Tag: work

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Failure to Launch

I had a little bit of a slow start this morning, and even got to embarrass myself in front of the whole crew when Ben wanted to go over some relatively convoluted phone stuff as soon as I walked in at 8am. I made it though, and I even managed to get out of any project work in the morning. At one point, Ben and I ran to the aquatic center to help someone before a swim meet, but by the time we got there he had already figured it out.

Everyone but Ben went to Western Sizzlin for lunch, which was an amazing feat in itself. It was a pretty quiet meal too, I think it was partially because everyone was hungry, and partially because nobody could talk shit about anyone else because everyone was there. I cut myself a little short on food, but then ran long on dessert. I couldn’t resist the brick of Rice Krispie Treats. Or the pecan pie. Or the no-bake cookies. Or the blueberry cake. Or the banana pudding. Or the ice cream. But mostly that first one.

After lunch, Dale, Allen, and I hung two touch panels. I had one at Oakland, and then Allen had one at Crawford. We had gotten a slightly newer model than the ones we were purchasing, and the software on them is pretty significantly different. I didn’t get a whole lot of time to play with them, but it definitely seemed less intuitive. I wasn’t a huge fan, but Dale loved the fact that they had handles on both sides. They were mounted a little low on the panels though, so the thing was top heavy and would tilt over when we picked it up.

When I got home, I cleaned house until the girls got there, and then we went to my parents’ house for some leftovers. I was really proud of Autumn for letting herself be forced to eat more than just egg rolls for dinner, and she even liked the bite of weird beef she originally didn’t want to eat. We didn’t stay very long though, because we had to get home to rest before the big day tomorrow.

The girls put on Coco for a little while, and then they all went to sleep while I tried to catch up on some esports craziness. We didn’t get a tournament team going before the midnight cutoff, but it’s looking like we’ll have a pretty good turnout tomorrow for a LAN party while Summer is hosting a quiz bowl tournament. I’m a little worried about noise levels just because I don’t know how many people are going to show up, but I won’t be afraid to shut it down if they don’t behave.

-Email Signatures

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Fly

Gary had to help get League of Legends to work again this morning. I guess they moved some DNS entries around on their update server, which broke SSL encryption for us again. I’m mostly just parroting words, though. He made the blinky thing workie again. Then he took me to the other basement.

I met Allen at KFC for too much food. I still wish they’d reinstall a tray rail along the buffet. They’re just asking for trouble without it. Then I spent the afternoon at the junior high contemplating organized sports. Being under the AAA umbrella means that players can only play for four years, which means 8th graders can’t actually compete. Fortunately that doesn’t seem to mess me up too badly, because I don’t think anybody has actually stepped up to play in the tournament yet. Matt wants to just throw a couple kids in, but all I see is throwing money into a hole.

After work, I wasn’t hungry enough for phở, so I skipped going to my parents’ house and went to Walmart in the rain to get Grey some wet food. On the way out I drove past a guy with no legs scooting himself across the parking lot between cars on a skateboard, so I’d say things are going pretty spectacularly for me.

Back home I got Grey to eat a little bit before trying to play a custom game of League of Legends with Kang against some bots. For some reason it ran horrendously on my computer, and I just left frustrated. I don’t understand why it drops so many frames, yet Overwatch, Rocket League, and even PUBG will run fine. Generally upset about my computer, I got up and did the dishes and then came back to play some Overwatch with Jack and Johnny, and then Clint after Johnny left. Still fewer wins than expected. Must be tired.

“I don’t listen to a whole lot of classic metal, but if I decided to explore it more, I would definitely listen to more Metallica.”

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Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I had a decent start to the day, and managed to close out a few more work orders. I’m up to just 20 behind Amanda again, but I’ve got to keep on chugging along. I’m still not sure how she got nearly 100 more to beat me, but I’m going to assume it was work that wasn’t done properly before, and that had just caught up to her. Gary had time in the morning to help me get an email group made for esports, which made things a lot easier.

Zach, Sara, and I met at Taco Bell for a relatively light lunch. Then I made it to the junior high to take care of a few things before picking at a few more esports things. I have an account set up now for money, so I can start accepting donations and the like for kids to compete, or presumably purchase necessary equipment. I’m hoping I can get some donations by way of accessory sponsorships and swag giveaways, but I’ll probably need to clarify what is actually legal before I take too many actions.

After work, I ran home to clean up after the cats. While that was going, I pinched off a piece of Ludwigia and replanted it so I’ll hopefully grow an additional stem in the aquarium. It’s looking pretty nice the way it’s growing in, and I can’t wait to see how it does if I can ever find the time to start some CO2.

As soon as I finished those chores, I ran up to Summer’s to get Autumn to help grab a couple pizzas from Little Caesar’s. We pulled in just as Summer was leaving with hers, but we still had to wait a few minutes for ours to come out of the oven. We ate, and I finally got my first esports newsletter out to the members. I also selectively spammed a few key people with the hopes of catching a little bit of positive publicity. I really hope it goes well, but trying to enlist a proper team is proving difficult with such a short timeframe. To compound that, evidently I need to confirm that our school allows 8th and 9th grade students to compete in “high school” sports. It all seems like semantics to me, but in the end it’s just frustrating to everyone involved. It sure seems like a lot of work and money just to play a free-to-play game.

This is fine.

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Harmony with Discord

I was excited to wake up without a headache this morning, but I got a little bit of a slow start anyway. I made up for it though, and got to work with plenty of time to spare. I ran pretty much all day, mostly catching up on neglected work orders. Esports has really taken a lot of my focus, but it’s been fun because I’m getting to test my working knowledge of so many working parts just on the technology side alone. Every time I turn around, I find something new that I have to take into consideration, and probably another thing I have to make work in some system.

Today, it was mostly a day of Discord. I’ve gotten the responses. Forty seven students registered for the club. Twenty one of those joined our Discord server. I mostly dismissed Discord when it came out nearly four years ago. The audio quality was rubbish, and still mostly is in comparison to other services like TeamSpeak or Mumble. It’s the rest of the organizational features that make the service truly shine though. I’ve spent probably over eight hours working on this server, and am only just really getting into the meat of what it can do. I’m excited to make it look truly professional, even if it is mostly used by a bunch of new teenagers.

More bots! More bots! More bots! Come on, more bots! K, stop bots!

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Coach Brain

I spent virtually the entire day trying to compose an email. There was a lot of fact checking and gathering of second through 20th opinions as well. I truly shirked my tech duties all day for the sake of a solid esports launch. Even after all of that though, I still haven’t actually had my first after school meeting yet. All of this was just to send out a survey and set up a Discord. There are so many moving parts, and it’s great to be on the front and back end of the whole process, but it just means twice the work along with the glory.

Zach chose Morelos for us, so he and Sara drove while Allen and Brice rode with me. We made it there and back in plenty of time in spite of Allen’s whining. After lunch I was approved to unblock Discord from our firewall when, much to Gary’s sarcastic amusement, a certified teacher agreed that he told him so about classroom management being the issue and not the communication tool itself. School let out two hours early, but I made it to the junior high just in time to get everything set up for conferences.

It didn’t seem like there were a bunch of parents there, but I had several stop by my little area to talk about it. I handed out just a few more flyers, but most everyone that stopped by was at least a little bit aware of esports. Evidently there was something on the news about it last night, so it seemed like most of them expected it. Still, it was nice to get a little bit of face time along with a whole lot of validation from parents, teachers, and principals.

I finally left around 7:30 and went to my parents’ house for a leftover egg roll salad. Then it was home for the evening to play with Discord some more. I think, like everything else, I’m making it more complicated than it has to be.

I’ve decided that being called “Coach” is gross, and have promoted myself to the Director of Esports position.

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Eat. Sleep. Esports. Repeat.

We woke up this morning and finished up some ancient barbecue leftovers for breakfast. Then it was the struggle of getting children out of bed. I took Summer and Autumn home with me to get their car, and I got to work crunching esports stuff together.

I left for a brief moment to get some leftovers at my parents’ house for dinner since the girls didn’t really have time to come down the hill. Nothing fancy; just some leftover KFC. Then it was back home to try and build a playlist of highschool-appropriate esports promotional videos for parent-teacher conferences tomorrow. I just hope it’s not a disaster.

Feels like cramming.

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Dungeons & Deaths

We started work 15 minutes early in exchange for leaving 30 minutes earlier than usual. Ben had a conference to attend, so the rest of us kept busy cleaning up random projects. I got a little time at Oakland to myself, but then spent the afternoon with Zach and Allen after we all had lunch at Fat Daddy’s. I always forget how disappointed I am in the value of their Friday special of a pork loin “covered in bacon.” $7 is just a crime.

After work, Summer brought the girls over to me at the shop, and I took them to get dinner before dropping them off with their grandparents. Autumn wanted a burger and Eaddie insisted on Popeye’s, so we ran by McDonald’s and then Popeye’s before heading to my house to eat. The chicken took an incredible amount of time to prepare, at least for those that were in line ahead of us. I was parked by the speaker for near 15 minutes before they even addressed me and asked me to wait longer before taking my order.

Once the girls ate, they stopped bickering just long enough for me to drop them off. From there, I headed to Kroger and then Domino’s before swinging by Summer’s. She had to be back home relatively early to be up for a quiz bowl tournament the next day, so she just followed me to Travis’s house in her own car.

John and Melissa beat us there, and we spent just a very small amount of time on introductions and pleasantries before jumping right into a game of Dungeons & Dragons. The game was pretty fun in spite of me dying twice and not having anyone around to resurrect me. Summer seemed to enjoy it as well, and we’re excited to go back and continue the campaign.

With the game over, Summer went to get the girls and I met her back at her house for the evening. I showed Eaddie a bit of Bandersnatch while the other two went to bed. We made it through to the credits once before the Netflix autoplay took over and tried to start an episode of Black Mirror. I wish you could just disable that timer and have it automatically play the full credits every time.

I’m gonna have to kick this into high gear!

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V-Games for V-Day

Oakland was pretty crazy with Valentine’s Day stuff this morning, so I was just in and out. I spent a bit of time at the shop trying to organize my thoughts about esports, and then made it to the junior high just before the 8th graders went to lunch. I grabbed my flyers and waited nervously in the lunch meeting room. As soon as Matt made the announcement, the kids started pouring in. It was pretty rowdy, and I was a little disappointed in how little most of them knew about the games being offered. I got a bunch of questions about adding shooters, and I just kept having to point them to the fact that we’re going to have a hard enough time convincing parents that video games are good for school without throwing violence in with it.

The 9th graders seemed way more prepared. Hands shot up for all the games, and there were plenty of people that already played them at home. It ended up being almost entirely a question/answer session. I was glad that Summer and Hannah came to the 8th grade lunch for support though, and even Autumn brought a couple friends. I felt like I had a pretty decent handle on the introduction the second time, but the hardest part is still ahead. I spent all afternoon running around the building getting input from different people about how to get the word out to parents. Once I can get my mind to slow down a bit, I’ll be able to enlist the EAST project kids to do most of this legwork.

I never did make it to a lunch, and I spent the end of the workday setting up AppLocker for League of Legends so I can restrict who can actually run the game. I got to chatting with Ben for a little bit before I left, and then headed home to meet up with Summer. Once I got a hold of my parents, everyone agreed on my suggestion of Taco Villa for a Valentine’s Day dinner. It was a relatively easy way to avoid the craziness of all the sit-down restaurants today. I forgot to grab cash on the way out the door though, so we had to run back home for that before we got the food.

I think we all ate too much. I confirmed that I still don’t love tamales, especially that aren’t homemade. There was a lot of cheese. Everywhere. When we got back home after dinner, I felt like I slammed into a brick wall of exhaustion, but had to finish washing a load of socks. Summer went home to receive the girls as I stayed in to wind down as quickly as possible.

Here’s to the last 80.

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Whee Sports!

I thought it might be warm enough to ride today, but it was still around 30 when I left for work, so that was right out. I mostly worked around the shop all morning, and spent a little time looking over my esports stuff so I could meet up with the EAST kids in the afternoon.

Allen suggested KFC for lunch, and I was excited to check out the renovation. It was really nice, but I was a little surprised at a few of the choices. I hated the absence of a tray rail on the buffet, and had to balance my tray on the edge of the bar instead. The food was the same mix of stuff, and everything was nice and fresh. I’m seldom disappointed there lately.

Once I got to the junior high, I set up in Lab 201 and waited for the kids to arrive. I got them signed up with PlayVS, and we looked at some of the resources there. I didn’t see the required firewall settings at first, so I wasn’t able to install League of Legends today, but I finally found them later in the evening.

Summer had to go to an eye appointment and took Eaddie with her, so I took Autumn home to pick up some deliveries. Evidently I ordered a 24oz CO2 bottle instead of the 20oz I thought I ordered. Fortunately it fit my SodaStream perfectly, and seems to be holding pressure fine. Only time will tell. From there, we went to my parents’ house to trade some razer cleaner for rice and toilet paper. Summer skipped the gym so she could get dinner started, so we headed that way without too much delay.

She made a really great, if not confusing mix of ginger chicken and asparagus with fettuccini. It was really good, but Autumn wasn’t a fan. I was a bit surprised we didn’t force her to finish her bowl, but I’m at a loss. After we ate, Summer got a workout on her stair stepper while we watched a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation. I had to head home to start some laundry, so I didn’t stay too long. Then it was off to bed.

“Matt, I wanna see you play more aggressive!”
“Yep.”

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Mounting Pressure

Zach really pushed me to deploy four TVs at the junior high today, so I made the call and made it happen. Ben helped me load the trailer while Allen and Brice did something inside. I shinned myself pretty badly on a Chromebook cart, dumbly trying to bring it downstairs from the graveyard by myself. They were small and relatively light, so once Ben started helping it went smoothly. We dropped the carts off at the middle school for Amanda, and then the three of us headed on to hang TVs.

I got a little flustered trying to call the shots just because I really only had two that wanted or needed to be swapped out. I managed to get two more done though, in spite of the unnecessary nature of the replacement. Allen and Brice were surprised that we got that many done before lunch.

The three of us met Summer and the girls at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. Zach followed shortly thereafter. They had a bacon balsamic dressing that was okay, but I think I used too much. The peaches were amazing, as canned peaches are. On the way back, we dropped Brice off to do a work order before Allen and I unloaded the trailer full of junk. Then I spent most of the afternoon at Oakland pulling relatively newer technology out of classrooms that traded for new Chromebooks. At least they seemed more aware of the request than the ladies at the junior high.

Central office closed at 4, so we also got to leave early. I ended up sitting and chatting with Ben for another half hour though, so I didn’t get home until nearly 5. I did a couple small, quick water changes before heading up to Summer’s for the evening. She made rice, grilled chicken, and some mixed vegetables that smelled so good that I couldn’t resist a small bowl even though I was still pretty full from lunch. Then we watched a couple episodes of Parks and Rec before bed.

Make yourself irreplaceable, make others do the work, and then take all the credit.