Tag: work

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Aw, Eli’kes it

I had a pretty quick drive in to work this morning, and stopped at Silver’s Food Court for an instant pumpkin spice latte on the way. I thought I had a meeting at 11, which turned out to be later in the afternoon, so I just spent most of the day tinkering with our new work order system. At first glance, I like it a whole lot more than Incident IQ, and it seems to have most of the features we used from that system. Some of it wasn’t super intuitive, but I think that was because it was designed more for the maintenance crew.

Lunch was pretty middling burgers, so I spent most of the day kind of hungry. The lunch ladies have been using up anything they had left before the last day of summer school, so pickings were pretty slim. I did get a bag of baby carrots to snack on next week after they’re gone, but I guess otherwise I’ll be on Soylents for a while.

My afternoon meeting turned out to be more or less a one-on-three, with two of those only really listening in the background. The guy leading the meeting just chatted with me about my questions, and I really got my answers within a couple of minutes. I don’t know if I was just late to the party, or if all of the meetings have been relatively small. I definitely got the feeling that there weren’t many other tech directors participating.

I left work a little bit later than I expected, since I got Howard to beat their competition. I sent another requisition form, and was on my way home behind several speeders that made the trip short. Evidently Eaddie had her jazz flute performance while I was driving home, but she never told either of us that she was actually performing for an audience. By that time, I assumed it was more of an activity than anything else.

As soon as I got home, I changed clothes and headed to Popeye’s to get dinner for the girls. I had to wait over 15 minutes for my food, which seems to always happen there. I was worried we would be late because Eaddie wanted to get back to Witherspoon by seven, but we chowed down and made it. We still ended up watching all three bands. My parents showed up for the last one for Eaddie, and joined us in the center of the front row.

Summer had told me earlier in the week that Eaddie didn’t have a solo, so I didn’t really think anything of it. For some reason I just believed that maybe Eaddie wanted us to be able to hear her better this time because she wanted a particular song recorded. Everyone got super excited when a group of the flautists came forward, with Eaddie to the right by herself, and a couple more to the left of the conductor. I had been recording the entire performance, so I mostly got Eaddie’s backside on camera, but it was my favorite song of the night in spite of her. We were all beaming with pride for her though, and even Mom got out her phone to record her performance. It was also really cool to see all of the bands get to play music by Katahj Copley, who was there to introduce the pieces he composed.

After the concert, we bought a DVD and then worked our way back around to let Eaddie know we would wait for her in the car. Her friend stopped me to say he was reading the blog every night, which was more love than I’ve gotten from either Summer or Eaddie in a long time. They should take notes.

We waited in the car for a while, but then Eaddie finally came out and we headed home for the night. Summer went to bed, and Eaddie sat with me to look through band camp photos for a while before she went to bed. I stayed up later than I wanted on account of having to get up for an interview in the morning, so hopefully I wake up fresh and sharp.

I’m not trying to leave, but free lunch is free lunch, and twenty grand is twenty grand.

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Rugs, Not Drugs

I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm and headed home this morning. I was still exhausted, but I just wake up early like that now, without enough time to go back to sleep. I took a bit of a long shower though, and made it to work at what I would consider “just on time.” I tried cleaning up some old emails and tasks, which at one point included going down to the Elementary to collect copier serial numbers.

I had taco soup for lunch from the cafeteria, and spent some time in the afternoon placing stickers, and even went out to Plainview by myself. It was really the first time I went out into the buildings alone, and it was an even mix of people recognizing who I was, and others that had no clue.

Dad met the restoration guys at my house again, and they cut some drywall out and found a termite nest, along with a bunch of wet insulation in the wall under the window. I never recognized any leakage, but I guess that’s what they were going with. I’d almost suspect the outside water faucet. I overheard one of the guys on the security camera while he was talking to someone on the phone, and he kept repeating that I had a Tesla, and said he was pretty sure I was a drug dealer.

When I made it home, I changed and went to my parents’ house to discuss plans for the house. Mom made a great point that insurance may pay to re-carpet the entire area since it was all one solid style that wouldn’t match otherwise. That made enough sense to me that I felt a little better about it.

I headed back home, looping around to try and see any tree damage on Brody’s new, old house. There wasn’t anything broken that I could see from the road. I made it home to swap vehicles, and headed up to Summer’s for the evening. There, I scrubbed through camera footage to find clips of the restoration guys taking pictures of my motorcycles, the Tesla Wall Connector, and even telling another guy to come take a look at the hoarder house, but to carry a fan in so it wouldn’t look suspicious. I did not at all feel good about them being in my home, but it’s blue collar work. All I could do was hope they were only looky-loos.

Seriously, they start at less than $35,000 if you get the tax credit.

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Carpets to Match

I tried going to Taco Bell for a free Breakfast Crunchwrap this morning, but learned as I pulled in that they don’t actually open until eight. Resigned being late, I stopped at McDonald’s for a coffee on the way, and was pleased with how much I liked the caramel. I wasn’t actually that late, and nobody would have noticed anyway. I spent most of the day in my office alone again. The first couple hours were burned talking to Google Admin support. Todd came through for the first time in forever and chatted for a bit, and I had a couple students return four Chromebooks, but otherwise there wasn’t a whole lot going on. I did at least get lunch today.

Near the end of the day, I tracked down a bunch of copy machines, and even went out to the agri building where the outside doors appeared to have been left unlocked by mistake. As I finished up and printed some asset tags, I saw Dad had gone to the house and met with some guys from a restoration service. I thought they’d just be there to look things over, but then I got a picture of a half-empty room with the carpet ripped out.

I headed home at the end of the day, long after everyone else had gone, both from the school and from my home. I had to clean everything out of the other corner of the room, which was the harder part. Summer got back into town and mentioned going home to cry about her day at work, which was frustrating because I had mentioned having to move things at home in order to fix the gaping holes in my roof, ceiling, and bedroom wall.

She turned around and came over, where we shuffled things around the best we could. We took a break for dinner and got Taco John’s to eat at her house where I still had some hot sauce from Taco Villa. Then it was back to my house to finish pulling everything out of the room and two closets. We left things that weren’t touching the floor, so hopefully they have enough room to work. I was really surprised to see that they had ripped carpet out of the hallway. They should have been able to complete the job in just the one room.

Exhausted, frustrated, and still mildly infuriated, we loaded up the twin mattress and box spring to take to the dumpster at Superfast. I drove with the Murano’s hatch open, and we appeared to make it without any damage. Nearly everything has been moved out of one room of the house, and a path has been made to that side of the house. It’s a good of a time as any to get some remodeling done, if I can find anyone to do the work.

I’m really sorry work was hard today, but I have a hole in my roof, and strangers are ripping out my carpet.

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Vacation Vacation

I struggled to get moving this morning, and ended up skipping the shower since I had taken one late in the evening after sucking as much water as I could out of the carpet. I picked up a couple biscuits at Burger King, which seems to be a really hopping place in Dardanelle, and after getting to work and eating one, I could tell why. It was the fluffiest, flakiest, most buttery biscuit I’d ever had from a fast food joint since Hardee’s. It was even still hot after the 30 minute drive to the school. The black coffee was good too. It didn’t even need any add-ins.

I spent the entire day to myself, and was only interrupted briefly a couple of times. I felt completely lost for most of the day, and frustrated by my lack of support from either someone in the department or in an administrative role. I’d probably feel a lot better if I at least participated in one staff meeting.

I missed lunch by a few minutes, so I just continued snacking on whatever I had brought. I thought I was leaving a little bit early at the end of the day, but I was still the last one out after starting a little early. I drove home and checked in on my spare room that smelled musty and was still pretty damp. The water had gotten under the wall and into the bathroom, but I didn’t really notice yesterday. I vacuumed up what I could, so at least there’s not a bunch of gross stuff sitting on the carpet. We’re not sure if insurance will cover anything at all, because I remembered my parents saying something about only having coverage for a fire. After all the electrical issues I’ve had, that really seemed the most likely, but in the end it was another element that got the best of us.

When my parents got home from shopping, Mom called to offer soup for dinner. I stopped by Julie’s to drop off the Air and Space Museum keychain I got her, and then continued to my parents’ house. We all ate together, and then I went out back with them for a little bit while they watered plants. They said eggs were on sale at Kroger, so I stopped to get a couple 18-packs on the way home.

I only passed through to trade cars, getting mine back onto the charger, and taking Summer’s back to her house for the night. She was already in bed in a quiet house. I watered my own plants, screamed at my phone for having an unpredictable battery life, and briefly checked in on Gary. This week is another busy one.

It smells worse today.

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Finding Priorities

I wasn’t quite as tired this morning as yesterday, but it was still rough getting out of bed. I even woke up a couple minutes before my alarm, but I was still just exhausted. I made it to work a little earlier today, and had my leftover croissant for breakfast along with a McCoffee I picked up on the way. Kim showed up and quietly did her own thing most of the day.

I had a couple people come in for some new RFID fobs for door access, and then I just grasped at random things throughout the rest of the day. At one point, Kim and I went to the elementary to get the last two iPads into my inventory spreadsheet, and near the end of the day she collected some touch panel serial numbers from the high school. Nicky was on the hunt for a bunch of asset tags, so I spent a while trying to figure out the tag printer.

I left a little bit late after penning a long email about Chromebook planning. I won’t be there to meet with the administration next week, but hopefully I made some good points and showed them how much money they’re bleeding out.

Autumn called as I was leaving, but I didn’t get to answer. Evidently she went by the house and bothered the girls to fetch some more stuff. Summer said she wanted a hug and cried a bit, but it wasn’t very effective. I made it home and took care of a few things before making it up to Summer’s.

As soon as I got there, I uncovered the grill and cooked some smoked sausages for dinner. Summer was mowing, so she came in to shower, and then it was a pretty quiet night after that. I laid down to relax for a bit with her, but then had to get up to finish my chores before bed.

We’re going the wrong direction!

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Good Answer

I felt like I was dead when my alarm went off this morning. I dragged all the way to work, through the Burger King drive-through for some coffee and croissants. As I neared the school, I passed a truck that I guess kicked up a rock somehow, and it sounded like I had gotten shot. I got a thumbnail-sized crack, nearly dead-center in my line of sight.

Once I got to the office, I felt pretty productive all morning. I hardly left my office, but I felt relatively focused compared to my usual days there. I remember fixing my one thing for the day pretty early, but I can’t remember what it was now. I also filed a glass claim with Progressive, and the girl said I qualified for a whole new windshield. I guess I feel better about that than a repair. Hopefully my insurance premiums don’t go up.

I took a break for some soft tacos from the cafeteria, and then the afternoon kind of dragged on. Blake came into my office to ask about spending the rest of some money, and I felt like I had some pretty good answers for him. Then Carla came into the office to look for Kim, who wasn’t working, and I learned of our shared disgust of the lack of accountability with Chromebooks. She seemed excited to help call the list of literally hundreds of parents to try and recover missing devices.

I left work a bit late, and last as usual. I went home to change, and then headed straight up to Summer’s. She and Eaddie had hiked down to the Petit Jean waterfall during the day, so they weren’t up to much when I got to the house. I made a leftover burger, and then struggled to get to bed early because Summer was on a very loud and gossipy work call in bed for what felt like hours.

Seriously, why do I even come here.

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Gators Out of Water

I squeezed into work today, but things were unusually quiet. It wasn’t long before I learned that they sent everyone home because a water main had gone out somewhere up the road, so the school had no water. I tried to stick around for a bit, but eventually went home since I knew it would take me half an hour to get back home to my own bathroom.

Just after I got home, the mail lady came by with my new sun shades for our cars. I tried them out and settled on using the umbrella type for the Model 3, since I didn’t really have anywhere to store the folding one. Then I decided to surprise the guys at Taco John’s for lunch. I tried to see if Allen was going, but from what I could hear over the phone, he was out doing something else.

I stopped to wash my car first so I wouldn’t be too early, but even when I arrived, I had time to eat all of my food before Zach, Greg, and his wife and kid showed up. They didn’t have a whole lot to say, but I did learn that Old South had burned down. Shortly after they got their food, a bunch of the maintenance crew came in, so I moved over to sit with them once Zach and Greg left.

After lunch, I headed up to see if Eaddie wanted to go driving. She was cleaning and doing laundry, so I helped pick through some crap Autumn had left in the floor when she left. Noah left with the promise of coming back to help us move a grill up from my house. I had texted Autumn to see if she wanted to come get some more stuff, but when she came by after DEP for her school records, she said she still hadn’t unpacked anything. She seemed humbled though, and even offered to come back and mow the front lawn so Eaddie wouldn’t have to do it herself.

After a while, I convinced Eaddie to go grocery shopping with me, and we got everything to grill some burgers and took it back to my house to wait for Noah. We ended up waiting for nearly two hours, but he eventually showed up and we successfully moved the grill. Eaddie got to work right away baking a cake, while I started up the grill. The three of them went back out to get some fries while I mixed up the hamburger meat, and then I grilled everything as quickly as I could.

Dinner was awesome. They were some of the best burgers I’d made in quite a while, and it made the girls realize why I scoffed at the $80 it cost for us to eat at Big Orange the other day. Noah had put on The Guardians of the Galaxy while they were waiting to eat, so we finished watching it after we ate, and then everyone was off to bed.

They drained the swamp.

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The Bed is Too Full

As expected, Summer had a pretty sleepless night last night. I didn’t do much better myself, but I did manage to shut my eyes for a little while before I woke up to an empty bed. She had gone to the living room and was playing on her phone, so I had to fetch her back. She mentioned that Eaddie had been up, so I went and brought her into the bedroom with us and we all snuggled up together for a bit. There really wasn’t much room, and I didn’t really get to fall asleep again for most of the night. Eaddie didn’t stick around for too long, but I think it helped Summer.

I gave up on getting to work by seven, and stopped at McDonald’s for a frappé. I had forgotten that summer school started today, and there seemed to be more kids around than I expected, but maybe only a few of them needed Chromebooks. A couple teachers came to fetch a cart from me, and we settled on leaving it in the front office where kids could pick up devices on their way in.

I was alone all day, so I spent the morning scanning damaged devices and moving what was left of a pallet of Chromebooks outside of our office. I broke a pretty good sweat, and spent the rest of the day in a pretty quiet office.

It started raining pretty hard around quitting time, and I think I was the last one to leave by quite a while. I headed home and retrieved the phone mounts I ordered for the Teslas. Then I continued up to Summer’s for the evening. Noah was supposed to come over late, and the girls had been out to eat earlier in the day, so I had some leftovers. Then the three of us watched a couple episodes of The Office while Eaddie ate in the floor. Then Summer and I watched some Modern Family until she was ready to go to sleep.

How does she always pick the ones into pseudo-science???

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Murder Campus

I rolled in to work a few minutes late today, but that seems to be the atmosphere there. I think as long as work gets done, nobody really seems to care too much about anything else. I didn’t get too deep into much before Kim got there, and then we ended up at the bottom of the hill to finish up our inventory and hunting for Chromebooks. That project was going to take us most of the day, but I wanted to take a break and visit the Plainview campus for the first time.

We had to track down some keys for the building, and then we were on our way. As timing would have it, we had to accept a delivery from UPS anyway. Then I got a quick tour of a hallway they use for preschool, and then a walk through the back side of the building that was blocked by storage. It was padlocked shut, and everything was pretty gross inside. There were some neat things, like a giant, old safe, and an old stage with theater seating in surprisingly good condition. We looked at some carts that I might want to put back into circulation if they’re firm on keeping a cart in every single room, used or not.

By the time we finished there, I was pretty hungry and insisted on taking Kim out to lunch at the Junction Café in town. I tried the Cajun baked potato with shrimp and crawfish, and then Kim got the Cajun fries, which looked like a slightly better deal, though my potato wasn’t bad.

We finished the elementary inventory in the afternoon, which took us right to quitting time. I didn’t even bother unloading everything when we got back to the office. I raced home with very little traffic and stopped by my parents’ house to visit with Mom, but she wasn’t home from work. The landscapers were there, and evidently they cut down her favorite magnolia tree, of which I wasn’t even fully aware.

I ended up leaving well before she got home, stopped by Walgreens where the pharmacy had already closed at three, and then ran home to change before going to Summer’s. She made dinner, so I ate while she and Eaddie watched baking shows.

Summer had told Autumn the other night that she couldn’t go to band camp because she declined the offer earlier in the year. Autumn pitched a fit over it, and evidently spent the afternoon with her grandparents to get money to go. The whole ordeal burned me up, because I’m sick to death of her sidestepping Summer’s parenting, and Summer not doing anything about it. I almost left, but calmed myself down enough to talk to Summer about it. Of course she was just dead eyes through the entire conversation. I know she has it worse, but I can’t feel sorry for her if she does nothing to change the situation. Autumn is just making all of our lives worse by existing, and I wish Summer would put her foot down.

Maybe a trip to Plainview.

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Plant B

I slept in just a little bit today, but got out for some breakfast to take to Summer since she was at Superfast today. I didn’t stay long though, and headed home to clean up for round two at Green Bay Packaging. I was actually a little behind where I wanted to be, but I made it there in time.

Gary took me to his office where we chatted kind of loosely some more about some typical personality and work methodology interview questions. Then he took me through the main paper-rolling portion of the plant. I didn’t really get to see any pulp go in, but I did see what he called the “wet” and “dry” ends of the process. It was expectedly hot and humid, but it’s not even August yet. The control rooms and the industrial plant as a whole were reminiscent of my couple of tours of the nuclear plant when Dad could still take me through the plant. It was a really neat look behind the scenes.

After the tour, we chatted for just a brief moment more before I headed home. I was hungry for lunch by then, so I picked up Summer and we went to Popeye’s. They were, as usual, out of chicken, so we waited about 20 minutes for our food. At least the chicken was hot and fresh, but then that had me in a rush to get home and change before driving out to ANO.

I had MASS testing at the Generation Support Building, and I arrived just in time to meet a couple other guys waiting at the door to be let in. It was a small group of people testing, and at least one other kid going up against me for the same job. I’m really not going into it with any confidence, but I figure I’ve got to try if I’ve made it this far.

The first test was shape assembly, and I didn’t make it nearly as far along the test as I thought I would. I didn’t have my watch, so I couldn’t pace myself. If I have to test again, I think I could do better. The mechanical concepts test was the easiest for me, but two of the questions dealt with things I just wasn’t familiar with. In particular, I was unsure about belt slippage between two spindles. Otherwise I thought I did fairly well, and there definitely weren’t any ambiguous questions like there were on the practice test. I was surprised the math portion was only seven minutes long, and I thought I’d get through more of it than I did. I hated hunting through the huge list of conversion factors to find what I needed.

Once I was done with the test, I headed back into town and stopped by to see Mom. I forgot Dad was out for a funeral, so I hung out with her for a little bit before heading home to change, and then finally making it up to Summer’s for the night.

Autumn was in Clarksville with Adam again, allegedly at the water park. Eaddie was cleaning her room and doing laundry. Summer was watching TV in the living room, so I bounced around a little bit between the couch and snacking in the kitchen. Once Autumn came home, I disappeared into the bedroom until she went away to her room. Then it was a race to get to bed for an early day at work. I’m not afraid of ten hour days, but I hate starting so early.

I’m not even sure what I want any more.