Tag: frustration

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The Crocodile in the Room

I switched back to five day weeks today, just because I assumed I was supposed to. I took the opportunity to sleep in just a few short minutes, but then still had to get to work before eight. I didn’t have enough time to stop for coffee, but luckily they had breakfast for us with some coffee and an assortment of other drinks as well. I ate in the cafeteria by myself with my laptop, though I could have just as easily taken it to my office. Then I took my things to the auditorium where I ended up having to loan my laptop to the superintendent and anyone else that wanted to present, because the ancient laptop they had for the stage was just a piece of junk.

I was on stage to help for just a bit, and then spent the rest of his speech in the sound booth upstairs. I came down afterward and spent some time in my office through lunch, when they brought an assortment of Subway sandwiches. They weren’t bad, especially for free.

Blake came and prompted me after lunch so I could go present after him. I don’t know if anyone really expected me to have a presentation ready, but I did my best to put one together in a very short period of time. I thought I could go into it confidently, but of course I started melting as soon as I was on the spot. It actually went reasonably well, with teachers nodding in approval as I called the district out for their lack of accountability when handling students with devices. I tried to signal that administration would have our backs in the future, specifically so it would be solely on them if the failings continued into my watch.

The afternoon was a bit more loose, and Kim disappeared for a while. I’ve been disappointed that she’s just been waiting for me to start wiring carts, but it’s on me for not leading by example already. There’s just so much that she can’t do, and yet she’s waiting for me to help with the things she should be able to do.

I still left a little late, but not much over a full day. I went home and fixed my garage door sensor, which broke off of the wall when I manually opened the door yesterday. Luckily I found the two sharp screws in the driveway and under my tire, not having punctured anything. As soon as that was back together, I headed up to Summer’s where she and Eaddie had dinner waiting.

Summer has been trying to use up some of the food we’ve had in the freezer for a long time, and this time she boiled a bunch of chicken thighs for tacos. I tried to be positive, but was immediately disgusted by the sight and the taste of it all. I had two tacos and then tried to stop, but gave in to one more after feeling angry and hungry. After all of the cooking shows, the best she could do was boil chicken, and then throw out the liquid that would have actually made decent broth. I took a moment to cool down, and then talked to her about it afterward. I appreciated the gesture, but grew tired of the spectacular failures.

Later on, Eaddie and I went to Freddy’s to pick up some free custard for National Frozen Custard Day. I was a little skittish at first to place three free orders, but of course none of the minimum wage employees cared enough to even acknowledge our arrival. We scooped up our custards from the freezer and left.

I ate two bites and put the rest away, deathly afraid of what the dairy would do to my insides. The girls wound down quickly, and then we were all off to bed.

…with gently smiling jaws!

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Too Much Milling About

I got up with the girls this morning, but then napped for a little bit longer before going home to shower. I planned to take some Ridgewood Brothers BBQ to the mill as a gesture of goodwill since I still hadn’t actually accepted their job offer yet. Gary didn’t answer my call, but then responded to my text to say that they ended up filling the position earlier this week. I was pretty upset, but it wasn’t much of a surprise after all the time I had wasted since the original offer. Part of me thinks I should have just left the school without any qualms, since I had no evidence that the superintendent was actually putting forth any effort to increase my pay. Maybe he has, but he’s certainly not any good at communicating his intent.

Around that time, Eaddie finished at band practice. I told her I was free for lunch, so she came to pick me up and we went to Ridgewood ourselves. She made me get the two meat plate because she wanted a bite of some ribs, so I wasn’t quite as satisfied with my meal as I usually am. Then we went back to my house to get my car, but ended up leaving it there to stay on the charger.

As we left, I noticed she had things strewn all around the car, and my lip balm had been tipped up on its side, leaking out all over the place. Fortunately there was a removable rubber tray and it wasn’t terribly difficult to clean up. I was mostly upset that my lip balm was wasted all because the girls couldn’t pay attention to what the hell they were doing in my car.

When we got back to the house, I sat and played 20 Minutes Till Dawn on my phone. I brought my little 8BitDo controller, which made the game a lot more playable. Summer eventually made it home, but didn’t want to get back out. Eaddie and I went back to Ridgewood to try their pork belly pops and some brickle bars. We were in and out, but then got stopped by a train for several minutes as it went back and forth in front of us.

We loved the porksicles, and the desserts were great too. Then I laid in Summer’s lap while she watched TV, and played more of my new game until bedtime.

I like to think I would have been less happy there anyway.

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Three Early Five Me

Julie finally fell asleep last night after screaming at me for an hour about how early she had to get up. I showered at night so I could just jump out of bed at 3:15, giving me 45 minutes to do any last-minute packing, and then we were off to the airport. There wasn’t really any traffic because of how early it was, and we ended up waiting at the gate for a couple hours before boarding. The trip back to Fayetteville was even faster than the trip up, at about an hour and 15 minutes.

We got to the car and headed toward home, stopping at a Sam’s Club and then a Vietnamese place called TyPHOon for lunch. The phở was pretty good, but the bánh mì was really lean on filling. From there, we made it to Ozark so Dad could take over driving from Julie. I just played my Steam Deck the entire way.

Once home, I unpacked and decompressed for just a little while before heading up to Summer’s. Eaddie has been driving herself around in the Murano, so I guess I’ll be taking the Model 3 up there overnight now. I should be able to charge up fast enough in the morning while I shower, to keep up with my usage throughout the day.

Summer made a turkey breast in the slow cooker, along with mashed potatoes and broccoli salad. I ended up taking over the gravy, which turned out super salty from saving all of the drippings. I kept trying to fall asleep after that, so I popped an iron pill and went to bed early.

Oh, man.

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Fish and Family

We slept in a little bit today, but the fire alarm went off shortly after I got out of bed. Mom and Dad evacuated, but Julie and I never got to that point. I got dressed and picked up some breakfast to bring back to the room, and then went down for some oatmeal once my parents were ready to eat. We killed a bit of time in our hotel room afterward, and it was all I could do to mask the loud TV with my headphones until we were ready to leave.

Somebody found a different boat tour with a paddleboat instead, and we met everyone there for a 45 minute ride down the river. It wasn’t terribly hot out, and we saw a bald eagle in a tree on the edge of the water. When we finished the tour, we headed straight to Two Brothers Roundhouse for a distillery tour and tasting.

By the time we got there, I needed the drinks. It was like competing for oxygen in the car. It was a neat building that used to be a turning station for trains. A couple of the spirits were really good, and after a slightly extended tour with the bar manager, we found a table at the restaurant for an early dinner.

The food was really good, and we had some great conversations. We parted ways with Aunt Diane, Brandan, and Nicolle, and the rest of us went to a downtown area in Geneva for some ice cream at a Kilwins and a brief walk to another chocolate store before we headed back to our cars. We said our goodbyes, and made our way back to the hotel so Julie could get her beauty rest.

I’m still waiting to be impressed by how quickly you can fall asleep and quit bitching at me.

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Switching Cart Wheels

I had a Soylent today for the first time in a while, and it served to keep me going. I spent the morning tinkering with the switch, and learned that link aggregation set at the core was preventing our downstream switch from talking. Once I had that fixed, I was able to get the fieldhouse working again, and spent some more time factory resetting the old fieldhouse switch. Once I had that done, I felt like I really showed some ability to some of those guys. Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like they’ll be doing anything to keep me around, and I hate that because I really love the job.

Kim came in and needed some help with a printer at the elementary. Then I drove us to Plainview to dig out some nasty carts. We found just enough for what we needed, so hopefully they’re workable. A few had broken wheels or doors, but we won’t really know until next week. It’s seeming more and more like we just won’t start school prepared.

I ended up leaving a little bit early so I could meet the girls at UEC to see Barbie. I stopped at Taco John’s for a little bit to eat first, since I was pretty hungry. Then I made it to the movie just in time to find a seat at the back of the floor section. I got us some “free” popcorn, and we really enjoyed the movie. I wished they had made the movie a little bit less inappropriate, but it really was a steady stream of laughs. It wasn’t until the very end that things got a little drawn out and weird.

After the movie, we went to my parents’ house so the girls could see what plants needed watering. Mom invited a little coworker over for dinner, and Julie was already there making rolls to take back to Kevin. I had a few myself, and then we headed home.

Eaddie did a great job driving across town in the dark, first with Summer to get her car from my house, and then with me to get back home. It was a bit sticky and hot in the house, but we settled in quickly. Summer went to bed while Eaddie stayed up to chat with me for quite awhile. I showed her the intro to 2001: A Space Odyssey that Barbie parodied. Then we went outside to listen to the super loud mockingbird in the yard for a bit before coming back inside where I showed her the original King’s Quest game. For some reason I couldn’t find a version online that had the bird sound effect in the background, but I thought it would be funny to teach the mockingbird a new tune. That may be a project for later.

Cause actually, my job is just “beach.”

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The Smell of Sports in the Morning

I was a little early this morning, so I took it easy going in to work. I got hungry pretty early after having an upset stomach all day, so luckily I had a leftover breakfast croissant in the refrigerator. It wasn’t long before I got a couple visitors, and I felt relatively helpful. Then Todd came in to take me out to the fieldhouse so we could check out the switch. All the lights were on, but nobody was home. We ended up taking it back to my office so I could troubleshoot it.

I couldn’t find a USB to serial adapter in my office, but I eventually made my way down to the core closet and found one. By the time I made it back, I realized the switch hadn’t actually been provisioned in the system yet. It wasn’t even the MAC address I was expecting, but then Todd came back through at the end of the day and showed me the bricked one in the box. After the new switch was updated, we took it back down to the fieldhouse but still didn’t have any luck. We ultimately decided it could be a problem for Future Michael.

I got home a little bit early since we gave up, and went to my parents’ house for some phở. I didn’t stick around super long because I had to wash my car, and then I made it up to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie tried mowing during the day, but didn’t get very far before a guy came by to refill the refrigerant on their air conditioner. Hopefully now they can avoid the $300 electricity bills.

Someone’s not good at being in charge.

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Dairyère

The inspector texted back last night, so I scheduled the inspection for Wednesday. Summer was stressing a little bit about moving, which didn’t help my own stress levels. It’s a lot of money and a lot of interest with very little buffer if things go wrong, and they always do. I don’t want to go into debt for an even longer amount of time, since it’ll already be years before her student loans are gone. All of those concerns were compounded by the fact that I may just go absolutely crazy trying to cohabitate with them. It’s completely different when I can’t leave to go home somewhere else.

Summer left for a while, and I intended to go home fairly early to try and mow, but Eaddie didn’t get out of bed until Summer got back home. I went home even later, making it back just in time for dinner. Summer made shrimp Alfredo and I went outside to grill the sweet corn I got from the school board meeting. The pasta ended up soupy, and the corn ended up just plain tasteless. Eaddie made some brownies afterward that were pretty good, but I didn’t care much for the peanut butter mix-in.

We wrapped up the evening with some Modern Family. Julie called a couple times to book tickets for Uncle Rich’s funeral, and I ended up getting sick from the Alfredo sauce and little scoop of ice cream. I was in pain for the rest of the evening.

Nothing this year has gone according to any kind of plan.

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Oo-De-lally, Oo-De-lally

Even after getting to bed near three in the morning, I was wide awake before nine. I’m dead all week, and then fine all weekend. I got up and sent a text to Alisha to try and schedule a time to look at the house on Sherwood. They added some pictures of the kitchen, and we were interested enough to have a closer look.

I had a burger for brunch and then went home to clean up before. Then I went back for the girls before meeting my dad and Alisha at the house. Dad went to the house next door at first, which happened to be Kevin’s and his parents’ old house. Alisha’s kids were there running all around the place, but they weren’t too bad. We really liked the quirky layout of the house. The garage was a little small, and the whole lot itself was pretty tiny, but that just meant there was less to mow.

Everything was pretty soggy after the heavy rains, but even before that, the shop out back had a pretty extensive water leak. The ceiling and the floor were both really bad, and particularly squishy in a few places. They had it set up like a little apartment though, and if it were a little larger with a powered garage door, it would have been exactly what I wanted for the motorcycles. Dad also spotted some rotting wood on the fascia and soffit, but it may have been from before the roof was replaced.

We went by my parents’ house for a few minutes after we finished at the house, and then we continued back to Summer’s to start cooking some ribs. I started my smoker tube and got the ribs seasoned to slow smoke, and then Summer left for the gym. Eaddie hung out with me in the dining room after Vicky dropped off some snacks for her. I baked potatoes for dinner, and then we ate a little while after Summer got home.

Sometime after Summer went to bed, Aunt Beth started texting about Autumn, saying they were trying to get her into college, and scolding her for dropping her health insurance because they would have to pay for it. Summer got incredibly frustrated but wouldn’t respond, so I ended up doing it for her. Not one person in that family knows a damn thing about being a parent, and it shows in every single one of the kids they collected. The entire thing is a hot, dysfunctional mess, and we don’t want anything to do with it.

Golly, what a day!

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GAM and Cheese

I left a little early today and stopped at Burger King for breakfast. This time I played my order online and picked up at the counter, and it worked out way better. I ran into Tom, who was chatting with a couple other guys. He asked about the new job and about Gary. It wasn’t long before I was out of there and on my way. The rest of the drive was relatively slow behind some folks just taking a leisurely drive in the morning.

Nicky came in with an even bigger stack of paper with things needing asset tags, but I didn’t even touch them. I spent most of the entire day trying to figure out Google Apps Manager. It looked like we had several installations of it somewhere, but I couldn’t find credentials for it and I ended up just reinstalling it on my own. This time I’ll have to document it for the next guy.

A few people came in throughout the day, but it wasn’t too distracting. I mostly had my head in some music and just kept busy. The drive home was hot and boring, and then I headed up to Summer’s and finished up the fish tacos. After Summer ate some leftover spaghetti, the three of us watched a few episodes of Modern Family. Then it was off to bed for everyone.

Subprime Day

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All in Time

I woke up hungry this morning, so I made more ham, egg, and cheese biscuits for everyone while they were in bed. When the girls got around, we sat down to watch Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Then I went home to clean up so we could go see The Dial of Destiny at UEC in the afternoon. Meanwhile, the girls got out and picked up stuff to make fish tacos for dinner. Summer was still prepping stuff when I got back to their house, so we ended up going to a showtime an hour later than we planned.

I thought the movie was pretty good, or at least better than the last one. I still felt sleepy through parts of it though, which made me believe I’m just not as interested in those types of movies. I kept wanting to fall asleep through every single one of them, and being in a theater was no exception.

We made it back to the house and I grilled some tilapia for the tacos. Then we went downtown to watch the fireworks. People were parked all over the place on the north side of the tracks, so we parked at Laws’ and just walked to the corner to sit by the Burris Memorial Plaza. The girls went first while I played on my Steam Deck. Eaddie’s friend Eli met them there. When I finally came out to join them, Marcia and her family were sat right next to them and called out to me as I walked by. We briefly caught up before I sat down next to Summer, and we watched the show. The girls enjoyed it, but without music and with relatively low mortar fire, I was super underwhelmed. It felt like a big residential show more than something a city would put on.

The girls went to bed pretty quickly after we got back to the house. I finished up as fast as I could, since I’d have to go back to work for the first time in over a week. Three days until the weekend, and I already feel like I need the break.

Shut Down