Tag: work

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164/100

I had an okay start today, but my back still had a slight twinge in it. I made up quite a bit of time on the way to work, but it mostly ended up being for naught. Kyle came by and said the backup circuit was somehow getting traffic to the state servers, so we didn’t have to worry so much about installing the VPN. After that, it was mostly Maggie and me in the office all day, with a bit of Charles and Gary.

With Randy out, we didn’t even see Jim, though he did call for help once. I ended up getting some cheap fast-food for lunch, by way of a fry deal from Burger King and a sandwich deal at Arby’s. The afternoon was pretty quiet, and then I snuck out a few minutes early so I could get the car out of the workshop.

I stopped by Old Navy in Conway on the way home to return Summer’s ill-fitting pants. Then I got home just in time to take the dogs out on a twilight run. They ran hard all the way around the basin and to my parents’ house. Mom said she had some rice soup, so I took the dogs home and rode back again to eat.

Summer got home from work late and wasn’t feeling great, so we put her in a bath and then checked her blood pressure. Hers was fine, but mine was unreasonably high for some reason. I imagine my sleepless commute time has something to do with it. We also discussed ordering a new Model 3, and I think Eaddie’s for it now. I guess I should get one so I can enjoy it for a bit before I stroke out.

It’s always an improper fraction, but it’s usually not more than two.

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KPOT

Randy had been talking about going to KPOT for lunch for the past couple days, so we looked forward to that today. I got in pretty early again, but didn’t get into anything. Javier hung out in the dark with me for a while after Randy left for the high school. Then Jay left me to run an errand until nearly lunchtime. Kyle and Randy showed up and we all chatted for a little bit, and then we all met at KPOT.

I’d tried the hot pot at Linh’s before, but this was a whole different experience. Jim met Jay, Randy, Kyle, and me, and we got an iPad to order food, and there was one shared grill in the middle of the table. Then we each had our own cooktop sitting right in front of us for soup pots. They had a bar for making your own sauces, but many things weren’t labeled, and I didn’t really think it needed any of it anyway. Randy did most of the ordering and cooking at first, but then I started ordering things. My soup base was pretty spicy, but it was good. I wished we had started by just dumping all of the meat on the grill to cook, because I was left without meat for a large portion of the meal. I made up for it by the end, but then everyone got up to leave while I was finishing my last bowl.

I gave up shortly after that since I had to get home to launder my newly stained shirt. Pulling noodles out of the hot pot was unnecessarily difficult. Traffic was pretty rough, but I made it through Morrilton for some more drinks to take to Thanksgiving, and then I wasn’t home long before Summer showed up with some groceries. I thought we’d go together, but she picked everything up on her way home.

We got a couple new watch bands in, and I immediately messed one up because I tried to push a pin out the wrong direction. I broke a couple tips on the extraction tool, and was eventually able to pull it out far enough to grab the pin with pliers. The band looks and fits great now though.

Summer started making food for Thanksgiving, and I took the dogs out for a long run in a completely new path. We circled the block, then went up the hill and down the sidewalk. It was a pretty decent run, but they seemed mostly deaf to my direction callouts. We got to my parents’ house and Mom fed them a couple little tomatoes she pulled off the vine. Then we went around to the pond before eventually making it home before dark.

Eaddie spent the evening with her father, Summer spent most of the evening in the kitchen, and I ended up taking a long bath to warm up. Summer started watching Loki when she went to bed, so I finished up and headed to bed myself.

Cook more efficiently!

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Slow, Short Days

I got out really early this morning, and got to the office a few minutes before seven. The cold sapped the battery a bit, so I pulled into the shop to charge before going into the office. I wasn’t there long before Randy and Jim came in and took me on a ride around the city to check network connectivity at all the campuses. We only got a couple done before we had to meet with a Windstream tech to troubleshoot an issue. From that moment on, we were especially not busy.

The morning dragged on as we eventually made it to the annex and then the high school to move some more equipment. DIS would be coming in the afternoon, so the three of us and Kyle went to Larry’s Pizza for lunch. I’m still amazed at how they operate with such a tiny bar, but keep the variety of pizzas flowing. With the kids out of school, they were packed.

The afternoon especially dragged on forever. I got the car and went to Target to pick up an order. After I made it to the high school, Krissy showed up along with one of her techs, and I basically sat around trying to stay out of the way. Near the end of the day, I mentioned leaving before my phone died, and Randy just said, “bye.” I headed home nearly half an hour early, stopped for some beer in Morrilton, and made it home in time to take the dogs out during the last few minutes of daylight.

We visited Dad briefly, but then I got them home in the cold. I couldn’t believe Stilgar still wanted to take a dip in the creek, but he seemed fine. They got fed, and Eaddie and Summer spent some time on the couch watching videos about tornados. I did a little Christmas shopping, and then it was off to bed early.

Good apps can’t be that hard.

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Core Progression

I was in and out of sleep all night, so I nearly got out of bed around two or three and just headed on to work with the others. I ended up falling asleep until about four and just got up half an hour early, yet still somehow ended up a few minutes late.

Randy, Kyle, and Jim were at the high school core closet and had already moved the core switch and firewall. Evidently Gary texted about the network being down, even though they’ve been talking about this move since before they hired me. I helped route some fiber, and then they decided we were going to go out for breakfast.

The four of us met Jay at BJ’s Market Café and I had a surprisingly small omelette. It did come with hashbrowns and a biscuit and gravy though. Jay’s pancakes were pretty big, and overall it was one of the cheaper meals I’ve had in Little Rock so far.

From that point, we stopped by the annex where I started to tinker with the sign maker before having to go back to the high school where we sat and waited for Windstream to fix the stuff they didn’t have configured correctly. Around lunchtime, I went and got some Sonic drinks. I would have gotten a snack if I had realized we weren’t going to get lunch later. After that, it was a very long and boring afternoon for me listening to Kyle on a phone call with the engineers doing the fixing.

At the end of the day, I left Kyle to sit on his call while I drove home. The Full Self Driving trial was over, so I had to be a lot more involved. I did not like it at all. I really didn’t think it would be that big of a difference, but I had trouble with the cruise control stopping whenever I changed lanes. Around Atkins, I tried to fix it and accidentally disabled Autopilot entirely, so I had to drive the rest of the way to town.

Eaddie was out doing things on holiday break and Summer had already eaten, so I picked up some Burger King on the way home. The fried pickle Whopper was super disappointing. I shoved it down, but still had to take the dogs out in the pitch black. They did okay, but seem unaffected by the directions I called out. I really think I’ve just been getting lucky when they go the right way. We stopped to visit my parents and then weaved through the neighborhood to get home.

Eaddie was out late and Summer was working on her laptop in the living room all night, so I watched a little bit of YouTube after commandeering her cooking shows playing in the background. Once she went to bed, I summoned Eaddie home and then went to bed.

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Barricade

I snoozed this morning since I was up late last night. I wasn’t horribly late after my modified morning routine, but I still had to make up a lot of time on my drive. That meant I burned up a bit more power, so I ended up charging the car in the afternoon.

It was fairly social today because Jim was in the office working on building a “gaming” computer for EAST. Evidently their one good teacher died, and the new coordinator is a coach that knows nothing, so the kids are no longer capable of assembling the computers themselves. Randy and I tried to help with some of the assembly.

Kyle met us at David’s Burgers for lunch, and I found it to be a better version of CJ’s. I liked that they walked around with unlimited fresh fries, but they just didn’t come around with refills very often. It was also $15 for a combo that was just a basic double cheeseburger.

After lunch, Randy took me on a ride to drop off hotspots for the food service people, and then we stopped in to see Jimmy at their little shack. Gary was out somewhere else. Not long after we got back to the office, Jim took Randy and me to his house to pick up some wood to barricade the core closet at the annex. The security folks called Randy because someone broke in yesterday afternoon, and he was worried they would be back over the weekend to steal the equipment we’ve been hoping to move to the high school core closet.

We used deck screws to board up the doors, then went back to the office to wrap up the day. The drive home was slow because of a number of stopped cars and at least one bad wreck going the opposite direction. I made it though, and had time to take the dogs out before dark.

Summer was already home and sent Eaddie out to a friendsgiving meal. I took off with the dogs and went the long way around the basin trail and to the roundabout. We got to my parents’ house just as they were leaving to take Nova out to Linh’s. I got the dogs home and fed them some hot dogs before having a burrito myself. Then Summer and I watched a couple episodes of Modern Family before she went to bed.

Eaddie came to talk to me for a little while when she finally got home. Her holiday break is filling up quickly, so we’re glad to be able to spend the day with her tomorrow.

Came in through the chapel and they’re
Gonna raid the server closet.
Came in through the chapel and they’re
Gonna steal our wiiii-fiiiiii.

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Just Watch

I still need to look for some more podcasts for my commute, because two new episodes a week isn’t going to cut it, and none of my streaming services are any good at presenting me with new music. I arrived at work just a minute early, right behind Jim and Randy. I parked inside to charge, just in case I needed to drive anywhere else in town.

It wasn’t long before I was left alone in the office. Maggie was off, and Randy left to work with Windstream or somesuch. I just sat in the dark until lunchtime. He called me for lunch, and then he and Jim came to get me to go to Cotham’s. We all had their fried chicken special, which was decent, though a little overcooked.

Charles was sitting in the dark when I got back, and I helped him re-image the two laptops he was given to deliver, since I wasn’t sure what they were named. He didn’t have a proper room number, but at least knew where they were going, which got me close enough. At some point he disappeared and Jim and Randy showed back up. We rode out the rest of the afternoon, but I didn’t leave early enough to get home before dark.

I had a ton of packages delivered, but I had to run the dogs first. They beat a 10 mile per hour average for nearly two and a half miles. They didn’t even care about stopping to dip in the creek because it was so cold. We just ran straight to see Dad, then made it home for hotdogs.

Summer was sat in front of the TV all night. I had a couple burritos, then unpacked somewhere in the teens of watchbands for the Pixel Watches. I had a couple for the old ones, and then many more for the new ones. I installed one of the two puddle lights I got for the Model Y, and then tried to get to bed. My stomach felt a little rumbly, and I slipped pretty hard on a slick spot in the bathroom, but at least I didn’t die.

I’m getting the bands back together.

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I Make a Penny

I’ve been bringing leftover Starbucks coffee to work lately, but having very mixed experiences with the USB heated mug. The Ember gets it hot once I get to work, but it’s annoying that the travel mug doesn’t work as well. We had someone from IK Electric and someone from Fortinet coming to set up some demo phones for us, but I wasn’t sure when they would be there. That meant we had a fairly slow morning waiting for them.

Randy had to disappear to deal with the Windstream folks, so I tried to lead some of the conversation with the phone guys. Maggie kept including herself in the conversation for some reason, which was annoying because it was difficult to get any more technical questions out.

Kyle and I met Randy and Jim at Shotgun Dan’s Pizza for lunch, and they appeared to be much busier than they expected, because there was only one server for the whole restaurant. She was struggling to get anything done, but at least the food was pretty good.

After lunch, Randy went with me to Central Office to “apologize” to Sonya. I expected to at least say something, but really he walked in and just started talking and never really quit. She didn’t seem very chipper, but maybe she’s just sassy like that. I couldn’t be bothered.

When we got back to the office, Randy realized his car was actually at the high school. We decided I could just take him back to his car after work, and we finished out the afternoon. I had to charge in the warehouse in order to get home, but it all worked out.

Summer made slow cooker chili, so I got home and ran with the dogs. It was pretty cool outside, and we were chasing daylight anyway. I was pretty frustrated when we got back, because Summer brought in Stilgar’s slow feeder that she had left outside. He literally chewed the whole food dish in half. I really liked that slow feeder, and I haven’t seen another one like it available on Amazon Vine. I don’t know how many times I’ve told her not to leave it outside. Stupid.

My new Pixel Watch 3 came in, so I spent some time setting it up. I didn’t love the color of the band, but I’ve ordered more from Vine. Otherwise than that, I spent some time on the phone with Johnny, and went to bed early.

My boss makes a dime.

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Human Retards

I was really early to leave the house this morning, but kept having idiots pull out in front of me just to go slower, multiple times on the way to work. I guess preconditioning took some battery power, so I pulled into the warehouse to charge all day. Things started out super chill, but quickly became ridiculous. “Everyone” was having trouble either printing or connecting to network drives. It took us all morning to figure out that it was the changes to Cisco Umbrella that Randy made yesterday just before we walked out the door.

Sonya called Maggie about a print issue that I assumed was the same I had been troubleshooting, but then went off about needing staples, and being an exception to the rule of our PaperCut deployment. She didn’t like any of my answers, became hostile and rude, and then hung up on us after threatening to get the superintendent involved.

Maggie and I went to Chili’s for lunch, where we were served by an old friend of hers. We didn’t think too much about the grief back at the office, though I did get a “nasty” email from Sonya. I had begun crafting a response, but Randy initially told me not to reply at all. He said he was told to have me apologize in person, to which I responded that it was odd that Human Resources would want an apology in person without a paper trail. We ultimately settled on a written response and an added face-to-face meeting to smooth any lingering tensions.

We fixed the Umbrella nonsense for the moment, but would have to revisit it later. Near the end of the day, we had to run upstairs to collect a TV that had fallen off of the wall in a conference room. As we came back into the office, Johnny called with some of his own drama. Then I ran home as quickly as I could to get some run time with the dogs.

Eli’s car was at the house, and Eaddie was in a bath when I got there. She texted that he wasn’t there, so I left with the dogs. Evidently she drove his car home because he picked her up for school, but then had to leave for some band thing and wouldn’t be back until late in the evening.

The dogs did great as we ran our course backwards. I wanted them to get some time at the basin trail before it got too dark. They had a dip, and then we went up to the roundabout before swinging back through my parents’ house. We talked with Dad briefly before making it home for some hot dogs. Summer was out back on the porch waiting for me, but then Brody called with questions about used Teslas. I talked to him a couple times before Summer and I got to chat about her day.

I had a burrito for dinner and did some laundry. Eaddie chatted with me for a bit and helped with some leftovers. Then I wrapped things up pretty quickly for bed after she left to get Eli.

Must be something in the water.

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Overwhelming Sense of Email

I tried warming up some coffee this morning, but the heated travel mug I used didn’t seem to work. I was early enough that I had a fairly leisurely ride in. I was left alone for the first part of the morning, but then Charles came in and chatted with me for quite a while about his life in the past, present, and future. It was nice, because we’d never really talked much before. I helped him get a desktop image started, and then he left.

They fed us catfish and chicken strips for “Thanksgiving” at Central Office, so I rode with Maggie over there. I also delivered my transcript and certification paperwork to HR to see if they could find me a raise somewhere in there. It’s neat that so many people are actively trying to help with that. It’s such a foreign concept to me thus far.

Most of us gathered around a table to eat, and the food was pretty good. I had to laugh because Javier couldn’t tell the difference between the hush puppies and the fried chicken. That kid is weird. We had plenty of food, and then I managed to make it back to the office with Maggie without my paperwork that I had leaned against the wall while we ate, so I had to drive back to get it.

The afternoon was slow, and I felt like I hit a brick wall. I tried to be productive, but I was just too tired for some reason. I felt like I slept reasonably well. I made it to the end of the day and ran to The UPS Store to return a few things. The bottom fell out of the sky on the way home, so I had to slow down quite a bit. I could barely see ahead of me, and even the Model Y struggled with traction in places.

I got home to an empty house and played with the dogs for a bit. When Summer got home, we shopped for some pants online, and then I realized I had some bills coming due. I hurriedly paid those, and then wrapped things up for bed.

Efficiency Struggle

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Self Driven

I allowed myself one snooze this morning, and then I was up to get ready for work. Traffic was actually quite a bit more relaxed when I left about 20 minutes later, and I still got to the office before anyone else. Maggie was actually at the Seventh Street Elementary renaming ceremony for the first part of the morning. Jim was there for a little while, and then I took Betty for a drive in the Model Y. She was super excited about it, and yapped the whole time. I was proud that Full Self Driving didn’t embarrass me even once. Maggie brought some coffee and assorted pound cakes from the ceremony. Otherwise, it was a super quiet, mostly unsuccessful day for me.

She took us to Brewski’s North to meet Jim, Corey, and Hunter for lunch. It was a little odd to be in a well-lit bar environment with waitresses in tight clothing for lunch, but the chicken sandwich was good, and the wings that Maggie got looked even better. We chatted with them for quite a while, and then I practically had to drag her out of there.

The afternoon went by slowly as well, and I ran us out a few minutes earlier than usual. I stopped in Morrilton for some drinks on the way home, and traffic closer to town was worse than it was for most of my morning drive. I got home and Eaddie had friends over for a little game night before some concert. I took the dogs out for a quick run before finishing up some leftovers and then unboxing a bunch more stuff and messing with the Model Y.

After the kids left, I laid down with Summer for a bit. She hadn’t been feeling well all afternoon. Then Eaddie brought her friend Autumn back over for the night. I finished up, then crashed pretty hard.

Shortie