Tag: work

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Foreward

I did not sleep well at all last night, after tossing and turning for about an hour after I finished pumping out the basement. It was pretty foggy and warm out, and I was early to work again. I started with an AeroPress that simply took too long to make, and then I spent most of the day writing. At first, it was documenting and requesting a buyback for my car. Then it was documenting the work that I’ve done, will do, and hope to continue doing, so that I could present it to the Super Intendent Bros.

Kim had to leave for a little bit in the afternoon to unstuck her husband’s truck from the mud. I just continued my work in quiet. Then we finished the day casing up some iPads. I was surprised, but thankful that Kim stayed a little late to finish the job.

I made a quick drive home and loaded a few more things into the car to take to the new house. I unpacked what I had, and then went outside to check the basement again. No surprise, it was flooded again. Only about half what it was last night, but still annoyingly deep to wade through in my short boots. I had the genius idea to use my little remote switch, so I can leave the pump plugged in and turn it on from outside the door. That should take care of my concerns until we can plumb the stupid thing in permanently.

The girls went to bed fairly early, so I tried cleaning up a little more around the house. Noah had stunk up multiple rooms of the house, and left an entire couch cushion covered in chewed up fingernails. I couldn’t be sure that some of them weren’t toenails, as big as they were. I’m done with his inconsiderate, disrespectful, and neglectful ways in our home, and he’s only been here three nights. No sense in doing that again.

Just grow up.

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Future Proofing

We couldn’t make it a full week off for snow and ice, so it was back to work this morning. There were a couple spots with some ice near the house, but then roads were clear until Ola, where you could see some residual black ice. It looked like Dardanelle was still out, because that place was a relative ghost town.

Kim was somewhere doing non-work things, but came to the office after a while before leaving to do more non-work things. Evidently they had a frozen, blocked, or crushed pipe somewhere in the new house, and Roto-Rooter was coming out to find their septic tank. I had a pretty quiet day to myself, except for Jalen coming in a few times for help setting up his new Hudl basketball camera. Then I spent the afternoon plotting my budget to hopefully have something reasonable to present to the superintendent when I ask for more money to sign another contract. Of course, it could all go out the window if he just decides he’d rather hire somebody else. It’s a good time to look for work.

I got a notification on the way home that service on my car was finished, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I should have messaged them to try and negotiate something earlier. I figured that waiting longer would give me a better chance to get something out of it, but I hadn’t accounted for sudden and sneaky repairs. I had a suspicion that they started yesterday, but then I got a low tire notification today that really made me think they were working on it.

It was another quick trip to the old house for another carload of boxes to take home. Eaddie was on the way out the door, so I was left to unload myself. Summer was home shortly after that, and looked unfrazzled enough for a dinner out. I called Mom to see if they wanted to go, but they were already eating, so Summer and I went to Mulan’s.

When we got back, we watched a standup special from some guy named Dusty Slay on Netflix. It was fine. Eaddie had a late curfew, and came to talk to me for a little while when she made it home. Then it was off to bed.

It’s been a long week.

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It’s Log, Log, Log!

The heavy rain last night brought the cold, and our trash can was filled with water. Kim was back to work after basically paying cash for a new home, and I just don’t think she has any idea how wealthy she really is. Just a little bit of money management smarts and discipline, and she’d be living the high life.

I got my SSL certificate updated in the morning, which was exciting. Being able to SFTP into the VM to clean up those files made my life a whole lot easier than scrolling up a command line. From there, I still had to double-check that everything was working, and make sure I didn’t have any other alarms that might cause trouble in the future. With any luck, I’ll be gone by the time this certificate expires.

We had the cleanest sloppy joes for lunch, and I ended the day finally getting an order placed for some electronics that the teacher absolutely will not use. She’s simply not capable. She’s overwhelmed and scattered as it is, and I just don’t think there are any souls out there with enough interest or aptitude.

It was a cold and damp drive home, where I loaded up some more stuff to take to the new house. More winter weather is on the way, so I’ll have some things I can unpack if we don’t leave the house. Summer stayed home not feeling well, and Eaddie beat me home from school. We watched Iron Man and I made a couple burritos.

Julie and Kevin stopped by to pick up some drinks they had left. The girls went to bed pretty early, and I decompressed to some random YouTube garbage for most of the evening. I ended up playing a short round of Oxygen Not Included, but the computer locked up again. I wonder if it’s thermals, but it’s cold, and the game isn’t very demanding.

What rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs,
Rolls over your neighbor’s dog?
What’s great for a snack, and fits on your back?

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SSH IT

Today was the warmest day in a little while, but I was stuck inside trying to fix a broken security certificate. Kim was out for the signing on their new house, which meant I could sit in the dark and actually concentrate on what I was doing. I don’t know if it was just by happenstance, but it did seem like fewer people came through the office. I did still get a few visitors and calls, but otherwise I kept my head in my reading. I chatted with Gary for a while, which was helpful, but in the end I still wasn’t successful. I don’t know what I was missing.

I’d had it by the end of the day, and headed quickly home to bring another carload of stuff to the new house. Once I got everything inside and found a change of clothes, I went out on the Onewheel for just a few minutes of daylight. The ride to my parents’ house had my right foot hurting, but on the way back I think I finally found my stance. I was a bit more wobbly, but I think once I have some muscle memory it will be fine. Unfortunately, I won’t really get a chance to ride again for a little while on account of the cold moving in.

Once I got back, I made a burrito for dinner and then unpacked what I had brought home. Then I spent a little more time messing with the washing machine, but still couldn’t get the pulsator out. I couldn’t tell if the pop I heard was new, or something just shifting the same way as yesterday. I finally settled in and played Oxygen Not Included until the computer locked up again. Storms rolled in later in the evening, and I wished I had checked the murder basement for flooding before it started. I’m sure I’ll need to get the sump going this weekend.

Just keep digging….

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Expiration Month

I was a little slow getting out of the house today, but I made it to work on time after passing a bunch of slow trucks. I also had some trouble getting started on any projects, and just kind of jumped from one unimportant thing to the next for a while. They were serving mac and cheese as an entree for lunch, so I brought a leftover T-bone to chew on as well. I forgot a knife, but I figured it out.

Later in the afternoon, I discovered that the SSL certificate for my VMware expired over the break, so Tomorrow Michael will have to figure that out. I left a little late and picked up my last dresser from the old house to take home. Eaddie and Eli were at the house tooting their horns in the bathroom like a couple of weirdos, so I took a ride to my parents’ house on the Onewheel.

I didn’t stay long, and on the way home I tried some different foot placement to mitigate the foot pain and find a good balance point. I was feeling comfortable enough that I kind of sped over some drainage ditches on the way home, and got a pretty bad wobble that I was able to ride through. Only momentary terror.

The girls ate while Eli and I watched them. Then Eaddie avoided doing homework for the rest of the evening. I played a couple cycles in Oxygen Not Included, and then it was off to bed.

Gotta renew that CompTIA cert too. Ugh.

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DecrepiTech

I had a super bizarro dream last night, in which I was somewhere with some people and also Elon Musk. I was talking to him, and though I was supposed to go do things with the other people, Elon invited me to go to somewhere in Arizona to see or do something. Whatever it was, it was urgent, and he said we had to pack and leave immediately by car. After going back and forth and deciding that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I loaded up for the 19 hour drive, and he handed me a burner flip phone to contact him, since he obviously didn’t give out his real phone number to anyone. Then I questioned whether he had a jet that could get us there faster.

That was the end of the weird, anxiety-ridden dream, and then I got up for work. It wasn’t quite as cold or rainy, but it was really windy for most of the day. I spent a good chunk of it trying to get a couple old, but barely-used laptops ready to give to a teacher that doesn’t have a clue how to use them with her students. As soon as she said she wanted an old, decrepit laptop with admin accounts on Windows, Linux, or MacOS, I had to roll my eyes.

I eventually had to meet with Blake and discussed more of the same, with regard to her needs to fulfill the requirements for a grant. I wish she would just stick with learning how to do the very fundamentals of her job instead of continually biting off more than she can chew.

Kim spent the entire day fretting about whether she would have to pay a deposit on utilities for the new house. I got pretty frustrated that she wouldn’t just shut up and get it done, and every time she called to talk to some poor representative over the phone, I had flashbacks of some of the worst customer interactions I had at the call center.

I left work a little bit late just because I had a hunch on unlocking an iPad that was brought to me quite a while back. I made it back to town quickly to feed the fish and load a trunk load from the old house. Then I went by Taco John’s for a bunch of tacos because Summer was home from work, and Eaddie was bringing someone over to study.

Summer and I finished eating before the girls got there, and then I’m not sure how much school work they completed between all the giggles. I Onewheeled over to my parents’ house in the dark to get some Liquid Wrench, but I wasn’t quite sure how well that would work either. I think the actual point where the parts are fused together may not be connected to the hole where the bolt goes.

After that, Eaddie took her friend home and things wound down pretty quickly. I played a couple days on Oxygen Not Included, and then dawdled until bedtime.

Hang ten?

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Crying Over Spilled Beer

It was cold and rainy all day, and I had to go back to work.

It was awful.

Casey’s has free coffee on Mondays right now, so that helped, but then a hard acceleration out of Dardanelle had me spill a little in the car.

At least it was a loaner.

I got to work pretty early, and things were fairly quiet. I spent a lot more time submitting purchase requests than I expected, and way more time trying to fix some broken PowerShell scripts than should have been necessary. One of them will run manually, but not from the Task Scheduler, and I still don’t know why.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to address a needy and incredibly unprepared teacher that is so far out of her depth, she’s only able to survive by clinging to thermal vents on the sea floor. I cannot believe she is paid more than the minimum teacher salary now.

The place was a ghost town by the time I left at four, and I drove home quickly in the rain. I fed the fish, grabbed my air shim, and headed home to try and pull the pulsator out of the washing machine. Summer made it home early after having dinner with both of the girls, and told me stories about all the ways Autumn is using the people around her, and how Gerald continues to enable her.

What a shit show.

I ate her Sumo leftovers mixed with some of our own from home, and then we watched some Young Sheldon until I spilled a little bit of beer on the carpet. I got the shampooer going and pulled some black water out of the carpet, showing just how important it is to regularly vacuum and mop the home.

Eaddie went to bed so early that I hardly realized she had gone. Then Summer went to bed and had to remind me that I have to do this all over again tomorrow.

1981 McGregor 25 ft sailboat – $5,000

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Three Weeks

I stopped at Casey’s for a free slice of breakfast pizza on the way to work, and it was delicious. I hate how expensive extra toppings are, but I guess if they weren’t, I’d be ordering a whole pizza per week to take to work. It was the last day of school before break, and you could tell there weren’t as many kids there. Several were exempt from tests, and even more checked out in the middle of the day. Kim disappeared for a while in the afternoon, I guess to peruse other peoples’ potlucks. I stayed fairly busy trying to clean up old work orders.

After work, I stopped by Casey’s again for a free Snicker’s before going to the old house to feed the fish. Then I headed home and had just a little bit of time to get changed and earn some tire-rash on the Onewheel before Summer got home. She brought some thin chicken breasts and asparagus for dinner, and then wanted me to come up with dinner. I threw it all in a pan with a bunch of Italianesque seasonings, and it turned out pretty decent for a relatively unfussy meal.

Summer wanted to work on her nails and watch TV in the sunroom, but said the TV wouldn’t load Netflix. I opened up Vudu instead, and we ended up watching the last half of The Martian, followed by the old musical Camelot. I don’t recall ever watching it in its entirety, though I do remember having a VHS tape in my youth. We watched about a third of it before finishing the rest from bed. Then I wrapped up and it was off to sleep.

So we’re just gonna lie about how much we’re working? What could go wrong?!

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Out of Bits

Eaddie found a ride to school today so I didn’t have to drop her off. I got my free vitaminwater from Casey’s and made it to work in time for Kim to fuss about people already looking for me. The frustrating part about that was the fact that she very easily, especially after this many years, could have taken care of the issue. None of it was difficult, but it did require enough ambition to open an application and read a few words.

They had semester tests, so the big ask for the morning was to modify the bell schedule. They extended lunches, which meant I actually missed the boat and barely grabbed some pizza as they were putting everything away. Just as I was going back to my office to eat, Kenny yelled from across the cafeteria that the internet was down.

It wasn’t the internet. It was every single switch, and they were entirely inaccessible. I restarted the UNC service on the controller VM, and eventually walked to the core closet to cycle power on at least five different switches. It made no sense, and only served to frustrate me further.

After work, I fed the fish and brought a couple big speakers to the new house. While I was cleaning them up, I pushed one across the floor and scratched the tile a bit in front of the old refrigerator. Oh well. Summer was working late, and Eaddie was helping at the middle school concert, so I tried to make a dent in some leftovers from before Thanksgiving. Ridiculous.

I spent the rest of the night relaxing to some music and a light show in the living room, in an otherwise dark house until the girls got home.

Floaty

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Cruise Control

Eaddie slowed me down getting out of the house this morning, and then I had to drop her off at the high school on the way to work. Since I was already late and traffic wasn’t helping, I stopped in at Casey’s for a free coffee before making my way into the county. It was quiet all day, and I tried my best to focus on cleaning up my Windows 11 image.

After work, I fed the fish and then beat everyone home. Summer made slow cooker chili in the morning before going to Little Rock, so I stirred it up and waited for her to get home from work. She wasn’t terribly late, but Eaddie was. The two of us ate, and then I put my Govee ambient light strips on the back of the living room TV. The effect was pretty impressive.

Once Eaddie got home, the girls both went to bed pretty early. I watched some TV for a while and just appreciated the ambiance, but then I made it to bed a little bit early as well.

I think this fridge is toast.