Tag: work

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This Drill Is Not a Drill

It was a little wet outside this morning, but I wished I had ridden the bike to work anyway for as cool as it was in the morning. I jumped right into the work I had and got things done. The fire alarm went off just as I was finishing some of that work in a classroom, so I couldn’t hide out inside like I normally would. It was a little creepy going outside in the back, so I just kept my eyes open and watched people. When things calmed down a bit, I wandered around to a couple people that had open tickets, and managed to get enough information to close them out as well.

Allen responded with Quiznos for lunch, but by the time he said it I would have been meeting him there late, so I just kept working instead. Eventually I did take a lunch break and went to Sonic, but it was one of the worst visits I’ve had there. The tots were probably the most stale tasting potatoes I’ve ever had at a restaurant, ever. The “Philly cheesesteak” barely had anything in it, so it was mostly bread. The only thing that saved my break was the fact that I went home to eat in front of the shrimp tank, where I just sat and relaxed for the rest of my hour before going back to work.

My afternoon was short after having such a late lunch, and by quitting time I wasn’t in the mood to stay much later. I went home and started researching eye doctors. I wish I had made an appointment at the very start of the year so I’d be sure to have everything filed on insurance before dropping it. Now that I’m researching it, everyone in the EyeMed network seems to have terrible reviews except the CFO’s wife’s clinic, and there’s no way in hell I’m supporting that racket.

Summer had a roast going in the slow cooker, so I went to Walmart for some slaw mix and met up at her house. The girls said they forgot about tacos, and had already eaten Wendy’s with their grandparents by the time I got there, so Summer and I just ate in the kitchen. Eaddie couldn’t help but have a few herself because they were so good.

I played a bit of Superbeat: Xonic while the girls all got ready for bed, and then Summer and I watched another episode of Battlestar Galactica. Luckily it was actually an episode that really carried the main plot.

Who the hell shoots heavy artillery fireworks this late at night at the end of September? Country bumpkins. That’s who.

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Sink the Ship

Today was a fair day for getting things done. It was quite a bit cooler and rainy all day, so I just hunkered down and started closing work orders. It helped that I had multiple requests for the same couple printer issues, but I still got quite a bit accomplished. I picked Allen up and we went to Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads for lunch. Then I ran by the junior high for a couple things before going back to the high school.

After work, I did some water changes at home, then went to get the girls from karate. My parents made spaghetti for dinner, so we went there while Summer went to the high school for some career path dinner meeting. Eventually I got the girls home and we settled in pretty quickly. Eaddie lost another tooth for my collection, and we kicked back for an episode of Battlestar Galactica.

You’ll start losing your adult teeth, but they’ll keep growing back instantly and then falling out, and you won’t be able to stop vomiting teeth.

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Polishing the Doo

I thought I would start at the shop this morning just briefly so I could take the new, overbuilt, misappropriated computer to the PAC, but getting it going ended up being an all-day affair. It was maddening being around the shop too, seeing people casually come and go, or hearing them wasting time watching videos in their office. I’ve got a steady flow of too much work to handle, and all I get from those people is that they’re too busy or just flat out refuse to do any of it.

I felt like I couldn’t even get an assist on the computer this morning, and eventually Allen came back around for lunch and I just left it. KFC’s soda fountain was out of order, but the tea was alright. The food had been better. I saw Kyle there and asked if he was going to Bikes, Blues, and BBQ, but he isn’t. Back at the shop, I finally got a little useful help and learned the Dell-supplied drivers didn’t match the hardware revision, which was the source of my troubles all along.

As the school day ended, I gathered my things and headed to the high school for the first time. I got the computer set up in the curtain access room-become-office, and amazingly the wireless antenna on that thing was able to pick up a signal. I did have to run to the office for a longer power cable, but I got it running and able to access the network at the very least.

Eaddie had taken the bus there today, but Summer had to pick her up since I wasn’t there all day. I went home and spent a moment to decompress a bit, then went to get Eaddie from the shop just before Summer got out. I took her home and we had some chili that Summer had simmering all day, and then I killed most of the evening streaming random things on YouTube until Summer and Autumn got home.

While they ate, I got Eaddie to try her hand at the Melbourne shuffle. She enjoyed it at least enough to not completely goof off, and got the running man down pretty easily. Once the girls went to bed, Summer and I watched a feel-good episode of Battlestar and went to sleep.

Maybe if we keep throwing money at the corruption, it will go away.

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So Berry Glad to See You

It was rainy most of today. We had a meeting to sign testing paperwork for the year, so Ben brought sausage biscuits and donuts. Then Jason had us all go out and clean up the graveyard. It wasn’t an awful amount of work, so we finished up pretty quickly and then I spent the rest of the morning trying to get my student data migrated from yesterday. I was talked into driving half the crew to Fat Daddy’s out of town in the rain, but at least I didn’t have to park in the mud like I usually do. I felt a little rude after asking so many questions about the burrito, but it really annoyed me last time to be charged extra for getting the burrito made like it was described on the menu.

After lunch I got my last stubborn kid’s stuff to start migrating, and eventually I made it to the high school to get the girls. Autumn had a quiz bowl meeting, so they got out a bit late, then we stopped by my house before taking them home. I watched some MKBHD videos after messing with the speakers for a bit, and then we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Summer met us there after the gym because Dad had grilled burgers and dogs. The girls and I had some rice with it since my parents didn’t think of any other sides to go with the burgers.

Autumn wanted to stay at my house where she’d be closer to the high school for her tournament in the morning, so Summer took them home to get clothes, and I went home to start cleaning up a bit. I discovered one of my cherry shrimp was berried with eggs, which got me really excited after spending the past few days so worried. I think they’ll be just fine in that little tank, and I can split the colony up into other tanks as they grow.

The girls eventually showed up and we watched an episode of Battlestar when Summer got out of the shower. Then she went to bed and Eaddie and I started an episode of Luke Cage. She didn’t last very long before wanting to go to sleep herself, which was fine by me.

It’s way too early to be this exhausted…

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Puttin ’em Off

I had to kind of recalibrate myself this morning and prioritize my work orders as I whittled them down into the teens. I got a few easy help desk tasks done before lunch, but they were all hotspots. One of the students whose account I deleted yesterday came into the library while I was there, and I ended up trying to help him out for a while. As I expected, he claimed a loss of some data and nobody could tell me anything useful, which made me out to be the bad guy.

Allen and I went to Wendy’s again, because he can’t get enough of that jalapeño burger. Afterward I went by the new Arvest to see what was going on there. Evidently we could have had a free lunch for their grand opening, but instead I went inside and got a new debit card made with some cows on it.

After lunch I had to dig into those student accounts some more, and learned that the Gmail didn’t transfer when I deleted the old accounts, so I had to restore them and try to perform a data migration instead. Unfortunately I couldn’t ever get that to work either, so I figured I’d leave it overnight and check again tomorrow. I wrapped up the day spending about an hour on a phone replacement I thought I could finish in about half that time.

When I finally got home I stopped by Bác Vân’s for some eggrolls she made, then messed with the tanks for a bit. Once Summer got home, I headed out to hook up the first set of speakers, and realized I didn’t have the right cable to get the subwoofer going. Then we started season 3 of Battlestar and stressed her out until bed.

Yes, fear is a key article of faith as I understand it, so perhaps it’s time to instill a little more fear into the people’s hearts and minds.

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Just Shrimpy

I got home this morning and discovered one of my cherry shrimp had died. I’m assuming it was just a bad molt, because they all seemed fine yesterday. Can you imagine being trapped and suffocating inside of your own skin?

Work carried on with more random workie stuff. I do find myself annoyed with basically always having a backlog of work to do. It’s not that I don’t care to work the whole time I’m there, but rather that it’s so much more work than what I was doing before.

Lunch time ran a little late, and I found myself at Hardee’s to try their Monster Roast Beef. From the moment I walked in, I felt a little like I was in some kind of slummy neighborhood. What was confusing to me was that I saw examples of great customer service happening around me, but then I felt like I just got the “thank you, now move along” treatment. It was really kind of a weird experience. I felt like that place used to be a lot better. The sandwich was super tasty but surprisingly wet. I guess the roast beef was kept in juice to keep it moist, almost like a pre-soaked French dip.

I didn’t accomplish a whole lot more in the afternoon, and ended the day with some clerical nonsense that drove me a bit mad. I went by the warehouse to pick up some speakers, then home to change and hang out for a while. I made a frozen shrimp pasta dish of some kind that I got from Zach several months ago, and mixed it with some “grilled potatoes” he gave me as well. The whole meal was old enough to be walking and talking, but it tasted alright for what it was.

To wrap up the evening, I headed up to Summer’s and started setting up the speakers, and then we went to bed with the last episode of the second season of Battlestar.

Battlestar Shrimptactica

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Beating Down Problems

My first task of the day was to collect a new recording for the arena IVR. I had to wait in the office a bit, but eventually got Johnny to put on his best radio voice. With that out of the way, I jumped into some AppLocker configuration for Ethan’s lab. I kept digging and digging and felt like I was getting nowhere until lunch time. I eventually just had to stand up and walk away, if for nothing else than to get some food.

I hunted around for a bit but didn’t find anyone, so I headed to Wendy’s by myself. That’s where I ran into Allen at his new favorite restaurant. He was so adamantly against it for so long that it’s hilarious for him to love it so much now. That guy’s so dumb and hilarious. I customized a bacon jalapeño chicken sandwich by adding all the usual burger veggies plus the spring mix, and it made all the difference. It had a whole new crunch and depth of flavor to it, and I loved it. I don’t know why every restaurant app can’t be like theirs.

After lunch, I solved my great AppLocker conundrum with a stroke of luck with the flexibility of wildcards. It’s still technically a loophole, but a small enough one to not have to concern myself with the possibilities. Next it was off to beat my head against the wall for a VPN setup where I kept having to wait for Al’s password until he eventually just gave it to me. Super insecure? Sure. Did he only give it to me because of the rapport and trust we’ve built over the twenty four years we’ve known one another? Probably not. Does it not matter because of the eventual and inevitable heat-death of the entire universe and the end of everything we’ve ever known? Absolutely.

I wrapped up the day with a small cable run across the floor, and then headed home to clean up. Houdini, the black racer nerite, escaped from the front portion of the tank again, and I don’t know why. He seems to just prefer the sump area for some reason. Mom called with leftovers, so I went to their house for dinner. I got to try out the Anker Soundcore Life Q20 noise cancelling headphones I got for Dad, and I was super impressed by both their sound and their active noise cancellation. Then he brought out a bunch of old computer stuff and we tinkered for a bit.

I ended the evening at Summer’s, where I first helped Eaddie with a bit of math, and then settled in for another episode of Battlestar. I truly had forgotten how much I really loved that show.

We’re here on our own. That’s the way they set things up. We have to find our own answers, our own way out of the wilderness without a nice little sunny path all laid out in front of us in advance.

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IMPOSSIBRU!!!

The high school had a tornado drill this morning, so I started at the shop just to avoid it. When I finally did get to the high school, most of my day was taken up with interruptions and being dragged out of my office to look at something. I spent way too long messing with a touch panel and dock situation, and not enough time doing other older work orders.

Nobody had said anything by the time lunch rolled around, so I just kind of left campus and tried to wing it. I stopped by the taco truck I’ve seen up the road, but they were closed on Mondays. Then I started toward Taco Bell before switching gears to try the Impossible Whopper at Burger King. The app experience was absolutely horrible, and it didn’t matter whether I wanted to place the order online or use a coupon in the restaurant. It took me about 15 minutes just  to get the order in.

Once I finally got my order, I headed to see if I could commandeer Summer for a few minutes. We split a shitty taco, some nuggets, onion rings, and the two burgers. I’m not sure what I expected with the taco, but it was an absolute abomination, and whoever thought it was a good idea should be fired, re-hired, and then fired again. The nuggets and rings were bomb. The burgers were more or less indistinguishable, but I think the takeaway is not so much that we can make fake beef taste good. The lesson here is that Whoppers are terrible. Sure, they managed to make a vegetable patty that tasted like a Whopper, but why would anyone want that?

After lunch was literally more of the same, getting pulled back to the same room for hours, fighting with the same touch panel and display issues. I really just hope the next time she comes around, I’m legitimately in the middle of something so she doesn’t think she can just come and fetch me any time she wants. I ended the day playing with the IVR a bit more, and finally switched the career center over to their automated menu.

When I got home, I pretty much immediately got to checking water quality in the aquariums. Much to my surprise, everything was great! The 10 gallon shrimp tank was within acceptable ranges of everything, but the Imagitarium had perfect numbers. No ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates at all. The carbonate hardness was up a bit, and it had even turned a bit alkaline, which is great for the shrimp. The Tums really worked some magic in both of the tanks.

Eventually I headed up to Summer’s for the evening, and made us salads for dinner before settling down with an episode of Battlestar for bed.

Frakking toaster thinks it’s human!

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Mandio Cart

I forgot my phone at home this morning, but at least I made it there on time. Jason was out, which shouldn’t have surprised me since he actually had us scheduled yesterday for projects today. I was sent with Amanda to pick up a couple unused carts from Oakland and London. If I had known they were such small carts, we wouldn’t have taken the trailer, but it did still make things easier on us. I even managed to swing by and get my phone on the way. When we finished with the carts, we had to hang a touch panel at Crawford for Allen, and Amanda and I made short work of it.

On a whim this morning, I suggested Taco Bell for their new toasted cheddar chalupas, and it stuck. Allen, Gary, Ben, and I all had the same thing for lunch, and it was a hit. It didn’t even seem as heavy as I expected it to be, and the tacos were extraordinarily fresh and crunchy. I spent too long fighting with their app and ended up having to order at the counter like some kind of plebeian, but it was worth it for that warm, fried, cheddar shell.

After lunch we split up to do our own work orders, and I fought with my latest software deployment some more. It never finished overnight, and I nearly gave up, but I kept throwing changes at it until it worked once, and then I deployed it to the lab. So far, so good. I finally got that sound system lowered as well, but I cheated and didn’t even bother mounting the wall mount. She had a full size filing cabinet right there underneath it, and there was just enough slack in the cabling to pull it down, so I set the amp there instead.

After work, I went to the shop to visit with Summer, and messed around with her computer some to try and make things better for her. It was so hot upstairs, and I could tell the heat was making me a little cranky. When we left there, I couldn’t even take the short way home because of the county fair traffic. I had to make a huge loop all the way around town. I found one more cherry shrimp in the kitchen tank, which brings my total to eight in the Imagitarium and one stubborn and hard to catch shrimp still in the kitchen tank. Then I got frustrated with a corrupt Tabs Outliner file and had to recover from a January backup before Summer got here from the gym.

We settled in for some Battlestar Galactica, and then it was off to bed. Dad wanted to leave super early for the civil war thing, and we just weren’t having any of it, so we’re sleeping in instead.

Ocular migraines are weird.

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I’ve Got a Package for You

I don’t know how, but I lost about 15 minutes this morning somewhere. At least it was nice weather, so I picked the Grom for the day. Today was the day for people to come and fetch me from my office. First it was a needy one from down the hall, and then it was maintenance from opposite ends of the campus. They came and got me while I was on the phone with Becky talking about her impromptu retirement and move to Asurion. We walked for what seemed like forever, but I did get to see the balcony at the Center in all its pitch blackness. The office makes for a nice, spooky hideaway. Once I fixed that wireless issue, it was off to the arena for more of the same, plus some printer fudging.

Lunch was there before I knew it, and I squeaked out just in time to catch Allen and Gary heading to McDonald’s. I tried the Bacon Big Mac after fighting with their WiFi and app for a while, and I was quite pleased with it. It didn’t hit me like a ton of bricks either, which was odd and satisfying.

When I got back to the high school, I dug into some software and got to brag about how smartly I created an uninstallation/upgrade package. Feelsgoodman.jpg

I rode home and unboxed a huge package from Amazon with a bunch of Tide PODS and aquarium goodies. The hang-on breeding boxes seemed really great, so I set one up for a betta in the bathroom, and then netted out three cherry shrimp to move to the Imagitarium. It seems like I lost several more of them, but it’s possible they’re just hiding really well in all the vegetation. Summer and Eaddie came over as soon as they could after their trip around town. Autumn had another appointment in Little Rock before a football game tonight, and Summer had to go by the shop to take care of some things at the end of the day.

Tech’s Family Night was happening at the train depot, and Summer wanted to go for the announcement of the winners of Paint the Town Green and Gold. The food truck selection was abysmal, but I managed an Old Post Bar-B-Q sandwich with great success. Eaddie went blue with some shaved ice. We weren’t there too long before we spotted a furry playing with any dog it could find. Then it was time for the announcements. Summer won Best New Participant with her painting and crushed cars at Superfast, and she was so excited to run up on stage.

We didn’t stick around for the pep rally since Eaddie had homework and I’m pretty sure we all hate pep rallies. It was back to my house until Autumn finished with the band. Summer started falling asleep on the couch while Eaddie spent like seventy two hours writing a single paragraph. I worked on the aquariums a bit more until they left and I got ready for bed myself.

I simply cannot express to you in words how low of a priority this is for me.