Tag: television

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Sandy Lines

Four of us immediately went to the junior high today to try and clean up the work orders that had been piling up due to the lack of a tech there. It was overall pretty quiet, and mostly a cluster of us all bumbling over each other, but we put a dent in them. Lunch time came around really quickly, and seven of us all met up at Mulan’s for lunch. Summer wanted to get lunch, but I was at the mercy of whoever would drive me, and she didn’t want anything that heavy.

We finished up at the junior high in the afternoon, and then came back to the shop to work on Central Office tickets that had piled up on Gary in the time he’s been pulled away to other things. It wouldn’t be this bad if we hadn’t restructured the department in the middle of already being super shorthanded. We just don’t have the people.

Shortly after I got settled into my office, I received an email from Rebecca stating very matter-of-factly that they had a new contract for me to sign, and that I would need to pay the district $558 due to a mistake that they had made. I knew how I wanted to reply, but Gary thought talking to Thomas first would be a good idea. I knew this was coming, but it didn’t get real until that moment, and I got pretty upset. He gave me what advice he could, and asked me not to take any action until he had a chance to go to Central Office on my behalf.

I spent the rest of the day writing a sort of memo of conversation to attach to the email I was forwarding to him, and thanking him for what he’s done in his short time here. I think I’ve been leading up to this for a long time. I just never could have imagined the district would initiate this conversation, especially in such a way that may possibly be more in my favor than not. All I know is that I’ve really enjoyed how my job has changed within the past six months, and that the work I’ve done in that time has been more valuable than ever.

I went home for the evening, and Summer brought Eaddie over once they cleaned up at home. Summer and I watched several episodes of Modern Family before she went to sleep. Then Eaddie came out and watched the last 20 minutes or so of a movie trailer compilation with me. I dawdled a bit more on YouTube before coming to bed, mostly feeling dread for what the future holds.

Audentes Fortuna Juvat

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The Bore Before the Storm

I got up and picked at leftovers for brunch, then mostly sat around all morning and afternoon. Autumn was at work all day while Eaddie stayed in her room with her head cold. Even Summer didn’t get out to do anything until she decided to cook dinner. I eventually went home to clean up a bit, but didn’t get up to much before heading back up for the night.

I got back just as Autumn was home and cleaning out her car. Summer had some ribs and corn on the grill, and was inside making mashed potatoes and some kind of pan-fried vegetable medley. We all ate, then let Eaddie go back to her room while the rest of us played a game of UNO.

The girls went to bed early for the first day back to school. Summer and I watched a couple episodes of Modern Family, and then we were off to the same.

Chickie-chickie, Slim Eggie

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It’s Also a Noun

I walked out this morning expecting more fair weather, and it felt like I immediately stepped into a bowl of soup. I was instantly wet, and it wasn’t until I looked up that I realized how much it looked like rain. After pushing the bike back into the garage, I rushed in to work through just a few sprinkles down the road.

We didn’t have anything big going on at work, and everyone was still out preparing for the start of the new year. I had to do some remote desktop work for Judy, which was my highest profile job yet. Hopefully I didn’t look too inept, but I did also draw her a picture of a guy standing in a pasture waving a “I ♡ RSD” sign while I waited for the Adobe installer to finish.

Lunch came around pretty quickly, and Gary called for Slim Chickens. I ordered a bigger meal than usual because the past few times I’ve been there, the chicken strips have been kind of puny. They were normal sized today, and boy were they fresh. I burned myself eating, but the chicken and fries were all just perfectly hot out of the fryer.

After lunch, I spent a good portion of the day at the junior high trying to close out a few tickets. I didn’t get nearly as much done as I wanted, but I also just sort of took it upon myself to go do it anyway. I appeared to be the last one out, and went home until Summer invited me out to dinner with Noah after their workout.

I rode the Shadow to La Villa, and we had a good time catching up. He gave me mad respect when he heard the story about our event last weekend, and then we made plans to go watch The Suicide Squad tomorrow. I went back home while Summer went to get the girls from their COVID shot so they could go home and clean up before coming back over to my house for the evening.

Summer wanted to pick up some Dairy Queen on the way over, but said there was a sign saying they were closed until further notice. I had already placed the order in the app though, so then I had to dig for a place to request a refund. Eaddie has wanted to watch House with me since she got back from Wisconsin, so as the other two went to bed, we stayed up for several hours finishing up the last third of season four.

I guess I’ll just have to earn it.

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Don’t Stress About It

I just barely got around to work this morning, and it was really tempting to take half a day just to sleep in after the long night. It’s been cooler, so I took the R1 to work and made it just in time. Everyone was off doing work orders, so I packed up some things I needed and headed to Oakland to close out what work orders I could.

Just as I was getting to head back to the shop, Julie called and said Dad was at the hospital because he needed CPR after his stress test. Evidently they gave him a shot instead of making him walk on the treadmill, and something didn’t agree with him in a big way.

I ran across town to see him, and though he was awake, he was in pretty rough shape. Julie was still on the way from work, so I stayed there for about an hour as he dry heaved and even looked like he had a seizure after his heart rate dropped during a heaving spell. They didn’t want to let anyone else in, but Julie convinced them to let us swap out. I went back to work just as he was trying to fall asleep, and his heart rate was still falling below 50bpm pretty regularly.

I spent the afternoon at the shop, partially helping Zach move his office into my old office. When it was time to leave, I went home to change and retrieved a package that Bác Vân signed for. Julie came by and got Dad’s phone from me since I forgot it in my pocket when I left.

Once the girls were home, I left to return something to Walmart and then headed up to their house for dinner. Summer had picked up a Little Caesar’s pizza for dinner, but I really wanted a burrito. Naturally I had a bit of both and went to bed with some wicked heartburn on top of the sinus congestion I already had. I decided to go ahead and start Modern Family with Summer, but I think Eaddie will be catching up to us as well.

Never tell me the odds.

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Call of Doody

I had a pretty rough start this morning, but thought things might turn around eventually. We spent all morning at the junior high building tech tubs full of old laptops for summer school, which only lasts a couple weeks. We finished just in time to make it back to the shop before lunch, and Ben was there to join us.

We all went to CJ’s, which was pretty packed, so we ended up parking down the hill in the 40 club lot. Lunch was pretty good, but it was crowded and loud, and their sound system kept cutting out, which made the music annoying.

As soon as we got back to the shop, I split my pants and had to run home to change. By the time I made it back, everyone had headed to the middle school to set up an alternative learning environment room. We had enough people in the room that it felt a bit crowded, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Kyle and I ended up splitting off from Josh, who couldn’t keep track of the parts he needed, to do some work at Dwight before the day was up. We didn’t finish, but quitting time is quitting time. After a quick run home, I went to see Summer for an oil change. Then it was up to her house for dinner.

I prepped some veggies for grilling to eat alongside the pork she had in the slow cooker, and it came out pretty good. We ate as soon as she got home from the gym, then watched the last episode of Loki before I headed back home to clean up before bed.

Eggie wegs! I would like to smash ’em!

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No Reservations

We were down to a relatively small crew today. Kyle and I went with Gary to the high school for the new core switch changeover. Gary configured switches while the two of us went around to every printer we could find and reconfigured DHCP reservations. Unfortunately we didn’t have the forethought to do the same for the release boxes on the majority of those printers, so we had to go back and do a lot of that in the afternoon.

We took a break and went to Sam’s for lunch before finishing up at the high school. Then we spent the last bit of the day at the shop before going home. It had been a relatively cool day, and a great day for a ride, but as soon as I would stop anywhere, the humidity had me sweating buckets.

Eventually I made it out of the house to go to Summer’s for dinner. I stopped by her shop first to try and get an oil change, but I didn’t make it in before closing time. I headed on up to the house and started warming up the spaghetti she prepped the night before.

As soon as Summer made it home, we all sat down to eat. Then we played a game of Uno before watching the latest episode of Loki. Finally it was an early night to bed.

Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls… Classic hero stuff.

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Woody Woodstacker

I made it in a little bit early this morning in time for coffee and donuts. It was another slow, quiet meeting that ended with everyone splitting up to continue imaging. I think we’re about a third of the way through the high school student devices by this point. I really thought Mike might be involved with it at some level, but I guess he’s got his own things going on.

We left at lunch time, and I went home for a bit before going to Zaxby’s and picking up some food to share with Summer. I felt pretty decent just sharing a Wings and Things meal plus a free side of cheddar bites, and afterward I went back home to stack some wood.

I got about two ricks stacked up from the massive mound of wood that has been in my back yard since the trees were cut. I was almost completely in the shade and it was a bit cooler out today due to the rain yesterday, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it. I was pretty proud of my accomplishment, but there’s so much more to stack before I even get to the larger logs that will have to be split.

I went in to shower from all the sweating, and Summer brought Eaddie over later in the evening. Autumn didn’t want to stay here again, so it would just be the three of us. Eaddie wanted to meet Dave at Old Post to play tennis, so Summer took her and they stayed out pretty late doing that.

When they got home, Summer and I watched the latest episode of Loki, and I still hate the forced weekly release schedule. I’m ready to see what little Alligator Loki has in store for us.

Now would be a great time to learn how to smoke things.

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Rood Awakening

I took the day off from work but, woke up to a call from a tech from Rood to come check out my air conditioning. Melissa said it would probably be around 10:30, so I was pretty startled when he called. I rushed home and just barely beat him there. Ultimately he said he was getting a 20 degree differential between my return and the air vent, and he said the unit had plenty of refrigerant. While we were outside, Bác Vân came over and picked a bunch of jalapeños for me. I gave most of them to the tech, and then went inside to clean up.

Summer wanted some lunch and nothing really sounded good, so I went to Ridgewood and got some ribs, bacon burnt ends, and turkey along with some sides. It was just Robert and Conner, a new kid that had just graduated from high school but looked about three years shy of it. Robert said Blake would be in town tomorrow morning, so I’ll try to swing by in the morning to see him there.

By the time I got to the shop, they had picked up and Summer couldn’t join me for lunch right away. I killed some time before finally eating some. Just as I finished, she came up and ate. Then I went back home to poke around the house. I got a very little bit done but felt exhausted all afternoon.

Eventually Summer came over for the evening and we watched the newest episode of Loki. I didn’t expect it to end so abruptly. I’m not a fan of the weekly episode format. I’ll take mine in a binge session, please.

‘Cause she’s jalapeño business.

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Dull Work Now, or Dull Work Later

Everyone there was there at work today, and it felt pretty empty. Gary did his best to inspire everyone for a full day of work, but then he went home because he had been at the hospital all night with our old friend Thomas. I told him not to worry about coming back, and the rest of us quietly toiled away.

I continued work on the image while the others either split up for tickets or spent the entire day enrolling Chromebooks. Lunch time came quickly, and I went to Linh’s with Kyle and Greg. Then I took a bánh mi home for Eaddie. The rest of the afternoon went by quickly enough, and eventually we all went home.

I stopped to look at a Miata on the way home since Summer wanted to know more about it. The few deeper scratches and scuffs weren’t visible from the road, but otherwise it was in okay condition for something that old. Summer wanted to meet me there later to look at it, and she decidedly fell out of love with it. She continued on to a bowling team builder while I went home for a while.

I eventually made it up to their house for the evening and made double layer tacos for dinner, then watched House with Eaddie until bedtime.

To send a wagon for thy minstrel and refuse my letters!

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Panic! At the Buffet

We had a really small crew today, even with Ben there. Greg and Kyle went around backfilling elementaries with Chromebooks from the middle school while I stayed at the shop. We were interrupted in the late morning by a power outage affecting a long strip down Arkansas Avenue.

Zach ran around swapping batteries and trying to keep the main server room cool. It’s incredible how quickly the temperature could rise in there, and surprising how ineffective our backup cooling solution was. They estimated the power would be out until about 1:30, but it actually came back on while we were all preparing to go to a slightly delayed lunch.

Summer met us at Western Sizzlin, but we had to sit at a different table when we couldn’t all fit around one. Somewhere mid-chicken strip, I had another slight panic attack, but as usual I couldn’t determine a cause or any other effects. I did end up with a pretty bad headache at the front of my head, but I wasn’t sure if my cloudiness after lunch was caused by that or the nap I wanted to take after eating so much.

Shortly after we got back from lunch, I had to go to The UPS Store to scan the 20 devices she had from our original quote request. I was just happy we didn’t really lose as many more as we thought. Central office set hours until 3:30, and then noon on Fridays, so everyone left pretty early. I stayed and solved another wooden block puzzle until Ben was ready to leave. Then I went home to cool down and relax.

Summer went to a band meeting with Autumn, so I got Eaddie from karate. We stopped for a couple half price Sonic Blasts, then headed up to Summer’s place. She and Autumn weren’t long behind us. Summer went to bed pretty early, so Eaddie and I cuddled up late watching House until she decided to go to sleep so she could wake up to mow the lawn in the morning.

Fire the unlucky ones. Nobody needs that kind of energy looming over the workplace.