Tag: frustration

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Networking Chops

I made up quite a bit of time on the way to work this morning, but there wasn’t anything going on. I helped Kyle set up some server tools before he left, then ended up working on sleuthing a DNS issue for most of the day. Our representative that was supposed to set up our new Alerton HVAC system on the server I spun up several months ago was still having trouble getting it to work, and I figured it was because she didn’t realize she was still talking to the old server. Even Randy seemed to get caught up in a separate SSL issue, but I think I had it pegged from the get-go.

I ended up going down the road for lunch on my own and decided to finally try the fried chicken, along with the catfish, at Louisiana Fried Chicken. The food is always pretty decent, but every time I walk in there, I swear it’s a front for the drug cartel. I was the only one eating there, and I think maybe two cars came through the drive-through. A couple people walked in but left without ordering, and another group of four or so people picked up some food. The staff is always nice, but you’re not going to win any awards for old fried chicken kept under an open-air heat lamp.

The afternoon felt the most successful after Randy took me to central office to help with a couple issues. I got to present myself a little more loosely after having a little more face time with some of the staff there, and I finally conveyed our DNS issue to Randy in a way that he understood. We got back to the office and casually finished out the day.

I stopped to charge on the way home and decided to redeem my free Grand Slam at the Denny’s there. It was quiet, and service was quick. I got in and out in just enough time to get about a 50% charge, then made it home to run the dogs.

Dad called earlier in the morning and said they had gotten out and over to his house again. He walked them home and then took them out for another walk in the afternoon, but I was frustrated with them when we got home and we took a pretty stern walk. We stopped to see him, then encountered Mom as we were riding home. She caught up to me and asked about going out to eat, but neither of the girls were home.

Summer got home from work and the gym as I was finishing up my Vine shipments, and then Eaddie got home a little later and said we forgot her robotics banquet to which Summer had RSVPed. I live and die by my calendar for exactly that reason, and it upsets me when they fail after I push them to do the same. They caught up for a bit before bed, and then I wrapped up my own things as quickly as I could.

This is obviously a front.

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Problems with Gravity

Randy showed up with his new RAV4 today, unexpectedly early after ordering it only a week ago. The guys were outside looking at it when I showed up, but we all went in when I got there. There was a bit of catching up since he and Jim had been gone all week, so things were pretty relaxed. I actually got some work done, rebuilding the Adobe roster sync, and fixing a couple of other things as they came to me.

Jimmy was there in the morning, but Maggie got a call a little while later that he had fallen. She and Randy took off to check on him, and evidently he just passed out for about half a minute. Luckily one of the security folks saw him and they ran out to take care of him, but the doctor said he can’t drive until he has someone check out his heart.

I ended up taking lunch by myself, so I picked up a $4 ghost pepper chicken sandwich from Popeye’s, and some free fries with purchase of cheddar tots from Burger King. I was worried after getting relatively poor service from both places, but all of the food was absolutely spot-on, so I couldn’t be mad. They can ignore my presence all day as long as they hand me a piping hot bag of food.

The afternoon went by kind of slowly after that. I made it to Conway for a quick charge, then got home so I could run the dogs. It was overcast and dark all day, so it got pretty chilly while we were out. The dogs did well though, so they got hot dogs with their dinner and I tried to clean up some leftovers. I got a bit frustrated with how much old food hasn’t been touched, and then I accidentally knocked one of Summer’s coffee mugs off the counter and shattered it. I don’t know why they’re both so bad about keeping that area tidy, but they’re just incapable of organizing anything. It all just goes everywhere. Eaddie’s stuff just goes in the floor, and I’m tired of being the bad guy about ever saying anything.

I spent the rest of the evening unpacking Vine orders since a bunch of them arrived today. The recycle dumpster is already crammed pretty full, and I’ve got a bunch more cardboard to load up. At least some of the novelty is starting to wear off, so my ordering has slowed down a little bit. I still hate when I miss something really good, though.

Retail Therapy Problems

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Double Dog Day

I woke up early again today, and after taking my iron in the morning, felt queasy again. Summer eventually got up and I made us some bacon and eggs to go with the leftover Cheddar Bay Biscuits. She eventually went to the gym and Eaddie went to church. I took the dogs for a long run through the neighborhood, pleased that we’ve been able to keep only one of them on the lead with the other on the e-collar radial fence. They just get tied up too easily, and end up hurting themselves if they’re both tied up, and I hate it.

Eaddie was out for the afternoon as well, to watch a Tech concert. Summer and I bathed, expecting to go out for a birthday dinner, but Dad said they’d rather go another day, so we stayed in. I took the dogs for a second run, and they ran way faster the second time.

When I got back home, I ordered some Domino’s since they still had their $10 pizza deal. They were slammed when I got there, but the pizzas turned out pretty good. Eaddie got home just as we finished eating and had some herself. Then it was down for bed.

Puppy pool weather is back!

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Brain Rot Kids

I had a rough start this morning, and it just never got any better. I was late leaving for work, which was compounded by slow traffic the entire way. I nearly got absolutely creamed by a semi when traffic came to a stop due to a wreck that closed the left lane. It was just barely around a curve, and traffic slowed so fast that a semi way behind me couldn’t slow down fast enough even after I turned on my blinkers as an early warning. I watched as he got bigger in my rearview, but thankfully he veered off the road to the left just as I started to the right. Traffic kind of split across both shoulders, but I don’t think any extra damage was done to anyone.

After that, I guess the slowdown that normally happens at the top of the hill when the sun peaks had worked its way back toward Conway. It was slow the entire way in to work, but nobody seemed bothered. I was actually pretty busy with stuff today, and I guess people were bothering Randy as well.

I met Kyle and Maggie at Cactus Jack’s for lunch at his request, and the food was pretty decent, typical Mexican. Jay called for help after I had sent him to central office to work some of Randy’s work orders, so I had to meet him there after lunch. What I thought was going to be a ten minute fix ended up taking the rest of the afternoon trying to fix a high-energy zoomer, and we still didn’t really complete it all.

I left straight from there and headed straight home, again through some stupid traffic, but thankfully at a much faster pace. The dogs were super anxious when I checked on them in the morning after being tied up all night, but Dad took them on a long walk during the day, so they weren’t too bad when I got home. They did knock over and chew up their water dispenser, which infuriated me to the point of dumping it and beating them with it. They cowered under the porch, but I can’t afford to buy them a new water bowl every week.

They came back out and we went for a pretty good walk. They’re definitely not as responsive to me without their prong collars, and the shock collars are too slow to give good feedback when we’re running. I did shock them both a couple of times when they eyed some cats, but otherwise they were fairly well behaved. We stopped to see Dad and then made it home for dinner. After they ate, I let them sit off-leash for a while before they made it out to the fenceline to dig some more. They still had their shock collars, so I zapped them both and tied them up.

The kids came home before Eaddie’s concert while I was assembling Vine stuff. Then I had to meet them and Summer at Witherspoon for a super long concert. I hated that we were there for the first band, and both played way too long, but I also just wasn’t in the mood. I was exhausted and sleep deprived after a night full of light sleep and weird dreams with caricatures. Summer was slow to leave, so I ended up leaving her behind and made it home to wrap up.

TikTok Cancer

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Straight to Jail

The dogs seemed chill this morning, and Summer said they came right out when she called, so we decided to leave them off the runner. Once I got in, I caught up with Kyle for a bit and then took a call from Johnny. Maggie was late, so I was alone for most of the morning.

Not much later, I tried to find the dogs on camera and couldn’t see them, but I heard a lot of barking, so I texted Dad. He said they were gone and spent quite a while hunting for them, finally finding them in his neighbor’s yard again. He got them home and tied them up, checking on them throughout the day.

Things were pretty quiet otherwise, and I ended up just going to Taco Bell for lunch. Afterward I brought a couple of “birthday cake churros” back for Maggie and myself to try, and they were delicious. The afternoon went by pretty quickly again, but I left a little late to make up for being so late yesterday. I stopped to charge most of the way up, then washed my car since Summer was in Conway.

It was getting dark when I got home, but I could tell the dogs were all tangled up. Muad’Dib was bleeding from the lip from something, but it wasn’t the steel cable. We had a pretty good walk, but they were a bit slower again. I don’t know if it’s because it’s warmer, or because they’ve been stressed from all the running, chasing, and being tied up. We visited my parents and got home after dark.

Eaddie was home, and Summer arrived a little later. I video called Randy briefly to see what hijinks he and Jim had gotten up to at the Howard conference, and then I had a ton of Vine stuff to go through. I ended up warming up the rest of the mush for Eaddie and myself while Summer got ready for bed. Then they spent some time catching up while I finished my stuff and got ready for bed.

Don’t forget to refill the cameras!

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Chain Gang

Summer was worried about the dogs getting out, even after hammering all of her stakes into the ground, so she tried tying them up this morning. She didn’t talk to me about it first, so it wasn’t surprising at all to find that she had made nearly every mistake I could imagine. I’ve been beyond frustrated with her wasteful, poorly thought-out tactics. Stilgar immediately chewed through the brand new rope leash I made for them, and was loose in the yard. Dad had to go over and try to fix it, but by the time I got home, they were so wrapped up in the brush pile that they couldn’t move.

There was a wreck around the 430 interchange, so I was nearly an hour late to work. I wasn’t surprised to see some woman on the side of the road in full pajamas, top and bottom. Then I was left to sit and stew all day at work until lunch time when Summer was done with her meeting in Little Rock and wanted to go to Red Lobster with me. Just prior to that, I had to deal with a staff member who failed to see numerous red flags on a poorly designed phishing email, and proceeded to input her username and password into a Google Form.

The afternoon went by reasonably quickly after that. I Supercharged quite a bit since I knew Summer would be needing a lot of juice when she got home as well. I was still up late to swap cars, so I was glad I charged as much as I did.

I made it home just after her, and had to shoo her away from the dogs so I could actually see how badly they were tangled up and make the appropriate adjustments before she contaminated the crime scene. I ended up running my long steel cable from the deck to the tree like I had explained to her multiple times, and then found two shorter steel cables to attach them to the long runner. There’s still ample opportunity for them to get tied up, but I think less so than today. Besides, her cheap wooden stakes should have kept them in anyway, according to her thought process.

We had a door hanger from the animal shelter that basically called out the city leash law and said they were accused of “killing neighborhood cats.” We left it at that, hoping the new runner would fix the issue, and then went on a run. They behaved pretty well, but it was odd without their prong collars. The shock collar works great now that I have them mounted on the fronts of their necks. Dad buzzed us with the FPV drone while we were on Promenade, and we stopped to see him before making it home.

I had a bunch of stuff from Vine to catch up on, and Summer had been sitting in the dark watching TV since I started working on the dogs, so she was out of my way. I hurried, and went to bed as soon as I could switch chargers on the cars.

Fools Errands

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Electrotherapy

The dogs were asleep on the porch when I got up, but as soon as I got to work, Summer texted that they were gone. I texted Dad, and they both went out looking. Dad was able to recover them and Summer used a sledgehammer to bury some wooden stakes along the fenceline, but it was too late. Dad texted that his neighbor found a dead cat, and later said she reported them to animal control. I was pretty uptight about it at work all day, but there was nothing I could do from there. I worked on what I could, and dreaded what work had to be done when I got home.

Charles called our Dell vendor to complain about having to deal with customer service when repairing laptops, and got us free lunch out of the deal. Whole Hog tasted like free lunch, too. I had the brisket sandwich, potato salad, and beans, and it was a pretty miserable looking plate. The sandwich was about 60% bun, 20% brisket, and 20% slaw. It didn’t taste bad, but it wasn’t good, and it was cold to boot. The serving size was a small ice cream scoop of potatoes, and the most shallow single-layer of baked beans on a divided plate that you could imagine.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly, and Randy and Jim would be out for the rest of the week to go to the Howard conference in Alabama. I headed toward home, Supercharged, and walked in to Summer ruining what leftovers we had from Noah’s dinner. She ruined a huge pot of rice trying to fry it with the squash and zucchini. What resulted was basically a gummy rice dough with completely indiscernible vegetables, and thankfully no steak. I would have walked out if she ruined those T-bones on top of everything else.

We had an argument, and I feel pretty confident she learned nothing again. I went out to make sure the dogs would be secure after her shoddy patchwork and found a different place where they had started to dig. We ate, and then had to run to the high school for a pretty crappy band concert that ran about an hour behind.

The mentally deficient couple behind us in the second row talked loudly during the concert band’s portion, and I turned around to glare at them. They were mostly quiet for Eaddie’s symphonic band, until the point where the guy tapped a link on his phone, or otherwise somehow unmuted whatever video he was watching. After the day I’d had, it took every fiber of my shaking body not to turn around and knock him out in front of the whole auditorium.

We made it home and it was another mad dash to get to bed. The dogs may get chained up in the morning if they dig any more overnight. The only other real progress I made was when I learned how to properly attach their shock collars around the front or side of their necks instead of the back. I tested them out and got Stilgar pretty good when he started barking at one point. It’ll be good to take them on a run sometime how that the shock can actually be felt. I also made a double-ended slip collar to leave with Dad so we won’t keep having to run back and forth for tools.

More like Won’t Listen-Al-Gaib and Not Stillthere.

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Loose

I didn’t sleep very long again today, so I guess I’m just waking up with the sun now. I took my meds and fed the dogs, and I guess I should have been paying better attention to the barking. The neighbor’s dogs were yapping, and mine got out again. I immediately took off looking for them and brought them back home in relatively short order. They just ripped the board and screws straight out of the fence.

Eaddie went to church, came home, and then left again to go rehearse with her band group. Summer went to the gym. I cleaned up a little bit, but mostly spun my wheels for much of the day. I did decide to take the dogs to Walgreens so I could pick up my prescription, but the pharmacy was closed when we got there.

We continued over to the basin, then to my parents’ house. They were trying to pick out paint for their kitchen and dining area. Dad said the pharmacy was probably just closed for lunch, so we decided to ride all the way back, and successfully got my medicine that time. All total, we rode over seven miles.

Summer and I both finished the leftover pizza, separately throughout the day. She spent all afternoon cleaning, dusting, and vacuuming. I tinkered with some things around the house, and installed a couple of things in my car.

I took my car across town to the quarter wash, then stopped at the Neighborhood Market to get Summer some coffee creamer. They had grapes on clearance, so I got a bunch of those too. When I got home, I put together the little stirling engine I got from Vine that goes on your coffee mug. I started on some boiling water, then realized the dogs had gotten out again.

By then it was pitch black outside, so I grabbed my flashlight and leash and took off through the neighborhood looking for them. I encountered Dad walking down Ridgewood looking for them as well, but there were dogs barking everywhere. I finally found Muad’Dib, but Stilgar didn’t come out. I got him on the leash and we ran a large block back to where we started, and then Stilgar came running. Just as quickly as he had emerged from the dark, he disappeared back into it. It took some coaxing, but he eventually came back and we made it home.

The stirling engine was still going when we made it back. I opened up some fencing that I got from Vine, and hammered one of them into the ground where the dogs had dug out the last time. I couldn’t believe they moved the large landscaping block as far as they did, and I wondered if one of the neighbor’s dogs had pushed their way into our yard.

Eaddie got back from Fort Smith late and caught up with Summer, and I wrapped up my own routine before trying to make it to bed on time.

Reunorganize

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Low Steaks

I actually woke up pretty early this morning in spite of wanting to sleep in a little bit. Eaddie left super early for a robotics tournament, and Summer and I had to get the house cleaned up and go grocery shopping so we could feed Noah and his friend Michael. I got started early, but I think my iron made me queasy again. I waited a couple hours before I ate something, and that helped marginally. Summer went to the gym when she finally got up, and we eventually made it out of the house together.

We went to Kroger first, and it seemed like everything was higher and less good than the Neighborhood Market. I definitely didn’t care for any of the steaks I saw there, but we picked up some fruit and frozen shrimp. I think even the shrimp was cheaper at the Neighborhood Market, but the steaks were for sure, and they looked like better cuts of meat, too.

As soon as we got back home, I got to work cleaning the grill so it wouldn’t catch on fire like it has the past few times I’ve tried to cook on it. It wasn’t that difficult, but I hate getting that black grease all over the place. Summer prepped zucchini, squash, asparagus, and made mashed potatoes. I smoked two T-bones and six strip steaks to temperature before pulling them off to rest before searing. My grill died at one point, and I thought it was the outlet, but it still did it even after I plugged it into the outlet inside. It may have been an issue with the temperature sensor, because I reseated that and it eventually got things reset.

I grilled the veggies and shrimp, then threw the steaks back on to sear both sides, and the four of us sat down to eat. I got pretty upset when Summer made a comment about hoping the boys weren’t slowing down, because it prompted both of them to each eat another whole steak to the point of complaining about having to blow up our bathroom. At that point, I was done having company, or housemates.

I gave the dogs a bunch of scraps and fed them dinner, but we didn’t get to take a walk. I’ll have to make it up to them tomorrow, and it’ll probably be a really long one for all three of us. Summer and the boys sat down in the living room and watched brain-rot YouTube compilations while she tried to paint her nails and I cleaned up the kitchen. Then Eaddie got home just minutes after the boys left, and told us about her day. After that, I didn’t waste any time wrapping up for bed.

Collector Gadget

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Cold Water

I got up early this morning so I could try and get a bunch of things done before my appointment with the hematologist, but the dogs had other plans. Dad said they were on their side of the neighborhood, so I rode around the block and they came running out from behind someone’s house. I ran them home off-leash and they did pretty well, but I wouldn’t have felt safe doing that any later in the day.

I got a text from Zany a little while later while I was trying to get showered saying that Paul was on the other side of their house in Olivia’s yard. Stilgar was yapping in the back yard still because he hadn’t gotten through the same hole, so I rode around looking for Muad’Dib. He ended up coming out from the backyard neighbor’s house on Ridgewood, but Stilgar came running too.

I got them back home and ended up chaining them to the tree so I could actually get ready for my appointment. I didn’t even get to the courthouse before I had to get to the clinic. Summer pulled in right behind me and we found the office attached to the hospital. It ended up being a super short visit. They got me back fairly quickly, took my weight, blood pressure, and temperature, and asked if I was depressed. That was really it until I saw the doctor in the tiny exam room. He asked a few more questions, most of which I had already answered in the new patient paperwork. Then he told me to keep taking my iron, along with some vitamin C for the next few months until a follow-up visit in May when they’ll actually draw blood again. It all seemed super steep to pay $115 for literally zero input from anyone there, and answering what felt like very surface-level questions.

It had started to sleet a little bit when we left. Summer went back to work and I ran by the assessor’s office to add the Model 3 to my personal property tax. They got me assessed and I continued on to the revenue office to get the car tagged and my license renewed. The office seemed fully staffed with a handful of people waiting, and they were churning through them. It wasn’t long before they called my number, but I failed at both tasks. I’ll have to go back with a blank check to pay the sales tax, and they absolutely would not take a new birth certificate from the health department. My birth card and the hospital birth certificate were both worthless there. They also locked the door for fear of the freezing rain, though things didn’t really get bad until long after they would have closed normally.

After being run out of there, I tried to find the health department, but the one building I tried was locked up. I figured, like the schools, anyone in a government office was likely sent home. I decided instead to use an expiring free pizza from Domino’s, plus ordered a couple more to take home. I got to the restaurant early and chatted with the guys, and then Neal showed up and I talked to him for a bit.

On the way home, I noticed Robert and Kyler’s cars at the smokehouse, so I stopped by to say, “hi.” It was actually Kyler and Grant outside because Robert was inside fighting with Toast. I chatted with the two of them for a bit before making it home, where I discovered one of the pizzas had leaked some grease onto my seat. It appeared to clean up well, but the ventilated seats had me worried about what got beneath the surface. It looked clean when I finished, though.

Eaddie had a little bit, but had just eaten some chili before she found out I was bringing food. Summer was on a call for work, so I ate in the kitchen by myself before going out to check on the dogs. They were looking pretty miserable after being chained to the tree for so long, and were staying on the porch with their heads down. I eventually got to catch up with Summer a bit, but then Dad wanted to go move the computer desk out of the bedroom at the old house. Summer and I went to get him and made it to the house, but then we found out that the guys probably wouldn’t be coming back the next day to clean the carpets since they were done with everything else. They could come back when it wasn’t freezing rain, so we didn’t have to be there dealing with packing and moving with the car out in the weather.

We took Dad back home and then I went outside to try and fortify the fenceline some more. The problem appeared to be a soggy spot where the downspout from the outbuilding was constantly dripping water. Muad’Dib is a digger, and Stilgar is content to follow him through a hole. Hopefully they’ll stay put over the next few days, and I ordered some anti-dig fencing that we can hopefully hammer into the ground to help with our little problem.

Once we finally settled in for the evening, I spent some time cleaning up and then watched some YouTube on the TV with Summer. Eaddie came out for a little bit, but I ended up by myself for most of it. I’ll have to dedicate some time to catching up on bills and other paperwork tomorrow, because the tax man cometh, and I am not prepared.

Can you pay my automobills?