So Berry Glad to See You

It was rainy most of today. We had a meeting to sign testing paperwork for the year, so Ben brought sausage biscuits and donuts. Then Jason had us all go out and clean up the graveyard. It wasn’t an awful amount of work, so we finished up pretty quickly and then I spent the rest of the morning trying to get my student data migrated from yesterday. I was talked into driving half the crew to Fat Daddy’s out of town in the rain, but at least I didn’t have to park in the mud like I usually do. I felt a little rude after asking so many questions about the burrito, but it really annoyed me last time to be charged extra for getting the burrito made like it was described on the menu.

After lunch I got my last stubborn kid’s stuff to start migrating, and eventually I made it to the high school to get the girls. Autumn had a quiz bowl meeting, so they got out a bit late, then we stopped by my house before taking them home. I watched some MKBHD videos after messing with the speakers for a bit, and then we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Summer met us there after the gym because Dad had grilled burgers and dogs. The girls and I had some rice with it since my parents didn’t think of any other sides to go with the burgers.

Autumn wanted to stay at my house where she’d be closer to the high school for her tournament in the morning, so Summer took them home to get clothes, and I went home to start cleaning up a bit. I discovered one of my cherry shrimp was berried with eggs, which got me really excited after spending the past few days so worried. I think they’ll be just fine in that little tank, and I can split the colony up into other tanks as they grow.

The girls eventually showed up and we watched an episode of Battlestar when Summer got out of the shower. Then she went to bed and Eaddie and I started an episode of Luke Cage. She didn’t last very long before wanting to go to sleep herself, which was fine by me.

It’s way too early to be this exhausted…

Puttin ’em Off

I had to kind of recalibrate myself this morning and prioritize my work orders as I whittled them down into the teens. I got a few easy help desk tasks done before lunch, but they were all hotspots. One of the students whose account I deleted yesterday came into the library while I was there, and I ended up trying to help him out for a while. As I expected, he claimed a loss of some data and nobody could tell me anything useful, which made me out to be the bad guy.

Allen and I went to Wendy’s again, because he can’t get enough of that jalapeño burger. Afterward I went by the new Arvest to see what was going on there. Evidently we could have had a free lunch for their grand opening, but instead I went inside and got a new debit card made with some cows on it.

After lunch I had to dig into those student accounts some more, and learned that the Gmail didn’t transfer when I deleted the old accounts, so I had to restore them and try to perform a data migration instead. Unfortunately I couldn’t ever get that to work either, so I figured I’d leave it overnight and check again tomorrow. I wrapped up the day spending about an hour on a phone replacement I thought I could finish in about half that time.

When I finally got home I stopped by Bác Vân’s for some eggrolls she made, then messed with the tanks for a bit. Once Summer got home, I headed out to hook up the first set of speakers, and realized I didn’t have the right cable to get the subwoofer going. Then we started season 3 of Battlestar and stressed her out until bed.

Yes, fear is a key article of faith as I understand it, so perhaps it’s time to instill a little more fear into the people’s hearts and minds.

IMPOSSIBRU!!!

The high school had a tornado drill this morning, so I started at the shop just to avoid it. When I finally did get to the high school, most of my day was taken up with interruptions and being dragged out of my office to look at something. I spent way too long messing with a touch panel and dock situation, and not enough time doing other older work orders.

Nobody had said anything by the time lunch rolled around, so I just kind of left campus and tried to wing it. I stopped by the taco truck I’ve seen up the road, but they were closed on Mondays. Then I started toward Taco Bell before switching gears to try the Impossible Whopper at Burger King. The app experience was absolutely horrible, and it didn’t matter whether I wanted to place the order online or use a coupon in the restaurant. It took me about 15 minutes just  to get the order in.

Once I finally got my order, I headed to see if I could commandeer Summer for a few minutes. We split a shitty taco, some nuggets, onion rings, and the two burgers. I’m not sure what I expected with the taco, but it was an absolute abomination, and whoever thought it was a good idea should be fired, re-hired, and then fired again. The nuggets and rings were bomb. The burgers were more or less indistinguishable, but I think the takeaway is not so much that we can make fake beef taste good. The lesson here is that Whoppers are terrible. Sure, they managed to make a vegetable patty that tasted like a Whopper, but why would anyone want that?

After lunch was literally more of the same, getting pulled back to the same room for hours, fighting with the same touch panel and display issues. I really just hope the next time she comes around, I’m legitimately in the middle of something so she doesn’t think she can just come and fetch me any time she wants. I ended the day playing with the IVR a bit more, and finally switched the career center over to their automated menu.

When I got home, I pretty much immediately got to checking water quality in the aquariums. Much to my surprise, everything was great! The 10 gallon shrimp tank was within acceptable ranges of everything, but the Imagitarium had perfect numbers. No ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates at all. The carbonate hardness was up a bit, and it had even turned a bit alkaline, which is great for the shrimp. The Tums really worked some magic in both of the tanks.

Eventually I headed up to Summer’s for the evening, and made us salads for dinner before settling down with an episode of Battlestar for bed.

Frakking toaster thinks it’s human!

Eggs Mark the Spot

When I got out of bed this morning, I knew I had to do something for breakfast. I’d been craving a Casey’s breakfast pizza for a while, and we had a whole leftover cheese pizza in the fridge. I figured I only had a few eggs to lose if it didn’t turn out well, so I cracked them onto the bacon pizza first and threw them into the oven. That turned out pretty well, but I forgot to add extra cheese to the top. With the bacon gone, I was truly down to just the cheese pizza left, so I cut up some summer sausage to throw on top, followed by egg and cheese, and then some chopped up green onions. That time I broiled them and the egg whites didn’t quite cook all the way, so I had to finish them without the broiler. Another success.

Summer decided to tackle the lawn while Noah played video games and I kept digging through my old photos to eliminate duplicates that were taking up space. I finally got down below the 19GB limit I’ll have next month, but I still don’t have a lot of headroom. Hopefully I can score some more promo space somehow in the near future.

I ended up taking a long bath with some Stardew Valley for a while, and I’m not sure I can get into it on mobile. I really just wanted a bigger screen and controller. The girls came home around that time, and it wasn’t long before we had to head out for dinner with my parents. Summer took Autumn to Walmart for some things first, while Eaddie and I went back to my house to take care of the shrimp.

Mom made chow mein, which is one of our favorites. Autumn made some mini burritos out of some leftovers. After dinner, the girls went home to get ready for bed while I cleaned up after the cat. I got done early enough that I could go back to Summer’s for an episode of Battlestar Galactica before bed.

This bath sheet is heavy and ridiculous, and I love it.

Catching Death

Dead relatives seem to be going around at Summer’s shop. She got a call sometime in the night that lead to her having to work today, which meant that none of the many plans we had to choose from would come to fruition. I slept super late and got up to play with the shrimp some more. I managed to catch the ninth cherry and get it moved over, so now it’s just a waiting game to see if any others come out of the woodwork. They all seem to be getting along fine in the smaller tank though, and they’re much easier to find and count now.

I spent all afternoon sifting through my Google Drive and Photos to try and save some space, because evidently my 100GB HTC promotion runs out next month and I’ll either have to cut down what I’m storing online or pony up some cash for a storage plan. At least I still get free full-resolution uploads for having a Pixel.

Eventually I got cleaned up and went to Summer’s where she and Noah were settling in for some television. I made a couple salads, and we watched some Battlestar before bed.

If I could tuuuurrrn back time!

Mandio Cart

I forgot my phone at home this morning, but at least I made it there on time. Jason was out, which shouldn’t have surprised me since he actually had us scheduled yesterday for projects today. I was sent with Amanda to pick up a couple unused carts from Oakland and London. If I had known they were such small carts, we wouldn’t have taken the trailer, but it did still make things easier on us. I even managed to swing by and get my phone on the way. When we finished with the carts, we had to hang a touch panel at Crawford for Allen, and Amanda and I made short work of it.

On a whim this morning, I suggested Taco Bell for their new toasted cheddar chalupas, and it stuck. Allen, Gary, Ben, and I all had the same thing for lunch, and it was a hit. It didn’t even seem as heavy as I expected it to be, and the tacos were extraordinarily fresh and crunchy. I spent too long fighting with their app and ended up having to order at the counter like some kind of plebeian, but it was worth it for that warm, fried, cheddar shell.

After lunch we split up to do our own work orders, and I fought with my latest software deployment some more. It never finished overnight, and I nearly gave up, but I kept throwing changes at it until it worked once, and then I deployed it to the lab. So far, so good. I finally got that sound system lowered as well, but I cheated and didn’t even bother mounting the wall mount. She had a full size filing cabinet right there underneath it, and there was just enough slack in the cabling to pull it down, so I set the amp there instead.

After work, I went to the shop to visit with Summer, and messed around with her computer some to try and make things better for her. It was so hot upstairs, and I could tell the heat was making me a little cranky. When we left there, I couldn’t even take the short way home because of the county fair traffic. I had to make a huge loop all the way around town. I found one more cherry shrimp in the kitchen tank, which brings my total to eight in the Imagitarium and one stubborn and hard to catch shrimp still in the kitchen tank. Then I got frustrated with a corrupt Tabs Outliner file and had to recover from a January backup before Summer got here from the gym.

We settled in for some Battlestar Galactica, and then it was off to bed. Dad wanted to leave super early for the civil war thing, and we just weren’t having any of it, so we’re sleeping in instead.

Ocular migraines are weird.

Sleeping In at Home

Summer had to work today, which meant I got to sleep in at home for the first time in a long while. I started the morning with the shrimp and just kind of lounged around all morning and early afternoon. When I finally got around, I tinkered with the computer some and got to play with PRTG, which is something I installed but then sort of abandoned last year. I even had a little fun adding some custom device icons.

Eventually I got around to bathing, then waited a bit until Summer got here from the gym and a shower. We went to my parents’ house for duck soup for dinner, and then came home for a few tense episodes of Battlestar Galactica.

No, no, no. It’s “frak.”

Unbirthday Pie

We managed to sleep in a bit today, and it really helped. We ate some leftover French toast, then watched some more Battlestar Galactica in bed while the kids got up and around. Before we knew it, lunch time came around and Julie brought pizza for Dad’s birthday. We met everyone at their house to eat, and then Autumn and Noah played some Magic: The Gathering in the floor while the rest of us sat around.

Noah had to go to work in the evening, so Summer took everyone home to get ready for that, and I headed home myself to do my weekend chores. Murderface seems to look a little better, but he’s still got some weird scales out of place. I need to move the fat betta back into the community tank so she’ll have some more room. It looks a lot better without the duckweed in there too. The Imagitarium is looking quite nice, and I did a full panel of tests on the water quality for the first time. It took quite a while, and then I tried to learn about the general hardness and carbonate hardness a bit since I plan to keep shrimp in it.

The night went by super quickly, and I ended it with some more browsing for CPAP supplies. I get so angry over how much of a racket it is, but I’m super dependent on my machines to sleep.

And I still need new glasses, too….

Up and at Em!

I got up a bit early today so I could swing by the shop to get the stuff I needed to run a new HDMI cable first thing this morning. Then I continued on home to get ready before going to the high school with everything. Mason offered to help me, so Jason let me off the hook for the meeting this morning for not having to pull anyone else out with me. It didn’t take very long because it was a short run and there was already some panduit on the wall. Then it was off to take care of other random work orders.

Brice and Amanda wanted Brangus for lunch. Eight of us in total made it there this time. My steak tasted a bit funny but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. On the way back, I stopped by Oakland to give Leslie a new power cable for her speakers. Then I continued on back to the high school.

I left pretty close to on time after a slightly frustrating and loud conversation with Dan, but I think we were both just feeling frustrations from different angles. After I got home, I received an email from him thanking me for the insight, which felt nice. It’s probably worth another conversation in the future after I had some time to kind of stew on it a bit, but I hope I expressed a genuine desire to be helpful without giving in too much.

While I was home, I took care of the fish and then sat for quite a while just relaxing in front of the shrimp tank. The snail population has just exploded, and though I appreciate the lack of algae, I think it may be time to do something about them. No other tank of mine has nearly this many, though I guess the shrimp tank is pretty jungly.

Once the girls got home, I headed up there and heated up the leftover pizza for dinner. Then Summer and Autumn went to sleep while Eaddie and I sat up watching Daredevil. She fell asleep part way through the last episode we watched, and then we both called it a night.

I seriously just taught you how to do something that I learned by myself in middle school, and that’s not even the most frustrating part!

Hackerman

I loaded everything up this morning and headed to central office for a new picture. I went ahead and took a normal photo for the website first, but then the coat went on, the collars went up, and the Matrix glasses and Lazer Tag helmet topped it all off. Josh seemed genuinely excited to be doing something fun and different. He even asked me to stick around to take some other creative shots after he finished portraits for the last few people walking in. I felt a little silly, but I figured it would be worth it. Even Ben walked in and caught my hijinks and had to laugh. As we finished up, Josh made the comment that he wished I had the gun to go with it. I told him I was moving in with him if I got fired for it, retrieved it from the trunk of my car, and we took the shots.

With that out of the way, I stopped by the shop to check on things there, then ran by the middle school to pick up some scrapped Chromebook chargers to use for something at the high school. I ran into Sara there, and she wanted to pick my brain about esports. We ended up talking for quite a while, laughing at how we were both far enough behind that sitting around chatting all day wouldn’t even make a noticeable difference. When I finally left the middle school, I stopped by Oakland to see if I could swipe an unused laptop dock and say hello to everyone for a minute. Then I had to head on to the high school to fix a vo-tech phone I had evidently broken yesterday.

I did a few more things at the high school before heading to Morelos to meet Zach and Allen. The carnitas were pretty great, and I took a taco salad to Summer afterward. Zach bought my lunch because he said it was easier than trying to explain in broken English how to split the check. I stopped by the shop to pick up some things, then headed back to the high school to churn through some more work orders.

The girls took the bus over after school, and I took them home with me so I could take care of some things. My wireless was out, which turned into having to update some things that took too long. I eventually just gave up on having it done, and we went to CiCi’s to meet Summer. She ended up not feeling well enough to eat out, so we got some Little Caesar’s on the way up instead. The girls did their homework, and Summer and I tried to watch the new Rocko’s Modern Life on Netflix. I didn’t love it, but it did satisfy what little nostalgia I had just from remembering the show existed. Finally it was off to a slightly early bedtime.

I’ll have to come back again and dual wield these things.