Tag: work

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Time Wasters

There have been a ton of police on the roads lately, and I saw an article about Arkansas joining a national campaign against speeders. I just sit back and let the car do its thing. I spent an inordinate amount of time fighting limitations in Exchange and Outlook today. I had a call right after lunch, so we went to Sonic a little bit early. I wasn’t super hungry, but I got their usual deal and burned my mouth on some cheddar peppers. An older lady came up and offered Muad’Dib her leftovers, but I didn’t expect to see her pull out half of a hamburger and nearly a whole large order of tots. He made quick work of all of it.

Our call was short, and I eventually got all 124 emails sent out manually since mail merge won’t work to send from a group address. We ended up leaving just a hair late, but it was a quick drive home. We stopped at the shop to see Summer, who had been at it for an extra long day. She had a call-in and had to close, so we headed home after a while.

Summer said she wanted pasta for dinner, so I expected her to get home and take her out for dinner after she had a shower. She did not expect that for some reason, but I talked her into putting on some clothes. We went to my parents’ house to drop off Muad’Dib, and they were both working on some leftover spaghetti. We ended up coming in to help finish it off, instead of going out to eat.

When we got back home, I just went to my office for the rest of the night until bed. Summer has a run in Barling in the morning, so I won’t see her until she gets back home.

Every one.

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Go Phish

I had some odd requests today, and I was only really semi-prepared for one of them. I had just replaced Heaven’s computer last week, but Scott emailed me asking if I had ordered her a laptop to take out to her new office on the other side of the plant. I reached out to Lexi, my new Howard rep, to see what she could offer, and it took most of the day to learn that it wasn’t great. Later on, Joel forwarded an email chain to me where someone had registered a domain similar to ours and started sending phishing emails.

The morning kind of went by quickly, or at least dully. We left late to pick up a couple burritos from Taco Bell and came back to eat them in the office, because I knew we’d be having cake for Teisha’s 50th birthday. It was a short afternoon after that, though I ended up staying a little bit late. I’ve learned that if I’m not in a rush to get out, traffic isn’t as infuriating the entire way home.

Nick from Tesla called me back just as I got home and confirmed that we could get a loaner next Tuesday. Summer was in the bath when I got inside. I brought a bag of veggies home that Janice brought to share. Summer wasn’t hungry, so I finished up a bunch of leftovers. Then we watched the rest of Jeff Arcuri’s special. We really enjoyed it, though it wasn’t the kind of stand-up that had us rolling in the floor. He was just really funny and charismatic, and fun to watch as he interacted with the crowd.

After that, I took Muad’Dib on a run through nearly the full course, though he was hesitant again to leave the house. I don’t know if he was just too hot or what, because every time I’d try to get him ready to leave, he’d run back toward the bed. We made it to my parents’ house for a bit, and then we had to modify our path home when I heard what sounded like a single, short round of fireworks go off.

Summer went to bed as I finished up. Eaddie came back from Clarksville unexpectedly, and she and Eli watched a movie while I finished up.

Wrap it up!

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Low Down Dirty Dogs

I started a batch of cold brew yesterday before I left work, so I was excited to start the day with that and some cold foam. It turned out pretty well, but I forgot to fill my cup with ice before I left the house. It also didn’t take very long for me to find out the lid leaked, so I had a wet shirt for most of the morning.

It was a much quieter day, so I just kept chugging away at different little problems. I did get a couple of calls from Tesla just before lunch time. I had emailed the service manager at Tulsa last night, and apparently there was a new one in training that called me first. He said he was going to make sure I got a loaner, and reached out to the service manager in Little Rock. Then I got a call from him, assuring me that they would work something out.

I brought the last of the roast for lunch, but I couldn’t finish it because it was so much liquid and rice left over. I also started with another leftover salad from the weekend crew, so it was a decently good lunch. Teisha stopped me when I went down to visit the microwave, and said a couple of the guys in the plant wanted the dogs to stay out of the breakroom because that’s where they eat. Of course that was no problem at all for us because they’re well within their right to ask for that, but I did kind of have to laugh at the fact that I can’t lean up against any surface in that room for fear of getting my clothes dirty.

The afternoon went by a little slowly and I had an anxiety attack that left me exhausted again, but we made it through. The drive home wasn’t too bad, and we arrived to find Summer cleaning a huge section of the kitchen. Then she cleaned up some fresh veggies to make cold sandwiches and chips for lunch, which was really good.

It was still early and hot, but I took Muad’Dib for his best run since the fourth, and we visited with Dad for a bit. Then we ran a trimmed route the rest of the way home, but still more than he’d run all week. Summer and I finished thee penultimate episode of Funny AF, followed by most of Jeff Arcuri’s special. We gave up early so we could get to bed on time. She said Eaddie went to Clarksville to work, and wouldn’t be home, so it was just a quiet night after that.

Don’t ruin it for everyone!

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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.