The Secret Life of an Alien

I had an anxiety attack in bed while I was trying to go to sleep last night, which was a rare occurrance. At least I went to bed early, and got an above-average amount of sleep. We got out of the house and tried the other McDonald’s, but still got stuck in line again. It seems to be completely luck of the draw. I took my coffee and made it to Morrilton to order a biscuit for breakfast.

It was more deep-dive into the AI exploits of the fraudster technology manager, and I am one billion percent positive that he is an alien from another planet. I have begun collecting evidence. If I disappear or am found dead, then dear reader, do not believe anything they say about me. It was no accident. They got to me, and silenced me the only way they could.

I went down to help Elizabeth with something, then took a walk with David to investigate our two fence controllers. It appeared they had blocked the safety sensors to keep the back gate open, which seems counter to any security protocol. It had clearly been that way for some time.

We went back to McDonald’s a third time for lunch and had to argue with the staff about my order. The two low-level staff were as friendly as they knew how to be, while admitting complete ignorance. The manager on duty absolutely refused to make eye contact or respond when I spoke directly to her. I wasn’t ugly in any way, and I see her five days a week, so I could not fathom the stress she was under. I was eventually fed and went back to work.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly because of how late I went to lunch. I texted Kyle since I remembered he used to work at Acxiom, and he actually replied pretty quickly. I talked to him about our resident alien, and as if by mysterious forces beyond our universe, he was actually working for the company that Brandon moved to. We shared several laughs over text throughout the evening.

Muad’Dib and I made it back to town and I ordered tickets for Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox. Then we went on a great run in the crisp air before it got dark. Summer and I ate when we got back, and then I took my car for a good washing. The new FSD release gave me all kinds of fits this morning, and even fussed quite a bit on the way home, so hopefully this helped.

I vacuumed some more to end the night, and got to sleep just a little bit early again.

⏁⊑⟒ ⌇⟒☊⍀⟒⏁ ⌰⟟⎎⟒ ⍜⎎ ⏃⋏ ⏃⌰⟟⟒⋏

Oohs and AWS

This morning was really cool out, which caused some condensation in the cabin that prevented FSD from doing its job for nearly the entire drive. Sure, Tesla can do it with pure vision, until they can’t. The rest of the morning was all support from very early on when I learned that AWS was down, causing outages across multiple systems. The most surprising of them was our in-line email filter, which was holding on to scan-to-email attachments all morning long. Everyone just moved on quietly though, unlike the schools when everyone seems to lose their shit when even something minor disrupts their routines.

We went to McDonald’s for a really quick lunch before coming back to a call about the website. There has never been a real reason for me to be there for those, but I did actually follow up with an email to answer a question afterwards. A little while later, we had cake for Joel’s birthday, and then Rhonda let me take Teddy outside with Muad’Dib. He had to stay on his leash, but they still had a ball running around like crazy.

I had an anxiety attack just before quitting time, which was a bit of odd timing for me. Then the drive home was interrupted by traffic that came to a complete stop for a moment on the Interstate. The car tried to route me off at Blackwell, but I intervened in my infinite wisdom. Fortunately it didn’t delay me terribly long, and we got to the house for a quick run before dark.

Summer was home when we got back, and we had some leftover chicken with rice before she went to bed. I did some more vacuuming, and then it was an early night to bed after having trouble sleeping the night before.

Spacey

Planner Fasciitis

We had a staff meeting first thing, so I tried to get out early and get a biscuit from McDonald’s before we hit the road. We were slightly behind after that, but it wasn’t too bad. I locked Muad’Dib up in the office, and the meeting ran pretty short. Only the operations guys really had anything to discuss. Joel did ask me to come up with a way to share my projects, so I dug through Brandon’s stuff again and discovered Microsoft Planner. It seemed easy and integrated, though not without its faults. I found out pretty quickly that it didn’t have an “undo” button, so I’ll have to be cautious with my clicks. It was also designed with some strange behaviors with text and click boxes. I spent all morning trying to square up there, and organize all of my thoughts.

We left really late for a quick lunch at McDonald’s. Service is back to being pretty terrible, but there was at least one little ray of sunshine behind the counter among the others. Back at the office, I had a pretty heavy anxiety attack, and then we finished up the afternoon so I could head toward home to help Mark with connecting his new “server.” That took a while, but they didn’t care that Muad’Dib was with me, so we just did what we could as quickly as we could.

It was already starting to get dark, so I ran Muad’Dib to my parents’ house. Dad was out chasing comets, but we saw Mom and then ran back home. I ate some leftover wings and realized I had been unintentionally dehydrating myself, which may have caused a dizzy spell. My blood pressure was okay, but I started to feel out of phase like I was going to pass out. I downed a couple tumblers of water, and things seemed better before bed.

You are aware of water at all times.

Cloud Failings

Today started out pretty early with SharePoint sync issues, which reinforced my frustrations with Microsoft cloud services. I’ve avoided OneDrive at home for so long, and the business experience is no better. Sync had broken on one of the computers downstairs, and reconnecting overwrote all local file changes with the older cloud version, which it thought was newer.

Lunch was interesting because I wasn’t the best dressed person in the Morrilton McDonald’s. There was something in the air, because it looked like there was a higher-level manager on duty, and there was actually someon walking the lobby to keep it clean. The usual staff was still just as curt with their yelling order numbers, but the food was good, and otherwise it was a decent experience.

Muad’Dib had some big zoomies to run out when we got back to the office, and fortunately it was a quick afternoon after going to lunch so late. Mark texted earlier in the day, so I called him on the drive home. Then I stopped by Julie’s house to trade a Dutch oven for a pretty loaf of sourdough. We talked for a bit before I continued on to visit my parents.

When we left there, Muad’Dib started whining and I let him out of the car to run home. He did great as I followed him in the car, and then Summer and I ate some leftover enchiladas before she wound down for bed. I opened up some Vine stuff and then continued vacuuming until I had an anxiety attack, which mostly just left me feeling suddenly extra-exhausted, so I wrapped up to go to bed too.

Sleep Paralasys

Prodogtive

I tried extra hard to stay focused today, and it sort of went okay. I tried to tie up some loose ends and choose a project of some importance that could keep my focus. We ended up getting pulled away from that to go downstairs, and I decided to let Muad’Dib into the office with Teddybear. I was proud of him for listening and playing nice with the little pup, and even Rhonda had to stop and take a picture of them just staring at each other. Being down there gave me the project I needed to focus on, so we went back and pecked away at that.

Monopoly was back at McDonald’s, so I had to go there for lunch. Muad’Dib was mad that I left him in the car, but I was only inside for a little bit anyway. The afternoon went by at a very normal pace. I couldn’t remember whether I had my anxiety attack then, or earlier in the morning, but it hit me pretty hard whenever it was.

When we finally left, something caught Muad’Dib in a laser-focus, and I turned back around the corner to see one of the guys leaving the plant with a bag of chips. He offered one up for puppy tax, and then I had a little trouble rounding him up to leave. We stopped at the wash to see Summer, but she was too busy to really visit anyway.

We weren’t at the house for very long before Summer showed up, and we decided to go to Cici’s since they had the cheapest meal in town. I just had to go easy on the pizza, and left actually feeling pretty decent after a good salad. It was dark when we got back, but we walked Muad’Dib to my parents’ house to see Dad after his trip to Alabama. Then it was right back to the house for bed.

Toxic Gift Cards

Crud

I ran pretty late today after my sinus cavity decided to let loose of all the gunk that had built up over the week. I forgot my Soylent though, so I decided to swing through Wendy’s when I got into Morrilton. Things took a turn when I walked in to find a girls basketball team waiting for their orders, and I had to sit and wait for my food. I might have gotten in close to time, but then Muad’Dib had to take care of his business before we could go inside.

My elbow had been bothering me, so I put it on ice last night, and kept it on ice all morning. I don’t know if it was the awkward positioning of my arm, or the pain, or something else, but I started to feel weak in the arms and shoulders like I was getting sick. I took a late lunch and decided to go to Chopsticks for some soup. That helped a bit, because I started to feel a little better in the afternoon. Unfortunately it didn’t help with the mind numbing task of drilling through Brandon’s old emails looking for anything documented. Every day I follow bread crumbs to an email that terminates in a phone call, and I have nothing to show for it.

I had a decent amount of stuff to unbox when we got to the house, and the girls weren’t home for a while. When Summer did get home, I tried to spend a little time with her, but she had work to do. I needed to vacuum, but also still felt pretty worn out, so I didn’t do that or take Muad’Dib on a walk. I just sat inside and went to bed late after fighting with Android 16 for too long.

Make User Interfaces Small Again

Suck It Up

We ran a little late today, but not enough to matter. Between the pain in my elbow and my head cold, I wasn’t worth a whole lot. I did at least manage to bring my OneWheel to send along with our UPS pickup. We had a quick peck at Sonic and made it back for a long afternoon.

Summer had met the TCW tech to fix our fiber, so internet was back up at the house and everyone was there to celebrate. Eaddie and Eli practiced stuff with notes while Summer bathed. I cleaned up an assortment of leftovers and started a load of laundry before getting to vacuuming as quickly as I could.

I extracted canister after canister of the finest powdered dust, as though someone had dumped a bag of flour all over the living room. There would be occasional bits of hair or fuzz, but it was almost entirely the broken down insulation dust. I completed less than a quarter of the room, and I’m sure I’ll still have to go over it several more times. I had a pretty bad anxiety attack near the end that had me in a daze for a while.

McMonopoly looms.

It’s All in My Head

I started stuffy last night, but then then my nose was running profusely all day. I progressively felt a little bit worse by the hour, but had an okay lunch at Sonic. The afternoon dragged on a bit, but having lunch late helped. Summer met a tech at the house from TCW to investigate our bad fiber, but couldn’t stay with him until he replaced the rat-chewed cable. I got no further details until she asked me at home whether they had scheduled a new appointment with me.

As I got to the house, Eaddie was leaving for a date night in Conway to see one of their wind ensembles play. I had a few ribs and then walked to my parents’ house with Muad’Dib. Mom had stuff to heat up some phở, so I stayed for dinner. Dad unboxed his new computer but wasn’t ready to do anything with it. By the time we left, it was already dark outside.

Summer was in bed when we finally made it back. I felt terrible, and prepped for sleep. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to start vacuuming.

always|dniheb

Mac is Back

I went to bed a couple hours early last night, but woke up several hours early with a stomach ache. I managed to fall back asleep for a little while, but it wasn’t long before I had to start getting ready for work. I knew it would take me longer to clean and dress my wounds, so I accounted for that and got to work right about the same time. I was slow and achy all day, but we made it work. The stupidly slow PC I had been working on was evidently only slow because of an insufficient power supply, so I was happy to get that off my desk.

When lunch arrived, I noticed the Big Mac was back on the $6 medium combo deal, so that’s where we went. I was relatively quick in and out, though things seemed to be running more smoothly today than usual. It looked like there were some suits there, so hopefully they’re getting things straightened out.

I tried to go late enough that the afternoon wouldn’t drag on forever. I stopped for a free coffee at Casey’s before going back, and then it was a slow sprint to the finish line. At one point I took a walk with Muad’Dib just to stretch out a bit from being sore.

On the way home, we encountered some sort of medical emergency, but it didn’t look like there was a wreck or anything. Fortunately, traffic moved pretty quickly right on through. We got to the house to find Summer cleaning up. I unboxed a bunch of Vine stuff and then ate the old, dried up KFC that was still in the fridge before taking Muad’Dib on an acoustic walk. I just wasn’t keen to trust the Onewheel after it plowed into the ground without warning yesterday.

We walked straight to my parents’ house, then looped back around just as it got dark. I was too tired and sore to vacuum, but I’ll need to get on that tomorrow. Internet had been out since sometime the night before, so I called TCW to schedule a tech for sometime the next day, and eventually got to bed early.

Medium Big

Time Goes By…

We had an excellent biscuit and hashbrowns from Burger King this morning. We got out of the house a little bit late, but there was a thick line of fast traffic that carried us to work. I had an anxiety attack fairly early, but otherwise had a fairly busy day with some decent productivity. I had to leave early, so I tried to take a short lunch to make up for it. We went by Sonic for a chili cheese coney and Frito chili cheese wrap, and a guy I had never seen before came out and commented that I was starting to be a regular. I laughed and mentioned they were one of the few places I could take my dog.

Lunch was cheap and fast, so I let Muad’Dib run around outside before we went in. For some reason he took off down the side of the building, and by the time I got around the corner, he had gone in the back door. Luckily he found some guys by their breakroom that happened to be looking for me. We went in to talk to Rhonda, and suddenly I had another project.

Just as I was getting ready to leave, I got a call from Aptean support, who wanted to remote in and help Heaven set up printing. I ran downstairs quickly to take care of that, and then booked it home. Fortunately we got to the post office with plenty of time, I got my vacuumc leaner, and then changed clothes at the house before riding the Onewheel with Muad’Dib to see Dad.

I got an email late last night offering $300 cash for a video of the Dreame robotic pool skimmer, which I reviewed extremely poorly, failing to perform its task. They didn’t send me any specifics about what they wanted, so I thought we’d just try to set up a time lapse video. When we got to their house, Dad was gone, so we started to leave before we encountered him near the end of the road. We turned around and learned that he was repairing a water leak under the house, but he had already set up his phone to record a time lapse from the end of the pool. I set mine up in the middle to get a better view of the length, and let it record through dinner.

Mom got home and we ate some chicken wings, and then Muad’Dib and I finished our run before dark. It was a great night for a ride in the cooler air. Summer was home when we got there, and we caught up a bit before I started unboxing Vine stuff, and eventually made it to bed.

…So Slowly