Tag: work

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Model Citizens

Jason was out again, so we didn’t have any projects today. I spent most of the morning at the junior high helping Ronda update student pictures for the library. Then I met the guys at the shop to head to Western Sizzlin for lunch. While we were there, somehow we got onto the subject of district policy, and Brice made a comment about how it shouldn’t apply to some people and not others. I was quick to call him out on his step 9 salary.

After lunch, I got to do Jason’s inventory job when we got some projector lamps in. While I was there, I modified some of the descriptions and models so they would be easier to find later. Then I went to Oakland for a bit before ending the day at the junior high. It slowed down pretty quickly for a Friday, and I headed home to watch the aquarium for survivors. Mom was visiting with Bác Vân when I got there, so I chatted with them first. Then after nearly an hour of watching the fish tank, I finally found both shrimp had survived, but it looked like all three fish had been eaten. I’ll have to find another home for the final remaining one.

When Summer got home with Autumn, I headed up for the night. Autumn was made to work on her history day project over the Challenger disaster. I tried helping just a little, but tried to take special care that I didn’t put more effort into it than she did. For someone that wanted so badly to model something out of clay, she didn’t seem to have much interest in shaping her rocket. I don’t even remember what my history day project was about, but I know I hated it. Finally, Summer and I ended the night on a couple episodes of Parks and Rec.

That’s enough belly aching for one night.

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Pretzel Thief

Somehow I managed to get out of the house just a few minutes early today, so I stopped by Burger King for some breakfast for Summer and myself. The junior high had more testing, so I spent all morning smartly working on things there. Kevin came over for a little while and got on a rant about Chicago gang bangers and how Obama had empowered them. Then I met Allen at Wind Taste for lunch.

I stopped by Oakland for a little bit after lunch, but then spent the rest of the afternoon at the junior high cleaning up a few things. During last period, Jaiden the library aide tried to look me up on the school website. He scrolled down and, completely out of the blue said, “who’s Jason Williams? He looks like a butthole.” I lost it.

When I finally left, I stopped by the house for a few things before getting Autumn to pick up a couple pizzas. She, Summer, and I split up and ordered three of them from Little Caesar’s so we could all get promo 2-liters. When I told the guy my name, he gave me one for Mitchell and made a comment about not being able to spell. I told him it was an online order so my name shouldn’t have been misspelled, and he suggested that maybe I had misspelled it. It took me until I got to the car to check and see that I had failed to press the button to complete my order, so I ran back inside to explain myself and then completed the order on my phone so they could get paid for what I took. The guy seemed really cool about it, but then afterward I just kind of lost him staring into space.

Everyone loved the pretzel pizzas except Autumn, because it was different and she didn’t want to try it. I lost count of how many slices I ate, which was a very bad thing. When the kids went to bed, I played a little Breath of the Wild, then put on a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation before bed.

Well he’s not wrong.

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Six Months

I had ELPA testing all day at the junior high, so I spent all morning over there just in case something happened. Nothing did. I got a few other things cleaned up while I was there, then met Allen at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the shop and then visited Oakland for a bit on my way home.

I took off a couple hours early to take Grey to the vet since she’s been a little shyer than usual. It was a quick visit. One look to find three mammary tumors. She said cats don’t survive them 90% of the time, so surgery wouldn’t be a realistic option, and all we can do is watch her quality of life. She guessed it might give her six more months.

With that news, I took her back home and gave them both some wet food. Then we sat on the couch together for a couple hours until I had to pick Eaddie up from karate. She wanted to stay and hang out with her friend, but I had to get her home to shower.

Summer and Autumn showed up shortly thereafter, and Summer warmed up some leftover pasta for us before the girls shuffled off to bed. I played Breath of the Wild the rest of the evening while Summer nursed some gnarly shoulder pain.

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Pet the Kitty

I stayed pretty busy today, and just kept things going. It was a good mix of cleaning up loose ends and taking care of newer things that came in late last week. Zach and I went to Morelos for lunch, and for the first time in a long time I took about half of mine with me in a box. If he hadn’t been feeling sick and not eating much, I’m sure I would have finished my fajitas. They won’t be nearly as good later, but it was a nice change of pace.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly, just as the morning did. I went home for a while before going to my parents’ to pick up the cat carrier, and then to Summer’s for dinner. She improved upon the flavors of the barbecue and potatoes we had left over, and I left with a new catch tray for my oven.

I ended the night watching the weird TV streaming app built into my LG TV while brushing Grey’s hair out. I keep hoping it will prevent her from shedding so much at her appointment tomorrow, but in reality there’s probably no stopping it.

I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks.
If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you’re doing good.
If you can find even one person you really like, you’re lucky.
And if that person can also stand you, you’re really lucky.

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Robot Trivia

I got myself out of bed this morning and finished up some leftovers before heading home to get ready to visit the junior high. Zach called me just as I got home and wanted to know if he could borrow Cards Against Humanity. I suggested that the whole massive desk that I own might be too much unfunny stuff for his crowd, so when he got here, we spent a little while sorting all of the expansions out so he could take just the base game with even the pick-2 cards removed.

I kicked him out as soon as we finished so I could shower and go visit Summer and the robotics tournament. I ended up standing around robotics for much longer than I anticipated after I rescued Ethan and his need of a printer. It was really neat to see, though. The tournament seemed to go really well, and I’m hoping that it will be similar for us when I work the first elementary tournament. Some overtime pay will be a really nice boost as well.

By the time I got out of that tournament, Summer was wrapping things up for quiz bowl. I followed them back to her room to help pack up, and then headed to her house while she ran the girls around. Autumn would be spending the night with her grandparents while Eaddie went with her father. I managed to pack all of the leftover food into Summer’s fridge, and Summer picked up the house a bit.

Once the girls left, we ran by Harbor Freight to pick up a few things with some 30% off coupons. I finally have a shoehorn, and now my most difficult shoes slide on easier than any other shoe I own. I warmed up some leftovers and we settled in to watch Bandersnatch, which was amazing. I kept trying for alternate endings while Summer passed out, but it really was a piece of art. I think I managed to find everything.

╔╩╗

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I Know Best Because Mother Knew Best

We split up for projects today, but somehow I was left out. I ran upstairs to see if Ben’s group wanted help with running some lines, but they turned me away with three or four of them already going. I ended up just working on little side projects for my own education all day, starting with phones and eventually making it to G Suite.

Nobody really knew what they wanted for lunch all morning, but several of us agreed at the last second that Long John Silver’s sounded good. It took two vehicles to get there, which was a surprising number of people. Afterward I was sent by an achy, breaky backed Jason to go with Dale to help Brice hang a touch panel, or so we thought.

When we got there, I could tell from several feet away that the SMART board’s camera sensors were filthy. I showed him how to run his finger around the reflective border, and as if by magic it immediately began working perfectly. He made a comment about how his electric air duster must not have been enough to clean it, but by the amount of dust I removed, I suspected it would have helped if he had plugged it in at all. Dale and I just sort of rolled our eyes and pushed him not to just swap the board out anyway while we were there. That seemed like it shouldn’t have taken as much convincing as it did, but evidently he had really sold the teacher on getting a new touch panel.

With that overpaid failure to launch out of the way, I spent the rest of the afternoon at the shop fighting sleep and contemplating the use of a guinea pig in a computer lab class such as EAST. I think the more puzzling part was the fact that they had received a grant to get this guinea pig, but needed someone else to care for it over the summer. The mind reels.

After work, I had just made it home and called to make a vet appointment for Grey when Summer said her car wouldn’t start. I ran over to rescue her and Eaddie just as Autumn, who had malingered her way out of class early, was returned by her grandparents. After some more convincing that shouldn’t have been necessary, I took them to O’Reilly to pick up a new battery. Then she tried to have Alex come swap it out for her after he left the shop, but my impatience and annoyance at her lack of faith drove me to borrow tools from Wesley’s office to complete the swap myself before he got there.

We ran to my house so I could lock the battery down properly, and Autumn begged to ride with me back to their house for a little more time away from Eaddie. I packed up a bunch of leftovers, and we headed to her house to eat before everyone settled in to bed. The night wouldn’t have been complete if I hadn’t had to force Autumn to eat more than her own tablespoon of plain steamed rice. I force fed her baby carrots the way I’ve had to force feed pills to my cats, and I don’t plan on having cats ever again.

Hey! Listen!

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Foreboding New Year

It’s starting to look like this may be kind of a rough year. I started out with another dead fish – this time the black tetra that had bloated up. It was actually still breathing when I went to take a shower, but taking it out of the tank and setting up the quarantine finished it off by the time I was out of the shower.

I got stuck parking a little weird when I got to work, so I managed to clock in just a few seconds late, which was more annoying than anything else. Then I just babysat testing all morning. At least I got a couple arms full of scrap to take out of my office and to the graveyard. It already makes a difference in moving around in there. As lunch neared, Jason asked for suggestions. I mentioned that KFC had been remodeled and he responded with, “what sounds good?” I guess he, Dale, and Brice went to McAlister’s. I just went home for more leftover barbecue.

The afternoon was pretty mellow. I got done with what little bit had come up and then left the same time Summer finished. Autumn had stayed home for some reason and Eaddie didn’t want to go to karate or come with me to eat, so Summer took her home and went to the gym while I went home to start laundry. Summer stopped by for just a minute in the middle of that and mentioned that Grey seemed really thin and not well, so I’ll have to take her to the vet next week sometime.

Once Summer headed home, I got the litter box cleaned and fought some ants in that bathroom. Then I folded laundry and played a few losing games of Overwatch to really seal my exhaustion for a long night’s sleep.

I really hoped after the twelve years since my last one, this would be my year to shine.

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Ye Olde Frands

The junior high was testing this morning, so I spent most of the day trying to stay busy there. I actually got a few things taken care of, and there wasn’t a single testing issue, so it was a pretty stress-free day. Ben and Gary came over around 9 to meet with some kid from Tech about the robotics tournaments and what they needed from us to make their equipment work. Unsurprisingly, Gary was the smartest person in the room by a longshot. It was almost impressive how quickly everyone else’s eyes glazed over, and I was proud to have mostly kept up.

Dale called for lunch, so I met him and Bryce at Wendy’s. One of the maintenance guys walked in and spun some more tall tales for us as well. It felt like a really short lunch, but it was good as usual. Then it was back to the junior high until school let out. Then I ran by Oakland on the way home to replace a projector lamp.

I had to get gas when I finally left work, since I’d been skirting empty for the better part of a week. On the way back home, I stopped by AT&T to chat with the guys there. They were super dead and overstaffed, but still joked about me coming back. It’s definitely tempting, but I really would like to start out at a higher hourly rate. I left just as an area manager pulled up so as not to disturb anyone. Then it was home to start some laundry.

Summer brought all the kids over after a little while to help with the leftover barbecue from last weekend. They watched an episode of Emogenius before heading home for the night. I cleaned up and got on the computer where I saw Jack sitting online. It wasn’t much longer until Johnny showed up as well. I was a little annoyed that there wasn’t ever any chat about playing tonight, but it is what it is. We played some Overwatch until one by one they left.

Get up off my feet and stop making tired excuses.

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Chattin Among Folk

I slept really well last night, but I still woke up pretty tired. At least I managed to work my way out of it without too much trouble. The day started with a surprise 10 Chromebooks for Oakland. Once I got those going, I ended up chatting with Ben for a quite a while before delivering them. Then it was a quick lunch with several of the guys at Taco John’s.

After lunch I talked to Ben some more to confirm my Oakland printers weren’t printing pages in reverse order. Then I headed to the junior high to finish the day. I met up with Gary over there while he was making some changes to our switch configurations. I got a few work orders done and increased my skill in locksmithing by +5. Right at the end of the shift, Gary helped me run through the computer labs to check for missing mice. We counted a total of 10 missing, so I fired off a pretty lengthy email to Matt just as I left.

After work, I headed to Summer’s to finish up some leftovers with her since she wasn’t feeling well. Before I even got there, Matt had responded that he knew where the mice were, but evidently it didn’t occur to him to let his lab manager know, which was more than a little annoying. Several episodes of Parks and Rec helped to calm me down though.

Once the girls got home from karate and dinner with their father, I headed home for bed. Testing is back again tomorrow, so I’ll really get to sink some time into anything.

I wish Google would get their messaging shit together.

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Hangin with the Big Earners

We had a bunch of projects for today. I was sent off to Sequoyah with Brice and Allen. Allen was in a mood and didn’t want to go with us though, so he tried to break off and go with Zach and Jason. Then he was basically a jerk all day when that didn’t work. When we got there to hang a touch panel, it looked like they already had a newer projector and I wondered if it was actually still under warranty. Without much of a plan or direction, we ended up cutting and removing some cables to pull a new HDMI cable, but it ended up not working. We needed nearly 70 feet of cable for the room though, so Brice will just have to go back later to swap it out again. We left with a shorter cable across the floor for temporary use. We also had to run an extra audio cable to replace a group of four-plus extensions that were feeding some nicer speakers. It all seemed a little silly, and I wasn’t too excited to be the only one up on the ladder all morning.

I had called out Old Post BBQ for lunch when we were still in our meeting, and though everyone seemed happy with that, nobody else met us there. We did run a bit late, but nobody else even said anything about going anywhere else. Allen refused to sit in a booth with Brice and me, and he weirdly sat at a group of tables with a couple other ladies. I saw Nicole working there, and she helped me identify and order something I saw in a picture frame called The Dagwood. She said if I finished it in under 30 minutes I could get my picture on the wall. It only took me 20, but I declined the photo and we went along our way.

After lunch, I resolved an issue with my HSA for payroll, so hopefully I’m not out anything there. Then I helped Allen run an HDMI cable to resolve a video issue at Center Valley. That likely could have been fixed with software and drivers as well, but he and Jason couldn’t figure it out, so we ran the cable. Then I was on my own, so I finished up a rash of work orders I had gotten from Oakland.

When I finally got home, I was so exhausted but had to clean up the living room a bit. I managed to finish before the girls got here, and even set up Catan because Autumn wanted to play. Eaddie was rowdy and completely uncontrollable all night, and I ended up sending her to bed before we finished the game. I think I got my new network storage box reset, but I’m still having trouble completing the setup, and I’m too exhausted to continue messing with it.

Kids these days don’t even know who Dagwood was.