Tag: work

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Overpromised and Underdelivered

I got an email after work yesterday asking for us to replace a touch panel first thing this morning after I waited all day yesterday with no response. We still somehow managed to get it done without running into any kids, but it was still annoying. Otherwise, I was impressed with how quickly Jason, Brice, and I were able to get the job done. I honestly don’t think I could have been any more proud of them in that moment. Jason did seem to be in a promising mood though, in that he kept offering his guarantee that she would love the new touch panel, and that Sara would offer all kinds of extended training on how to use the new equipment. It got to the point very quickly that I had to start shutting him down on his referrals.

We didn’t have any other group projects, so I spent the rest of the morning taking care of a docking station setup before we went to lunch. Nothing sounded particularly good to me, and Jason really wanted CiCi’s, so he, Allen, and I went there. We cut it really close for our clock time, but we managed. I’m really not excited about having to do it, but it seems like at least Ben is going to have our back on some of the stuff anyway, so in the end it won’t really matter.

After lunch, I took care of a few things at the junior high. When school let out, the place quickly became a zoo of kids coming in for all-region band tryouts. Autumn was a bit upset that she only made second alternate, but she’s not willing to commit to the work needed to improve herself either, so she’s just going to have to figure it out.

I went home for a while after work to do a small water change on the aquariums, and eventually made my way up to Summer’s for the evening. I picked up a dollar burrito and free drink at Taco Bell on the way up, and after eating and finishing up Bridge to Terabithia with the kids, Summer and I watched a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation. Then it was off to bed for quiz bowl tomorrow.

He shows zero initiative. He’s not a team player. He’s never one to go that extra mile. Tom is exactly what I’m looking for in a government employee.

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Batting 100% of 1000

I’ve been nailing lunch suggestions this week. Monday it was Wendy’s. Tuesday, we had Mexican. Wednesday was Asian. Today, a huge group of us went to Firehouse. It was super cold for being bike-riding weather at the beginning of the week, so I think everyone just liked the idea of a hot lunch. I shouldn’t have eaten my whole sandwich, but I was so hungry and it was so delicious. It was totally worth ordering and customizing ahead via the app.

Since I spent all morning mostly wasting in the shop, I had to get some time in at the junior high, but not before having a decently productive gripe-fest with Gary while everyone else was out. Then I just closed as many work orders as I could before quitting time. I ended up two minutes shy of my eight hours today since Jason and Allen made me two minutes late getting back from lunch.

I headed home while Summer went to the gym. We were going to go to Ruby Tuesday while the girls went to dinner with their father, but he broke down and we ended up going to La Plaza together instead. They had all-you-can-eat enchiladas for $6, so Summer and I gorged ourselves. Then our waitress offered dessert, and brought us the biggest slice of trec leches cake she could find. I really didn’t expect to feel this miserable after it was all said and done, but here I am. To top it all off, I feel a pretty big head cold coming. I just hope I can kick it quickly without too much after-muck.

Unfortunately all of the CO₂ leaked out of my first paintball tank, so I tried filling up the other one. It may leak a bit as well, but at least not nearly as fast as the other. If it loses much more overnight, I’ll just trash them for a new one.

I’m so proud that you’re disappointed in yourself.

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Getting Tanked at Home

I noticed what looked like some baby snails in my bathroom aquarium this morning. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to check them out, but I saw what I thought were at least two different ones. I wonder if they’re offspring from one of my other snails, or possibly a tiny hitchhiker from the plant I bought last. They seemed too small to have been around since then, so I’m guessing they’re new.

I stayed pretty busy at work with a few new work orders and more phone swaps. Then I met Dale, Allen, and Gary at Kob Jai for lunch. I had the chicken pad thai, which was probably the best food I’ve ever had there, but that really isn’t saying much. The waitress asked how spicy I wanted it from 1-4. I asked for 4, and she kind of super panicked and kept trying to talk me out of it, so I finally relented after my comments about being Asian seemed to fly over her head. Turns out the level 3 spice was pretty tame.

Near the end of work, I tripped over some stuff in my office and took a pretty good spill over a pile of bad monitors. I just had to sit there for a moment to gather myself. I got both ankles and hands, so I’m sure I’ll be pretty bruised by tomorrow.

After work, I ran by Airgas and picked up a 20 pound CO₂ tank for $143. I was a bit nervous on the way home with it rolling around in the trunk, but I made it and got it unloaded into the garage. I was a little surprised how dirty the tank was for being sold as beverage-grade CO₂, but it was the only tank they had anyway. I had several packages come in all at once ranging from laundry supplies to aquarium test kits to a movie poster from Into the Spider-Verse. After unpacking everything, I hooked up the paintball refill station that had come in, and I was in business.

Unfortunately the paintball tank I filled seemed to have a pretty bad leak at the base of the pin valve, so I expect it will probably be empty by tomorrow. While I had it, I filled every single pressure-holding bottle I could find, and then ran to Walmart to try and pick up the remaining clearanced SodaStream bottles. I only grabbed two pairs the other day, and they only had one left, so I was glad I didn’t wait any longer. That brought my total bottle count to 9, plus some other glass bottles I refilled from the SodaStream bottles. I thought about just dropping the tank into one of my aquariums so the plants could use it while it leaks out, but instead decided to leave it in the freezer with the hopes that I’ll have some left tomorrow.

This all seems horribly dangerous.

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Endless Roeing

I’ve been forcing myself up earlier, so I had plenty of time to fish another frog out of my aquarium this morning. There’s only one left, and it’s almost completely lost its tail. I went by Oakland first, did a couple things there, then went to the shop for a little while. I took a stack of phones to the junior high with me and stayed busy until lunch.

Zach, Sara, Allen, and I went to Morello’s where I got the lunch special with three enchiladas. It was pretty good, but I kept staring longingly at Zach’s and Sara’s fajita burritos. We made it back in time for another perfect lunch hour for my time clock, but really we wanted to go to Zona K-Tracha but were afraid of the amount of time that would take.

I spent a little more time at the shop before going to Oakland to replace a ridiculously complicated Chromebook keyboard. Rather than have a keyboard as a component, they built it into the chassis and I had to gut the entire Chromebook and move it to a new chassis, all for two missing keys. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon wrapping up work orders at the junior high. Summer had to stay late for quiz bowl, so I took Eaddie to karate before heading home.

I had started to feel a little sour in the stomach in the afternoon, so I stayed in and read up on aquarium lighting for plants. The betta seems to be doing much better after I basically overdosed her with meds. The spot with the “stuffing” coming out seems to be completely gone, and she was quite active in her tank. She was even swimming around eating in front of me, so I gave her some of her old pellets after being on mostly nothing with a few freeze dried bloodworms. This was the first time I’d seen her eat in over a month, so I was super relieved. It looked like she released a few more eggs that floated up in the water as well, and she gobbled those up as well. I’ll give her a little more time in the meds before I do a water change, and then hopefully soon I can get her back into a regular tank.

To wrap the evening up, I finally pulled my old, dinged-up glass screen protector off of my phone and installed the spare I had stored away. The screen was still pristine, but this protector didn’t go on nearly as well, with quite a bit of haze between the glass and the screen. I really envy Summer’s screen since it doesn’t curve quite as much and can keep a screen protector without too much of a halo. I guess there’s always the Pixel 4.

Won’t be long for CO₂ now!

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Diminishing Returns

I woke up to a nice spring morning that allowed for a bike ride in to work without a jacket. In January.

We were to start clocking in and out today, so I made it in to work a bit early to make sure the system would allow it. I think I was one of only a couple people that actually successfully clocked in. The system seemed pretty limited and didn’t show much of any information, and I’m pretty sure I had access to things I shouldn’t have, but we’re still only testing at this point.

I spent all morning at the shop since I was able to do most things I needed to do remotely. Then Zach, Gary, and I went to Wendy’s for lunch. We sat with one of the maintenance guys that was there by himself, and he talked for most of the time we were there. We headed back in pretty early, so I actually managed to clock in and out right on the dot for the morning, before, and after lunch. Then I got out a bit late after setting up a couple new phones. We got a huge box of them in right before lunch, so it was nice to close out one of those work orders. Tomorrow I’ll get to close more.

After work, I went home for a while and ended up spending most of my time just checking emails. Summer got home after the gym and I headed over for some leftovers for dinner. She and the kids already ate, and they were all pretty well settled in. I still didn’t feel super great after sleeping with heartburn most of the night, so I just ate a little quietly and then joined them on the couch. The girls went to bed, and Summer and I watched the miniseries of Battlestar Galactica for the rest of the evening.

So say we all!

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That’s What She Said

I took the morning off but decided to work in the afternoon. I ran by Burger King to get Summer some lunch on my way in. Nobody else was there, so I headed on to Oakland to pull some old cable out of the ceiling in a couple rooms. Zach let me know that central office was closing a couple hours early, so I really only had to work an hour and a half before getting off.

Brice eventually showed up back at the shop and we ended up chatting for a couple hours about how terrible and corrupt and stupid the place is. Then he said the school board overturned the limit and hired him on at step nine when everyone before has always limited to step five, and we both just kind of sighed again at the whole “you can only get ahead if you know somebody” after he had gone on about how he goes to church with the district CFO.

I eventually made it back home and waited for Summer to get off work so we could go to my parents’ for dinner. The girls were staying another night with their friends, so it was just the two of us joining my parents for egg roll salads. Then we ran to Walmart to hunt for a big stock pot that I could use to cook up some apple pie moonshine. They had a cheap looking one that was super dented up, but they were only willing to come off the price by a couple dollars, so I decided to go back and just get a different brand of pot that looked to be of slightly better quality.

Back home, I got everything mixed up and cooking while we watched the last two episodes of The Office. I don’t remember where I stopped watching before back when the show was actually running, but I definitely know that I didn’t finish, so it was nice to wrap the whole thing up. They did a really good job of recapping the show too, to show how everyone had grown and changed. Now it’s time to find something new to watch.

I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.

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Save it for the Blu-ray

I delivered one more frog at Oakland this morning, then stopped by the shop for just a little bit to see if anything was happening. It was pretty quiet, so I went to Crawford to take a look at something Allen was having trouble fixing. It didn’t take me long to realize we were on the completely wrong path, and I left there to go to the junior high and work on it.

The junior high had their Christmas lunch potluck today, and I stuffed myself. There was just so much food. I couldn’t really even eat dinner after all of that. Everyone was pretty much just wandering around aimlessly because most of the kids were gone from having finished their tests. I chatted with Dustin and Haley for a little while, but then school let out an hour early and quickly became a ghost town.

I stopped by the shop again, but everyone was just sitting there waiting to be told to go home. We never really got anything official from central office, but Ben let us go just a few minutes early. Gary was there helping Zach look at something though, so I ended up hanging out until the usual quitting time anyway.

Summer and the kids were getting ready to go to Conway, so I met them at my house right after I left. The kids were hungry when we got there, so we took them to Red Robin for some burgers. Summer and I still weren’t hungry, so we just shared a tower of onion rings. Afterward we went by Sam’s to walk it off, and then made a quick run through Academy to look for paintball canisters, and then to PetCo to see if they had anything cool.

Finally at the theater, I collected my five comped tickets at the box office, loaded up on popcorn, and made our way to the XD auditorium for Aquaman. I wish they would re-cushion that front row of seats, because they’re starting to get pretty rough, and they lean back too easily. Then the theater filled up and we had a clapper/knee-slapper on the left and some guy that thought he was at a sporting event behind us. Neither would shut the hell up. Honestly I would have listened to the whole Pitbull song if these guys would have shut up. It was so annoying. Theaters need ushers again. I’m just glad I didn’t care so much about the movie, because otherwise I would have raged at the distractions.

Seriously dude, you’re going to the special hell.

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The Great Wind Down of 2018

I had yet another frog to take to Oakland this morning. I think they’re up to six now, and they’re out of food. Hopefully PetSmart gets some more tiny ones tomorrow. The girls were hungry too after dealing with a bunch of dumb parents, so I ran to Sonic to get them some breakfast before heading to the junior high.

I tried to keep busy with a few different things, but you could tell everyone was really winding down. It was a real zoo trying to leave for lunch because of all the kids leaving early after testing. I met Dale, Zach, and Brice at Wendy’s, then just went back to the junior high to finish the day.

After a quick check on all the animals at home, I headed to Summer’s for dinner. Grilled pork chops, mashed potatoes, peas, and a corn casserole that made a colorful plate worthy of a photo that I forgot to take. When we finished, the kids wanted to play Super Mario Party until I headed home for the night.

Why do we still let Pitbull do anything at all?

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I know it’s Friday, but it feels like Ciderday!

We didn’t really have much of a meeting this morning. Dale finally convinced Ben to get the trailer roof vent fixed since it’s been completely shattered and leaking water since last year. Jason was incapable of getting it done, and I thought the 25 minutes it took them to completely repair it was going to make Gary’s eyes roll so far into the back of his head that he’d be knocked unconscious. It wasn’t very much longer until Jason couldn’t tell that his own phone was ringing, and then said he didn’t care enough about answering it to remember what his own unique ringtone sounded like.

I spent most of the morning working on the lunch form I started on yesterday, but ended up just editing the live version instead of creating a new one. That got me to lunch, when most of us went to Fat Daddy’s in London. It was raining quite a bit, so I was annoyed at parking in the muddy gravel on top of having to drive to an inferior restaurant in the first place. When we got back to the shop, I headed to Oakland to take care of a few things before catching up at the junior high.

Matt brought apple cider to the lounges, and I guess they had some other snacks in there as well. I actually didn’t get a whole lot done the rest of the afternoon, but I stayed busy with the lunch form I broke. I think I got it working properly before I left though.

Summer went to work out, then out to eat with Autumn while I went home to take care of the fish. I still felt bloated from the rest of the day, so I mostly read up on the Walstad method of planting an aquarium. When they got home, I went up to meet them and played Breath of the Wild while Autumn watched TV and Summer made deviled eggs for quiz bowl tomorrow.

Must resist urge to Google recipes….

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TISTAAFL

I spent most of the morning working on a Google Form for Oakland. Then Ronda messaged me to ask if I could pick their lunch order up because they wouldn’t have a chance to get out today. I ran by Stoby’s for them, then went to Taco Bell for a free lunch myself. I figure I’ve got at least a couple more free meals there before the gift card offer expires.

The afternoon was a bit rough because I didn’t feel super well, but I made it. I went to my parents’ house for some leftover curry for dinner, then went home and messed with the betta for a while. Eventually I loaded up Zelda and finished another temple before bed.

Looks like they’ve been recalled for being too explody!