Tag: work

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Don’t Carve

Summer got a portion of her loans forgiven today, which was a great start to the day. I made it to work just in time to squeeze in for our morning training, and then Kyle and I were sent to the junior high to do work orders. Virtual Fridays at the high school actually give me a pretty good break anyway, so it at least seems possible to keep work orders under control.

I left Kyle to service laptops while I visited a couple rooms and closed out individual work orders. I spent the majority of my time in the library just so I had some office space to use. Then when lunch time rolled around, we headed back to the shop to meet up with most everyone. The high school had burgers grilled by First State Bank, so we headed that direction.

When we got to the high school, we rode all around trying to find a grill outside, but after fist-bumping the superintendent from my Shadow, we found the food inside. He actually came and sat near us, which could have gone either way, but it wasn’t long before Mary Beth came to occupy his attention.

I spent most of the afternoon there at the high school, but ended up back at the shop just in time to see Ben’s email that we could leave early to go vote. I ended up sticking around until after four just chatting with him about life, politics, and everything anyway. When we did finally leave, I just missed him in finding out my battery had gotten too weak to start the bike. Luckily I had access to the tools, could strip the bike, and then get a jump from Jared, who happened to be right there chatting with someone else.

On the way home, I stopped by the shop to see Summer, and then we went to my house to get the car before getting gas and picking up the kids to go to my parents’ house. We already had the pumpkins there, so as soon as Julie showed up, the kids got to carving. Mom was the only one that refused to participate, and I was honestly really surprised at how well every single one of us did. Even after Autumn’s broke and was left looking like an upside down helmet, I could make it resemble a tiny house at the right angle.

I tried, for the first time, doing some shading by not carving all the way through the pumpkin. I hand-sketched a shadow monster from the game Don’t Starve, then used an Xacto carving knife to slowly dig deeper and deeper into the pumpkin until there was just a thin layer of flesh inside.

We took a bunch of pictures and then picked at some leftovers before heading home for the evening. Hopefully the slugs won’t devour our pumpkins overnight, so we can have some to eat later.

Have fun, damnit!

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Millions of Peaches

It was another pretty quiet day, so I got several work orders closed over the course of the day. I had a lunch date with Summer at Brown’s, so I picked her up around noon and we hit up the buffet. She accidentally burned herself pretty badly on the Shadow’s exhaust because it stuck out so much farther than the other bikes.

After lunch, I went by the shop and chatted with Zach for a bit before going back to the high school. Summer didn’t feel great and left work early. I finished the day and went home to change before getting all three kids. Then we went to the Neighborhood Market first to try and find some pumpkins.

I was worried after going to Walmart last night and seeing the empty pumpkin bin, but sMalmart had three full bins outside, and another couple bins inside. We spotted the kids’ grandfather walking in, so Autumn went with him to shop while the rest of us finished picking pumpkins. Then we went inside to browse, and I bought two more big bags of cheap peaches. Before this year, I hadn’t bought peaches for years just because I was always disappointed in the ones I found, but these have been delicious morning, day, and night. I’ll miss when they’re out of season again.

We dropped the pumpkins off at my parents’ house, then went back home for the evening. Summer had a low grade fever for most of the evening, so we left her alone in bed and played Among Us on our devices. It was a really good time getting to do something like that with all three kids. Then it was a slow shuffle off to bed for everyone.

If I had my little way, I’d eat peaches every day!

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I Have a Certain Set of Skills

Today was another beautiful day that made it hard to go inside to work. I spent all morning running back and forth across campus to close out some simple work orders. It went by a lot quicker than I expected, and I ended up taking a late lunch.

I just ran home and made a burrito to eat, then stopped by to see Summer on the way to the shop. I chatted with Gary for a bit, and then I ended up sitting with Ben for quite a while to figure out a way to bend Impero to our will, and it seemed to work at the time, but we won’t really know until tomorrow.

I didn’t get back to the high school until pretty late, so I wrapped up what I could and headed home. The girls were going to dinner with their father, so I thought I was going to just stay home and have dinner by myself, but Summer inadvertently talked me into coming up to have a late dinner with her.

Since I had what felt like hours to kill, I went to Walmart to track down some deals that Dad had spotted. They had the cheaper Nest thermostats marked down to $99, but I had hoped they were the higher end ones.

After covering the entire store, I finally made my way up the hill and scarfed some cold pizza with Summer. Then we all sat in the living room and watched some random clips on YouTube before bed.

I spent your money AND made you do the work! Hah!

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Life is the Bubbles!

Today was supposed to be a bit stormy, but like yesterday, I never saw any rain. I went to work in the morning to whittle down my work order count, and spent a pretty big chunk of time helping a kid from EAST troubleshoot why a whole row of their computers weren’t connecting to the network. What we ended up discovering is that they don’t have their own switch in the lab, and since we maintain that piece of equipment, they had triggered port security when they moved some computers around.

I left for a late lunch and got stuck by a train for about half an hour. Then I dropped in to Burger King to get some food for the girls and myself. Bác Vân had intercepted a package for me, so I retrieved that and set up a new security camera in the house. Then I rode the Shadow back in to work.

I had to get a wireless access point from the shop, so while I was there I showed Gary the bike and let him ride around the block. It gave him the itch to fix up his own, so hopefully we’ll get that going for real this year. Ben showed back up while we were outside, and we all chatted for a bit until school let out. Then I went back to the high school to finish up.

After work, I went home to see the girls off to karate. Summer went home afterward, so I took the new bike back out where I properly met my neighbor, David. Then I headed to Allen’s for show-and-tell and he, in turn, showed me where he went off the road on the interstate after blowing one of his rear tires. Whatever he picked up must have gotten both of his driver side tires, because his front was completely flat as well.

When I left, I took the bike to the car wash and gave it a proper soap bath. It looked way better without the stickers and weather grime everywhere. I’ll need to do some polishing to the gas tank, and I’d like to fix up the handlebars so they’re not crooked, but otherwise I think it’ll do just fine.

From there, I got the girls from karate and headed up to Summer’s where we threw together some dinner. The cat must have missed me, because she kept coming around to lay on top of me until I finally went to bed myself.

Sometimes you’ve just gotta slow down and smell the roses.

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Ring That Bell

Today was a bit wet, but I never actually encountered any rain myself. I stopped by the shop first thing to return the furniture dollies. Ben said our talent pool wasn’t looking all that great, and asked if I had any friends that wanted to work with us, so I tried to get Josh to apply. He apparently just got a new job, which opened up when Justin left to work at Dover.

I spent all morning running around, trying to take care of the 10 or so work orders that I had gotten since I left on Thursday. Since stopping my morning Amlodipine, I’ve had to monitor my blood pressure again. It was actually a little bit low all day.

I took a quick break to run to McDonald’s for some discount lunch, and caught the mail lady just as I got back home with my food. Of course she didn’t ring my bell again, and instead just threw my letter in the back of her car. I wanted to really get on to her for not even trying to do her job, but she was such a miniscule little woman. She wasn’t friendly at all, but for some reason I still felt bad being upset at her.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as people kept wandering into my office. I got stuck trying to fix one problem late in the afternoon, and didn’t ever get to many of my other work orders. I guess there’s always tomorrow.

Summer had already dropped the girls off at my house by the time I got home, so I just picked Autumn up and took her to an Explorer’s meeting. Then I went to my parents’ house for some dinner. They were at Kroger for hours, so I helped them bring in groceries before we ate. Julie called, and we had a conversation with emotions over speaker phone as she tried to organize our Disney trip.

By the time I got back home, it was pretty late and I was exhausted. Summer had taken Eaddie to pick up Autumn, and they all arrived home shortly after I did. I wrapped up my evening routine, and it was off to a relatively early bedtime.

Why don’t you just get to the point already?

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Exit Stage Lift

The Murano nearly didn’t start this morning in the cold, so I knew I’d have to take it in to have the battery checked again. I went on in to work and started the day by hunting down a lamp and the lift to repair the projector in the large band room. Then I piddled on a few different things until lunch. The girls wanted to ride their bikes to the park to do their school work, but ended up just getting lunch and taking it to Summer and then coming back home because it was so cool out.

I ran to Tropical Smoothie for lunch, then had to go to the post office to grab a letter that my mail lady made zero attempt to actually deliver. I stopped by the house to check on the girls, and got some pictures of my old life preservers for Daniel to see if they were “old and dirty” enough to fit in a play they’re doing. When I got back to work, I had a bit more running around to do in the afternoon before wrapping everything up for a long weekend.

Summer got off work right around the time I did, so she took the girls to karate so I could get the Murano to AutoZone. This college kid came out to test the battery, and basically just couldn’t help me because it was reading good at like 85% capacity. The alternator worked, predictably, because after the car runs for a few minutes, the battery has enough juice to crank again for a few hours.

Summer had me run by the shop to get her battery tester so we could test it in the morning after a cold night. Then I went home to clean up before getting the girls home from karate. I made a salad for dinner, then laid on the couch with Summer until bedtime.

“I’ll let the manager know.”
“Sure, buddy.”

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Batman in the Middle

Today was another really quiet day at work. I got down to around 15 work orders, so I really need to be putting some time into some of my older, harder, more complicated ones. I took a break for lunch and came home to make a burrito. I rode the bike back to work, and the afternoon was mostly more of the same. I got a lot of steps in, running around to collect and redistribute microphones.

After work, I came home and waited for the girls to get here. Then we ate a mix of leftovers before Eaddie and I ran to Sonic for half price Blasts. When we got back, I put on The Dark Knight for the evening. I think this was my third watch, and I finally put all of it together in my head. I don’t know why I found it so confusing before, but it just felt so disjointed for some reason. It was a long movie with a lot of plot points, so I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad.

See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.

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Mic Hunt

I stopped by the multipurpose facility first thing this morning to sign back in to a couple of phones. Then I headed on up to my office to play work all day. Evidently it was Prime day, but I’ve never had much luck getting any decent deals. They did have Summer’s Fitbit Versa 2 on sale for the same price I paid last year, but there are two newer models out now, and company reviews haven’t been looking so great. I want to replace the watch she smashed in the bike crash, but I also want to see if anything better will come out.

Lunch actually sounded good around lunch time, so I placed an order at Wendy’s for their Pretzel Bacon Pub Cheeseburger. Right about that time, Zach invited me to lunch, so I told him he was too late and went to pick up my food. I really only ordered it because I thought they were open for dine-in, but when I got there, the entire seating area was blocked off. I ended taking my food back to the shop to eat, and then visited with the folks there for a bit afterward.

The afternoon was quiet, so I fired off an email to the high school staff to try and collect unused microphones. I only had a few people respond, even though almost nobody uses those microphones. At the end of the day, it only matters if I can’t get enough to equip the classrooms with the impaired kid anyway.

Summer left work early and took the kids to karate, so I took the extra time to go back to the Neighborhood Market for some more peaches. Then I went to my parents’ house for some fish soup for dinner. I ended up leaving when my sinuses sealed off, and went home to try and be a tiny bit productive before bed. Time weirdly seemed to slow down instead of speed up, but I still couldn’t get much inertia going.

I’d say it’s that time of year, but it always is.

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🍑

Summer took Eaddie to the gym this morning while I got ready for work. Then they picked up Autumn and left just as I was leaving for work. It was a beautiful day out, so I knew I’d be coming home for the bike at lunch time.

I got to sit with a teacher for a while first thing, and actually helped him create some filters and learn how to take advantage of some of Gmail’s more advanced features. It felt really good to make such a difference for him, but sometimes I still don’t understand how more people don’t already know about these things, or take the time to figure them out themselves.

The day went by pretty quickly from there. I ended up taking a late lunch and ate the beef stew Julie gave me the other day. I still felt a little off from the morning, but I pulled myself together and rode back in to work. Overall it was a really quiet day, and I didn’t hear much from anyone else, though I guess that’s pretty typical these days.

After work, I changed clothes and went to get the girls for dinner. We stopped at the Neighborhood Market for some super cheap peaches. I got two big bags for just over three bucks. Then we went to my parents’ house for some more chow mein. Summer met us there as soon as she could get out of work. Then we all went home separately.

I had to run next door to help Bác Vân with a DVD when I got home. Then I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up my email and getting ready for bed.

It looks like a butt.

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Dibs

We found out during our morning meeting that Heather resigned at like 7:30 this morning. I immediately called dibs on the junior high campus, about 30% joking. I kind of like my new office, but I miss so much about the junior high. Moving back, I would miss my mile drive to work. There are so many tradeoffs that there’s no real winning for me unless I get an official pay raise.

I stuck around the shop all morning just picking at what work orders and emails I could do remotely. Gary upgraded SCCM, which I thought was going to be much more involved, but it was literally an in-app auto update. I kind of mistakenly suggested Daddy’s Smackin’ Wings for lunch, and five of us ended up walking across the street there for lunch.

The afternoon was quiet, even with taking a trip to the high school to take care of a couple things. I had to get back at the end of the school day to help swap a touch panel at the junior high. We had four people for that though, so I ended up leaving to visit with the library for a minute. Allen let me drive his car back to the shop, which was awesome. I would’ve liked to get on the gas a little more, but I wanted to be respectful of how he drives.

I stopped to visit Summer on the way home, and ended up hanging out there a bit longer than I intended. She was having a pretty exhausting day, and I know she’s ready to be over this week of bad luck. The weekend couldn’t get here fast enough for her.

I spent much of the early evening chatting with Sprint to figure out why my bill went up 26% on a line that I don’t even use. I’ve basically been an idiot for three years and continued to overpay just to keep the first cell phone number I ever had. Autumn went to spend the weekend with her father, so Eaddie came over with Summer for the evening and they watched some TV while I threw together a quick, late dinner before bed.

“…as you are not only a customer but a family member as well.”
– Ella L, Sprint Chat Rep