Tag: family

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Occam’s Cable

Today was to be warm, with a high in the 60s, but starting with some light frost on my car. I made it through my morning quicker than I expected, which got me to work about five minutes early, even after stopping at Casey’s for a free slice of breakfast pizza.

I kept busy all day, first on my own, then by going to the high school to help Brody with Jazz’s chips. After everything, it really did turn out to be the USB cables causing the trouble. I’d lost count of how many hours we worked on that, all for it to be the stupid cable.

I wasn’t at all hungry by the time lunch came around, nor did La Chiquita sound like a very good choice, so I just stayed in my office and tinkered for an hour. When everyone got back, Gary made his way back to my office and had me run through some other configuration changes for the new domain controller, or more specifically, the new Server 2019 VM template I created. That got us through to the end of the day.

Eaddie called me just as I was leaving work, and asked me to pick her up at Oakland. We went back to my house just long enough to change out of work clothes, and then we headed up to their house. I stopped for my daily taco along the way, and then we ate and chatted about her day.

Summer got home and had to do more work stuff. Autumn got home after doing some homework with her grandparents. Then everyone shuffled off to bed pretty quietly.

Microsoft Endpoint Manager Configuration Manager just has too many managers. Like us!

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Mario Cam Live

Autumn had a PT event with JROTC this morning, so she was gone all day. Summer got up and made eggs for breakfast, and then we got out the Ring Fit Adventure game to try it out. I think Summer was a little surprised at the workout she got from it. Then Eaddie got out the Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit games to try setting up a track. It was actually really cool, though the cars were a little bit bigger than I expected, which meant they didn’t have quite enough room to make a really good track in their house.

Eventually Summer went to work out, and I took Eaddie to get her phone that she forgot at the junior high, and then to drop her off at her grandmother’s house so she could work on Eaddie’s dress. On the way, we stopped to pick up my “free” taco from Taco Bell, along with a burrito for good measure. Eaddie ate the burrito, and I dumped my taco in the floorboard. There was just enough of it left in the wrapper that I could eat, and then I cleaned up what I could to throw away.

After I dropped Eaddie off, I went home to clean up. Eventually I made my way back up to Summer’s to take her shopping. We went by Lowe’s, then Walmart to pick up dinner. I wasn’t really successful in finding any interesting deals. We picked Eaddie up, then headed home to make tacos.

Summer made all the fresh veggies while I cooked the taco meat and cheese dip. Dinner was great, but I ate way too much. Afterward, we got Mario Kart Live out again and Eaddie played some more. Then Summer went to bed and I laid on the couch with Eaddie to watch Romeo + Juliet. I started dozing off pretty early, and Eaddie decided to save the rest of the movie for tomorrow, so we went to bed.

“Hoes.” That’s what we call a group of women now. Feminism won.

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Down Loading

I made it in to work on time for the first time in several days. It felt like we were missing more people than we really were, but it was just Thomas and Greg. We got a really slow start to the day, and burned about an hour just hanging out. Once we got up from that, I got started working on my project for Jazz. That went even slower, on account of how large all of the installers were for the four required pieces of software to make the stupid chip work.

It was a quiet lunch, too. Gary, Zach, and I went to Taco Bell for significantly cheaper than the sit-down restaurants we usually visit. I was frustrated by the app again though, because my order was never made until I went to the counter to ask about it. Last time they had already made it at the other restaurant. I just want to know what the expected protocol is to get my food.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as I found some success in getting the S7 chip to work. Then I went to Oakland to take care of a couple work orders, and then ended my day early to make up for coming in a couple weekends ago.

I hung out at my house a while, just kind of piddling around until Summer got home. Then I went up to her place for the evening. We chatted for a while, looked at cars and boats, and then went to bed.

If you’re not better, you’re worse.

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Ring That Bell

It was really frosty out this morning, but I made it in to work. A bunch of people were out, leaving me in charge for the day. We met up at the shop briefly, discovered that we couldn’t do the one thing Gary asked me to do, and then sent everyone off to do their own things.

Kyle stuck around the shop all day, and basically had me reading manuals on how to set up Kerberos for his Macs. I took a lunch break and ran through McDonald’s for some fries and Taco Bell for my taco subscription, then went back to the shop to eat it by myself. Right after lunchtime was over, the main office told us to shut down at one, unless we took a lunch, in which case we had to stay until two. I wrapped up what I could, and then we all left early.

As I got home, I decided to climb up the extension ladder and hang my big wind chime. I was a little concerned about the screws pulling out of the tree, but I put it up anyway. The bell is super heavy, but I liked the deep sound of it. I’ll still have to come up with a way to hang the smaller ones right outside the door, but I’m glad to have the big one up now.

Summer had called while I was at work to let me know that Autumn and her father tested positive for COVID. Eaddie tested negative, and Summer insisted that they come home. We talked it out, and decided to let them stay home for the night, and then have Eaddie go to school in the morning. We’re hoping that they stayed separated well enough that Eaddie isn’t carrying it, and as long as she tests negative for it again tomorrow, we’ll let her come over after school to let Autumn quarantine by herself the rest of the week. I’m not thrilled about any of it, but it seemed like the best way to minimize any new exposures since Eaddie basically has to go to school.

I put some time in on the treadmill, and eventually Summer came over after packing and going to the gym. I had her pick up some Little Caesar’s since she needed dinner. Then I had to run some stuff up to Eaddie, since she was stuck at home. We watched an episode of Modern Family when I got back home, and then it was off to bed.

Wow, a test she could pass.

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Fire and Ice and Smoke and Mirrors

We got up this morning and tried not to dawdle too long, because we wanted to smoke some ribs for as long as possible. It was snowing, but we didn’t expect it to snow for as long as it did. I don’t think it ever really stopped all day.

Our first stop was Walmart to pick up what we needed. I got a huge bag of mixed fruit wood pellets, which will last years if I only ever use them in the little A-Maze-N tube smoker I got. Then we had to go to Summer’s to get the ribs and some other things, and finally we headed back to my house to set up the grill with a new tank of propane.

The smoker pellets took better than I expected, even after I dumped them off of the grill while wrestling the propane tank onto its holder. We used some of Summer’s Larry the Cable Guy wild game rub she had stockpiled years ago, which proved to be a mistake. I used way too much, but we wouldn’t know that until we ate them.

The ribs smoked for about three or four hours before I covered them with some old leftover barbecue sauce and wrapped them in foil. Then I let them cook another hour or two while I baked potatoes and made some bacon. Summer made broccoli salad, and then we called it a day instead of making twice-baked potatoes.

It was still snowing big, fat flakes, but the roads were clear enough to get to my parents’ house. We ate and visited for just a little bit, and then headed back home to clean up. We only ate one rack of the ribs, and they were extremely salty. The rub was overpowering, so I couldn’t even really tell that it had a smokey flavor. It may help to eat the next rack with some plain rice to cut the seasoning.

As we settled in for the night, I got Summer to stay up late and watch The Prestige. I’d been wanting to watch it again for quite a while, so I was glad to check it off the list. Summer didn’t feel great for most of the evening, so we wound down pretty quickly and went to bed.

Are you watching closely?

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Re-Tired

I slept the worst I had slept all week last night, after waking up around 1:00 and lying awake in bed thinking my alarm was about to go off. When it actually was time to get up, I crawled out of bed super sore, but somehow I didn’t have to fight sleep all day.

We met in the shop and went over new COVID guidelines, which were basically nonexistent, or at the very least ineffective. I think they just accepted that everyone is going to get it super fast, so the primary goal is to keep kids in school no matter what.

After a little while, I went to Oakland to close out some work orders. Then I made it back to the shop just in time to pick everyone up to go to Old South for lunch. We had to wait for Zach and Greg to show up from their TV install, but then lunch was good.

Central Office went home at one, so we shut everything down as well. I hung out for a little while since Tammy didn’t have a ride, but then I had to head to my parents’ house to meet Pat, their retirement fund manager.

Julie didn’t show up because she was still sick, so we just had her on the phone. Pat seemed nice enough, but was mostly just vague in his gesturing that “there was enough money as long as he kept it there.” We did gain some insight, but I don’t think anything really changed. I’m tired of talking about it, but I still want to crunch the numbers ourselves so we can have a glanceable table of what to expect.

After he left, the rest of us had some curry for dinner, and then I headed home to meet up with Summer. I cleaned up most of the mess I made hanging the new track light, and then we watched Cool Runnings until bedtime.

Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme!

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Shut It Down!

They decided to close the schools down for the rest of the week, so today was for getting everyone ready to work remotely. I actually didn’t have much to tend to, so I went to Oakland in the morning and replaced a camera switch. Evidently I didn’t plug the fiber modules into the correct ports, so Gary actually took care of that after lunch for me, but at least I had the rack looking much nicer with shorter patch cables.

After I left Oakland, I ran by the high school and waited for Shirley to show back up. She sent Brody a work order, and evidently left right after. I just barely caught her in the parking lot on my way out to lunch, so we went back in and got the girl that needed some dictation software installed. As I left for real, Gary texted and said they were going to Brangus. Evidently they got a late start to lunch, which worked out perfectly as I arrived just as they were being seated.

After lunch was really quiet for me. I piddled a lot, but got called to deliver some Chromebook chargers to Sequoyah as they were dismissing students for the day. As I made the delivery to the office, I got my second compliment of the day – this time for my awesome emails.

We filtered out at the end of the day and I went home to change before going to my parents’ house to finish up some spring rolls. I didn’t stick around long though, because I wanted to get started on my track lighting.

I had to call Dad for some guidance, but got the old pendant light down and finally wired up the new parts. Unfortunately I’ll need another part to rotate the screw holes around, but then I can actually hang the track. The cover won’t quite cover the entire hole left by the old light, but that can be a problem for Future Me.

Oh, buds.

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Guidelines Were Made to Be Broken

I didn’t give the Murano much time to defrost this morning, then made it worse by trying to use the wipers to clear the little bit of frost I had. I made it to Oakland without incident though, and took care of something quickly there before heading in to the office.

Greg was there, in his office, unmasked, and ready to work. It upset me a lot first thing, but I relaxed a bit after they said he had a negative test. I still felt like he should have been masked, but at least I was able to keep my distance for the most part. We did all go to lunch together, but I rode in a different car and sat on opposite corners in the restaurant.

The afternoon was a little slow without much going on. Ben came through right at the end of the day to visit, and finally got to see my glorious new office. I stayed a little late trying to help brainstorm an issue they had at London, but eventually made it home.

I changed out of my work clothes and went to Lowe’s for a connector to join my two track lights while I chatted on the phone with Summer, who was on her way home from Conway. They had some clearance racks up that I perused as well, and scored some iron plant hangers that I’m hoping will work with my windchimes.

As soon as I finished shopping, I went to my parents’ house for some spaghetti. Mom was watching YouTube videos about Vietnamese street food, which lead to us watching the Top Gear Vietnam special. I was pretty tired by the time I got home from that, so I finished up and went to bed early.

Whatever you do, don’t look up.

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Clever Hat

It was a little frosty this morning, but overall a little bit warmer and less uncomfortable to be outside. I got to work and really enjoyed my eternally hot cup of coffee, and fixed a printer issue for Brody, who was out with COVID. The rest of the morning was a bit of rummaging for things to do until lunch, when Gary, Zach, Thomas, and I went to CJ’s.

After lunch, I spent some time at Oakland. There, kids had been dropping like flies to quarantine. COVID numbers have just progressively gotten worse, until they changed their quarantine procedures to reduce the number of days out. That brought our numbers down low enough that we didn’t have to shut down any schools. I still think we’d benefit from going to a year-round calendar though.

After work, I went home to change and then went to my parents’ house for some phở. We talked a little more about our next vacation planning, shared our opinions on reunions and nostalgia, and pondered the nature of the Matrix.

On the way home, I called a very drowsy Summer for a bit before bed. Then I wound down pretty quickly.

You see, no one can be told what the Matrix is…

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y5

The tendons behind my knees hurt all day, which I guess was from spending some time on the treadmill the other day. I got around, ate some food, and then just kept eating more food all day. Around the time I tried to get around to doing something, Thomas called and wanted me to run to the arena to investigate a wireless issue they were having.

They were hosting a wrestling tournament, and though the stands weren’t exactly packed, there were people all over the floor. I walked around the perimeter of the arena and found that any time I got out onto the floor, I wasn’t able to connect to the internet. I told Adrian we’d be sure to get it fixed before we start hosting “real” sporting events, and then left since they had already come up with some hotspots as a workaround.

The day crawled on for the most part. I was just lazy again and couldn’t get into much of anything. I probably would have felt better if I had just played a game or watched something on TV, but I didn’t really even do that much.

Mom had spring rolls for dinner, so I went over there a little early and brought her heated mug and Dad’s camera grip strap that I got him. I think Mom was pleased with the mug after she actually tried it. It seems to heat a lot more, and faster than mine, but it feels much cheaper. I prefer the build quality of the Ember, but I think hers may actually last longer too, especially with the included lid.

Julie came over and we ate. Then she tinkled on the piano for a while and I showed Dad some FPV drone videos as inspiration for where to blow his retirement. Eventually I made it home, called Summer for a bit, and crawled into bed.

These damned captions!