Tag: work

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Call Me Now for Your Free Reading!

I was even earlier to work today, and pulled in right behind Kyle. He was still having trouble installing Features on Demand, but didn’t stick around very long. It was mostly Gary, Maggie, and me in the office all day. All of the guys called me several times for help, totaling 19 calls by the end of the day. I left to get McDonald’s for lunch and had my best experience at that location by far. The food was all really hot and fresh for once.

The afternoon went by quickly since I took lunch so late, and just as I was trying to leave I got an email from our HVAC guy because we broke his access to the old server when we finally got Windstream to forward the address to the new server. Kyle ended up calling to find out it wasn’t critical, so we went home.

I stopped for a while to charge before making it home through awful traffic again. Eaddie and her friend Autumn were there, but left while Summer worked on the couch. I took the dogs out for a long run to Ridgewood hoping for some barbecue, and had to stop at Kroger when I found an abandoned cart on the bike trail behind the building. When we got to the entrance, we spotted Mia and Aimee selling Girl Scout cookies. While we were talking to them, Mom and Dad walked out with some groceries.

We made it to the restaurant, but they were completely packed. I briefly saw Grant run outside, so I yelled at him and we left. We came through the basin for another bath, then went to my parents’ house and then home. The dogs did pretty well overall, but Stilgar pulled the leash quite a bit.

I wanted to clean up some mashed potatoes and coleslaw, so I went to KFC to pick up some chicken. Summer and I ate and then she went to bed. Eaddie came home pretty late and went straight to bed. I got there eventually.

You can’t fool Miss Cleo!

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Networking Chops

I made up quite a bit of time on the way to work this morning, but there wasn’t anything going on. I helped Kyle set up some server tools before he left, then ended up working on sleuthing a DNS issue for most of the day. Our representative that was supposed to set up our new Alerton HVAC system on the server I spun up several months ago was still having trouble getting it to work, and I figured it was because she didn’t realize she was still talking to the old server. Even Randy seemed to get caught up in a separate SSL issue, but I think I had it pegged from the get-go.

I ended up going down the road for lunch on my own and decided to finally try the fried chicken, along with the catfish, at Louisiana Fried Chicken. The food is always pretty decent, but every time I walk in there, I swear it’s a front for the drug cartel. I was the only one eating there, and I think maybe two cars came through the drive-through. A couple people walked in but left without ordering, and another group of four or so people picked up some food. The staff is always nice, but you’re not going to win any awards for old fried chicken kept under an open-air heat lamp.

The afternoon felt the most successful after Randy took me to central office to help with a couple issues. I got to present myself a little more loosely after having a little more face time with some of the staff there, and I finally conveyed our DNS issue to Randy in a way that he understood. We got back to the office and casually finished out the day.

I stopped to charge on the way home and decided to redeem my free Grand Slam at the Denny’s there. It was quiet, and service was quick. I got in and out in just enough time to get about a 50% charge, then made it home to run the dogs.

Dad called earlier in the morning and said they had gotten out and over to his house again. He walked them home and then took them out for another walk in the afternoon, but I was frustrated with them when we got home and we took a pretty stern walk. We stopped to see him, then encountered Mom as we were riding home. She caught up to me and asked about going out to eat, but neither of the girls were home.

Summer got home from work and the gym as I was finishing up my Vine shipments, and then Eaddie got home a little later and said we forgot her robotics banquet to which Summer had RSVPed. I live and die by my calendar for exactly that reason, and it upsets me when they fail after I push them to do the same. They caught up for a bit before bed, and then I wrapped up my own things as quickly as I could.

This is obviously a front.

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Twinning

It was super gusty and windy all day today. I stopped by Starbucks for my free birthday drink and made it to work reasonably close to starting time, and was surprised to see Randy there after the board meeting last night. There wasn’t much more drama than last time, and the cuts are off to the personnel committees to approve now. Several of us caught up for a while, and I helped Jim prepare for our impending shutdown of remote desktop services on our servers.

Our Logical Front sales rep wanted to meet, but ran a little late and pushed into our lunch, but we eventually made it to Skinny J’s where Kyle, Jay, and Jim were waiting for us. Maggie drove herself so she could pick up a chocolate meringue pie for Jim on our shared birthday, but I rode with Randy to check out his new RAV4. Food was good as usual, but I was stuffed by the time we left.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly after that. Maggie and a couple other ladies I hadn’t met before brought the pie as a surprise, and we all had a slice of that. When we finally left, I fought traffic to get to Conway to charge, and then fought even more to get home. The dogs and I had a good run to see my parents, and then made it back home where Eli had come over for a while, and both girls were actually home together.

I opened up a few Vine packages and took out the recycling and trash, which was a bit of a chore, but I got it all to fit. Summer went to bed pretty early, and I made it nearly on time.

Un-

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Driverless

After being overcast all day yesterday, it finally rained most of today. I brought some leftover pizza to work, which prompted Randy and Kyle to want pizza for lunch. Things were fairly quiet most of the day, in preparation for another heated board meeting about budget cuts in the evening. I helped Gary and Charles image a couple laptops, but had to figure out why they didn’t seem to have the right RAID drivers.

The car drove Maggie, Charles, and me to Larry’s for lunch, which was super good. We got there right as they opened, and they somehow maintained a flow of fresh pies that was enough to feed a growing dining room. Then the afternoon was a lights-off kind of day until quitting time.

I stopped for nearly a full charge on the way home since I’d be losing my free supercharging by the end of the month. Then I took the dogs for a good backwards walk where we went up the hill, down to see Dad, and then through the slightly-flooded basin trail. Summer was home when we made it back, and the boys got hot dogs and dinner while I tinkered with some old Vine stuff that had been sitting around for a while.

Summer went to bed, Eaddie got home pretty late, and I tried to go to bed early so I could try and get some extra birthday treats in the morning.

Pizza, pizza!

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Problems with Gravity

Randy showed up with his new RAV4 today, unexpectedly early after ordering it only a week ago. The guys were outside looking at it when I showed up, but we all went in when I got there. There was a bit of catching up since he and Jim had been gone all week, so things were pretty relaxed. I actually got some work done, rebuilding the Adobe roster sync, and fixing a couple of other things as they came to me.

Jimmy was there in the morning, but Maggie got a call a little while later that he had fallen. She and Randy took off to check on him, and evidently he just passed out for about half a minute. Luckily one of the security folks saw him and they ran out to take care of him, but the doctor said he can’t drive until he has someone check out his heart.

I ended up taking lunch by myself, so I picked up a $4 ghost pepper chicken sandwich from Popeye’s, and some free fries with purchase of cheddar tots from Burger King. I was worried after getting relatively poor service from both places, but all of the food was absolutely spot-on, so I couldn’t be mad. They can ignore my presence all day as long as they hand me a piping hot bag of food.

The afternoon went by kind of slowly after that. I made it to Conway for a quick charge, then got home so I could run the dogs. It was overcast and dark all day, so it got pretty chilly while we were out. The dogs did well though, so they got hot dogs with their dinner and I tried to clean up some leftovers. I got a bit frustrated with how much old food hasn’t been touched, and then I accidentally knocked one of Summer’s coffee mugs off the counter and shattered it. I don’t know why they’re both so bad about keeping that area tidy, but they’re just incapable of organizing anything. It all just goes everywhere. Eaddie’s stuff just goes in the floor, and I’m tired of being the bad guy about ever saying anything.

I spent the rest of the evening unpacking Vine orders since a bunch of them arrived today. The recycle dumpster is already crammed pretty full, and I’ve got a bunch more cardboard to load up. At least some of the novelty is starting to wear off, so my ordering has slowed down a little bit. I still hate when I miss something really good, though.

Retail Therapy Problems

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Sassy Folks

They discussed some cuts to some pretty high profile people at last night’s board meeting, so the NAACP showed up with an otherwise already packed house. Maggie, Jimmy, and Gary talked about it a little bit while she watched it in the morning, but none of us were really bothered by it. It was a really quiet morning, and an even quieter afternoon because Maggie took a half day. I ended up not taking a lunch and just worked straight through. In the afternoon, Jimmy came and got me and we went to Indian Hills to try and troubleshoot a Chromebook issue for a little third grader. She was super cute and super sassy, so that was pretty fun. We’ll have to fight that issue some more on Monday though.

I had to charge on the way home, so I decided to grab a little burger at Five Guys. Eaddie had her fundraiser spaghetti dinner later in the evening, but I wasn’t sure what time, or whether the food would be any good. While I ate, I noticed a boat and trailer tipped over upside-down in the middle of the roundabout, so I had to take the back roads to the next exit to get home.

Summer was there just briefly, but had to go to the church to help with the dinner. I took the dogs out and walked them to my parents’ house, then to the church to see when she’d be able to eat. Then we took the long way home, passing several people along the way. I changed clothes and drove back to the All Saints’ Episcopal Church where Summer was still chatting with Nick. He left and we sat down to eat, and the spaghetti was actually pretty good.

After dinner, the two of us headed home while Eaddie stayed behind to clean up. Summer went straight to bed, but I started to feel a bit queasy and dizzy. I eventually made it to bed with a solid plan to sleep in late.

More hired; More fired

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Brain Rot Kids

I had a rough start this morning, and it just never got any better. I was late leaving for work, which was compounded by slow traffic the entire way. I nearly got absolutely creamed by a semi when traffic came to a stop due to a wreck that closed the left lane. It was just barely around a curve, and traffic slowed so fast that a semi way behind me couldn’t slow down fast enough even after I turned on my blinkers as an early warning. I watched as he got bigger in my rearview, but thankfully he veered off the road to the left just as I started to the right. Traffic kind of split across both shoulders, but I don’t think any extra damage was done to anyone.

After that, I guess the slowdown that normally happens at the top of the hill when the sun peaks had worked its way back toward Conway. It was slow the entire way in to work, but nobody seemed bothered. I was actually pretty busy with stuff today, and I guess people were bothering Randy as well.

I met Kyle and Maggie at Cactus Jack’s for lunch at his request, and the food was pretty decent, typical Mexican. Jay called for help after I had sent him to central office to work some of Randy’s work orders, so I had to meet him there after lunch. What I thought was going to be a ten minute fix ended up taking the rest of the afternoon trying to fix a high-energy zoomer, and we still didn’t really complete it all.

I left straight from there and headed straight home, again through some stupid traffic, but thankfully at a much faster pace. The dogs were super anxious when I checked on them in the morning after being tied up all night, but Dad took them on a long walk during the day, so they weren’t too bad when I got home. They did knock over and chew up their water dispenser, which infuriated me to the point of dumping it and beating them with it. They cowered under the porch, but I can’t afford to buy them a new water bowl every week.

They came back out and we went for a pretty good walk. They’re definitely not as responsive to me without their prong collars, and the shock collars are too slow to give good feedback when we’re running. I did shock them both a couple of times when they eyed some cats, but otherwise they were fairly well behaved. We stopped to see Dad and then made it home for dinner. After they ate, I let them sit off-leash for a while before they made it out to the fenceline to dig some more. They still had their shock collars, so I zapped them both and tied them up.

The kids came home before Eaddie’s concert while I was assembling Vine stuff. Then I had to meet them and Summer at Witherspoon for a super long concert. I hated that we were there for the first band, and both played way too long, but I also just wasn’t in the mood. I was exhausted and sleep deprived after a night full of light sleep and weird dreams with caricatures. Summer was slow to leave, so I ended up leaving her behind and made it home to wrap up.

TikTok Cancer

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Straight to Jail

The dogs seemed chill this morning, and Summer said they came right out when she called, so we decided to leave them off the runner. Once I got in, I caught up with Kyle for a bit and then took a call from Johnny. Maggie was late, so I was alone for most of the morning.

Not much later, I tried to find the dogs on camera and couldn’t see them, but I heard a lot of barking, so I texted Dad. He said they were gone and spent quite a while hunting for them, finally finding them in his neighbor’s yard again. He got them home and tied them up, checking on them throughout the day.

Things were pretty quiet otherwise, and I ended up just going to Taco Bell for lunch. Afterward I brought a couple of “birthday cake churros” back for Maggie and myself to try, and they were delicious. The afternoon went by pretty quickly again, but I left a little late to make up for being so late yesterday. I stopped to charge most of the way up, then washed my car since Summer was in Conway.

It was getting dark when I got home, but I could tell the dogs were all tangled up. Muad’Dib was bleeding from the lip from something, but it wasn’t the steel cable. We had a pretty good walk, but they were a bit slower again. I don’t know if it’s because it’s warmer, or because they’ve been stressed from all the running, chasing, and being tied up. We visited my parents and got home after dark.

Eaddie was home, and Summer arrived a little later. I video called Randy briefly to see what hijinks he and Jim had gotten up to at the Howard conference, and then I had a ton of Vine stuff to go through. I ended up warming up the rest of the mush for Eaddie and myself while Summer got ready for bed. Then they spent some time catching up while I finished my stuff and got ready for bed.

Don’t forget to refill the cameras!

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Chain Gang

Summer was worried about the dogs getting out, even after hammering all of her stakes into the ground, so she tried tying them up this morning. She didn’t talk to me about it first, so it wasn’t surprising at all to find that she had made nearly every mistake I could imagine. I’ve been beyond frustrated with her wasteful, poorly thought-out tactics. Stilgar immediately chewed through the brand new rope leash I made for them, and was loose in the yard. Dad had to go over and try to fix it, but by the time I got home, they were so wrapped up in the brush pile that they couldn’t move.

There was a wreck around the 430 interchange, so I was nearly an hour late to work. I wasn’t surprised to see some woman on the side of the road in full pajamas, top and bottom. Then I was left to sit and stew all day at work until lunch time when Summer was done with her meeting in Little Rock and wanted to go to Red Lobster with me. Just prior to that, I had to deal with a staff member who failed to see numerous red flags on a poorly designed phishing email, and proceeded to input her username and password into a Google Form.

The afternoon went by reasonably quickly after that. I Supercharged quite a bit since I knew Summer would be needing a lot of juice when she got home as well. I was still up late to swap cars, so I was glad I charged as much as I did.

I made it home just after her, and had to shoo her away from the dogs so I could actually see how badly they were tangled up and make the appropriate adjustments before she contaminated the crime scene. I ended up running my long steel cable from the deck to the tree like I had explained to her multiple times, and then found two shorter steel cables to attach them to the long runner. There’s still ample opportunity for them to get tied up, but I think less so than today. Besides, her cheap wooden stakes should have kept them in anyway, according to her thought process.

We had a door hanger from the animal shelter that basically called out the city leash law and said they were accused of “killing neighborhood cats.” We left it at that, hoping the new runner would fix the issue, and then went on a run. They behaved pretty well, but it was odd without their prong collars. The shock collar works great now that I have them mounted on the fronts of their necks. Dad buzzed us with the FPV drone while we were on Promenade, and we stopped to see him before making it home.

I had a bunch of stuff from Vine to catch up on, and Summer had been sitting in the dark watching TV since I started working on the dogs, so she was out of my way. I hurried, and went to bed as soon as I could switch chargers on the cars.

Fools Errands

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Electrotherapy

The dogs were asleep on the porch when I got up, but as soon as I got to work, Summer texted that they were gone. I texted Dad, and they both went out looking. Dad was able to recover them and Summer used a sledgehammer to bury some wooden stakes along the fenceline, but it was too late. Dad texted that his neighbor found a dead cat, and later said she reported them to animal control. I was pretty uptight about it at work all day, but there was nothing I could do from there. I worked on what I could, and dreaded what work had to be done when I got home.

Charles called our Dell vendor to complain about having to deal with customer service when repairing laptops, and got us free lunch out of the deal. Whole Hog tasted like free lunch, too. I had the brisket sandwich, potato salad, and beans, and it was a pretty miserable looking plate. The sandwich was about 60% bun, 20% brisket, and 20% slaw. It didn’t taste bad, but it wasn’t good, and it was cold to boot. The serving size was a small ice cream scoop of potatoes, and the most shallow single-layer of baked beans on a divided plate that you could imagine.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly, and Randy and Jim would be out for the rest of the week to go to the Howard conference in Alabama. I headed toward home, Supercharged, and walked in to Summer ruining what leftovers we had from Noah’s dinner. She ruined a huge pot of rice trying to fry it with the squash and zucchini. What resulted was basically a gummy rice dough with completely indiscernible vegetables, and thankfully no steak. I would have walked out if she ruined those T-bones on top of everything else.

We had an argument, and I feel pretty confident she learned nothing again. I went out to make sure the dogs would be secure after her shoddy patchwork and found a different place where they had started to dig. We ate, and then had to run to the high school for a pretty crappy band concert that ran about an hour behind.

The mentally deficient couple behind us in the second row talked loudly during the concert band’s portion, and I turned around to glare at them. They were mostly quiet for Eaddie’s symphonic band, until the point where the guy tapped a link on his phone, or otherwise somehow unmuted whatever video he was watching. After the day I’d had, it took every fiber of my shaking body not to turn around and knock him out in front of the whole auditorium.

We made it home and it was another mad dash to get to bed. The dogs may get chained up in the morning if they dig any more overnight. The only other real progress I made was when I learned how to properly attach their shock collars around the front or side of their necks instead of the back. I tested them out and got Stilgar pretty good when he started barking at one point. It’ll be good to take them on a run sometime how that the shock can actually be felt. I also made a double-ended slip collar to leave with Dad so we won’t keep having to run back and forth for tools.

More like Won’t Listen-Al-Gaib and Not Stillthere.