Tag: cleanup on aisle 5

I made it out of the house earlier today, but I still thought McDonald’s was going to make me late. The drive-through line was out to the road, so I went inside to order. The girl at the counter seemed new, and had to ask for help a couple times. Then I was surprised when my food came out almost immediately. I ended up getting to work a few minutes early for a change.

We did a little bit of refresher training this morning, and then I was left to myself for most of the day. I didn’t have anything in particular that I really spent any time on. Brody really wanted Venezia’s, so six of us went there for lunch.

It took a while to get our food, and then once we got it, I didn’t much care for what I ordered. I was just trying something new and decided I didn’t love it. Then I made the mistake of telling that to the girl at the register, and she yelled across the room at, presumably, the guy who made it. He proceeded to give me all of the reasons that I was wrong for not liking it. I dropped my leftovers off for Summer, then made it back to work in a torrential downpour. It was a pretty quiet afternoon from then on.

When I got home from work a little after four, I started cleaning the carpet again. Eventually the girls came over to stay the night because Autumn had a late game and Summer didn’t want her driving to their father’s at night. I just kept cleaning the carpet, until nearly three in the morning. I hurt everywhere, and nearly reached peak exhaustion. I think I’m over it for now.

Blisters, of all things.

I woke up nearly an hour and a half before my alarm this morning and was wide awake from that point on. I wasn’t uncomfortable, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t fall back asleep. I thought this would give me plenty of time to get my free McDonald’s breakfast again, but I was wrong. Somehow I was still five minutes late. I made up for it by working through lunch though.

It was a really quiet day at the office, for the most part. I picked at a few things, and finally got my CPPC meeting minutes draft finished and sent off for approval from the rest of the committee. I may have been a little too extra, but I was proud of my jokes, dammit.

I ended the day running to Oakland to change a projector bulb. Then I went to my parents’ house for some more fish soup. Mom wanted to add more elephant ear and dill to the pot, which ended up pulverizing all of the fish that was in the pot. It ended up being not enough fish for all the extras.

Eventually I made it home so I could continue with the Great Carpet Scrub of 2021. I finally got enough transparent water from the first half of the area I’ve been cleaning to feel good about calling it done. Hopefully I can get the last half of it tomorrow, and then let it dry up before moving furniture at the end of the weekend.

That’s the joke.

I hit up the other McDonald’s for breakfast this morning and got the bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit this time. The biscuit was much better than I remembered them being, but the overwhelming taste of butter was probably what did it. The iced coffee is always good, but was made extra strong with the coffee cubes I added as I drank it down. It also kept me fueled for the rest of the day, since I didn’t take a lunch again.

The biggest thing I focused on all day was the CPPC, and the email along with all the formatting and organization I wanted to create to make it feel much more official than it has in the past, at least since my own involvement. I had some good examples online of what it should look like, so hopefully people are pleased.

Zach came into my office and chatted with me for a while, and we ended up leaving work pretty late because of it. I went straight to my parents’ house and ate fish soup with Mom, and then headed home to work on the carpets some more. I finally got some partially transparent water out of the carpet, so the end can’t be far. Some of the carpet still felt very slightly less-than-soft, and that may just be the extra soap more than anything else. I think I’ve been going way too heavy, at least at first, causing the first few rounds to foam out a bunch. Some straight water should help finish most of it off, but I’m going in strips now, and just sticking with the same spot until I get clear water.

Comic Sans, but only ironically.

It stormed a bit last night, but I missed all of the rain today. I made it to work abnormally early, and it was super quiet all day long. Thomas came into my office to ask about the CPPC meeting, and confirmed that the changes likely wouldn’t be made to the classified salary schedule. He suggested we ask pointedly how much money we can afford, so that we can work backwards from there.

Lunch time came and went. I lost track of time and noticed people walking out too late, so I just skipped lunch and continued working. Brody wanted some help hanging a touch panel after school, so we did that to finish up the day.

After work, I stopped by Summer’s shop to see her briefly before continuing home. I decided to work on the carpet some more, since it still felt crispy all over where I had cleaned it last week. The pump sprayer I got from Harbor Freight ended up splitting. I think I filled it up too much with water that was too hot, so the pressure from pumping air into it just ruined the plastic. I thought I had let all of the pressure out when I put it on the sink, but halfway through my first pass at cleaning the carpet, I heard a crash in the kitchen and ran in to discover Oxiclean had exploded all over the kitchen. I guess as far as things you’d want to explode in the kitchen, cleaning solution is right up near the top.

The water kept coming up black the entire time I was working, so I may end up doing it again tomorrow. I’d rather focus on the one strip now than have to move furniture around repeatedly in the future. The one neat side effect of all this is that my toilet bowl has never been whiter.

That’s fast.

I had trouble getting to sleep last night, and at some point tangled myself up in my CPAP hose, then pulled my CPAP off the nightstand and into the floor. Fortunately nothing broke and I made it through the rest of the night, but it made for a slow start to my morning.

I just hung out in my office all morning, as it was pretty quiet downstairs. Around 11, I started a Microsoft Azure virtual training course, but left it running while we went to lunch. Summer met Gary, Zach, Greg, and me at Wendy’s for a no-frills, quick lunch. Then it was back to the shop for what ended up being the rest of the day.

At one point I thought I would go by the high school to work on some software for Ethan, but I never made it. Instead, I had to wait for some software to finish downloading, and then I got sidetracked troubleshooting a wireless keyboard that evidently was paired to a different receiver, and I just didn’t notice for several minutes.

After work, I went straight home and finished up the strip of carpet I had been scrubbing. The last stretch pulled out a bunch of really dark water, but it looked better and I was tired of it by then. I really needed to start the drying process so I could move the furniture back and out of the way.

I ended the night trying to peel a sticker off of a fuzzy, oversized, tennis ball, because television props are cooler without unnecessary branding.

That ball saves lives!

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.

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.

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