Tag: work

Uncategorised

Greasy Peasy

Today I mostly caught up on things I’ve been needing to do at work. I started at Oakland mostly to check on the frogs, but got an ocular migraine that knocked me out of service for a few minutes. From there it was off to the shop to discuss smart things with Gary and Zach.

Allen, Brice, and I wanted to go to KFC for lunch, but they were doing renovations in their lobby, so we went to Long John Silver’s instead. The food was good, but seemed lacking somehow. I just didn’t feel stuffed the way I normally do there.

After lunch, I went to the junior high and took care of several things. I got a call this morning from the shipping company that was supposed to deliver Summer’s phone for FedEx, and the guy told me they lost it and to call FedEx to file a claim, so I started that process in the afternoon. That became really dumb really fast, so I got Summer to log in for me and I chatted with Google Fi customer service for some help, and got the old “I’ll escalate this for you” answer. Still no new information.

I wrapped up the day with a few things at Oakland before heading home to get some things, and I left for Summer’s. While she was at the gym, I took the kids to Walmart because Autumn wanted to shop for some Christmas presents. I couldn’t really see that she got much of anything, but I got a couple thing I needed, and Noah carried the 35 pound bag of cat food for me, so overall I called it a success.

Summer ordered some Domino’s and met us at the house just shortly after we got there. Then we played some Mario Party until everyone was ready for bed.

You’re killing my, killing my, killing my time.

Uncategorised

FailEx

It was a pep rally day at the junior high, so I didn’t start the day with a whole lot of ambition. I stopped by Oakland first to drop off the three frogs I pulled from my tank. Then I spent the rest of the morning in my office until lunch. I went to Wendy’s a bit late for a cheap lunch, but unfortunately the $1 fry deal was over. From there, I stopped by the shop for a bit and called FedEx about Summer’s Pixel 3 before heading back to the junior high until quitting time.

After work, I ran by Summer’s for a while to get Eaddie’s flute for her concert tonight. I stuck around for a bit to see if FedEx would show up, and then spent quite a while on the phone again to see if I could get an update on the trace. So far, we’re two business days behind, but that’s four calendar days without her new phone. While I was on hold, I chatted with a BestBuy rep to pricematch Breath of the Wild so I could use my $10 reward certificate along with two $10 gift cards to score the game for only $15.

When I finally left her house, Summer had already left the gym to get the girls and head to the concert, so I just took the flute to my house and met her there, then spent the rest of the evening smashing my head against the wall trying to understand why the Switch’s wireless is so horrible. Evidently forcing it into sleep mode gives you a huge bump in speed, even from an idle and docked status. That makes about as much sense as downloading faster while the console is powered off.

Nobody likes a smug plummer.

Uncategorised

Ne’er Do Anythingers

Everyone but Brice met at the shop for the meeting this morning. We didn’t really have anything to discuss or work on, and instead everyone pretty well broke up and just socialized all day. I almost couldn’t believe we made it all the way to lunch doing that. I did get to school Allen and Jason on SCCM a bit, which felt both nice and aggravating, since they’ve both been doing this for years. I’m glad to have learned it myself though.

We unanimously agreed to Zona K Tracha for lunch since everyone else wanted to try it after Gary, Heather, and I went last week. The service was quite a bit slower, but the food was still excellent. My fajitas had more veggies, but the meat seemed to be seasoned a little differently. It was still excellent though. I hope they can get the consistency and speed down soon so they last a while.

After lunch was more of the same until it was time to go home. I stopped by my house for just a little while before going to Summer’s to wait for FedEx to bring her phone. She found a door tag that didn’t seem to be registered online, but the original tracking number showed the delivery attempt was made Thursday, so I assumed they would try again. After an hour or so of waiting while she was at the gym, the tracking status changed to “pending” and as far as I could tell, no additional delivery attempt was made. I called to complain or trace the package, and we’ll just have to see what happens. I always have this problem with FedEx though. I absolutely hate them.

When she finally got back from the gym, we made some leftovers before heading to my house for the evening. I hooked the Switch up to the TV and, after resolving some super frustrating controller issues, we played Diablo III until bedtime.

Finally, level 10 again!

Uncategorised

S’More Scool

I spent some time in the graveyard this morning helping Ben sort through the things we removed from the field house. When I left there, Oakland was having a s’mores cookout, so I managed to mingle around there for the rest of the morning. Surprisingly it didn’t seem to be very popular, and I guess some people were too busy with other things, but I just can’t imagine not taking the time to toast a marshmallow.

My Soylent kept me going through lunch, so I just went straight to the junior high to work through the afternoon. I still didn’t get a whole lot done because what I did do was relatively time consuming. I stayed just a little bit late before heading home to set up the other Switch and clean up after the cats. Wendy’s still had any size fries for a buck, and I still had a coupon code for a $1.99 Dave’s Single, so it was too hard to resist my first solid meal of the day.

When I got home, my betta was still hiding, so I did a bunch of water quality tests between both tanks and ended up doing a water change with the hopes that it would help enough that I won’t have to move her in such a rush. I still have some tadpoles that don’t seem to have any intention of becoming frogs. There is one frog in there now, but he has a retarded leg. I don’t really know what to do with him other than maybe feed him to Autumn’s turtle. There’s no way he’d last very long with that deformity, and to put him in the cold would be near-instant death.

Once the house was in order, I headed to Summer’s house, and we all played a little bit of Super Mario Party. The party mode was going to take too long, so we backed out of that and played some mini games before the girls headed to bed. Then Summer and I played Diablo III until bedtime. I’m not really sure how we both managed to play together since I only redeemed one copy of the game code, but I guess it doesn’t really matter for now.

That almost seemed like genuine excitement!

Uncategorised

Switch Things Up

I got in to work a couple minutes late this morning after traffic was backed up a quarter mile up Fairway. I have no idea what was going on, but we actually cleared through the intersection relatively quickly. As I suspected, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of conversation about work going on. When we finally did split up, I volunteered to help Zach and Amanda hang a TV for the resource officers at the high school.

I ended up hurting my leg just barely above my right ankle when I tripped over a rolling chair. Zach caught me and kept me from face planting, and luckily the damage didn’t seem to be on my ankle itself, but it definitely sat me down for a little bit. We finally got the TV hung though, and then went to the field house to help Ben, Allen, and Brice remove a bunch of old equipment before they renovate the place.

Gary, Heather, and I went to a new Latino restaurant called Zona K-Tracha that was super good. Gary had most of a 14-inch burrito that looked amazing. My fajitas were great, and it was probably the first time I’ve eaten at a place that had a noticeably different flavor of seasoning in their meat. I was a little disappointed by the quantity of vegetables in my fajitas, but the flip side was that I had a lot of meat instead. The restaurant had more of a polish than most of the others in town, which made it that much stranger to see so many mistakes or inconsistencies in the nicely made menus. It just made me want to fix it all for them.

After lunch, I went to the junior high to take care of a few things. Summer was out at a meeting all day and didn’t get back until around the time I finished working. When she did finally show up, she took Autumn and I took Eaddie home with me for a couple hours. My Blue Yeti shock mount and my Switch screen protectors came in, so I spent my time setting those up while Eaddie watched her last episode of Arrow.

Eventually we loaded everything up and headed to Summer’s for dinner. She made some chicken breasts encrusted with French onions, along with a mixture of some vegetables and some mashed potatoes. I think Eaddie ate more than all of us, but she just couldn’t behave at the table and kept aggravating everyone. After we ate, Summer frustrated herself even further trying to peel some hard boiled eggs, and I had to make her take a break for a bit.

I tried downloading some games to the Switch, and got a few things going that we could do, but Autumn was so tired that she went to bed early, and Eaddie eventually got dishes done, then played computer games until bedtime. Summer and I finally got the eggs peeled and deviled, and it was off to bed with her. The storm riled her up for a little while, but for the most part it was over pretty quickly.

Of course it’s 70 degrees outside with a thunderstorm and tornado warning. Why wouldn’t it be, on the first day of December?

Uncategorised

Would you mind holding for two to three hours while my system updates?

I spent my entire morning trying to create Chromebook recovery drives for five out-of-date devices at Oakland. I didn’t crack it until right before lunch, so I got one device done and two more started.

Allen and I went to KFC for lunch, where we ran into an old coworker of his that we invited to eat with us. Right at the end of lunch I remembered the esports presentation that I wanted to attend with some EAST kids, so I dropped Allen off and headed straight to the junior high to meet up with Summer.

I was lead to believe that at least one of them would be an excellent public speaker, but they were all so nervous they sounded like they wanted to throw up. I remembered being exactly that way in school though, since I didn’t really learn how to communicate with organic humans until my mid-20s. It was probably more disappointing that they didn’t seem to take any of Summer’s advice at all about their presentation. She and I kind of took over for a little bit of it, and I think it really helped to build the picture for Matt. Hopefully this goes well when he brings it up with the athletics director.

After that, I ran around and finished a few things I had at the junior high, and then stayed late to finish up the last two Chromebooks at Oakland before heading home. I didn’t really have anything else going on for the evening since the girls had a late night.

At least I didn’t spend any more money.

Uncategorised

Afternoon Social

I stopped by the shop this morning for some help with LanSchool. Ben pointed me at a couple things that I missed, but in the end it didn’t matter because my setup was already working and I just didn’t know it.

My FedEx package came in just before lunch, so I headed home then to get it. I grabbed some Burger King nuggets on the way so I could have them with leftover mashed potatoes for lunch. While I was home, I saw an article that Project Fi is rebranding to Google Fi, and opening the doors to other previously incompatible phones. They also changed their (ultimately) half-off Pixel 3 promotion for a full-price Pixel 3 with an equal-value travel gift card, plus a $100 referral credit. I had to stop and think about that one for a while.

I didn’t really do anything after lunch, except sit and socialize with Gary. It was mostly work-related chat though, and I got some more insight into the inner machinations of the technology hive mind. I spent a little more time chatting with Ben, then bounced around until the work day was over.

From there, I headed straight home to bring the Nintendo Switches inside, that had been delivered a couple hours earlier. At least the UPS guy delivered them to the front door. FedEx only rang my doorbell after he saw my note requesting it. I still have screen protectors on the way, so unfortunately they’ll have to stay in the boxes until those arrive.

When Summer finished at the gym, I headed over to pick everyone up, and we went to CiCi’s for dinner. Noah and Eaddie wanted to go to PetSmart with me, but Autumn had homework, and Summer had exactly what you would expect to have after an evening at CiCi’s, so we compromised and went straight home for the evening.

To wrap up the evening, Summer agreed that signing up for Google Fi would be her best option right now, so I sent the referral, checked the credit, paid sales tax on a phone, and now we’re playing the waiting game. I’m so jelly.

What’s the deal, yo?

Uncategorised

What are the Chances

Janie freaked out this morning when all of her desktop icons weren’t available on the new computer I set up for her yesterday, so I spent the first couple hours of my day setting it back up for her. It actually went pretty well though, and I think overall it helped improve our working relationship anyway, which is something that hasn’t come as easily for me at the junior high.

I got onto a little bit of a roll and didn’t take lunch until about an hour late, and then just grabbed some super cheap Wendy’s to take back to my office. Kevin came in for some help recovering files from an old laptop while I ate. Then I hit a brick wall after lunch and just wanted to sleep.

Somehow I survived the afternoon, and dropped the girls off at karate on the way home. As I checked my mail, I happened to pick up a FedEx door tag up out of my front lawn by the street, and though it was completely blank and didn’t look like it was for me, something still drove me to look up the number. Sure enough, it was for me. I wish I could get those guys to ring my damn doorbell. It doesn’t do me any good to have a video doorbell if they never even get that close to the house before they turn and run.

I warmed up some leftovers and had a pretty crummy dinner, then headed to Summer’s for the evening. A call in to FedEx proved useless, so I’ll have to figure out a way to get the door tag to stick on my garage or something in the morning.

Why do I feel weird about accepting a free cheese dip after all that?

Uncategorised

Tough Pill

Just after I fell asleep, I was woken up by a call from someone looking for pills. It took me a little while to fall asleep after that nonsense, but I managed. I seem to remember having a few weird dreams though.

We didn’t really have any group projects today, but Ben wanted to go over some phone documentation with me so I’d have a clue what’s going on. Nobody else is at all interested, and I’m still trying to sponge up everything I can. Brain to marshmallow fluff, that got me almost to lunch.

Dale, Zach, Jason, and I went to Morelos for lunch. That made two days of Mexican in a row, but it was good. I had the chili verde lunch special, and it was awesome even if I missed having the salad extras they include with fajitas.

I spent the afternoon at Oakland fixing a few things, but mostly socializing before everyone left for Thanksgiving break. Then I wrapped up with about half an hour at the shop with everyone before we left a little early.

Once home, I had a couple beers and watched my Rocket League solo rank drop some more. Seriously, those silvers are pulling off some crazy moves. I feel like things have changed since I last played competitive solo very much. It wasn’t too long before Summer was home and wanted me to pick up some chicken strips for dinner, so I ran by KFC on the way up, and we wrapped up the night with an episode of Stranger Things, followed by a couple odder episodes of The Office.

Huggy time!

Uncategorised

Ensurance Racket

I had to babysit more testing today, but it was more of the same not needing me. I left a little early to go to the shop and sign up for some supplemental insurance. I avoided the $400/year dental plan, but opted in to the Luxottica vision monopoly. I figure for a year’s worth of payments, I can renew my prescription and get some new glasses and contacts, and then cancel again.

Gary, Heather, and I went to Las Palmas for lunch, and then I went back to the junior high to finish up a few things. I didn’t make it to Oakland like I wanted because Summer wanted me to run Autumn home. We stopped to get her some Wendy’s on the way, and I came home and had some leftover ham and stuff.

The rest of the evening was pretty well wasted in the cold, but at least I won’t have to fight the frost in the morning.

What a pianist!