Tag: work

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A Stroll Down Memory Frames

It just rained and rained and rained today. Everyone pretty much stayed at the shop since it was just a half day. Somehow we got on the subject of my blog, and Ben started Googling for it. He happened across my old highschool site and the Cow Patty Link of the Week section. A little Wayback Machine later, and we got to experience the early Angelfire web of yore.

I got one more HP lesson done, and then Ben had me run to Staples to get some badge holders. They were a buck a piece for 40, so I ran by Lowe’s instead, and then finally Walmart where I found some for just under two bucks for a dozen.

That got me to the end of the work day, so I went home and waited for Summer to get off, and then we went to Leonard’s to spend a coupon I had been saving. She got a mortar and pestle, which was sold in a set, so I’m still not sure which one is the mortar and which one is the pestle, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.

I had another coupon for Mulan’s, so we met my parents for a New Year’s Eve dinner. Then I took Summer back to her car so she could go home, and I waited until it was time to get the girls from their friends’ house. Eventually with them in tow, we went up the hill and waited for midnight.

Autumn came into the bedroom and played Monopoly on Stadia with Summer and me. We finished up right in time to not see anything happen, because we don’t pay for live television and we didn’t properly coordinate any kind of streaming service. Somehow, one of the neighbors managed to light a few fireworks in the downpour though, so it wasn’t completely anticlimactic.

Maybe all this rain will help put out this dumpster fire.

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Don’t Quote Me on That

It rained all day long today, but that just kept it from feeling too frigid. Mike and I cleaned up the office some more, then met Greg and Ben at Las Palmas for lunch. Afterward, we started our “training” so we could do HP self maintainer claims.

After work, I had to get home and continue cleaning before my parents came over with the guys from Father and Sons Construction & Remodeling Co. to look at the bathrooms. I felt pretty happy with where I got, and then had a moment to breathe before they got here because they were running behind.

We went from needing six walls hung and tiled, to having both bathrooms completely stripped and remodeled, paint everywhere, new cabinets with sinks and fixtures, and new windows all around the house. It felt very much like a sales pitch at first, and I quickly became very agitated. Finally looking at some of their previous work, I feel more confident that I could do the majority of the work and then just hire someone for plumbing and laying tile when I’m ready.

They were here for about an hour and a half before everyone left. Then I waited around for Summer to come over, since the girls were staying the night with their friends. She picked up some food from Spices and we ate, then went to bed.

All this talking is driving me crazy.

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Widening the Path

Mike and I were sent to the high school all day again today, with an added task of mounting a touch panel that was already prestaged. I feel so much less overwhelmed having someone there to help me sort through all the student devices. For the first time in forever, I feel regularly whelmed.

Nobody went out for lunch, so I just stopped by Burger King to grab a quick bite before going back to the high school. It was another short afternoon, and then I went home until Eaddie asked me to take them to Strikers Bowling Alley for some kind of multi-date. Summer met us there, and after some back and forth on whether or not we would bowl, we ended up leaving the kids for some dinner at Stoby’s.

When I got back home, I had to do some major excavating to clean a path to the bathrooms. Dad was able to schedule a quote with someone for the bathroom remodels, and though I can see progress in all the cleaning I’ve done this year, it would still look like a hoarded mess to a complete stranger.

Yes, this is better.

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A Murderer Most Foul

I didn’t sleep great last night for the constant barrage of dreams. I had one in particular that had my heart racing as I attempted to avert a murderer. At the last moment, Summer moved her arm around me, which of course occurred in real time in my dream, so I snatched her hand away from me in a death grip to save my own life.

We both eventually made it in to work, alive. I was super tired, but fortunately wasn’t assigned anything particularly physically demanding. Mike and I just went to the high school and tried to sort out the student device returns to get a couple in order to file claims, and then get a count of what parts we thought we might need.

Ben called at one point, and seemed really excited when I answered the phone as Joe’s Crab Shack, so we settled on Sam’s for lunch. Mike actually went with us, so we juad had to stop by the shop to pick up Ben. I went with the crawfish po’ boy this time, looking for something a little more reasonable in price and volume. It was excellent, though if I’m honest, I wasn’t paying close enough attention and could have easily been served shrimp instead.

After lunch we got to leave early, so we just wrapped up a bit more sorting before heading out. I stopped by Superfast to see Summer just briefly, then went home until it was time to take Autumn to her Explorers group meeting.

Once I dropped her off, I went to Lowe’s and walked the store aisle by aisle looking for those stupid discounted power cables again. I walked every inch of that place and couldn’t find them, so either they’re up in storage somewhere, or their inventory really is just 12 off. Feeling a little defeated, I ended up sitting in my car messing with my Pixel Buds for a while before heading home and eventually to bed.

That was when the Grinch discovered that the true cost of Christmas was 15 points off his credit score.

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Dirty Gifting

I got up a bit earlier this morning so I could get to work for a Fat Daddy’s lunch and a game of Dirty Santa. Melinda somehow coerced the entire crew to participate, so of course we had a fair amount of disparity in the quality of gifts. I started out strong, was the victim of an untimely theft, scored what was probably the best gift in the lot, was victimized again, and ultimately left with a stuffed puppy in a Santa hat with a chocolate snowman.

School let out an hour early, so I didn’t really get any work done. I ended up going by Casey’s for a free pack of cookies, and then was asked to deliver Autumn to therapy just before making it home. Eaddie had to stay and clean house so their friends could come over to stay the night, so I dropped Autumn off with Summer and went on home for a few hours.

When the girls all eventually made it home, I came up and had some pizza with them. Then it was going to be a relatively early night, but Julie called with a deal that had me up racking my brain. At the end of it all, I just had to bite the bullet. I’ll figure out the details later.

No amount of over-preparation ever seems to help anyway.

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Merry Crampsmas

I felt a bit worse this morning and into the day, but I made it in for the afternoon. I didn’t stick around the shop for as long, and spent most of my time at the junior high. Eaddie found me after school and said she hadn’t eaten anything because she couldn’t get her Invisalign out. After some convincing, she took half of my apple and mostly sucked on it for half an hour, because her teeth were hurting so much. On the way home, I got her some Wendy’s chili to eat since it would be less solid.

When we got to their house, the girls got ready for karate while I started prepping another ham bone soup. This time it would be split pea. I dropped them off and got back to the house just as Noah pulled in. I got the Instant Pot going, and dinner was finished just as Summer got home from work with the girls. The soup was pretty good, though the green thickness of it didn’t look too great. A sprinkle of mozzarella and a thick slice of French bread helped a lot.

Summer had to do some stuff for work, and Julie finished printing a shirt for me, so I left to pick it up from her house. She had a lot to say, so I was there for quite a while. Just before I left, we got to laughing so hard that my entire torso cramped from every angle, so she loaded me up with electrolytes. I eventually made it back home for the evening, and wrapped a Dirty Santa gift for work tomorrow.

I really hope someone put away the soup.

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Threeniversary

This morning started pretty rough, comparatively. I’ve got to get back into the groove of actually doing anything every day, and since nobody managed to secure any millions of dollars while I was badly ill, going to work is one of those things. I’m not sure if the grilled onions, bacon, egg, and cheese on a leftover Popeye’s biscuit was the culprit, but it was delicious nonetheless.

I made it to work well before the recyclers, and unloaded some old scrap electronics. Then I headed to the junior high by myself to work on more laptops. I actually didn’t really fix any laptops, but I did manage to build an updated image for them that includes some software that was missing before.

Eaddie met up with me after school, but her father picked her up just before my quitting time, so they could go out to eat. Since he had the girls, I left work to catch Summer, and we went to Sumo for dinner. It was relatively quiet, but the food was better than I’ve had there in a long time, and came out super quickly. Then we each went home so I could check on the house before I caught up with everyone at her house.

Noah had just started Spenser Confidential, so I sat down and watched that with them. Eaddie was in trouble for most of the night for losing her brand new Invisalign, but then Noah found them sitting – transparently – on the bathroom counter. It’s no wonder no one made it rich within the last month. After the movie, it was off to bed to do it all over again.

Like a clown fish and an anemone!

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I Was Shorai Did It Right!

Today was supposed to be a bit rainy, but the rain never came. I drove to work anyway, since I had to pick up my life vests I had loaned to the theater. Daniel had to come help me work on Chrissy’s Mac, and three out of my four Adobe packages worked after manually shutting a bunch of apps down. Any sane person would think a restart would clear that, but no, not in Apple’s world.

The morning went by a little slowly, but I made it through to lunch. Jeff from Belkin called and confirmed what I already knew – that my brand new WeMo light switch had a firmware problem and needed to be replaced. I wanted to try installing my other one too, just to see if it had the same problem, but that would have to wait for after work.

I went by the shop after lunch and gave Ben the Internet Yellow Pages book I found in the garage, and then helped him haul a smashed Newline touch panel into a dumpster out by the bus barn. I’m not looking forward to walking the SMART E75 models down there, but I think that’s happening this week.

The afternoon was slow as well, as I walked across campus again, then spent a little time outside working at the picnic tables. When I got home from work, I started right away on replacing my WeMo switch, and discovered that it was working as intended, so I only have the one that needs to be replaced. My MotoMummy package came in as well, and they hooked me up with my requested drawing and a stack of decals, so I spent the rest of the evening replacing the battery in the Shadow. I finished with just enough time to ride over and surprise Summer and Eaddie after karate. I gave Eaddie a ride home, then made it back to my house in the cold evening air.

My phlegmy cough had me pretty ragged last night, but I figured that’s all it was. I slept pretty horribly and felt absolutely exhausted when I got home from work. It wasn’t until later in the evening that I started to feel a little feverish, so it was an early night to bed, hopefully without the COVID.

100.7, The Edge!

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Tall Stairs

We had a few short showers today, but it was dry enough to take the bike to work. I started out in the band area and had to carry a huge ladder down the hall so I could reset the power on an Airtame that refused to connect to the network.

The rest of the day was pretty quiet all to myself. Summer had a lunch break scheduled, so she picked me up and we went to Bocadillos. An old student of hers was our server, and he seemed super excitable, but a little forgetful. Otherwise it was pretty great, but I ate too much.

There wasn’t much more going on in the afternoon, so I had a bit of trouble focusing on anything. I had half of an energy drink just to keep myself going for the rest of the day. A third guy from Belkin called to troubleshoot my WeMo, but unlike the first two, this guy only works business hours, so I’ll have to try again tomorrow on my lunch break.

After work, I went home to change and start washing dishes before picking up the girls and bringing them down. Summer beat us home for the evening, and after she had a shower and picked at some leftover ham, we watched an episode of Cobra Kai and then went to bed.

I’m a phlegmingo.

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Lotería!

Summer got up this morning and made some delicious eggs scrambled with a variety of peppers and onions for breakfast. Then she picked up Autumn from her Explorers camp trip before we went to Walmart to pick up what we needed for her work Friendsgiving dinner.

When we got back, she started on her broccoli salad, and then I got the ham started in the oven and took a shower while they went to get Eaddie from her friend’s house. Everything finished up right on time, and one of Summer’s employees dropped off her foster kid to hang out with the girls while we all attended the party.

We had a really good time. Everyone put together a really great dinner party with lots of good food. Summer got to announce her two promotions at the shop, and made a heartwarming speech that had everyone’s hushed attention. Then we gambled quarters in a game of Lotería, which was a lot like Bingo with tarot cards.

We were the first to go, partly so the rest of the crew could enjoy themselves and partly so we could get back to the kids. Everyone settled in for the evening and I headed home just to make my morning a bit easier after getting all gussied up today. My blood pressure seems to be high in the evenings after being low throughout most of the day. The clinic cancelled my last appointment and declined my medication refill though, so that’ll have to be a discussion once I get a little closer to the bottom of the bottle.

Just keep cleaning. Just keep cleaning. Just keep cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. What do we do? We clean, clean!