Tag: work

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9,000 Miles

It was back to the office today, this time with Ben and Greg. I kind of feel bad that Ben hasn’t really taken any time at home, but maybe he likes to get out of the house away from the kids to get things done. It was a quiet day except for a conference call with the Impero chaps. They all really do have the best accents, because they’re 100% understandable, but they just sound like a more formal version of ourselves. The software demo went well, and they can fill the gaps we’ve had for the past three years, but it’s going to cost us.

Greg and I ran to Wendy’s for a quick lunch, and then the afternoon was pretty relaxed. I actually ended up leaving before the other two just because I didn’t really have anything going on.

I ran by Staples to pick up a little table I ordered, and then went to get Autumn for physical therapy. I had enough time to put the table together before dropping her off, then I ran home to clean up a bit and check on the new aquarium organisms. The guppies seemed to be doing great, but were hungry enough to swarm the food I dropped in. The red root floaters seem to be struggling a bit, but it’s too early to tell really.

When Autumn was done, I loaded up the trolling motor and went to get her, and then we stopped by my parents’ to see them for a minute. Dad and I unboxed the motor to test fitment on the boat, and then we headed back to Summer’s to wait for her to get off.

Once she got home from work, I got to making salads out of leftovers. When everyone went on to do their own things, I pulled Autumn’s failed pizza dough out of the fridge, and tried to make cinnamon bread. It wasn’t awful, but it rose quite a bit more than I expected. While it baked, I cut up the pineapple we bought a while back.

And just like that, I found a stopping point.

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Into the Unknown

I spent all morning learning Wikitext to actually start entering articles for work. The translation took a while because even with a visual editor, the markup text made things look way cleaner. I still didn’t even finish publishing my first article, but at least what I have so far looks nice.

Ben got a Fat Daddy’s gift card for doing some work for someone, so he bought us lunch today. I brought prawn chips to fry since I still had the deep fryer there too. It was a really light lunch for me to choose ribs, but it was pretty good. I think I would’ve been happier with one of my usual orders though.

Ben wanted me to go try to break a touch panel before I left, so I went to the high school to a classroom with known issues. On the way, I had to deliver six iPads to the PAC. They had everyone using the main entrance with a sign-in sheet, but I just snuck in with my Technology superpowers before continuing on to the classroom. I could never get the touch to quit working, but I got so frustrated with how bad the SMART Ink was. I could draw in Paint and it would be flawless, but the SMART software lagged so hard. I hated it.

Autumn called when I forgot about her therapy appointment, so I ran home to drop off some things and then got her to therapy about 20 minutes late. Then I stopped by my parents’ house to wish Mom a happy birthday and chatted with them a little bit. She was outside power washing, and Dad was up on the roof cleaning gutters. I didn’t stick around too long though, and let them get back to work.

When I got home, I cleaned up and played a little bit of Overwatch until Summer and Eaddie came over. Then we rode bikes around the neighborhood, stopping by Allen’s, then going over to the high school. Eaddie wanted to take me to the trail that she and Noah found, so we did that. I tried riding over to Julie’s house too, but the field was so long and rugged with too many back yards that I didn’t want to disturb. We headed back around the new practice facility, then made it back to my house.

The girls headed home and I followed a little later. Autumn had some leftover fish sticks out, so I got the deep fryer going again for some of those, some more prawn chips, and some sweet potato fries for Summer. Then Autumn wanted to watch a movie with Summer, so Eaddie and I went to the bedroom to finish The Defenders. The end escalated pretty quickly, but we were happy with it.

Next up: Jessica Jones

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WikiWhat

I spent all day today getting the wiki going at work. What I thought were relatively straight forward steps ended up not working in the end, and Ben had to help modify their code to make it work. Lunch was leftovers from yesterday, and not much else happened beyond that. It was a slow, somewhat frustrating, yet ultimately successful day.

It was beautiful outside after work, but I just felt drained and wanted to stay in. I ended up jumping into some Overwatch to get a couple daily loot boxes. Then I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. I got her oscillating fan fixed with some WD-40 while she girls were all watching The Voice. Then when Summer went to bed, Eaddie and I watched a couple more episodes of The Defenders.

Only eight episodes makes for a depressingly short team-up season.

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Gotta Get Down on Fryday

I’ve been a little worried about my coughing the past couple evenings, but it seems to just come and go throughout the day. I felt pretty good this morning though, aside from not wanting to get out of bed. Zach wanted to clean up the graveyard, so I went upstairs and helped him until lunch time.

I took my little deep fryer to work so we could make fries for the smoked pork Ben brought. Zach didn’t see my message that I was bringing baked beans, so he brought a couple cans of his own, along with a frozen strawberry pie. We all sat together in the break room and chatted a while. It’s actually been really nice at work this week, and I wish it could always be this way.

After lunch, I spent all afternoon even working a couple hours late trying to set up a wiki. I decided to use BlueSpice just sort of on a whim because it seemed to have good reviews and features. The first part of the setup was annoying just because of restrictions on the server, but after I learned some tricks it turned into step after step after step of installing different components. In the end I felt like it would have just been easier to install all the prerequisites for a MediaWiki, but in the end I would have probably missed some features.

I stopped by Casey’s on the way home for a free rewards Kickstart, then got changed so I could take my Sun Joe pressure washer out for a spin. I spent a little while trying out different arrangements of my garden hose quick disconnects, and then got started washing all the things. With only 2,000 max PSI, it wasn’t going to blow anything away, and at first I was even a little bit disappointed. The sprayer was too large and annoying to hold, and I just generally did’t have a great time with it. The more I used it, the more satisfied I felt. It’s not as strong as the car wash down the road, but it’ll be perfect for little jobs around the house.

As the evening came to an end, I headed up to Summer’s and picked at some leftover Popeye’s she had brought home. Then I tried fixing a little oscillating fan she brought home from work. When she went to bed, Eaddie and I watched one episode of The Defenders that actually started to get really exciting. It was too late to continue on though, so we’ll have to pick up again tomorrow.

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Good Documentation Takes Time

I picked up another breakfast pizza this morning, this time with gravy instead of the cheese sauce base. I really couldn’t taste much in the gravy, but the lack of cheese sauce was noticeable. I can’t say whether I like one over the other though.

Most of my day was spent documenting a process for purging Help Desk accounts so I’m not the only one doing it. It’s really only two steps, can be stretched out into three numbered steps, and then was further fluffed up into a six page knowledge base document.

In the middle of all that, Ben got a call that the secondary learning center needed a laptop charger for someone that took home a laptop. In the past couple weeks, they’ve been stripping chargers out of laptop carts we built after we ran out of loose charging bricks in the warehouse. It’s going to be a bit of a nightmare recovering from all of this, and it’s a new lease year for me on top of that.

Zach took us to Chick-fil-A for lunch, and I had a super sad looking salad from there. I was already upset that they had gotten smaller, but this one was pathetic today. I just want some more cheap greens in my eight dollar salad, and that doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

After work, I picked up the girls and took them to my house so they could ride bikes. Summer came over after work and went on a run while Eaddie rode alongside her. Autumn didn’t want to get outside at all, but at least she spent most of the time reading up for her driving exam. I’m being super strict with my expectations, because I refuse to be one of those people I used to laugh at with kids that failed the test multiple times.

While Summer and Eaddie were out, I finally unboxed my electric pressure washer and got it assembled. I didn’t get it done in time to actually use it before they got home though, and then Summer took Autumn home. Eaddie and I followed shortly thereafter, and I snacked on some leftovers for dinner.

It wasn’t long before Summer went to bed, and Eaddie and I started watching The Defenders. The first episode was super slow to get started, but I get they’re trying to bring a lot of characters together. The second episode wasn’t much better, and left me wishing I could recall some of the details from prior shows. I think it’ll get good though.

Entertaining documentation takes an irresponsible amount of time.

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Back to the Office

Today marked my first day back to the office in three weeks. I went by Casey’s to pick up a breakfast pizza, and they had made both of the pizzas I ordered for Monday and Tuesday. I wasn’t quick enough on my toes to think to just buy the second one off of them, so I just left with the one and went in to find Melinda, Zach, and Ben all in their usual spots.

It felt a little silly to be there at all since we basically were only manning the phones. Administration could have very easily just let any one of us be on-call while working from home, and have office calls forwarded to any of our phones. As usual, Zach seemed the most upset, and I couldn’t really blame him after only being out of the office for a couple of days.

I spent the first little while just kind of catching up on what all has happened in the last three weeks. Then I set up my mobile battle station in the conference room and chugged away at deleting duplicate Help Desk accounts. It was boring but kind of nice to be out somewhere else for a change.

We were only working half a day but still got a lunch break, so Zach took me through the Wendy’s drive-through, and we dropped some food off for Summer. We had only just gotten back to the shop to eat when Gary popped in for a bit. He shaved most of his beard off, and it was a pretty big shock for me. It kind of reinforced my own not wanting to do anything with any of my hair.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as well, as we tuned in to the governor’s press conference. They officially closed brick and mortar schools for the remainder of the year. There’s no telling what kind of work we’ll have ahead of us now, but I’m sure it won’t be good. Only time could tell.

Autumn texted that she had a therapy appointment today, so I ran to get and deliver her. On the way, we saw that someone had hit the lifting gate at the railroad crossing. I ran home to clean up after the cat, then made it back in time to get Autumn back home.

Summer got there shortly after we did, and almost immediately got called back in to work to fix a broken bay door. She wanted me to drive, so I tagged along and actually proved myself useful by prying the motor pulley away from the housing that kept the motor bound and unable to move the door. Just as we got back, Summer received some more bad news that someone else is being quarantined, which brings the virus that much closer to home.

We grilled some pork chops for dinner along with some quick mashed potatoes and green beans that all turned out really great. Then Summer tried to relax in front of the TV for a bit before bed.

Eaddie and I finished the first season of Iron Fist, which went by much faster than Luke Cage did for me. I couldn’t really say I liked one over the other though, because they both felt hokey to me in their own ways.

Is that a ruttin’ rooster crowing at midnight?!?

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Visiting Home

I slept in today after a full night of anxious dreams about running for my life. When I finally got up, I spent some time working from home to make some remotely-accessible voicemail boxes for the ATCC. It’s been nice having cereal for breakfast occasionally, but today ended up being a bad day for dairy. I played a little Overwatch for a break and then continued working some more on duplicated clients in Web Help Desk.

Eventually I headed home to take care of things there. Zach called briefly for some help with his new AT&T bill after switching from Fi. I got the fish juggled around a bit more, paid some attention to the cat, and nearly suffocated my shrimp with carbonated water. Then I had a super long bath while playing Plague Inc. My COVID-19 virus wiped out humanity with ease. After all of that, I played some Overwatch with Jack, Johnny, and Clint.

The drive back up to Summer’s in the dead of night was a little eerie with so many businesses closed. The air was quiet, and there were hardly any cars on the road at all. Walmart, who has been open around the clock for the majority of my life at this point, was closed as well for restocking. It was quiet and peaceful, and made me nostalgic for my boring, early-to-bed youth. I almost wished the virus would stay a while.

When I got to Summer’s, I picked at some food while the kids watched The Simpsons, looked for some deals and resisted some retail therapy, and finally went to bed. The time really flew by today, and spring break hardly feels like a break at all.

USA’s government has fallen.

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Work Away From Home

I slept in a little bit today, but continued on working from home. The kids were up just minding their own business for the most part, so I had a little sandwich for lunch while I manually trudged through duplicate accounts in Web Help Desk. The day went by pretty quickly, but slowed down quite a bit in the evening. We finally got a bit of an official statement on what’s expected of us during the pandemic, and it looks like I’ll be out again all next week working from home. Summer’s still going to work herself, which only makes me angrier when she goes on about not feeling well. Keeping the kids cooped up seems at least half pointless if she’s going to keep going out in it. Part of me wonders if I should just truly self-quarantine at home.

She went straight to bed when she got home, so I brought out some leftovers for us to pick at. Then we watched Hitch until she was ready to go to sleep. I watched a couple episodes of Patriot Act, then played some Overwatch, and finally went to bed myself.

Maybe I’ll die from it.

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Hunker Down

I slept in just a very little bit today, but got up for a full day of work from home. It was mostly pretty dull with the usual amount of just different kinds of distractions. I have to watch out for eating when I’m just bored, but otherwise I actually feel like I eat healthier just because I’m not restricted to some artificial construct of time. The kids did their work, or at least pretended well enough for someone only barely paying attention. Noah left with some friends again. Summer left work early, and I went home to take care of a few things before coming back for dinner.

I got frustrated that we let my Colton’s birthday coupon expire after talking about going out for two weeks. Autumn made a pretty good chicken Alfredo dinner though, and I loaded up with a pretty good looking salad. The kids ate and then ran off to whatever electronics were distracting them in the moment. Summer went down with a headache, so I laid with her for a while, eventually watching a couple episodes of Master of None to wrap up the first season. Somehow we outlasted the kids, who were all off to bed before the show was over.

Two more weeks of home schooling, and we’ve just had our first tornado drill. This is fine. Everything is fine.

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Playing Work

I got up earlier this morning and trudged out a bunch of laptops to do some work. It was a little difficult to focus on some things, but honestly it probably wasn’t much worse than usual. I definitely noticed network latency in just about everything I did, but I attributed that to being at Summer’s with her ISP-issued equipment. At the end of the day, I got some important things done, and made myself useful and productive.

Noah and Eaddie sat quietly by themselves most of the day. I had to prod Eaddie to start on her homework, but Noah at least got his laptop out on his own. I don’t have a clue whether he actually did any work, but I still struggle with how to motivate any of them.

Summer got home later than she wanted, and I started cooking tilapia for fish tacos. She made some avocado sauce, and I pan fried the fish on the fly for the freshest tacos ever. Autumn was dropped off after having eaten, so the kids all went back to the television, and Summer and I watched an episode of Master of None before bed.

Get comfortable. We’ll be here a while.