Tag: work

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Back 22 School

I took the Shadow to Oakland first thing this morning, and I was shocked at how little traffic there was. I squeezed in right at eight without any trouble, waving at staff that was spread out across the parking lot to help guide new parents. I had a few work orders to complete, but I did a fair amount of work from my laptop. I did have to go to a couple rooms, but for the most part it seemed like they were on autopilot. For all the grief I’ve had every year having to hook things back up after the custodians unhooked everything, this year went surprisingly smoothly. Paul brought a huge tub of cookies for everyone, which I think tickled all of the ladies in the office to have a maintenance guy who actually does work and then goes home and bakes.

I made it back to the shop before lunch, and it was pretty quiet downstairs. I picked at a couple things there until Zach took Gary, Greg, and me to La Chiquita for lunch. The food was good, but our server was pretty slow. When we finally made it back to the shop, I had some of the birthday cake that Tammy brought for Kelsea. As I sat in my office, more and more things came through to distract me, so I didn’t really accomplish the one task that Gary gave to me.

After work, I was surprised again at the lack of traffic and how easy it was to get across town. I stopped by Walgreens to pick up a photo print, and then crossed the street to pay for the brakes I got a couple weeks ago. From there, I went home and started some laundry that kept me busy all night.

Summer worked from open to close in Conway and got home pretty late. She took the Murano, so I met her at Casey’s to fill up both of our cars with a discount from the Upside app. For some reason, it took the pump FOREVER to fill up her car after mine. I don’t know why it slowed down, but it slowly ticked by in hundredths of a gallon. I couldn’t believe how long it took. I had to go back home to finish my laundry after that, and then it was off to bed.

HEY! Teachers! Leave those kids alone!

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Gotta Catch ‘Em All

I took the Shadow to work for our second and final day of Capturing Kids’ Hearts, along with my tiny butterfly knife and the Disney “cow” shirt that Julie made for me, just to continue to throw everyone off. It seemed like a lower-energy day, but there were still some activities. Unfortunately they were even less fun for me than the ones we did yesterday.

When we finally took a break for lunch, Michael was hanging out talking to someone, so I offered to share a Subway BOGO deal with him. He drove us to pick it up, where I ran into my old coworker, Tracy. I was a little surprised she remembered me, because honestly I only barely remembered her. I knew that I knew her, but I couldn’t remember from where. Michael and I took the sandwiches back and ate in his classroom while pondering simulation theory until it was time to get back to class.

The afternoon was actually when we did most of the activities, but it still dragged on a bit. I got a little more vocal, and probably a little more difficult for our trainer, but hopefully not too annoyingly so. We finished up, took a group photo, and then I helped tear everything down before heading home.

Eaddie had a parent night at band, where she wanted to teach me how to march. I took the R1 out to that, and had a bit of fun with my kazoo. She ended up stealing it, but wouldn’t play it after we finished the teach-your-parent portion and the kids played their mini-concert preview. When we finished, I went back home for a little while before heading up to their house. Autumn wanted to spend the night with her friend, Maddie, but I had to contact Summer through Melissa while they were at Travis’s for a girls’ night.

I was hungry and stopped at Taco Bell on the way to Summer’s, and had one of the quickest, yet most interesting drive-through interactions ever. I wish I could have filled out a survey, because it really was a great experience. I couldn’t quite tell if it was a very small guy or a girl because of some ambiguous hair choices, but I’m pretty sure it was a girl. She popped out the window with a shaka, and just had a highly animated customer service voice that made the whole moment feel awesome.

Eaddie was in her room coloring all night, so I waited up for Summer to get home and then it was off to bed.

I can’t wait to implement a social contract so I can start fouling some motherfuckers.

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Decoy Day

I was surprised I made it to work in such good form this morning after having so much trouble going to sleep last night. I would expect to be exhausted after such a long drive home, but I seem to always have trouble falling asleep after that. Today was our first day of training with Capturing Kids’ Hearts, and without going into too much detail, it went exactly as I expected it would. It seems we paid half a million for two days of teambuilding exercises sporadically placed between lectures about child psychology. I was surprised that so many people thought it went better than they expected. Evidently the usual teacher professional development is absolutely hot garbage, and this was new and refreshing.

We took an hour for lunch and were told to “leave no teacher behind,” and immediately my entire table disappeared without a word. I ended up going to McDonald’s on my own, and had a pretty terrible experience, along with everyone else that was there. I saw so many orders go back up to the counter in such a short amount of time. My burger was made incorrectly, and tasted terrible to boot. It was as though they placed the meat patty on a mound of salt to cook.

In the afternoon, we finally got to our “sentimental item” sharing activity. I had brought the giant stuffed cow/body pillow thing that Summer got me when we first started dating, but also my BaliYo butterfly/balisong pen. I decided at the last minute to switch it up and tell a story about the pen instead of the obvious, giant cow. It barely got a giggle, and nearly every other person in our enormous circle of staff had stories that made them sob.

We wrapped up “early,” but I was absolutely positive that the dismissal time was planned. I went home for a little bit to change, and then met the girls at The Center for Eaddie’s sophomore orientation night. The girls immediately left us, so it ended up being Summer and me by ourselves in the middle of the crowd. Feeling pointless, on top of some creeping anxiety, meant that I made it through the commons to the library before having to duck out.

I went home to wait for the girls, and then got a text from Dad that Mom was feeling chilled with a fever. I ran an expired at-home COVID test to them, and then stopped by to see Grant for a couple minutes as I waited for the girls. Once they were done, I met them at La Huerta for dinner, and then went home with them.

Summer went straight to bed, so I played Aperture Desk Job to completion on my Steam Deck, which took it down to about 49% battery. Then it was off to bed.

What a colossal waste of time for so many people that are already so far behind.

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The Pretty Tired

Today was basically our last day before school, because the next two full days will be completely burned by some unnecessary training for us. I did hear one person at least report some positive secondhand feedback, but since we don’t really ever interact with the students, our time would be better spent finishing up projects. Nobody seems ready this year, and it’s worse than ever before.

I spent all morning at Oakland, just running around like crazy trying to close as many work orders as I could. I made really good progress, so I felt okay taking a half day off. It had rained a bit though, so I worked up a good sweat.

I ran home to quickly clean up, then grabbed some McDonald’s for a quick lunch before picking up Eaddie. She wanted to stop by the business expo to see Summer, so we did that before heading out of town. Then once we hit the interstate, I gave a call to the friend of the ex of the girlfriend that was in search of some technology help.

We had to stop in Fayetteville for some fuel, and then found a nearby pizza joint called Geraldi’s for some dinner before the show. The reviews didn’t lie, though we were a bit surprised to be one of only two tables there. It was a bit early for dinner though. We were able to finish up and make it to Rogers with plenty of time.

I was surprised again at how little traffic there was, and even more surprised by how many open seats there were. We grabbed a couple shirts and then found a place to sit on the lawn near our previous spot. Lilith Czar was interesting, but I think The Warning was actually my favorite until Halestorm came out. The Pretty Reckless seemed very exhausted, being near the end of the tour. Taylor seemed like she could just barely sing at all. Lzzy and her gang put on an absolutely incredible show though, and we really enjoyed it. Eaddie really liked seeing the difference in the crowd compared to her pop concerts.

Getting back out was a breeze again, and my only regret was not picking up a Halestorm shirt as well, but I just didn’t love any of them a whole lot.

I miss the bad things!

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All Hands on Deck

It started out kind of quiet today, so I spent most of it working on an Autodesk deployment. It’s a new teacher this year, so hopefully she reads her part and registers the students for their licenses. Eventually I started getting pulled in several different directions, but it wasn’t too bad.

Gary came back and said they wanted to go to lunch a little early, and Zach took us to BFD. Brody met us there a little bit late, which just extended our lunch. I thought I was getting the lunch fajitas, but ended up paying like $5 more somehow. I just haven’t been super impressed with that place in a while, but at least the food was fairly good today.

A little later in the afternoon, my Steam Deck was finally delivered, so I brought it to the shop and showed the guys before throwing it on the charger for the rest of the day. After work, I started loading games on it and was going to show them, but it wound down to Zach, Thomas, and me, and then Thomas politely asked me to leave, presumably because I wasn’t quite in an inner-enough circle to hear whatever he had to say.

Autumn had her karate test in the evening, but Eaddie wouldn’t get out of band until after it started. I picked her up, and we met Summer and my dad there, and she was already just barely doing any of the exercises. I know that it’s physically demanding, and that it’s hard, and that I couldn’t do any better, but it’s frustrating that she’s been treating it like she’s going to just magically get so much more respect from the others in the classes for being a higher belt, when she couldn’t even begin to keep up with the juniors. It’s obvious she doesn’t work for it, and every other lifestyle choice she makes is contrary to whatever she says about karate in the moment. I want her to do well, and I want her to work hard, but I don’t trust that she’s not doing the bare minimum and then talking big just to keep up appearances. We could have been watching OneRepublic and NEEDTOBREATHE.

After that was all finally over, I went home and cleaned up for bed as quickly as I could. Tomorrow night will be a long night, and I aim to stay awake for the drive home.

Just another way to collect unplayed games.

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International Cat Day

I had so much trouble getting to sleep last night, and then tossed and turned until I woke up before my alarm. Somehow I wasn’t completely worthless for the morning, and finally made it to Oakland to close out some work orders. I actually made it back to the shop a bit before lunch, and then started to leave with Gary before Zach and Thomas ran out to meet us at the car.

We went to Wendy’s, and Zach’s Baconator was delivered as a regular Dave’s Single, which was really sad next to my actual Baconator. At least my food was good. It was a quick lunch, and then back to the shop where I spent the afternoon working on some software deployments. At one point, Zach helped me bring a TV back to the shop, and I finally got my Pixel Buds Pro a week late. They were surprisingly uncomfortable in comparison to my other pair. About halfway through the afternoon, I started to have some anxiety or panic feelings about the cats that the girls dumped yesterday.

I went straight to my parents’ house after work and had some fish soup. Then my sinuses started acting up, so I didn’t stick around long. Eaddie asked for a ride just as I was getting home, so I picked her up from band at the high school and took her home. Autumn arrived after her color guard, and eventually Summer made it home from work really late. She had me call Nick to try and help one of his friends with what she thought were IT issues, but I think were actually just complaints about her ecommerce site.

I ended the night picking up a couple of tickets to see Halestorm, The Pretty Reckless, The Warning, and Lilith Czar on Wednesday. Summer decided she didn’t want to go, but Eaddie did, so that’ll be fun to hang out with her.

Ironic, innit?

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Hanky Panky

I was sent on a surprise quest upstairs today to finish up what Greg had started yesterday. I didn’t get anywhere close to finishing, because most of the desktops were missing USB drivers and were therefore unusable until I remoted into each one to install them. Messing with that got me to lunch, and six of us met up at Brangus, where Thomas was already having lunch with a couple of his boys. He ended up paying for all of ours except Brody, who showed up late and had to order as we were getting our food.

I got caught up in the afternoon fighting SCCM and imaging a couple old Lenovo student laptops for Zach, for Gary. I got one of them to work finally, but I’ll need to go back and modify a script that isn’t naming them correctly.

As soon as I left work, I went home to change so I could run to Conway and pick up Summer. She had tickets to see Hank Williams Jr. with Ashlen in Little Rock, but Ashlen wouldn’t be passing through for them to ride together. She didn’t want to eat either, which was fine on account of how much I had for lunch. I picked her up at the Conway Splash and then dropped her off at the arena.

For nearly six hours, I wandered around Little Rock. My first stop was Walmart on McCain. I actually found one of the grills I had been looking for, but wasn’t sure it would even fit in the car. I think I’d really rather get the larger one anyway. I killed quite a bit of time wandering through the whole store until I decided to get some food.

It took me a while to decide where to eat, but I ultimately landed on Rally’s, which was right in the same lot. When I walked up to the window, an old guy seemed to be having trouble communicating his burger customizations to the employee. Then she stuck her head out the window and started dropping F-bombs and telling the guy he didn’t have to talk to her like she was stupid. I definitely did not witness the same interaction that she did, and I probably should have turned around and left then. She continued to be loud and crude the entire time I was there, but astoundingly the food was actually pretty good.

After I ate, I went across the street to Home Depot to kill some more time. There, I actually found an assembled version of the larger grill, which looked pretty awesome. It would be great for the amount of food we normally end up grilling, and I’d love to be able to use it for smoking. I nearly closed that place down, but decided to move on to a McDonald’s that showed to be open until 10.

When I got to McDonald’s, the sign confirmed the hours posted on Google Maps, but the door was locked. I didn’t bother to ring the doorbell, but another girl came up after me and actually rang it. A guy appeared from around the corner and made a big C with his hand through the window. The girl seemed a bit confused, and the guy ultimately let her in so her baby girl could use the restroom.

Just about then, Blake texted and said he was done with his date and invited me over to his place. He was about four miles on the other side of the arena, so I met up with him at the apartments. We visited with rapid-fire questions back and forth until Summer texted that she was walking out of the concert.

I drove back to the arena, but my instructions weren’t clear enough and I still got stuck in traffic. It wasn’t too incredibly bad, but the construction on the interstate made things much worse. We made it back to Conway for her car, and then on home as quickly as we could. The girls were already asleep, and we weren’t far behind.

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Pressing

In contrast to yesterday, I had much more trouble waking up this morning. I made it in to work, and the day went by fine, but I felt like I had to wake from really great sleep to get there. I ended up sticking around the shop all day again while others were out doing less desirable things. I didn’t have a whole lot to accomplish, but I kept getting pulled in other directions.

When lunch time came around, I convinced Zach to take Gary and me to McDonald’s where I went for something new in the way of their Quarter Pounder® with Cheese Deluxe. I was a little disappointed with the looks of it, but the taste was super unexpected. Even the tomato slices were fresh and delicious. It tasted so fresh and tasty that I could have easily eaten another one.

The afternoon was pretty quiet because everyone vanished. Thomas came through and asked me to keep an eye on the shop as he left again. I answered one unnecessary phone call, but otherwise it was super chill until I left.

The girls didn’t have anything going on, so I just went home and tinkered for a bit. Then I went to Julie’s to have her re-press the vinyl that had started to lift on one of the Disney shirts she made for me. We chatted for a little while, and then I went home to do some laundry until bedtime.

Absolutely ruining my chill.

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Three for Me

Even after such a long day and getting to bed late, I still had trouble falling and staying asleep. I got about three hours all night, but fortunately the morning wasn’t too bad after a cup of coffee. I didn’t really accomplish a terrible lot, but kept leisurely busy. When lunch time rolled around, Zach wanted Chinese. For some reason, we always try to go to Mulan’s on Wednesday when they’re closed, so we hit the interstate to get to New China. While he, Thomas, and I were eating, Autumn called and then came by to get her wallet out of my car. She asked for some gas money, but I told her a quarter tank would get her anywhere she needed to go.

When we got back, I went to the core closet to relieve Gary to go to lunch while I babysat a seemingly unconfident tech from Ritter. We’ve had such incredibly bad luck getting our new fiber connections up, and it’s not making me feel really great about them giving Suddenlink much competition.

After that, I went by the middle school to try and find Josh, but only found Annie shuffling laptops around in the library. We chatted for a bit, and then I headed back to my office. Not long after I got there, Greg asked for some help imaging a random bunch of lab desktops and laptops in the Adult Education area, and that finished up the day.

Eaddie had tennis early, so I ran home to change before picking her up and taking her home. Then we waited for Summer to get home from work, followed by Autumn from therapy and karate. Summer did some stuff for work while I ate a few gas station leftovers, and then everyone was pretty much off to bed.

Lou who?

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Gotta Live It Big Time

I had a couple projects I had to work on in my office today, so I didn’t get out at all. I was a little worried about getting devices into Destiny for the middle school, but I worked it out. I felt pretty accomplished with everything I got done. A big group of us went to Taco John’s for Taco Tuesday, and then I wrapped everything up in the afternoon.

When I left work, I ran home to change, got gas, and then picked the girls up to head toward Rogers for the Big Time Rush concert. We stopped at the truck stop in Ozark to have dinner in their little deli, and then we made the rest of the trip as quickly as we could. Traffic wasn’t nearly as bad getting in or out as I expected, especially with how packed the place seemed.

The girls absolutely loved the concert, and I think Summer danced more than either of the other two. I was given camera duty “because I have the zoom,” so I got a bunch of video. Spencer Sutherland opened for the group, and I thought he was pretty good. When Big Time Rush came out on their scaffolding, all I could think about was the knee damage from all the jumping around. The highlight for me was a nearly unused men’s restroom.

We split as soon as the encore was over, and though we missed out on some last minute screaming that may have been solely from the guys removing their shirts, we got to the car and out of the parking garage with relative ease. Then we hopped on the interstate and we were on a mostly-empty road home. I was absolutely astounded that we got out of there that quickly. The girls all crashed as soon as we got in, so I finished up my chores and went to sleep as quickly as I could.

Worldwide? Worldwide.