Tag: work

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Hamburger Visage

Today was boring. I picked at a few things at work, but bored myself avoiding all the usual things. Nobody said anything about lunch, so I mixed up some powdered Soylent. I only made a 200kcal serving, which will usually hold me over in a pre-made bottle of v2.0. Instead, I just felt super hungry all afternoon. I couldn’t stop thinking about hamburgers, and I could never shake that the rest of the day.

Ben stopped by in the afternoon and did a little work in my office, but vanished again while I had left to work on something else. I went home after work expecting something fun from UPS, but it ended up being my toaster for work. While I was there, I decided to finally mount the shim behind my doorbell so the camera would be a little more centered. Then I went to my parents’ for some more fish soup.

After digging through some more old crap from my childhood, I hit up Shell for some cheap gas and then headed to Summer’s. She wanted to keep my new toaster, so now I have a brand new, used toaster for work. I sat on the couch and played some more Tomb Raider on Stadia, and eventually everyone went to bed.

Isn’t it peculiar how everything is perfectly fine while you’re brushing our teeth, but as soon as you spit a big wad of toothpaste out and accidentally hit your toothbrush, it becomes super gross?

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Nice to See Yule

It was pretty cold this morning, but the afternoon turned out pretty nice. I made it in to work and picked at a few things in the morning until I had to leave for my contact refitting. I’m not sure what brand they had me try first, but they were always dry and scratchy, and just generally fit really poorly. The ACUVUE OASYS they gave me today were immediately way better, though still felt a bit scratchier than the CooperVision Proclear lenses from my existing prescription. They also give me some sort of aberration that I mostly noticed in my upper left peripheral vision, but that may become less noticeable with time.

When I finished with that appointment, I went by Taco John’s and picked up some lunch to surprise Summer. We ate quickly, and then I went to the shop to check in since I didn’t do that yesterday after our week break. I mingled and chatted there for quite a while before heading back to the high school to finish the day. I wrapped up by tinkering with my tiny Christmas tree to get it all properly lit, then headed to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made some fish soup out of the turkey broth Dad made. Then I picked through another bag of old nostalgic crap that Dad was trying to throw away before going to get the girls from karate.

We headed to their house for the evening, and I played on Stadia for a bit. Farming Simulator 19 seemed about as complicated as I expected. Then I switched to Tomb Raider, another December freebie. It played pretty well, but there was one particular moment where I definitely blamed my repeated deaths on input lag.

Can’t forget Hog Wild Wednesday for 10¢ off at Shell tomorrow!

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Blurry Work Day

It was really tough getting to work today. I mostly sat quietly in my office all day, not even leaving for lunch. I was wearing my trial contacts, and as the day progressed I just hated them more and more. One or the other of my eyes was pretty much always blurry, and probably dry. I finally called the clinic and scheduled an appointment to try another pair tomorrow.

I got one stubborn deployment made for Heather, and had two thirds of a Soylent for lunch, and then went to my parents’ house for dinner. I was able to clean up a bunch of leftovers from Thanksgiving, and then Dad and I went through some more old stuff from my old bedroom. Eventually I had to head home to clean up, and then did some more deal hunting before bed.

We’re entering the package delivery zone. Brace for impact!

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Splashgiving

We got up this morning and had some leftover barbecue for brunch, and then Summer left for the gym. We wanted to head to Little Rock early so we could make a day of it, but I ended up feeling a little crummy and we only really had time to stop at Sam’s in Conway. We wandered around there until a good departure time to arrive at the Splash Thanksgiving shindig close to six o’clock. Ben, Sarah, and the kids were all in the kitchen of their new historical house-office finishing up dinner, so we got a tour of the rest of the place. Having an office there seemed unnecessarily expensive, but maybe it’s not as bad as I suspected. Nobody asked my opinion.

Overall it was a good time, and we both got some practice talking to new people. I was really glad I decided to dress way up, even though Summer said not to worry about it. There were people wearing jeans to be sure, but otherwise it was a pretty clean-cut crew, and slacking on formality wouldn’t have done us any favors. We mingled for just a little after dinner, then headed home so Summer could go to sleep for work in the morning. Then I stayed up for the next six hours self-learning optometry so I could purchase cheap eyeglasses with greater confidence, because that’s the kind of shit I do for fun apparently.

F = Fcyl*(SIN(Î))2 where Fcyl is the cylinder power and Î is the angle between the cylinder axis and the new meridian.

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Ramping up for Break

We met at the shop this morning but didn’t have any projects, so I ended up walking around vo-tech with Ben and some guys that were going to quote a cell dialer for our fire panels. Afterward, I went inside and did a couple little work orders before heading back to the shop for lunch. Allen was the only one at the shop, so he and I left to meet Gary, Zach, and Jason at Brangus for lunch. My beef spud was particularly good today.

After lunch I got a bit of an ocular migraine and had to sit down for a while. Gary came into Zach’s office with me since Zach left for a lockdown drill, and we chatted about what life is like being surrounded by girls. Nearing the end of the day, we started to look at my PowerShell script again, but ultimately left without learning much even after Ben joined in.

I ran home to get my delivered Stadia package inside, then went to Russellville Eye Clinic for my appointment. I had to fill out some new patient paperwork and waited just a little while before they called me back. Then they set me up at a machine with a little farm house inside it, and it wiggled around until it had my approximate prescription. Most of my time in the back was spent giving them information about my past prescriptions, but at one point they brought the insurance lady back to talk to me, and it was my old classmate Brian’s mother Donna that recognized my name and came back to chat briefly.

Overall, my experience at the clinic was wonderful, and everyone I dealt with was super friendly. I guess nobody really went way out of their way to do anything necessarily, and the girl that helped me initially seemed pretty new, but nothing about my visit was deserving of any of the 1-star reviews the place has on Google Maps. Once I complete my contact fitting and get new glasses or whatever, I’ll have to add my own comments.

When I got back home, I set up my Stadia and tried to load up Destiny 2, but encountered an error. Clint said the game servers crashed earlier today, which made me feel better about it not being a Stadia issue, but I still didn’t get a chance to play anything before I had to run to Summer’s to get the girls. Autumn had a date to go bowling, and the rest of the family chaperoned. The boy seemed nice, though awkward and possibly a bit outwardly immature for a 17-year-old. It was a good time though, and a couple girls I knew came up and bowled next to us. Taylor mentioned their annual Halloween party and said she would have to make sure I got the invite next year, and before they left I had to point Alex out to Summer because she didn’t really recognize me as the one who bought their Grom.

The girls went to bed pretty quickly once we got home. I sat down to re-skin my Pixel 2 XL, and got the new screen protector on as well. Then I lost myself in Zenni Optical for a while before heading to sleep.

I had forgotten how beautiful this bare phone is.

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-7 to Efficiency

Today was a bit drizzly, but it was still warm enough that it wasn’t miserable. It felt more like spring than anything else. I spent all morning and most of the afternoon trying to learn some PowerShell so I could fix the same deployment I’ve been working on all week. I took a break to eat my Thanksgiving lunch in my office, which was super delicious, if not a little shy with the cranberries. Then after school let out, I gave up and went to the junior high to hand-load the testing software for Heather.

When we finally left, I went straight to Walmart to exchange Summer’s defective TV. Everyone I dealt with was excellent, and they had a newer version of the same ONN 50″ 4k TV, so the swap was pretty straightforward. A guy named Dustin insisted on walking me out with the new one, and I guess he’s going to school for some flavor of IT because that’s what we chatted about the whole way.

I went home for a little while and waited for Eaddie to get out of karate, then picked her up and headed to Summer’s for a little dinner. I caught up on the Tesla Cybertruck unveiling, which seemed more awkward than previous product launches from Elon. Then it was off to sleep for the last day before break.

Sometimes you’ve just got to sink a couple days into something to save yourself an hour of time.

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Tying up Loose Ends (To Throw Them out to Sea)

It was a little warmer this morning, and I should have taken the bike. We finally started testing, and I immediately got called down to the opposite end of the campus for a non-issue that was resolved before I got there. I had a bagel for breakfast and couldn’t find a toaster anywhere. Asking around didn’t turn up a lot of suggestions, and ultimately Lee seemed to really want to go for a walk down to home ec, so we busted right into a full classroom and I bashfully asked to borrow theirs. Then I spent a bit of the morning catching up on some things that needed catching. Being an excellent multitasker, I was able to make a few calls while I was working so I could verify my benefits for next year, get back into my old retirement 401(k), and even get bounced around to a third and fourth customer service contact for Summer’s failing ONN TV that I got from Walmart.

I wanted to go to Ruby Tuesday for another $5 salad, and I should have just gone by myself, but Brice, Allen, and Jason all wanted to go to Long John Silver’s for a $5 meal coupon they sent out today. I was nervous when we encountered a sign on the front door asking customers to call a number to report if the restaurant was not open during its posted business hours. The guy inside even seemed a bit sketchier than usual, but we all made it out in the end with free drinks and an extra side of fries for Allen.

Jason wanted to come work with me at the high school in the afternoon, so after milling around the shop for a bit, we headed up to my office. I had him hunt down some Adobe stuff for Macs while I poked at another issue I was having. Then we took the trip across the campus to install Daniel’s software and set up Tina’s new computer. Jason had to leave just as school let out, and I kept tripping over myself trying to reconfigure the switch that Tina’s computer was plugged into, but at the end of the day Gary was able to save the day. I stuck around late trying to figure out why my test software deployment kept failing, and finally gave up so I could make it up to Summer’s for dinner.

She had stayed home sick today, and made spaghetti mac(?) since she didn’t have proper spaghetti noodles. It turned out really yummy though, and then we watched an episode of Parks and Rec with Eaddie before I headed home for the night.

Don’t you know what happened to the little boy who cried, “wolf!”

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Huttin’ for Food

I slept really well last night, and all I wanted to do was stay in bed. It was a little chilly out, but it warmed up nicely. My morning went by pretty quickly as I caught up on things at the high school. Then Allen and I went to Pizza Hut for lunch. I saw Robert and Grant there and learned that they’ve both gone full time with their BBQ business, so I feel doubly obligated to visit them sometime soon.

After lunch, I spent a bit of time at the shop getting a computer ready, then headed back to the high school for the day. I ended up staying a little late because some student data wouldn’t migrate for me, and I eventually just had to give up and go home. Once there, I cleaned up a very little bit and milled around the house for a bit until bed.

Plenty of memories down Ridgewood…

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The Long Hunger

We were supposed to start the first day of testing today, but I’m not sure that actually happened. I kept busy with my own little projects until Ben showed up unexpectedly to chat about what happened yesterday. I really hope he actually takes some kind of meaningful action this time, because it definitely feels like nothing ever works.

I had one Soylent to last me the whole day, and then I stopped to see Summer on my way home to stay up late playing video games to stave off the hunger. I was definitely allowed to eat today, and my belly wanted to know why I didn’t. I should be fine tomorrow with enough other stuff going on to keep my mind off of it. The cat is starting to look pretty yummy though.

I played a couple short rounds of Overwatch arcade matches with Jack before he went to play Call of Duty with the others. Then I made the mistake of starting a two-hour update on my computer, so I laid in bed watching some short extras on Disney+ that I finally got access to from Julie. Once my computer was finished, I dove right into a multi-hour session of Oxygen Not Included until about 5am.

23 Hours Later….

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On the Subject of Hierarchy

It was super cold and rainy this morning, and I was super sluggish getting into my office. I just sat in my car, cozy in my seat for a while, not wanting to go in. When I finally did go in, I mostly worked in my office all day without wandering about too much. I started digging into Group Policy to learn a little more about how objects are linked together, and the order in which settings are processed. I sipped on one Soylent through breakfast and lunch to try and cut back hard, and it worked pretty well. Lee came in for a bit to ask for some speakers, then stayed to chat for a little bit.

Near the end of the day, I went to the shop to get a couple things. I chatted with Zach and Gary for a bit, then went to the graveyard to dig around for some speakers. I was so focused on what was on the tables or in the piles of junk, digging for scraps, that I didn’t even notice Jason napping in the corner until I walked right up on him, practically within arm’s reach. It got super awkward after that, with him making brief, but quiet sounds of laboured movement the way one would in that kind of situation. He never said a word to me, and I just started digging in a box for some speakers. It took him a few minutes, but I think he left. I didn’t actually pay attention to where he went, but I didn’t see him again the rest of the day. His car was there when I went back inside though, and gone before we left, which was a bit before quitting time on account of my not taking a lunch break.

Brice has an interview tomorrow, so maybe all the pieces are falling into place for me to take a step up into leadership. One could dream.

After work, I went to my parents’ house for some rice soup. It was pretty soothing, and I peppered it enough that I couldn’t even taste that Mom had burned it. Then I went by Walgreens to pick up my prescriptions, then Walmart to pick up a few more things that I ultimately should have just gotten from Walgreens for convenience and time’s sake.

I refuse to let myself feel guilty for doing what’s right by reporting what’s wrong.