Tag: lessons

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Roller Coaster! Of Blooooooood. (say what?)

The Catapult Health Clinic was at the middle school today, and I had my visit scheduled first thing in the morning. They seemed to be running a little slow, so it took me a few minutes to get in, but it wasn’t any worse than going to my doctor’s office. The difference is that they had me do all the paperwork right there with them while they sampled my blood. That’s about the time that shit got cray.

My first blood pressure reading was 188/122. I’ve never paid particular attention to those goals, so for me it was business as usual. The second reading was 170/111, which was more than 10 points off of the first reading, so I got a third at 186/127. That’s when a different nurse came over with an alarmed look on his face. He called the first girl back over and asked what they should do, and she replied that the video chat nurse would probably just talk to me about it. After a brief wait to go behind the video chat curtain, a nurse practitioner video chatted with me and brought up a warning/disclaimer to call my doctor immediately.

I went to Oakland to do some work and told the girls about my experience, so Leslie took my blood pressure again at 183/114. Nearly an hour later, I had relaxed it down to 174/114. I was less concerned, but already coerced into calling my doctor. I could have gone in right at lunch time, but I was already hangry at that point, so I scheduled a visit for 2 in the afternoon and went with a big group to lunch at Western Sizzlin where I had an incredibly unhealthy salad. It could have been better.

After lunch, the doctor visit went relatively well. They had renovated most of the building, and pretty well removed my old doctor’s name and replaced pretty much every comfort of familiarity. I hated watching the reel of healthcare advertisements in the lobby. At least everything else looked cleaner and less dingy than before. The first nurse got my blood pressure at 160/90 in both arms and said it wasn’t that bad, and blamed the high numbers on the auto-cuffs we had used all morning. A short wait later, the ARNP came in and basically said the same, but then followed that she was prescribing some low dosage blood pressure medication. I’ve officially made it to the stage in life where I’m kept artificially alive. Also, I have ringworm.

I went straight back to the junior high after my visit was over, and had Chrystal take my blood pressure again. She had a manual cuff like the doctor’s office, and came up with 182/110, which served only to confuse me more. Convinced that Death was following me around, I continued on with the rest of my day. Summer left to go to the gym, and I took the girls to Walgreens to pick up my prescriptions before going to my parents’ house for dinner.

My parents seemed not to be too concerned with me getting medication, and leftovers were good. All I had left to do was research my new drugs.

Until I got home.

Bulk item pickup day apparently didn’t include tires or televisions, so both were left in my front lawn. The CRT TV chassis appeared to be split open, so of course it fell completely apart as soon as I touched it. The glass immediately shattered, half on the grass and half on my driveway. I would have preferred to sweep it off of only the driveway, but that would have left me feeling less defeated. My new, concerned neighbor laughed at my response that I was okay, but contemplating life.

We’ll try again tomorrow.

Blood pressure’s like a roller coaster baby, baby. I’m gonna die.

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Evasive Tax Form

The weather was supposed to be nice again today, but it was still super cold on the bike in the morning. I went back and forth between Oakland and the shop a few times trying to fix some issues before testing season arrives. It was still a mostly mellow morning though. I did run into Michael, who asked about borrowing my home theater speakers for a Dancing Through the Decades dance in a couple weeks. I just didn’t feel comfortable loading them up and bringing them out for use in public though.

I met Zach and Allen at Morellos for lunch, where I vowed to eat too many chips. I had been hungry all morning, and I absolutely loaded myself with fajitas and chips. Allen left us super early as usual, and Zach and I both still got to the shop separately, and well before our lunch hour was over. I really don’t know what his anxiety is about.

I tried to get some tablets reset at the junior high before school let out, but I didn’t get them all done before Jason wanted Brice and me to help Amanda mount a touch panel. At first I thought we were all four going to be there, but evidently he helped Amanda deliver the touch panel, and we were to swap it with a previously mounted television and then bring that back to the shop. I got pretty annoyed at Brice, because Jason emailed us early in the morning with a scheduled time of 3:00, so I left my tablets unfinished to meet at the shop. Brice took an extra 30 minutes to get there, and then we still had to drive to the middle school. On top of that, Gary seemed to be bored at the shop, and Ben was going to be at the middle school to continue his walkthrough. It just felt like everyone was either already there or available to help, and I was annoyed that I couldn’t get my work done. It didn’t help that I was mad at myself for forgetting to complete a work order yesterday, but I really didn’t get any heads-up for that one anyway.

After work, I came home to gather some things before going to Lowe’s to hunt down some light bulbs. I didn’t even see a compatible LED like I’ve been getting from Walmart, but they had one single-pack incandescent for a little more than the LEDs cost. Hopefully it won’t burn out after just a couple days though. I wish I knew what the problem was. I went ahead and picked up a new fluorescent bulb for the 35 gallon bow-front tank as well since it’s been out for years. There were only a couple cashiers, and after waiting in line for quite a while, my guy couldn’t scan a gift card correctly and I ended up getting out of line to check the balance. Once I confirmed what I knew, I got back into the next shortest line and checked out without incident.

I finally made it up to Summer’s for just a spot of dinner and to visit. They had already eaten since I was still a bit full from lunch anyway. Summer and I went to the other room to talk about her offer from the shop, and I tried to help her calculate the value of her time. It really could go either way, depending on her negotiation. The best part is just that she has multiple options for now and in the future, so I tend not to fret too much over her choice. I spent a bit of time trying to buy tickets for Shazam, but had to give up after I met a hidden order limit that required a call to guest services to explain.

Eventually I headed back home for the evening and tried to take care of the aquariums a bit. Once that was done, I spent the rest of the night cleaning with the purpose of finding my W-2. I just couldn’t find it anywhere, and I started to get really aggravated. I felt good about getting so much stuff cleaned up and thrown out, but I was going crazy not remembering where I had put it. Eventually I found it in the living room, but didn’t have enough time to actually file my taxes. I guess there’s still tomorrow.

At least I got my watch shipped off.

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Sweet Home Alabama

We got up early this morning for breakfast in the lobby, and then Summer was off to The Great Inflatable Race. I went back up to the room to shower and get things packed up before she got back. Her race ran a little behind, but she still made it back in time to get showered and primped before our late checkout time. I even tucked my shirt in and wore a tie for a few minutes.

Our first stop was at Shoe Carnival in the shopping center by the hotel. She wanted some new shoes for her dress, and I walked around holding some shoes for a while that I ultimately returned before checking out. Then she wanted to go to the McCain Mall right up the block. We made a loop through the whole place, really only stopping at Dillard’s, GameStop, Victoria’s Secret, and finally Spencer’s where I picked up some Rap Snacks for Dale. We were out just long enough to work up a bit of an appetite, so we made our way back over to Red Lobster.

There was only a really short wait for our Lobsterfest to start. Summer got a lighthouse glass without having to steal it, and I begrudgingly ate a sirloin because it was smothered in lobstery things. The lobster pizza appetizer was good, and Summer had a margarita that was unexpectedly the size of her head. I helped her on it just a bit as we took turns getting brain freezes. Then it was off to the Verizon Arena.

We paid for pretty decent parking, though in hindsight I think the block further for half the price may have been a better deal, and ultimately gotten us out of traffic faster. We got to the arena just in time to walk right on in and find our seats, which were also right by the entrance. Summer had a really great time while I fought with my Eargasm High Fidelity Earplugs. I think my ear canals turn up sharply, which causes the earplugs to seal shut. At least I got to learn that now before going to a concert that interests me personally. I kept them in to save my hearing, but the audio was clearly muffled unless I used my fingers to tweak them slightly in my ear canals.

Nice screensaver!I only recognized one song all night, which was by the opening Charlie Daniels Band. The Devil Went Down to Georgia was a staple for my Diamond Rio MP3 player in high school. Summer only knew it and maybe one more of their songs. The real treat for her was when Alabama came onto the stage. She got excited at several of their songs, none of which I could recall ever hearing in my lifetime. I was surprised to hear them go on and on about how many awards they had won and how many chart topping singles they had, partly because I’m only used to hearing rappers do that, and partly because I had never even heard of them. I spent the rest of the evening more in a state of discomfort than anything else. It was hot and cramped, and the band kept doing what I can only describe as a pop quiz after nearly every song, where they had the band start playing the song they just finished and tried to coax the crowd into singing the chorus a couple more times. Of course a country concert wouldn’t be complete without a pickup truck brand roll call, which was just a huge circle jerk of more things that I hate. Even the encore was lazy and uncoerced, as the band had barely left the stage long enough to take another shot of that Tennessee whiskey before coming back out. It just felt like they were pandering to the meme of assumed encores.

Fortunately we got out more quickly than we had come in, until we got into the traffic. It started to sprinkle as we walked to the car, but it wasn’t too bad. There was a questionable guy outside selling shirts at a significant discount from their inside asking price, so we grabbed one of those on our way out. I should have planned the escape route more before taking off, but I was so concerned about beating traffic that I ended up looping through a few more blocks of it than necessary. There was quite a bit of traffic on the interstate as well, almost all the way to Conway. The rain cleared up enough that it didn’t feel so dangerous to be cruising down the highway though, and we made it home just after midnight. Summer crashed pretty much right away, still high on her birthday vibes. I’d say today was a success.

I done told you once, you REDACTED

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Captain Overpowered

I got up this morning and came home through the drizzle to take care of the pets and clean up while the others got ready at home. Then I picked them up to go to Conway for the day. We made it to Old Chicago for lunch, which was a treat. Not only did I have a birthday discount, but they accidentally made the kids’ pizza on the wrong crust, so they gave us the extra wrong pizza for free. There weren’t any complaints about it, and I even had a slice myself that was delicious. They had some pretty good looking brunch menu items that I wouldn’t mind coming back to try. I even got a free ice cream with some cookie dough bits and a cherry on top.

Stuffed to our ears, we loaded up and headed to Sam’s to look around. I had a $45 credit from my promotional signup that I used to stock up on a bunch of bulk meds, and then I grabbed a bag in a box of Coca-Cola on the way out. After doing the math, 2-liters of Coke on sale are quite a bit cheaper than the syrup from Sam’s, but I wanted to try it out at least once with the SodaStream to see how I like making diluted, super-fizzy drinks. The kids got restless and ended up waiting for us in the deli area, where I also ran into a pair of my esports parents. They said they were really excited about it getting their kid out of the house, which is a phrase I literally never would have associated with video games. But it’s 2019 and esports are genuine high school athletic sports, you can pick your own gender, Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America, and I am a coach in a public school district.

We had time for two more quick stops before the movie. First it was Books-A-Million, and then it was Five Below. I had to cut it short at the last stop because I wanted to make sure we could make it all the way across town without incident. We had a little time to spare, but I also didn’t feel like we were really missing anything for it. The parking lot was super full, but it didn’t seem like the theater was as packed as I’ve seen it in the past. There were still plenty of open seats around the ends of the aisles. Autumn wanted a collector’s drink cup and tin of popcorn, and the girl at the register told us she could make it a combo with a shirt for the same price, which was pretty awesome.

Noah was the most upset at the movie’s faults. I didn’t love that they broke the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division gag, and it was weird that Fury called it SHIELD right off the bat when he met Vers. I was also a little fuzzy on the timeline for the tesseract, but some Googling after we got home made me feel a little better about it. Most notably though, the character is unapologetically overpowered. I agree with critics, and think that flying through enemy spaceships to destroy them was a bit too easy.

When we got back to town, I dropped Noah off at home, and the rest of us came back to my place to watch Man of Steel after talking about how bad Justice League was. I guess we just needed to crack the DC universe. At least I really liked this first entry. Autumn passed out before we even got started, but the other two seemed to like it alright.

Did my washing machine just travel through time?

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Dungeons & Deaths

We started work 15 minutes early in exchange for leaving 30 minutes earlier than usual. Ben had a conference to attend, so the rest of us kept busy cleaning up random projects. I got a little time at Oakland to myself, but then spent the afternoon with Zach and Allen after we all had lunch at Fat Daddy’s. I always forget how disappointed I am in the value of their Friday special of a pork loin “covered in bacon.” $7 is just a crime.

After work, Summer brought the girls over to me at the shop, and I took them to get dinner before dropping them off with their grandparents. Autumn wanted a burger and Eaddie insisted on Popeye’s, so we ran by McDonald’s and then Popeye’s before heading to my house to eat. The chicken took an incredible amount of time to prepare, at least for those that were in line ahead of us. I was parked by the speaker for near 15 minutes before they even addressed me and asked me to wait longer before taking my order.

Once the girls ate, they stopped bickering just long enough for me to drop them off. From there, I headed to Kroger and then Domino’s before swinging by Summer’s. She had to be back home relatively early to be up for a quiz bowl tournament the next day, so she just followed me to Travis’s house in her own car.

John and Melissa beat us there, and we spent just a very small amount of time on introductions and pleasantries before jumping right into a game of Dungeons & Dragons. The game was pretty fun in spite of me dying twice and not having anyone around to resurrect me. Summer seemed to enjoy it as well, and we’re excited to go back and continue the campaign.

With the game over, Summer went to get the girls and I met her back at her house for the evening. I showed Eaddie a bit of Bandersnatch while the other two went to bed. We made it through to the credits once before the Netflix autoplay took over and tried to start an episode of Black Mirror. I wish you could just disable that timer and have it automatically play the full credits every time.

I’m gonna have to kick this into high gear!

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Birthday Blunders

I woke up with another headache this morning, but fortunately I shook it off after a shower. There wasn’t much going on at Oakland, so I stopped by the shop to pick up some things on my way to the junior high. It was Ronda’s birthday, so I went with her to Stoby’s to pick up a bunch of lunch orders for those of us that were eating together for the occasion.

When we got back to the library, we discovered Janie’s order was missing, and I didn’t get my cheese dip. I let them eat and went back to Stoby’s by myself to pick up the rest, and the girl found Janie’s order immediately, but then told me the people in the back were “100% certain” they gave us a large cheese dip. I confirmed that they did, in fact, give us one out of the two that we paid for. She said she would check my order to make sure I was charged for it properly, but after driving back once already for what we clearly didn’t receive, I felt like she should have at least just given me the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t until after I got back to my cold taco salad that I realized they also didn’t give me any chips for it.

Nearing the end of my meal, a guy from the home theater place that mounted our cafeteria media rack found me and wanted me to look at it with him. He didn’t seem to understand why we weren’t satisfied with their install, and insisted that there was no way the weight of the equipment could be held up properly in a wall rack. I told him we work with wall racks all the time, and that if the rack was overloaded, then they should have purchased a heavier-duty rack. I flat out had to tell him I wouldn’t allow an installation like that to pass in my home. I guess he works with a different set of standards.

A few work orders later, we reached the end of the day, and I ran home to pack up my NVIDIA RTX 2080 TI Founders Edition cards that I paid way too much for, and took them to UPS for return shipping. It was just a little over $40, which kind of surprised me. I guess that’s a fine lesson. I’m still not certain I made the right choice, and it sucks that my plan didn’t pay off better. There’ll probably be a shortage of cards closer to Christmas, and I’ll regret returning them.

From there, I went to Summer’s and scraped up some leftover dinner while she watched TV and the girls fiddled around. I had to head home for more laundry though, so I didn’t stay very long. Then I just surfed Cyber Monday deals into the evening long after I finished laundry. With any luck, I won’t go completely broke before I can find a new job.

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.

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Keep Pressure on It

I made myself get up and out of bed this morning since it’s back to work tomorrow. After digging through my SIM cards, I pulled out my old HTC phones and tried activating one for Summer to use. It took me a while to get them going, and the SIM I found didn’t work, but I think I’ve about figured out a plan.

Once Eaddie was up, she and Summer had some leftovers for breakfast, and then Summer went to work out. Eaddie spent all day watching Arrow, and I bounced around the house, mostly still working on the phones. I still had a ham bone in the fridge that I wanted to throw into the Instant Pot, so I talked Summer into running to the store for an onion, some carrots, and celery. I had enough of everything else here to try making some soup. I don’t remember my parents ever using dried beans before, but I found some Instant Pot recipes that I could blend together and tweak to make it work.

I sauteed what was left of the meaty ham bits with the onion, carrots, celery, garlic, and olive oil, while Summer sorted through the bag of organic great northern beans that John left me years and years ago. Then I added the two cups of beans, the mostly cleaned ham bone, eight cups of water, and some fresh rosemary and thyme to the pot. I originally set it to pressure cook on high for 35 minutes, but then after depressurizing and trying the beans, they were still a bit hard. Fortunately it didn’t take very long for the pot to regain pressure, and another 20 minutes finished them right up.

While the Instant Pot was going, I called the jury line to see when I would have to report for jury duty or selection, or whatever it was that I was summoned to do. The line was busy for quite a while, but eventually I got through and received a message that my summons was cancelled, or at the very least put on hold. I still have mixed feelings about that, but at least it’s one less thing I have to worry about for the time being.

Once the soup was done, I went through the surprisingly long process of depressurizing the pot again, and served up three bowls. The ham hock had nearly completely disintegrated, and all of the flavors poured out into the soup. The girls really liked it, so I called Julie to see if she wanted to try some, but she wasn’t hungry. I thought it was too sweet because it was a glazed ham and I used all of the juices from the pan as well. Next time I’ll avoid the drippings if they’re sweet. Overall it was a great success, and I can’t wait to try cooking another animal carcass. I think I’m even a little more excited to try cooking more dry beans, because they’re just so cheap. This thing is probably killer with chili too.

We watched The Office while we ate, with a windstorm in the background. Then the girls had to head out to pick up Autumn and get ready for school in the morning. I spent the evening hand-washing dishes, partly because I wasn’t completely sold on using the dishwasher on the Instant Pot, partly because I didn’t really have a full load of dishes, and partly for just a little bit of old school Zen to wrap up the week off.

All of that, and I forgot to take a picture. Guess I’ll have to do it all over again.

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That Time the Superintendent Took a Shit on My Lawn

During a day of unseasonable warmth, I rode the bike to work again. I got stuck in a polar vortex of doing things for the office at the junior high, which meant I started stacking up work orders from other people. I took a quick Taco Tuesday break with Dale, Zach, Gary, and Heather, and then ran home to get a helmet for Eaddie.

Near the end of the day, Ben sent us a pretty long email basically telling us that Brice was hired on a full four steps higher than any of us were allowed to hire on, which makes him one of the highest paid techs right out of the gate. I was bothered still by his start date a full week before he actually showed up. It didn’t make me much happier to see him sitting in the shop on his phone, but I couldn’t really blame him if he was just there to follow someone else around. I would have liked to see him trying to talk to someone instead though, since he’s got a lot of ground to cover regardless of how much he knows outside of our own policies and procedures. I certainly don’t remember being on my phone a lot during my third day on the job.

Demoralized, I left whatever I had going on to take Eaddie to karate. Summer and Autumn were at a quiz bowl event in Clarksville, so she and I got to ride the bike across town. I stopped by the shop to talk to Ben for a couple minutes, running into Ryan as I pulled in. Then I went to my parents’ house for dinner and to pick up some bánh bao. Zach called a couple times and we chatted about what we should do, and how we could possibly have a productive conversation without the lesser-intelligent bringing up irrelevant nonsense or flying off the handle. We didn’t have any great ideas.

Back home, I had lost power for most of the evening, so I took the opportunity to shuffle around some battery backups. It took me most of the night to fight through everything, and I guess I’m really no better for it.

Tell me again why I can’t be a part of that positive change.

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They’re Missing the Point

“The whole point of the conference is to get us out of there and get away from the work orders and the teachers.” Quote of the day, and at least one of the themes for the whole day. Jason was clearly only there so he could not be at work. Some may be puzzled by how this might make any difference at all.

Classes started at 8:30 for real this morning, so I grabbed breakfast and headed into my classes. I was really disappointed by two out of three today, with the first being mostly a sales meeting, or at the very least an introduction to what they do sell. The second class was actually pretty good, though not necessarily very useful since we don’t actually have any Extreme equipment. The third was another dud only because it was an hour class on how to perform fewer than six steps. I don’t even know why it was a class. It could have been almost anything else.

The lunch was buffet-style this time, and pretty awesome. Fried pork chops and baked chicken with tons of extras. It was way better than yesterday, and the carrot cake for dessert was awesome. I failed to win any door prizes, so we headed home right after lunch. I dropped Jason off at his house, then merged back onto the interstate right next to Dale and Allen. I think Heather and Gary left quite a bit earlier in the day, but I don’t know when.

When I got back into town, I decided to stop by the shop to talk to Ben and Zach. Zach got his Pixel 3 XL in, and it seemed pretty nice, but he didn’t seem too keen on handling it much. I’ll get some more time with it once it’s in a case. Once he left work, I headed home to unpack before eventually making it to Summer’s. She had me take her to the football game to be honored for quiz bowl during halftime, and then we came right back home where I unpacked my stuffed swag backpack before bed.

The point is to learn something that you can bring back and share with the department.

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That Time I Trolled the Police

I parked in my usual space at Oakland this morning. Unthreatened by unwarranted police force, I couldn’t resist the temptation. I had too many people and too much logic and too much of the law on my side. I had just walked into the office after doing some work when Erica said Sheri was on the phone with him. I didn’t find out until later that he had pulled up behind me and was calling from just outside the building, but Sheri told him to leave me alone because she needed more help dealing with actual real life dangers like speeding and cell phone usage down the street in front of the school. Justice is.. well.. I didn’t go to jail. So, whatever, Beyette.

Zach and I went to Morelos to get some fajitas for lunch. I was super hungry and made a happy plate. Then I spent all afternoon mostly catching up with people at the junior high. I told Kevin about my victory in the morning, and he pulled me into his office to ask what time my confrontation happened the day before. He already had the cameras pulled up for that campus and day, and wanted to see the guy’s stupid face when he tried to intimidate me. It went downhill from “not a fan” pretty fast.

When it was time to leave, I took Eaddie to my parents’ house for some mango soup. I told her it was one of my favorite soups that Mom makes, and she said I say that every time. I asked if I had ever lead her astray, and she sheepishly shook her head and grinned.

Summer went to the football game to see Autumn perform at halftime, and Eaddie and I went back to my house to pick up some things for tomorrow before heading back to their house. This week has gone by fast, and I’m ready to have some time at home. Those cats just can’t keep the place tidy. I don’t know what their deal is.

It’s pretty bad when your own brothers in blue don’t have your back.