Tag: work

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Not Much for Surprises

I had to go to Oakland a couple times this morning, but the work orders were easy fixes. I don’t think anyone else was super motivated around the office, but I kept fairly busy until lunch time. We went to Taco John’s as usual, and I ran into the Cochrans on their way out. We chatted for a little bit in the entryway about their retirement and my bikes. When everyone else showed up and we sat down to eat, Ben showed up. Evidently he had been around town meeting with some schools, and arranged to meet us for lunch.

I took the afternoon off and went by Superfast to check on Summer. She had a bit of work to do before her MRI, so I went home and waited for her to pick me up. As soon as she got there, we went to Saint Mary’s and filled out paperwork. We had to wait a little bit, but then she went to the back for the MRI while I waited in the lobby. The girls had dentist appointments after that, so we surprised them by showing up to pay their copays. Autumn was in a mood, and Eaddie just rolled her eyes about it. On the way out, Summer got a call about her MRI, which reportedly showed something odd about her frontal lobe. She spent the rest of the day Googling that, which would have been more upsetting if I hadn’t been present when her nurse did almost exactly the same thing.

We went to their house for a minute, but then left the girls to go back to their after-school activities. Then Summer and I headed to Conway for her work meeting. She couldn’t decide where to eat, so I tried the old trick where I told her I had the perfect place that she loved, but made her guess where we were going. She got super excited when she guessed Shark’s Fish and Chicken, but afterward changed her mind to Mexican. She really liked a place right off the highway called Los 3 Potrillos, so we went there. I’m not sure what made my parrillada so expensive, but all of the food was pretty good. The tortillas were so fresh that our server literally had to go make them for us after he brought out our food.

After we ate, we went to the shop and Summer got settled in. I waited around until I could show her how to make a Google Form for a sign-in sheet for the training she was giving. Then I went across town to Target to try and find a deal on some Google Nest mesh routers. They had one in stock that was marked at regular price, but they rang up for $80. I wished they had more than one, but I was happy with my find.

I made a quick run through the rest of the store, but nothing really jumped out at me. On the way out, I texted Ben to see what he was doing. He invited me over to his place, which was way out on the west end of town. It took me forever to get out there, and the neighborhood was a lot more tightly packed than I expected, but it was a nice place. The kids all came out to show out for company, and we eventually made it upstairs so he could show me his urinal and the bar, complete with a soda gun. He wanted to get rid of it, and offered it to me for half of what he might be able to get online. Prices seem to vary pretty wildly, but I figure I’ll probably end up with it eventually.

I left after a little while, knowing that it would take me a bit to get back to the shop. I arrived just as Summer was finishing up, so it was great timing. I was really glad I didn’t wait for her to text. We made it home without any fuss, and then everyone was off to bed.

Life’s less disappointing if you always assume the worst, but then again I am the positive one of the bunch.

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Choice

The Montego didn’t appreciate being started this morning, and the idle bounced around for a bit until I got a “failsafe engine mode” message. I shut it off, gave it a moment, and then started it right back up again without any trouble. I asked Summer if she’d ever encountered that before, and she said sometimes it just happens.

Death trap.

I made it home, but took the Shadow to work again on account of the weather. It was a bit on the cool side, but it didn’t take me long to work up a sweat. I had to walk to the Support Services building a couple times to pick up some old junk, and though the humidity wasn’t reported to be very high, and it wasn’t terribly hot outside, I couldn’t stop sweating.

I had to stop by Transportation for a moment after that, and then I spent the rest of the morning working on things in my office. Lunch time came quickly, and a group of us went to Slim Chickens. Greg had his daughter with him for an appointment in the afternoon, and she was shy at first, but by lunch time she was bouncing all over the place. I had a BOGO deal of questionable value, and took the leftovers back to the shop fridge.

The afternoon was quiet, but I kept pretty busy. I ended the day upstairs with a few new work orders, and then came back to the shop to close up. I had to shoo Tammy out, otherwise she would have kept working late. Autumn had called to ask me to pick up Eaddie because they had a disagreement about who had to do what. Autumn wanted to go mow the lawn at her grandparents’ house, but Eaddie had to finish an assignment for band before she left school. Autumn did a good job of making it sound like Eaddie was the asshole, but of course Eaddie ultimately had other details.

I took my time getting home, wanting to make Eaddie sweat it out a bit since she didn’t pre-arrange for me to pick her up. I stopped for gas at Casey’s, but then changed my mind and went to Shell instead. When I got home, I called Eaddie back and went to pick her up. We stopped back by my house to get some air in the damaged back tire, and then went to Lowe’s to drop off some recycling. As I was walking back to the car, I passed an old guy that had been staring at a riding lawn mower parked behind his trailer since before we pulled in. I stopped to offer a hand, and managed to push it up onto the trailer by myself. He didn’t really have proper straps to tie it down, but I did my best and left the rest to hopes and dreams.

Autumn beat us home with some stuff to bake cookies, but then went out to mow the rest of the back yard. I started grilling some burgers for the girls a little before Summer got home, and then we all ate a mix of a bunch of leftovers. I was astounded by how well the old lettuce and tomato had kept from the last time we grilled burgers, but it all turned out pretty good. I had a slight overflow issue with the deep fryer, but that cleaned up alright.

After we ate, we sat the girls down to talk about how both of them were both right and wrong, and pleaded with them to work on their communication with one another. Then everyone went to bed while I waited up to finish Autumn’s laundry. When I put Summer to bed, she said John invited her to Thanksgiving, but evidently I had done something last year that offended him enough that I wasn’t allowed.

I’m never particularly afraid to offend anyone, but I certainly never go anywhere with that intent. I know I can get into belligerent moods where I say things off the cuff, and then dig in even if things go awry. I don’t think it was really fair to Summer to put her in that predicament, but I’m glad for her that someone chose to be her friend. We both know a lot of people, but I don’t think either of us really have that many that we can call “friends.” I always think that I do, but then when it comes down to it, it’s really just whoever I’m working with most frequently at the time. I try not to feel too sorry for myself because I believe that to be common among humanity. They always joked that if Summer and I broke up, they would keep her over me. I’ll have to apologize, because I never meant to put anyone in a situation that might make them feel the way that any of us feel now. It’s just a sucky situation because of the way that I chose to be.

It always plays better in my head.

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Earlier

I had a couple glasses of Allen’s old homemade wine last night, and it was so strong that I woke up drunk. The room spun all night, but I slept alright. I had no intention of going out that hard. I managed to get out of bed and ready for work, and even made it in a few minutes early against all odds. We had a fairly long meeting that set the tone for the day. Most of the district was out, and Zach took a sick day to be with his family. Gary and I stuck around the office, but everyone else went to do a few projects.

Nobody made it back for lunch, so Gary and I walked next door to the new Wildflower Cafe. That place was packed with a bunch of old church ladies, and I have no idea how they could possibly have read the menu on the wall. It was so small that I could barely read it even when we got to the counter. I ordered a Mediterranean Turkey Wrap, which turned out to be a fistful of lunch meat, odd olives, hummus, and something with basil. I also chose the tomato basil soup as my side, which I learned after the fact cost me an extra buck, bringing my total to over $16. Brody, Josh, and Kyle showed up after us, so we moved tables to seat everyone. The food was surprisingly slow to come out considering it was mostly cold dishes served on Chinet. They have “meal prep” dishes as well, which Brody ordered and then asked to have microwaved so he could try it there. Overall it was way too much money, way too churchy, and generally just not worth the time for me. Maintenance and custodial were grilling burgers for their people back at the shop, and I found myself wishing they had some leftovers by the time we got back.

After lunch, we made it back to the shop and hung out around the table for a while. Then Gary suggested that we should draw numbers, and Brody and I got the first two rounds to go home early. It was still cloudy and cool out, so I thought about riding my bike around, but then went straight home instead. Eaddie was cleaning at home and didn’t want to go ride the Grom. Autumn was out of town for Quiz Bowl, so Eaddie asked me to take her to the football game.

I spent some time inside, since I still didn’t feel great from the morning. Then I got around to cleaning up the garage a bit until it was time to get Eaddie. Summer got home shortly after I dropped her off, and we went to Taco Villa for a dinner to share before making it to the high school to watch the halftime show. As soon as that was done, we took the Shadow back home and then went to their house for the evening. I was tired and started to doze a bit, but then Summer went to bed and I stayed up until the girls got home from the game.

Three miles per hour isn’t going to cut it, long-term.

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Right ’round

It was a Grom day, and I kept joking that Greg would have to ride on it with me to the Little Rock conference. I didn’t feel particularly accomplished, but I did stay relatively busy. There weren’t a whole lot of people around the shop today, so I got into what I could. It occurred to me that nobody really understood the rules of the CPPC, so I spent some time trying to resolve that before lunch.

The afternoon was uneventful. We went to La Huerta, where our waitress convinced me to try a “new” dish with chicken, mushrooms, and corn. It was good, but a lot of food. The tortillas were awesome and fresh, though.

The afternoon was quiet, and I spent a little time upstairs before quitting time. Then I went home and waited for Summer to get back to town from work so we could go to parent-teacher conferences. That in itself wasn’t too bad. I think the anticipation was worse than actually standing face-o-face. We weren’t at the high school for more than just a few minutes, and I spotted Sarah from across the cafeteria. I held it together well enough to get by, and after I encountered her right behind us in line for a teacher, I never saw her again for the rest of the time that we were there.

The conferences went well, but I wished we had the time to talk with all of Eaddie’s teachers. Autumn’s all had mostly the same thing to say, so hopefully she can get back on track. When we finished, Summer and I actually went to the arts center to see the army recruiter. He didn’t have much of use to say, and it was pretty obvious that Autumn was showing out for attention.

When we finished, I just went straight home and did what I could to wrap up the evening. I had a few drinks and watched a couple episodes of She-Hulk. Then it was off to bed.

That hit a lot harder than I expected.

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Con Man

I sent Thomas a screenshot of the Arkansas Conference of Technology pre-conference schedule this morning with the Michael Myers Network+ boot camp circled by a big, red heart, and Greg’s and my name at the top and bottom. Apparently that got the conversation started, and after lunch, Gary had us register ourselves to go. Otherwise it was a really slow, really uneventful day. I finally closed out a single work order from the start of the year, because a Chrome extension was causing Google Docs to print an extra, blank page.

Gary, Zach, and I met Brody at Wendy’s for lunch in the middle of all that, and then Anthony and Tyler sat with us when they came in later. The afternoon was even quieter, and Zach came in to kill some time with me again. After work, I went home for a little while and waited for Summer to get home and finish up at the gym. Ben called, and we chatted at length about the conference, work, and more.

When Summer finished her workout, she picked up some Little Caesar’s and I met her at Shell to use my 30 cents per gallon discount. Unfortunately their system was down, so I didn’t even get my usual 5 cent discount. I put in five bucks to get by, and then we headed up to her house where the girls were waiting for dinner.

We all ate standing up in the kitchen, and then Eaddie brought an essay to the table and wrote it next to me while I tried to complete a challenge in Into the Breach. Hopefully her paper will do better than I did, because I failed, again. Summer made it to bed late, so I didn’t realize what time it had gotten to be. My cough came back pretty hard, so I went to bed miserably, hoping to get some sleep.

What am I even coughing up any more?

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Long Days

I took the Shadow in today, and it felt much cooler than yesterday. I really need to get some service scheduled for at least two of the bikes. I spent most of the day helping Jacob with some imaging issues. I felt like I never really got to concentrate on any one thing, and just jumped around all day.

Taco Tuesday was a light meal, and I got most everyone’s receipts, so I need to start eating there on other days to redeem my points. It’s been especially lucrative lately because I’ve been earning double points for some promotion.

The afternoon seemed to drag on forever. Zach even came into my office to try and kill about an hour. It looked like the others got some walkout time, but I left pretty close to quitting time after chatting with Tammy on the way out. I rode home and cleaned up a little bit before going to my parents’ house to help finish up the shrimp noodle soup.

When I got back home, I watched an episode of She-Hulk while I did a load of laundry. Then I struggled with some phlegm and generally feeling pretty wired when it was time to go to bed.

Points, please!

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Lawyer Show!

I took the R1 today, and made it to work pretty early. There wasn’t a whole lot going on that early, but I had stuff to pick at. Summer made an appointment to see a nurse about her headaches and numbness in her left side, and wanted me to go along with her. She picked me up from work a little before lunch time, and we went to the Millard-Henry Clinic. I was surprised by how quickly we got in, but unimpressed by our visit. Her nurse seemed to just be reading things off of UpToDate, which kind of sounded like WebMD behind a paywall. She asked a few questions, but it really seemed like she was taking a guided program to diagnose the issue.

In the end, we got some prescriptions called in, but then didn’t actually receive the new ones when we stopped by Rose Drug as we left. Summer decided she would just go back later, and instead we went to Stoby’s for lunch. A couple guys came in after us and seemed a bit rude in the way they spoke to our server. They were definitely not there to chit-chat, and ignored common courtesy to start immediately in on their orders. Summer and I finished up pretty quickly, and then went by her house to get her laptop. She decided she wanted to spend the day with me in my office, working from my couch.

I had to go to Oakland for a few things, but finished them up relatively quickly. Then I came back to the shop for a bit before having to wrap things up and go to the high school for our CPPC training. Summer took off and I ran upstairs to deliver some laptops, and then it was off to the new board room at the high school. I arrived early enough to avoid the traffic, and passed a bunch of administrators as they were leaving their own meeting. As I walked in, Ginni immediately called me out with a big smile and asked rhetorically if I was Autumn’s dad. I quipped back that it was only voluntary, and we went back and forth for a moment before I found a seat.

The training was short, and I think the administrators learned more than I did. The lawyer basically reiterated a bunch of the points I made last year, so at least now they’ll be less likely to break the law. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, but I still think we ultimately just need a committee of more rounded, learned individuals.

I rode back to the shop to finish out the day, but didn’t get into anything else. I made it home a little late and waited for Summer and Eaddie to come over. Then we went to my parents’ house for shrimp noodle soup. Autumn decided to go to the kid’s funeral with some of her friends, which annoyed Summer after Autumn went back and forth on how much any of that affected her. The soup was great, and then Dad made a pear cake that we thought was awesome.

The girls dropped me off back at home for the night since it was so late, and I didn’t want to have to get gas just to make it up to their house. My house was hot, which gave me a bit of a headache, so I didn’t get up to anything. Instead, I watched one more episode of She-Hulk and then went to bed.

Breaking all the walls.

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Now That’s Chocolate Gravy!

The middle school sent us sausage, biscuits, and gravy this morning. It was a good thing that only like half of us were there though, because there wouldn’t have been enough for everyone to eat as much as some of the guys did. Since there were so few of us, Zach made the comment that he would just eat the leftovers for lunch to save some money.

We had a really long meeting, and nobody was in the mood to get up to a whole lot today. Evidently one of the seniors committed suicide last night, but I only really heard anything about it third-hand. I got around to the Transportation office to check out a phone, but mostly stuck around the office. Everyone ended up coming back to the shop to eat leftovers for lunch, but there weren’t enough biscuits or sausage to go around. I finished up the sausage with some gravy and a couple chocolate donuts. It warmed up surprisingly nicely, since the donuts basically acted like fried biscuits. The chocolate just added a little bit of sweetness to the spicy sausage and gravy. Greg was working on a MacBook while everyone else ate though, and ended up having to pick up something for lunch.

I went to Oakland for a bit of the afternoon, and rerouted some cable for a phone line. Fortunately Paul was around to drill some holes for me, so all I have to do is go back on Monday to re-terminate the cable and plug it back into the phone. Then I finished up the afternoon at the shop, hoping in vein to be released a little early.

I went home for a little bit and messed with the rotisserie set I got for my new grill. It was definitely missing the specific parts that I needed, though it had the roasting spits for both the larger and smaller versions of the grill. I sent a message to Masterbuilt, so we’ll see what they say. Summer said she was bringing me something special for dinner, so I eventually headed up to her house as she got back into town. On the way, there was a pretty big wreck on the north side of the bridge, so there were a ton of cops there to direct traffic. The westbound offramp was backed up onto the interstate, but luckily Summer was able to make it through town to get home.

She brought me some Long John Silver’s that ended up being pretty poor in quality, though it still brought back the oily flavor that made me nostalgic. She got some Popeye’s for herself, but they accidentally made the order twice and let her have both. After we ate, she really wanted to watch Something’s Gotta Give. It seemed like a love story for old people, so I wasn’t super entertained by it. Then she went to bed and I waited up for the kids to get back from a travel football game super late.

Experience America!

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We Don’t Care About the Kids

I was already on my way in to the office before I decided to divert off to Oakland to tell Mollie happy birthday. Things have quieted down a lot since the start of school, which honestly seems kind of early. I didn’t stay long since I didn’t have any work there, but more came in later.

It was quiet in the office, but Tammy asked me to watch the phones while she and Thomas had a little training meeting. It wasn’t much later that I got a call from Cheslea, Danielle, and Elizabeth, freaking out about some Chromebooks that weren’t working for the testing they were trying to administer. I shared a brilliant plan to just borrow some from the library, and I never heard from them again.

Lunch time came up super fast, and we actually left late. I rode alone since I had to go to the high school afterward. Melissa was ahead of me at Quiznos, so I talked to her for a second before ordering. Gary, Zach, and Thomas showed up right behind me and we ate, and then I left early to make it to the high school.

Autumn invited me to come talk to her education technology class, so I came in early to talk to Matt a bit before the kids came in. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, and evidently he really wasn’t either. It was a good conversation with everyone though, and I had some fun. I think I probably came off a bit more like a rant than I really wanted, but I also wasn’t surprised. I was a little surprised by how many questions there were about my job specifically though, since the class seems to be more focused around how to use technology as a teacher.

I saw Eaddie in the hall on my way out, and she had me stop to say hello to her friend. Then I went to Oakland to take care of the few things that had popped up since the morning. There, I got to chat with Danielle and Elizabeth for a bit as they were finishing up their day. Then it was back to the shop to ride out the remainder of the afternoon.

After work, I went to Walgreens to pick up some contact solution that I ordered online at a discount. Then I stopped by to chat with Grant and a prospective new employee named Kyler. I didn’t stick around too long, but Grant gave me the remnants of some other brand of rub to try. Then I went by to see Dad for just a moment before I learned that the girls were about done with school and wanted food.

I ran home to change, and then met the girls at CiCi’s for dinner. They had been bickering a bit before I got there, but had settled down by then. We ate, and then Eaddie just kept wanting to lay down on the table, so I let Autumn take them on home while I finished up. It was quiet when I got to the house, and we waited for Summer to get home late. Autumn came out first and wanted to “tell her side of the story,” but then got upset when we called her out for exactly the same thing we always have to point out to her. Then after she went to bed, Eaddie came out and vented to us about exactly the same things we’ve had to deal with for years. And with that, everyone was off to bed.

Dry and loose!

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Breadcrumbs

I took the Grom in today to complete the set. It wasn’t quite as chilly first thing this morning, but it was still nice all day long. It’s too bad I don’t feel like I’m getting to enjoy the weather at all. I went to Oakland first so I could complete a couple things. Then I went on in to the shop where I spent most of the day digging through scripts and following the flow of information to find where things were breaking.

It really was super uneventful aside from leaving the office to install some software for some folks at Support Services. When I got back to the shop, Thomas took Zach, Gary, and me to Morelos for lunch. It was really good, and I’m still confused as to why Greg hates that place so much. We used to go all the time.

The afternoon dragged on forever, and was just more of the same. When I left, I went home to change and then stopped by Walmart to pick up some “fresh” parmesan for Summer’s meal. She was home making some bowtie pasta with chicken, cheese, and spinach. It was awesome, and everyone but Autumn really loved it. If only we could have nuggetized it somehow.

Eaddie was really talkative for most of the night, but after dinner everyone was pretty quick to go to their rooms. I tried not to stay up too late since my cough has been wearing me out at night.

Loads better than cooking it in a cheese wheel.