Tag: work

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Caustic for $200

This morning started out pretty rough. I had trouble getting to sleep last night in spite of how exhausted I was. When I finally made it to the shower, I discovered my towel had been used to wipe off what I assume was someone’s face cream that bleached the blue right out of the towel. I screamed in rage at the situation because this made the fifth or sixth time that this exact situation has happened within a relatively short amount of time, and it feels like nobody’s getting the goddamn memo. Chemicals are bad. That feeling was amplified because I put a cheap hand towel in the bathroom for them, and for some reason they still went for my bath towel. I had finally broken down and bought a really nice, complete set of everything, and it felt like nobody values any of it.

Work was fine, except that I had to cover the middle school for Josh while no fewer than three of them fixed a total of one door. I struggled to find my way around, and had at least one medium-level moment of embarrassment because hardly anyone there knows me. When I made it to the shop, I slowly discovered that I would be on my own for lunch. I considered just finishing a Soylent, but thought I’d take Summer lunch instead.

Wendy’s was a shitshow of mouthbreathers that simply didn’t have the capacity to maintain both a drive-through and inside counter. It was the same kid that was working last time, and he looked equally flustered. It’s not entirely their fault, because evidently nobody wants to work at all right now. Summer’s basically been short staffed since she started, and everyone there is burned out on hours. I ended up just eating my half of the lunch alone in her office before going back to work.

The afternoon was a little more quiet. Gary brought his new Carvana purchase in: a 2019 Nissan Altima that was used as a rental car in its past life. It had relatively low miles and looked to be in pretty good condition. We were all really happy for him as he discovered automobile features from the early 21st century. The afternoon went by pretty quickly from there as I tinkered with some things in my office.

The girls walked home from school, so I basically just came home to pick them up. We dropped Autumn off at her Explorers meeting, and then Eaddie and I went to my parents’ house for rolls. Summer and Julie showed up when they each got off from work. Tensions were manageable but awkward. Everyone filtered out, and I finally headed home for the evening.

Relaxation is requiring quite a bit of force these days.

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No, I Said Get the Cardigan!

We sort of had a team meeting this morning, mostly about the questionable future of the department. I think most of us are pretty nervous, and it would do a whole lot of good to promote internally just for the sake of morale alone. We finally split up for a couple tasks, and I went to the junior high with Brody to round up some old laptop carts.

I think Josh and Kyle were supposed to bring us a truck and trailer to return the carts to the graveyard, but they never made it by lunch. Somehow lines were crossed and they ended up burning the whole morning trying to image a lab at the middle school.

Everyone that was there today went to lunch together at the Ridgewood Brothers. It was nice to have some solidarity, and of course the food was great. Then after lunch we finally got our carts. It took three trips, and we still didn’t finish, but we had to call it quits in order to make a touch panel delivery to Center Valley before quitting time.

Zach met Brody and me out there, and we hung the touch panel as quickly as we could before time to go home. Then I went by the shop to take Eaddie home so she could ride her bike. By the time we got there, we both agreed that traffic was being too stupid for her to risk it, so we stayed in and watched House instead.

Summer came over with fundraiser chicken dinners, and then Eaddie and I went to get Autumn when they were done. I took them home to clean up and pack, and then we came back to my house where everyone immediately collapsed into bed.

In retrospect, I may have in fact just been carjacked.

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10 Hours Sitar Music with Crickets

I made it in to work early so I could light my incense and smoke the place up. It didn’t really pay off as much as I had hoped, but everyone enjoyed the Texas Instruments computer I set up on Melinda’s desk. It was otherwise a very quiet day, and one where I struggled to do much. With Ben on the way out, and it being that time of the year when everything gets really slow anyway, it’s just been really hard to do work.

Gary, Greg, Brody, and I went to Fat Daddy’s for lunch, and I was talked into getting this monster of a sandwich. It was okay, but truly I’m spoiled on barbecue. We may even go for Ridgewood Brothers tomorrow. I want to try the bacon burnt ends.

As the day came to a close, I made my way home for a little bit before taking the girls to karate. Then I went to my parents’ and helped Dad put a couple tarps over their plants to prevent them from freezing. Once the girls were done, I took them home and we ate some take-and-bake pizza from the school and watched an episode of Glee before everyone was off to bed.

I’m just numb to chirping now.

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Fool Me Once… Shame on….Shame on You

It’s been cooling off this week, and I could really tell this morning when it started to sleet on my way to work. It didn’t stick at all, and just melted away instantly, but I was definitely caught off guard by the sound of it hitting everything around me outside.

I’m still recovering from re-imaging my laptop, which meant I had to build a Microsoft Office installation for myself. That and a bit of tinkering with some other things got me through to lunch at Western Sizzlin with the boys. Afterward I packed up and went to the high school to help Mike sort depot boxes. We ended the day with the lift in the band room since we finally got our lamp in.

Autumn went to the gym again, so Summer left work and took Eaddie as well. That left me to go home and clean more in the garage. Nearly forgetting to plan my shenanigans, I pulled out my old TI-99 for deployment at work. Not just the base computer though. Oh, no. I brought out the Expansion System as well. That thing was heavy. I needed some help repairing the video cable though, so I packed up and took it to my parents’ house.

Dad got me sorted with some solder and hot glue. Then he pulled out my tiny old CRT television, and things booted up perfectly. Unfortunately I didn’t have the necessary Microsoft Multiplan 5.25″ floppy, so all I can really do is look at the loading screen, but it’ll serve its purpose. He went with me to the office to help stage everything, but just as we finished setting up, Melinda walked in. It was in the dead of night, so I really thought she was there to stage her own pranks, but she was just there to pick up some things. She’ll be out tomorrow, but I was hoping to land the prank on her the next day. Unfortunately she walked right in and saw it, so it’ll just have to be for fun with the rest of the gang tomorrow.

I dropped Dad back off at home and finally headed home to finish up the last of my plotting. Tomorrow should be fun.

Duuuuuude…..

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Computer Chores

Today was almost entirely spent taking care of old, stacked-up chores on computers. I finally wiped my work laptop and got it loaded back up to where I needed it. While that was going, I had to poke around on the SCCM server to make some space so I could see if that was the reason I wasn’t able to build a task sequence image yesterday. I took lunch with Zach, Greg, and Gary at Las Palmas where they’ve started charging more if you pay with a card.

After lunch was more of the same, but at least it was quiet. The girls had a ride to karate, so I just went home after work until time to pick them up. Then I cooked some spaghetti noodles for the leftover sauce. The girls all went to bed pretty early, so I spent hours cleaning up email and picking through Autumn’s Disney receipts to calculate what she owes me. She figured a little under $300. I calculated a little over $600. Looks like there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

This is the first time I’ve been outright unable to hear a high frequency sound that I used to hear, and it made me feel old.

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Treasure Hunt

I’d been out of work so frequently lately that I forgot my backpack this morning. This was a problem because I actually took my laptop home over spring break, and I needed it for work. I ran back home, then ended up at the high school for the morning to help Mike replace some laptop screens, which turned out to be pretty simple.

Summer and I had a lunch date, but I had to be back to the shop in time for training right after, so I quickly ran to get her and get to Mulan’s. The food was super good today, which made me that much sadder that I didn’t have time for dessert. I barely made it back in time. Karie was already at the shop and had already started, but it was just a refresher for me anyway. She kept it short, because the real TLDR is that we have to fix things without looking at anything.

I stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, and had to go hunting for all the things Melinda took out of my office. She found the cricket and hid it in the ceiling right above me, which wasn’t at all creative. I felt like I was annoying others more than anything, since I had to go through their things to find my own. She took so many things that I didn’t even remember what all was missing, but I think I found it all with some help from the others that were less than excited by her shenanigans.

The girls walked to Oakland after school, so I picked them up and took them home after work. Then I dropped Autumn off for her third last day of Monday night school. I stopped in to fix a couple computers in Ethan’s lab, then met Summer at the house so we could watch the newest episode of Falcon and Winter Soldier with Eaddie. As that ended, they had to leave and get Autumn.

I just relaxed for the rest of the evening. My blood pressure has been high without my medication, so I’m starting back on it in the mornings to see if it makes any difference compared to taking it in the evening. Hopefully the anxiety attacks don’t return, but if they do at least I’ll be prepared with a better explanation for them.

April Fools is coming…

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Like the Snake?

When I got up and around, Autumn was already fussing about being hungry and not liking whatever I could possibly come up with. She tried convincing Eaddie to ride their bikes to Arby’s for lunch so they could take some to Summer at work. I told her it was raining, but she insisted she could just wear a hoodie until we opened the garage and she saw the deluge with her own eyes.

I had my shower, then took them on home for the day. It wasn’t long until Mark responded, and I went to his office to do some more printer finagling. When I finished up, I still had a little time to kill before the kids had to be at karate, so I ran across the street to see if either of the Bros. were there.

That’s when I met Nate. Nate seemed pretty cool; a younger guy, a professor at Tech. We chatted for a little bit until Grant showed back up. We had a couple laughs before Summer got off work. Then she took the girls to karate and met me at Brown’s for dinner. I still had my birthday coupon, after all.

It must have been RSD past and present night, because I saw Denise, Tammy, Josh, and Kristin all scattered throughout the dining room. I couldn’t blame them, because the food was delicious. I ate too much, but the fact that I couldn’t burp from my root beer that really hurt me.

Summer headed on home while I got the girls. I had to drop Autumn off at her grandparents’ house for the night, then took Eaddie home to shower and get a change of clothes before coming home for the night. Summer was already in bed when we got there, so Eaddie and I watched some House until bedtime.

Go for the fish. Stay for the chicken.

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Everybody It’s On!

It stormed for the first part of today. I went to the high school to help recover some files before making it to the shop where I spent the rest of the day tinkering with a deployment. Five of us went to La Chiquita for lunch, and the food was surprisingly bland.

I had a Classified Personnel Policy Committee meeting in the afternoon, and immediately followed that with my first Moderna COVID shot. The nurse that gave me the shot said she had a warning for me, but didn’t actually tell me until she had already stuck me. They said that I would likely have an adverse reaction to at least one of the two shots since I had a bad case of the real COVID. Fortunately it never got bad, since I didn’t have any Tylenol around like they suggested.

I finished up the day in Ethan’s lab again, and then it was straight home for the evening. I hadn’t slept great last night, then had what felt like a sinus infection since I woke up. I don’t know if I was just tired from that, or if the shot made me feel extra tired on top of that. I laid down for a while and started to doze off a bit, so I got up to finish my routine before bed.

Johnny, Clint, and Josh were online so I hopped into TeamSpeak for a bit while I finished my chores, and then it was off to a super early bedtime.

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS!

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A Lot

I got the Shadow out again today, but as soon as I hit the street I realized how frigid the air was. Fortunately I was only going to the high school, so it was a quick trip and I thawed out quickly. There, I dropped off a bunch of patch cables and helped Mike with a couple work orders in the office. Then I made it back to my office for the rest of the day.

Zach and Gary wanted Linh’s, which sounded great to me. The service was actually really good, but my noodles were either overcooked or under dried and I had to finish with a spoon. The weather for the ride back was much nicer, but it had still been cloudy for most of the day as far as I could tell.

I kept pretty busy with a couple short term projects that would help later down the road, and even worked a bit late since the girls got a ride to karate. When I finally left, I went by the shop to see Summer and drove past Kevin on the way, who eyeballed me pretty hard on the different bike.

I went to my parents’ house for some leftovers and then had a pretty good talk with them about all things past, present, and future. Then I headed back across town, deciding to swing by Kevin’s place on the way home. He had just gotten home from mountain biking and was in the driveway putting his bike away, so we chatted for a long time outside.

He caught me up on a ton of stuff I’ve missed since we’re horrible at keeping up with each other. I’ve missed being around him and the rest of the crew even though I was only around for a couple months before I left for the school district. I let him take the Shadow around the block. A little while later, Mayra rolled around the corner only just getting home from work. She jumped out and chatted with us for a bit with her own relationship drama as we each wrapped up to go home.

Isn’t that the kind of thing they run marathons for?

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The Day After Pi Day

I preordered Casey’s new Ultimate Breakfast Pizza for breakfast this morning and picked it up on the way to work. It could have used some more vegetables, but the addition of ham to the sausage and bacon was excellent. I spent some time in my office first thing, and then helped Kyle run a new touch cable at Dwight before lunch. Zach and Gary had already agreed on Quiznos by the time I got back, so we went there and just happened to run into Brody. I forgot it was his birthday, or I would have picked up his tab.

After lunch I wrapped up at the office and then finished the day at the high school to finish wiring Ethan’s lab. It took me most of two class periods, but I finished the cabling part. The imaging will take a bit longer just because I’m limited to doing it after school.

The girls walked to Oakland, so I picked them up there on the way home. Then Eaddie took off on her bicycle while I took Autumn to Monday night class. I went by the shop to see Summer afterward, and Alex had come over to replace the belt on Autumn’s car. Summer gave me a leftover pizza to take home for dinner, and I ran to Zaxby’s for some hot wings to supplement the meal.

She beat me home and we ate before she picked up Autumn. Then she came back and ate before they all went home. I spent a minimal amount of time picking up a couple things in the garage before coming in for the evening. My blood pressure had been high all afternoon, but settled out by bedtime. I thought I was making it to bed early, but daylight saving time got me.

But I wanted bones…