Tag: frustration

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Greyvy

Summer was snoring pretty badly this morning, so I got up and went to the couch to start my morning. When she got up, she started cooking sausage gravy and I came out to cook eggs for breakfast. I got frustrated when she muddled packaged gravy mix with the sausage, which ended up being way too rich and sweet, so I added flour and water to even things out.

I was a little cranky and depressed for the rest of the day, so I just tried to make some space. I took a shower while Summer went to the gym, and once she got back to clean house, I went to the old house to try and pack up some more stuff. I ended up spending most of my time just going through papers and things, throwing out anything that was irrelevant or out of date.

I took a quick break to run to Harbor Freight, but they were out of the free reach tools that I wanted. It would have been nice to pick up trash while on the Onewheel, though I don’t actually see myself riding too many places where that’s a problem anyway.

When I made it back home, the girls hadn’t eaten anything, so I deep fried some French fries and warmed up the old leftover steak. We really should have committed to cleaning that up over a week ago, because it wasn’t good tonight.

We’ll do better tomorrow.

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The New Tesla Bolt

It was chilly and rainy again today. I thought I might have the day to myself when Kim started to leave in the morning, but then she came back and stayed the day. I was able to focus on my SCCM server and got my SQL database set up, and SCCM installed. I almost finished configuring it, but it was getting late and Summer was making dinner.

I got back into town and parked in the garage at the old house, and I heard a clank of something metal hitting the ground. I searched all around the car, and then finally looked underneath it to find a nearly 6-inch bolt laying on the ground right in the center of my car. I backed out of the garage to pick it up, and called Summer to have her meet me at Superfast. I got into a bay and went down into the pit to find that two bolts were missing, and Summer said it looked like something else broke some plastic around my rear-passenger wheel area. I couldn’t really tell because I was afraid of getting oil all over my nice clothes.

Without a special socket with six lobes to put the bolt back in, we packed up and headed home to eat. Eaddie had Eli over, but they had already eaten while Summer and I were looking at the Model 3. I started a load of laundry and then sat down to eat with Summer while the kids watched Mulan. Then I made a pot of rice pudding with the leftover milk that my parents left behind.

Chevy Model 3?

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Level Up

I made myself get out of bed early today, but Summer was the one that wanted to make breakfast. She eventually got up, but then had a long phone call with Noah before she started cooking. We ended up having eggs and corned beef hash for lunch. Afterward she went to the gym while Eaddie played flute. I got distracted by phone puzzles.

When Summer got home, she wanted to rearrange a bunch of the stuff that I had moved in, but we didn’t really accomplish putting anything away where it needed to go. I wasn’t really thrilled by any of the “cleaning” that happened, but I didn’t do any of it myself either.

Later in the evening, Summer decided she wanted to try the Onewheel, so we went outside after it had stopped raining and I walked back and forth down the street with her. She did pretty well, but relied on leaning on me too much. Once she started to stand up on her own, she was able to turn around a couple times. It got chilly pretty quick though after all the rain, and we came back inside.

The girls wanted me to handle dinner, but didn’t want to give any feedback on what to make. I ate some food in the afternoon because I got hungry, so I wasn’t famished by dinner time. I ended up going to Zaxby’s and Burger King to redeem a couple of deals, and we all shared that before bed.

Lost a another weekend.

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Broken Management

Today was more spinning wheels. Kim left for a while in the morning with a couple of the maintenance guys to bring some books from their new house to the superintendent’s house. It really seems like nobody cares how little work is done. Maybe I’m wrong for trying to change their mindset. It’s upsetting because that’s kind of my speed, but I also want to learn and grow and improve, and I just feel like I’m the only one actively working toward that.

PRTG showed a meltdown during testing in the morning, and a bunch of my switches showed offline. They came back up with different management IPs, and I’m not even sure where to look for logs. The controller VM probably needs an update pretty badly, and I’ll finally be ready to do that over the summer, if I’m still around. There’s only one person of any importance when it comes to the subject of my salary, and every time I talk to him, I hear about how he doesn’t understand anything about what I do.

Johnny called me in the afternoon and I talked to him for a while about how absolutely broken Lamar is. He says their lead guy knows what he’s doing, but based on the fact that they aren’t automating any rostering data, I can’t imagine he’s doing much. I actually spent a while on the phone throughout the afternoon, because I had to call Steven at CDW a couple times to get the invoice we needed for Jaime. Then I got a call from an auditor at the end of the day, who seemed more concerned about making sure I passed than I did. I told him I wasn’t afraid to fail, just to show somebody how broken things are. Audits should be frequent and unannounced for such mismanaged organizations.

I sped home, grabbed a few things from the old house, and then took a fast ride around the block on the Onewheel. Clockwork, the ratty looking orange cat, let me pet him a bit. The lame one wasn’t around, but at least there was still some food. Once I got back home, I warmed up some leftovers for dinner. Eaddie came home feeling sick and went to bed super early. Summer got home from work early and was watching Moana, and then went to bed early herself.

I think this weekend is for résumé tweaking and applications.

Aim high, and try to miss the foot.

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Resume Testing

They started interim testing today, which meant I wouldn’t be getting much work done the rest of the week. We started off with a bunch of people coming to the office looking for loaner devices and chargers, and we had to turn them away. I even got a little snippy with Denice when she started mouthing about their inability to manage an effective take-home deployment. It seems like nobody wants to hear the fact that accountability and consistency is paramount. Casey came in and borrowed a couple devices, and though I have no clue what I could have said to offend her, apparently she felt the need to make a complaint that earned me a phone call to “put a smile on that bearded face.”

I found four higher-paying tech jobs on the first page of Indeed, for which I would be more than qualified.

Kim ended up leaving after doing about zero work for the hour she was there, because she had a bunch of people coming to look at her house. It would have been quiet, had it not been for the testing traffic and some students coming by in the afternoon for help. I talked to Denice for a bit after work, and at least then she admitted to being overly-stressed about testing, and I think we left on good terms.

On the way home, just as I was pulling up to the stoplight in Dardanelle, I heard an incredibly loud “kerCHUNK” that sounded like it came from around the rear-passenger wheel. It was loud and violent enough that I swore it shook, or at least vibrated the car. I pulled right over into the gas station parking lot and walked over to the road, where I saw nothing. There was nothing on the dash cam footage, and there was no damage to the car. I couldn’t tell what it was, and I made it back home without further incident, so there’s no telling what happened.

Summer was at a meeting with the Arkansas Tech Career Center, and Eaddie was playing in the pep band for a basketball game, so I went to the old house to feed the fish, then to Walmart to use a coupon for some free Dawn. Then I grabbed some tacos and made it home to eat before taking the Onewheel to my parents’ house to check on the cat.

I took some dry cat food to the neighbor across the street, who reminded me a bit of the librarian at school. Then I rode around for about five miles, practicing some tight turns and deep carves. I felt pretty confident, even with my achy legs and feet. Then I tried riding switch, and my muscle memory was breaking everything. Evidently my riding style is heavily directional, and I got the wobbles almost instantly every time. I kept at it though, and kept switching back and forth mid-ride. I never got any better, and then ended up falling when I tried to do a 180º pivot, and banged up my left elbow. I laid my head back on the street and sighed for a moment before packing it up for the night.

Summer got home shortly after that, followed by Eaddie a little while later. I got a little more sore as the night went on, but was ambitious enough to swap out one of the smoke detectors for a Nest Protect.

All interviews are just for practice until you take the job.

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Documents for Their Documents

I had a slow start this morning, grabbed a free cappuccino, and strolled into work a couple minutes late after fighting some dumb traffic. Denise was actually in her office all day because they’re actually doing testing, and I think that makes four whole days this calendar year. Kim was pretty chatty all day, and I struggled to deal with all the noise.

Lunch time came and went, and we kept having people in and out of the office, which further frustrated me. I spent most of the day trying to spin up SCCM, but it seemed far less than straightforward. There are so many pieces to set up manually, and for some reason I thought it would be a click-through install.

When quitting time finally arrived, I headed toward home, stopping at McDonald’s for a cheap Big Mac before going by the old house to feed the fish, and finally making it home to where Summer had been cooking dinner for a while. I changed clothes and rode to my parents’ house on the Onewheel to pick up some things, but ended up leaving more than I took because the things kept adding up to more than what I wanted to haul in my backpack.

I headed back home before dark, and Summer had baked ribs and potatoes, and pan-fried some Brussels sprouts. Eaddie made it home late for dinner, and then everyone wound down pretty quickly. I was tired and uneasy, but eventually made it to bed.

Settled down.

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That Last 92%

I kept getting behind slow people to and from work today, but the weather was nice and the clean acceleration for passing was nicer. Kim walked in right behind me, but spent a good portion of the day out of the office somewhere else around on campus, as far as I knew. I spent most of my day behind emails, trying to wrap up Jaime’s nonsense. It became more and more evident that nobody there really knew how the grants were supposed to work, and it really seems like the district is just sort of winging it.

In the middle of Kim’s lunch duty, she stuck her head in the door with a couple disposable trays of food and said she didn’t want any of it. Evidently they made extras for kids, but nobody wanted them and they were just going to throw them away. That meant early, free lunch for me. I didn’t get my usual salad, and the food was cold and dried out, but it tasted alright.

The afternoon was fairly quiet, again with Kim out of the office for a large portion of the day. Most everyone was gone by the time I left, and I raced home to load a few more things into the car. Doug caught me outside and talked to me for a little bit, and then I made it home to start some turkey soup.

As soon as everything was in the Instant Pot, I headed out on the Onewheel. I felt fairly confident on it today, and went up and around the hill to swing by my parents’ house. When I got back home, I drove to the Neighborhood Market for some noodles. Just next to the egg noodles, I saw a package of gnocchi that looked pretty good, so I decided to throw them in the pot too.

I was a little worried, but the broth actually came out really good. It was probably the best turkey soup I’ve ever made. I was worried about not having enough meat in it, but it was fine. The gnocchi was really good too. Even Eaddie liked it, even though it wasn’t a full multi-course meal.

How am I the expert here?

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Mental Health Work

I had some coffee this morning and then got into PRTG again. Maybe I felt like I had been too productively lately, but I just wanted to work on something for me. I think I got it looking pretty good, and even got a little now-playing ribbon for my music. That’s not to say that I didn’t do anything important. I cleared a troublesome log in VMware. That fixed the error, but not the root of the problem. There will be time for that tomorrow.

I stopped by McDonald’s on the way home for some free fries, and loaded up another trunk full of stuff to take to the house. Then I started to go out on the Onewheel when Summer texted that she wanted fried chicken for dinner. She agreed to actually go out instead of just coming straight home, so I made it around the block and headed back home to pick her up across town. I nearly ate a face full of sand at the top of the hill, but was able to hit the ground running as the board tumbled end-for-end behind me. I bruised the bottom of my foot a little bit, but not too bad.

Eaddie was out with friends again, so Summer and I went to Zaxby’s and hung out there for a little while. Then we went to Walmart for some stuff so I could finally make turkey soup. When I dropped her off at the carwash, we found where she had hit something in the road, and it gouged the rocker panel trim on the right side in front of her rear wheel.

We made it home and wound down for the night. Eaddie made it home late and talked to Summer for a while before coming to me with a W-9 from school for some reason. She couldn’t even assemble a sentence as to why she needed it. All I heard was something about “superintendent” and “National History Day.” We didn’t get paid to take the kids on the trip. We hadn’t even been reimbursed like we were promised, and they wanted this form filled out overnight with barely any explanation. It sounded fishy to me.

Needs more maths done.

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Nearly Drained

I woke up early and had a bowl of cereal this morning. The girls both slept really late. I ran the sump periodically throughout the day, and it ran for shorter and shorter amounts of time. I doubt the yard will dry out with only a week without rain, so maybe this week I can run a trench through the yard for drainage. I wouldn’t mind making a rain garden with some deep-rooted plants, but that will take a lot more time that I don’t really have.

Summer got up and went to Morrilton to deliver some tax paperwork for her employees there while Eaddie did some homework. I cooked a chicken pot pie in the toaster oven while I took a shower, but it really didn’t satisfy my hunger at all. I ended up eating some leftover turkey and mashed potatoes as well.

When Summer got back home, we went to wash my car and then to the old house to feed the fish and pick up a few things. Then we went to Walmart to shop around a bit and get some dinner. She decided on spaghetti, and we headed home so she could cook.

There was still a little daylight left, so I went out on the Onewheel. I stopped by my parents’ house for a couple minutes, and then went up and down the hill around the neighborhood. It was way better now that the roads were mostly dry.

I made it back a little before dinner was ready, and started unpacking the things I brought home. We ate and talked a bit, and then everyone eventually made it to bed.

But I see the birds in the sky, they’re high flying.

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Regionaires

Eaddie left for all-region early this morning. Summer was out of bed super early after a work call, and I woke up pretty early myself, but laid in bed for a little while longer, unable to go back to sleep. I eventually got around and cleaned the kitchen a bit while Summer went to the gym. She didn’t stay long because she had to get Eli’s boutonniere from the flower shop. The kids came over around lunch time but weren’t hungry, and I eventually had a shower and had to drain the basement again.

We picked up my dad for the concert, and made it plenty early for the percussion ensemble before Eaddie’s band. The whole thing was about half an hour behind, so we were worried about the kids having to rush through pictures and dinner before the dance. We dropped Dad off at his house and then the kids met us at home to get ready.

We took a bunch of pictures, and then Eaddie refused to wear her fancy new dress to dinner or the dance, and wore her band dress instead. Once they left for dinner, I finished the eggplant soup. Then Summer and I went home so she could get ready to chaperone the dance. I stayed home and tinkered a bit, but didn’t actually get as much accomplished as I had hoped before everyone got back home.

The kids watched a little bit of TV before Eaddie took Eli home. Summer was already in bed by then, and I eventually wound down around midnight.

If you’re sumping rain, in your neighborhood; who you gonna call?