Tag: frustration

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Over Pressure

I woke up to some pretty good numbers, and the lump in my chest was gone. I just had to keep that up for a drive to Fort Smith, and things would be peachy. I took it a little bit too easy all morning, because I was late getting showered and over to my parents’ house to pick them up.

Eaddie had rehearsal with her quintet, so Summer, my parents, and I headed to Fort Smith for the magic club Christmas potluck. It was pretty rainy most of the way, but we made it with plenty of time. I could feel my body tensing up the entire drive, so I knew my numbers would be high when we got there. I was at about 142/89 when we stopped, so I ended up taking a clonidine as soon as we got inside to try and bring myself back down. That may have actually worked against me, because by the time we left I was above 160/100. My heart started racing a couple hours before that, and I couldn’t get it to slow down all night.

I had Summer drive us home while I tried to get myself calmed down. I felt reasonably relaxed in the back seat, but my heart just kept beating hard. We stopped in Ozark to charge, and I jumped around a little bit outside, thinking that maybe I could burn off some adrenaline. I felt okay for the most part. My heart was just trying to beat out of my chest.

We dropped my parents off and made it home, where I kept relatively active the rest of the night. I had several Vine packages to unbox and photograph, which means I need to get some more reviews done. I tinkered with some stuff in the car for a bit, and ended up taking apart the USB console because it had some soda spilled in it. Summer did her nails, and we waited for Eaddie to get home from watching Wicked for something like the third time. I eventually took another clonidine and did some breathing exercises in bed to try and calm myself down. My heart rate came down a bit, but my blood pressure never really did. I just had to wrap things up and get to bed.

I feel like Jason Statham in “Crank.”

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Hypertensed

I got up this morning and tested my blood pressure at 119/69, which had me hopeful. Summer was going to stay home with me, but ended up going to work for a while. I took the time to shower and relax a bit before I took the dogs out on a run to Walgreens to get my prescriptions filled. They found a persimmon tree along the way, so I fed them a couple that were hanging low enough for me to reach. Maybe we’ll get a tree out of it next year.

I went ahead and took them back around our normal circuit, though they weren’t behaving super well. In addition, Stilgar had eaten my old cat water jug, which angered me. We made it back home after some tugging along, and I continued my research to pick a new primary care physician. I also waited forever for Summer to finish doing work from home so we could pick up my prescriptions.

I started feeling a little hot behind the ears in the afternoon, and noticed that my pressure was climbing again. Sensing my urgency, Summer got up and we went to get my medicine. I continued to feel slightly worse, so we decided to swing by the Conway Regional clinic to see what they were like. There I encountered two familiar faces: Monalisa, who I don’t think I’d seen since my time at Asurion, and Lelan’s friend Cindy. Mona got me set up with new patient paperwork, which frustrated me further. It’s 2024. Get an iPad.

I think if I had known they were open in the evenings at no additional cost, I would have made my decision a lot earlier to go there instead of the local Baptist Health clinic. My only real gripe was about the lady that took me back and did my notes before the nurse practitioner saw me. She kept yapping loudly in my ear as I was trying to calm myself for her to take my blood pressure. It actually increased noticeably in the time I was in the room with her. The practitioner, Crystal, was wonderful. She came in early and gave me half the dosage of clonidine that I received in the ER the night before, and my pressure started coming down. We talked to her for a bit, she wrote me a prescription for some clonidine to take home, and we scheduled a full workup for January so I can get an early start on my high deductible.

We ran back to Walgreens for the additional meds, then ran home to change for the Christmas parade. My heated vest made me feel pretty fluffy, but it worked – at least around the collar. The body elements could have been warmer, but I couldn’t figure out a way to adjust just the neck. We made it across town and found a space in front of a tree where nobody had sat down. I hated to show up late and then get the best seat in the house, but the guy next to us encouraged us. We waited for Eaddie to pass, then crossed the street again to leave. I didn’t much care for interrupting the parade, but there was noone there to stop us, and Summer insisted.

From there, we went by Kroger for some bananas before I took us to Ridgewood for some food. I spotted Grant and chased him around back where he was trimming some brisket. I talked with him for a little bit, and I think we had a good moment to break through some concerns I had. He walked me through the restaurant and I got some food, and then we headed home.

Summer went straight for a bath while I mostly tried to relax. I kept watching my blood pressure since I couldn’t start a new cycle of meds until the next day. I was concerned that only getting half the dosage of amlodipine wouldn’t be enough, but maybe the addition of metoprolol will make up the difference. Time will tell, but for now, I guess I’m carrying three bottles with me.

Just, like, chill out, man.

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Chicken Potato Bowls

Today was a long day of picking up the house. Summer went to work. Eaddie came out eventually and took a shower while I was running all around the house. I thought Summer would be home around lunch time, but that wasn’t so. At some point, Eaddie asked if she could go to her father’s house for the night since I guess one of her half sisters had a kid with a birthday. These people propagate like mint.

I warmed up some leftover mashed potatoes and frozen chicken strips for lunch, then continued picking up and organizing randomly until Summer finally got home. She started on some deviled eggs and then took a bath, and I took the dogs out for an early run. We did nearly five miles after stopping to see Dad. He was worried about the new fiber internet provider after they cut their existing cable line trying to run fiber to the house. I just told him to find a place to leave a negative review, and someone would probably reach out rather than have him fight with incompetent customer service trying to direct him to an insurance company.

The dogs did really well, and Stilgar didn’t seem to care about how cold it was. He still wanted to be an alligator in the creek. I ran them all around the neighborhood and then brought them home for hot dogs. I had several more packages at the door, which brought the total to four separate deliveries for the day. I brought them inside and Summer started opening them. I wasn’t double checking what she was doing, and evidently she threw out a bag that still had a watch band in it. That wouldn’t have been bad, except I had just taken the recycling out to the curb just seconds before the truck picked up the dumpster.

I was furious at her negligence. I picked up a bit more before leaving to get some McNuggets for dinner. I didn’t want to go home, and considered that I might want something more to eat, so I ended up stopping in the Wendy’s parking lot. I ate the nuggets, and then remembered a deal for half price Famous Bowls from KFC, so I drove across the street and ate one of those in the lobby. I dawdled there for a while and then got back in the car and had Full Self Driving take me across town. It didn’t get adventurous, so I pointed it up the mountain before having it drive me back home.

Summer went to bed and I stayed up late picking up the ceiling-high stack of boxes she had shoved into the corner. There was a lot of junk there that she had just shoveled out of the way instead of letting me handle it. I sulked some more before eventually taking a shower and going to bed.

Let me remember the ways.

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The “Ga” is Silent

I woke up at 6:30 so we could make it to a nine o’clock movie in Conway. The girls got up after I was out of the shower, and then we were off. Summer drove so I could try and order snacks on my phone, but we ended up ordering there instead because I couldn’t redeem Movie Club credits for online orders.

Summer drove stubbornly and reacted poorly when I scolded her for not letting the car move out of the passing lane. Then when we got to the theater, she tried giving up after one horrible attempt at parking. I got out in a huff and waited in line to order snacks, then had to yell at them from across the lobby to come help me carry stuff.

We watched Wicked, which evidently was a Part 1, in a smaller auditorium in 3D. I think we were there with only one other person. I accidentally spilled a bunch of buttery popcorn and had to deal with a slippery floor for the whole movie. I also got super tired and struggled to keep my eyes open for part of it. Otherwise I thought it was pretty good. I think I liked the live show better though.

After the movie, we went to Brick & Forge for lunch. Our server was super weird and kept wanting to hover while we were reading the menu. Then he brought our food out before our appetizer. In fact, that didn’t come out until Summer had eaten all she could stand of her pasta entrée. Eaddie liked her burger, and my brunch quesadilla wasn’t bad. The pulled pork bread roll appetizer was pretty good, but simply came out too late. I nearly asked for it to be removed from the ticket.

Once we finished eating, we headed to Kohl’s and Shoe Carnival to do some shopping. Summer wasn’t feeling well, and Eaddie needed to get back to practice before her rehearsal, so we headed home after just those two stores. I drove this time, and stopped at Walmart once we got back into town so Eaddie could get some body wash. Summer waited in the car, so we were in and out fairly quickly.

I took the dogs out for a run as soon as we got home, and they did fairly well. They got treats and food, and then I tried to clean up in the kitchen a bit. I cleaned up some leftovers, then had Eaddie pick up some dollar McNuggets before the coupon reset. She ended up going to get Eli first, so there was a bit of a to-do. I probably spent $10 in gas for her to get those $1 nuggets.

Summer went to bed, Eaddie eventually made it home and did the same, and I wrapped up late, unslept and aggravated from more general negligence around the house.

Some things I cannot change, but ’til I try I’ll never know.

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I Make a Penny

I’ve been bringing leftover Starbucks coffee to work lately, but having very mixed experiences with the USB heated mug. The Ember gets it hot once I get to work, but it’s annoying that the travel mug doesn’t work as well. We had someone from IK Electric and someone from Fortinet coming to set up some demo phones for us, but I wasn’t sure when they would be there. That meant we had a fairly slow morning waiting for them.

Randy had to disappear to deal with the Windstream folks, so I tried to lead some of the conversation with the phone guys. Maggie kept including herself in the conversation for some reason, which was annoying because it was difficult to get any more technical questions out.

Kyle and I met Randy and Jim at Shotgun Dan’s Pizza for lunch, and they appeared to be much busier than they expected, because there was only one server for the whole restaurant. She was struggling to get anything done, but at least the food was pretty good.

After lunch, Randy went with me to Central Office to “apologize” to Sonya. I expected to at least say something, but really he walked in and just started talking and never really quit. She didn’t seem very chipper, but maybe she’s just sassy like that. I couldn’t be bothered.

When we got back to the office, Randy realized his car was actually at the high school. We decided I could just take him back to his car after work, and we finished out the afternoon. I had to charge in the warehouse in order to get home, but it all worked out.

Summer made slow cooker chili, so I got home and ran with the dogs. It was pretty cool outside, and we were chasing daylight anyway. I was pretty frustrated when we got back, because Summer brought in Stilgar’s slow feeder that she had left outside. He literally chewed the whole food dish in half. I really liked that slow feeder, and I haven’t seen another one like it available on Amazon Vine. I don’t know how many times I’ve told her not to leave it outside. Stupid.

My new Pixel Watch 3 came in, so I spent some time setting it up. I didn’t love the color of the band, but I’ve ordered more from Vine. Otherwise than that, I spent some time on the phone with Johnny, and went to bed early.

My boss makes a dime.

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Human Retards

I was really early to leave the house this morning, but kept having idiots pull out in front of me just to go slower, multiple times on the way to work. I guess preconditioning took some battery power, so I pulled into the warehouse to charge all day. Things started out super chill, but quickly became ridiculous. “Everyone” was having trouble either printing or connecting to network drives. It took us all morning to figure out that it was the changes to Cisco Umbrella that Randy made yesterday just before we walked out the door.

Sonya called Maggie about a print issue that I assumed was the same I had been troubleshooting, but then went off about needing staples, and being an exception to the rule of our PaperCut deployment. She didn’t like any of my answers, became hostile and rude, and then hung up on us after threatening to get the superintendent involved.

Maggie and I went to Chili’s for lunch, where we were served by an old friend of hers. We didn’t think too much about the grief back at the office, though I did get a “nasty” email from Sonya. I had begun crafting a response, but Randy initially told me not to reply at all. He said he was told to have me apologize in person, to which I responded that it was odd that Human Resources would want an apology in person without a paper trail. We ultimately settled on a written response and an added face-to-face meeting to smooth any lingering tensions.

We fixed the Umbrella nonsense for the moment, but would have to revisit it later. Near the end of the day, we had to run upstairs to collect a TV that had fallen off of the wall in a conference room. As we came back into the office, Johnny called with some of his own drama. Then I ran home as quickly as I could to get some run time with the dogs.

Eli’s car was at the house, and Eaddie was in a bath when I got there. She texted that he wasn’t there, so I left with the dogs. Evidently she drove his car home because he picked her up for school, but then had to leave for some band thing and wouldn’t be back until late in the evening.

The dogs did great as we ran our course backwards. I wanted them to get some time at the basin trail before it got too dark. They had a dip, and then we went up to the roundabout before swinging back through my parents’ house. We talked with Dad briefly before making it home for some hot dogs. Summer was out back on the porch waiting for me, but then Brody called with questions about used Teslas. I talked to him a couple times before Summer and I got to chat about her day.

I had a burrito for dinner and did some laundry. Eaddie chatted with me for a bit and helped with some leftovers. Then I wrapped things up pretty quickly for bed after she left to get Eli.

Must be something in the water.

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Breakfixst

I didn’t sleep great last night, and it stormed for most of it. I woke up groggy, but made it out of the house early enough to take the drive a little easier. Surprisingly, Maggie beat me to the office and started talking about breakfast shortly after I got there. I made coffee, and when Kyle and Randy came in, she took orders from everyone and went to get food from BJ’s. I had a western omelette with hashbrowns and biscuits, and it was pretty good. I ate way slower than everyone else since I was trying to work at the same time.

I didn’t really get hungry until late in the afternoon, so I didn’t take a lunch. I just kept chugging away at SCCM, trying to fix PXE booting all day. I asked Randy if I could take off an hour early since I didn’t eat, and he just said not to make a habit of it after Javier had been taking advantage. I made it home quickly, and it had dried up, so I wanted to take the dogs out on a good run.

Summer had been home much of the day since the washes were rained out. She was working in her office when I came and left. I took the dogs to my parents’ house to sniff around the yard, then went to the basin trail, which was mostly flooded into one giant pond.

I let the dogs splash around a little bit, and then we chased off a big flock of geese. Stilgar was whining because he wanted to chase them so badly, but I knew he’d never come back. He could have so much more fun if he’d just have better recall, but he won’t listen. We ended up going out further, crossing 12th, and visiting Sequoyah Park. Then we made it around to the Boulevard before swinging back through the roundabout. It was nearly a five mile run at an 8.5mph average, so they got home hungry. I actually ran out of poop bags and had to come home to get a new roll after Stilgar left a big pile at someone’s house. Embassingly, the lady pulled up to check her male as I was looking around the yard to find it, but she told me she didn’t care and not to worry about it.

We got home for some hot dogs, I ate some leftover pizza, and then Summer and I sat down to chat for a bit before I opened up a couple more Vine packages. They keep coming out with “neon” signs that I love. I wrapped things up early after that, and actually managed to get to bed really early.

Silly goose.

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Negligence

Just before I went to bed last night, Eaddie’s car alarm started going off. I yelled across the house at her for her keys, and she just yelled back through her bedroom door to check the valet. I knew damn well the key wasn’t there, but I looked anyway. Fortunately the alarm quit, and I found no evidence of tampering. The rain must have triggered something in a sensor.

I finally got to sleep, and Summer woke me up a couple hours later because it was going off again. I found the keys, this time in Eaddie’s purse that she thought she left at school. Keys go in the valet, so we always know where they are. If nobody else is going to lift a finger, then I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

I slept in a few minutes and ran an alternate routine in the morning to get to work on time. I didn’t feel too awful for it, but it wasn’t great. I was the first one there, and started out with some coffee pretty early. I got through to lunch when Randy, Kyle, Jim, and I went to American Pie Pizza. Maggie said she wasn’t going, but then beat us there. She and I split a pizza, but she only ate two slices. Kyle and Randy split another pizza that I thought we might share from, but we each stuck to our own, and Jim got a salad. I liked the brick oven style crust a lot, but it made for eating half a pie.

The afternoon was spent on SCCM again, and I finally cracked the puzzle by setting a compatibility version on the SQL server. That got me right to the end of the day, so I’ll dive into it again first thing tomorrow.

Summer went home early in the rain and had dinner going for us. I raced there to get the dogs walked before sundown, but we still ended up in the dark. We had to go on an acoustic walk since the ground was wet and I didn’t want the Onewheel to kick water up at my leg the entire time, though the dogs wouldn’t have cared. I need to get a fender for those types of days, but I like the exposed wheel otherwise.

I had to take a beat when I got back because Summer said she left the grill cover out and the dogs ripped a hole in it. She overcooked four well-done strip steaks, steamed five potatoes, and made a huge bowl of salad for the three of us plus Eli. I was irritated and disappointed. The dogs will be dogs, but I’m tired of her absent mindedness. After dinner, I had to unload the dirty dishwasher to load it correctly, and she scolded me for having a fit, but I was really just trying to get it done, and frustrated that I was having to fix her mess again.

She went to bed and the kids stayed up doing homework. I eventually got outside to clean up the grill because I knew she hadn’t, and that’s when I discovered the burner had been on the entire time, wasting propane and keeping the grill hot. I sat outside with the dogs while it cooled down, and then managed to get the ripped cover mostly back over the grill. I don’t think they make that model any more, and the shape was pretty specific with the smoke vent, so I may just have to do my best to patch the thing up.

I don’t know when it turns from negligence to stupidity, but I don’t know how much more I’m willing to overlook.

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Hi, Sharks

I didn’t sleep well, and was predictably tired getting out this morning. I was a few minutes late, but showed up as the guys were checking out our new shop building that has finally been cleaned out. Humorously, I was still the first one to my desk to begin work. I had a bit of a false start when I accidentally joined my call with PRTG an hour early. When the call finally did start, I had audio trouble and had to join from my computer and phone for anyone to hear me.

The morning ran long as nobody came around for lunch. I was going back and forth with Maggie about what to eat when she suddenly said David was coming from Howard to treat us to an impromptu lunch at Saltgrass Steak House. I was excited to try that, but she talked him into going to Longhorn instead because she liked their lunch better. My New York strip ended up being absolutely terrible because it was overcooked and unbelievably tough. I had to saw it into thin strips just to chew the thing.

It took us a while to get started because we waited for Jim to join us, and then Maggie behaved embarrassingly with our waitress, asking multiple people for an extra plate and receiving too many, and then getting out of her seat to chase down our server to ask for something near the end of our visit. She’s been a very involved secretary, which I appreciate, but her lunchtime habits are unhinged.

We made it back to the office and I finished out the day mostly struggling to troubleshoot my audio issue. I finally left and made it home to take the dogs out for a quick run. We visited my parents, and then Stilgar had to lay down in the creek for a bit while we were in the basin. They behaved well though, and got hot dogs at home.

Once I cleaned up, I had to pry Summer out of her chair so we could take the Model Y to Superfast and finally fix the piece of the bumper that was out of place. I was right, and it was relatively easy to do, and it should have been done the day of the accident to prevent further damage to the paint.

We took a moment and let the car drive us around town to cool down from my frustrations, and unboxed a couple of fun things from Amazon Vine. Julie called about an earlier text message about a loan to buy an airplane. We discussed that with a predictable tone before I finally got to wind down for bed. Eaddie came in late, as seems to be the norm. I did well to crawl into bed before ten.

High risk; No reward

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Let’s Carve a Smile on that Face

It was a quiet, slow drive in today. I had a little note from Randy in my chair, thanking me for being a part of the team. I figure he was required to write it, but it was nice all the same, and the words felt genuine because they mirrored the comments he’s made to me ever since I started.

The guys came and went, but mostly went, leaving me alone for lunch. I went to Rally’s and had a pretty disappointing burger because they were out of bacon without any recourse for my prepaid online order. I ate it at my desk and waited for others to come around.

Randy texted and asked me to take care of a printer issue upstairs, so I rebuilt that from scratch. The HP printer has an incredibly annoying requirement to read a PIN from a hidden label inside the machine in order to get to the remote settings. It was clear that the initial deployment wasn’t done correctly, or at least not completely. She shouldn’t have any more issues now though.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as we tackled various puzzles. I left a little bit late, and traffic was relatively light but unnecessarily slow. I got stuck under the speed limit for a few miles, and then got behind a gravel truck that was spewing pebbles through Conway.

Eaddie and Eli were practicing their instruments when I got home. I immediately took the dogs out for their run, ran through my parents’ yard, around the basin, and back home. They did pretty well and got their hot dogs afterward. Then I jumped right into making burritos for dinner.

I got pretty heated at Summer and the kids after I called to them several times. Evidently it’s my fault for not explaining to them that I won’t call them unless I want them to come to me. Nobody offered to help; nobody said they were on the way; nobody said thanks; nobody told me to pound sand.

I ate and excused myself to try and wrap up the rest of my evening. Dad eventually showed up to eat, and then we got to carving pumpkins. The mallet and “cookie cutters” I got from Amazon Vine were ridiculed at first, but ended up being a “hit” once they started using them. They were difficult to extract, but with some care, they worked really well. We got everyone cleaned up and shuffled off, and I made a speed run for bed.

Burrito Stuff