Tag: work

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Last of the Longs

The guys that were working on the air handlers in the shop yesterday had left my thermostat set on 65, so the air wasn’t blowing cold at all, and likely froze up outside. I didn’t want to mess anyone up by turning it off though, just in case they were testing something else. I just had Gary put in a maintenance ticket for it, but if it’s still on tomorrow, I’ll probably turn it off and let it rest over the weekend.

Gary wanted me to run to Central Office to investigate a work order, and then Greg mentioned another one about adjusting a monitor stand, so I took care of all of that before making my way to the junior high to work on imaging with Kyle.

That’s all I did the rest of the day, aside from lunch at Tarascos. The salsa there was good, but the fajitas were a huge disappointment. They looked fresh, having been all plated together with the rice, beans, and vegetables, but the beef was so tough that I couldn’t bite through it, I only got two tortillas, and none of it had any seasoning. The rice and beans had more flavor than the meat and vegetables.

The afternoon dragged on as we wasted time on our phones and finished up most of the laptops. Then I went home for a while before heading up to Summer’s. I picked up a peach milkshake from Chick-fil-A, and then filled up with gas on the way.

Summer was worn out from working sick. Autumn didn’t say much of anything to anyone as she laid on the couch watching YouTube all night. Eaddie never left her room as far as I could tell. It was pretty much straight to bed for everyone. At least this is the last long day of summer hours. I’m finally happy to see a half-day Friday.

Goddamn ants.

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A Splitting Image

Zach and Gary sent Kyle and Greg to image laptops at the junior high this morning while I worked on an Adobe licensing issue. I just happened to resolve it with trial and error, but I failed to understand how their licensing model was actually supposed to work. When I finished, I met the other two for imaging until lunch time.

Greg and I came back to the shop, and the four of us went to Quiznos for lunch. I love their lemonade, but man are those sandwiches overpriced. The bread was good today, but the sandwich didn’t seem quite as filled as it should have.

After lunch, I ran to the high school to dig up some better flash drives, and then took Greg with me back to the junior high to catch up with Kyle. We spent the rest of the afternoon staring at a clock that was stuck at 4:48 until we could finally leave at five.

I ran home to change, and then went to Walmart to pick up a few things for the dinner that the girls were making. Summer stayed home with nerve pain, so I thought the kids were cooking. I ran into Zach a few times while I was shopping, and then made my way up to the house to find Summer doing all of the work.

The al pastor tacos she made were pretty great, and I ate too many of them. Evidently she had bought a couple different seasoning packages that were identical in every way except for the preparation instructions on the back. Even the UPC was the same, but one method used a skillet, and the other boiled the meat in a pot, and I had sent her a picture of the slower instructions. It worked out in the end though, and everyone was happy.

The girls had been getting along well and playing their band instruments, and after we ate, Autumn wanted to finish our game of Phase 10. We finally finished and got everything put away, and then Autumn started bargaining to stay home instead of going to work with Summer in the morning. She got angry at the very first sign that she wasn’t going to get her way, and then escalated her argument all the way to bed. Nothing has changed.

I’m on to you, sucka.

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No Cats, No Play

I took the Shadow to work today since Summer needed to take her car. Fortunately I spent all day inside, so I never had to deal with any heat until quitting time. Zach was back, but most of the team was out on vacation. Kyle and I spent most of the day together imaging desktops for the cafeterias while Zach, Gary, and Greg ran around doing other things. They came back to get me for Taco Tuesday, but we all rode with Zach for that.

Kyle left to do other stuff in the afternoon, which left me in the back by myself for the rest of the day. Gary came back for a little while, and we worked loosely on a few different things. Then some guys came to clean out our air handlers near the end of the day. They finished up around the same time we did, and I went to my parents’ house for dinner.

Summer was out with sciatica and didn’t want to leave the house, so I just ate kabobs with my parents and then rode back home until Autumn could come pick me up. We stopped by Zaxby’s so she could get some dinner, and then it was a pretty quiet evening. I watered the plants, Summer went to bed, Autumn watched YouTube, and Eaddie hung out in her room all night.

Just before I went to bed, Eaddie came out to tell Autumn about some ex-boyfriend drama. I butted into the conversation just enough to confirm that it was normal teenage drama and that she wasn’t getting pulled into anything too toxic, and then it was off to bed.

Some grow, while others swell.

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Thaw in my Side

I thought it was going to rain today, but the forecast went down enough that I felt pretty comfortable taking the Shadow in for our second half-day. We had a brief meeting about moving over our old tickets from Web Help Desk to IncidentIQ, and then I was sent to fix imaging. I still wasn’t sure what broke it in the first place, but it needed to be fixed as quickly as possible.

Everyone else pretty much wandered off, except for Kyle, who stuck around the shop for a while. I was deep in my testing when he came into my office to share some news he had just read online while he was sitting around, and I wasn’t super receptive since I was actually deep in thought. Gary was in and out, but didn’t really have a whole lot for me.

After testing several boot images and even trying to build one from scratch, I finally took a snapshot of the VM and updated the ADK, which ended up fixing our issues. I was stoked, but by that time everyone else had been long gone. Even Thomas left me in the dark downstairs. I went home and just waited for Summer to get off work about an hour late.

I made my way up to the girls, who were all just sitting around the house. Eaddie was still in a bit of a mood, and Autumn was a normal level of cranky. She griped about how there was “nothing” to eat in the house, so in response I asked her why there was zero room in the chest freezer. Summer was in a bath by then, so I just bit my tongue and cooked a quick frozen skillet meal while we waited for Summer to finish cleaning up.

Eaddie went to bed, but the rest of us ate. Then I had Autumn take every single thing out of the freezer and take inventory while I defrosted and cleaned out the inside of it. It took a while, but there was gross chicken blood and juice all over the place that just needed to be melted out. We ended up throwing out eight pounds of chicken thighs that they’d had in the freezer since before I came around.

Everyone went to bed shortly after we finished loading everything back into the freezer. I stayed up to try and update my laptop, but there wasn’t much else I could do.

Hours and hours of cumulative updates…

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Night at the Belongia

I took the Shadow to work again today, but then spent the morning riding around in the work truck with Brody. We sent everybody except Gary to hang the new 75″ touch panels at the high school. We were able to fit five on each truck, along with the toolbox and mounts. The first one went okay, but it quickly devolved into multiple people sitting around. I tried to lead a group of the half that were sitting to prep the other rooms, and then circle back to hook everything up once the panels were hung. That worked for a little bit, but we just have so many guys that can’t work without direct supervision.

We made it back to the shop just before lunch, and then went to Linh’s for some of the best food we’ve had from there in a while. Our server seemed nervous, or at the very least, inexperienced. We got our food, and then never saw her again. At least she had an automatic gratuity for our party size.

After lunch, I had to stick around the shop in case some desktop computers showed up. Fortunately they just coincidentally showed up shortly after everyone else had left. I got the forklift and unloaded the pallet in record time, and then Gary and I took them all downstairs. The rest of the day was spent trying to get the network image working for them.

After work, I went home to change and then went up to Summer’s to get ready for Eaddie’s band camp concert. She was already home and trying to find a nice outfit to wear for the concert, but we could tell she was tired and cranky. She would never say it, but I think she was happy to see me.

We made it to Witherspoon just before the first (last) band started, and somehow Summer was able to find three unoccupied seats. Autumn immediately disappeared, refusing to sit with us. Summer’s mom showed up, followed by my dad, right before the second band started, but we had room after people left from the first set. Eaddie really wanted me to record the second band, so I just recorded the entire set, as well as her last (first) band.

We took our time getting out to avoid the traffic, but then took Summer’s mom home before getting the girls home. Everyone was pretty tired after a late night, so it was showers for the girls, and then everyone was off to bed.

We’re almost there.

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Cruis’n RSD

I took the Shadow to work today, and it really worked out in my favor. We were tasked with visiting every campus to check for rooms with A/V equipment where we could host large classes of sensitivity training. Three of the guys went to the high school to continue imaging student devices. Greg and Josh went to the high school to scout that campus’s rooms, and I got to ride my bike all around town to visit all of the elementaries.

I stopped by Oakland first, though I already knew what equipment they had. Then I ran home to put in my contacts and sunglasses, since I would be spending so much time on the road. Crawford was a pretty quick in-and-out, and then I made my way up to Center Valley. It was nice to get a little bit of a ride in, and then I hunted around in the dark to investigate their setup. One of the custodians saw me come in but didn’t know who I was, so he chased me down to investigate.

While I was there, Gary asked me to meet him at Sequoyah to pull some cables out of the ceiling because they were somehow in the way of the maintenance guys. Gary didn’t realize we left the lines with the intent of using them for whatever goes in the room next, and had already cut them at the ceiling. We probably could have still kept come, but we ended up pulling them all out anyway. When we finished, Greg and Josh showed up for some reason, and we chatted outside for a while. Then when I left, Selvin was taking pictures of my bike, so I let him ride it around the parking lot. Maybe I can get him and Marcela to buy one, and then I’ll have a new riding buddy.

I stopped by Dwight to take care of it before lunch, and then left London for the afternoon. On the way back, I stopped by the new Ridgewood Brothers’ build site to take a picture of the framework. They were putting trusses up with a big crane, so I took a few pictures to share before heading back to the shop.

I suggested Freddy’s for lunch, and Gary seemed excited by that. Thomas took him, Greg, and Josh, and I rode the bike. The service was actually really fast for dining in, but we were also there early enough to beat the lunch rush. The burger I had was really good, especially with all the added veggies. After that and some cheese curds, I didn’t have room for any custard.

When we got back to work, I was sent to find Mary Beth to help with a printer issue. She wasn’t there, but Thomas was in the conference room waiting on her for a meeting. I waited for a bit, but then was called away when a truck load of 75″ Newline touch panels showed up. They were stacked two pallets high, so I had to get the forklift and shuffle them around quite a bit in order to unload everything. I felt like an expert though, and we got everything into the graveyard without incident.

By that time, I still needed to run out to London, so I left again. I decided to stop and see Grant and Robert on my way out of town, and showed them my pictures while they trimmed up some briskets. They were high-energy as usual, but I couldn’t stay long. It felt like a super long trip out to the final elementary campus, but it was a nice ride across the lake. I checked an extra room there, since the cafeteria didn’t actually have any equipment in it at all. The room with the stage might actually work pretty well.

The rest of the afternoon was super quiet. Some of the guys filtered back in and sat around for a while. Thomas eventually came back and let us go just a few minutes early, though he seemed to indicate that he meant to let us go even earlier. The long days feel absolutely ridiculous, and I don’t think anyone at Central Office is even working that late.

I rode home and changed, then went next door to talk to Bác Vân about her high electric bill. She said they added four pounds of refrigerant to their A/C unit at the start of the season, so I’m wondering if it’s low again. In eight days, she’s used almost as much electricity as she did all last month.

I finally made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and Autumn was already silent in her room. Summer was horizontal on the couch watching TV, so I snacked on some leftovers, and then she went to bed super early. I took the opportunity to do the same, a little uncomfortable that there was still enough light to see outside, but also fully aware of how tired I feel when I wake up that extra half hour early for work. At least we’re over the halfway point.

Hell if Fi knows.

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Pull It

I got the R1 out for a ride to work today. It was a beautiful ride in the morning, and then a little warm in the afternoon, but still nice at speed. We all ended up going to the middle school to pull a few lines, except for Brody, who misunderstood the assignment and went to the high school by himself.

I rode with Kyle to the building, where he parked in back, a ways away from where we needed to be. Then we had to walk to the front anyway, since we had to help unload the truck and bring everything inside. I kind of got stuck with him on one of the jobs, and though he seemed to be trying, he definitely had some issues climbing the ladders. He said he was terrified of them, but for being so small on such new, sturdy ladders, I just couldn’t see it. I tried not to be too frustrated with him, and definitely tried to nurture him along. I still ended up doing most of the climbing, and an hour job ended up taking us the whole day.

We tried using a couple of old lines that were already in the room, but only one worked. The others we found went back to where an old switch was located. There, we discovered a huge bundle of cables that had just been cut and left in the ceiling. We’ve been struggling to find work all week anyway, so I decided we should clean out all the old cable from the ceiling. We got most of it done before lunch, when Kyle dropped me off back at the shop.

I rode to Taco John’s and met with four of the others for a cheap lunch. I hate when they don’t automatically print receipts, because then I don’t get extra rewards points. The tacos were incredible today though. They were loaded with well-seasoned meat, and were some of the best tacos I’ve ever had from there.

We went back to the middle school to finish in the afternoon, but still had a couple hours to kill before quitting time. I took the old cable to Cunningham for scrap, then stopped at Casey’s for some snacks. When I got back to the shop, they had received one of the Dell dock/port-replicating monitors to test out, and everyone was in Thomas’s office trying to get it to work. I sat in the shop for most of it, since I was completely beat from going up and down ladders all day, plus I stank from the sweat, and I wouldn’t have really added anything to the group that was already working on it. Greg came back and ate some deer, offering me a couple bites, and then shared the top secret location of his cabin. It was neat that he wanted to talk to me about hunting for a bit, because it wasn’t like he was just talking to another hunter about things he had killed.

After work, Gary followed me home to get the weighted blanket I picked up for him. Then I went to my parents’ house to swim for a bit before picking Autumn up from karate. She wasn’t at all happy to see me, but she became nicer once we got home. Summer worked from home and made a corned beef for dinner, so the three of us ate at the dinner table before Autumn got current with Stranger Things.

I had sent Eaddie a picture of the corned beef, and she asked me to bring her some to band camp after nine, so I had her call me once she was ready. My old buddy, Neal, was there delivering some pizzas, so after I got my hug from Eaddie, we stood outside and chatted for quite a while. He always has all kinds of random stuff to talk about, and it was fun catching up a bit.

Everyone was off to bed when I got back to the house, so I tried not to waste any time myself. Hopefully I’ll sleep better after such a long day today.

Add it up.

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Towsday

I had trouble sleeping last night, but fortunately it wasn’t too hard to get around this morning. I took Summer’s car home and debated taking a bike to work since the weather was supposed to be super nice. I knew I had to meet David to have the Murano towed sometime in the morning, plus I wasn’t sure what else I might have to do for work, so I decided to take the air conditioned option just in case I ended up in any uncomfortable heat. I’m definitely just a fair weather rider these days.

Zack and Gary were both out, so Thomas met with us and had Greg split the crew up for whatever work they could find. There wasn’t much, so nobody batted an eye when I just hung out at the shop all day working in SCCM. A couple ladies from other districts came downstairs for eSchool rollover, but I was gone for some of that to escort my tow to Accurate Automotive. Summer has sent customers there for some time, and even David said he trusts their work, and have had their work truck serviced there in the past.

Greg came back and ate at the shop, so I ended up just skipping lunch entirely for an apple and a bag of Cheetos Puffs. It was a really quiet day, and even quite cold in the air conditioning. The ladies outside my door weren’t there for long, since evidently eSchool was down for a bit. I just listened to music and tinkered at my own pace.

After work, I went home to change and then went to my parents’ house for some leftover shrimp soup. We chatted for a while about the car situation, and I was a little disappointed to find the value of the Murano to be under about $13,000. It is older now, but still in pretty fair shape. Hopefully the engine isn’t damaged, but I feel encouraged about buying a new car now that I’ve had a good raise, saved some extra money, and have another raise coming in a matter of days.

I eventually made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and I thought Autumn was going to be sour, but she ended up being pretty good all night. We got our letters absolving us of any wrongdoing in the case against Autumn, and enjoyed the weather on the front porch for a bit. Then I dressed up some of Autumn’s leftover chicken rollup things for Summer’s dinner, and everyone went to bed pretty early.

I’ve never gotten so many letters in my entire life!

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Half Bad

I got to sleep in a half hour later today, since it was our first half-day Friday. I absolutely felt more tired and worthless all day because of it. Zach was back, but just sent everyone to go hide in their own buildings. I think only Brody actually had anything to do, by the way of imaging with Jacob. Zach had to do badges all day, and it wasn’t very long before I had to run outside to help the eSCO guys. He brought someone new with him today, and neither of them were particularly helpful when picking things up. Thomas came out to help, and then a few of the other guys eventually showed up as well.

The rest of the morning went by pretty slowly, and I ended the day by breaking network imaging. I almost wish I had just stayed to fix it, but Thomas came back to kick everyone out and left me in the dark. I went home for a little bit before heading up to get Eaddie for her flute lesson. She and Autumn were watching TV and being lazy. I dressed up some leftovers for lunch before we left.

It was hot outside, but I didn’t have anything else to do, so I just waited in the car for Eaddie to finish. Then we stopped by The UPS Store to ship an Amazon return before going back to their house. Summer eventually made it home, and after watching some TV, wanted me to grill some frozen jalapeño cheddar sausages for their dinner.

Autumn had asked me to play Monopoly earlier, and set up the game board while I grilled. I threw a wrench in that by asking her to tell me something she appreciated about me. Her mood immediately changed, and she got angry and bitter before putting the game away. I’m not content to ignore her issues like everyone else, so I’m relegated to irritating her into a constant state of annoyance as punishment.

I ended up having to take Summer to the bedroom to talk about it, but it wasn’t long before she fell asleep. Autumn brought her mattress into the living room and went to sleep in front of the TV, because she’s still not being punished. I guess we’ve just accepted this as our life, so we’re stuck like this for another year.

Snorey McBorey

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Rhoid Rhaige

Today was super uneventful, but I needed the break. We’ve been blocked out of everywhere we need to go, and are waiting on other work to be completed before we can complete our own jobs. What’s worse is that we’re made to work longer days for these three weeks, so we spend all week frustrated with busy work.

I hung around the office all day, and Thomas had a bunch of us help move furniture since he’s being made to clear out his office. The minimalism cult is clearing out anything of comfort for the sake of efficiency. Josh and Jacob brought a couple computer desks back to the shop, where they put them together in the hallway for use when having new users sign in or change passwords. The computers will be unused for most of the months of the year, but c’est la vie.

Brody, Thomas, and I went to Nonna Bella for lunch, and all three had the spaghetti and meatballs. We split an order of cheese bread, and we all left pretty stuffed. The food was good, but I was a little concerned by the amount of cheese on the bread.

The afternoon went by incredibly slowly. I spent most of the time just sitting with Jacob in my office, waiting for the clock to run out. Thomas came back for a bit and chatted with us, but even he knew there wasn’t much we could get up to.

After work, I went home to lie down for a bit before heading up to Summer’s for the evening. I started the lawn mower with a single pull, so Autumn came out obediently to finish mowing. I picked at some leftover coleslaw that was on its way out, and the girls watched TV until bedtime.

aLL tHE sTeARoIDs!