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RESET ALL THE THINGS

We were a little behind today, but I had time to get things ready for our staff meeting. I felt like I did okay, and then I spent the entire day working on the Aiphone gate stuff. At one point, David and I walked out to the front gate and looked at the control box out there. All of that stuff was Avigilon, but it was still useful to tinker with it a bit.

I had an anxiety attack about half an hour before I left to meet Summer at Ortega’s for lunch. Then I finally perceived some luck in the afternoon. I ended up factory resetting both the master controller on Heaven’s desk, as well as the relay control module. I really thought I had something, but by the end of the day, Heaven’s phone still couldn’t call the stations.

We left a little late, and made it home just moments before Summer pulled in. She took a cool bath, and I finally made it to Leonard’s to pick up an air filter. The house took forever to cool down, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the away temperature being high, or if it’s just been running non-stop and couldn’t keep up.

Muad’Dib could have handled the store a little better, but he was excited about a new place. He was super high energy all evening, so I took him on a late run straight to my parents’ house before it got too dark. He ran nearly the entire way there and back, which was pretty intense for how miserable it was outside.

We made it home and I juggled chargers, since Summer made it home with under 10%. Fortunately I charged extra last night, so I had a little more than usual when we got home. I rummaged through the freezer and found some buns that I could use to make a sandwich for tomorrow, and then wound down for bed pretty quickly as the air finally started to feel a little cooler.

Enter Enter Enter Enter Enter Enter Enter

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Gatekeeping

My shower wasn’t great this morning, and I almost wished I had just left the old, broken head in place. When I finished, I bent over to dry off and then pinched a nerve in the middle of my back as I tried to stand back up. I was hunched for the rest of the day from that, and I could barely move without tweaking it.

I realized after we left the house that I forgot my breakfast, so I survived the morning on coffee alone. At least I remembered to bring my leftovers for lunch. The first thing I fought was actually the broken maintenance network again. This time I tried changing some STP priorities to see if it would prevent the far point-to-point from tripping the port.

The rest of the day was spent digging through and documenting the security cameras and gate system. Heaven mentioned Charles doing something on her phone that caused the front and rear gate cameras to become inverted, and I could never figure out how or where that might be set. I spent all day tinkering with settings, but never heard anything back from Fleming about what the old password might have been. I had finally given up on trying to recover anything from the non-wiped equipment, but then I couldn’t seem to write new configurations over them, so tomorrow I’ll still be stuck working on that.

I left work late again after messing around with the relay portion of the gate controls, then made it home through heavy traffic. I quickly fixed the leaky shower head and bruised the bottom of my foot in the process. Summer got home moments later and took a shower. I made her a sandwich and had some more Long John Silvers myself. A bunch of the lunch meat went bad, and I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to buy so much in the first place. We ate, and then cleaned up a bit. Eaddie was already gone to work the conference, so Summer had to finish her laundry for her.

Summer was dead tired from working in the heat, and I could still barely move. Leonard’s was closed, so I couldn’t go get the air filter we’d been needing for a few weeks. Muad’Dib hadn’t been run in a couple days either, so I decided to take him to the Neighborhood Market to get rid of some recycling. One of our neighbors had a car in the driveway with a trunk that was open the entire time we were gone, so we stopped by on the way home to knock on the door. Someone turned on some lights, but we never got a response, so I considered that the extent of my neighborly responsibility.

We hobbled home and went to bed.

Meet prep!

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Lefthandyman

I woke up surprisingly early this morning, but put myself back to bed since Summer was still out cold. We eventually got up for some brunch. She made herself an egg, and I had some Long John Silvers. I had some coffee and sat with her on the couch for a bit, tinkering with the Steam Machine. I got some laundry going, and she went to the gym. Eaddie got around and eventually started cleaning up her areas.

I kept going all day long, barely stopping, but didn’t have a whole lot of good to show for it. My biggest project went off the rails because I thought it would just be a simple power outlet replacement. I figured Eaddie’s bathroom socket was the culprit, but after I pulled it, I still had no power to the lines coming in there. I checked our closet receptacle and found that it was the end of the circuit, so I went back to the bathroom.

I ended up pulling out the outlet and both wall switches. One was just a switch for the heater and had no power coming in behind the switch. The other switches in the two-gang box had three lines coming in. I eventually worked out which was the power in, and then the other two were just lines to the light and the vent fan. There didn’t appear to be another line going out to the outlet, so that whole project was a wash. I did learn that the fluorescent light in our closet actually worked though, and just needed bulbs. I’ll have to see if I can find LED alternatives for it, otherwise I’ll end up pulling the whole fixture for some better lighting.

Summer got home and mowed, then threw together a quick pasta dinner for the three of us. I got the new shower fixture installed, but not at all to my liking, so that will have to be swapped again too. By the end of the night, I ended up using the new diverter with the old shower head and wand, but the diverter itself seemed to be inhibiting some of the awesome water pressure we had gotten used to.

I finally took a shower, Eaddie finally finished all of her cleaning, and Summer made it to bed. At least there was some success.

Back to work!

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Epic

Summer left early this morning for a race in Clarksville. I got up just before she would get home so I could be ready for our day in Little Rock. Eaddie stayed home with Muad’Dib, and the two of us went to eat Bulgogi in Conway, then walked The Promenade for a bit before the movie. The only shop we visited was LoveSac, just to check out their modular furniture. It was neat, but I didn’t think it was worth the unlisted price.

We got back to the theater early for our movie, and it was a hot mess. The movie was just about sold out, and there appeared to only be two people working. There was a mob of people, and the kids running the place weren’t particularly customer-friendly. In any event, we made it into the auditorium and found our seats. It filled up quickly, and we all took in The Odyssey for the first time since grade school.

It was a long movie, to be sure. I did really enjoy the story, though it did feel a bit more like homework than entertainment. The cast was completely loaded, and I thought the changes in the story helped add thoughtful perspective. The biggest surprise of all was the fact that both of us sat through the entire thing without having to get up.

To get immediately back to the poor experience, as soon as the credits started to roll, the staff turned on the lights and came in to start cleaning up. One of the kids even yelled at us that were were no post-credits scenes, while we were sat watching the scroll. We waited to the end, then left to head toward home.

I didn’t want to skip dinner, so I stopped by Long John Silvers in Conway for a family meal to take home. It was a fairly relaxed drive back, and then I had just a little bit of it to eat before we wound down for the evening.

You are the people from the sea.

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It’s Hot up Here!

I brought some spare stuff to work with me so I could wire Heaven’s new office. My first goal was to get up to the switch cabinet in the shipping area to see if they just needed to be patched in. I had to ask Charles to get someone to clear a path, since there were pallets upon pallets of stuff all underneath where I needed to be.

They got that cleaned up and delivered a scissor lift quicker than I could have imagined, so Muad’Dib and I took a walk through the plant to try and find some cable. I tried to get him onto the lift, but he refused to jump up. He stayed right by me though, while I went up. The cabinet was completely full of the blackest dust and dirt that got all over anything it touched. The switch wasn’t protected at all. There were no air filters or dust covers anywhere. There also weren’t any unpatched wires, and I couldn’t see cables coming into the cabinet anywhere, so I came back down and drove the lift over to the other switch cabinet by the line. More dust, and still no cables.

I walked through asking everyone, and nobody knew where any of it was run. Finally, Charles went over there and took a picture of the other side of the cabinet, where cables were barely sticking out from behind the cabinet, just out of sight and reach. I took the lift back over, and managed to reach up from behind to grab them. It was super uncomfortable, and super hot up there, but I eventually got them down and into the cabinet.

Three of the four lines were Cat6a, so my fingers felt all torn up by the time I was done with those. We made it down and brought a laptop to Heaven so she could get signed in. Rhonda had a fit about her leaving, and then gave Teddy to me since Muad’Dib got hyped for a run outside. I let them run around before taking Teddy back in, and then Muad’Dib and I grabbed some Arby’s and McDonald’s fries for lunch. Our Aptean call was coming up quickly, so I just ate in my office right before the call. The call itself was pretty pointless since we hadn’t done any more testing. I really need to get Janice and Elizabeth set up.

We eventually made it back out to Heaven’s new office to terminate there. I decided to just use RJ45 connectors on both ends, then went straight into the switch, since I didn’t have any keystones anyway. I thought maybe they had used Panduit Mini-Com keystones like they did in our main rack, but they did not. I’ll just have to go back and do it right later. By the end of it, I was able to verify data on all four cables, though PoE didn’t test completely right. I chalked it up to the dirt that I couldn’t blow out.

Finally, I got to focus a little bit on the security gates again. I found some manuals and tinkered with the setup utility some more, but didn’t really have anything to show for it by the time we left. Everyone else was long gone, and we made it home through some fairly thick traffic.

Summer was doing her nails, and Eaddie came home and cleaned her room a bit since she wanted to unbox the vacuum-sealed sofa I got her. I grilled some of the squash and zucchini that I brought home from Janice, and the three of us finished up the ribs from the other day. I took Muad’Dib for a run as it got dark and cool, but it still felt pretty miserable and stagnant outside. We visited my parents, and made it home in the dark.

Summer went to bed surprisingly late, especially considering she had a race in the early morning. I got us tickets to see The Odyssey in IMAX, so I tried not to stay up too late.

Much to do!

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Standin’ the Heat

I jumped back into cameras and security gates this morning, but didn’t really feel like I had as much traction as I did yesterday afternoon. Charles was back and had looked at the gate as well. I did at least get video back up, so I think almost all of the cameras are back online now. The gates just require additional configuration, but I don’t know how.

Scott also wanted to get Heaven going in her new office by Monday, so I figured I needed to get out to that room this afternoon. We went to Taco Bell for a quick lunch, and Muad’Dib got some pets from a stranger for being such a good boy. Afterward we went to the guard shack outside the shipping entrance. I had to call Scott to learn that this wasn’t the right building, and then Nyjoel had to point me to the shipping container that was actually inside the shipping area, well under the roof.

It was a small container, barely finished out, with a window unit in the wall. There were four network lines dropped in the back corner, but only down to about waist level. If we want to get to anywhere else, I’ll have to get some cable raceways. I didn’t have the right tools, since nothing was terminated, so we drove around to the front, then walked back down from my office. I used a temporary termination clip that I picked up off of vine, just to see if the cables went anywhere. The one I tested did not. Muad’Dib and I wandered around to find the switch cabinet, and it looked like nothing was patched in. More to do.

The rest of the afternoon went by fairly quickly, and then we had to leave to get home and change for Julie’s birthday dinner at La Villa. Summer had Sip + Stretch, and Eaddie was in Clarksville, so I just took Muad’Dib with me and left him in the car. My parents actually beat me there, but I beat Julie and Kevin, so I guess that was a win.

Eaddie’s old friend Emma was our server, and she seemed about in tears the entire time. I later learned that this was just a personality trait, and not anything that anyone had done. She did a fine job, and I don’t think anyone had any complaints. I figure she just needed to relax. Dinner took a while, and then I went outside to let Muad’Dib out for a couple minutes while everyone else settled up. When we finally left, we stopped by Point Remove to check on Summer. They were busy yapping, so we just left and went for a run.

I forgot poop bags, so we had to run a modified course to find some bags and then return, but we visited my parents, got the bag, got the poop, and made it home before Summer got there. Eaddie made it home fairly early and needed help removing her new contacts, but she wouldn’t let me just grab them, so she was on her own until she finally gave up and had me pull one. They were super lubricated, so it was no wonder they were difficult to remove.

Do it dry!

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Subnets

It may be my imagination, but the loaner Model 3 sounds much quieter than mine. It definitely doesn’t have the wheel shake, so I need to get my tires balanced or aligned. We made it to work and got right on trying to fix the remainder of the cameras that were out. The gate was also down, so that was another piece of the adjacent puzzle. I was pretty focused on it, and got a lot of documentation done for the future.

Anneka called a couple times about my car, and hopefully they’d be getting started on it within a day or so. I considered getting another door ding fixed, but it wasn’t worth the extra thousand dollars to me. We ended up finally taking a late lunch just to grab some onion rings and chili cheese fries from Sonic to eat at my desk.

They didn’t have cake for Heaven’s birthday yesterday, so we had some today. By the end of it all, I finally had some major pieces of the puzzle figured out. Unfortunately I can’t tell whether anyone there actually believes that I’m fixing these things “for good.” All I can do is keep documenting things to back up what I’ve done.

I got tied up pretty late as I finally figured out one more piece of the Avigilon puzzle, and I finally headed home. Summer was in a bath and hungry, but wasn’t in a rush to come out. I took care of a bunch of Vine stuff, and then we went to Ridgewood for dinner. They were super dead, and closing down a little early. We got a rack of ribs and a Bronco to sit outside with Muad’Dib. Fortunately it felt pretty nice out.

When we got home, I took Muad’Dib on a good run to my parents’ house. It started to get a little dark, so we continued around on a short jaunt, slowing down slightly as the air began to feel stagnant. We got home and Summer was in bed, so I wrapped up quickly.

It was subnets all along.

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At Your Service

I had a rough start this morning, but planned to swing by the vet to cancel Muad’Dib’s appointment, since Eaddie wouldn’t be there to take him. We left the house a little later than usual, did that, and then made it to work late. I immediately got a call from Heaven, but that turned out to be a simple UPS update. Then Rhonda wanted help with something, but I brought Janice into the loop since I knew she would have a better understanding of the system procedures. We didn’t get to meet together, because Rhonda was on the phone for a while. Instead, I got pulled away to look at cameras because about half of them were offline.

I ended up staying quite a bit longer than I intended, since I still had to get to Little Rock for our appointments. Just as I was giving up, David mentioned PoE injectors in another location, so I figured I would look at that later. We left, and headed straight to Tokyo House for lunch with Summer after her meeting. We ate, and then ran by the NLRSD office to see if Randy was there. He was not, so we carried on to Gwatney Collision to drop off my car. That was a bit weird, since this was the third person I had spoken to, but he made marks around my car and I gave up my key card.

Next was Summer’s appointment at the Tesla service center. We got there really early, and basically learned that we would just be paying for the entire service. Diagnostics and all was something close to $400, and all they determined was a clogged cabin air filter. Phillip got me a loaner for my service, and Hunter took care of Summer’s car, so maybe we’ll have a little rapport if we have to take her back later.

Summer needed a charge, but thought she could make it to Conway. They indicated pets weren’t allowed in the loaner, so I met her at the Supercharger to load Muad’Dib’s stuff into the back of the car. I later read the loaner agreement, and the only mention of pets was that there would be an extra fee if they had to do extra cleaning due to pet hair.

I beat Summer home since she wanted to work out in Conway just to have some different scenery. I got home and cleaned up a bit before she and Eaddie got home. I got the new shower head, but decided to wait on installing that until I could spend some time straightening the shower arm coming out of the wall. I eventually took Muad’Dib on a run, and some incoming rain made it really nice outside. He ran nearly the whole way, we visited my parents, I cut open a spaghetti squash full of sprouts, and then we continued a short run home as it began to sprinkle.

Summer was off to bed, Eaddie left late, and I wrapped up as quickly as I could.

That’s an expensive filter.

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It’s a Machine

My shower wasn’t great with a messed up diverter this morning, but it could have been worse. It was still better than a hotel shower by a huge margin. We got to work, and things were again pretty quiet. I spent a large part of the morning troubleshooting a weird Start Menu issue where it keeps reverting back to category view. I found several articles mentioning group policy, but I couldn’t find anything similar that would have affected it in Intune.

I took a really late lunch and ended up at Wendy’s for a spicy chicken sandwich in a Minions & Monsters meal. For some reason they felt the need to serve it to me piecemeal, so I got my Frosty first. Then I got fries. Finally, my sandwich was delivered to my table. I guess at least the food was fresh?

The afternoon went by fairly quickly just because I ate so late. I had a sudden anxiety attack that didn’t linger too long, and then we made it home. Eaddie had received my Steam Machine that Johnny let me order, so I had been looking forward to opening that.

Summer got home shortly after I did, and I unboxed my new computer while she showered. I had to tinker with my home theater again, because for some reason there was no sound coming out of the subwoofer. Once I got everything set up, Summer decided she wanted Taco Villa for dinner, so Muad’Dib and I went to pick that up.

We ate, and then she went to bed. I cleaned all the stuff out of my car so I can leave it at the body shop, and made it to bed on time.

Now what?

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The Dolittles

I was surprised how late Summer slept in this morning. I was up and around for a little while before she finally got out of bed. I was feeling pretty hungry, but I waited on her to get up and we made cold sandwiches for lunch. Then we started picking at some stuff around the house, but didn’t get too wild with it. Eaddie eventually came out of her room and chatted a bit. I spent some time fighting the home theater setup, because ever since Eaddie and Eli dug out the PlayStation 3, the CEC controls haven’t been working to turn the TV off with the rest of the equipment.

I eventually took a shower, and then Summer and I took Muad’Dib out. Our first stop was the quarter wash to clean up my car a bit before we drop it off for body work. I would have finished for a buck, but I accidentally slipped a quarter into the machine between the metal facia and the actual receptacle, so I lost an extra 25%. After that, we went by Splash to vacuum out the inside. Then it was to Lowe’s for some bird seed. We took Muad’Dib inside since they have a published pet policy, and he did fine. I completely forgot to pick up air filters for the house, so we’ll have to go back again later.

By the time we made it back home, I was feeling pretty hungry again. Mom had eggplant soup, so I ran Muad’Dib over there to eat. Dad was almost home from Fort Smith, so we waited on him to eat. Then it was back home to clean up for the night. I had messed up the shower head diverter, so I rigged it up to come out both the handheld and top spout until I can get a replacement.

Take Five