Tag: work

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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!

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Five de May

Today was mostly spent trying to get video games to work for students. This comes a mere week or two after we had just fought students playing video games at school. Roblox simply isn’t made for an environment like ours, and it’s incredibly aggravating. We also ran into an issue with our brand new Chromebooks not charging unless we open the lids. It appears to be adaptive charging with the new Chrome OS.

I was pretty hungry by lunch time, which arrived quickly. I let Zach convince me to go with them to Fat Daddy’s in London. It was better than usual, but my potato was smaller than usual, and still as cold. At least the smaller potato made it seem like I had more meat. Gary spent more time trying to pay than it took him to eat his bowl of chili.

The afternoon was pretty quiet, though it stormed heavily above ground. When I got home, I discovered my modem had gotten zapped enough to kill the ethernet port. Fortunately Walmart had a fair price on an upgraded model, so I ran across town to buy one. I poked around for some clearance as well, and then walked through the groceries to try and find something for dinner.

When I got home, I ate a Buffalo chicken sub while I provisioned the new modem. Then, being Cinco de Mayo, I microwaved a chimichanga to go with my mojito. Summer took everyone to Autumn’s band concert, which I boycotted. It was a good night to crash early.

PROTECTED!

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Normlish

We had a team meeting this morning to go over expectations for our reviews. The tool we’ve always used in my time there has always been pretty poor, but we’re using it to self evaluate, and then compare notes with Thomas. Then he’s inviting us to evaluate him using those same metrics. I spent quite a while just reformatting a digital copy of the stupid form, since it wasn’t a proper fillable form in Adobe. By the time I got around to anything else, it was nearly lunch time.

Four of the guys up front started heading for the door about 10 minutes early, but Gary remembered that I existed, and Thomas drove us all to La Chiquita. I was disappointed by the fajita portions compared to other places, but the food was still good, and it filled me up after a basket of chips.

I worked on some stuff for a little bit back at my office after lunch, but then went to Oakland to wrap up a bunch of stuff there. I left just as school was letting out, and came back to Thomas, Zach, and Kelsea on another conference call with Incident IQ. It was otherwise a very quiet afternoon until I left.

It looked like Eaddie had gone to her father’s restaurant, so I stopped there to try and pick her up. After a couple phone calls, I discovered she had actually just walked to Casey’s and then back to Zane’s house. I picked her up and we went to my house and watched two more episodes of Moon Knight. I liked the last one we watched as things got a little mental.

Summer came by after her workout and then picking Autumn up from her parents’ house. We chatted for a little bit before they left, and then I spent the better part of the night doing further investigations. I really think if we just eliminate the internet from Autumn’s life, she’ll behave much better on the whole. A young mind has to be exercised to grow. All she does is consume, and it’s thrown her into a desperate need for constant attention.

But here I am, writing about my day on a public forum for people to read.

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Parenting 301: Intermediate-Advanced Teenage Childhood Development

I rode the Shadow to work this morning since it was still nice out, and I figured it would be good for a ride out to Center Valley. I ended up being commandeered in the afternoon and never made it out that far, though. The morning was actually pretty quiet in the shop because the big three were out walking the new maintenance building on North South Oswego. I don’t know why so many people keep getting that address wrong, but at this point it’s just pure comedy.

I spent the morning doing some laptop repairs for Center Valley, which I’m pretty sure were more repairs than I’ve done all year for Oakland. A group of us went to Arby’s for lunch, and I rode with Thomas and the rest of the gang because I had somehow gotten a curved piece of metal in my back tire. When we got back to the shop after lunch, I managed to pull it out and confirm that it was less deep than the remaining tread on the tire, so all was well.

Zach had a big group of us out in the graveyard enrolling Chromebooks for the rest of the day. I, of course, was an efficiency monster and dominated with four complete carts by the end of the day. Summer left Conway and wanted me to call her, but didn’t answer her phone. Then Eaddie needed a ride home from her father’s restaurant.

I ran home to get a helmet for Eaddie, but as soon as I got there, Summer rang in with some disturbing news. Eaddie and I got on the bike and met her back at my house for a chat. We ended up calling Kevin for a bit of advice, and then we wound up at Chili’s for dinner.

I didn’t even order anything for myself, and instead split a full rack of ribs with Summer. Somehow I still ended up eating the most, long after they had finished. I went home stuffed, and ended up on a Discord call with Mitch for quite a while. He offered what advice and comfort he could, and we shared some laughs about the past. Things have changed a lot since January 9th, 2002, but we’re keeping it real.

AM I BEING DETAINED?!?!?

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Center of Attention

I took the Grom in today to complete the set. I stopped at Oakland first to swap a couple iPads, and then got a couple more Chromebooks to work on from the library. Back at the shop, we had a visitor from eSchool working out of Greg’s office. I kept my room to a dull roar, and mostly kept busy until lunch time.

Thomas took a bunch of us to Brangus, but I rode the bike so we didn’t have to ride five-deep. Even Tammy came along, and Brody met us there. My inner dialog kept telling me to take half of my beef spud home, but almost instinctually, I continued to finish my plate.

Sometime in the afternoon, we were scolded for not making an appearance at Center Valley, so I dropped some stuff off at Oakland, ran home to swap for the R1, and sped north out of town. I just didn’t feel sanguine riding that little bitty bike all the way down the hill, and then back up.

I ended up bringing a backpack full of devices back to the shop, which I think is more than the number of part replacements I’ve had to perform at Oakland all year. The end of the day approached relatively quickly, and I went home exhausted because of my poor sleep the night before.

At some point I video called Summer for a bit, and we did some parental plotting and scheming. I could barely get into anything else, and went to bed early.

Her: “He’s probably thinking of other girls…”
Him: “I wonder when I can drive the forklift again…”

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Just Forkin’ Around!

I took the R1 to work this morning and immediately realized that I was low on gas. I had plenty to get around for the day, though. Gary asked me to take care of an issue upstairs, which I was able to resolve remotely. Then after a while, he wanted some help throwing out a few pallets worth of Chromebook boxes. We hired a group of guys from Louisiana to wire our certified pre-owned carts, and they were just churning through, loading them all up with the new devices.

Gary and I walked over to the warehouse to get someone to help us with a forklift so we didn’t have to load several truck beds full. Justin came out, and I immediately started asking if he would let me drive it. I’m not sure he thought I was serious at first, but eventually he agreed to let me drive it to the dock once he got it out into the road.

I had the absolute time of my life.

It took me four trips for four pallets, while Gary basically spent the entire time just throwing armfuls of boxes into the recycle dumpster. I got pretty fast once I was confident with the controls, and made quick work of it all. My only regret was that I forgot to beep the horn, but I’m betting I’ll get to do the same tomorrow with the last of the pallets.

On the way to put the forklift back in the warehouse, I accidentally got it stuck on the curb, but managed to wiggle it off after Gary threatened to use our work truck to bump me off. That got us a few minutes into lunch, so I just drank a Soylent while Zach and Gary ate their food in the kitchen.

The afternoon was relatively quiet, except for another conference call outside my door. I kept pretty busy checking in on Brody’s tickets since he was out at an auction all day. A bit before school let out, Autumn texted and said she had to get her paycheck, and wanted to know if I would get Eaddie home. Me, being an alpha parent, told her that there was no rush to get her paycheck, and that it was her responsibility to get Eaddie home and to karate.

About an hour and a half later, I got a call from Eaddie that Autumn was being a “b-word” about picking her up. Just as I was about to hang up and call her, Autumn rang beeped in and I level-set her expectations. She seemed to be receptive, and at least calmed herself down while I was talking to her. Eaddie beeped back in, and I told her to take the ride home, and that we would all talk about it when we got home.

I got gas after work, then waited at home for Summer to get back into town. Then I met her at Lowe’s to look at the LG refrigerator we were considering. They had my returned fridge marked down again to $850, which was an incredible deal that made me consider re-purchasing it. If they had told me they would just give me that much of a refund to keep it, I would have gladly done so, and been perfectly satisfied with my backlit food and slow water dispenser.

Summer was tired of my indecisiveness, so we left and went to Walmart so she could pick up ingredients for banana pudding. Then she went home while I checked out clearance before meeting her at the house. We ate leftover pasta until Autumn got home from hanging out at Denny’s, and then we had a chat to try and set some more family expectations. Eaddie has been making an effort to communicate better, but Autumn is continuing her rebellious tendencies.

No matter what we say or do now, she’s going to pursue some kind of relationship with this older kid she works with. She’s also encouraged that someone told her she could be a salaried manager in a few years if she keeps up the good work, but she conveniently forgets that she still works at a goddamn Denny’s. I’ll take Unsuccess Stories for 1000, Alex. I’ve been exactly there.

I eventually made it home to find my charger had errored out on the Grom battery, but it started successfully and strongly. I got a little air in the tires, and it’ll be three for three on getting all of the bikes out this spring. Maintenance needs to happen early this year though, on account of how far behind I’ve gotten.

Slummers gonna slum.

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Return of the Whirlpool

I got a call from the Lowe’s truck drivers shortly after I woke up this morning, saying they were about 10 minutes away. That nearly got me in a dead-run to get everything cleared out and ready to go. It occurred to me that they are making a lot of assumptions every time they come out, and as a customer, I should be more upset about my experience. They walked the fridge out without having to do any door gymnastics, and even walked it past both of my grills after I moved the deck box. I guess they were less worried about damage coming out than they were going in.

Somehow, I still managed to make it to work on time, stopping at Oakland to take care of a backup battery issue, and then making a quick run through the rest of the work orders I had from the end of the week. It didn’t take terribly long, but did help the morning go by.

Gary was a little stressed with Zach, Greg, and Brody out for the day, and me out of my office first thing. I chatted with him briefly and did my best to ease his worries. We evidently had some more unexpected, sweeping changes that we weren’t informed about, which frustrated us as I had to troubleshoot an issue that we caused. There are a lot of wheels turning, and not all of them are aware of the others, though they’re all connected and affect each other. It makes for a disjointed team.

Lunch came quickly, and I just went home to some leftover Ridgewood barbecue. I ended up eating a bit too much and didn’t have time to go to Lowe’s to see about my refund, so I just went back to Oakland to finish up some stuff. The rest of the afternoon was relatively quiet, and Kyle was the only one I ever saw back in the shop.

As I left for the day, Eaddie called for a ride. I had to drop some things off at Oakland anyway. She was hungry, so we picked up some chicken strips from Dairy Queen for her, and then went back to my house to start Moon Knight. I absolutely hate the accents and how quiet the voices are, because it makes the dialog that much harder to understand. Otherwise it seems like it’s going to be a neat show, and unlike many of the others, they didn’t waste any time getting right into the action.

When we finished the episode, Eaddie rushed me to take her home. In turn, I made her wait in the car while I stopped at Lowe’s to resolve my return. The kid at customer service said it would take a day for them to process the return, but I was concerned about having made part of my purchase with gift cards. He insisted that I would “probably” get a call in the morning, but rather than risk it, I walked to the back to find someone. I never could find an employee that wasn’t busy, but I did find my refrigerator that had been marked down by $450 to be sold as-is. It was almost tempting to re-buy it at that price.

While I was back there, I saw the windowed version of the LG we were looking at. I didn’t love it either. The freezer seemed really small and narrow, and the shelves had nearly no adjustability. I think one shelf in the fridge side had a choice of two levels, but the rest only had the existing molded mount points. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t even fit a frozen pizza in the freezer anywhere unless I left an entire shelf out, which would make for one super tall shelf. I may end up spending quite a bit more money for something much nicer by the time this is all over.

Back at the front, I explained that my refrigerator was already on the floor ready to sell, so he called a manager up to process the refund and I was on my way. When we got to the house, Eaddie went to her room to practice her flute, and I went outside to dig out the lawn mower. I probably spent about an hour trying to get the thing started, and eventually did with the help of some starter fluid, but it wouldn’t stay running for long. I’m inclined to think it’s the leftover fuel, but I can’t get any of the girls to run the mower often or long enough to keep that stuff flowing through it.

Summer got home super late. I thought I might stay over, especially since she arrived with some apparent energy left. Ultimately she ate and went straight to bed, so I headed back home. I took another crack at charging the Grom battery after stopping it last night when I heard it sizzling. Hopefully the lower amperage will keep things from exploding.

People actually lived for ages without refrigeration, so maybe I can just make it to Black Friday for a better deal.