Tag: work

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It’s a Brick…. House

I had trouble sleeping last night, and woke up in the night with a really sore left shoulder. My only guess was that it was from moving the workbench around in the garage. I ended up snoozing a bit late before getting up for work. Somehow I managed to make it in on time, but as soon as I got settled in, Zach asked me to cover testing for Josh so he could go fix a door.

I went to the middle school and found him in the library, then walked over to the fifth grade side to much fanfare. They didn’t need me for anything, but they were still excited to see me. Once Josh got back from removing the pebble that was holding the door open, we went back to the middle school library to image some computers and fix their printers.

Brody had called me several times already by this time, so I went to the junior high next to help with something there. He’s got some super weird gaps that I can only explain away by his youth. This is what happens when we obfuscate file paths and directory structures.

That got is through lunch, so we headed back to the shop just in time to see Zach and Gary had already left for BFD. We caught up and had lunch with some of the lesser service I’ve had there. Then I spent the afternoon at the shop working on the iMac.

After work, I took the girls to Summer’s shop. On the way we spotted a red Model 3 that looked to be the performance edition that I want. The red was much darker in person than I expected, but it was beautiful, even with its older chrome accents. From there, I headed home and started drilling out holes in the brick of my house. The larger drill bit wouldn’t stay in the drill, so I had to back off to a smaller one.

By some stroke of luck, I was just about perfect in my placement, and Dad came over with a hammer and chisel to knock the brick out. The test duct I stuck in the hole slid in with a little resistance, but then the new vent we bought slid in perfectly with just the right amount of wiggle room. We still didn’t have enough time to finish the job, but we finished the hardest part. All that’s left is to finish the run and seal the outside of the house.

This is Not a Drill: It’s Hammer Time!

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An M. Night Shyamalan Plot Twist

We had a shortish meeting at work this morning, and then I unboxed a giant iMac that I would have to learn to enroll in our device management system. I didn’t notice until much later, but Josh and Brody basically burned the whole day putting the wrong image on a bunch of flash drives to take to the middle school because Josh didn’t want to image them over the network.

Most of us went to CJ’s for lunch, and when we got back, I helped make the correct flash drives while Josh started some lab computers imaging over the network. Kyle came in and kept me company while I churned out drives. I started to wrap my head around Jamf Apple computer management, but ultimately had to leave it for Monday.

Mark asked me to come by after work, so I ran home to grab my laptop and then went to his office for a little under an hour. Then I picked up the girls to meet my family at Pasta Grill to celebrate Mom’s birthday.

We had a really great time at dinner, and it was nice to see the family actually functioning and smiling. I think everyone was pretty satisfied with their food too. My blackened redfish pasta started out tasting like it was floating in butter, but either it got better or I just got used to it, and I really enjoyed the rest after a while.

When we got home, Summer wanted to talk with Autumn because I had caught her leaving town with Harry without Summer’s permission. What I thought was going to be more or less a disciplinary talk ended up being everyone coming together and spilling their guts all over the place. It was pretty hard for Summer. I’m still not really sure how I feel about some of it, but at least it was a proper airing of the past. I’ve said for a long time that therapy only goes so far, and that eventually the kids would have to come home and talk to us.

Summer and Autumn went to bed immediately after that. I stayed up a little bit longer and tried to finish an episode of House with Eaddie, but even she was tired and ended up just wanting to sleep on the couch.

We’ll never make it through the entire MonsterVerse like this!

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Mama Bear

I slept on top of the sheets last night, so it was pretty rough getting out of bed. I eventually made it to the high school to drop off the last of my CDs for Daniel to use in their play. Then I continued to the shop for the day. I told Melinda about the trouble I had the night before, and she went full-on mother-mode with the advice and being super nice all day.

Brody and Kyle came to the shop so we could hang a touch panel at Crawford, which got us through to lunch. Melinda and I were the only ones still at the shop, so she insisted that I choose, and we went to New China so I could eat my feelings. Then when we got back, she turned off her Britney Spears playlist and played Linkin Park for me for most of the rest of the day.

My office has been a big hit lately for people to mingle, which is both new and kind of neat, though distracting. I spent most of the day trying to help other people and not getting much of anything else done. I worked a little bit late, but had to get the girls to karate.

Both of the girls were pretty quiet today, and the drive to karate didn’t take long. Once they were out, I went to my parents’ house to figure out what was really going to happen with my living situation. As I suspected, it was all a misunderstanding since I’ve been watching the housing market. I’ve been pretty vocal about my plan, but still caught a lot of flak for reasons I don’t understand. At the end of the day, I get to keep living here, which is what really matters.

Dad came back with me to seal the wall back up, then move the cabinet back into its corner. We had to try multiple times because it wasn’t quite square, causing the doors to not open or not stay closed. I never got it quite perfect, but it worked well enough to load up with a bunch of stuff from the garage. Still not enough room for activities, but at least it’s easier to move around in there.

When attacked by a bear, simply lie still on the ground and cover your face and head with your hands. When the bear is finished batting you around and mauling you, contact the US Forest Service.

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Stressors

This morning started out unconventionally, but eventually worked itself out. I got to work with plenty of time and continued my investigation into why imaging was broken. Shane from Howard was taking us out to lunch at Brick Oven, so at least we had something to look forward to. I had my fill of a variety of pizzas, and even did well in breaking even with all the large pizzas I ordered for the table to share. That’s basically been my goal for forever: to successfully order for our group a perfect amount of food that would make everybody fat and happy without any waste. It turns out the answer was five large pizzas.

It took me multiple days and a bunch of consulting, but ultimately I confirmed that it was a Windows update that broke our Windows image in SCCM. I rolled back to the root image and everything was back to normal, so now I get to play “Which Update Broke Everything.”

The girls were sorted for the evening, so after work I went by Summer’s shop to find that she had already left. While I was on that side of the tracks, I stopped in to pick up my blood pressure medication. Then I went home for a little bit. Having some time left in the evening, I had Dad come over to shop at Lowe’s with me. We picked up the materials we needed to run my clothes dryer vent out of the house instead of into the garage.

While Dad was here, he took some pictures of the house for a prospective buyer. His neighbor across the street has some family moving to town that are looking for a home to buy, and evidently mine is for sale if the price is right. Nevermind the 15 years I’ve been here, presumably building equity. I assumed that building the family estate was more important, but if the house is going to be sold out from under me leaving me with no equity as though I have been renting the entire time, then all was for naught. Housing prices are high right now, so I wouldn’t blame him for selling. I’m just not sure how I feel about what I’ve paid or set aside for rent. The lesson here, kids, is to keep family and your money separate.

After a trip to lowe’s for the dryer ducting and some shopping for tile that I may or may not buy myself, we came home to a rogue cat that was wandering around the neighborhood. I spent some time outside with him, but ultimately gave up after he tried to climb up the vertical side of my car, scratching the paint on the way back down. The lesson here was apparently that you shouldn’t be nice to anything. Lots of lessons today.

I came inside and video chatted with Summer for a bit. I’d refer to Duo, except that I’m not sure the app will be around long enough for that reference to make any sense for the next person to read this. Already aggravated by life, the universe, and everything, I ended up picking a fight with her about “how many sacrifices” either of us has made for any particular reason. We ultimately had to agree to disagree in a way where everybody felt like a loser.

There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke, but uh, but you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate.

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The Thinking Den

It was a pretty quiet day today, which was good because I burned most of it trying to figure out what broke in SCCM. I just stayed in my office with some music, and repeatedly imaged a laptop to see why it wasn’t doing some certain steps in the task sequence. The newbies came through several times and I helped when I could. Mike was particularly goofy today. Gary was still on a pretty good high with having a new car, and he drove me to Linh’s for lunch.

Zach and his door crew didn’t finish in time to meet us, so the two of us just ate there and then took him some to go. Then I dug through log files all afternoon to no avail. I stopped by Casey’s on the way out, then went to the shop to see Summer for a bit before going to my parents’ for dinner.

They were just eating leftovers, so I finished up the spring rolls and then went home for the night. My major accomplishment for the day was cleaning out my personal email, which at least didn’t require any deep thought. At some point, I froze myself out when my Nest thermostat decided I wanted to be cooled to 72ยบ in early spring when the evening temperature is set to drop to the low 60s. Aaron popped online and bounced around in TeamSpeak, which caught my attention. I talked to him for just a little bit, and then it was off to bed.

And for a brief moment, I thought I’d just learn to become an electrical engineer on YouTube.

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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.