Tag: work

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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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All Right! All Right!

This whole week has been cooler, so it’s been a different bike every day. Tammy commented on it and asked how many I had, and I had to explain that it’s really a math problem of n-1, where n is the number of motorcycles that I want. Otherwise, it’s that time of year when I don’t really even remember what I worked on. I did have to go to the middle school to scan some Chromebooks because Josh didn’t have a list of serial numbers for me. I’m just now remembering that I never actually got those imported into the library system.

Lunch was a treat, because Gary, Greg, Zach, and I went to Brangus to eat, and the guy that always greets us took care of our meals on our way out. We rummaged for some cash to leave for a tip, and we were all fat and happy. Gary and Greg had to run some food I ordered for Brody over to him at the high school during their handout, and it was a mostly quiet afternoon for me back at the shop.

After work, Julie called as I was just getting home to change. Then Mom called to tell me the same thing – that Bác Vân thought I slapped Julie, even though Julie came over to pick up Dad’s phone from me while we were standing in the driveway talking. We all kind of laughed about it, and as Mom left the call, I continued to retell the whole story to Julie.

It didn’t take long for her to psychoanalyze my actions and start pointing fingers about our childhood, and I just stressed to keep cool for the hour as our conversation degraded into personal attacks about mistakes that I’ve made in my life. I try to live pretty openly, blog and all, and I’ve done what I can to make peace with the past, but I really don’t know what I can do for her to let things go. At some point you have to just move on, but instead we always end up in an argument in which she’s constantly moving the target so that we can never get anywhere. I’ve tried responding, I’ve tried just shutting up, and the whole conversation is designed for me to fail.

I make it a point to surround myself with people that think very differently so that I can learn about their viewpoints and make my own assessments, but there’s never any ground given with Julie. It basically always devolves into something akin to name-calling, where she insists that I’m an arrogant piece of shit that thinks he’s always right, and she’s irrefutable because she only speaks in facts. It’s the most maddening waste of time, but I put up with it because for some reason I think maybe she’ll eventually find whatever the hell she’s looking for.

When she finally gave up screaming at me, I went in to Summer’s house to find that neither of the girls were there. Eaddie was at band late, and their grandmother was slow to pick her up, so Summer just met them at the gym and brought them home to gather their things. Then we went to my parents’ house for shrimp noodle soup and a swim.

The water was pretty cool after Dad used the fountains overnight, so we didn’t stay in the water too late. Eventually we made it home and the girls all went to bed while I aired up some bicycle tires for them.

Not keeping a list is not the same as remembering everything but never writing it down.

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Cool, Sweat!

It almost felt cool outside this morning after so much heat. I took the Grom to work, and we almost immediately went outside to move a truck bed full of Chromebooks to fifth grade. Once we got into that, I couldn’t stop sweating until we made it back and I sat down inside. I had to import those devices into Destiny for student checkout, and then I just had to sporadically help others with things from the office.

Nobody was responsive about lunch, but Josh and Thomas were in the building, so we tried going to Mulan’s. I beat them there and saw a sign that they’re closed on Wednesdays from now on. We made a split second decision to go to Sam’s instead, and I had some gumbo that was probably a better life choice anyway.

I spent some time in the afternoon at Oakland just to see people filter back in and accomplish what I could. Then I went back to the shop to shut everything down and rode to my parents’ house.

Dad was released from the hospital with a relatively clean bill of health, and he was up and around the house helping Mom with some chores. We ate some leftovers and chatted for a bit, but Mom was mostly asleep on the couch. Things were mostly back to normal after such a surprisingly rough day yesterday.

My sinus nonsense has gotten worse over the course of a week or so, and I really felt it in my head and chest by the end of the day. Something also had my left foot in quite a bit of pain all day. I was just going to stay home for the night, but I needed some cuddles.

Autumn was a little upset that she wouldn’t get to sleep with Summer, but I don’t know why she’d want her that close after this weekend. She’s really playing the baby card again, and I’m not falling for it. Eaddie was in her room the entire night talking to her boyfriend, so I was left to medicate and go to sleep.

Today’s problem is brought to you by the letters D, R, and S, and by librarians that don’t understand alphanumeric order.

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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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The Return of Reason

Greg wanted a ride from Phil Wright this morning, but changed his mind when they wouldn’t open the door until eight. We went to work instead, and then left there shortly after eight to drop his truck off. I spent the rest of the day tinkering and breaking things, only to get them working well enough again before lunch.

On the way to the dealership in the morning, I noticed The Gunslingin’ Burger was putting signs out for a year anniversary special, so Gary, Brody, Josh, and I went there for lunch. The food was pretty good, but the fact that the $10+ “combo meal” doesn’t come with a drink is still stupid. It has also become painfully obvious that the place is run by people with zero experience running a restaurant, and I think a little experience would go a long way. The recipes are great. It even has certain unique polish and is obviously thoughtfully put together. It just lacks, from what we could tell, a little common sense.

The afternoon went by slowly, being a full day for the first time in weeks. Then I went home for a bit before having to pick up the girls to go get Eaddie from the airport. Summer initially thought the plane landed around 10 in the morning, but it was actually in the evening. On top of that, it was delayed a bit.

We stopped in Conway at Golden Corral for dinner. Autumn ate a frustrating plate of shitzza and macaroni and cheese. I should have expected that, but then I brought up that she should write letters apologizing for wasting the sheriff’s department’s time this weekend, and all I could do was bury the rage deep down inside from her response. She insisted that it wasn’t a waste of time and that she called them for a reason. No lessons have been learned, and I’m spending more and more of my waking hours coming up with more creative punishments and monitoring solutions.

We arrived at the airport about an hour and a half early, so we sat in the car on our phones. Fortunately it was super nice outside, so I just rolled the windows down and kicked back. Autumn managed to get in a bit of a nap in the back seat. When the plane arrived, the airport was shut down enough that Summer couldn’t get a parent pass to meet Eaddie at the gate, so we just waited together at the main exit. We gathered bags and headed straight home.

Eaddie said she didn’t have a great time. I could relate. I’m glad she’s back.

Cruel and unusual. You know, like riding the bus with the peasants.

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Just Don’t Do It Wrong

I made it in a couple minutes early today after Gary said he would be late. He really wasn’t very late at all, but he wasn’t early the way he normally is. We didn’t have a meeting, and everyone paired off on their own to help each other. I spent the early morning climbing around my desk getting things rewired and plugged in so I could finally get to work.

Gary’s old office feels slightly smaller than my old one next to Ben, so there’s a bit of wasted space in front of the TV that I can’t really use, and everything else just feels a bit cramped. I made it work though, and was able to rearrange a few things to suit the new layout.

I couldn’t get the PowerShell script to verify characters in the middle of the hostname string the way I wanted, but I did at least get imaging to work, so long as people don’t screw up. I thought everyone else had already left around lunch time, but Tammy and Thomas were both still there and heard me rocking out.

When I finally left work, I ran by the carwash to get the bugs cleaned off from our trip back from Little Rock. Then I stopped by Walgreens for my prescriptions before swinging by to see Summer. She was busy, so I just went home for a bit instead. I picked at a couple things, and planted a new mango seed before making my way up to her house for the evening.

Autumn must have been asleep in front of the TV when I got there, because she didn’t say a single word to me and went to her room after unlocking the door for me. I cooked some leftover hamburger meat from earlier in the week, and when Summer got home we had double-decker tacos again. They were really spectacular, but I felt like my gut was going to bust after just two.

We settled in for the evening, and I put on The Time Traveler’s Wife. It has just enough of a sci-fi element to keep me interested, and I figured Summer could use a love story.

Enrique Iglesias is at it again…

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Tired

Someone decided it would be a good idea to start work two hours early today so we could beat the heat. I wouldn’t suggest that they were wrong, but my pants were still completely wet by the time we got everything moved from the junior high back to our shop, and then took all of the trash out to the recycle bin. It would have been a little warmer out by 8:00, but I don’t think it made enough of a difference. The humidity after the rain yesterday was just absolutely suffocating.

We also learned that Mike turned in his notice, and I don’t even know if we’ll see him again. Hopefully he’s healing up and on the road to recovery, but I can’t say I was terribly surprised or even necessarily upset. It is what it is.

Once everyone was rested up, a few of us moved everything out of my office into Gary’s old office. I wish I had seen how the desk drawers came out, because that would have saved me quite a bit of grief. I’ll still have to unpack more later, and I really have better things to do.

I thought we’d take lunch earlier than we did, but we only went a few minutes earlier than we normally do. The Service Plus boys wanted Waffle House, and I couldn’t argue with that after hitting my steps goals before 9AM. I had one of the lesser burgers I’ve ever had from there, but the hash browns were perfectly awful for me.

After lunch, I had to go by the junior high to help Jessica with importing her new laptops into the library system. I thought they knew how, but evidently they had no clue, and after seeing Ben’s documentation, there’s no wonder why. Fortunately I’ll actually see him tomorrow to explain what the heck I’m supposed to do.

I ended up leaving work much later than I thought, and went to Summer’s shop to get my new tires. There, they were experiencing trouble with their air system, which incidentally ran just about everything, including the tire machine. Unfortunately my car was already disassembled with all of the air out of the tires, so I was stuck until we either fixed the issue or built up enough pressure in the tank to run the machine.

I helped Alex with the whole process mostly so that I could learn how to do it myself next time. I may not still have access to the machinery in another 50,000 miles, but at least I’ll know what’s involved if I get the opportunity to do it myself in the future. We got all four tires mounted, and even found the bulge in my old tire that was causing the shaky ride and starboard drift. I ran home to get some cash to pay, then went straight to my parents’ house to take a dip in the pool.

Dad pulled up next to me right by Western Sizzlin, but I didn’t notice until the light changed and he pulled ahead of me. I followed them there and went straight for the pool. The water was really warm and gross, and the floor of the pool was covered in dead algae. I could see the path I was leaving everywhere I went. While I was in there, I video called Eaddie just to check in, and found an AR model that put my face on a swimmer. It had us cracking up that I could dip my face in the water and blow bubbles in the animation.

I stuck around for just a few minutes to chat after I got out, and then went back to the shop to finish moving my stuff to the new office. I didn’t unpack everything, but at least moved everything into the room so it would be out of everyone else’s way. Then I finally made it up to Summer’s house for the evening.

Summer had already eaten and was relaxing with some TV. I warmed up some leftovers, ate, and then laid in her lap until she went to bed. Then we talked for a bit before she went to sleep and I wrapped my own day up.

TL;DR

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Overtaken by My Own Shadow

It was a quiet, brainy day at work today. I made some progress, but it was slower than I would have liked. I didn’t get distracted much, but I did get frustrated a couple times with others pulling my attention, which I’m sure is why Gary is so grumpy most of the time.

Brody wanted to go to Fat Daddy’s in London, but they were evidently closed due to staffing issues. The same went for Zaxby’s. Slim Chickens was a solid win today with the salad I got, and then we dropped off some strips for Summer, who was stuck in the pit all day.

I left near quitting time today and went by the shop to order some new tires for the Murano before going up to Summer’s to heat up her lasagna. I made it about halfway to her house before I realized I didn’t have keys to get in because I was on the Shadow, so I ran back home to change and get the keys.

As I came back outside, I hopped on the bike and started to pull away, only barely remembering to get the keys. I stood up to get off and immediately lost all balance due to the low, heavy nature of the bike. I had forgotten that I already lifted the kickstand, so the bike tumbled over on top of me and threw me to the ground. I avoided any major damage, but the handlebar controls and mirrors got a bit out of whack. The handlebars themselves were still bent from before I got the bike, so the only new “damage” was to the rear, left turn signal that now rattles from something being broken off inside it.

I finally made it up to Summer’s with bruised palms, and heated up the lasagna and baked some garlic bread. She and Autumn both made it home from work and we ate. Then Summer had to tend to some work business as we waited for the scattered showers to wane enough for me to make it back home for the evening.

I tried to pick up a little, and ended up on a trip down Memory Lane when I found a bunch of folders from my time at NEW. Then I went to bed as hastily as I could, since someone decided that working at 6am tomorrow will be fun when moving some old laptops around at the junior high. At least by then it will have reached the day’s low of 74º.

More like PowerHell.

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One Tubby Tubby!

I realized pretty quickly this morning that things have started moving and changing at work. The conference table was in the shop area, and Gary had moved to the office across from mine. As soon as he has the rest of his stuff out of his old office, I’ll be moving in there.

The big project for the day was to assemble “the rest” of the tech tubs we had and deliver them to fifth grade. The wingnuts on those things had my finger and thumb pretty raw by lunch time. We assembled all but one of them before it was time to eat. Nobody cared about my input for lunch, and Thomas suggested Johnny’s, so I relented and went along with the rest of the crew. It was every bit as awful as I remembered it being. The prices were low compared to other restaurants, but the menu was uninspired. My broccoli cheese potato was just the insides of a potato and a can of soup microwaved together.

After lunch, we delivered the tubs in the sweltering humidity. Then it was back to the shop where we discovered six of the new teacher devices had been delivered. From then on, it was my job to figure out imaging, which I was not at all prepared to do. I worked about an hour and a half late to get something done, and it still didn’t work when I left.

I went home to change, then went to the shop to see if I could get my car up on the lift. Something in either a wheel or the suspension has been shaking, but Summer had been too busy to help me look. I wandered around the shop until she finished up, and then headed up to her place to make some rice to go along with our leftovers for dinner.

Ronda chatted with me for a bit, but otherwise it was a quiet and uneventful evening. Summer was exhausted and went to bed early. I felt restless, but couldn’t do much else.

How absolutely unsatisfying.

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Elementary, My Dear

Thomas and Zach were both out today, so Gary had to run the show without screaming at anyone. Most everyone had work orders they could tend to, and he was stressing over emails from central office, so I helped with what I could. I had to get a couple computers set up for new hires to fill out background check information, but I’m not sure what they asked for was really the best implementation. I don’t suppose I’m paid to make those kinds of decisions though.

Gary, Kyle, and I went to Foodies for lunch, and I don’t think Rob recognized me, which is fine because I don’t guess we know each other very well anyway. I went light with a gyro and no side, but Gary gave me the last of his fries that he didn’t want to finish.

I went by Oakland for a while in the afternoon and took care of some stuff there for the first time in a really long time. The few people I encountered there were super happy to see me, or perhaps just to see anyone there to help. Then I made it back to the shop for quitting time. Tammy was there a bit late waiting for her ride, so I stuck it out with her and helped move some files around for Kayla, who took her prior duties at the high school.

Once she left, I went to my parents’ house to finish the fish soup, and we had more conversations with feelings. I don’t know why people get so excitable. Back home, Summer was exhausted from a long day at work and went to bed early.

Just hatch a chicken.