Tag: health

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Party Pooper

I managed to sleep until a little after noon today. I never really got hungry which was nice, but I also didn’t feel up to much after popping my Dulcolax tablets. Originally I had envisioned cleaning up the house a bit, and I did try, but I just didn’t accomplish a whole lot. I spent most of my time playing some more Oxygen Not Included until things started getting gurgly. Then I watched The World According to Jeff Goldblum, which honestly kind of left me not really liking him as much just because he seemed completely unable to be even a little bit normal. He’s an entertaining character in smaller doses, but I could see how someone would become tired of him after a while, like an annoying, weird uncle.

Overall it felt very much like the old days of hiding in my home and not seeing anyone for days. I completely forgot to go out and get gas for Hog Wild Wednesday. I wonder if I can last another week.

Won’t this be fun…

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On the Subject of Hierarchy

It was super cold and rainy this morning, and I was super sluggish getting into my office. I just sat in my car, cozy in my seat for a while, not wanting to go in. When I finally did go in, I mostly worked in my office all day without wandering about too much. I started digging into Group Policy to learn a little more about how objects are linked together, and the order in which settings are processed. I sipped on one Soylent through breakfast and lunch to try and cut back hard, and it worked pretty well. Lee came in for a bit to ask for some speakers, then stayed to chat for a little bit.

Near the end of the day, I went to the shop to get a couple things. I chatted with Zach and Gary for a bit, then went to the graveyard to dig around for some speakers. I was so focused on what was on the tables or in the piles of junk, digging for scraps, that I didn’t even notice Jason napping in the corner until I walked right up on him, practically within arm’s reach. It got super awkward after that, with him making brief, but quiet sounds of laboured movement the way one would in that kind of situation. He never said a word to me, and I just started digging in a box for some speakers. It took him a few minutes, but I think he left. I didn’t actually pay attention to where he went, but I didn’t see him again the rest of the day. His car was there when I went back inside though, and gone before we left, which was a bit before quitting time on account of my not taking a lunch break.

Brice has an interview tomorrow, so maybe all the pieces are falling into place for me to take a step up into leadership. One could dream.

After work, I went to my parents’ house for some rice soup. It was pretty soothing, and I peppered it enough that I couldn’t even taste that Mom had burned it. Then I went by Walgreens to pick up my prescriptions, then Walmart to pick up a few more things that I ultimately should have just gotten from Walgreens for convenience and time’s sake.

I refuse to let myself feel guilty for doing what’s right by reporting what’s wrong.

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The Sickly Terminator

I got up this morning feeling pretty well rested, but still warm and clammy. The humidity and rain didn’t help much, but it didn’t rain nearly as much as I thought it would. I made the trek back across the campus to terminate those four lines for Jason’s closet before making it back to the shop for lunch. Allen agreed to go to Mulan’s with me so I could get some soup to soothe my head.

After lunch I came back to the shop for a bit before deciding to take the rest of the day off. There wasn’t much going on, and I knew I wouldn’t be very productive. I went by the shop to check on Summer, then went home and rested a while. Eventually I started up Oxygen Not Included and played until Mom called for dinner. She made shrimp noodle soup, and I figured it might make me feel better even though I still wasn’t very hungry from lunch.

Eventually I ended up at Summer’s waiting for the girls to get home. I laid on the couch and queued up some YouTube videos, and then Eaddie put on the last episode of season six of Parks and Rec once they got settled in.

This is the hardest I’ve ever worked on anything since… Wow, I’ve never worked hard on anything! What a cool life!

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See, You Inhale!

I didn’t get to ride yesterday, so at only a couple degrees cooler, I rode to work today. I had to stop by the arena first thing for a big PLTW fair they were putting on for other schools. Ben came by too, and we wandered around listening to kids talk about their PLTW projects from all grades. There were way more elementary kids there than anyone else, which was probably good because they seemed more interested in what they were doing, and acted like they understood more of the content than anyone else. The older kids all had projects that were pretty obviously on rails and didn’t really grasp the concepts they were supposed to be learning about. I guess it’s pretty easy to be cynical about it though, even though I was probably in about the same place as them in junior high.

After we left there, I spent some time trying to track down some cabling with the guys from the PAC. They didn’t seem to really have anything else going on, so we just wandered all around looking for switches with unpatched network lines in their racks. The last rack we stopped at had four new lines run to it that just weren’t terminated, and it sounded like Jason ran it to his office himself. Ultimately knowing that last piece of information, we wouldn’t have had to run around on this wild goose chase, and I could have just made those new lines work for him and freed up the other good line in the upstairs control booth.

Allen and I went to Ruby Tuesday for the $5 salad bar, and we got our favorite lunchtime server. He got pretty close to remembering our drinks, and got us in and out in record time. Back at the shop, I sat with Ben for a bit talking about my morning before heading back to the high school to complete my morning’s task. As I wrapped up, I went to Jason’s office and found his fancy new RTX-wielding computer stowed away, and three other decade-old, non-district computers hooked up in its place. It looked exactly like what you would not want to see some random guy doing at work with your physical network infrastructure. I don’t know what he was hosting on that machine, but it all seemed very sketchy and I just decided to document my findings and run away.

I finished the day at the shop with several other unmotivated guys for the last hour, then went home for just a little while before Summer asked me to deliver the girls to their activities. I took Autumn to the junior high for a game, then Eaddie to karate before stopping by my parents’ house. I visited with Dad for a little bit before heading home to dope up and pass out.

I found a couple NyQuil and chased it with some Party Fuel to kickstart my night. It went to my head pretty quickly, so I laid down and dropped a Vicks inhaler into my CPAP to doze off for a few hours. It pretty clearly didn’t help my sinuses as I slept, but I guess it was worth a try. I woke up to write this post and discovered how much better the Australian website is for the VapoInhaler than the American one. We’re such a clinical society. I hope we’re happy.

Here are Newton’s laws of motion, which are apparently pretty important…

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♬ I Told the Butt Doctor I Had a Bloody Poo ♬

♪ It’s been leaking blood from me just like it was a geyser! ♪

I forgot my badge and keys at home this morning. I also forgot to take my meds after deciding to take them a little later in the morning rather than before I left for work. None of that seemed to matter much though. I went with Amanda, Heather, and Gary to hang a TV above James’s piano. I had an above average time drilling into the brick at first, but I could tell the bit wore out pretty quickly. We were supposed to rehang another one I had hung last year because they wanted it higher, but the class was occupied and we didn’t make it before lunch. We ended up killing some time in Heather’s freezing office, chatting with Kevin a while until lunch.

Allen and I decided to walk next door for FryDay, where we sat across the room from Heather and Gary since they didn’t invite us. We both got the three meat fries special of the day, which was beef, chicken, and shrimp over fries with garlic butter and “taco sauce” which was more of a taco-seasoned cream sauce. It was all good, but left me a bit gurgley from all the butter. I took a half sick day to go to the gastroenterologist for my meet and greet.

I went home first to change, then went to my appointment and filled out a bunch of new patient paperwork. It was probably the least painful that I’ve ever experienced that process, and the girls at the front desk were just great. I thought Dr. White was a relative hoot, though he definitely controlled the conversation. I was most impressed with how quickly I was in and out of there, and I wished I could have that experience ever again in healthcare.

After that conversation and subsequent scheduling of a proper pooperscope, I went home and got the Grom to see Summer at the shop. They weren’t super busy, so I got to tell her all about my doctor visit before going home. I relaxed for just a little bit before taking my bike out for a bath. Then I met Allen at his place for a quick polish on the bikes. With that done, I had just enough time to get gas with him, and then head on home to prepare for the evening.

Travis was hosting a Star Wars Monopoly night, so I went to get Summer and we met him and John for game night. I was either the first one out or the winner, depending on who you ask. A great time was had by all, and Summer got to bring home an oddly monochrome JAWS sink stopper. By the time we wrapped things up there, it was time to get home and into bed for the early ride in the morning.

♫ He said that, “Poo-py, oooh ah ah! Ting tang, walla walla bing bang!” ♫

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Third Wind

I went to bed early last night but tossed and turned for a couple hours before I finally fell asleep. It wasn’t too much later that I woke up to the sound of the cat retching in the floor, so I had to get out of bed to clean that up. Then I tossed and turned, wide-eyed from about 3am until about 5:45, when I finally jumped out of bed and drove to Waffle House. I sat at the bar by myself with only one other customer in the restaurant, surprised that there weren’t more people there for breakfast. Running on so little sleep, I knew what I had to get. Bacon cheese burger with hash browns scattered all the way with chili and gravy. It was full-on punishment for the betrayal I felt as my body refused to go to sleep. The cook was a rockstar, but accidentally threw some hash browns on the grill for a regular customer that ended up not wanting them. He offered them to me for free, so I mounded them on top of my already sloppy plate and destroyed it all. No mercy.

It was a super fast breakfast with nobody else there, and I made it home just in time to hear my alarm clock start buzzing. It was go-time. Full morning routine and out the door a full 10 minutes early. I made it to school and got up into the building way early and jumped right in. Then I was assaulted by the library when some testing didn’t go as planned. Failures exaggerated, our pseudo hero jumped in to “save the day” and “take the credit.” Gary showed up in the middle of it all and had to go hide in my office for all the screaming.

With that crisis out of the way, Gary and I wandered around vo-tech taking care of phones. The Mac internet issue ended up not being my problem, which was nice. Then it was back up to the office for our second crisis. Just as class let out, one of our internet circuits went out for just a few minutes and I had a line of people out my door wanting to know what we were doing to fix it. Without even having enough time to identify the failure, we had people wanting to know an ETA for a fix so they could plan their next period. Gary rage-quit and went back to his office for good reason, but I was no stranger to dealing with people in a self-induced panic. Boom, more work orders closed.

I continued on with work orders until lunch when Allen invited me to Smackin’ Wings. I met him there, along with Gary, Zach, and Ben. We had entertainingly, lovingly hateful conversations, making sure we made it fully around the department. Then I had to load up a computer lab worth of computers to take to the high school. Allen helped me move them to the dock to load them into my car, and then I cut him loose to do his own things. I got lucky and ran into my intern while looking for a dolly to bring the computers inside, then got a bit of sass from my mohawked maintenance guy for knocking on his dungeon door. I get personal space, but I still felt slighted. I may have to take his internet.

Ben met us to help set up the computer lab, which ended up taking the rest of the day. We fought the switch configuration a bit, and even had trouble toning out a line, and ended up switching ports in the room for one that was labeled at the switch. All done except for the deployments. Then I closed out a few more things before walking out.

Finally home, I just continued my work streak and cleaned up all of the aquariums. It looks like Murderface has a bit of hole-in-the-head, but I’m not certain. Gotta keep his water changed more often, especially since I never test it. Those snails are messy. Once everything was cleaned up, I headed to my parents’ house to pick up some props for picture day. Then it was off to Summer’s for promised head scratchies to ensure absolute sleep tonight.

All the angles.

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The Walkabout Campus

I headed in to work just a few minutes early today after waking up a few minutes before my alarm. I still felt tired, but not as bad as earlier in the week. I went by the shop first to have Jason submit warranty claims for a couple laptops. Then I ended up chatting with Ben for a while before heading to the high school.

I didn’t start in my usual place by going to the office. Instead, I had to go to the old field house to set up a printer we removed before the renovation. I drove around a bit at first, but eventually parked at the front of the building and walked around campus for most of the day. I went to the arena a couple times, back out to the field house, over through vo-tech, and up and around the main building. I still haven’t had a whole lot come up, but I’m feeling a bit of anxiety again about repairing laptops. I spent a decent amount of time yesterday doing just that, and I don’t want to get sucked into doing too much there and not focusing on learning the things I really want to learn.

Nothing really jumped out at me for lunch, so I just snacked on leftover donut holes most of the day while walking all over the place. I didn’t leave too late either, and only have a couple more hours to work tomorrow to hit my 40 hours for the week. I almost feel like I should be more stressed, but the long hours haven’t bothered me too much. I’m just physically very tired all the time. I need to just commit to a Soylent diet for a while to see if it helps.

I relaxed at home for a little while before heading up to Summer’s for dinner. I was going to make chicken salads, but ended up making everyone clean up the super old mashed potatoes and ribs that were left over from forever ago.

Happy fridge; happy belly.

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Every Other Week

It was back to work today after another week away. I’ve really gotten used to not being around over the summer, and it’s been great avoiding so much of the negativity. I feel like summer is slipping away, and we’ve still got so much work to do. That doesn’t even include me figuring out what the hell I’m doing at the high school.

Ben was out and Jason didn’t have any direction for us, so everyone split up to do their own things. I played a bit of catch up myself before taking Brice and Allen to Chick-fil-A to meet Dale and Gary for lunch. They had their peach milkshakes, which made the whole visit worthwhile. Then I met Heather at the junior high to take a look at the outside signs. We appeared to have a bad hard drive in one, so we pulled it and took it back to the shop for Jason.

I had another nurse checkup where they fussed that my blood pressure was still high. Instead of upping my dosage again, she added a third prescription. To complicate things further, she wants me to take them at different times. She wasn’t as pumped about my tracking spreadsheet either, since I couldn’t limit the data to only include readings taken a couple hours after taking my meds. It’s beyond annoying dealing with it, and at times it doesn’t even feel worth the frustration.

After blowing an hour there, I went back to the shop where I teamed up with Brice to check out all the work orders I’ve been ignoring for Oakland. We got a few things done, and it was nice to have the help. A lot of the cleanup stuff will have to wait until the beginning of the school year since teachers will move things around again.

I headed home and spent some time cleaning up after the pets before rummaging around for a wireless charger to use in Summer’s charging picture frame. I didn’t have a lot of room to work, but eventually I got it soldered and working. With any luck, it won’t catch on fire. Mom texted that she made phở, so I stopped for gas, got Summer, and headed to their house for dinner. Summer was exhausted from work, so we headed straight home after that and went to bed.

The heat was hot.

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Beats per Second

I got up early again this morning and picked Amanda up for our training day at Arch Ford. She said she was pretty hungover and couldn’t eat her Tornado from Love’s, so she gave the rest to me. Then I loaded up on Pop-Tarts and a Rice Krispies Treat. I really enjoyed learning and playing around in the lab again, so I was a bit upset that we had to leave at lunch time. I guess we really could have gotten away with not coming back, but Amanda was already begging to leave an hour earlier than we did. I didn’t feel too sympathetic since it was self-inflicted, but I did want to be back in time for the end of the year retirement assembly.

My anxiety was already pretty high, and I stopped by Oakland to see that my blood pressure was also really high. Then my anxiety shot through the roof once I got to the Center. I hadn’t eaten lunch either, and my hand started shaking while I was getting some punch, and I almost lost it. After we finally made our way in and sat down, my heart rate shot up to about 127 BPM and stayed about that high for the entire assembly. Nothing I did could calm it down, and I was left wishing I had brought my last Xanax. I guess I’ll need to ask to renew that for emergencies the next time I go in to the clinic.

Ben had a pretty decent speech for Dale’s retirement, but I think more than anything we were surprised to see anyone actually retire from our department. Mark’s closing statement to “trust him” regarding pay scales left some pretty bitter I think, but what do you do? When they won’t even let someone retire with their original letter and make them rewrite it to be more friendly, what kind of environment are we really fostering?

I went home for the evening feeling worn out from my body’s inability to properly human today. Summer had to pick Autumn up after she injured her knee somehow, and wants to schedule an X-ray now. I’m just ready for any kind of break.

I just want a field day like everybody else.

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In the Unlikely Event

Amanda actually volunteered to drive to Plumerville today. She even picked me up at my house. There was a box turtle in the driveway right next to the garage door, so I put it inside the fence for safe keeping. We made the trip in good time, and even stopped at Love’s in Morrilton for meat breakfast tornados. Mine tasted about as good as one would expect. I probably should have stuck with the Soylent.

One of the guys from Arch Ford had a Model 3 there, so I got to see it up close. Not as close as I wanted, but it was still neat. I tried to hint that I wanted to ride with him to lunch, but he had other plans that didn’t involve driving a complete stranger around. Amanda and I went to Wendy’s, and I had a really good, quick salad.

The afternoon went by quickly as well, and I only got dizzy for a few seconds from what I assume was my new medication. It probably didn’t help that I had been sitting all day and had absolutely no stress at all to raise my blood pressure. I wish I could have measured it. It was a really good day of learning and playing around in the virtual lab environment. Everyone likes to complain about going to Arch Ford, but they just don’t get to do what I do.

When we got back home, I found a second snail had died in the kitchen aquarium, so I moved the other one back to the bathroom and cleaned a couple of the tanks up a bit. I think I’m most excited about moving to the high school so I can set up an aquarium in the office. I’m pretty sure every other aspect of the move still just gives me anxiety.

Eventually I went to get Eaddie from her grandparents’ house, and I took the old FryDaddy up to their house to start dinner. It worked perfectly to fry up a bunch of chicken strips for the dinner salads. I still ate way too many chicken strips, but they were just so delicious. I wish I had more right now with some of that spicy ketchup.

Ultimately I had to make my way back home for an early bedtime again. We’ll have to leave training early tomorrow to make it back to our mandatory end-of-year assembly, unless I can convince Ben to let us finish our training day, since central office has already approved our leave some time ago.

I’m not a cat. I don’t say, “meow.”