A Lot for a Little Run

I got up early so I could go to Fort Smith with Summer for her run this morning. I had an anxiety attack as I was getting ready, but it didn’t seem to affect me long. I was still pretty exhausted as we left, but it was a smooth ride. We made it to Ben Geren park only to discover a disappointing number of runners, running anything from a 5k to a marathon, depending on how many times they looped back around the track. It didn’t really seem like many people knew each other, but it was a seriously tiny group of maybe 20 people. One of them was Hot Springs native, multi-title world champion, professional arm wrestler, “Monster” Michael Todd, who arrived in a giant motorhome wrapped with giant pictures of his face. There appeared to be no fanfare. We arrived early, because Summer anticipated it would take her some time to get her packet, but we spent all that extra time wandering around in the hot sun.

I had forgotten to load my Onewheel, so when the race finally started, Muad’Dib and I walked over to a pavilion with some picnic tables and sat in the shade. We had a surprisingly strong breeze over there, which I hadn’t felt at all when we were walking around. It felt really great over there as we waited, expecting to see Summer come around the bend. I took a picture of a couple cheering on their son, then shared it with them. Summer never showed up though. Evidently her run took her on another path, and we found her back at the finish after less than half the time it took us to drive to the race in the first place.

We didn’t stick around, and instead drove to a place called Digs in The Bakery District. I guess it was a little grouping of places in one spot. We found parking across the street and walked up to the patio where they were doing yoga. A server greeted us, had us pick a seat, and then the food service was quite quick. Muad’Dib did well with some passers-by, and we had a really tasty, elevated, expensive brunch. We had a couple cocktails and shared a bagel board with a couple fancy cream cheeses and peanut butter. Then Summer had a sandwich, and I had a burrito. Everything was really tasty, but definitely priced as an upscale establishment in a rich part of town.

Lastly, we swung by Truong Son on the way home to browse for some Asian foods. We didn’t get much, but I picked up a smallish can of CafĂ© du Monde coffee and chicory blend to add to my collection. I made a cup when we finally made it home, but found it mostly bitter. Summer and I lounged around the house the rest of the day, both exhausted from the morning adventure. I eventually had some leftover chicken salad for an early dinner, and cleaned a bunch of moth-filled boxes of cereal out of the pantry. We played a Netflix miniature golf game on the TV, and then Summer watched the worst of the Ghostbusters movies.

I did a bit of cleaning, but it was overall a very quiet evening until bed.

It’s a vibe.

None of Some

I discovered someone had brought donuts and kolaches this morning on one of my trips downstairs, so breakfast was solid again instead of the Soylent I brought. I didn’t feel the best all day, but I think that was mostly my clothing choice. It helped to be up and moving around. Anneka from Gwatney called to say my car was done, but Summer insisted she wouldn’t be able to take off of work, which frustrated me.

I’ve been getting a little lost in all of my projects, and it has only helped to go back to my notes for our next staff meeting. There’s just too much to do, and it feels like everything needs focus. I’d get halfway into one thing, and then get pulled away for something else of middling importance. Nothing has been urgent, but all have been necessary.

We went to Taco Bell for a pretty light lunch, then had cake for Tammy’s birthday. Muad’Dib ran around outside with Dexter for a bit after that, and then Dexter let me pet him as long as I had some beef jerky in my hands for him.

The afternoon was quiet, and I tried to focus, but again got pulled away to other concerns. At least they were tangentially related to something else already on my plate.

We left late and got stuck in heavy traffic, especially getting back into town. Summer had a small roast in the slow cooker, so we ate while watching the Made by Google event. We were about half an hour behind, and it wasn’t as exciting as I had hoped it would be, but it was probably better than last year. I just felt old for not knowing a single one of the “celebrity” guests.

I tried to wait until it cooled down to take Muad’Dib on a run, but it still felt gross. We almost did our full run, but he just wasn’t moving. He had been feeling sick all day anyway, so I think it’s time to cut back on the treats. Eaddie stopped in briefly, late in the evening, and it made me happy that she at least made a point to say hi to me before she left again. I came out and we talked for just a moment as she left, and then I went to bed.

All of none.

Scratch That

I didn’t feel like I slept poorly, but I could barely drag myself out of bed this morning. I managed to get out of the house, but it just never got any better. I grabbed Burger King on the way out of town, and it was good, but it didn’t help. Nothing was able to perk me up.

We went to Sonic, but had a change of order. I had really been wanting to try their Tropical Heat Smasher, and they had cheap slushes, so I just built my own combo with some free onion rings. It cost more than usual, and I got less food, but it was good. While we were there a lady pulled out of the drive-through to park, and asked if she could give Muad’Dib some chicken. She gave him her entire order of chicken bites, then opened a bottle of water for him. I think she was the same lady that had done it before, because she again threw it all down at once and just let him have at it, and it was too hot and too fast for him to take, so I had to pull it away from him for a while.

The afternoon dragged on as well, even with taking a walk out to the shipping office. It’s still empty out there, so I don’t know what we’re waiting on. They never did reassemble the desk correctly. We made it to the end of the day, and arrived home to find a pile of stuff outside the garage. I had to go unbox all of that before I could even park.

Summer got home just after we got inside, and then assaulted me with loud conversation when I just wanted to crash. I eventually got some quiet, and then we ate some leftovers before I took Muad’Dib on a short run. When we got back, Summer got Muad’Dib all riled up in bed while I was laying under the covers, and he reared back and gave me a nasty gash right in the middle of my glasses, so I guess I really need to go schedule an appointment to get a new prescription anyway.

You eediot!

A Different Sonic Blast

I received some docking stations this morning that we ordered from Amazon, and I was tickled to see the prior shipping labels were to Woot.com. I spent much longer swapping David’s docking station than I expected, but at least he was out. Back in my office, I had run out of space, so I decided to clean up and sort through all the laptops that had found their way to my desk. I was also notified that we had someone coming to do some data entry, but that turned out being less of an employee situation that would just be temporary. That got me tinkering with onboarding processes again though, since I haven’t had a secure way to onboard new users onto an Intune device without just handing over a temporary password. I really wanted to figure out how to use the Temporary Access Pass instead.

We had an Aptean call in the early afternoon, so we took an earlier lunch to go to Sonic. I don’t know what it was, but it upset both of our stomachs. Muad’Dib threw up everything he had eaten before we left the office, as well as what he had with me at lunch. I didn’t throw up, but I felt indigestion for the next several hours.

Near the end of the day, I got a call from one of the guys at Roy’s saying he loaded up the air conditioner at the old house with nitrogen to test for leaks, so hopefully we’ll see where that is and get it going again soon. By the time I was ready to leave, we had gotten locked in the office, so we left out the back. It was a quiet ride home, and I cleaned up a little bit while I waited for Summer to get home. She ate some leftovers, and then I took Muad’Dib out for a run while she bathed.

The weather outside felt great for the first part of our run. We made it to my parents’ house and I warmed up some fish soup for dinner. Then we didn’t get back home until after dark. I laid on the couch with Summer until she went to bed. Then I accidentally hopped into a Discord channel with some of the guys.

Johnny had called yesterday to say he was interviewing for the Pottsville IT Director position, and this morning he said they offered it to him about half an hour after he left. With school starting next week, his last day at Nabholz would be Monday. I typed at the guys while they chatted and played Rocket League. Then I tinkered with remote play on my Steam Machine, and I think it may be a viable option until I have room to set up a docking station for my old Steam Deck.

I was up super late toying with that, long after the guys had all left. I’m just super excited to have some options after so long without.

steamdeck

Lawn Boys

I felt like I slept okay, but the day sapped me quickly. I was up first, and tried to keep fairly busy. I warmed up the last of the pasta for Summer and made myself a sandwich out of some rye bread I found in the freezer. Then she went to the gym and I cleaned up and had a shower. I felt a bit worse after that, which slowed me down for a while.

Summer mentioned wanting the lawn done, so I texted Kevin to have him come by at his convenience. He and Matthi took care of the old house, and then came over to the new house. Dad texted that he was going to have a kid from church mow their lawn instead, so Kevin asked for $100, then backed down to $90 for the two they did, but I gave him the full amount.

I was up wandering around the house and cleaning up all day, so I was feeling pretty tired. Dad said they had fish soup, so I tried running Muad’Dib over on the Onewheel later in the evening. We got a couple blocks down the road and the board died again with a reported 35% battery. I carried it most of the way home, and then we drove over to eat.

Dad was out watering plants while Mom finished up inside. Then they both came out while I was sat by the pool with Muad’Dib. Once I realized how late it was getting, Muad’Dib and I went in to eat, and then headed back home. It was a short night after that.

Sleep it off.

ANOTHER ONE

I had an anxiety attack in bed just after midnight when I got up to go to the restroom, but went right back to sleep. I got to sleep in a very little bit since we were headed to Little Rock for my car. She went to her bank to get some money for me, and I went to Arvest to close my account, since they wanted to start charging for basic checking accounts. I took Muad’Dib in and we saw Aaron first. Then I was maybe a little too surprised that there was zero effort to try and talk me into some other kind of bank account, or keep me as a customer. I told the young teller that I wanted to close my account, she took my ID, and then handed me a cashier’s check for my balance after just a few seconds. She then had to cash that for me, which felt silly, but then it was done. My first bank account, which I’d had since childhood, and which only held birthday money for years before my first job, was closed.

We hit the road after that. Summer had to get back to work, so we dropped her car off at the Love’s in Morrilton, then continued to Gwatney in the loaner to get my car. I also queued up Randy and Ben for lunch before we headed home. My car was right out front, and I guess I should have looked it over first. They didn’t really even walk me around it. I just took a moment while Anneka was gathering paperwork, and walked around it quickly. I immediately spotted a blemish just under the left taillight. Then Summer looked closer and found flaws on the edge of the hood. Anneka took it back to see if they could buff any of it out, but then came back and said we would have to schedule another visit.

They had a Buick Envista that they had just gotten in for a loaner, so rather than come back next week, we took the loaner and also kept the loaner Model 3 from Tesla. That created a predicament later. We left there and dropped the Buick off at the high school before meeting Randy, Jim, Jae, and Ben at Cotham’s. I sent Summer in to find a table, and luckily Ben was already there. I waited outside with Muad’Dib until everyone else got there, and then we had lunch. I wasn’t impressed with any of the food this time, which was rare. The hubcap burgers have always been excellent. We had a good time visiting, but Summer needed to be back at work in a hurry, so we left.

I dropped Summer off at her loaner, then went to Conway to Supercharge in order to make it home. It wouldn’t have been a problem, except I didn’t expect to have to drive it back home. She went straight to work, so I ended up going to Love’s to swap out her car just to get it out of the public parking lot. I went to work for a couple hours, and then Teisha gave me a ride to Love’s so I could leave Summer’s car at work overnight inside the gate.

I got home and had a ton of stuff from Vine, but it all processed super quickly. It was actually mostly clothes for the girls, but I did get a bike service stand that needed some assembly. Eaddie and Eli chatted in the kitchen over some food he brought while I assembled it, and then they both left. She went to spend the night with Autumn because she had created some new health drama and needed to draw more attention to herself.

Summer eventually made it home from her work meeting, and we went to swim at my parents’ house. I thought they’d check out the Buick, but they were busy watering plants. Muad’Dib ran both ways, but had to stop and poop on the way back. It looked like it was all loose, so something he ate didn’t sit well with him. I ended up walking about a third of the way back home with him while Summer drove home.

They went to bed and I prepared for work, but it was a pretty quick night to bed.

You didn’t have anyone quality check it???

Hound Town

I had a little bit of a rough start this morning, but we squeezed into work for a quiet day. Teisha had Janice’s two little dogs closed up in her office, so we just headed straight upstairs. Scott hit me up immediately with a dead laptop, but he just had something stuck in his charge port. Then Heaven had an issue with Rhonda’s computer monitor, but I just had to unplug it for a moment. After that, I was left to my own devices.

I had an anxiety attack pretty early in the morning that left me feeling super exhausted for a while. Otherwise I didn’t really start the day with a goal, but I got into my Netbox documentation again briefly, and did some more “practice” networking. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I think all this fighting security devices has made me more comfortable with practical networking and subnetting. Next is to get into some routing and firewall configuration, but I keep wanting to just rebuild the entire network. I need to give myself some more time to “accidentally discover” more physical stuff in our environment.

We took a late lunch and went to Taco Bell. It was hot, but we had shade and a small breeze, so it felt okay out. Summer was upset that she had to work in the heat all day, but still hadn’t made any real moves to change her situation. She got home shortly after we did, and was pretty immediately just miserable to be around. She was hungry, but didn’t want to do anything about it. I eventually just stepped away until she came to find me, and I pointed her at her leftover pasta she made a week ago. I eventually came out to have some too.

I found the new Masters of the Universe on Prime Video, so I put that on for her and then took Muad’Dib out for a run. We visited my parents, and then I let him guide us back home, skipping all of the zigs and zags. Summer was finishing up her movie and went to bed. I got things ready for work, and then made it to bed early myself.

You’re on your own!

Back Doorman

Internet at home was still out until late in the morning, without much news from TCW. I was excited to get to experiment with some scheduling instead of just beating my head against the wall over intercom programming today. Nobody else seemed to show any feelings about it, but I assumed they were just glad I finally fixed something. Of course now I also have a backup, and can replicate my success in a few minutes rather than weeks. Programming was relatively straightforward, but the holiday scheduling had me stumped for a while. The guides I found all had them added to schedules, but that wasn’t the case. Just adding the holiday dates defaulted the lock schedules to a locked state.

We took a really late lunch and picked up some free McNuggets, then had chili cheese fries and onion rings at Sonic. It was cheap and light, and the weather was great for it. When we got back, I stopped by the back gate to test the closing, and it worked perfectly. I had its schedule fixed, but now that the plant is running around the clock, the gate isn’t really even necessary.

The last piece of the puzzle for now was to get cameras integrated with the security system, but everything I tried seemed incompatible between systems. I had an anxiety attack late in the afternoon, but it cleared up well. We left a little late after verifying the gate shut properly. Then we made it home to find Eaddie back from her band conference, and Summer in the bath.

Once Summer got out, I took them to Brangus for dinner. I had a pretty awful steak, which was both overcooked and somehow cold to the touch. The girls enjoyed it, so I didn’t press. I just don’t think they’re any good for a dinner on a slow day.

I tried to take them out for dessert when we left, but they didn’t want to go. Instead, Summer and I had a beer on the back porch before I took Muad’Dib out for a run. We took a big plastic bag from Eaddie’s vacuum-sealed couch, and then came back home. As we got back, I heard the familiar frustrated cries of a man trying to recall a stubborn dog. I was proud to be able to call Muad’Dib back out of the house to run and fetch him, and then deliver him back across the street.

Not bad for a Thursday.

RESET ALL THE THINGS

We were a little behind today, but I had time to get things ready for our staff meeting. I felt like I did okay, and then I spent the entire day working on the Aiphone gate stuff. At one point, David and I walked out to the front gate and looked at the control box out there. All of that stuff was Avigilon, but it was still useful to tinker with it a bit.

I had an anxiety attack about half an hour before I left to meet Summer at Ortega’s for lunch. Then I finally perceived some luck in the afternoon. I ended up factory resetting both the master controller on Heaven’s desk, as well as the relay control module. I really thought I had something, but by the end of the day, Heaven’s phone still couldn’t call the stations.

We left a little late, and made it home just moments before Summer pulled in. She took a cool bath, and I finally made it to Leonard’s to pick up an air filter. The house took forever to cool down, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the away temperature being high, or if it’s just been running non-stop and couldn’t keep up.

Muad’Dib could have handled the store a little better, but he was excited about a new place. He was super high energy all evening, so I took him on a late run straight to my parents’ house before it got too dark. He ran nearly the entire way there and back, which was pretty intense for how miserable it was outside.

We made it home and I juggled chargers, since Summer made it home with under 10%. Fortunately I charged extra last night, so I had a little more than usual when we got home. I rummaged through the freezer and found some buns that I could use to make a sandwich for tomorrow, and then wound down for bed pretty quickly as the air finally started to feel a little cooler.

Enter Enter Enter Enter Enter Enter Enter

Gatekeeping

My shower wasn’t great this morning, and I almost wished I had just left the old, broken head in place. When I finished, I bent over to dry off and then pinched a nerve in the middle of my back as I tried to stand back up. I was hunched for the rest of the day from that, and I could barely move without tweaking it.

I realized after we left the house that I forgot my breakfast, so I survived the morning on coffee alone. At least I remembered to bring my leftovers for lunch. The first thing I fought was actually the broken maintenance network again. This time I tried changing some STP priorities to see if it would prevent the far point-to-point from tripping the port.

The rest of the day was spent digging through and documenting the security cameras and gate system. Heaven mentioned Charles doing something on her phone that caused the front and rear gate cameras to become inverted, and I could never figure out how or where that might be set. I spent all day tinkering with settings, but never heard anything back from Fleming about what the old password might have been. I had finally given up on trying to recover anything from the non-wiped equipment, but then I couldn’t seem to write new configurations over them, so tomorrow I’ll still be stuck working on that.

I left work late again after messing around with the relay portion of the gate controls, then made it home through heavy traffic. I quickly fixed the leaky shower head and bruised the bottom of my foot in the process. Summer got home moments later and took a shower. I made her a sandwich and had some more Long John Silvers myself. A bunch of the lunch meat went bad, and I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to buy so much in the first place. We ate, and then cleaned up a bit. Eaddie was already gone to work the conference, so Summer had to finish her laundry for her.

Summer was dead tired from working in the heat, and I could still barely move. Leonard’s was closed, so I couldn’t go get the air filter we’d been needing for a few weeks. Muad’Dib hadn’t been run in a couple days either, so I decided to take him to the Neighborhood Market to get rid of some recycling. One of our neighbors had a car in the driveway with a trunk that was open the entire time we were gone, so we stopped by on the way home to knock on the door. Someone turned on some lights, but we never got a response, so I considered that the extent of my neighborly responsibility.

We hobbled home and went to bed.

Meet prep!