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Productive Sunday

We all got up early this morning and Summer made chicken and waffles. Then once everyone was out of the shower, we took two trips with two cars to my old house to pick up some speakers. That will give us more room to clean off the dining room table and get it over to the new house as well. There’s only a handful of stuff I really want to get to the new house before Thanksgiving.

By then, furniture stores were open again, so we went to Funky Town Mall, Sofa City, and Hank’s. As we left there, we passed a car that had pulled over into a parking lot and caught on fire. We went to Good Deal Charlie’s while that billowed black smoke in the distance. Nothing really caught our attention at any of the places we went, so we took a quick restroom break and got a car wash, then went to Lowe’s where I remembered my previous idea of using a tool chest as a coffee bar. We saw a few we liked, but I remembered some even taller ones at Harbor Freight that might have a large, closable hutch on top.

We left Lowe’s and got some food at Sam’s. They were completely dead, but the food was still great. Then we stopped by Harbor Freight just to get our hands on some of their tool chests, and then I figured I could build something online. We got some gas for Eaddie and finally made it home, where I tried to maintain a little bit of the day’s momentum.

Summer got some laundry done, and then I did a load myself while Eaddie had Eli over to do some bead crafts and watch TV. I was up later than I intended, but it was a solid day for this crew.

But is it repeatable?

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The More Geese, the Better

I woke up hungry and had a pretty bad headache this morning. Summer had made burritos while I was gone, so I made one for breakfast before taking a shower to get out for the day. By the time we got out of the house, the girls wanted to eat. Eaddie was being pretty rude, which made me mad on top of other general aggravations, so when we got to Stoby’s where they wanted to eat, I just left them and went to my house to get my computer chair.

By the time I got it loaded up, poked around the house a bit, and got about halfway to the new house, they said they were done eating. I went to pick them up and we went to the house to drop off my computer chair. Then my parents came over to go furniture shopping with us. I had made a floor plan for the living room on an app I found for my phone, so we could visualize the space a bit better this time.

We went to Strouds first, and the guy there was the opposite of a pressuring salesman. Then we went to Cleo’s where we looked at the same sectionals we had liked from before. We should have shopped again earlier, because the ones we wanted weren’t in stock. We ended up ordering one online that was much more expensive, and we had no way to test it out beyond one picture on their website. Hopefully we like it.

From there, we went to the junk store to see what they had. My parents left from there while Eaddie waited in the car for Summer and me to finish looking around. We didn’t find anything of any interest, so we went back home for a while. I had another burrito, and then they girls decided they wanted to go back out to do some more shopping.

We went to Walmart for a few things we needed, and then stopped by my old house to get some things from the pantry. Finally we made it home for the night, and Summer went to bed. Eaddie went out with some friends, and I sorted the spice cabinet.

I guess it’s not nothing.

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BATTLESTATIONS!

Today started out really quiet because they were doing some testing. I dug back into my domain controller replication issue and enjoyed the efficiency of being alone. Once testing was over, my office was a parade of people. That was on top of screaming kids right outside my door. I started to get a little snippy about the situation, and judging from how ultra-sweet Denice started talking to me, I think she might have figured out how I felt about our new arrangement.

The good news was that I finally got replication going again, and my Group Policy configurations started expressing themselves as expected. Hopefully after a few reboots, the rest of the computers in the district will start acting a little more normally. I think the next big project has to be imaging, and I shouldn’t be far off from having that functional. I just need to focus, and time to focus comes at a premium these days.

Earnie called me in the afternoon after a few beers. He had apparently had a bad day and wanted to vent a little bit. I didn’t have the time to talk then, so I called him back on the drive home and we talked for just a little bit. Once I got back into town, I stopped to feed the fish, changed clothes, got a car wash, and then stopped at Ridgewood to try their new Mohawk Sandwich. I talked to Kyler and Grant for a bit, and then headed to the house to eat with Summer.

After dinner, I spent the rest of the night working on the office. Eaddie and I decided the desk would be better situated in the back corner, and though I may miss facing the TV that will eventually be mounted behind me, I think it does open up the room quite a bit. I spent all night getting everything just right, but I’ll still need to come back with a better solution for my monitor. The alternative would be to somehow mount the giant center channel speaker above it, and that might look a little silly. At least it sounds good.

I don’t need a whole lots of money. I don’t need a big fine car. I got everything that a man could want. I got more than I could ask for. And I don’t have to run around. I don’t have to stay out all night. ‘Cause I got me a sweet, a sweet computer, and it keeps me up past my bedtime.

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All by Myself

Kim was still out sick today, and Denice wasn’t there either, so I got to spend the entire day in the quiet of my own office with very little disturbance. Of course it didn’t take long for Barry to walk in and ask for a new key fob for the door. His mysteriously quit working, and I went through two bags of brand new ones, and still couldn’t find one that would read on the door. I decided then and there that I would make him a proper ID card and figure out how to print badges for the first time since they had purchased the whole setup, long before I arrived.

I skipped lunch, having sipped on a Soylent all morning, and worked right to the end of the day. The last thing I did was try and fix the replication issues across my domain controllers. I was really convinced it would work, but it didn’t. Now I don’t know what to do to fix it, and it’s tempting to just start over anyway. The staff devices are such a completely random collection that it probably won’t matter to nuke everything anyway.

After work, I went to the old house to load up a few things and feed the fish. Summer said that they got pizza, so I hurried home to eat. Then Summer and I went back for my computer desk. I spent the rest of the night doing a load of laundry while cleaning and setting up the desk in the office. Summer had a video call for work, so she was up late. Eaddie went to bed early, and I did well to wrap things up at a usually-late time.

Why get rid of the Cougar, anyway?

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Cash Cow

I was a little bit behind this morning, and the rain made everyone stupid and slow, and there was gravel all over the roads, but I made it to work on time. There wasn’t much exciting going on. Lunch was some pretty gross spaghetti that oddly was super light on noodles. It felt a little bit like eating mouthfuls of marinara with hamburger meat in it.

As I was leaving, John texted wanting payment for the electrical work. I had completely forgotten that we still owed him half, so I raced home to feed the fish and hit up the bank before meeting him at the new house. While he was there, he showed me where the first guy messed up and drilled a hole through the ceiling on the first day, but said the “free” outlets he installed in the garage made up for it. The funny thing is that the hole was from when they were installing those outlets, and he had already promised “free” outlets beforehand. I was just happy to have one house project done though.

After that, I went to my parents’ house for some leftover phở. Then when I got back to the house, the girls were looking up food for Eaddie. She also needed gas, so the two of us went out to get her some Zaxby’s. We sat and chatted for quite a while, and then got gas from Casey’s on the way home.

It was a pretty early night for everyone after that. I got to bed a little bit early to make up for earlier in the week. Time is just flying by, so we’re going to have to kick it into gear this weekend.

Watch your tone diacritical.

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Electrifying

I had a really good Sausage McMuffin on the way to work this morning, and I was glad I did because lunch was a pretty small portion of a “walking taco” with a strange bag of low fat Doritos and a tiny scoop of meat and cheese on a big, plastic lunch tray. I didn’t really complete any big projects, but I jumped around a lot to figure out some new things that have been sitting in my queue for a while.

Dad spent most of the day at the house while the electrician was there running cable for the Wall Connector and then replacing the whole electrical panel. They finished up near the end of the school day, so when I left work, I went to the old house briefly to feed the fish before going home.

Summer beat me there and was cooking dinner. The floors were left a mess with drywall dust everywhere, but I had one mission on my mind, and that was to set up the Wall Connector. I got it mounted to the wall and started charging my car, and then we all ate a good dinner.

Afterward, Summer cleaned the floors, Eaddie vacuumed, and I cleaned up other stuff before getting Summer’s car turned around to charge. At the end of it all, it was a successful day.

Definitely haunted.

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Pique Productivity

It was loud at work again today, with the girls chittering in the back office for much of the day. Kim seemed to be at least a little bit active, though I’m still not sure what she spends her hours doing. I mostly read up on Windows Deployment Services, since I only had experience with its bigger brother. I think my big win for the day was simply adding network drivers to the currently-deployed image. It still didn’t add the computer to the domain like I expected, but at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if that was simply never set up properly in the first place.

I went to the old house briefly for a quick charge and to feed the fish before going to my parents’ house. Mom made phở, and Eaddie came to join us after school. Summer was home with a bad back, so we didn’t bother her. After we ate, Dad came over to the house to help with a few things.

He had come to the house earlier in the morning to babysit the electrician while they got some wires started. While he was there, he poked around with a handful of things. One of those things was the wonky ceiling fan that needed to be re-mounded to the ceiling. Then I had him help me mount the back plate of the Tesla Wall Connector to the garage wall in preparation for another visit from the electrician tomorrow.

I did my best to wind down quickly after we finished all of that. The girls made it to bed early, but I’ve struggled to do that so far this week. I hate that it takes me so long to become hyper productive. I just need longer days.

Dig in and settle.

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Powered Up

We had a nice, quiet morning again today. Summer had coffee on the porch, and I got up for some coffee and cereal myself. Eaddie wanted to bake cupcakes, so Summer went to the gym and brought back stuff for that while I reorganized the kitchen a bit. Eaddie left for a little while for band practice, so Summer worked on her nails for a while. I took a shower and finished cleaning up the kitchen, then went to the old house to pick up some surge protectors for the many, many electronics we still have to hook up.

I was there a bit late, but my car needed to charge as well. I stopped to wash the car on the way back to the new house, and Summer was mopping when I got there. She didn’t cook dinner, so I warmed up a leftover stuffed pepper. I got more of Summer’s office nook set up, and we’ll get the full office set up as soon as we have a car charger here.

Eaddie was up a bit late, but Summer is chaperoning a band trip with her tomorrow. Kids are out of school for me tomorrow, so I’ll be climbing around in the ceiling a bit.

Light it up!

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Getting Used to Home

Summer got up and went to the gym this morning, and I got around to do some laundry. I forgot a couple towels at the old house, so I ran across town to get them and complete the set. When I got back to the house, I took Summer around the block to look at a TV stand someone had left out. It didn’t look any better than the ones I have, so we left it and went back to the house to continue cleaning up.

Most of the day was pretty uneventful. I fixed a chair, sliced my hand trying to bang out a dent I put in the dryer, we went to the Neighborhood Market for some dinner to grill. Later in the evening, Summer snuck off to assemble the bed frame while I mounted a new smoke detector twice. I was certain the first time was where I wanted it, but went back and did it again with a laser level when I noticed it was at least an inch off of center.

Things are very slowly coming together, but sometimes the new habits we’re trying to form are a moving target. Summer thinks that I have to have things done my way because I think that my way is the only right way to do them. The part of the process that she’s never been around to experience are the 700 other ways I tried to do them first. Any one of them might have been perfectly fine, but you should always try to do them better the next time.

You see, I measured it wrong 499 different times.

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Fire, Good!

I slept in really late today after not getting to sleep until around three in the morning. Summer had to work, so it was quiet in the house. My shower was infuriating, because the water was either cold or scalding. I’m convinced the mixer is broken, so my next big project may be to install a thermostatic one. I also ran out of hot water about halfway through my already-quick shower. I wanted to relax in it for a while, but that just didn’t happen.

Eaddie got up and put away her laundry, and I left to meet Summer for lunch. I picked her up at the wash and we went to McDonald’s to fix my Big Mac craving. Afterward, I dropped her off back at work and went to my old house to charge and pick out a few things to take to the new house. I ended up staying there for way longer than I anticipated.

When I left, I loaded my trunk up with fire wood so I could try out the new fireplace. The girls were doing their own things, so I got a fire going and tinkered with anything I could get my hands on. It cooled off really fast outside, so hopefully we can take advantage of the nice weather while it’s here.

Enjoy the scent before burning, the smell escapes when lit.