Tag: work

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Big, Bad Waffle

I hardly got any sleep again last night because I stayed up too late writing reviews, and then when I finally laid down in bed, my mind was racing. I eventually passed out and woke up to a bright orange sun peeking over the horizon beyond the lake. I didn’t take much time to enjoy that before taking a shower so I could meet the guys for breakfast.

I met Randy, Kyle, and Jim at Phil’s Family Restaurant across town, and it was a cute little restaurant in an old house. I ordered their waffle special, and it was a ton of food. The waffle was awful though, and had a rubbery pancake texture like it was just pressed into a waffle maker after it had already been cooked as a pancake. It wasn’t crispy on the outside at all, and they charged me an additional $1.29 for a tiny cup of peanut butter. The servings on the eggs and hashbrowns were enormous though. It said it came with two eggs, but there had to be at least four scrambled on my plate.

I think Randy was the only one that had anything scheduled today. I was pretty sure I told Maggie I wanted another class in the afternoon, but I didn’t get anything. Jim disappeared, and I don’t know if Randy took Kyle to sneak into another class, but I ended up heading back to my room by myself, but I stopped at Proglide Car Wash first because I was long overdue.

I ended up signing up for an unlimited plan because they had a $10 special for their best wash. When I got around to the entry, I saw that they had a guide that I was worried about hitting, so I stopped and talked to one of the employees. He insisted they had never had any trouble with Teslas, so I took the chance. I wasn’t super excited when the two of them then got some soapy sponges out to try and scrub off the worst parts. I’ve had bug guts with grit in them, and I didn’t want them to scratch my paint. I let it happen though, and made it through the wash without incident. I stopped to vacuum my car, checked the rims and paint, and then went back around for a second wash to get some more of the bird poop that it couldn’t remove the first time. The guy cleaned it off by hand, and then I finally made it back to the hotel.

I worked all day on Vine reviews to try and get my ratio up, and I’m still showing only 80% reviewed for some reason. I can’t seem to figure out how they’re calculating their number. Beverly Hills Cop II was on, so I watched most of that, followed by some of Beverly Hills Cop. That seemed counterintuitive, but what do I know? A storm started to roll in, and I watched part of the new RoboCop remake. Eventually I met Randy and Kyle downstairs and took them downtown to meet Todd at The Rooftop Bar for the ProMAS social.

The food and drinks, and the outdoor restaurant atmosphere was more my speed, even if our server appeared to be the only one serving the entire restaurant, but the guys wanted to move on to the Howard social across town. We went straight to H2O HAWG, the usual biker bar that Woody rents out. We were followed by Sam, the Jessieville coordinator that we had met at the previous place, and we chatted among a small crowd. Kyle, Sam, and I played some darts, and I won a Yeti mug in a drawing at the end of the night.

We got back to the hotel and it was a slow wind down for me. I tried to crunch some more numbers, but I could just never make it work out. Hopefully it all comes together in a couple of days though.

Wing and a Prayer

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Greatest HSTI Album

I had so much trouble getting to sleep last night. I had to go outside a couple of times to drain the basement because the water was nearly up to the door. I even had to turn the pump on again this morning because it was full again. I got up with my normal work alarm and got out the door without too much trouble. I stopped at Burger King for a croissant, and then hit Highway 7 like a madman.

The roads were completely wet, but I didn’t encounter much rain. It wasn’t enough to make anything particularly dangerous, and it was fun to triple the suggested speed warnings and get white knuckled on the way to Hot Springs again like I used to do in the olden days. I carved off nearly half an hour of the estimated drive, and got to experience a newer highway that I hadn’t been on before once I got closer to town.

There weren’t a ton of people there when I arrived, and that was because the first class didn’t actually start until nine. I worked so hard to get there at 7:30, and I could have really used the extra hour of sleep. Randy, Jim, and Kyle eventually showed up for a little bit of breakfast before we split into our different rooms.

My network security class was mostly stuff I had actually just done this year in North Little Rock, but they didn’t tell us that in the course description. I breezed through the morning, then had cold, boxed burgers with the guys, and then had a short afternoon wrapping things up.

I got to the hotel early, but it took about half an hour for the old, seemingly clueless lady behind the counter to process the three people in front of me. I did get checked in and up to the room to rest for a bit though. Jim was humorously the last one out of class, and then I met Randy, Kyle, and Jay downstairs. Jay drove out just to visit us for some shooting and dinner. We drove forever to get to a shooting range in the mountains. There was one other guy there with some high-powered stuff, and they took turns blowing chunks out of the mountainside.

I borrowed Summer’s gun and shot a few rounds. Then Jay let me shoot his pistol and I blew several holes into a coffee can before it flew off its post. I was pretty proud of those shots. Summer’s gun was super small, so it was much harder to hold onto. The guys had their fill, and then we headed back to town to have dinner at Back Porch Grill.

It was a pretty quiet night there. I split a special with Randy, but our steak was super bland. It was cooked well, and was obviously a pretty decent cut of meat, but it just didn’t have enough seasoning. The lobster and shrimp were okay, but I think the scallops were my favorite. After we ate, Randy, Kyle, and I thought we’d go to A&W, but they were closed. My second suggestion, Kringles and Kones, was closed permanently. That took us to a whiskey tasting at Hotel Hot Springs with ProMAS. I had a bunch of banana “moonshine” that had been mixed with coconut syrup and orange juice, and it was delicious. We sat and the guys talked for a while, and then it was back to the room.

I spent most of my night alone writing Vine reviews to get my ratio up over 90%. I’m still not quite there, so hopefully they’ll get approved quickly as I finish them up tomorrow.

Whatever you do, don’t touch the water.

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Miscellany Friday

I slept in pretty late today, then got up for a shower so I could get lunch before going to Morrilton. I opened Eaddie’s bedroom door so Muad’Dib could find her after I left, and she sat right up and wanted to go to lunch with us, so we left in the rain and picked Summer up at the wash. Summer was having a bad day at work, so while she was ranting about that, Eaddie and I tried to decide where to eat. She chose Stoby’s, so we made it back across town and found a seat.

We devoured a large cheese dip. Eaddie bragged about her Arrow Burger, but Summer hated her French Dip. My taco salad was fine, but nothing special. While we ate, David spotted me through the window and I went to talk to him. I let him know that I was leaving the school for Bitec, and of course he said to reach out if Howard could do anything for us in my new role.

After lunch, we had to rush Eaddie home so she could go to a flute lesson. I took Summer back to the wash, and then headed to Morrilton about half an hour early. That ended up being a good thing, because traffic came to a stop due to another overturned semi truck. It looked like some trees had burned up around it, so that was there for quite a while.

Once I got to Bitec, Teisha actually made me sign my social security card. I felt bad, because nobody had ever made me do that in 42 years. It felt like defacing it. She got me paperwork to take to the clinic for a drug screen, and that didn’t take terribly long. I felt a little sick to the stomach after that, so I stopped at Casey’s for a drink on the way back. I still had more new hire paperwork to do, so I headed on home from there.

I stopped in Blackwell and Atkins for more drinks, then decided to drop into AT&T when I got back to town. Kevin was on vacation, but I talked to Hope and David for a bit. They said Brandon was moving to the IT department for the state, which was cool for him. They started to get busy, so I moved on to Splash and cleaned the seat covers in the Model Y before moving them to my car so Summer could use her own.

We both left there and went home for the night. She bathed for a while and I did some Vine reviews. Then we laid on the couch for a while. I should have gotten up to take Muad’Dib on a run earlier, but I didn’t see any rain on the radar. Just as I started to get up to take him, the sky opened up and dumped a whole bunch of water on us.

We stayed in and I baked a frozen pizza. Eaddie left to go bowling with friends, so the two of us just sat on the couch the entire night until bedtime. Summer made a bologna sandwich and discovered our rat had chewed into the back end of the loaf of bread she just bought, so we’ll need to get more aggressive with the traps.

We’ll die on that mole hill.

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Just Quit Already

Last night was the first night I slept in my own bed since we bought the house. I just needed some time and space to ground myself. I made it to work and looked at my new-hire stuff for Bitec, then talked to Randy about it. He was immediately supportive, and we chatted for a bit before I went back to my desk to draft let Gemini draft a resignation letter.

It was pretty quiet after that. I spent more time working on my paperwork than anything for actual work. By lunch time, it had started to rain pretty heavily. Randy drove Jay and me to BJ’s where we met Kyle and Jim for some white people food. It stopped raining by the time we left, but we were already pretty soaked.

After lunch, I told Maggie about my job offer, and after some quick math, we determined that today was essentially my last real day at work. I have a conference in Hot Springs all next week, followed by a couple sick days for Summer’s oncology appointment, and finally two vacation days. I’ll only have one day left after that, so I might as well take a sick day. I spent the rest of the day packing up my things so I could take them home.

The afternoon actually went by pretty slowly, as the rain started again. Summer said she was making dinner, and Maristella was there with Eaddie. Traffic was super bad through Conway, but I eventually made it home. She made pork chops, green beans, and mashed potatoes that were all pretty good.

After dinner, I took Muad’Dib for a run to try and avoid any more rain. We went around the basin trail because I was afraid it might have flooded, and on the way out of that area we saw my parents drive by. We tried to follow them, assuming they were going to the Neighborhood Market, but they weren’t. We sat at a bench there, realized they were already back home, and headed back across town to find them.

After a quick dip in the creek, we visited my parents. Then we made it home where Summer and I had a chat outside on the porch. Neither of us have a clue how to make any of this right, and both of us are miserable. It was actually a bit of a relief that she admitted it herself. I don’t know whether any of it can be made better, but all I really hope is to find some common ground where we can stop resenting each other all of the time.

Of course the evening after that wouldn’t have been complete without its own unique set of frustrations. I’ve been at the point, for a while, where I truly don’t know what the preferred outcome would be. Timing is everything, and that fucking sucks.

I wrapped it all up by giving Muad’Dib a bath, since he had taken a dip in the creek on our run. I had an anxiety attack in the middle of it, but that’s just life now. He hated the bath, but then he loved being vacuumed, and the bow on top was wrestling with me and Eaddie before bed.

kys

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Pack Rat

I heard something making a racket in the kitchen this morning, and after sneaking around a bit, I discovered a small rat in the dog food bag. After that many failed attempts to get out, I thought I might be able to grab the bag and move it outside, but of course as soon as I approached, it was able to leap out without a care in the world. It scurried under the kitchen table, so it might as well be gone forever. I set a live trap with all of my remaining hopes and dreams, and a bit of peanut butter, and got ready for work.

I was running a bit late, but Maggie and the two old men were the only ones there. Nobody asked anything of me, so I quietly stared at FortiAuthenticator documentation for the entire day. I had an anxiety attack at some point, but otherwise it was uneventful. We’re officially on four ten-hour days, but that actually worked out to about nine and a half. I left briefly for some McDonald’s since nobody else wanted to do lunch.

While I was at work, I saw Summer shuttling back and forth between the house and Added Space Storage. I guess she figured that was an easy midway point between both houses. I couldn’t tell what she was moving, because none of the large, obvious things were moved out of the house. She didn’t respond to my text, so I made it home for the surprise.

The laundry room had been cleared out, which seemed like an unimportant space to me. I changed clothes and started to take Muad’Dib out for a run, but Summer asked me to sit with her. I sat in the floor and pet the dog while she finished her episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Then we left for our run. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I needed something different, so we rode to Ridgewood Brothers to see what they had cooking.

Wouldn’t you know it was burger day, so I had another hamburger. I’m sure that it was better than my Double Quarter Pounder Delux, but I was buzzing too hard to really tell. They gave me some scrap pulled pork for Muad’Dib too, so he climbed up to sit at the picnic table with me and we had dinner together.

After dinner, we stopped in to see my parents. Dad had come over to help Summer find the dead rat in the house, which was different than the live rat I found in the morning. Summer had candles burning to cover up the smell, but I hadn’t smelled it when I left in the morning anyway. I’m sure it was a nasty discovery though.

We made it home and I took out the recycling and trash before wrapping up for the night.

I’ve got doodles I’d undo.

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On Second Thought

If I had known we would all end up at the high school, I would have gone straight there in the morning. Instead, we sat around the office for about an hour and then all individually drove over to help Jim move all of his Chromebooks from the library to a holding room. We expected rain, so we couldn’t take them to the shop like we originally planned.

After a bit of sorting and looking for damage, we were done and sitting around. Jim started imaging more of his laptops while everyone else left, so I just sat in the library and worked on the FortiAuthenticator stuff until lunch time. While we were waiting to go, Cheri called with an offer from Tesla. Then Teisha called with an offer from Bitec.

We thought we had a group for lunch since we waited for Kyle, but it ended up just being Jim and myself. He drove us to Mr. Cajun’s Kitchen and I tried their blackened catfish over red beans and rice. I thought it was way too expensive, but it tasted good. After that, I just stayed in the library until quitting time.

The drive home was a bit anxious. I stopped in Blackwell and again in Atkins for a slush since the Casey’s in town always seems to turn their slushy machine off when they have a free deal day. Summer was having a bath when I got home, but then she had to go to Morrilton to check on a truck that was leaking oil after service. I rode with her while the kids took Muad’Dib to the art walk downtown.

Summer was able to tighten the drain plug without any trouble, and we made it back home for some light leftovers. She did some work and we eventually wound down kind of late, considering she had a Conquer the Gauntlet race in the morning in Springfield, Missouri. I may have caught something from handling all the Chromebooks, because I felt a sinus infection creeping in all evening.

I thought by now, you would understand sonder!

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Scientific Proofs

It looked like it could rain a bit today, but it didn’t hit until the drive home. It was another really quiet day since I think most of the people in the building were gone. I had an anxiety attack fairly early in the morning, but it passed quickly without issue. I figured out some of the Fortinet licensing and got it registered to our account, but could never get the VM template to show up. I also had the idea to register a domain for the South Big Scissor Scam District for our Gophish campaign. Gemini coded a website for it and everything.

Nobody said anything about lunch, but I brought a soggy leftover burger anyway. I quietly ate that at my desk and rode out the afternoon. I thought Randy had been gone all day, but just as I was getting ready to leave, I saw him in his office. He had been super quiet, but he said it was only because he was hard at work. I left a little early and made my way quickly to Morrilton.

I got to Bitec about five minutes early, which seemed plenty. I chatted with Teisha until David came in and started talking about AI, and then Joel came in to talk a little more about the things they had done since last year. It was super informal, and I ended up handing them my “fun” résumé. Then I offered to show them a magic trick. Teisha found a couple rubber bands, and now hopefully I’ll be able to disprove the notion that performing magic tricks at job interviews is a bad idea.

It started raining a heavily-misted rain on the drive home, so traffic was super slow. I stopped by Superfast to fill up on washer fluid, and then went to the Neighborhood Market to get some stuff for dinner. I had mentioned burgers, but then I saw a couple packages of steak on sale, so I got that instead.

The kids went out for a bike ride as soon as I got home, so I started grilling corn, beef sausage, and steaks. Summer got home and we ate, and then I took Muad’Dib out for a run. The ground was wet, but it wasn’t too bad in flip-flops. We visited my parents and made it back home for a quick brush before bed.

But why isn’t it “jabañero?”

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Call Me Ishmael

Today was a lonely day at work. Kyle showed up and sat at his desk for a few minutes like he sometimes does, but otherwise I was in the corner by myself all day. Randy was somewhere else, but messaged me to get a server going for Go Phish, as well as FortiAuthenticator. Go Phish was deceptively easy to set up, because it also requires another domain from which to launch phishing campaigns. It seems less effective to only have one consistent domain from which to phish your own team.

Summer came to get me for lunch and we went to Red Lobster. The food tasted good, but she had a rough time afterward. I didn’t feel great, but I think it was just too greasy. I’ve been craving some clean food lately, and that wasn’t it.

The afternoon was quiet, and the old men continued wasting their time, which only frustrated me further. I had a dozy ride home with a touch of anxiety that had been around all day, and eventually went to my parents’ house with Muad’Dib for bún bò Huế. After we ate, I took him on the rest of his shortened, hot walk. I let him play in the creek and then had to give him a proper bath when we got back home.

Dad wanted to open the pool, so I had the kids meet me over there. They were supposed to go to a movie, but they said Autumn stood them up again. That was frustrating for multiple reasons, including the fact that she never replied to me when I initially asked them for help. They did end up helping uncover the pool though, and then I headed back home to crash.

From hell’s heart I stab at thee!

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Imagin’ That

Muad’Dib spent much of the night on the floor for some reason. I don’t know if he got too hot between us, or maybe he just felt bothered. He was still quiet through the night though. I got out pretty early, and it was a quiet morning until Randy messaged me at the last minute and had me sit in on a call with Bitdefender. That call was more interactive than I would have liked, but it went fine aside from the moment they asked me to interpret the law for them.

I met Randy, Jim, and Kyle at Jacob’s Wings where I tried their “King Potato.” It didn’t have enough of my choice lamb meat on it, and the potato itself tasted pretty microwaved. I ended up stopping at the Wendy’s on the way back and picked up a small chili to make up for it.

The afternoon was even more quiet as I imaged a fourth laptop that was brought to me. Then I made it home through a recurrence of some anxiety. I had an attack once I got home, but that was over quickly. The kids were playing Clone Hero on Eli’s laptop, so I hooked up the speakers for them in time to play one last song before putting it away.

My parents were going to have bún bò Huế, but Dad texted that he forgot to get the beef started, and they had spaghetti instead. Once Summer got home from work, we headed straight over to eat. Then we made it home so I could take Muad’Dib out for a run just before it got dark. We took an alternate, shorter route because he’s been slower and more tired in the heat, and I also wanted to avoid any water features so he could make it home relatively clean.

It was super quick to wrap up once we got home. Summer was in bed and Brody called to ask about Johnny, so we talked for a bit. Then I vacuumed Muad’Dib’s fur out and headed to bed.

We went through all that just to be strangers again.

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Barrels of Fun

We planned to clean up the shop at work today, so after a brief period of getting everyone together, we all went outside to rearrange and put things on shelves. Some of the shelves were moved more than what any of us thought was necessary, but as Randy put it, I won’t actually be spending any time out there, so it doesn’t matter to me.

Time seemed to pass super slowly, so it was quite a while until lunch. Kyle, Randy, Jay, and I went to BJ’s for catfish, and then we quietly wrapped up the afternoon. I had an anxiety attack at some point, so it seems like the Lexapro isn’t doing much for me.

When I eventually got home, the north fence line was completely down and the kids had Muad’Dib inside. I wound down a bit before taking him for a run, and we went to Casey’s for a free slush. I predicted that it would be “out of order” again, and sure enough it was. We turned right back around and headed to the basin, to my parents’ house, and then home.

The kids were gone by then, but Summer was in the bath. I gave Muad’Dib a bath so he could stay inside, and then it was a quick night to bed before Summer’s run on Mt. Magazine.

Delicious.