Tag: work

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You R1 to Talk

It was another pretty lovely day, so I got the big boy out for the ride in to work. I meant to call in for service, but never got around to it. The morning was relatively quiet, though I did spend some time with Ethan trying to troubleshoot a software installation.

I took another late lunch and just ran home to make a burrito. Then I went to the shop for a little while to sign some paperwork and put in for vacation time. Ben had me extract another headphone plug from an iPad, so I got to deliver that to Oakland on the way back to the high school.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly too, and I spent the last part of the day chatting with Karen in the library. I guess I caught her in a calm mood, because for a moment it felt a little like I was kicked back on a therapist’s chaise lounge. It was a good chat though, and I felt like we bonded a little.

Summer made chicken and dumplings for dinner that was ready before I got off, so I had to run straight to her house for dinner after work. The girls had karate, so she took them in while I waited. Then we chatted for a bit until she had to pick them up.

I went home for the evening with the hopes of getting a bit more cleaned up, but it just didn’t happen. I did get one relatively large object out of the house though. The cats never really liked their little play thing. Hopefully Kayla’s will. I ended up going to bed early with a headache and some congestion.

Let me get this straight. You desperately need this to do your job, but you don’t know what it does? Of course, how silly of me.

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And Then You Marry One

It was so nice out this morning that I took the Grom in all day. Something was happening in front of Hickey Park though, and traffic was backed up about halfway to my street. It looked like they were moving stuff from one Tyson truck to another, but the trucks were already in the parking lot and for some reason they had a portable canopy set up between them. There were some cops there as well, but I couldn’t make out what was actually happening.

I closed out several old work orders, and even dealt with a sassy teacher. I guess it wasn’t really a surprise to find out she’s married to another thorn in my side out there. The morning went by so quickly that I ended up taking a late lunch. I had a couple expiring deals, so I made a coupon run through McDonald’s and then Chick-fil-A. I stopped by the house to eat quickly, then went back to work and caught up with the Google hardware announcement.

After work, I came home and got busy cleaning. My shower had been leaking water from the door trough, so I decided to take the doors out and powerwash them. I didn’t notice until I was nearly done, but there was actually a cavity in the bottom of the doors that was just full of lint and soap scum. Undoubtedly, that was what kept pushing water out of the shower when the trough got full.

I hit a wall pretty quickly after that. I tried to keep the momentum going, but I stopped for a light dinner and then just couldn’t get moving again. I felt so sleepy that I rushed my evening routine and went straight to bed.

I didn’t want the ashes, and I surely didn’t want a vial of his fur, but thanks for the thought, I guess?

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Uppers

Today went by pretty quickly, as all days seem to do lately. It wasn’t long before I found myself taking a late lunch. Slim Chickens had BoGo tenders and mac, so I had lunch with Summer on the bench outside the shop before she went to take the girls home.

On the way to the shop, I picked up a free coffee from Casey’s. After work, I picked up another one from the other Casey’s, which kept me up through the evening.

Autumn wanted to spend the night with her grandparents, so I went home after work and had dinner by myself before putting all that energy to work picking up around the house. Summer and Eaddie came over after karate, showers, and dinner. Then we watched an episode of Glee until Summer went to bed. Eaddie and I wrapped up with an episode of Jessica Jones.

He who controls the Pumpkin Spice, controls the basic white girls!

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The Time Honored Tradition of Hating the New Guy

It rained a bit last night, but today was cool, clear, and beautiful out. My morning went by pretty quickly, though I didn’t accomplish a whole lot. I did decide to take a lunch though, and went home to make myself a couple burritos. I should have stopped at one, but I was afraid I’d still be hungry with the work I would be doing in the afternoon.

I took the Grom back to work after lunch. I spent just a little while at the high school, then had to meet some guys at the shop to help with a couple touch panel installs at Dwight. Zach, Greg, and Kyle were loading up Greg’s truck, and then I rode with Kyle to the school. We got there with plenty of time to spare before school let out, but the teachers let us in anyway.

The first install went relatively quickly, but Zach kept making eyes about how Kyle was doing a lot of standing and watching. In his defense, he’s shy anyway, so being new and timid seems completely normal to me. He’s fully capable of doing what you ask him to do, but it was like the other two just expected him to figure it all out. I’m sure he’ll get to where he can lead a project eventually.

We ended up having to re-run some cables in both rooms, so we didn’t finish up until right at quitting time. We unloaded at the shop, and then I went by Summer’s shop to see her for a bit. She was just about ready to leave though, so I headed home for a little while before going up to her house for dinner.

I thought we were just cleaning up leftovers, but she actually made some fresh chicken for the girls. I wasn’t really very hungry, but I just shoveled a bunch of really old food down my gullet to get rid of it. It was pretty dissatisfying.

After dinner, we came back to my house and moved the couch so we could watch a movie. Autumn really wanted to watch a Disney princess movie, which seemed to mostly annoy everyone else as usual. I had a trick up my sleeves though, because I knew we had the new Mulan on Disney Plus.

I thought the movie was alright, but lacked the punch you would expect from someone as large as the Walt Disney Company. In fact, I guess from that frame of reference it was pretty disappointing. There were a few groany parts, but overall it was entertaining and different enough from the original cartoon that it didn’t feel like a super lazy reproduction.

No, there is not at least some singing.

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Something Screwy

We had more “training” today, which was really just going over expectations with the new folks. At the end of it, I was voted into the Classified Personnel Policy Committee, essentially by default as the most tenured, sensible person in the department. Afterward I ended up hanging out at the shop all day long, which is nice to do occasionally. Most days I never leave the high school, so it’s cool getting to hang out and actually learn something with someone else for a while.

Zach really wanted CJ’s for lunch, so a big group of us went there. It’s going to be pretty bad for the district if anyone comes down with symptoms over the weekend. When we got back to the shop, Gary and I sat down and came up with a plausible cause for the flash drives wiping themselves out. It’ll take a little testing, but I think we’re in the clear, and it was way more simple than I originally figured.

I went home for a little while, then met Summer at the shop so they could inspect my rear right tire for a puncture after it leaked a few pounds overnight. Sure enough, I had a screw right in the middle of it. It wasn’t very long, but it was plenty to do the job. They got me patched up while Summer took Autumn home.

The girls were going to go out for dinner with their father, so I went home to clean up a bit before taking Summer out. She was tired and not very hungry, but she needed to eat before Conquer the Gauntlet tomorrow. I took her to Mulan’s after Allen announced earlier in the day that they had re-opened for dine-in. I expected an odd experience, but it really wasn’t too bad. They just had everyone use single-use gloves, and tried to enforce traffic flow in a single direction. It didn’t really help a whole lot, since people still bounced back and forth between bars, but it was a good experience.

When we got back home, Eaddie sat down with us to start season five of Glee. Then Summer passed out, and I stayed up too late on the computer. Tomorrow morning is going to be a real treat.

I almost forgot what it was like to eat this much.

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It’s Not Getting Any Higher

Today was pretty quiet all around. I spent all morning making flash drives and tinkering around. Lunchtime came and went pretty quickly. I met Greg at the shop to help load up a TV, and then he helped me hang the thing in the art room.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly too. I worked a bit late just to clean up some work orders. Tomorrow we have more training to go over expectations for some of the new folks, but probably just as much for the old folks.

After work, I left for a quiet night at home. I ate some leftovers before it got too late. Then Julie called to talk for a little while. Then it was a really early night to bed.

My achy breaky entire body.

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Tropical Freeze

This morning was a pretty rough start for me, and I ended up taking a half sick day just to get a break. Summer took Autumn to work with her, so I had to get Eaddie home before ultimately making it in to work. We stopped and got Tropical Smoothie on the way up, and met the most chipper country girl I think I’ve ever met. Then we ate together at the house before I went on in to work.

I stopped by the shop first, just to see what was going on. It was pretty chilly outside from all the rain, but there was no new flooding yet. When I got to the high school, I spent the rest of the day working on imaging media some more. It ended up keeping me there a bit late, but hopefully I’ve narrowed down some repeatable steps to make working media.

After work, I went straight to Walmart to pick up dinner. I got everything to make burritos, then just barely beat the girls home to start cooking. Burritos are one of my favorite things to make, so dinner was great for me. I think everyone else liked it well enough, but I was too tired to care by the time it was all over.

Summer decided we could watch an episode of Glee with Eaddie before bed. Then I crashed. Half a day break just wasn’t enough.

Y’all have a spectacular day now, y’hear?

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Turn It, Leave It, Stop, Format It.

It rained most of the day, which didn’t help me get out of bed. I seriously contemplated calling in for a half sick day, but I knew I had work orders I wanted to close out. It still ended up not being a very productive day, and I left more confused than when I got there.

Greg came by in the morning to deliver an iPad and chat for a bit. Then I met him, Josh, and Zach at Brangus for lunch. The afternoon seemed to drag on forever while I fought my new flash drives and their intermittent read-only status.

After work, I ran by Leonard’s to look for an o-ring for my paintball tank. They had the typical black ones in my size, but I couldn’t find any urethane ones that were recommended. I made a quick stop by the shop to deliver some stuff from the high school, then went on to my parents’ house for some leftovers.

The girls got home shortly after I did, and were shocked at the state of the living room. Eaddie was loud all night, looking for attention, while Autumn was in a noticeable funk. We spent some time talking about our feelings, and I hope it helped, but they all need to learn to let it out more often.

Trash it, change it, mail, upgrade it.

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Closing Time

The Murano was nearly out of gas, so I decided to take the Grom to work today. I started it last night just to make sure it would, but of course this morning it was totally dead. Being so light, it was super easy to push-start though, and I made my way to work.

Today was a day for closing tickets. Twenty four, in total. I was unstoppable. Of course I didn’t get to do anything even a little bit challenging, but I did at least identify one teacher that seems to know his way around the technology. I really appreciated that conversation.

I worked through lunch again, and just sipped on a leftover Soylent instead. I felt pretty good, overall, and it was good to get some of those older tickets closed out. Now I’ll have the opposite problem though, and be left with nothing but a bunch of tickets I can’t give to Greg to finish for me.

After work, I came home just long enough to change before going to my parents’ house for dinner. They bought a bunch of peaches and gala apples on sale, so after dinner they went back to the store and bought some more to bring over for me. Summer had her hands full with the girls, so all I could really do was check in.

The night sure went by quickly for so little accomplished. I guess it made up for the morning of overachievement.

Does everyone parachute in the Army?

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Go With the Flow

We met at the shop this morning for some quick training over Impero and how we process the student data that all originates from a stick figure lady in the front office. Then Allen, predictably, asked how to do something that I learned in my first year, and proceeded to be taught how to do things by two of the newer guys.

After the meeting, I took Gary to the high school to pick up some boxes for his move across town. Evidently he was renting from Mark, who sold the house to our old classmate Hank, and was moving to a house just a couple doors down from Grant. The whole thing made our town feel very small.

By then it was lunch time, so we met Allen and Greg at Linh. It appeared to be all new staff, and they weren’t very good at it. The restaurant looked nice with the renovation though. Our old family friends Karen and Kristen came in, but didn’t recognize me, so I just passed on by to go back to work.

I burned quite a bit of the afternoon trying to clear out the aerator in the girls’ bathroom downstairs. The thing was completely full of large grains of sand, and the smallest pieces had cemented in the tiniest holes, keeping the water at a horrible trickle. It took a while, but Melinda found a needle that we used to poke the holes out, and now they have actual running water again.

I eventually made it to the high school to work on a long overdue work order in the music office. I sort of thought it was working, but it happened to come across my radar just a day or two ago. An email from Dewayne got me on the ball though, and I discovered that Wight didn’t configure the printer the same way they always do. It sure would be nice if we were notified about stuff like that so we could make it work on the front end.

After work, I came home and got some eggrolls from Bác Vân. Mom and Dad were there, and shortly thereafter, Uncle Giao, Aunt Teresa, Erica, and her kids showed up. We stood outside catching up for what felt like hours until Summer showed up. Everyone eventually split, and we went inside for the evening.

We watched a couple episodes of Cobra Kai before settling in to bed. Monday happens to be bulk item pickup day, which really helps to bring this whole second era of my life to a close. I’ve been using the hand me down furniture I got from my parents, which they bought shortly after we moved into their house when I was a small child. To say that it was well past its useful life would be an understatement. I don’t even care if I replace it any time soon. It’s just got to go.

Out with the old. It’s time for something new.