Tag: work

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Screen Time

I got started a little later today, but was still the first person on site. I had a Soylent on the drive, for the first time in a long time, and I felt pretty good drinking that and listening to a podcast for the hour-plus drive. Jay came in and got me into the office, and we chatted a little bit. Then several of the other techs came into the shop to chat, and gave each other plenty of crap. It made me feel good about the environment being generally friendly and even a little lackadaisical.

Maggie and I went to “the annex” to gather some things from their old office area, including a bunch of large monitors for me. I let her drive back, and she enjoyed the experience. I spent the rest of the morning getting three giant monitors set up on a docking station for my little laptop.

Summer came by for lunch and we went to Red Lobster, which was a new experience I’d always dreamed about. She was having a rough day after her staff meeting, so we got her full of shrimp and I sent her home to walk the dogs in the fresh air. The rest of my afternoon was quiet until Kyle got back to the office and I chatted with him a little bit just to get to know him. Randy eventually came back from his admin meeting that lasted all day, and eventually everyone disappeared. I definitely get the feeling that I’m being given the autonomy I need to be happy and successful, so I’m excited to get to work.

The drive home was quiet, but I was frustrated that the native YouTube Music app in the car wasn’t working to play podcasts. I’ve been having to use my phone over Bluetooth to play anything but music. The drive actually goes by fairly quickly, so it’s just the work day that generally feels long. Robotaxi would make the commute awesome so I could actually do other things while the car drives me.

I made Summer walk the dogs again with me when I got home. I put Stilgar on the prong collar to try and keep him from pulling, and it seemed to work. He didn’t really fuss about it at all, but I think I need to use a less stretchy leash to really have an impact on him. After we walked the cul-de-sac, I took them for a run to my parents’ house on the Onewheel. We didn’t go any farther than that, and I got home to try and settle in early. I’m eager to see what tomorrow will bring.

Probably just more work.

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Working Boy

I was surprised at how easily I got out of bed this morning. It wasn’t great, but I didn’t feel awful. It was pitch black outside, and Summer was dead asleep, so I loaded everything up and headed out of town. I stopped at McDonald’s in Morrilton for some breakfast since I was about 20 minutes early. The sun didn’t come up until I was nearly to Little Rock. In spite of what Randy said, there was no one at the office when I got there. I was the first car on the lot, by several minutes. He finally showed up closer to seven, and I walked in with him.

Things went pretty slowly for me all day. Randy drove me around, first to the middle school to check out why the wireless was down. They ended up leaving me in the library for a really long time, so I just paced back and forth, looking out the giant picture window at the courtyard where kids walked around the turf for “PE.”

Next, we went to the administration building and got my paperwork finished before helping with a couple things. I felt good about being able to provide accurate assistance as Randy struggled with a shared inbox. Then we waited around until a school board finance meeting. There was also a new tech that stopped in, and Randy showed both of us how to run the cameras for the board meetings. Then it was just the two of us sitting in while they met over lunch. They did at least feed us a boxed lunch from Corky’s. It wasn’t the worst barbecue I’d had in my life, but they made a solid run at it.

After the meeting, we finally headed back to the office and I basically just relaxed while Randy and Maggie worked on some things. They scheduled me for the Arkansas Conference of Technology, which had me excited until I realized they wouldn’t be paying for my hotel. It was expected to get a hotel when I worked farther away from the conference, but now I have a daily commute to the city, so a hotel isn’t justified.

The drive home was in way heavier traffic, but at least it was uneventful. I got home and fried some tater tots so Summer and I could finish up the last of the burgers, and then I took the dogs out for a run. They did pretty well, but Stilgar needs to be leash trained badly. He’s too strong and too heavy to be yanking us around at every perceived critter we encounter. We stopped to see my parents briefly, and then continued around the neighborhood on a different path than usual until we got home.

Eaddie didn’t get home until late, and then came to talk to me about her Imagine Dragons concert the night before. Her father got them tickets near the front, but when ushers couldn’t find their proper seats, they were given pit passes, so they had a great time. Of course Summer was long in bed, so I was just happy to wind down before my previous bedtime, before I had to wake up two hours earlier.

PLAYBACK ERROR

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Working Girl

I got up early with Summer this morning so I might be able to go to bed early tonight. Even Eaddie got up pretty early because she had to record a session at Tech. I cleaned up some leftovers by making steak and eggs for Summer and myself, and then she went to work to help replace a starter in Trent’s car. I cleaned up the kitchen, washed dishes, and started some laundry before she got home.

I kept busy as the day flew by. Eaddie got home and then left to go to an Imagine Dragons concert with her father. Summer got home, but didn’t have long before she had to go to Greenbrier to train the staff there on how to properly clean the wash. Mom started making shrimp noodle soup early so Summer could come eat before she left town.

I took my Onewheel with us so Summer could leave straight for work, and then after I ate, I rode home to take the dogs out on a run. They were pulling pretty hard, and Stilgar is heavy and strong enough that it’s a real problem on the Onewheel. I got a prong collar in from Amazon Vine today, but I’ll need some walking time with him alone to properly train him.

We rode nearly four and a half miles, stopping briefly at my parents’ house for a drink. I should have brought their water bottle too, because Stilgar was super thirsty when we finally made it home. Overall they did fairly well even when we encountered other people with dogs, but they’re just too strong for me to pull away from a distraction when I’m on the Onewheel.

Once we got home, I fed them and took a late shower. Then I packed up a few last-minute things for the new commute starting tomorrow. Who knows what new adventures await. At least they pay better.

But that drive, though.

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No, but Yes

I was a little on edge this morning as I waited for a call from Moodle. I woke up early and Summer was around for a little while before work, and then I made some coffee and cleaned up a little bit while I waited. I eventually got a text, and about ten minutes later a call in the early afternoon, and she apologized for the missed communication. They filled the position, but would have a different one open at the start of next year if I would be available. This worked out pretty beautifully, since Randy would later confirm my employment in North Little Rock.

I took a breather as the afternoon flew by, and then Summer came to get me so we could go look at a house across town. That ended up being a pretty neat experience. The house was small, but super cute, and seemed to be well maintained. As we ended our visit, Alisha spotted the owner in the driveway next door, so she walked over to ask a question we had about the property line. Another guy drove up to look at the house unannounced, so the homeowner went to talk with him, and then came over to talk to us. She ended up taking us back inside to tell us the rich story about her life and the home.

Her father built the house for her mother in 1961 or ’62, and she knew the history of all the surrounding farmland before it was developed. She had all kinds of improvements made and maintenance done, and the house really did appear loved. I was a little concerned about the number of cameras outside, but it made sense for her situation. The lot seemed to be fairly sized, which was difficult to discern from the maps I found online. Summer was nervous about taking on additional debt, but we’ve been doing so well, and I may have an opportunity for immediate income.

We finally left and stopped by the old house before going home. She thought she had a Tech event for work, but ended up back home because she had the dates wrong or something. I took the dogs out for a run, but then wiped out going pretty fast just a few houses down the road. I don’t know how I didn’t take more damage, because I tumbled over backwards and lost my phone out of my pocket. I must have rolled just right to take the inertia out of the fall. I took the dogs back home since Summer was still in the driveway, and then the neighbor rode over on her little recumbent trike. I shook off a bit while we talked, and ended up continuing my ride with the dogs to my parents’ house.

I visited with them for a little while and then ended up just going straight back home. The dogs had been pulling kind of hard all night, and I was still feeling shaky on my board. I got them fed, and then I came inside to watch the recorded Linkin Park streaming event. I’ve never had a more emotional connection with a band, and I don’t entirely know why. Maybe it’s nostalgia, or maybe it’s power in the vocals, but I was weepy the entire show, even with their new singer that made me feel a little iffy about them.

I got hungry late and ate some leftover pizza and fried mushrooms. Eaddie got home from her away game and went to her room to study and sleep. I thought I’d get to bed early, but I missed. I won’t be able to keep that up if I’m going to make it to Little Rock by seven o’clock in the morning for five days a week.

Get some cheddar for now, and worry about the rest later.

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Mystery Pasta

Johnny woke me up again this morning for more help with his server project. He was having trouble getting storage drivers working so he could install Windows Server, but he eventually got it going by manually trying several different ones by trial and error. I got around to some leftover Pasta Grill and finished my spaghetti, but left my lasagna for later in the day.

Randy has been great about my multiple interviews and other potential opportunities, so I wanted to reach back out to Moodle before the school board meeting. I assumed they had a lot of candidates to process, and I figured there was no way they would just ghost me at this stage, but I was feeling a little discouraged that I hadn’t heard anything at all since my skills test. I got a response pretty quickly, but I’ll have to wait for a call tomorrow morning to see if I’m actually moving forward. I just don’t want to leave Randy hanging since he’s ready for me to work if I don’t get a better offer.

I put on some tunes, had a nice shower, and then got to cleaning up around the house. I cleaned up all the dog stuff we’ve been accumulating and put it into a rolling rack that’s just been sitting in the corner. The dining room table had gotten a little wild, so I put a bunch of random stuff away, and did some more organizing. I’ve got to get the hard floors clear of clutter and mopped up in preparation for the new Roborock.

Summer came home early, but not as early as she thought she would. I thought we might do something together in the afternoon, but she had a headache and just took a bath and laid on the couch, so I took the dogs out for a run. They weren’t as good as yesterday, but we still had a good time. We got to visit my parents, did a couple extra laps around the new subdivision, took a break in the basin, and finally headed back home.

I worked up a little bit of an appetite, so I warmed up a burger for dinner, then put Summer to bed early. Eaddie came home late again and asked if we could leave the house on Friday so she could “lock in” her flute recording. I wrapped up a bit early myself, and made it to bed before midnight.

No sense worrying about making the wrong choice before it’s even presented.

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Email From the 1900s

My Onewheel was out for delivery today, so I paid extra attention to the front door to make sure I could be there to sign for it. I made myself a pretty good looking burger for brunch, and then helped Julie set up some web hosting so she could get a business email set up. When I heard the mail truck pull up, I went outside to fetch the mail. I stopped on the way back inside to check on my black widow, and then the UPS truck pulled up. I got my Onewheel unboxed and charging, and unfortunately my odometer had been reset, but at least it worked.

I dug through Namecheap and Hostinger to try and pick hosting for Julie, and ultimately just kept it all on Namecheap thinking it would be easier for her for not much difference in price for her current needs. It astounded me how web hosting is still just as complicated as it was back when I started this type of stuff over 20 years ago. I tried to break it down for her as simply as I could, but it wasn’t until late in the evening that I got her email going.

Summer had range anxiety after going to Little Rock and Greenbrier for work, but she made it without any trouble. I even had enough charge to take her car across town to get Zaxby’s for Eaddie, who was working late at the high school.

As soon as I got home, I took the dogs out for a really fast and long run on the Onewheel. We stopped to see my parents, but they were gone, so we continued on around to the basin trail. We stopped to rest on a bench for a while, and the dogs sat nearby for pets. They did super well, and I hoped they would tire out for the night. They had killed a tiny, baby possum the night before, so I had to bury it when we got back home.

Summer was in a bit of pain for the rest of the night, so I didn’t see much of her. Eaddie came home earlier than she expected and wanted me to go get her some cigarette papers to clean her flute, so I drove to the closest gas station, which didn’t sell them. That led me to Casey’s, who sold them, but didn’t have any without the glue. I didn’t feel like running to another store though, so I picked up what they had, along with a freebie cookie, and headed home.

I ended the night completing new-hire paperwork for the North Little Rock School District, and then tinkered with Julie’s email some more. Evidently it didn’t automatically point the domain to the host, even though the purchase specifically asked me to do so since they were both purchased from Namecheap. With that finally working, it was time for bed.

What do we want?
Low-flying airplane noises!
When do we want them?
Nnnnnooooooooowwwwww! 🛩️

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Clean in an Hour or Less

I thought Summer might rush me out of bed a little earlier, but she let me sleep in a bit. I made some coffee once I got up, and then got ready for another work trip to Conway. She was stressing about performing a site inspection, so I washed her car for nearly an hour in the manual wash while I waited. After that, I went to the junk store again, but she texted just after I got a couple aisles into the store. I bought a few snacks and went back to get her, and then we drove through town looking for some food.

We ended up at Hideaway Pizza, as recommended by my pal Kevin. The fried mushrooms were spectacular, but I let Summer pick the pizza. She wanted their “Maui Magic” with Canadian bacon, pineapple, and mandarin oranges. Our server recommended barbecue sauce instead of red sauce, so we decided to get it on half of the pizza and get red sauce on the other half. Then Summer piped up that she wanted to add olives to the barbecue half as well. I was fine with most of this until the pizza came to the table and she claimed the “interesting” half of the pizza for herself. She knows I find pizza with only a couple toppings to be quite dull, and that I didn’t want a Hawaiian pizza to begin with.

We ate, and then I took us shopping through Best Buy and PetSmart before going back to Bargain Hunt. We got just a few more things and then headed home so we could go to my parents’ house for barbecue chicken wings and corn.

I fed the dogs, and then we walked them over to my parents’ house to have a swim while Dad cooked. Julie and Kevin eventually showed up, and then Eaddie walked over once she finished with school stuff. Stilgar was loving putting his snout into the pool and blowing bubbles before drinking the water. When Summer and I got out of the pool, I went in to help Julie register their domain before we ate.

The walk home was dark, but nice. It was actually cool enough today that I wasn’t dripping sweat at the end of it all. The dogs also did much better. I fed them once more, and then everyone was off to bed.

I crave MEAT!

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Guy in a Chair

I woke up to a dark, empty house with a bit of a headache this morning. The dogs weren’t on the porch, so I never bothered to go outside and look for them, and instead tried to focus on organizing and cleaning up the house a bit more. It was pretty early that I got a text from James about how to get “windows 10 installations to do it manually.” I was worried that he was having trouble imaging over SCCM, but evidently he was just trying to test an all-in-one that was out at Plainview. I directed him to the OEM media creation tool, the Volume Licensing Service Center, and the new Microsoft M365 Admin Center. Maybe he’ll figure it out.

Johnny called me later on and wanted to vent for a while about some things at Lamar. I wish I could have set him up at Two Rivers, because it would have been a great place for him to learn and actually have some control over some things, but that’s just not how it worked out.

Later still, some dude knocked on the door and tried to “sell” me RightFiber, but was kind of shady in how he went about it. I didn’t care for his appearance or his tactic of presuming I would be changing my service provider, so I ran him off.

Summer was late coming home from work, so I ate some leftovers without her so I could get the dogs out on a walk before it got dark. When we got to my parents’ house, Julie and Kevin were there eating dinner. We chatted briefly about their new business, and they invited me to come out to the airport tomorrow to visit some more while he works.

I got back home after dark, and the dogs did pretty well. I need to get some more higher quality food for my treat pouch, and hopefully we can continue improving their behavior. Summer was waiting up for me, but then went to bed. Eaddie got home shortly after that and came to talk to us for a while, and then everyone was off to sleep.

HumbleAir than you.

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Plan B Corp

Today was the first day after Two Rivers, so I tried not to sleep in too late. Summer was still home when I got up, but Eaddie was long gone. She eventually went to work, and I decided to have lunch with Kevin. I took a shower and then picked him up at AT&T, and we went to Cici’s for $5 buffets.

We chatted a while, and then went back to the store and chatted some more there. They were painfully slow, but even with all of that, he said he still makes a pretty good salary. I almost couldn’t believe that I was still struggling to get my earnings up to that level in IT. Schools really are the pits.

Summer wanted some Subway, so I ordered and picked that up for her and dropped it off at the carwash. Then I took her car to the manual wash to clean it. Somehow, somewhere, the back passenger wheel got some pretty wicked curb rash. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get to lemon-law it as well, if they don’t fix this air conditioning problem. I figure they have two more repair attempts before I file paperwork.

I made it home just in time to settle in for my fourth attempt at an interview with DeepNet, and she actually showed up! She said her husband fell off the roof of their house and broke both of his arms, so she transitioned back to working from home. I thought the interview went great, and she seemed to be the most excited about her own company out of all the interviews I’ve had, which got me pretty excited. It pays better than Moodle, and close enough to the school district that it would be worth it just to save myself the commute. The only wildcard at this point is Grace, which would give me somewhere local to work in person.

Eaddie and Eli came over after I finished the interview, and we went out back to play with the dogs for a bit. Then they left to meet Summer at the gym. Summer eventually got home, but wasn’t hungry enough for dinner, so I walked the dogs to my parents’ house where Mom had bún thang.

It was getting dark by the time we finished eating, so I headed straight home with the dogs. Everyone settled in pretty quickly for work, and I tried not to stay up too late. I think tomorrow we’ll grill burgers for Dad’s birthday, so I’ve got some housecleaning to do.

Call me “Butter,” because I’m on a roll!

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Oodles of Moodle and Noodles

I tried to study for my Moodle skills assessment this morning by poking around in their test instance. Eaddie went to church again, and Summer went to the gym. I finally just had to dive right into my assessment, and it was basically just another instance with one particular setting changed. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to find where the override was set, but I eventually sent my response. Hopefully my “customer service” response will be enough to make up for my lack of experience in their application.

Dad had messaged us early in the day that Mom mentioned spring rolls, but it didn’t seem like anyone got a hold of Mom to confirm. We did end up going over there, but not without jumping through some hoops first. Summer and I went to get Nova from her dorm, but then were sent back home to get our electric skillet so we could set up two tables for everyone to have enough room to reach all of the food.

As Summer and I rounded the corner to get back home, I noticed the house at the end of the road had a table and some stools out by the curb. We ended up going back home to get the Murano, I knocked on their door and confirmed it was okay to take them, and we hauled them home and into the back yard. It was all in surprisingly good shape, so I don’t know why they were getting rid of it instead of selling it.

By then, Eaddie was home and had decided she wanted to go eat too, so the three of us headed back to my parents’ house. I spilled a bunch of raw noodles in the floor, but we eventually got everyone sitting and eating. In the end, we dropped Nova back off at her dorm and made it home for the evening. Not having work for the next several days will be a bit nerve-racking, but I’m sure I’ll survive.

Cleanup time!