Tag: work

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Blue Screen of Annoyance

I took the R1 to work today and it was actually pretty nice out. Thomas was hosting some more training in the morning, so he just locked me in for a couple hours while I worked on my own stuff. Several of us went to La Huerta for lunch, and as we were finishing up, Grant spotted us and came over to say hello.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as well. I spent the last part of the day at Oakland, aside from having to rush back to the shop for an impromptu replacement laptop, and then went home until Mom had dinner ready. Summer wanted to go with me for bánh xèo, so I picked her up from work and we went to eat.

I called Bryan on the way back to talk about work stuff, and then we just kept talking about phone and other work stuff as I followed Summer home. Everyone went to bed pretty quickly, but Eaddie and I watched an episode of House to finish the night.

A princess tiara would be perfect.

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Odd Man Down

Today was a weird day. I started off jumping right into a bug that Jacob discovered with Google Groups, which landed me in a chat and subsequent call with support that lasted through lunch. I ended up just eating leftover donuts and cake that was left in the fridge, which probably wasn’t much healthier than the Wendy’s that everyone else had.

Nearly the entire day, I was the only one around downstairs, so I kept having to answer the phone and help anyone that stopped by or called. I hardly got to anything of my own until I just left and went to Oakland. By then it was already quitting time, but I had to get something accomplished for myself.

Eaddie was sitting outside at Oakland and wanted me to take her, so we went to the high school together for one last thing, and then to my house so I could change. I had to drop off my mail survey at the post office and get gas, and finally we were off to Summer’s for the evening.

Summer warmed up some leftovers, and Eaddie and I ate. Then when Summer went to bed, Eaddie and I watched some more House. It won’t be much longer until we finish up the series and can be on to something new.

What to watch… Holidays are coming!

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Peer Pressure

I was a little bit late to work this morning after rehearsing a big speech about standing up to the man and not being a coward. We didn’t have much of a meeting when I got there though, and in fact we were actually told we wouldn’t really be having those meetings moving forward, unless we have something we need to discuss.

I eventually made my way across the street for our called CPPC meeting, and though it ran a little long, it felt like a really good meeting. Before the meeting, I was concerned about the fact that we were still discovering mistakes only a few hours prior. Once we discussed the intent a little more, and addressed my questions and concerns, I was much more satisfied with what we were doing.

We voted to send the draft to the school board, and I made my way back to the shop just before lunch. Almost all of us went to Western Sizzlin to eat, and then it was a pretty quiet afternoon. I didn’t really get out of my office, and I think that actually made the issue with my contacts worse. I’ll be staying out of them the rest of the weekend.

I worked a little late on the meeting minutes, then went to The UPS Store to return an Amazon order. Then I picked Summer up from work so we could go pick up a white dress shirt for Eaddie’s concert tomorrow.

After dropping Summer off at her car, I went home and started some laundry and watched Shang-Chi to see what it looked like in their advertised “IMAX Enhanced” format. I’ll have to go back and skip through it in the widescreen format to compare later. When Eaddie finally got home from her band trip, I took her home and we went to bed.

I abstain.

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Rain on the Parade

I took the Shadow to work this morning in spite of the wet, since it would be clear all day. I didn’t get a whole lot done before lunch, outside of working up an email and sharing my salary comparison worksheet with Judy. Gary took Brody and me to Arby’s for lunch, and when we got back, Judy had actually started looking at my sheet, and we chatted for a while within the document, which was cool. She actually fixed a couple of the issues I found, but still didn’t make the changes I suggested for our department.

It took me a while, but I finally made it to Oakland in the afternoon about an hour before school let out. I found out that Mollie’s been out sick, so I reached out to her later in the evening to see how she was doing.

They let us off of work early to go to the Veterans Day parade. Autumn asked me to go so I could see her walk the American flag at the head of the parade, so I met Summer and Eaddie at the church downtown. We stayed for almost the entire parade, but left just before traffic got stupid.

We went back to my house for just a few minutes before Summer dropped Eaddie off to have dinner with Autumn and their father. Then I met her at Nonna Bella’s for a pizza before she had to go to the superintendent search committee meeting. Christina was evidently working there and served us, which was only a little bit odd considering I knew her from the call center days, and she knew the girls through their father.

Summer took off just before her meeting started, and I headed home for the evening. Mollie finally responded and said she had a hard limit of one visitor per day, so I may go visit her if we can plan it successfully.

All the positive vibes.

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Entombed Raider

I got up and out a little bit early today for no particular reason. I didn’t really get to anything I wanted to do though, because of meetings and an overwhelming need to decipher the latest draft of the proposed salary schedule. I actually spent all day crunching numbers on a combined spreadsheet, and it was a nice bit of self-confirmation that I could do that job, and probably better than those tasked with it.

Not long into the morning, several from central office came over for some training. I’m not sure why they didn’t do it in their own conference room, for for whatever reason they did it outside of my office, so I was made to lock myself in and stay quiet in the dark.

I snuck out for lunch with Gary and Greg, and we went to Taco John’s for the first time in ages. My Boss Burrito was mostly beans and rice, but the Potato Olés were on point, and I even let the girl upsell the nacho cheese.

We had a video call with an Apple guy in the afternoon so Brody could ask some questions, but it really just turned into Gary learning things and then assigning work to Greg and me. I guess that’s the job, so I can’t complain too much.

Eaddie had walked to my house and gone out for a bike ride, so I went home after work and then met her at the high school with the Grom. The helmet communicator worked pretty great, and I coached her through some laps around the parking lot as the sun set. We rode back home and then went to their house with some ribs I needed to grill.

Summer eventually made it home from the gym, and we ate while she had a video call of her own. The girls were still doing laundry for most of the evening, so there wasn’t much for me to do besides put some more work into my spreadsheet with some updated numbers from Judy, and then research home Dolby Atmos configurations. If you can have 11.2.8 at home, I can’t think of a single reason that you shouldn’t have 11.2.8 at home.

But what number do they use for the seat shakers?

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I Don’t See How That’s Helpful

I had to dig out some new contacts this morning, and I ended up using a trial pair I got last year. They went in fine, but I had trouble with them all day, so I don’t know how long I’ll keep wearing them. Fortunately it was slow enough at work that I wasn’t really impeded in any way. I stuck around in my office while Brody called me a bunch. Then the Big Three and Greg had a meeting with Chris about some potential equipment going in to record and transmit video from the busses.

When lunch time came around, six of us went to Linh’s for a surprisingly quick and delicious meal. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon trying to make sense of the new salary schedule drafts that were floating around, because Janie sent out the optimistic one while I had been looking at one that actually hurt our long-term employees.

After work, I went straight home and tried to pick at things a little bit, but didn’t really get anything accomplished. Today was a real struggle with the time change, and early winter is always hard on me anyway. I eventually made a couple hot dogs in some leftover homemade tortillas from La Huerta, with some mustard from Ridgewood Brothers. After a while I made some popcorn to snack on, and finally it was off to bed.

It seems to me that maybe someone should have been watching spending a bit better for all these years.

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Lil Pops

Today was another really chill day at work. Kelsea brought a chocolate cake for Gary’s birthday, along with a 3D-printed topper. I eventually made a “candle” out of a stripped piece of Cat 5e cable with the exposed wiring inside making up the flame. I helped with what I could in the morning, and then most of us went to Sumo for lunch for dinner and a show. It was pretty muted with everyone in masks, but the food was alright.

I spent some time at Oakland in the afternoon, and then came back at the end of the day for some cake. My final act was sending out the CPPC minutes, and then I headed home for the long weekend.

It wasn’t long before Summer reminded me that the girls’ father was having a soft-open at his barbecue joint, so eventually she came by to pick me up for that. The girls were already there, but hadn’t really had dinner since they were waiting on us. He had run out of ribs, so I tried the nachos with some brisket. Unfortunately I couldn’t find much of the brisket under the canned nacho cheese. Eaddie’s bologna sandwich looked pretty good though.

After we ate, the girls headed home. Summer dropped me off, and I spent the night prepping for the trip. It got quite cold inside, and I ultimately settled down and watched Shazam! until bed. I’ve really got to find some quality Atmos content.

Time to find out who really shot J.R.

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Don’t Call it a Bonus

I had a CPPC meeting early this morning. They predictably didn’t have much to show us, and basically just promised they were working on it “really really hard.” Karen asked about a Christmas bonus, and we actually got what I thought was a more-than-satisfactory answer. With ESSER funds, they could actually give us a pretty substantial not-a-bonus bonus as long as we report it as an incentive for recruiting and retaining employees. Many were unhappy about it being too late for Christmas, but to that I say it is not the district’s job to manage the finances of its employees. If you’re dependent upon unpredictable and totally-not-at-all-guaranteed compensation to maintain your lifestyle, then that’s your own goddamned fault.

At the end of the day, nobody would turn down free money, so that felt like a win to me. I went on back to the shop and spent a really quiet day in my office. Zach, Gary, and I went to Slim Chickens for lunch, where the girl gave me a teacher discount without me even saying anything about it. Then it was more time killing in the afternoon.

Bryan came down to visit me for a little bit, which was a nice break in my day. Then I worked a little late on getting CPPC meeting minutes put together. I should be able to turn that around tomorrow for publication, so that makes me feel pretty good about doing my part.

After work, Mom called me over for some more phở. Then I headed on home for a cold, quiet night alone. I was pretty tired after a stressful evening of planning last night, so tonight will be a good night of sleep before a long weekend.

The cold comes quickly.

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Booked and Ticketed

I was pretty tired this morning after not getting much sleep last night. I drank up some coffee and did what I could in my office until lunch time rolled around. Zach, Gary, and I met Brody at Brangus for one of the better meals I’ve had there. Then it was a quiet afternoon all around.

I spent some time at Oakland and closed out some tickets, and brought a couple iPads back to the shop. Everything was relatively easy today though. I worked a bit late on a custom icon for the middle school, and then went home to see what I could get into before Summer came over.

The girls were at a game until late, so I warmed up some leftovers for Summer to eat as I tried to pick up in the bedroom a bit. Then after she left for home, I spent the rest of the night plotting out our Dallas trip. I got tickets for Medieval Times on Gary’s suggestion, and tickets to Eternals in Dolby Cinema on a cinema tech on Reddit’s suggestion. I even found a hotel for just shy of a C-note that looks pretty nice.

Now we just have to get there.

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Crab Claw Chicken

I slept really hard last night, so it was a little bit of a struggle to get out of bed. I slept well though, so I didn’t drag too much once I got started. It was a pretty quiet day at work for the most part. I accomplished some new things that came across, and then went to lunch with the trinity. We went to Popeye’s, and I tried to use an app discount that disappeared on me while I was waiting in line, and the manager ended up manually giving me an even better deal. The chicken strips I got varied greatly in size, but they came out even, unlike usual.

In the afternoon, I ran around with Zach a bit and tried to look at some other shirts at Mullen’s. They had even less variety than Autumn’s typical dinner plate, so we left there and went to Crawford to check on a door that was working perfectly. Afterward we chatted with Shavon for a minute before heading back.

I ended the day at Oakland just to drop a bunch of fixed equipment off. I saw Eaddie on the map outside, so I went out to fetch her and took her home with me. I got out my new, unused Cardo Packtalk system and spent far too long trying to mount one to her helmet. The rubber kept peeling off, and I probably caused more scuffing to the helmet than if I had just removed it in the first place. Eventually I got it on, and we tested everything to make sure it would work for her next riding lesson.

Everyone assumed I was bringing Eaddie home, so we ate some leftovers there and watched a couple episodes of House before I did. Everyone else was in bed, so I wrapped up as quickly as I could and went to sleep.

Go ahead, TACCOM!