Tag: frustration

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Along for the Ride

I picked Dad up this morning and we headed to Tulsa, stopping in Van Buren for a charge and some breakfast pizza. We got there about half an hour early and checked in, but they didn’t offer a loaner, and the demo vehicle I requested wasn’t available until later in the afternoon. Dad and I waited in the lobby for hours and waited for the estimated completion time of 1:30, which turned into 2:45. I ended up asking for any demo vehicle at all, and we got a Model 3 to take to the 50’s Diner for lunch.

I had a Monte Cristo and Dad got a burger. The onion rings were different and better than I expected as thin, small rings with only a light batter. As we were finishing, I got a call asking to come back and demonstrate the passenger seat popping for the tech, even though I had showed Blake, the service advisor, when we checked in.

The popping had quit, but the seat controls had phantom actions that weren’t intended. When moving straight back, the backrest would recline a bit intermittently. The tech said he couldn’t do anything more about it until they released a new firmware for the controls, which didn’t make any sense to me. We also couldn’t get a confirmation that they would cover the paint issue, so we ended up waiting until the car was finished around five o’clock.

We did get to demo the new Model Y Juniper, and it was quite nice. It did feel tighter and more refined than Summer’s. We also got to demo a Cybertruck, and Dad even drove that one. We only took it around the block, but I liked it well enough. If I wanted a larger vehicle, I would totally drive one.

They finally finished around five, and Mykel confirmed that they would cover the paint issue under warranty. They also said the air conditioner was overfilled by about 200 grams of refrigerant. Hopefully fixing that will make it cool better.

We headed home, and the car did great both ways. We didn’t even have to stop to charge on the way home, so I took Dad home and then went home to find some leftovers and a drink before bed.

I told you once, you fooled me twice.

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Call Me Ishmael

Today was a lonely day at work. Kyle showed up and sat at his desk for a few minutes like he sometimes does, but otherwise I was in the corner by myself all day. Randy was somewhere else, but messaged me to get a server going for Go Phish, as well as FortiAuthenticator. Go Phish was deceptively easy to set up, because it also requires another domain from which to launch phishing campaigns. It seems less effective to only have one consistent domain from which to phish your own team.

Summer came to get me for lunch and we went to Red Lobster. The food tasted good, but she had a rough time afterward. I didn’t feel great, but I think it was just too greasy. I’ve been craving some clean food lately, and that wasn’t it.

The afternoon was quiet, and the old men continued wasting their time, which only frustrated me further. I had a dozy ride home with a touch of anxiety that had been around all day, and eventually went to my parents’ house with Muad’Dib for bún bò Huế. After we ate, I took him on the rest of his shortened, hot walk. I let him play in the creek and then had to give him a proper bath when we got back home.

Dad wanted to open the pool, so I had the kids meet me over there. They were supposed to go to a movie, but they said Autumn stood them up again. That was frustrating for multiple reasons, including the fact that she never replied to me when I initially asked them for help. They did end up helping uncover the pool though, and then I headed back home to crash.

From hell’s heart I stab at thee!

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Put the Past Away

DNS didn’t actually scavenge anything because it only triggered the aging, so we won’t know for a couple weeks if it actually worked. I guess that’s fine, since graduation was tonight and we won’t have people on site for it to matter. I got back into SCCM to try and clean up the stuck update, and found the right combination and order of commands to fix it, so I was able to re-run the newest update.

Summer was in Little Rock for her own meeting, so we met at Red Lobster for unlimited soup and salad. Just as I parked, I got a call from Bitec to schedule a Teams interview. We ate, and then she came back to the office with me to do some work until her surgery consultation. I guess Randy was in a bad mood, because he kind of flipped out at me when I said I invited her in, but he mellowed out pretty quickly.

Just before the appointment, Summer headed out to find her appointment, but she didn’t actually know where she was going. She got to the address she had in the calendar entry and discovered for the first time that it was just a residential home, and called me crying that she didn’t know where to go. I had already left too, but pulled over at Franklin’s to talk to her. I just told her to call the doctor and see if she could find who they referred her to, since she didn’t even have the business name.

After some Googling and a bit of guesswork, she ended up getting a call from the CARTI Cancer Center, asking if she was going to make her appointment. They guided her in and I met her there after I went to the Baptist Health Breast Center by mistake. We went in for the consult and scheduled an appointment to remove the atypical cellular mass, so that was pretty good news. It didn’t feel like either of us were hugely relieved, but that was probably due to the continued confusion and frustration over the process up to this point.

We finally headed to Conway to Supercharge, and went in to Five Guys to share some fries. She wasn’t hungry, but I decided to try a hot dog that was pretty okay. I still think they’re hugely overpriced, but the location was right. Then we headed home.

As I got to the Pottsville offramp, there was an overturned semi blocking the entire right lane from the westbound onramp. The car in front of me made a full stop before finally pulling over, and it looked to have just happened because someone else had pulled over and was running up to the windshield to check on the driver. There were enough people pulled over that I knew I couldn’t provide any additional help, so I got out of the way.

When I got home, the kids were assembling the headboard I got for Eaddie. I took Muad’Dib out for his first run in a few days, which he enjoyed. We visited Dad, and then I left him outside when we got home, since he took a bath in the creek. I took care of a few Vine things, had an anxiety attack, and then laid down with Summer for a bit before I had to get up and complete my tasks before bed.

You don’t have to say it again. I heard it the first time.

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Rollin’ in the Deep

Muad’Dib slept well with us last night, and I think Eaddie even let him into her room for a bit. More than once, I lied quietly awake while he and Summer snored. When morning came, she got up and made what amounted to a pot of bacon-fried rice and eggs. I wished she had just done what I told her and used Ro-tel, so it would have been a little lighter than what she made by toasting sesame seeds and onions in sesame oil in addition to the existing bacon grease.

Eaddie left pretty early to spend the day in Maumelle with Eli’s family. Summer went to work and then to the gym for a while. I cleaned up a bit at home before Summer got back and finished her cake. Then we gave Muad’Dib another bath, hoping I could take him to my parents’ house with less protest.

He took his bath reasonably well, but it’s proven nearly impossible to stop him from shaking water everywhere once he gets out of the tub. I took him outside to blow-brush dry, and then I brought him inside to vacuum out some more hair.

As the evening approached, Summer thought we could walk him between the raindrops. I wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t rain harder, so I let her walk him to my parents’ house, and I drove the cake over. Just after I got there, she said she needed a poop bag, so I dropped off the cake and went back to scoop the poop, It wasn’t until I got back to my parents’ house that I realized the cake leaked fruit goop all over her passenger seat. There was a pool of it all along the rear seam of the seat, and all I could do was hope that it didn’t seep further into the cushion.

Mom refused to let Muad’Dib in the house, so we let him sit out back while we ate rolls. Afterward, we had Summer’s incredibly dense cake, and her decision not to use powdered sugar in the buttercream icing made it crunchy in a bad way.

We drove home for the evening and I finally got Muad’Dib to eat some of his own food that he’d been turning his nose up all weekend. The kids got home late and hung out for a while, and I tried to go to bed early.

Stability in Misery

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Slippery When Whet

I was up several times last night, either on my own, or with Muad’Dib. He did pretty well to sleep with us all night, and I felt better confining him to the bedroom. I wish Eaddie had left her room open so he could go in there with her, because otherwise I could remove the baby gate and just keep him in our bedroom alone.

We got up late and Summer made some breakfast for us while Eaddie left for church. We had a pretty quiet morning until she got back, and then Summer left for the gym. It eventually started raining and did that for most of the afternoon, but I got some laundry done and then we took a trip out in it to get some groceries for dinner.

Eaddie brought Eli and Cecilia over for dinner, and I grilled some pork steaks and burgers while Summer made rice, sweet potato, and a cake that didn’t quite get finished before the end of the night.

Smooth

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Nothing’s Permanent

I had a pretty lucid morning. I dug into DNS records and made note of anything that looked important that wasn’t set statically. It sounded like some of the others were helping Jim at the high school, but nobody said anything to me about it, so I just sat in the office with Jimmy all day, except for a trip to Taco Bell for a quick and cheap lunch.

The afternoon twitches showed up right on time, I had an anxiety attack, and I just got more and more tense as I made it home through slow traffic. I felt like every muscle in my body was just slowly bound.

Noah and Eli were over and Summer was making dinner. Chicken bits pan fried in some random bottle of sauce she bought, Brussels sprouts that were overspiced enough that Eli nearly choked out, and mashed sweet potato. Exactly what I envisioned.

After dinner, I took Muad’Dib out for a run and we did our best to dodge other dog walkers. The couple of dogs we couldn’t avoid weren’t too much trouble, so it was a good run. We visited Dad for some brushing, then got home and wound down.

That goes doubly for DNS records.

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No, I Know

Today was another day mostly on my own. I ended up going to Chipotle to pick up a burrito for lunch.

I got stuck in traffic on the way home because they had one lane closed around Menifee.

Dad took Muad’Dib out for a walk during the day, so I waited until the sun went down to take him for our run. I put together a laundry cart I got from Vine so I could give a larger one to Eaddie since she’s had trouble with hers spilling out all over the floor.

Eaddie had Maristella over later in the evening, so Summer was in bed by the time we got home. I wrapped up and went to sleep.

Ooh, bеt you’re thinking, “She’s so cool”

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Orbital Anomalies

I thought I’d go for a change and stop at McDonald’s in Atkins this morning, and I had a much better experience than I expected. It was a bright, anxious ride in to work just to learn that Randy was leaving at lunch. I got LAPS working on my test devices, but then struggled to choose a battle for the rest of the day.

Since I was on my own again, I just went to McDonald’s for a late lunch date with a Big Mac. It felt fittingly depressive, and then I sipped on my punch all afternoon. When I got back to the office, everyone was standing outside due to an evacuation alarm. The fire department showed up and gave the all-clear, but we never did figure out what triggered it in the first place.

I ended up working just a little bit late since I would be meeting Mitch for dinner. He said he had some extra crew in town that was going to grill at the hotel, so I figured I could grab some steaks on the way over. I stopped to charge for a few minutes outside the Baptist Health building, but it ran even slower than a regular outlet. I finally went to Walmart and picked up a couple T-bones, some chips and dips, and a couple ears of corn, and went to Mitch’s hotel to wait for him.

They ended up having outlets on the outside of the building, so I charged faster there than I did at the Baptist Health chargers. Mitch showed up, went to change, then came back down and sat in my car. Evidently he changed his mind and wanted to go out, but I misread the message and bought food. We changed plans back to grill, but then he wasn’t sure when the other guys were cooking.

We ran to a gas station so he could get some beer, then went up to his room for a bit. We talked for quite a while, and I never realized he dated Rachel seriously way back in the day. He said they broke up and she turned right around and married Jacob, who later divorced and married Sarah. It felt like the layers of the Matrix were being pulled back before my eyes. It’s all a construct.

We had finally given up on cooking and I was just going to let him keep the food and go out instead, but as soon as we pulled into the Cactus Jack’s parking lot, he got a text that they were ready to grill and we headed back again. One of the other guys had the grill going, so we let him take care of the steaks. They actually turned out perfect in spite of the trouble he had with the wind blowing out the propane. It was a decent time, though Mitch had Alyssa over and it ended up being the three of us eating alone.

I got home quickly after that, stopping in Conway to charge for just a couple minutes. I couldn’t handle much more of this tiny universe. These bodies orbit much too closely.

I have Trusty Shoes

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Block Game

I was spinning pretty hard after last night, but I got out of the house and made it to work. I thought I might grab some McDonald’s for breakfast, but ended up munching on a bag of regular Cheerios instead. It was a quiet day, but I managed to fix audio drivers for Jim between getting pulled back and forth to a few other tasks. I went to McDonald’s and had lunch by myself, then fought some anxiety the rest of the afternoon. I had an attack as well, sometime in the afternoon I think.

It barely sprinkled on the way home, but it was clear enough that I could wait until later in the evening to run Muad’Dib. It was nice and cool out, so he ran pretty well. I missed a good photo opportunity when he chased some geese into the flooded pond. We visited Dad for a brush, then got home just after Summer. It was a short night after that.

An ominous landscape of never-ending calamity.

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Congraduations

We had two graduation ceremonies to attend today, so not much else to do. Summer had to go to work for a bit, and I ate some of the terrible chicken tacos she made yesterday. Then Eaddie left to meet her at Walmart to find some pantyhose, and I started getting ready for the day.

Eli’s graduation was at one, and we got there a little later than we wanted, but still plenty early to get seats by his family. Eaddie freaked out and kept rudely calling Summer on the phone when she couldn’t find her shoes or her ticket to the graduation. It ended up being a non-issue, because she just walked in and nobody said anything to her, even though Ceci and I walked back around to give her an extra ticket they had.

The ceremony was actually fairly short at about an hour, since they split the class in half. It was neat that two of Eaddie’s friends were speakers, and then the kids walked and we dismissed to find them outside. Summer kept saying she didn’t want to stick around, so I started walking back to the car, which seemed to upset her. She never came up with a plan or vocalized a desire to do anything, so it was frustrating to just hover around that many other people in the sun.

We finally made it back home and I snacked a little before we left again for Eaddie’s graduation. We had to pick up Maristella on the way, and I took them to the band room to help Eaddie get dressed. Then Summer and I went back over to the arena and saved seats for my parents, Eli, his mom, and eventually Nick just as the ceremony started. The speeches went a little better than the first time after some live practice, and the kids made it through.

We found Eaddie outside and took a bunch of pictures, and then Summer and I headed home for the night. She went to the Neighborhood Market for some soda water, and I took Muad’Dib out for a run as the sun went down. At one point he disappeared into a wooded area after something, and the shock collar seemed ineffective. He did eventually return without much fuss, and we continued through the basin for a dip, then went through the roundabout before making it to my parents’ house. He ran reasonably well the whole way. My parents weren’t home, but I stopped to brush him out before we made it home.

I put on the second episode of Resident Alien after failing to come up with anything else to do, and then Eaddie got home from her senior night just as we were wrapping up for bed.

It really just isn’t.