Fired Up and Smoked Out

I could tell pretty early at work today that it was going to be a chill day. We had a long, slow, mostly quiet meeting. When it finally ended, I was left to my own devices until lunch. I actually finished up what I was working on right about time to go, and I lead a group of seven of us to Stoby’s to eat.

After lunch, I got to spend some time at Oakland. I didn’t even think about it being a Friday before Halloween, so all the parties and treats in the building were a fun surprise. I got some stuff done, and then left as they started dismissing. Then Thomas let everyone go just a few minutes early, so I headed straight home to do some last minute cleaning.

Summer took Eaddie to her driving test, so after she passed that, I met them at Harbor Freight so I could buy a hatchet. Then we went to Walmart for the food we needed for the evening. John and Melissa had to go pick Travis up since he had been unresponsive the past few days. When they finally showed up, he was blitzed out of his gourd.

The rest of us had a pretty good time. It was cold and a little bit drizzly at times, but the fire was hot. It smoked quite a bit, which was disappointing, and I think I just needed to clean out the air gaps in the bottom for some better flow.

After we all had our fill of fire-roasted wieners and s’mores, we all came inside and watched 10 Cloverfield Lane. I couldn’t remember a whole lot about Cloverfield, but it didn’t really matter. It didn’t really seem at all related anyway. It was an odd movie, but I enjoyed it alright.

Just as we had gotten started, Travis wanted John to take him home. We continued watching though, and John didn’t miss much. They left when the movie was over. Autumn showed up from her ball game just as I was cleaning up outside. Then everyone went to sleep.

I don’t remember this episode of “Roseanne.”

We Have You Surrounded!

Today was a bit quieter at work, but I still struggled to accomplish much. I ended up contacting SMART support and got a quick, yet apparently incorrect answer that I’ll have to address tomorrow. I also got a repaired Chromebook back from Dell, but it doesn’t want to let me set it up because it “can’t connect to the internet” even though I can absolutely see that it is connected to the internet.

If I didn’t have chores to do, I would have hung out after work with Gary, who was building his new gaming rig in the shop. Instead, I went straight home and started cleaning up the kitchen. Summer came over as soon as she was back in town from another day on the road, but she didn’t feel up to much. I abandoned cleaning in favor of wiring all of my speakers, and I don’t think anyone ever questioned my priorities.

Summer went to bed and left me up pretty late getting everything calibrated. Hopefully we have enough time after work tomorrow to get things ready for the shindig. At the very least, we can watch a movie.

Things are finally starting to look… roughly different…

Sidetracks

Today was pretty hectic for being in the office. It started quiet enough, and I thought I was actually going to get my project done, but then the calls just kept coming in. Brody was having a hard time remembering how to do things for himself, and it eventually got me in trouble.

Gary came back to the office to fetch me for lunch, and the two of us went to Wendy’s since nobody else was around to go. Zach had apparently spent the entire day walking around with some new access control people that want to replace all of the electronic door locks in the district.

When we got back, Brody called me about a printer issue that ended up with me remoting into the computer he was looking at. What I didn’t realize was that he was remoted into the PaperCut server from there, so I had a ripe case of RDP Inception and didn’t even realize it. I ended up accidentally deleting a bunch of printers from the server, which required us to roll the server back to the last nightly backup. The fix was simple enough, but the whole server had to come down for us to fix it, which caused problems for everyone, everywhere.

I left work frustrated that I wasn’t able to complete my own task for all the calls I kept getting. Eaddie was at Oakland waiting for me to pick her up, so I couldn’t even stay late just to finish up. I picked her up and expected to go home to clean, but she was hungry, so I ended up taking her out for a dinner date.

Summer had to work late and Autumn was still coming back from a Quiz Bowl tournament, so Eaddie and I went to La Huerta to eat. She was super chatty, and we had a good time. We weren’t back home for very long before Summer came over to get her, and left me to start cleaning up the bedroom on my own. I didn’t get as much done as I could have, but I got a bunch of little things done in a lot of places. At least the bed is uncovered now, but I can’t say much about the floor. I’ll have to make a decision tomorrow about running some speaker wire, because I really want the speakers to all be functional for Friday.

Sidetracked? We’re not even on the right train!

Better Than It Sounds

I made it in to work a couple minutes early this morning, and it was a pretty quiet day. I didn’t hear much from anyone until lunch when a big group of us went to La Huerta. Thomas ended up buying, and then I went to Oakland to take care of a couple things before their two-hour early dismissal for conferences in the evening.

As soon as I got back to the shop, it was time to meet Josh to help Brody install a sound system in the new art room. We weren’t particularly fast, but nothing too bad happened. We just sort of took our time and made it work.

After work, I met Eaddie at the house and helped her get the bicycle down to ride for a bit. Then we went to Walmart to pick up a few things for dinner on the way up to their house. Summer had thawed out some brats to grill, and we had a quick and easy dinner.

It was a relatively early night to bed for everyone. Even I was feeling particularly tired, so I didn’t fuss too much over anything else.

You little brat.

Mouse Toss

It was a little warmer today, but still cool out. It made for a really great day to be moving stuff around outside, which we did. We ordered several hundreds of computer mice and headphones, and split them up for delivery to every campus. Even Thomas came out to help us toss mice into the trucks, which ended up being super fun. I had some sort of back pain going on all day, but it started before we did any of that, and I never felt much worse throughout the day.

They ended up going to lunch about half an hour early, but I made the mistake of meeting them at Fat Daddy’s in London. I’ve just never ever been impressed with their food there, but for some reason the others like it. The problem today was that they tried to meet Brody at Dwight, but Brody showed up at Crawford on accident. I just waited outside the gas station/restaurant until they showed up, and then ordered a sloppy, overpriced, uninspired plate of nachos.

It was a relatively quiet afternoon, and I didn’t get too deep into much of anything. We put a couple metal shelves together for our storage room. Then near the end of the day, Gary brought me a basket of hotspots he found and asked me to test them. All but one appeared to work normally.

When I left work, I stopped by the shop to find that Summer had already left. From there, I had to wait for a train, then made my way home to set up the storage stuff I had ordered from Kohl’s. Summer and Eaddie came by to Eaddie could try on an old Papa John’s uniform as a Halloween costume. Then they left so Eaddie could go to her boyfriend’s birthday party for the evening.

Eventually the kids made it back to town, and I picked Eaddie up at Zane’s house. Summer was still awake when we got there, but we closed her up in the bedroom while we watched an episode of House before bed.

Beanelephant

A Do Be

Weeks are flying by. I barely remember what I’m doing at work. Tomorrow is Friday already. I spent a little time with Greg trying to help with an Adobe issue he had, but we didn’t get anywhere. Most of us took a break and went to CJ’s for an overpriced lunch and a disappointingly small patty of meat. There’s just no way that’s a third of a pound of meat.

When I got home, I drove myself crazy trying to use lasers and a compass to align my speakers. Compasses don’t work great around enormous magnets.

It’s curtains for me!

Speaking of Unboxing

It was another quiet day at work today. I didn’t hear much from anyone, and just kept busy in my office. I actually closed quite a few work orders, which was nice. It’s starting to look like I’m not doing much, but I made an effort to create work orders for all the little things I did today.

Gary fetched me for lunch, and I met the guys at La Chiquita after I finished my chat with Dell to get a depot kit. Then I stopped by to see Summer briefly before going to Oakland. Things were pretty quiet there too though, and eventually I made it back to the shop to finish the day.

I ended up being the last one out of the office, but I wasn’t really that late. I went by to see Summer again, and then went home to spend some time cleaning up. I finally unboxed the last two speaker towers I had in the corner, and got them ready to place. Then I picked up and stored some stuff that’s just been sitting out for ages. Progress feels pretty good, but I know another wall is approaching fast.

You know, from this angle, it kind of does look like I have a problem!

to the

I woke up absolutely dreading getting out of bed this morning. I was absolutely beat, and needed another several hours of sleep, but I willed myself up and into the shower. It was pretty quiet at work, but I still spent most of my time working on other peoples’ issues. I finally got the CPPC minutes sent out to the applicable email groups, and immediately afterward, Thomas asked me to remove the “Assistant to the Director of Information Systems” line in my email signature. I wasn’t particularly surprised, but it still kind of made me feel uneasy about my life there. It all started when Ben moved me into the office to the right of his, literally making me his right-hand man. We joked about how people in the district just made up their titles with seemingly nothing to back them up, and went with the Dwight Schrute “to the” moniker.

I worked through lunch since nobody said anything to me about it other than Brody, who actually took lunch about half an hour late. By that time, I was two minutes away from the Pixel 6 launch announcement, so I just stayed and watched that in my office. Then after lunch, I eventually made my way to Oakland and finished out my day.

When I left work, I went straight to the high school to pick Eaddie up for karate. We went to my house for just a bit before deciding to meet Summer at a taco truck for dinner. Eaddie really wants to quit karate, so we didn’t make her go, and I think Summer will finally let both girls drop out. Eaddie, particularly, will still have ways to be active. Autumn needs more encouragement, so I’m not sure whether we’ll let her drop out, but for now at least, she has plenty of afterschool activities that keep her occupied.

Summer couldn’t stay until we got our food, so Eaddie and I ate on a bench there and had what were probably very funny and awkwardly inappropriate conversations in front of other patrons as they came through. Then we took Summer’s food back home and waited for her to get off of work.

I finally got my missing grill parts in from China, so I put that together while we waited. Then a little while later, Summer called to say she didn’t realize we were going to my house to wait for her, and that she had gone to her house instead. Autumn came over instead, and picked Eaddie up to go home. I stayed behind and watched a Pixel Superfans stream, which didn’t really provide me any more insight into the device. The price for the smaller device was lower than I expected, but the Pro is about where I thought it would be for the storage size I wanted. I’ll have to wait and see if Google Fi has any deals around Thanksgiving time.

Black Friday will finally look right in photos on the Pixel 6!

10 Hours Carpet Remix

I made it out of the house earlier today, but I still thought McDonald’s was going to make me late. The drive-through line was out to the road, so I went inside to order. The girl at the counter seemed new, and had to ask for help a couple times. Then I was surprised when my food came out almost immediately. I ended up getting to work a few minutes early for a change.

We did a little bit of refresher training this morning, and then I was left to myself for most of the day. I didn’t have anything in particular that I really spent any time on. Brody really wanted Venezia’s, so six of us went there for lunch.

It took a while to get our food, and then once we got it, I didn’t much care for what I ordered. I was just trying something new and decided I didn’t love it. Then I made the mistake of telling that to the girl at the register, and she yelled across the room at, presumably, the guy who made it. He proceeded to give me all of the reasons that I was wrong for not liking it. I dropped my leftovers off for Summer, then made it back to work in a torrential downpour. It was a pretty quiet afternoon from then on.

When I got home from work a little after four, I started cleaning the carpet again. Eventually the girls came over to stay the night because Autumn had a late game and Summer didn’t want her driving to their father’s at night. I just kept cleaning the carpet, until nearly three in the morning. I hurt everywhere, and nearly reached peak exhaustion. I think I’m over it for now.

Blisters, of all things.

DAFT

I woke up nearly an hour and a half before my alarm this morning and was wide awake from that point on. I wasn’t uncomfortable, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t fall back asleep. I thought this would give me plenty of time to get my free McDonald’s breakfast again, but I was wrong. Somehow I was still five minutes late. I made up for it by working through lunch though.

It was a really quiet day at the office, for the most part. I picked at a few things, and finally got my CPPC meeting minutes draft finished and sent off for approval from the rest of the committee. I may have been a little too extra, but I was proud of my jokes, dammit.

I ended the day running to Oakland to change a projector bulb. Then I went to my parents’ house for some more fish soup. Mom wanted to add more elephant ear and dill to the pot, which ended up pulverizing all of the fish that was in the pot. It ended up being not enough fish for all the extras.

Eventually I made it home so I could continue with the Great Carpet Scrub of 2021. I finally got enough transparent water from the first half of the area I’ve been cleaning to feel good about calling it done. Hopefully I can get the last half of it tomorrow, and then let it dry up before moving furniture at the end of the weekend.

That’s the joke.