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Autumn was still at a band event, so the three of us that remained watched The Voice until Summer went to bed. Then Eaddie and I watched two episodes of House before she went to bed. Autumn made it home and reported that her band and color guard both placed first. Then it was off to bed.

I’m happy to stay in touch if anyone wants. I just don’t think anyone wants.

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If It Doesn’t Fit, It Ships!

Today was relatively quiet for me. I spent most of the day helping others with things they didn’t know how to do, which can be fun. When lunch time came around, Summer wanted to go to New China. I went to meet her, but discovered they are closed on Tuesdays now, so we went next door to La Huerta instead. They had a pretty good lunch special for three tacos, and our service was awesome. It was plenty to fill up without feeling overstuffed.

After lunch, I went to Oakland for a while to take care of some things. Then I went to the high school to help Brody for a bit. As I pulled into the high school, I saw that they had a helicopter in the parking lot with a group of people around it. I didn’t stare too hard, so I couldn’t really tell what it was from, but seeing aircraft in unexpected places is always fun.

I spent the last part of the day working on some things for myself in my office. I made it home a bit late and tried to keep busy cleaning up. I loaded some recycling into the car for tomorrow, and packaged up a whole bunch of returns to take to the post office. I ordered so many pairs of jeans from Old Navy, only to decide that I have no business wearing anything without some level of elasticity. With my size, my bits flex and squish into different shapes depending on how I’m moving around. It doesn’t help that I’ve always worn my pants too high, so they fit around my belly that really does most of the shifting. Things that fit when standing don’t fit when sitting. The flex also makes mounting motorcycles way easier, so there’s just no reason to ever go back to stiff pants.

I ended the evening scheduling a bunch of Microsoft virtual training courses for the free certification exam vouchers afterward. I’m sure it will be just as awful as that sounds. I fully expect them all to be sales pitches.

Imagine my surprise, the certifications are a trap.

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Clean Up, Settle Up

Autumn had to work today, and Eaddie was still with her father for the weekend, so Summer and I got up to a day to ourselves. We ate some leftovers for breakfast, and before too long I headed home to clean up. I spent the entire day in and out of the garage trying to clean things out so I can park in there again. There were plenty of big things I could move around, and there’s still plenty more to go.

Summer showed up after her workout and kept me company, but by that time I was feeling really tired and clammy as it got warmer outside. I started slowing down quite a bit and really just wanted a shower, so she went home while I cleaned up.

Just as I was getting ready for a shower, I remembered that Little Caesar’s had a promotional $5 ExtraMostBestest deal, so I ran across town to pick one of those up instead. The guy at the window was super nice and polite, and the pizza was one of the prettier I’ve had from there. The crust was overly thick in some places though, and it looked more like a regular sparsely-topped pepperoni than an ExtraMostBestest. It was good though, and fit my craving.

After my shower, I was feeling really sleepy, and it felt like it should have been about eight or nine o’clock. I kept picking up and started making some ice cream before my milk and cream could go bad. Unfortunately I warmed the milk up too much when mixing the dry ingredients, so it never quite got down to freezing as it spun. I just had to pour it into some cups to stick in the freezer instead.

To wrap up the night, I had to comb through my Discover Card transactions to pull out Autumn’s purchases again. You’d think there would be a way to easily separate authorized users from everyday transactions, but there’s just not without looking at the details of each transaction. Luckily I know that I almost never go to Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Tropical Smoothie, Dollar General, or Dollar Tree.

I always play banker.

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Around the House

Summer kept begging for some Ridgewood Brothers BBQ this morning, so I took a shower and we went downtown to pick up a bunch to bring back home to Eaddie. Autumn was at a Quiz Bowl event, so the three of us ate and then I went home to start some laundry while Summer went to the gym.

After a while, Summer dropped Eaddie off at the fair to hang out with some of her friends, and came to my house. She wasn’t there very long before Autumn called and wanted her to take them out to eat at Chili’s. There was some guise of wanting to talk, but I never heard anything more and assumed it was a con.

When they finished eating, I met Summer at Walmart for a walkabout. I didn’t find anything interesting, but Summer picked up a few things and we headed out. She went to get Eaddie while I took everything up to her house and waited for them to get back.

Autumn went to bed as soon as I got there. I made some leftover tacos, and then graded the newly written apology letters that Autumn left for me. She still had some errors, so I marked them up and left them on the table. When Summer got home with Eaddie, she brought out the ice cream cake we bought and sliced it up for us. No sooner had she put the rest of the cake back in the freezer than she screamed at me for taking her slice. Only I didn’t. She left it on the counter and blamed me for absolutely no reason at all. Now she owes an apology letter too.

We finished the night with a couple episodes of House, which put Summer in a funk about therapy, and made Eaddie sleepy enough to go on to bed. I was bored and restless, but couldn’t do much else. Eventually I made it to bed.

I need help. I want to get better.

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What kind of overalls does Mario wear?

I took the car to work today on a whim, and out of nowhere we had a downpour in the afternoon. It wouldn’t have mattered though, since it only rained briefly while I was inside, and everything was basically dry by the time I left.

Jacob spent some time asking questions in my office first thing in the morning, which lasted for much longer than I expected. It went on for so long that my calendar alert went off and reminded me of the CPPC meeting I had completely forgotten about. I ran across the street not really knowing what to expect, but the meeting went pretty well. Judy was mostly running the show again, and had the second draft of the salary schedule ready for us to review. We went through all the columns, or at least by department, and discussed what changes were made and why. I got the impression that almost everyone felt like they were getting a good raise, but it surely won’t be that way. I just don’t know who all is being cut.

The meeting carried on until just before lunch time, and I took Gary and Zach to BFD where we all got the same Lizard Lunch. Evidently I was charged double for the addition of fajita vegetables, which highlights the glaring inconsistency we get there since I never see the owner any more.

The afternoon went by more slowly as I struggled with Autodesk some more. I hardly saw anyone else the rest of the day, except for a brief moment when Thomas came back to ask for help. I was excited to flex my knowledge for him until I realized he just wanted help moving furniture. Kelsea got a new desk delivered from Burris, which must have cost a fortune because we bought it from Burris.

I left a bit late to go home and change. I had to chase Bác Vân down to find a package that was delivered and then scooped up by her and Doug. Then I went to my parents’ house to help vacuum the pool. It was so humid that I was juste absolutely drenched in sweat through the whole process. Mom continued to direct my work while I did my best to ignore her through my earbuds. It was all just sediment that never got stirred up, so I think the new pump just needs to be turned up higher.

After I finished the pool, we went in to clean up some leftovers. Then I got the pump running again and added some shock to the water before heading home. I thought it was going to be a quick night to bed, but Old Navy had me trying on pants and shopping for more deals before I could sleep. The problem with buying all of your jeans at the same time is that they all wear out at the same time.

Denim denim denim!

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Filed Under Completed

I made it in to work several minutes early today and just kind of eased into things. I knew I wanted to actually take action with a lot of work, but I still had a bit of trouble finding where to really chip into it all. I poked around a few different things at first, then went to Oakland to tend to Aimee and her fussy preschool cohorts. The girl that quit evidently stripped a bunch of stuff out when she left, and even took the USB cable for the touch panel.

I ended up leaving for lunch about 15 minutes late and met Gary and Zach at Arby’s. I tried their new Prime Rib Cheesesteak, which was loaded up a bit more than I expected, but was overly chewy and gooey. I actually found myself wishing it had less cheese on it. Summer had me drop some food off for her on the way back to work, and I continued to dig into the Print Nightmare exploit patch that we had to work around in order to resolve print issues for everyone.

Ultimately I fixed that issue and closed a whole bunch of work orders, so I felt pretty good by the end of the day. I left a little bit late and went to my parents’ house to deliver a patio table cover that I ordered for them. I ate a little turkey roll for dinner just to keep things really light, and then helped Dad move the oven out and into the trunk of his car so he could return it.

From there, I headed home to clean up a bit. The laundry room and kitchen had gotten a bit out of control, so I took care of that and then filed a bunch of paperwork. I even took the time to finally make folder labels with a proper label printer, so everything looks really nice now.

File the rest of that under “To Be Filed.”

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The Brains of This Outfit

I barely got a wink last night, but that was probably also the only reason it wasn’t too hard to get out of bed when my alarm went off. I made it in to work a few minutes early and got settled in. Gary was out sick, so I kept up with things in the office. Greg came back after receiving a negative COVID test, but his daughter never actually tested. I decided to run to Oakland for a bit to close out some tickets before making it back for lunch.

Zach really wanted CJ’s, which nobody else was really excited for, except Thomas. At least we got Zach to drive the five of us up there. I got plenty full and stuck around the office for the rest of the afternoon. Things got really quiet downstairs after Thomas and Zach went to the middle school to do some training. Tammy and I left just after quitting time and I headed home for the night.

Still full from lunch, I didn’t even make it to my parents’ house for more rolls. I just cleaned up a bit, both online and in one of the bedrooms. I even listed a single item on eBay – a TV remote for which I’ve never owned the TV. This is a gruelling process. Josue chatted me up later in the evening, starting the conversation with a picture of an old HP Touchpad I got him years ago. I still have a brand new one sealed in the shipping box under my desk. Evidently they’re still going for quite a bit on eBay. Who knows why.

eBay: where everything has value for some reason

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Floored

Summer left this morning, giving me the day to take care of my own things at home. The afternoon just raced by, but I got some stuff moved around in one of the bedrooms. If I can get enough stuff cleared out, we can bring one of Eaddie’s twin beds down here so the girls can each stay in a bed of their own and not have to share. I found a few things I’d been wanting to track down, as well as a bunch of old gaming console accessories.

I went to my parents’ house for just a few minutes and had some dinner with Dad, then came back home to continue what little work I had done for the day. I sought out some advice about my employment contract, but didn’t get much out of it. I don’t guess I really expected much – at least not directly.

The evening flew by just as quickly as the rest of the day, and I did my best to get into bed early for what is surely to be another trying week at work.

The hunt is on.