Tag: work

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Firefence

I didn’t sleep well again last night, but I knew I’d be coming in to some additional work this morning, so we didn’t waste any time. It was actually a little sporadic, but I kept pretty busy. One of my first big projects was making sense of the Sophos equipment logs. One of my high availability pair was showing a fault, and I hoped to find a reason before just rebooting it, or possibly having to kick everyone off. Ultimately it was just a power cycle that got them talking again.

We met Summer at Ortega’s for lunch, and saw Tracy just as she was leaving with a group. They were super busy once we got inside, and we were seated with a new, odd looking kid that spoke almost no English, and half the time what sounded like a conscious, forced falsetto. The usual young gal that we see came to help him and we were finally able to order food.

The afternoon was a bit more dull, but went by fairly quickly. I was still up and down the stairs a fair bit, but otherwise things were fairly quiet. I left a little late after I got caught up, forgetting to leave early for therapy, so I showed up about ten minutes late. Summer didn’t want to go anyway, so I thought she was going to cancel for us.

Traffic was light leaving after the half hour mark, so we got there and went in to basically sit on the couch and talk to each other. It was like Dwayne wasn’t even there for the most part, so I thought Summer had already told him we were going to be ending our sessions. Of course she did not actually do that, so I’ll have to deal with it later.

We made it home and I took Muad’Dib for a run. He didn’t want to leave the driveway again, so I finally started giving him little shocks to motivate him. He started running a bit, and it seemed like he was having a better time once we got down the block. We visited with Dad a bit before heading straight back home.

I finished up some leftovers, and then Summer and I laid down to watch TV. I specifically got an email that Jeff Arcuri’s standup special was released, but the app said it wasn’t available yet. We watched most of an episode of Funny AF instead, and only found a couple of the comedians to be very notable.

The evening went by quicker than I expected, so we had to stop the show so I could get ready for bed. I hurriedly ran through my routine and packed for the next day, and hit the sack.

No kidding!

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See? See?!

Teisha texted me this morning just as I left the house, to say that the internet was still down. I saw it go down during the storm over the weekend, but completely forgot to check that it came back up. I raced in and started working on it right away. Of course I also had Heaven stressed from getting a new computer, so there was a lot to do right off the bat.

All of the equipment lights were on, but it looked like the firewall/router had choked. Of course as soon as I reset that, Joel reset the AT&T equipment and everything came back up, so he felt like he fixed it. I think one of the firewall pair was still having trouble, but I never had a chance to circle back to that because of everything else that broke. I had several unexpected devices at every level start pulling dynamic addresses, which ideally would have been set statically or by reservation. I just couldn’t understand why the Sophos wouldn’t allow for reservations, but it’s what we’ve got.

I was up and down the stairs several times as Heaven encountered new issues, but I think I finally had her satisfied by the afternoon. I ended up taking lunch late, which was fine since I brought leftover roast. Teisha also announced that there were several salads from Colton’s in the refrigerator that the guys who worked over the break didn’t eat. The entire day went by super fast, and then I ended up staying late trying to help Rhonda with a weird phone issue that may also be due to the outage this weekend.

The drive home was infuriating, as I followed someone at 40mph down the entire offramp, watching as the huge, wide-open space passes us by and was replaced by two lanes of trucks and other vehicles. I just barely squeezed around them and took off, but later got stuck behind two cars needlessly locked side-by-side under the speed limit. We finally were able to pass one of them on the right, I think because the person on the right realized how stupid it was and sped up.

We made it home where Muad’Dib was anxious to get inside, still fearful for the fireworks. Eaddie and Eli would be joining Summer and me at Cici’s for dinner, but she didn’t want to load everyone up in her car for some reason, and we didn’t want to have to unload the dog hammock. We left him in the bedroom to watch Spider-Man and met the kids at the restaurant for the pizza that all of us were craving.

After dinner, we came straight home and I tried taking Muad’Dib for a run. He absolutely refused to leave the driveway toward my parents’ house, so I tried to lead him in the opposite direction. He refused to go down our street or Tanglewood, but we made it very slowly up Inglewood. I felt so bad, but he needed a run. I had an anxiety attack just as we got to my parents’ house, and it left me pretty dazed for a while. Afterward I felt like I hit a brick wall of exhaustion, but we made it back home, just barely with a dead Onewheel.

Eaddie and Eli watched TV all night, and I tried to finish up quickly. There were still a few fireworks in the distance, but hopefully they quit soon, because I can’t stand seeing Muad’Dib so anxious. He spent a lot of time under the bed again, so I gave him some calming treats and went to bed.

EVERYBODY MOVE

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Check the Cable

Today was very busy for me. We got to work immediately started prepping the new computer for Heaven. I brought my adjustable power supply to see if it would help, and that was when I learned that Dell power supplies have a data feed to confirm OEM power, otherwise the CPU gets throttled. I eventually remembered there was a bigger power supply on the breakroom computer, so I stole that for the rest of the day.

It was a good thing I had a frozen breakfast sandwich that I could eat late, because it was another long day without leaving for a break. I had a random anxiety attack just before noon, but luckily it passed quickly without any lingering effects. I eventually got the new computer in place in the early afternoon, but then the video would work during POST, but quit before Windows would load. I went back and forth before giving up until after hours.

Then Amanda needed help with the check printer. I fought it with drivers, but it ended up being a loose USB cable on the computer side. We had only checked the printer side, but the cable was hanging off the edge of the desk, which caused enough tension to lose connectivity.

I skipped lunch and had some watermelon that Teisha had cut up and divided out for everyone. I did some more troubleshooting, and then went back downstairs after Heaven left to try and figure things out. An hour and a half later, I figured out it was the video adapter I was using. Apparently it was having trouble negotiating the DiisplayPort signal, which didn’t make sense to me, but I found an adapter that worked.

I finally left, proud to have maybe finally worked longer than Janice. Of course, that wasn’t the case. She and Elizabeth were there much later trying to finish up something else.

I stopped by Harp’s for some beer, and Casey’s for some free slushies. It wasn’t until after I checked out that I realized it wasn’t Friday, and I wouldn’t be getting the slushies for free. I just paid and headed home.

Summer had volunteered to stuff race packet, so I beat her home by a little bit. She took a shower and then we went to New China for dinner. Some of the food was impressively good, but some of it was well below average. While I was getting my first plate, I heard my name from a table behind me. I didn’t recognize him, but it was my old classmate Cecil. If anyone had asked me, I would have said he didn’t even know my name back when we were in school, much less 25 years later. We fist-bumped and carried on.

Muad’Dib had been in the car the whole time we ate, so I took him for a run when we got home. It was dark, but he did great with his headlamp. He ran or jogged swiftly the entire time, almost never slowing down to walk. I let him lead, and he took me on the full route, but skipped the basin on the way to my parents’ house. We visited Dad, then made it home.

Summer went to sleep, Eaddie was out all day and night, and I ended up messaging Dan to ask about his Steam Machine reservation. He had posted earlier that he won the lottery but would probably pass on the purchase. We ended up catching up for a couple hours until I finally had to go to bed, itchy with residual poison ivy oils from something.

POISON!

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Underpowered

Somehow we managed to get out of the house extra early today, after a couple days of running behind. They were having some trouble with equipment overheating in the plant, and I pretty quickly got busy with tasks in the office. Heaven had enough trouble with her computer that I decided to rip the bandaid and swap it out with one I found in the upstairs conference room. Unfortunately it had the wrong power supply, and I couldn’t find the correct one anywhere. The computer would come on, but throttle itself to a crawl.

After that, I had to work on the break room signage that wouldn’t accept a presentation update. That update took forever, so I went upstairs to continue working. I had forgotten breakfast, and ended up skipping lunch because Summer said she would be hungry for dinner when she got home around the same time that I normally do.

Heaven’s new computer just barely hit 99% when it was time to go, so I just left it to finish overnight. We got home and Summer was in the shower, so I cleaned up briefly until she was ready for dinner. We ended up going to Brown’s because of how hungry I was, and because I had a coupon.

As I maybe should have predicted, Summer kept fanning herself with the coupon instead of presenting it to the cashier, so I ended up paying full price and didn’t scan my rewards card for points. Hopefully I’ll be able to get credit another way. I felt like a double-sucker when the food was some of the worst we’d had there. It wasn’t terrible, but almost everything was just barely warm. The shrimp was tiny, and it seemed like everything was really mushy, especially considering how busy they were.

We had left Muad’Dib at home alone, so we took him for a short walk up the cul-de-sac when we got back. Eaddie came home and wanted to have friends over to watch a movie, but I don’t think anyone but Eli ever showed up. They ended up disappearing while Summer and I watched Louis C.K.’s new special on Netflix. It was also pretty disappointing compared to the memories of his old stand-up. Then it was off to bed.

meh

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Price Cutter

I had another slow start this morning, but we had a pretty good day at work. Clint had emailed me way early in the morning with a question that he didn’t even realize would be about databases. I hopped on a call with him and we discussed that for a little bit. Then I continued trying to clean up some policies between other little tasks I needed to complete.

Summer had an MRI in Little Rock and wouldn’t make it back for lunch, so I went to Ortega’s by myself. It was another strange day of absolutely no service, but at least I only got charged like half of what I normally pay for that meal.

The afternoon dragged slightly, but it wasn’t too bad. We got home without much fuss, just after Summer, and I went inside to unbox a whole bunch of Vine stuff. She laid on the couch all evening, and we never saw Eaddie. She eventually got up and ate some leftovers. I did some cleaning and ate a little myself, then took Muad’Dib for a short run to my parents’ house.

I finally sat down to review the old and new repair estimates for my car, and it looked like they cut my labor hours nearly in half. I assume the first guy was giving me walk-in rates while the second girl was giving me insurance rates.

Cut it again!

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Quiet Focus

I felt like I slept okay even though my mind was reeling all night. I woke up around four and laid awake for most of the next couple hours, then got up and out for work. I forgot the power went out briefly yesterday, which messed up my clock. I was a little later than usual, but still there well before eight.

I had a pretty good, focused day after a bit of frustrating back and forth where our Aptean support just plain didn’t seem to be reading our messages. We still never got a real answer for anything by the end of the day. I had to fight with the laptop I had for Gary, since he decided he wasn’t going to be able to make it in person. I was planning to use him to test some of my recent policy updates as a part of updating for best practices, but instead I got to test something completely different.

The day went by really quickly, but I wanted to get something good for Muad’Dib for lunch since it was his birthday. We shared some chili cheese fries, chicken bites, and even a bit of my burger before heading back. It didn’t feel horribly hot, but it never felt like it got any cooler.

The rest of the afternoon flew by as well, and I didn’t even realize when it was time to leave. We walked out a little later than usual, so I just let the car do its thing most of the way home. Summer had a roast in the slow cooker all day, and Eaddie was having her birthday dinner with Eli’s family instead, so the two of us sat down to eat.

Afterward, I ran Muad’Dib to my parents’ house to help Dad pick up sticks in the front yard before they come over to mow. We didn’t stay long because it was warm, so we headed home and I gave Muad’Dib a much overdue bath. Eaddie had Eli and Mari over for a little while after Summer went to bed, so I tried to get things cleaned up quickly.

I finally got a copy of my new repair estimates for my car, and even found my original copies for the warranty work, but I know I had a check from the insurance company, and I can’t find it or any evidence that I deposited it.

Cheque please!

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Not Your Grandfather’s SpaghettiOs

I had an anxiety attack in the middle of the night at one point after I had been awake for a moment. When I did finally get up for work, I was able to cut my morning short and warm up my last burrito before showering and heading in to work. I was aware of my afternoon meeting with Aptean yesterday, but somewhere along the way it fell off my radar.

I took a late lunch, but fortunately I had brought leftovers from home, because a few bites into it I noticed the calendar alert. I hopped onto the call about five minutes late and felt terrible for it, but it was still a mostly pointless and short meeting.

A little while after that, I started to feel some generalized anxiety again, and I didn’t understand it. I think that hung around for an hour or so before it let up, but I had trouble focusing after that. I tried to just relax on the way home, but I pressed on as usual.

Eaddie was home from band camp, but Summer had already eaten earlier in the afternoon. They sat around talking and doing things on the couch while I processed Vine stuff and put together a couple motorcycle stands. Then I took Eaddie to La Villa for dinner. I got a seafood pasta that had so many calamari rings that it looked more like giant SpaghettiOs. She talked all about her experience as a counselor and how terrible the entire event was. It sounded like the complete lack of adult oversight could have easily caused enough of a parental stir to get Tech into big trouble, but it’s more likely that nothing will happen.

When we got home, I took Muad’Dib for a quick run to my parents’ house as it got dark. Eaddie left, Summer went to bed, and I fought sinus issues the rest of the night.

Just a trickling.

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Eager Doggies

We had all kinds of dogs at work today. Joel was back with Dexter. Elizabeth has been bringing Zeke every day. Scott brought Maple, though I hardly saw her at all because she was hiding in Tyler’s office all day. Muad’Dib was having a fit about not being the baby any more.

I had my head stuck in Intune again all day, and had a support call before lunch for my strange PIN policy behavior, but I think I sorted that out earlier. It won’t be until another intermittent issue occurs that I’ll be proven wrong.

We went to Sonic for lunch, then finished up a pretty quiet afternoon. The drive home was fast and mostly dumb. Summer had a late meeting, so I rearranged the dishes in the dishwasher that she had washed and ran them all again. Then I put together a desk hutch I got for her. Just as she got home, I took Muad’Dib to the Neighborhood Market to deposit some bags for recycling. Then we made the trek to my parents’ house just as it was getting dark. Muad’Dib was pretty exhausted by the end of it.

Once home, I tried to quickly wrap things up for bed. I used to have a life.

At least someone’s paying attention.

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PINNNNNNNNNNNN

We stopped at Starbucks for a breakfast wrap and then hit the road where, ironically, I got stuck behind some idiot who was too distracted on her phone to drive. I eventually had to put down my wrap so I could pass her in a huff. We made it to work, and I chatted with David for a bit about his AI endeavors. Muad’Dib was impatient and ran upstairs with Scott, and then snorted at me when I finally made it up there.

Next, I discovered my Chrome had shit the bed, and I lost everything. My additional user profiles were gone, and I lost almost all of my extensions and their data. I still don’t have a clue what happened, but I spent a couple hours recovering from that. Then I was surprised by a prompt to increase my PIN length on one of my test laptops. I fought that for a little while, but eventually created a support ticket for it.

We had to take a late break and went to Taco Bell for a small lunch. Some kid randomly ran around the corner and surprised Muad’Dib, which made him start barking uncontrollably. It wasn’t a vicious bark, and the kid tried to pet him all throughout the event. We made it back to the office to fight my PIN policy some more, and I thought I finally had it figured out, but when I started to leave, I was prompted on my own computer to update my PIN to 14 digits. I was trying to get out, but a quick search gave me an answer that seemed to make sense, so I’ll have to try that fix in the morning.

We made it home after another troubling experience at the onramp leaving Morrilton. It’s such a perfect, long, clear, wide-open stretch of road that you can use to get up to speed, but for some reason these idiots insist on driving 40 all the way up to the Interstate with big traffic coming from the east. I’ll never understand it.

Summer had just barely beat us home, and jumped into the shower once we got inside. We lost power for a few minutes for some reason, but there wasn’t a storm or anything happening. When Summer got out, she was craving a burrito from Taco Villa, so I dug out some cash and drove all the way over there to find out they were closed. I called her, and we ended up going to Panda Express instead. Of course their order status was completely wrong, because I left Muad’Dib outside when it said my order was done. It was about five more minutes before they started plating us up, and then we left.

Summer and I ate, and then we cleaned up and took out the trash before she went to bed. I could have used a walk or something to keep the indigestion at bay, but I ended up going to bed early myself.

Deal, or no deal.

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Incensed

I felt pretty crummy most of the day, but at least it was dry out. Summer would be going to Little Rock in the afternoon, so she stopped to meet me for lunch at Ortega’s on the way. I tried to go light, but our server brought me an extra taco anyway. For the first time, I had to call it quits before I finished my plate.

The afternoon dragged a bit, but I didn’t feel quite as bad. We never heard from Lelan about Bác Vân’s ngày giỗ, but my parents planned to go to the cemetery in the evening. Summer didn’t want to go to therapy, but then Dwayne coincidentally texted that he had to cancel himself.

That gave me time to get home and settle down a bit before going to the cemetery, but then Summer and I got into it about her work frustrations again, and she pouted in the tub while I went to meet my family.

Muad’Dib and I met my parents just after they arrived with some fruit for praying, and then Julie and Kevin showed up shortly after Mom got the incense burning. We visited as they burned down, and then we headed home rather than go out to eat. I ate a sandwich mostly to clean up some food before it spoils, and eventually made it to bed.

it burns!