Tag: work

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MRW I Drive to Little Rock to Park the Car

I went in to work for the first half of the day today, and did a mix of working on 1:1 laptops and running around closing work orders. Then around lunch time I left to pick up Summer and Autumn to take them to Little Rock for Autumn’s checkup. I crammed a bunch of leftover veggies into my gullet before we left since I wouldn’t have time for any other lunch, and we made our way out of town.

When we got there, it was early afternoon and there was nowhere to park. At one point I blocked traffic for nearly five minutes waiting for someone to pull out of their spot, and then someone else immediately pulled up and stole it. Being in the parking lot for a children’s hospital, I did my best to maintain my composure and drove around some more looking for another spot. Luckily I found another person leaving, and managed to squeeze the Murano in with just a few inches of clearance on either side. I decided to just wait in the car since it had already been a while since the girls were called back, and before I knew it they were ready for me to pick them back up.

Summer didn’t have any other plans, so I just drove them back toward home. We stopped in Conway so I could get a carwash, and then split a cheeseburger and three chicken strips three ways at a place called The Original Pies & Fries Shop. We did not get any fried pies, but the seasoned fries were pretty good and I did try a sample pie on our way out. The samples were there when we came in, and there’s no telling how long they had been sitting there before we arrived, so the mini spoonful I had wasn’t very good. The burger was great, though expensive after paying an extra buck for cheddar cheese.

We passed a ton of police along the way home, and they had the eastbound Atkins exit closed down for some reason, but I have no idea what was going on. I called Jason to let him know he should take an earlier exit going home, and continued on to drop the girls off at home. I went back to work for about an hour to finish up something I had started in the morning, then went to my parents’ house for dinner. Summer got Eaddie from her afterschool activities and met me there for dinner, and then we split off back home for the evening.

I felt accomplished with another load of laundry and a clean cat box, so at least there’s that.

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Let them Sweat

I went to work this morning and pretty much devoted the entire day to 1:1 laptops. I didn’t take a lunch break or anything since I had brought some leftover pizza. By the end of the day, I had returned six laptops. More were nearly finished, but the day was over.

Back home, I did a load of laundry before going to get the girls from karate. Then we went by my parents’ house to pick up some banana bread before heading up to their house for the night. I dug out some leftovers and we watched a couple episodes of Glee until bedtime.

Nothing like doing a bunch of work to really make you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything…

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Soylent Hill

I slept pretty well last night and successfully made it back to work. It was a slow day, and I spent most of the morning at the shop just watching things slowly roll in. Eventually I made it to the high school to look at the sign again, and managed to get it working. I didn’t want to drive around, park, and walk all the way in just to turn around and head back to the shop a few minutes later, so I left and chatted at the office some more.

Ben was surprisingly the only one that wanted to go out for lunch after Zach bailed on me for some other plans. I gave him a few options, and he picked Linh where we had the combination lunch special. We actually made it back in the hour, and then I went straight to the high school to finish the day. I got a rash of emails for reassigned work orders, and it all ended up being from Amber, evidently sick of looking at the 1:1 devices in her queue. I got a little mad, especially with the way she told me it was time to “start adulting.” I stewed on it a bit as I toyed with Web Help Desk, but saved that conversation for later.

Suzanne texted that she was starting school next week, so she decided to come by while I did some chores at the house. She watched shrimp and played with the cat while I did laundry and dishes. As she got hungry and pondered dinner, I got to a stopping point and we decided to go to Linh for dinner. As we drove up, she remembered they were closing soon and didn’t want to rush out, so we ended up at Bocadillos for some tacos. She had never eaten there before, so she tried an assortment of tacos while I tried the torta. It was pretty good, but overall a pass for the future because it was nothing compared to the Cubana from La Plaza.

We finished up with some ice cream and a mangonada, and headed back to my house so she could go home. I folded my dried laundry and headed up to Summer’s for the evening where we watched another episode of Glee. As she went to bed, I stayed up and stockpiled enough Soylent while it was on sale to last us through the year.

Now remember – if the balloon pops, the noise makes the angels cry.

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It Kryptmus Time!

We were down another man at the shop today because Brice accepted a job at Two Rivers, and I guess he took today off so he could work over the break? I don’t really know what’s happening anymore. I was going to pair up with Ben to help make some tech tubs and then hang a new WAP for JROTC, but then Allen came along for the tech tubs as well, and then Ben left the two of us to figure out my WAP. While we were there, I found Seth and unloaded a ton of cardboard boxes for him and Danielle to move over break.

It took us a little while to get the line through the weird wall for JROTC, but eventually we got the access point powered up and running. We made it back to the shop just in time for lunch, and convinced Jason to drive us to New China. He always says he hates that place and refuses to go, but he seemed to like it alright today. Then I spent most of the afternoon at the shop just killing time. Right at the end of the day, I got a text about the sign at the high school, so I left to take a look.

On the way there, I had to stop by Oakland to see the girls before break. Apparently I was late to the party, because they already knew Brice was leaving and wanted to know if I was coming back. Sheri even told me she’d give me her own office if I’d come back! As the kids finally dispersed, I had to continue on to the high school to look at my sign. I spent a couple hours running back and forth, cycling power in different orders. The original problem was the GFCI outlet, but even with that reset I could never get the computer to talk to the sign, and I eventually just gave up so I could start my Christmas break.

I went home for a little while and waited for Summer to get home from the gym. The girls went out to eat with their father, so Summer and I had some leftover pasta that she brought home from work. Then we ran to Walmart for the stuff we needed to make for tomorrow’s big family shindig.

Running has never been appealing to me, but damn.

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Holiday Ghost Town

The parking lot was mostly empty this morning, since most of the kids are done with their semester tests. Ben broke the phones, so I ran around the building fixing that for a while, then tinkered around until lunch. I met Allen and Gary at the shop, and we went to Wendy’s. I got everyone birthday cake Frosties for dessert, and halfway through mine I remembered that a vendor brought us cookies, so I took what was left in my cup back with us to eat with a snickerdoodle.

It was a really quiet afternoon, so I went back to the high school and tried building a new task sequence to deploy the Windows 2019 LTSC image, and it seemed to work. I guess I’m an expert now. I saw an email from Danielle that they’re moving over break, so after work I gathered up a bunch of cardboard boxes from home that would have otherwise gone out for recycling. Then I headed up to Summer’s to fix some leftovers for dinner.

Eaddie was the only one with school tomorrow, so Autumn stayed with her grandparents. Summer picked at some leftover smoked turkey, and then we watched an episode of Firefly. After one episode, I put on a Donald Glover stand-up special until Summer went to sleep.

One last day!

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Trimming the Fat

I got out my puffy coat today, and boy did it keep me toasty on the way to work. My morning was pretty relaxed as everything has wound down with semester tests. Traffic was a mess at lunch time again because most of the kids checked out. I was craving KFC after reading an article about the Christmas tradition in Japan, so I rounded up Allen, Gary, and Brice to go along with me.

I spent the afternoon closing out a couple more work orders, so my Web Help Desk doesn’t even have a scroll bar any more. I also learned officially that Amanda is leaving us, so she and I chatted back and forth for a while. I stayed a bit late to call SuddenLink about my bill increase and got my 400mb service dropped to $57.49. The guy in their “save” department kept trying to convince me that customers signing up for the $39.99 price-for-life promotion would end up paying more than me, but I can’t imagine a 44% increase due to taxes and other fees. That’s cable company math for you though.

The evening seemed to go by pretty quickly at home, though I didn’t get a whole lot accomplished. I’m just ready for the break.

The call center has a lot of work from home positions too, which may be up your alley from what I hear…

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Just a Quiet Christmas Dinner with the Crew

I had to run back to the shop this morning because I forgot to grab a document camera on my way out yesterday. I stuck around for a little while just because it was so quiet there, but eventually I did make it up to the high school and successfully deployed Adobe Acrobat DC as a package instead of an application, because Adobe is stupid. We had a good size crew for lunch, which we wanted to keep light for the sake of having a Christmas dinner later in the evening, so we went for Taco Tuesday.

After lunch, I spent a bit more time at the shop before finishing up at the high school. I left work later than I should have because I was tinkering with some stuff, so I was just a little bit late getting changed for the party. I ran to pick up Summer, and we made our way to Old Bank for dinner. About half of the crew was already there, but with relationships and crew members shifted from where we were a few years ago, the whole night ended up being pretty quiet. To call it dull would be harsh, but we were upstairs by ourselves and the whole place just seemed really quiet.

When we finally split up, Summer and I went to get the girls and headed home. She and I watched a bit of YouTube while Eaddie did her homework, and then we were all off to bed.

This Tuesday feels an awful lot like Friday. Are we sure it’s not Friday? How would we really know for sure?

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Two One Thousand

When I first got to work this morning, my office was blowing super hot air and I had to strip down pretty quickly. It didn’t take it long to shut off though, and before I knew it, I was being blasted with cool air again. I wound up heading to the shop at lunch time and intercepted a big group heading to Fat Daddy’s again.

After lunch, I just stayed at the shop and continued to work on the Adobe Acrobat package that was giving me trouble. I think I finally had a working one by quitting time, but I didn’t have time to test it, so that’ll be a job for another day.

When I got home, I continued my cleaning project, slowly working my way across the room. I’ve found that I struggle with keeping things for two reasons. First is sentimentality. Then there’s practicality and expecting that something will be of use in the future. It makes progress extremely slow, but at least I feel like I have something to show for it his time.

Eventually I headed up to Summer’s for the evening, where I picked at leftovers some more. Then I ended the night with a little YouTube before bed.

Don’t feel like Christmas.

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Gettin’ Weepy

The girls had all region today, so I got up alone and had some salad for breakfast before heading home to clean up. I had to get Aimee’s laptop from the high school to her at the junior high, and ended up sitting and chatting with her for quite a while. By the time I left there, Summer had already left the concession stand, so I left and stopped by Ridgewood Brothers to pick up some smoked turkey. I must have clicked something on the iPad that made it not charge my credit card, so when I got back to the car and realized it, I ran back to pay Robert and he handed me a side of slaw to go with it.

I ate a little when I got home, then cleaned the vacuum cleaner so I could clean up the bedroom a bit. There’s still a ton of junk in there to sort through and discard, but at this rate that will always be the case. Eventually Summer got everyone home, so I went to pick her and Autumn up so we could go to Walmart. I volunteered to make burgers and Autumn wanted to pick up some snacks for Eaddie and herself while Summer and I were out with friends.

We dropped Autumn off and gathered everything up to head to John and Melissa’s. Travis was already there, and Veronica and her kids showed up a bit after that. We had a great time eating and drinking, and then tried to play some Magic: The Gathering until we gave up on teaching three new players and switching to Cards Against Humanity. Asher had brought it and wanted to play, but we refused until he could beat Travis at Magic. The kids ended up leaving to go to an escape room anyway, which made it all the more funny when they returned to us playing their game.

By the end of the night, Travis had gotten pretty weepy about everything, so we tried to sober him up enough just for us to take him home. As I walked him into his house, he seemed very concerned about the Dust from His Dark Materials. I did my best to reassure him, and locked him in his house so I could get home with Summer for some sleep.

I AM THE DARKNESS! I AM THE ONE WHO DUSTS!

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Busy Start to a Busy Weekend

Amanda and I coordinated our Weird Al shirts for today’s meeting. Allen and I were going to team up for the day, but before we could do that we had a conference room meeting about job expectations. It was a little foreboding, but I was hopeful.

Allen and I first went to the high school with the trailer to pick up the cart that had mysteriously appeared in my office the day before. We took it back to the shop, then took a touch panel to Crawford to be installed in the afternoon. Since we were on that side of town, I offered to ride up to Center Valley with him to check out their sign. I pulled the truck right up to it, which worked perfectly for climbing up to the raised panels. We couldn’t get any video out, so we pulled the computer and headed back to the shop for lunch.

I had been thinking of Fat Daddy’s, and I guess that psychically rubbed off onto everyone else, because a huge group of six of us went to the one downtown. I got the nachos since they were presented so much better than the one in London. Then it was back to the shop to get ready for Allen’s touch panel install.

When we finished with that, we ran by the high school so I could check on Ethan and his robotics tournament setup. We got him squared away, then stopped in to see Al, who had accidentally hidden all of his desktop icons. Jason called us all back to the shop at the end of the day, which was predictably bad. It’s upsetting to see that happen to a friend, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to do the things if you’re going to have a job. I really love Ben as a boss, but I hate how easy it is for people to take advantage of his want to see the best in everyone.

With that done, they let us out a bit early and I headed home to bring in the day’s shipments. It wasn’t too long before I had to head to Walmart for some drinks for dinner with Ronda and Steven. Inside wasn’t too bad, but traffic outside was an absolute zoo. I was running behind and still had to swing by to pick up the girls. We ran on up the mountain and had a great time and an incredible feast of M-E-A-T! Steven grilled marinated pork chops and ribeyes to go with some asparagus and tomatoes, twice-baked potatoes, and more. Every time I turned around, he was making something else for us. He really pulled out all the stops for us, and I hate that I don’t think I could ever top that, but I think he and I just really enjoy hosting like that.

We all ate so much, and the girls had fun with Maleea, but we had to get everyone home for all region band in the morning. I had to give up programming their DirecTV remote, and we got everyone to bed with a medium amount of fighting. Looks like we’re going to be running all weekend.

What an extravaganza.