I’ve Got the Sheets

I grabbed my leftover breakfast burrito and hit the road surprisingly early this morning, so I stopped at Burger King for a coffee and some free hash browns to share with Muad’Dib. I called Dad once I got to work, while he was at the house with Adam. Dad agreed that the joint in the ceiling looked worse than before, but Adam said the best he could do was float the mud joint out more. I just wanted to get over it, so Dad paid him off.

I got pulled away from more IT-centric tasks when Shane called and asked me to update some products in HubSpot. I worked on it a bit, but had to take a break for lunch because Muad’Dib kept pawing at me more and more. We went to Taco Bell again so we could sit outside while it was nice. It got surprisingly windy while we were out there, but we made it work. I may eventually start taking food back to work and eating at the picnic tables in the smoking area, because it’s at least sheltered by a field that Muad’Dib can use to burn off some energy.

The afternoon was for importing products and trying to combine the multiple cost sheets into something I could try and automate for importing in the future. Near the end of the day, Muad’Dib started throwing up in Janice’s office. It was just liquid, but he didn’t act sick otherwise. Even afterward, he ran around the office a bit.

I had an anxiety attack just before we walked out, and then we grabbed a couple slushies on the way home. Summer had beat us by a couple hours and was having a bath. The kids were in and out. I had my board charged up to 100%, so we went for a ride to try and repeat the failure.

I was going to let Muad’Dib take a dip in the creek, but he got down to eat some grass and then threw up some more. I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like maybe he got some rawhide out, which would explain his lack of appetite for the last day and a half. When we got to my parents’ house, Mom said they still had meat for spring rolls that needed to be eaten, so I cooked some of that and ate at the counter. It was dark by the time we left, and we made laps near the house to see if I could get the board to fail, but it never did. Muad’Dib ran his little heart out and had a great time in the dark.

As soon as we got inside, I gave him a really good fleabath, followed by a good scrubbing. He lost a ton of hair and came out super fluffy and happy. The girls went to bed early for Conquer the Gauntlet. I mentioned going with them, and Summer didn’t seem excited by that at all.

Pick your poisons.

Aweem Away

Summer never got her work stuff out of my trunk, so she asked me to drop it off for her on my way to work. I did that as quickly as I could, then picked up some spicy chicken biscuits from Hardee’s on the way out of town. It was a bit wet out, but I couldn’t tell that we really got any more rain the rest of the day.

I finally got into Brandon’s old Vimeo account to cancel the subscription he forgot to cancel. Then Charles and Matt were saved by my superior/existent network documentation. I had a fairly heavy anxiety attack at some point.

Dad said they should be able to finish the house tomorrow, so I got the okay to leave work early and then work remotely the next day. Summer was supposed to be off early too, but got stuck again. The guys were packing up just as I got home.

Mom said they still had spring rolls, and Julie and Kevin were coming over, so I took Muad’Dib over too. Dad suggested I take a dip in the super cold pool to try and wash off some of the dog before coming inside to eat, but I couldn’t stay in for long. Mom got everyone going and then disappeared to the back of the house, but we had a good visit otherwise.

After dinner, I took Muad’Dib on a surprisingly short and slow walk. I thought he’d run harder with the cooler weather, but he just wanted to lollygag. Summer was in bed, so she wouldn’t get up to inspect the ceiling work with me. I had some wine and crashed a couple hours early.

Seek differing opinions. The fact that they’re haters doesn’t make them wrong.

Two Three Four

It started raining last night and kept going all day long. It was a nasty drive to work, but I got out early enough to pick up two chicken biscuits on the way. Unfortunately, the misty air made my drive a little more hands-on than I like. We caught another huge rat, and I ended up taking it all the way to Morrilton with me again. I pulled over a few blocks from the office and let it go, but it ran under my car somewhere to get out of the rain. I just had to hope it didn’t jump up onto the car somewhere.

I got in and asked permission to leave early again, but Dad texted later and said his haircut was rescheduled, so I stayed. I had an anxiety attack pretty early in the day. Later, I wasn’t super hungry for lunch, but I took a break to grab three buns in the form of a Big Mac.

The afternoon dragged on forever, and the rain had mostly stopped by the time I headed home. Summer texted that Eaddie was going to pick up pizza just as I was pulling up to the house. She got back and I had four slices out of the three overkill pizzas she ordered.

Eaddie was up singing all night, practicing for one of her classes. Eli came over to help. I wound down super early.

five six seven eight

No One Artificially Increases Local Demand for, and Subsequently the Median Price of Eggs Like Gaston

I spoke up on our HubSpot call this morning, but for nothing other than to show I’ve been paying attention. I got another product line imported, or re-imported so that it would be better searchable.

Lunch time could have been anything without the dog, and I considered trying the local Chinese place, but ended up at Arby’s for a French Dip instead. Later, I had an anxiety attack in my office.

Dad had to spend his birthday babysitting our house because Summer couldn’t stay home as we had planned. They were done for the day by the time I got there though, so he was gone. It started to sprinkle a bit, so I took Muad’Dib for a run in case it would get any wetter.

Fortunately there wasn’t enough water on the ground to kick up onto my leg, so we had a good run while it felt really nice out. Then it was minimal cleanup while the girls caught up, and finally sleep.

Unbirthdays

We caught another, much larger rat overnight. Then, in a change of pace, Summer and I swapped roles this morning. She went to the gym while I did some work from home. I wanted to tinker with the server some more, and finally got everything wiped and the proper version of Windows Server installed. I also wanted to get Hyper-V running by the end of the day. Eaddie had a recital and some other stuff to do for school, so she was gone for the early afternoon.

Dad wanted to get pizza to celebrate his birthday early since just a few of us would be going to Hot Springs next weekend for Maxwell Blade’s final shows. We ran a little bit late, but I eventually rode Muad’Dib over on the Onewheel while the girls followed behind in the car. Julie and Kevin stayed home because they weren’t hungry and Kevin took a nap.

We ate, and then planned to go see Julie and Kevin. The girls had other things to do, so they went back to the house. I sent them off prematurely with my Onewheel though, because Julie wanted some time to take a shower first. I had Eaddie come back for me on her way out for the evening, and I took the time to dispose of the rat.

I took it back by my parents’ house first just to show off. Then I took it up to Washburn Park where I relelased the other one last night. This one was larger and seemed less afraid of me, because it would look around through the trap at me as my hands moved all around. It scurried off into the woods, and I continued across town to Julie’s house.

I just barely beat my parents there, and we sat and visited for a while. Kevin was mostly immobile, but seemed to be doing really well. Julie was doing well, but was exhausted from having to entertain others that wanted to check in on the both of them. I could relate, because for all the nice deeds, seldom does she have time to actually do the very basic household chores that need to be done. Sometimes some peace and quiet is gift enough.

We eventually left, and I made it to the house just before Eaddie got back. I cleaned up a bit, then tinkered with my server some more before having an anxiety attack and finally getting to bed.

Remoteception

Soda Pressed

I accidentally slept in much later than I wanted today, while Summer went to a 5k in Danville. I woke up just as she was almost home, and had to race to get ready for lunch at Ben’s. She got home and went to get stuff for guacamole, and made that while I gave Muad’Dib a bath. We finally got out of the house and headed to Conway, completely forgetting to bring any boxes, or even empty my trunk for what I would be bringing home.

We got there and it looked like the kids were mostly done eating. They had grilled chicken and zucchini with some chips, and we brought the guacamole and more chips, and some drinks. Lunch was pretty light and quick because we were panicked after Muad’Dib tried to mark his territory in the house after playing with their tiny dog, Maple.

After we ate, we headed upstairs to try and disassemble the soda gun, along with everything in the supply closet. It ended up being quite a bit more than I expected, between a water filter, a mini fridge with a hole cut in the side for cooling the lines, and just a bunch of syrup that basically went everywhere. We only had to cut a couple of lines by the end of it all, and syrup only got a little bit of everywhere. We borrowed a plastic tub to hold all of that stuff, and somehow managed to fit most all of it in the trunk. The mini fridge had to ride in the back seat with Muad’Dib.

We unloaded all of that stuff in the storage unit since we have almost no room at the house right now. Then I ended up ordering some Little Casesar’s after a while for dinner. The kids went to the Cyclone Extravaganza to hang out with some younger friends, and Summer went to bed. I piddled around for quite a while and eventually got there myself after having a brief anxiety attack.

What a sticky situation.

All Symptoms Nominal

I decided to fast before my afternoon appointment, just in case they failed to ask me to do so. I made it with a single cup of black coffee, barely over half full. As the afternoon approached, we had a conference call with the folks working on the new website, so I got in the car and hopped on the Google Meet. It lasted for almost exactly the entire length of my commute home, where I changed clothes and left Muad’Dib at the house for Summer, who had left work and made it through the gym early.

The clinic must have been overbooked, because my total visit was about two hours. I waited several minutes to get called back, had my blood pressure taken, waited forever and had it taken again because it was so high the first time, and then waited some more until Crystal came back to chat with me. I got renewed on my meds, which was the primary goal, and then she had the nurse come back in to do an EKG as a part of troubleshooting the ongoing anxiety/panic/spaceout attacks.

Summer hadn’t really eaten either, so I picked them up and we went to Ridgewood Brothers to see Grant for his birthday and to get some dinner. We got a full order of nachos, which were a full tray of chips, some grainy cheese dip, and an ultimately disappointing amount of brisket. They tasted great, but the ratios just seemed way off and I couldn’t tell if they were made incorrectly, or if the recipe just needed some work. For the size of the gray we got, I wouldn’t mind paying more to get more meat on them. They were just so chip-heavy. Muad’Dib got a bone out of a pork butt, but we had to take it away from him as he started to tear it up.

We started watching Bee Movie to cool down when we got back to the house, but I got up in the middle of it to take Muad’Dib on a run to Walgreens to pick up my prescription. I should have brought his water, because the heat was unrelenting, and it got him just barely walking. I thought he might have to stop to cool down for a while, but he powered through. We got to the house and cooled down, and finished our movie before bed.

We are go for lunch.

VLAN PLAN

I caught a rat last night in our small trap. It was a small rat, but I was glad to finally have it. I planned to drop it off on the way out of town, but just as I was driving through the fields at Tech, a huge mob of college girls ran by and were in my way to turn. I ended up driving the rat all the way to Morrilton, and let him go in the wooded area just up the road from work.

I jumped right in after that, onto a call with Bret from Ashton, to try and figure out what the heck is going on with my network configurations. That led to more camera nonsense, and eventually to restarting a switch downstream from a point-to-point to get maintenance online again. I was supposed to call Bret back after all of that, but I ended up just continuing to document everything I found, and tried to trace back all of the camera lines to their endpoints.

We took a break to pick up some McDonald’s fries, and then sat outside Taco Bell where I fed them to Muad’Dib while I ate my burritos. He kept refusing to stay put, but mostly stood outside the door waiting for me. On my last trip in, he got brave and completely disappeared. That sent me into a bit of a panic and I started screaming for him. I just knew I had lost him or somebody saw and grabbed him, just because we were away from home. He eventually came around the corner of the building and got into the car, so at least the panic was short-lived.

The afternoon was more documentation until quitting time. Dad said they would have pork chops and ribs, so once Summer got home, she followed me over while I ran with Muad’Dib. I had to run to Walgreens just before dinner, because my prescription was ready and my blood pressure has been really high again. We ate, and then Muad’Dib and I finished his run. A couple little girls in the new neighborhood asked to pet him, so we stopped on the corner for a bit before making our way through the basin.

It was a pretty slow walk after that, because a ton of people were out walking dogs, and Muad’Dib wanted to smell where every single one of them had peed. Once we got back to the house, I gave him a bath with some new conditioner, and then tried to quickly wind down for bed.

Just get on the level.

Wooden Do It

Summer had to work this morning, so I got up and took Muad’Dib for a run while it was still a little cooler outside. Dad and I moved a couple big logs over to their driveway from nextdoor so I could get some firewood before the tree service hauled it all off. Summer had plans to take Eaddie to the Clarksville water park in the afternoon, but it felt really clammy and gross out, and I just didn’t want to go. Eaddie got up and mowed the lawn, so I was in and out some to get her started, and then was trying to organize some of the chaos inside since the ceiling collapse.

Eaddie and I cleaned up some charcuterie stuff in the fridge, and I had an anxiety attack in the pantry. I eventually took a shower and made it back over to my parents’ house where Dad had sawed up a bunch of manageable logs that we could load into the Pathfinder. I brought them a little solar-powered pool skimming robot that we watched mostly fail, and then I ate bún bò Huế with them before getting the wood back to the house just as the girls got there. They helped me unload into the front yard, and then took a bit of a break. Dad came over with a little more wood and a plastic sheet for the hole in the ceiling. Unfortunately the staples ripped right through, and I didn’t want to fight it, so he took that back home.

Summer and I eventually made it over to their house to swim after sundown. My parents were out watering the garden, and Muad’Dib got the zoomies and ran circles around the yard. Summer got cold pretty quickly, so we headed back to the house for the evening.

I had originally planned to go to Little Rock to see Mitch in the evening, but time got away from me and we just had too much stuff going on. We decided to reschedule for later next week.

rattle ’round

The Power to Automate

I felt less bad this morning. It was my day to try and complete some tasks, so I dug into block coding with Power Automate, sent off my fixed asset checklist, and at the end of the day, played with the Vuzix smartglasses that were given to me. I took a break in the middle of all that to get a Big Mac – my cheapest local meal that isn’t a dollar frozen burrito from the Walmart. The fries were really sad, so I stopped at Sonic on the way back for a dollar corndog.

I had an anxiety attack just as I was driving away from the office, so I let the car do its thing. Eaddie wanted to take Eli and Ceci to my parents’ house to swim, but Dad wanted me there as an adult to watch over them, so I changed clothes when I got to the house and rode Muad’Dib over on the Onewheel to meet them. Mom was actually home early too. I sat outside with the kids and dripped sweat after a while.

Mom said they still had fish soup, so I brought that in to heat up just as Eaddie said she was going to their house for dinner. Mom went out to water plants, so I ate alone and then finished my walk with the dog. He was pretty sluggish and we cut about a mile off our route.

It was recycle and trash duty when we got back. The kids stayed out late, and I tried to sleep early.

what if then else