Tag: work

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No Egg Omelette

We were down to four plus the boss today, so it was a quiet and slow start. I convinced Zach to sign up for Robinhood, and I placed some buy orders for myself. Then we split up into a couple groups to run down some tickets at neglected campuses. Josh and I went to Crawford to retrieve a cart as well, which got us just into lunch, so we took Zach with us to meet Ben and Kyle at CJ’s.

After lunch, I helped Zach swap a television, which should have been a 15 minute job, but turned into a two hour job after we hung one new TV that was damaged out of the box, and then had to re-run an HDMI cable because the new model TVs didn’t have VGA inputs.

Ben let us go early, but Zach and I ended up sticking around most of that time to chat with Ben. When I did leave, I just waited at the house for the girls to come over, and then we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made bánh xèo and warmed up some leftover curry, and we sat and chatted a while.

When we finally made it back home, the two seasons went straight to bed while Eaddie and I watched the next episode of WandaVision. I really liked the progression, and I think Summer might like it too, so we’ll probably end up rewatching it soon. Then we watched a couple episodes of House before bed.

An alarm on Saturday morning? Sounds reasonable.

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B-

I got up this morning and cleaned up some old frozen French toast sticks the kids refused to eat themselves. Then I tried going through some more practice tests before it was time to check in for my A+ exam. I didn’t really get as much cramming done as I had hoped, but the first test was more or less a breeze. I felt pretty confident about most of my answers and ended up passing with what I’m guessing was a mid 90%.

My second exam was scheduled a little later so I had time for a shower and a little more studying. Then literally moments before I had to check in for the test, Summer said she was bringing Autumn home to shower because she suddenly couldn’t withstand her scented body wash. I told her that they would have to be completely silent and not come anywhere near me, so one could imagine my rage when Autumn started blaring music in the shower.

I had already started my exam and couldn’t back out or do anything to signal to her to turn the music down. So for half an hour, or an entire third of my allotted exam time, I shook with absolute rage that I couldn’t even read the questions in front of me. The exam was a big deal that I had put off for four years. I specifically scheduled a time when no one would be home, and when that didn’t pan out, it was a simple request for silence. I thought I had absolutely, without any doubt, completely bombed the test. My stomach was in knots for the entire 90 minutes, and when I read that I had passed, I was absolutely astounded. Of course when I confronted Autumn, the only response I got through her door was that “it wasn’t that loud.” I was just glad it was over and that I had another hour pass since my hottest moments.

Hungry and relieved, I re-prepared some awful hamburger meat that Autumn cooked a week ago. It only needed an intelligent touch of seasoning to be great enough for Eaddie and me to eat for dinner, but the star chef just couldn’t crack the code and left it to rot in the fridge.

Summer took Autumn to therapy and I took Eaddie home with me so I could pick up my contacts for real. Then we watched an episode of House until it was time to get Autumn and drop them off at karate. I waited for them at my parents’ house, where I finished setting up their new Chromecast with Google TV. I didn’t have long before I had to get the girls, and we got home just in time to realize Eaddie had forgotten her phone at the dojo. Summer eventually got home, and everyone was pretty quick to wind down from there.

If you’re not going to be prideworthy, at least be respectful and considerate.

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Cram Session

I went to the high school this morning and helped Mike run around campus and close some work orders. Some of the stuff he knows is maddeningly inconsistent with the stuff that he does know, but I suppose that’s to be expected when specializing in a particular field. I’ve just never seen it with someone that’s into technology.

It was Ben’s birthday, so I met everyone back at the shop for lunch. He wanted Linh’s, but they were closed and we ended up at Fat Daddy’s downtown. They seemed slow but asked if we had a reservation for some reason. The food took a while to come out and was predictably dry, but maybe I’m just spoiled now. I should have gotten chicken or steak.

After lunch, I went to the junior high and tried to be useful for a little while. I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked, but my mind was on my A+ exam and all the anxiety I’ve had about taking that tomorrow.

Eaddie wanted to ride the bus to the high school, so I just picked both of the girls up from there after work. We went to my house so I could gather up some things, then met Summer at home for a quick dinner before everyone pretty quickly filtered off to bed. I stayed up trying to cram some more for my exams, but truthfully I was just too exhausted to retain much. There’s no practical reason for me to remember all of the unused acronyms or port numbers, so hopefully there’s just not much of that on the test.

Testing is dumb.

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Brain Dump

This morning started out pretty slow, but I eventually got to be pretty productive. I worked in the shop all morning, then went to Linh’s with Greg for lunch. Apparently we’re on the fence about an interviewee, so the tenured had a lunch date with him to see if we’d all mesh. Spoiler alert: We won’t. At least not at first. It is tried and true that everyone always hates on the new guy at first, no matter how seasoned.

I spent the afternoon at the junior high, fighting off a bit of anxiety and killing time until school let out by working on some laptops. When Eaddie got out, I took her to her flute lesson – twice because she forgot her flute in my office the first time. Then I picked up Autumn and took her to the shop for a few minutes until quitting time.

We retrieved Eaddie, then went to pick up my contacts from the eye clinic. They wanted to charge me $188 for two boxes after insurance. The first and only contacts I’ve ever purchased in my life were purchased from Contacts1st.com without any insurance for $148 for FOUR boxes, and that included $10 for shipping. Now I get to call “the girl that does the insurance” tomorrow for an explanation and/or correction.

I dropped the girls off with Summer at her shop since none of them cared to go to karate. Then I stopped by the house just momentarily before remembering I could get a free scarf from T-Mobile. I picked that up, then stopped by Zaxby’s for a quick bite before going home to binge on A+ practice exams. I felt pretty good about my test results, but then I read about something called “performance based questions” that got me scared.

At least it’s scheduled, and not a moment too soon.

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Router? I hardly know her!

Most everyone was off for the holiday today. We weren’t, because of course we had to be there. Why wouldn’t we? I spent all morning at the shop setting up a new virtual machine for another Impero server. That should make us at least a little bit future-proof.

Lunch couldn’t come early enough, and Josh, Kyle, Ben, and I went to Stoby’s as an act of rebellion against Zach and Greg wanting to go out of town for Fat Daddy’s. I’d be fine never eating there ever again. It’s not bad. It’s just not worth driving out of town when the one in town has a bigger menu.

After lunch, I spent a couple hours at the junior high. Most of that time was eaten up when I had to assemble Bri’s new dual monitor stand setup. What made that so ridiculous was the fact that she has a desktop with dual monitors about six feet away. That class budget is just too damn high, so she’s left buying useless or redundant crap just to spend it all. I don’t even know how many lamps she had in that room.

I ended the day at the high school just for a little while to try and resolve an issue in one of my labs. Then I headed home for the evening. I originally thought I’d be heading up to Summer’s for the evening, but I lost track of time while picking and cleaning. She didn’t really have any plans anyway, so I just stayed in and cleaned up the leftover salad for dinner.

Between bouncing around from room to room, I occasionally stopped at the computer and discovered some weirdness going on with my router and internet. I tried repeatedly to update the firmware, to no avail. It was pretty frustrating, but I continued to juggle that along with all the cleaning and organizing until bedtime.

Well it looks different to me.

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Stick to your Ribs

I had to get up a little early this morning to run across town and do some work for Mark. Summer took Autumn home while Eaddie stayed here and had a video conference for band. Eventually they all went home to clean up before Summer took them to stay the night with their father.

When I finished up with Mark, I ran across the street and chatted with Robert for a little bit. I picked up a rack of ribs and a giant beef rib that I let get mostly cold while I sat and waited between customers to get some time to catch up.

We got back to the house around the same time and ate some ribs. Then we spent the rest of the night finishing up the second season of Cobra Kai. I’m anxious to see where they go from here.

Strike hard.

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Or Nothing

We had a brief meeting this morning, and then Mike and I helped Josh hang a couple touch panels at the middle school. It went alright, for having a newbie on the crew. We dawdled enough all morning that it was about lunch time by the time we got back, so almost all of us went to Slim Chickens to eat. I had the chicken and waffle, which was good, but I felt like I was paying an awful lot for the waffle to only come with three chicken strips. At least the strawberry lemonade was great.

After lunch, I stuck around the shop and did some more remote work on SCCM. Ben, Gary, and Zach had an interview with a guy that Melinda said was just like me without the fun parts. I told her we shouldn’t hire a complete asshole. Then for some reason I had to rate her on a scale of 1-10 on how much she’s like the devil.

Librado stopped by at some point and got a badge made for his new position as a relief custodian. It was otherwise a quiet day at the shop until Melinda started shooting everyone with her tiny off-brand foam dart pistol. She got me near the eyes a couple times, so I figured I should break out the big guns when I got home.

After work, the girls came over and I baked the pizza that Autumn brought home from school. It took me way back when I had to cut the thing inside of an actual pizza box, and it really made me miss working in pizza. I can see it now: Cow Pies.

We wrapped up the night with the first two available episodes of WandaVision. Summer wasn’t impressed with the highly stylized format, but it was clear things were going to change pretty quickly. I just hope it’s good, and can tie in appropriately with the future of the movies.

It’s NERF!

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The “S” is for “‘Spensive”

It was another quiet day at work, which meant I got to tinker with some older projects and things. I was ultimately successful with my Microsoft Office uninstall/upgrade task, and I think I have Web Help Desk configured in a way that will help me keep a better eye on both the junior and high schools.

Summer took the afternoon off and met me for lunch at Brangus. The food was good, but the service was lackluster, or at least mostly absent. I spent the afternoon at the junior high fighting a copy machine. It could have gone worse, but I was pretty sure it was the fault of the printer.

After school, I took Eaddie with me to the shop, then to the high school to pick up Autumn. Then I took them home where Summer had made a delicious pork chop dinner. We watched an episode of Glee, and then I had to head home to do some laundry.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 and its premium variants were announced recently, and Google Fi had a 50% discount promotion, so I finally started the process of porting my old Sprint number over. I’ll save money in the long run, but for now this is just another expensive toy. I figure I’ll eventually switch over to it as a primary device when the 90-day requirement runs out for the promotion.

Don’t worry, there’s no charge.

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Don’t Get Attached

I was back at the high school with Mike again today, but nothing exciting happened. I got to focus on some work in SCCM, which was nice. I only really have to run to classrooms at the junior high right now.

Melinda wanted to go to lunch again today, and I told her she was getting too attached, because this was twice in one week. She, Ben, and I went to Mulan’s, and I did my best not to overdo it. I think it was a success. Melinda decided that she wanted to have a cat at the shop, but I don’t think she realized how bad that might be for a cat to be alone for that many hours of every week.

I worked a little late, then changed at home and picked the girls up at their friends’ house. I helped Eaddie with some math homework until Summer got home, and eventually we got around to watching an episode of Glee before bed.

Just have an outdoor cat. That lives on the other side of town.

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Panic at the Get-Go

I’m still dreaming a lot lately, which kind of knocked my morning off balance. I had a short panic episode out of nowhere, and just generally had a rough start to the day. Once I made it in to work, everything was fine. Ben, Zach, and Greg were all back from quarantine, so I stopped by the shop before heading to the junior high.

I wasn’t as productive as I probably could have been, but I still got a lot done and never really felt not busy. I ended up working through lunch just to get things done. I was going to take Eaddie to her flute lesson after school, but apparently Summer had already arranged for her mother to take her there and then to the shop when she finished. Instead, I ended the day at the high school to get Autumn. We picked Eaddie up and made it to karate plenty early, so we sat in the car for a few minutes and talked.

When I got back home, I checked in on Bác Vân next door, who seemed to be in good spirits, though annoyed that her in-home physical therapists seemed to be completely pointless. I explained to her that they were probably used to the typical, lethargic patient that wasn’t already doing their own physical therapy on their own time.

Summer came over after work, and we picked up some Arby’s for dinner before she had to get the girls. She said she hit a possum on the way there, so I drove out to make sure it didn’t leave any babies. It took a couple rounds, but I found it on the side of the street, still breathing, but dying and covered in blood. I didn’t have a good way to finish the job, and my stomach wasn’t much up to stomping it to death, so I just left it to die by the curb, feeling pretty sick about it.

I’m all talk.