Tag: work

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Taco Twiceday

I was a little bit late to work this morning after fighting with the garage door. Somehow the sensor on Summer’s side of the garage got knocked about 45 degrees off. I thought maybe she got the charge cable tangled up, but yet she was able to close the garage when she left before me, so I don’t know what happened. Maybe it just slowly vibrated out of alignment.

Kids were back today, but it was pretty quiet aside from some ACT testing they did around lunch time. I wished it had been a bit louder outside, like it normally is, since Blake was in there and could have seen how ridiculous it is that I’m expected to work on the other side of that door.

The afternoon dragged on again, and I had to down a Red Bull to make it to quitting time. I went to feed the fish, and then picked up some Taco John’s on the way home. Eaddie was still at school, but Summer wanted some. Eaddie made it home after we finished eating, so I went back out to pick up the vacuum cleaner that Dad fixed, and then got her some tacos.

I really tried to get to bed a bit earlier, but it just didn’t happen. It’s been easy to get distracted by just about anything lately. These short days are killing me.

We have to go lower!

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TenWheels

We had a PD day at work, but Russellville kids were back in school. They had a speaker there in the morning, so they kept coming to get me to fix audio issues. I didn’t actually fix anything myself, but I guess they felt better having me around. Eaddie called and said the Murano smelled like something was burning, but the temperature gauge looked okay. She said nothing seemed wrong otherwise, so I told her to take it easy and listen and smell for bad things on the way to school. Hopefully it was just the heater while she was defrosting.

Kim went to the doctor for a couple hours in the middle of the day, and then brought Taco Bell back for us since the cafeteria was closed. The afternoon dragged on, and I didn’t feel like I accomplished anything at all. I did order a Onewheel while they were still on sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I talked myself into getting the biggest, fastest one, which may have been a mistake. I just thought my extra weight would benefit from the extra power, and aftermarket prices seemed to hold pretty well. I couldn’t tell if that was true for the higher-end models, but the idea isn’t to sell it anyway.

After work, I went to feed the fish. Eaddie wanted 50-cent corn dogs, and Summer was home from work really early, so I stopped at Sonic on the way home. Eaddie and I ate a couple dogs, and then I went to my parents’ house by myself since they both had work or homework to do. Dad and I grazed over leftovers and I left pretty stuffed.

The girls were both wound down by the time I got back home, so I spent a little more money and eventually made it to bed.

These are expensive months.

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Sofa’d Up

Today was a total drag. I spent all day in Jamf again, but not feeling like I was making any real progress. I just tediously poked through settings and tested different configurations as time flew by in the morning, and then slowed to a crawl in the afternoon. The cafeteria had tons of extra milk and pudding, so I brought home a whole milk crate and a box with pudding cups.

Summer went home early with a headache, so she was there to receive the new couch. I hated virtually everything about it. The color was way more blue than it appeared in the picture. The texture was like cheap fleece imitating a wool texture. The filling was inside of a crunchy bag that would hopefully soften up quickly. The first thing we had to do was move it about a foot, which required disassembly of the three very heavy components. Somehow it felt both cheap and expensive at the same time.

I finished up some leftovers, froze some pudding cups, and then sat on the couch until the discomfort drove me to the computer. Maybe it’s just that time of year again, but I just loathe everything. I sat in the dark for quite a while, but after Eaddie got home from bowling with some friends, the two of us went to Freddy’s to get some free cheese curds before coming back home to bed.

How dairyou.

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Pump up the Jamf

Today was pretty mild. I made it to work and jumped right into Jamf to finish nit-picking the settings and get my iPads deployed for the special education folks. Kim left me for a while, so it was quiet until it got loud for lunch. I was pretty sleepy, but not bad for being up cleaning carpets for as late as I was.

Once I made it back to town, I fed the fish and headed home. Summer was in the bath, so I made a burrito to try and clean up the crap she’d accumulated in the refrigerator for the past few weeks. Eaddie got home just as I finished up, and ate some other leftovers. Then we went out on the porch to talk while the neighbor’s dog barked loudly at us.

Summer came out to join us for a bit, and then Eaddie left for a Tech band concert. Summer went to bed, and I wrapped up early.

Tomorrow, we sit.

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No

I got out of the house quite early this morning, so I went to Hardee’s for a chicken biscuit. I get really frustrated when I’m asked if I want to tip at fast food establishments, because they just handed my food over the counter. The Nashville Hot Chicken Biscuit was okay though.

I tried to focus on Jamf when I got to work, but that made me sleepy. Then other less important things kept drawing focus, and we ended the afternoon with about 15 minutes of network downtime where I couldn’t even talk to my own switches. I don’t know what happened.

While I was driving home, I got a call from the Rockline recruiter to say they were pursuing their other candidate, which suited me fine. I went to the old house to get my old pot holders and feed the fish, and then I ran by Harbor Freight to ask about ordering a tool chest before finally going home to Summer, who had spent the evening cooking a nice dinner.

After we ate, I had her help me shove everything to one side of the living room, and I spent the next five hours shampooing carpets again. The water kept coming up black until the very end, but I kind of figure we’ll do it again after hosting for the holidays anyway. Or maybe I’ll give up on this house and move onto my fantasy sailboat. I could use a change of scenery.

Absolutely Knot

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Corn Dogs with Catch Up

I ran a little early this morning and made some coffee at work. Kim walked in a little late, but said she had been there talking to Toby, so who was I to argue? We spent a while chatting and catching up on work, the conference, and everything else. I didn’t get to focus on any big stuff, but I got her wrangled into closing some old work orders while I went to the elementary building to round up the spare Chromebook cart we had stuck in the closet there. I wish I could remember what I was planning to do, but inventory down there has been so scattered anyway.

I went to the old house after work and charged for a little bit while I fed the fish and took a little break. Then I went to Taco John’s for some dinner before heading home. The girls would be out late, so I just ate by myself and then started cleaning up in the living room. I plotted out the new couch setup, and I think it will be really nice in that space. In fact, I don’t think the 15-foot one we originally liked would have fit quite as well. It wouldn’t have been bad, but it just wouldn’t have allowed as much room to walk around it. Either couch makes the room feel small.

Slow your rolling tool chest.

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Who’s in Charge Here?

Kim texted super early this morning that she would be out sick. That would have given me a chance to really dig in and catch up, but I’m pretty sure people were just waiting for me to return to come and harass me. Things were reasonably quiet apart from just running all day, until Josh came into my office to ask if I was in charge of keeping up with Kim’s time. That prompted me to ask a stunned-looking assistant superintendent, and ultimately send a lengthy email to the super.

I signed up for vision insurance in the afternoon, and when quitting time arrived, I headed to the old house to feed the fish. I called Rockline back just to follow up after our last chat before the conference, and then went home to pick up Eaddie so we could go to Cici’s for dinner.

We had a pretty good chat over dinner, and then headed home to wait for Summer. I did a load of laundry and cleaned up a couple of the older loudspeakers I had rescued from the dumpster years ago. I ended up stacking them in the little office nook, which is humorous due to their size in such a tiny room. The girls wound down pretty early, so I paid some bills and eventually made it to bed.

Soooo…. No org chart…?

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Less Than Marvelous

Ben texted that he was too late to meet for breakfast, and I noticed a couple of cars parked outside the Old Mill Bread Bakery & Cafe, so I swung in there to eat instead. The guy was just opening up, and had to leave to take his son to school, so he just left me with another customer in the store. Then Ben called after he realized the sessions didn’t start until 8:30, and met up with me just in time for the guy to make it back. I had a breakfast burrito and a scone with some coffee, but in hindsight I probably should have gotten something on BREAD instead of a premade spinach wrap. The food was good either way, and then we headed to the conference.

I went to a session about budgeting and finance, which I thought would be helpful to start the conversation with my business office and admin team. Hopefully I can come up with a decent proposal, and then use Technology money for a better salary. After that session, I went to Ben’s talk about Burp Suite, which was interesting. I was in a room with a very small number of very smart folk, but I wasn’t sure I had an immediate use for it.

The final session was the closing ceremony. Charlie was in Ben’s session, and he let me have his room key to get into the garage and charge. Then Ben and I sat through the closing remarks and went to the lobby for our bagged lunches. They didn’t have very many left, so we were lucky to get anything to eat at all. I figured he might stick around for a little bit to chat, but he actually ended up sticking around the entire time I was waiting for my movie. We chatted about all kinds of stuff, and then he helped me fix my eSchool student photos, which was awesome.

That left me just enough time to get across town to the IMAX to watch The Marvels. I had a reward for a free hot dog, purchased an ICEE, and sat down in my usual seat. There were only a few people there for the IMAX 3D showing on opening weekend, which I thought would be a good thing just for myself, but for some reason the bunch of old folks just kept talking through the entire movie. It would have been way more distracting if I had been more invested in the movie. I just couldn’t take it seriously at all. It was fine, but it was far from great. The dialog and plot just made it feel like another forced girl team-up movie.

After the show, I finally headed home. I stopped at the old house to check on things and air up my tires. Then I washed my car and headed to the house. Everyone was awake, but nobody heard me come in. Eaddie had left the Murano unlocked, so I made her go out and lock it up. Then I realized she left the back door unlocked, as well as the front door after she went out to lock the car. I don’t know how to correct these habits other than to make her life really annoying by making her go back outside repeatedly in the cold. Summer only got out of bed to use the bathroom while I unpacked and got things put away. I got my acrylic chair mat in, so I cleaned it and set it up under my desk. For one day, it seems like it will hold up alright, but only time will tell.

No appointing here.

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Boxed Whine

I made it to my usual breakfast place at my usual time for my usual seat at the bar. It’s almost been disappointing to have a different server every time, but I guess that’s staffing? Today I had the shrimp and grits with a Vietnamese coffee, and both were great as expected.

When I got to the Embassy, the parking lot was full and I couldn’t find a place to charge, so I just parked in the very back. Ben was walking to the building just as I was getting my things collected, so I followed him around for a while. Classes weren’t bad, but having a live barista helped. I even got a little heart in my latte. I was a little lost because there were so many sessions that I just wanted to attend, so hopefully the recordings will come in good quality. I really don’t know how they expect the microphones to work on those little tablets in the back of the room.

Lunch was better than yesterday, with fried chicken and some kind of fried steak patty. I ate at a huge round table with Ben and a bunch of strangers. Thomas brought Zach and Ryan just for the day, but I didn’t see them a whole lot. I did talk with Zach more than I really have since I’ve been gone from Russellville.

The afternoon dragged a little bit, but I liked the presentation with Amanda’s brother, Josh. As the conference wound down for the day, it had started to rain pretty hard. I circled through the exhibition hall, but didn’t get a single piece of swag apart from the Fortinet backpack I collected from trivia the night before. I couldn’t find anyone to hang around either, so I headed back to the hotel to clean up a little bit.

Summer texted, so I called and talked to her for a little while before heading back out. Howard had their dinner party at The Butcher Shop, so I met Ben there after charging briefly at the Embassy. Brody didn’t make it, so it was just Ben and me talking through dinner until we left. From there, it was back to the hotel until I heard from Brody at the CDW party at Hibernia Irish Tavern. We were just there long enough to win the raffle where I got a box of ready-to-drink margarita. Brody left first, and then I ended up chatting a bit longer with Charlie and Kristina before heading back to the hotel to crash for the night.

Guess lower!

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EAT Conference

I went to Big Bad Breakfast again this morning because the Old Mill Bread Bakery & Cafe was closed, in spite of their Google Maps listing to the contrary. This time I had the shrimp po’boy, which was both an interesting breakfast choice, and also delicious. It was served with fries, which were piping hot and seasoned well. It didn’t even take long for them to prepare, which was incredible based on how busy they were in comparison to yesterday.

I made it to the conference in time to park up front and charge, which was good because I didn’t have a key card to get into the garage. Overall the sessions were a bust. The first couple hours was the state CISO basically just telling us the schools needed stronger passwords. Strangely enough, that’s what we’ve been telling them for years. The time after the morning break would have been a little better because some districts who had been compromised got up to talk about their experiences, but I was stuck in the hallway for that part.

Lunch wasn’t great, and afterward Ryan told us about seeing one of the employees leave the bathroom after doing some business, skip washing his hands, and then immediately grab some cake from the dessert table. The bathroom itself just got worse and worse, and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since last Thursday. It has gotten progressively worse every single time I’ve been in there.

The afternoon wasn’t much better. I went to one session with a really sharp guy, but he was all excitement and no real education. He just talked about smart things for a bit, scared everyone, and then it was over. Then I heard from a legislative auditor, which was expectedly boring. Finally I went to a class with one of the DIS guys that I would’ve liked to chat to, but I didn’t get much out of that either.

The highlight of the day was scoring ninth in a post-session trivia game with over 60 other people. Cory was right behind me to win the last prize for the day. I let him pick first, so I was left with an IOU for a swag bag from Fortinet. I didn’t really want the $75 worth of gift cards anyway.

I hung out by myself in the lobby for a bit, unable to decide where to eat for the sake of eating on someone else’s dime. Then I went back to my hotel for a quick breather before going to Tokyo House. Eating a buffet by myself was a bit surreal, and I don’t think I’ll do that again. When I finished, I headed back to the Embassy to hang out for Casino Night.

A girl named Kristina walked up and introduced herself to me out of the blue, and we talked for a bit. She was actually the tech for Deer and Mt. Judea after Andrew left, so it was funny to make that connection. Brody eventually came along and joined the conversation, followed by Cory. Then she left and Steven walked by, and I took the opportunity to introduce myself to him. The group of us chatted for a while before eventually splitting off to our rooms for the night.

We’ve got a breacher!