Tag: work

Uncategorised

Crying Over Spilled Milk Products

It was a good thing I showered up last night, because I refused to get out of bed this morning. I gave myself another half hour or so, then got up and ready for work. Ben was out, and will be out for quite a bit as he wraps up his last month. Zach had everyone on projects, which involved cutting zip-ties at Crawford, then hunting for leased devices to return from the middle school.

A handful of us went to Slim Chickens for lunch, and I took Eaddie some on the way back to work. Then I spent the rest of the day with Brody trying to find the last of the devices. We took a pretty good bite out of the list, but there’s still a lot to go, and we’re running out of places to look.

After work, I went to my parents’ house to take a family photo to send to Susan after she texted to check up on us today. Maybe not everyone hugs their cab drivers. Maybe that’s the problem with the world.

Mom decided to make phở for dinner, so Summer brought Eaddie over as soon as they were done cleaning up at home. We ate a late dinner, then headed home for the night. I stopped by Dairy Queen with Eaddie on the way, and ended up spilling about half of my shake all over the kitchen floor when I knocked it off the counter. I’m struggling with flat surfaces.

I’ve been exhausted during the day, but I can’t ever seem to get to bed earlier. Something needs to change, but I can’t quite figure out how.

Maybe being the first interview can be a good thing.

Uncategorised

Baggage

I didn’t want to sleep in too late today, so I rolled out of bed once I woke up. I had a COVID test at Walgreens at 1, so I went home to clean up first. The test was a super simple and painless nasal swab, and not even too far up the nose. As soon as I was done there, I had to run to Mark’s to help out a bit. What he needed from me took seconds, and we ended up chatting about school stuff for a while after that.

When I left, there was nobody in the Ridgewood Brothers’ parking lot, so I crossed the street to see how things were going. Grant almost immediately offered me a sandwich, which I couldn’t turn down. I took it back up to Summer’s with me since he didn’t have time to chat, and on the way there I called Josue to see how he was doing.

Summer got back with Autumn from their car show fund raiser shortly after I got in, and then Summer and I went to do some shopping before packing. We went to Leonard’s first to spend a $5 coupon I had. Then we went to TJ Maxx for some cheapish rubbah slippahs. Summer got a neck pillow as well, and I’m not sure any of it was a bargain.

The packing took forever due to my travel anxiety, but I’m pretty sure I got everything. Fortunately we’ll have another day nearby in case something goes horribly wrong.

When we finally got back up to the girls, Autumn was in bed. I warmed up some leftovers for us, and then filled out some travel forms with my negative COVID test. Eaddie and I finished up the night with some House, and then went to bed ourselves.

Forget it, just grab all the sinks.

Uncategorised

Playing the Game

Today was perfectly short, since we would be getting out early for the end of the year celebration. It wasn’t the usual mandatory district-wide thing that everyone hated though, and instead each building celebrated on their own. That, of course, meant that our department wasn’t celebrating anything at all.

I didn’t accomplish a whole lot of my own stuff today since I was mostly cleaning things up in preparation for being away. We did get our COVID tests scheduled, which was important. Zach, Greg, Ben, and I went to Wendy’s for some pretty slow, below-average service. My Baconator was good though. Then after lunch I went to the high school to take care of some of Mike’s stuff since he’d been out for a couple days. It all ended up being super simple stuff.

I met Autumn right after school and took her to the shop to see Summer, and then I took her home to start some laundry. Once Summer got home with Eaddie, we took them to karate and then went to my parents’ house to clean up some leftovers they had.

When we got back home, Eaddie wanted to watch some House, which carried everyone to bed.

Alright, back up.

Uncategorised

Two Feet Back

Summer surprised me at home as I was getting ready for work. I was thrown off of my autopilot for a while, but I made it in on time. I finally got rid of the iMac this morning as I watched Doge dive some more. I thought my buy order from days ago was set pretty low, but it just kept going lower. It’s probably a good time to just get out. Zach was still in a mood all day. Ben had to go upstairs for an admin meeting to learn more about how you never destroy the ‘establishment’; you simply replace it. If you do take over, you become the establishment.

I took a super late lunch after nobody else wanted to go, so I ordered two feet of sandwich from Subway and ate with Summer. Then I ran by Crawford to take a look at their copier and get a hard copy of the letter Shavon wrote me. The rest of the afternoon was super quiet as things wind down for the year.

I picked up the girls after work, and went home to change. Then I took them straight home, where I tried to start Summer’s car after a week of sitting. I don’t know if the oil or fuel had settled poorly or what, but I rolled the car off of its little hill, hooked it up to mine with some jumper cables, and eventually got the thing started. I almost got completely creamed by someone running a stop sign on the way to see Summer, but I avoided it with some angry honking.

I dropped the car off and we came home for a quick scavenging dinner, and then Eaddie and I watched some House before bed.

One more day, and we’re off early at that!

Uncategorised

Mac Daddy

It’s been rainy all week, but not the bad, floody, muddy kind. Spending last week with Summer has shifted my morning schedule enough that I’ve actually been a few minutes early to work every day. Yesterday was a single big project day, and today proved to be the same. I knew I had to get into the iMac enrollment again in Jamf, so I tinkered with that between being tasked with other things.

Taco John’s had their lobby open for business again, so a bunch of us went there for lunch. Unfortunately the tacos were super chewy and stale, and the salsa bar still wasn’t open. Crunchy tacos and salsa are pretty much the only reason I like eating there.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly, but I think I was successful in getting the Mac enrolled again. It kept its wireless profile and directory binding, so now I just need to figure out the naming script. Kyle came by at the end of the day and asked for some help at Oakland, so we ran over there to look at their AV setup. I let him take off at quitting time, and stayed to chat with Sheri for quite a while after.

When I finally left for home, I called Summer back and chatted with her while I fried up some more rice and ham. Then I got to tinkering with my résumé and a fun cover letter that is anything but serious. I had such a blast that I just kept adding more and more to it. It’s way more fun when you already have a job and don’t really care if you get a different one, and maybe the showing of fun personality traits will actually help somewhere.

This page intentionally left swashbuckled.

Uncategorised

Code Monkey Get Up

It was a really quiet day at work with very few interruptions, which allowed me to dig into why some syncing scripts were broken. We didn’t even suspect that was the issue at first, but spending most of the day on fixing one kid’s email turned into a project that would fix sync issues for all of next year. It was neat to dig through Ben’s PowerShell some more and try to grasp what’s going on.

A bunch of us went to Linh’s for lunch, and then Gary helped me update Jamf in the afternoon. I guess we got lucky, because it was completely uneventful and straightforward. Hopefully the Mac will enroll properly now, but I didn’t stick around long enough to see.

I went home for the evening and didn’t get around to much. I still had some leftover rice from a few days ago that I fried in a pan, and eventually made it to bed for a quiet evening.

We’ll update PHP another night.

Uncategorised

Geek Bonding

I dropped the girls off today and made it to the shop early. Zach had me replacing Center Valley’s Chromebox lab with Kyle, which took all morning. We had to stop by Crawford on the way, but otherwise it was uneventful. We got to talking to the resource officer that sits in that lab about barbecue, which got Kyle and me craving Ridgewood Brothers.

When we got back to the shop just a few minutes before lunch time, we learned that everyone else was going to La Chiquita. Ben wasn’t going though, and I haven’t been super impressed by that place recently, so Kyle and I defected to get some barbecue. There were only a few people in line ahead of us, so we got our food and ate in plenty of time.

I burned most of the afternoon either working on an iMac for Daniel, or digging through random work orders. I felt pretty good digging through Ben’s PowerShell scripts, which is good because he won’t be around to explain them for long.

They let us leave half an hour early, so I went home and finally did my taxes. I came out owing about $100, which is about perfect for me. It’s like I got an interest-free loan of a hundred bucks throughout the year. When I finished up with that, I went to my parents’ house for some bún bò Huế. Julie was there and we chatted a little about Hawaii.

I picked up some Taco Villa for Summer on the way back, but still had to get a change of clothes and some gas. She ate a little when I got home, and then it was a quiet night without the girls.

Uncategorised

Lunch with the Paddler

I got up and took my shower at Summer’s this morning so I could get the kids to school and still have time to get to work myself. It actually worked reasonably well, but I still struggle with the water pressure. I jumped right in to the work orders that had been assigned to me over the past few days, but had trouble completing much of anything. I mostly bounced between Impero and CPPC stuff.

Janie called me to fuss about the policy we were voting for or against removing, and she seemed unwilling to vote for anything other than something that will directly impact those that have been screwed in the past. I hope she wins that fight, but I don’t want that to hold me back from removing redundant or uselessly complicated policies.

I called Allen and planned lunch at Sam’s, and I should have called Dale as well since we saw him at Taco Villa on the way. We had a good size group and had a good time. It was nice to see Allen in public and not looking too scruffy. Retirement looks good on him. While we were there, evidently Brice was sitting across the room and came over to chat, or leer. Or at the very least, awkwardly hover. I really hope they don’t consider him for the job, if only because I don’t want to have to be around to rebuild the entire department when they quit because of it.

We found the bus that would bring Eaddie to my office, so she came over after school and we picked up Autumn after her color guard practice. Autumn really wanted to go to karate but had to go to her band awards ceremony for a grade, and tried weaseling into being toted back and forth across the complete opposite ends of town. We shut her down, and left her at my house so I could get my own chores done.

I dropped Eaddie off at karate, got Summer’s last prescriptions, and then did some work with Mark for about an hour. I had about 10 minutes to chat with Nate across the street before I had to pick her back up, and then we went to get Autumn.

On the way up to Summer, we stopped for some Burger King and had a late dinner. I tried to start on my taxes, but didn’t really get anywhere before I had to get to bed.

The problem with going to the moon is that there is no “up” in space.

Uncategorised

Calm Down

I had to comp some time today so I could get the girls to school and then take Eaddie to a flute lesson afterward. I just took my shower and got ready for work after I dropped them off. When I got up to leave, Bác Vân was already outside with the guys cutting the trees, and they had almost completely cut down a tree that I absolutely did not want cut down. While I agreed that it was almost scary-tall with almost no lower branches, I was less concerned that it would break and crash into anything. What I was left with, was nothing short of a reverse mohawk.

Fully aware that I couldn’t change what had been done, I went on in to work and walked right into my next cluster. Daniel and Jason were there and had brought back the Mac I gave them. Evidently it didn’t work, and was having all sorts of fits. With absolutely zero time to dedicate to getting it working, we had to take off for a meeting at The Center about an upcoming event. Daniel didn’t even realize he was invited, but we still made it over there before anyone else.

After the meeting, I sent Mike off to get lunch and I worked straight through. I tried going room to room to check for technology needs, but ended up striking a nerve with Karen, who totally went Karen down the halls. She stormed into Mary Beth’s office, and I foolishly chased her down. Mary Beth ran her off pretty quickly because she had actual work to do, and I basically just had to wander the halls for a few hours getting nothing accomplished.

I ran by the shop for a little while before having to leave to get Eaddie. She brought along a friend that needed a ride to the same flute lesson. I just waited for them in the car since it was a short lesson. Then we came back home for a bit until it was time to get Autumn.

Summer hadn’t been able to get around all day, so we stopped by 10 Box for some essentials, then grabbed dinner from Little Caesar’s. On the way home, Mom called to gripe about the tree trimming, as though I should have had the forethought to be home when all of this was happening. I certainly didn’t want it to look this way, but at least they cleaned up the rest of the yard as well.

Somehow both Eaddie and Autumn ate half of a pizza each. Summer had a less-than-good time, then went back to the bed. I watched some TV with her until everyone was off to sleep.

I have no wealth, and riches and fame have never come my way.

Uncategorised

Cubby Buddies

I went to the high school first thing this morning and kept Mike company. Most of that time was spent trying to figure out why a VLOOKUP function wasn’t working, but I finally discovered the cells I was searching needed to be formatted as string values instead of numbers. Mike already had four and a half cubbies full of student devices that had been returned, so I helped him dig through them for a device Kayla was trying to find. Turns out, the mother had misunderstood her child, who would be returning the laptop later in the day.

Lunch time came up pretty quickly, and Bryan couldn’t go after shattering his ankle over the weekend. Brody was the only one that would communicate about lunch plans, so he and I decided to try Peg Leg. Upon arriving at a closed restaurant, we made the trip back across town to Popeye’s and learned that Google Maps is not updating with dine-in status. We ran through the drive-through, and then I thought he was going to come back to the shop to eat, but I ended up eating alone. In the middle of that, I started having a panic spell that took me a while to shake off.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in my office trying to be as helpful as possible. It was a pretty quiet day, which may actually be a bad thing, because evidently we are now having to prove our need for a secretary in the department. I stayed a little late chatting with Ben since he had been gone all last week, and then left to get the girls.

Eaddie was waiting at Oakland, and Autumn had just finished with band. I dropped them off at home before going home myself. Summer’s surgery has me off work tomorrow, so I went home for a while and then came back up for the evening. I stopped at Wendy’s for a quick dinner so I wouldn’t be eating in front of Summer. When I got up to the house, the girls were already all in bed though, so it was a quiet and relatively dull evening for me.

You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.