Tag: work

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Little Time

Summer dropped Eaddie off at my house this morning so she could ride her bike during the day. Work was a bit different today, and it was nice moving around instead of sitting in my office all day. We started off finishing the quote for Thomas, and then I spent a little time with Jacob. He was trying to figure out how to transfer YouTube videos to another user, so when Terra retires, her math videos won’t be lost forever.

Evidently Jacob hasn’t had much to do this week, so he spent a lot of time in the shop cleaning up. Then I took him to Oakland in case I needed a hand carrying out some “technology.” It ended up being a single plastic case with a few old headphones in it, so that was easy. We still had some time before lunch, so I took him to the back of the building to try and fix or replace a video cable in the autism room. I didn’t have what they needed though, so I would have to come back later.

We picked Eaddie up before heading back to the shop, because she wanted to go out to eat lunch with me. I picked up Thomas and Gary, and we met Greg at Arby’s for a quick and easy lunch. Then I dropped everyone off at the shop before taking Eaddie back home and going back to Oakland to finish up by myself with the correct part.

The afternoon was pretty quiet. Josh and Greg came back to the shop, and then Gary joined us for a bit of a chat. At the end of the day, I went with Greg to the press box at the high school football field. He wanted to test a new fiber run, and we were able to see a light, but it didn’t want to transfer any data. That took us a little past quitting time, so we headed straight home.

Eaddie had ridden her bike to her private flute lesson, and I offered to pick her up in the heat. She originally wanted to ride home, but changed her mind and called me while I was on the phone with Summer, who was on her own way back home from work.

I picked Eaddie up at Maristella’s house, and then we went to Rose Drug to pick up Summer’s medication, followed by my parents’ house so I could pick up a couple 15-inch speakers he picked up from an old magic buddy that passed away. Summer had an awards dinner with Autumn, so Eaddie and I had a date night at Stoby’s. I didn’t know what I wanted to eat, so I had the waitress pick. I don’t think I ever, in my entire life, would have ordered the barbecue chicken quesadilla, but it was super good.

After dinner, we went back to my house for a bit, and Eaddie decided she wanted to stay the night with me. We went to Dairy Queen for a couple Blizzards, and then up to their house so she could bathe and get some clothes. Then we came back to my house for the night and I finished up with a load of laundry before bed.

Favorite Time

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Silly Rabbit

We woke up in the middle of the night to some rustling in the bedroom. I assumed it was a cat, and let Summer investigate. It wasn’t until I heard her say that it was the bunny that I got out of bed. I just knew if we didn’t find it, it would die in the house from starvation, but I also wasn’t willing to stay awake tearing the room apart to find it. I told her to wake Autumn, but we went back to sleep instead.

I made it in to work a hair early, but there wasn’t much going on. Kyle came in and wanted to know what to do about the Chromebooks that wouldn’t update, and Brody called with the same question he’s already asked me, along with nearly every other staff member about. Greg was out running fiber all day for the new jumbotron, so it was mostly me with an intermittent Kyle in the shop. It aggravated me a bit the way he seemed to expect me to just figure out the problem and give him a fix, especially when I explained exactly how he could contact Google support himself.

Gary, Thomas, and I met Brody for Taco Tuesday, where he struggled to finish six softshells. He’s always complaining about what he normally orders, but just tacos are so cheap. It’s hard to pass up on a Tuesday. When we got back to the shop, I tried to go upstairs to collect some Chromebooks off the stage, but ended up on a side quest.

I’ve been asking for over two years to get a tire inflator chuck with a built-in pressure gauge for our air tank. I couldn’t get the tires inflated, so I asked Thomas directly if I could go buy one, and he had Tammy give me the credit card so I could go to Leonard’s. That’s the story of how I found the one item in the world that Leonard’s Hardware doesn’t have. They had something similar, but not the gun style with the clip-on valve stem bit. I ended up going to Harbor Freight, where they had just what I needed for a fraction of the cost and quality.

With my tires at an appropriate 30psi, the ride with the three tech tubs full of 15 Chromebooks was super smooth all the way down to the basement. It was quiet for the rest of the afternoon until Thomas came down and asked Gary and me to help with something relatively urgent tomorrow. I left work a few minutes late, expecting to meet Eaddie to ride the Grom, but she was out on her bicycle.

Once Eaddie made it back, we went to the aquatics center where Dad thought some guys would be paramotoring. Summer and Autumn met us out there as well, but after signing into Dad’s Facebook on my phone, we discovered they actually went flying on Monday, so we missed them.

Summer had let Autumn take Eaddie home since she was feeling pretty rough with her head cold. The girls found the bunny before we got home, which was a relief. Then we all ate, except for Autumn, who I have to assume is filling up on junk food at school before she gets home. Then Autumn wanted to play Phase 10 with us while Eaddie watched TV. From there, it was a relatively early night to bed for everyone.

I half expected to come home to a bowl of Trix in the floor as bait.

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Bring Your Career to Work Day

The junior high started laptop pickup today, and Jacob was a bit worried about that process, so I joined him for a couple English periods worth of students. We started lining laptops around the computer lab, in spite of them still having students in there. It went well enough, with the English teachers having the students wipe down their devices and having the laptops powered on for checking their condition.

It was nearly lunch time when I got back to the shop, so I finished loading up a few things for the afternoon, and then Gary, Greg, Thomas, and I went to Brangus. It had been a while since we had this waitress, but she remembered my beef spud. It was a good lunch.

Shortly after we got back from lunch, I headed to Oakland for their career day. I had a little table set up nest to a hair stylist, where I set up a running computer with the cover opened, as well as a couple disassembled Chromebooks. Fourth and third grade was first, and they just came in and mingled, and asked questions. Then they brought all of kindergarten, first, and second grade in to rotate stations as a whole class. That was absolute chaos. Our stations were bunched too closely together, and the kids kept leaning on the table and pushing us back into the wall. Overall it was a good time though.

By the time I got back to the shop, I was too tired to get into anything really serious. I worked on a new Chromebook that wouldn’t install updates, but never made any progress. When I left work, I picked Eaddie up as she and Zane walked back from Casey’s. We went to my house to change, and then had to shop for a couple things for dinner.

We went to Walmart, assuming they would have everything we needed. They didn’t have any cabbage though, so we had to go across town to 10Box. They had a ton of cabbage there, and then it was straight to Summer’s to prep. She had started a corned beef in the slow cooker, but I had to prep and cook the cabbage, carrots, rice, and potatoes.

A couple of the potatoes had rotted out completely, and the bag was full of maggots. Eaddie helped clean up the kitchen while I prepped the cabbage, and once the sinks were clear, I soaked the potatoes, brushed off the maggots and eggs, and then peeled and cut them for boiling. I pulled the corned beef out, and poured that juice over the potatoes and carrots, along with just enough water to cover it all. Boiling that took the longest.

Summer and Autumn showed up just after that had started to cook, and once the potatoes and carrots were tender enough, I threw the cabbage on top to steam. Dinner turned out awesome, which was good because Eaddie wouldn’t quit talking about how excited she was for corned beef. Autumn of course didn’t eat any, and laid on the couch with the cat and bunny all evening. Eaddie was tired, but stayed up to finish some laundry. School is almost out, and I think we’re all excited.

Yes, that’s exactly what I just finished explaining for the third time. This must be what teaching is like!

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Peace and Boring

Summer got up and made French toast and bacon for breakfast. Autumn tried to get out of mowing, as we suspected, due to the dew. As bad parents, we made her mow anyway, and she finished the yard for the day. After a little while, Summer had to drop her off at the high school so she could participate in the graduation ceremony. I went home to clean up and started washing some socks.

While I waited, I found a deal at Lowe’s for a Nest Learning Thermostat just like my old one for $199, which was $50 less than the other colors. I was able to stack a $60 instant rebate from Entergy and a $150 Lowe’s gift card that I bought for $135 worth of Discover cash back, and was only out of pocket $1.51. I ordered it for pickup so I could install it later in the evening.

When Summer finished at the gym, showered, and made it to my house, we loaded up and headed to Conway. She had to work for a few hours in the evening, and I thought I’d just hang out again. I got bored quickly and went to Walmart for a little while. I picked up a few snacks and a package of colored Sharpies that was on clearance. When I got back to Splash, I just sat around for most of the evening. I did get my car washed and detailed, but then I had to help try to jump a customer with a dead battery. That was when we noticed coolant pouring out of the bottom of my radiator.

Summer finished up late, and we tried to go to Marketplace for a quick dinner before heading home. They had a 30 minute wait, so we foolishly tried driving further into town to try Texas Roadhouse. They had people lined up out the door, so I hangrily drove back up the road and ended up taking us to Golden Corral. They’ve always got a table open, and there’s no waiting for anything to be cooked.

After eating way too much, we headed back home, got gas, and then made it to Lowe’s just before they closed to pick up my replacement Nest thermostat. When we got to my house, I was able to install it pretty quickly, and my air conditioner started pumping some nice, cold air. Exhausted from being uncomfortably warm all day, I was ready for bed.

Calorie Bombs

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Cartagain Weather II: The Heat is On

It was hot and humid today. Everything made me sweat. I mostly missed out on our morning meeting, since I was having to investigate untruths from Autumn as she realized she was permanently locked out of her Facebook and personal email accounts, and trying to use school as an excuse to get back into them. We arranged to have her laptop returned, and for a moment thought she had skipped school and taken off in the middle of the day. We were able to track her down to a different room though, and all was fine.

eSCO came by pretty early and picked up a little over 20 old laptop carts, and we helped to haul them out the hard way, because they didn’t feel comfortable backing up to the dock. Then I had to scan a bunch of laptops that were brought back to the shop by another group. All the while, Dad was babysitting my house until someone from Rood finally showed up to look at my air conditioner.

I left for lunch early so I could relieve my dad, and my air unit was fixed with a replacement contactor, which is evidently the name of a legitimate part. Richard, the tech, said I would need a new thermostat though, because my Nest was showing an error every time we hooked it back up, in spite of no detectable wiring issue. On the way back to the shop, I just picked up a surprisingly good Big Dill pickle burger and a Red Bull slush from Sonic.

The afternoon was relatively quiet, but I went back and forth helping here and there with different things. I never got sucked into any real projects, which was a nice break from everything else I had been juggling mentally. At the end of the day, Tammy appeared to be having a hard time up front, so I just awkwardly left to run home and change.

Nick was coming to talk to Autumn and take Eaddie with him for the weekend, so I wanted to be there. I beat them all to the house, and had just enough time to finish up some nacho cheese cups that were leftover in the fridge from various visits to Taco John’s. When the girls got home, Eaddie wanted help with an English project because she had to turn in her library book before she finished the project. Then we coaxed Autumn into mowing. Nick showed up with some leftover barbecue for Summer and me, and then sat down with Autumn so we could all talk.

The conversation went about how it always does, but Nick ended it by actually shaking my hand and doing the half back-pat bro-hug thing. It felt really good to feel like I had some validation from him after all this time. With Eaddie gone, Autumn mowed while Summer and I ate. By the time she came back in, we were all exhausted enough to pass out super early.

Fun isn’t something one considers when blocking the internet, but this does put a smile on my face.

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Red Hands

I finally got a bike out this morning, and rode the Shadow to work. It was an incredibly slow day, and I had to creatively fill my time. Tammy and Kelsea went to the high school to help with laptop pickup, which was an odd choice. I had to make fun of Tammy, because the boss really did send her to the library, which has been one of her greatest fears.

I convinced Zach to take Gary and me to Sam’s for lunch, and I spent and ate way too much. I was disappointed that they weren’t as generous as usual with the servings, especially since I didn’t get out the door under $30. Zach and Gary both mentioned that it was expensive, but I guess I had just forgotten how expensive it really was.

The afternoon was more of the same. I did have to run across town to pick up Summer’s new Invisalign trays from the orthodontist, since she wouldn’t make it back to town in time. At the end of the day, I had to run home to get the Murano so I could take Eaddie home before her band awards. That was about the time that things really went downhill.

We’ve been watching Autumn’s computer usage since our encounter with DHS, and she continued to make really bad choices all afternoon, the day after we had another heart-to-heart with her. Eaddie and I thought we’d try to catch her at Denny’s with some friends while she was supposed to be practicing for color guard after school. We never encountered her, but while we were there, I triggered an email alert that let her know that something wasn’t quite right. Summer met us when she got into town from work and ate a couple pancake puppies until it was time to get Eaddie to the band awards, and then met me at my house to see how badly I had compromised our operation.

Autumn had locked her account down, but I was able to recover it. We made the decision to take ownership of her accounts and lock her out of them, and then also disabled the internet on her school laptop outside of school hours. With the cat irreversibly out of the bag, we went to the Center to watch the tail end of the awards ceremony, and collected the girls to go home. Autumn continued to try and play it off, but we had already made up our minds.

When we got to the house, Eaddie and I went to the other room so Summer could properly search Autumn for her vape. Then we had another long conversation that basically just summed up how disappointed we were in her choices. She didn’t have a whole lot to say as usual, and exhibited the same kind of behavior we see every time, except now we have no way to monitor her response to her friends. The next step will have to be reaching out to them with her, so she can correct her course. This whole thing is eye-rollingly dull at this point, and we just want it to be over. I’m thinking boot camp in a few weeks.

We’re expecting a bit of a headwind for most of our flight, so sit back, try to relax, and we’ll get you to your final destination as quickly as we can.

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Mindcraft

I really wanted to ride again today, but I didn’t since I would be picking Eaddie up after school. It was hot and humid again, for the time of year, and I’m not thrilled about August happening. At this rate, though, I’m not entirely convinced that it will!

I wrapped up my Minecraft deployment this morning, and it looked like it was going to work pretty well. Then I cleaned up some old, stale tickets I had that likely weren’t going to get any response from the clients. I didn’t really get deep into anything else for the rest of the day. Gary, Thomas, and I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, and I had an excellent chicken pot pie.

After lunch, I just happened to stumble upon the Google I/O stream, and spent a good portion of the afternoon catching up on it. After this past year with my Samsung, I think I’m extremely likely to ditch it for a Pixel 7 this fall, along with the new watch and buds. I’m not even really happy with the look of the Pixel Watch, but I figure the best bet is to match my devices.

Near the end of the day, I fought some unscannable barcodes with Gary. Then I picked Eaddie up at Zane’s house and took her straight to her flute lesson. I tried to convince her to get her phone she forgot at the junior high, but she kept refusing. I dropped her off, then went to my parents’ house to see them for the half hour while I waited.

When I got back to pick Eaddie up, Summer and Autumn were there and were clearly having words with feelings in the car. I reminded her that I was taking Eaddie home to get some stuff for her engineering project, so they went home to let Autumn start mowing the lawn.

Eaddie and I went back to my house briefly, but were held up when I realized my air conditioning was out. My Nest thermostat reported high current on one of the wires, and the compressor wasn’t clicking on outside. In my troubleshooting, I flipped a breaker that killed my internet, so then I had to go inside and swap my UPS battery. Hopefully it’ll be good for a while the next time the power goes out. We ended up leaving to get Eaddie home, so I’ll have to call for service tomorrow.

On the way up to her house, Eaddie started asking if we could get her phone. I wasn’t keen on driving across town after I had tried to get it earlier, so we continued to the house where she proceeded to whine about needing it for schoolwork. I finally relented and took her to the junior high to find it. As we approached the building, she made a comment that she hoped it was there and not in her backpack, which made me want to make her walk home.

She found her phone, and I picked up some McNuggets on the way back to the house. She got her schoolwork done, and I was right about her math homework all along. Autumn finished up mowing, and eventually we all had a sit-down conversation to level-set expectations again. This is the tightening of the leash, and it is all she will know for the foreseeable future. Any leniency will be only for our own convenience, since Summer is clearly still worn out over the whole situation. I’ve dealt with a manipulating sociopath before, so I feel particularly immune, though still annoyed. It really is the worst game of chicken.

This is why I always stay to watch discredits.

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Find x

I wanted to ride to work today, but I was running just behind enough that I didn’t have time to get a bike out. I just want a four-car garage. It can be a studio apartment if I can have enough parking.

Gary asked me to take a look at an issue in the bus shop first thing, so I chose to walk the block. It was super humid out, but could have been much worse. I’m not at all ready for summer heat. Greg ended up coming out to take a look as well, and we ultimately just left the laptop in Chris’s office for him to figure it out.

I spent the rest of the day fighting Minecraft. It took me a while to figure out licensing. Gary drove us to lunch for Taco Tuesday, and for some reason I ordered way too much food. Then the rest of the afternoon was finishing up licensing and starting to build the deployment. The only break from that was to unload a pallet of water bottles that I don’t drink.

At the end of the day, Eaddie called and wanted to know if Rick could pick her up and take her home. She couldn’t get in touch with Summer, and I was mostly just shocked and confused about who reached out. I wound up just throwing my hands in the air and letting her do whatever she wanted. I went home until Summer got to town, then met her at the Center for Eaddie’s band concert.

As I walked up to the building, Sarah was parked right in front of the building, immediately in my path. Once we got inside, we discovered the concert wouldn’t start for another half hour. Erica spotted us and came over to catch up. Then we saw Autumn and Rick in the auditorium as we found our seats. She was wandering around, loosely helping between sets.

After the show, Amber was there to get some pictures of Eaddie and Zane. Then Eaddie wanted to go out to eat with Rick. Autumn went home with Summer, since she’s grounded forever. I went home to decompress.

I’m just a guy that’s there.

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Jamf Pros

I realized this morning as I headed out the door, that I had unintentionally thrown away my silicone travel straw from the movie last night. Of course it was also trash day, as I heard the dumpsters as they were emptied this morning. I was kicking myself in frustration for the entirety of the day.

I somehow made it into work right on time, and managed to turn out a productive morning. It took me way too long, but I finally figured out enough of the Roblox deployment that I felt confident sending it on to the junior high student devices. Gary came by later and told Greg and me that he wanted to show us how to do something in Jamf after lunch. All of that made the morning go by pretty quickly.

Gary was the only one up for lunch today, so I did my best to suggest restaurants we don’t get to frequent. He landed on Sticky Rice, and I was glad he did. I ordered the combination phở not really expecting much, but the broth and everything was delicious. It was pretty difficult to eat out of a Styrofoam takeout container, but I managed. It had a great amount of heat and flavor throughout. I just wished I had a soup spoon instead of a tiny plastic one.

Shortly after we got settled back into work, Gary came back to the shop and we started updating some certificates in Jamf. He had Greg drive while I took notes to document the process. That will make the whole process a lot smoother in the future. I felt pretty confident with my understanding of everything we did.

The rest of the afternoon was really quiet, and after work I went home for a quiet evening to myself. I cleaned up the laundry room a bit for the upcoming laundry days, and tried to clear up some space in the kitchen. There’s really no excuse for the state of things, and I’ve got to whip it back into shape. The summer heat isn’t going to make it any more pleasant.

Demons are angels too.

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The Longest Con

We had a short meeting today, and then I took Thomas to U-Haul to pick up a box truck. Greg and Jacob took a load of carts to swap out for London, and then we had to clean out the kitchen area. At some point, Zach brought the forklift around and I got to load up a bunch of pallets of trash, and then a couple pallets of Chromebooks into the truck bed. I was just happy not to be doing any of the unloading by hand.

As old carts came back, we had to scan for Chromebooks that went back on lease this summer. We found about five more all day, which was five times what we had found so far. Brody said one of the schoolboard members was frying chicken for the high school teacher appreciation lunch, which sounded really good, but I ended up driving a carload of people to CJ’s instead.

Immediately after lunch I felt a little sketchy from the grease, but I made it. We had to scan a bunch of Chromebooks from Center Valley, but most of my time was spent on deployments. I ended up leaving about half an hour late just because I felt like I was making a little progress on Roblox.

I picked Eaddie up at Zane’s, then took her home so she could get ready before a school dance. Then we picked Zane up and I dropped them off at the junior high. They ended up not wanting to stick around because they didn’t have any other friends there, so after cleaning up a bit at home, I picked them up and took them back up to Summer’s to hang out.

Summer grilled some steaks when she and Autumn got home from the gym, so she and I ate while the kids hung out. Autumn didn’t come out much at first, but eventually made a more permanent appearance for the evening. A little later in the evening she came into the bedroom to chat, and for the first time, apologized directly to me for last week. It was pretty obviously all a manipulation though, once she basically started begging to go back to work at Denny’s. It’s looking like it’s going to be a Shit Kid Summer. I think Summer is finally down to hold her nose to the grindstone, so we’ll see how well we can whip her into shape in the short amount of time that we have.

Afterward, the five of us played a game of Uno. It didn’t last forever since we only played through to one winner. Then eventually I had to take Zane home. I took Eaddie along with me, and we stopped at my house afterward so I could get some clothes for the morning. We decided to finish up Moon Knight before heading back up to their house, which was pretty interesting, if not a little on-the-nose after this past week. I’ve had just about enough of Looney Tunes.

…and the forklift you rode in on!