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Always Write

I had an anxiety attack in the shower this morning, which again seemed like the first in a little while. I took a muffin to work for breakfast, and I knew it had just gotten ants around it before I put it in the fridge, so I ignored the couple dead ones that were in the box. Then, after I took a bite, I saw one of the crumbs wiggle in the box. It was so tiny that I couldn’t tell if it was a caterpillar or a maggot, but I spat it out regardless. That left me pretty hungry all morning.

I was put in Vine jail last night, so I couldn’t see any products except for what came across my Vine Helper feed that was still loaded. I couldn’t load a new page, but I could see what was coming in. I spent a lot of time writing reviews between other projects, trying to catch up after all those phone cases I ordered.

Later in the morning, I caught David and asked him to walk me around the plant to see where the PoEs were for the camera system. I’d love to redo all of that since pretty much everything had been run separately without a master plan.

We went to Arby’s for lunch to try the ArbyQ and the steak nuggets. Both were pretty middling, but I got my fill. The afternoon went by fairly quickly, and then we got stuck behind some annoyingly slow, left lane-hogging folks on the way home. Summer skipped out on Sip + Stretch, but originally said she still wanted wings. By the time we got there, she had changed her mind about that too. I ended up warming up some rice and chicken for her, and then for Eaddie when she came home briefly. I had a little bit myself to clean it up, and then I took Muad’Dib on a run.

It got dark super fast. I thought we left early enough to get back before dark, but we did not. Mom had a little bit of spaghetti squash for me to clean up with vinegar, soy sauce, sriracha, and beef jerky. Then we got home to get ready for bed.

Wake me up when September ends.

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But Did You Document It?

I took my little baby bottle full of creamer to work today, and after we got there and I shook it up, it leaked all over the place. When I tried tightening it down, the threads snapped off of the top part of the lid, so then I was stuck with a full, broken bottle all day.

I contemplated wiping my phone again, but I think I finally got most of my text messages transferred through. I hate that Google Fi doesn’t keep all of that in the cloud any more, and that was a big part of why I switched to them in the first place. Now with RCS encryption, backing up and restoring is a lot more iffy.

Eaddie called me pretty early in the day, trying to get tickets to see Harry Styles. If she had told me they had an Amex presale, I could have found my card and gotten her tickets easily, but instead she missed out because my card wasn’t in the stack on my desk where she could find it.

After that, I was fairly focused on a couple of projects. I keep bouncing between different things that all ultimately rely on big network changes, so I think now is the time to start building out new subnets and VLANs. I broke out NetBox yesterday, and continued documenting things there today. Hopefully with that, along with my “little friends” as leadership like to call them, I can get things migrated smoothly.

We had Sonic for lunch, but I forgot to redeem my extra snack, so I gave Muad’Dib some of my ice cream. The carhop actually offered a pup cup, but then didn’t return with one. Then when I unwrapped my burger, it had no tomatoes or pickles instead of extra, so a different carhop brought me a cup full of them. That actually made the burger way better, so no complaints there.

The afternoon was more focus, and then we got home a little late. I installed a different phone mount in my car, then warmed up some leftovers for dinner. I also made some fresh rice, so the girls could eat when they came home. I was glad that they finished up the rest of the stuff Summer made a week or more ago. I cleaned up the kitchen, then took Muad’Dib for a run. It got dark fast, so we only popped in to see my parents for a moment.

When we got home, I cleaned up some more and took out the trash. Then I gave Muad’Dib a long-overdue bath while the girls lounged. Summer went to bed, and I was up late catching up on a few reviews and then prepping my stuff for work the next day.

Believe it or not, jail!

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Recovery Nightmare

I never could have imagined that upgrading from a Google Pixel to another Google Pixel would be such a terrible experience, but here we are. I had my new phone set up with the out of box experience, and it was clearly missing media from text messages. I got to work with both phones in tow, and eventually gave up and factory reset my new one, then set it up again from scratch without doing a recovery. I tried doing a setup with a different kind of restoration, but that didn’t go as planned either. I ended up factory resetting a second time and using a third party tool to restore text messages instead.

What I thought might take a couple hours ended up taking more than half of my day at work. I ended up skipping lunch because I couldn’t use either of my phones. I could have left them and picked up some food without it, but I just worked right through lunch instead.

It wasn’t even done when I left to go home. I made it all the way home and changed out of my work clothes, and then it finally said it was done. It recovered way more, but I still found the last week of messages gone. It got my super old messages and media, but I didn’t have any messages since last Wednesday. It made absolutely no sense.

Summer was home, and I was starving, so we ended up going to Cicis for a cheap dinner. They weren’t super busy, but the bar was mostly empty. They kept pizzas coming out though, and we got our fill. Afterward, we went to Walmart to pick up some vitamins before coming back home. It was dark, but Muad’Dib needed a run, so we went to my parents’ house and then around Promenade.

I spent some more time getting my new phone set up, but I still wasn’t convinced that I wouldn’t want to just wipe it and start over again anyway. I just can’t decide which partial failure is best, and I’m tired of settling.

That excuse doesn’t fly!

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Three Meals and a Snack

As expected, I had a terrible time getting up this morning. I slept until the last minute, then jumped in the shower and left. We stopped by Burger King for a biscuit and made it to work. Things were super quiet with a few people out. I brought a bánh bao that I ate a little later for a mid-morning snack, then went to Wendy’s for a small, later lunch. The afternoon was even quieter since the guys leave earlier.

The ride home was pretty relaxing. Summer was in pajamas when I got there, but at least we had plans to have dinner together. I took care of a bunch of packages and then we ate leftover chicken sandwiches with pesto. They were great, except for how dry and tough the chicken had gotten.

By the time we finished cleaning up from dinner, it was starting to get dark out. I took Muad’Dib on a shortened run on the Pint again and tried to push it a little harder. It still doesn’t feel comfortable going faster, but at least I just barely broke 10mph. My parents were cleaning up from a burst water hose when we got there, plus it was already dark, so we headed home pretty quickly.

Summer was in bed, so I cleaned up some more and finally set up my new Pixel 11 Pro. I copied settings and data from my old phone for the first time, just because I knew I would need certain apps just to even wake up in the morning. I think I still would have preferred to set it up from scratch though. Maybe later.

So many Mous!

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Catastrophic Failure

We slept many hours. Summer, as usual, had many more than me. I woke up first, but we got out of bed around the same time. Power flickered overnight, so I had to start my computer up again. Shortly after I got it back up, power flickered again and I ended up losing all of my Tabs Outliner history. That extension has been critical for any projects I’ve had to research, so I spent literally the entire day trying to recover from that.

Summer made brunch for us out of some sausage and eggs we had in the refrigerator. Eaddie left. A new shower head was delivered, so I got that installed. I spent more time trying to recovery my Tabs Outliner, but eventually gave up and rolled back to my last good backup over a month ago. By that time, I needed to take Muad’Dib out for a run. I also wanted to have a good dinner, so I took the Pint X to my parents’ house and warmed up the leftover fish soup while my parents were out watering the plants.

Afterward we rode straight back home. I never could get the Pint over 10mph, which seemed strange. I guess I never really felt pushback, but it just felt like it wasn’t accelerating any further, and I didn’t want to nosedive. It didn’t help that it wouldn’t even make it straight up the driveway without nosediving.

When we got back in, I happened to notice that Summer put some parts of the coffee maker into the dishwasher that weren’t dishwasher safe. I didn’t feel like I blew up at her, but I still had to dig things out of the running dishwasher and clean up the mess. Two components were plainly labeled as not dishwasher-safe. She also left a pretty obvious sticker in place, so that came off in the wash. All of that ultimately lead to a small fight, and I simply couldn’t understand how she could possibly feel like she had any kind of argument.

It’s always simple, stupid stuff, but I don’t know how much more I can stand. I feel like my life was on a steady upward climb before I met her. I was moving upward with my career, and I was cleaning up my home. I let my own home suffer when I started spending most of my time with her at her house. I saw things in her life that I felt like we could improve as a team. Then I allowed the whirlwind of storm damage to my home, my desire to expand my property, and Bác Vân’s unexpected death to push me to move into a new home with her. It’s been an absolute freefall from that point forward. I can’t get any traction on any project, I’m constantly frustrated or angry, I don’t feel like I’m respected, and the only thing I can do to provide any happiness for myself is actively making everyone else unhappy.

Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

Why am I here?

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Hi Bixby

I could barely sleep all night, between the uncomfortable bed, differences in my travel CPAP, the hot room, and the bright lights coming through the windows. I laid in bed for a long while, unable to go to sleep, so I think I only got a couple hours of actual sleep. I got up and showered, then went downstairs with Summer to let Muad’Dib relieve himself. Then we took him back up to the kids before going down for breakfast. I was really pleased with their selection, but frustrated that the kids just wanted to sleep instead of coming down to eat, and then just complained about hunger later.

We checked out and headed to 181 Ranch in Bixby for the Conquer the Gauntlet. It was pretty overcast, but I couldn’t tell if it was actually going to rain or not. Summer wanted me to pay to be a spectator, so after waiting for them to finally start, Muad’Dib and I wandered into the field between obstacles and waited for them to come around. I took a few pictures, but there wasn’t just a whole lot of interest. It wasn’t terribly hot, but it was humid and gross feeling. We waited for a while, then went back to the car for a bit while they went out farther than I cared to go.

Muad’Dib did great, and got lots of attention from strangers. We eventually went back out and found our crew as they finished up the last few obstacles. I actually thought they had another loop, but they were actually on the home stretch, so we didn’t get to see them finish. It actually started to rain pretty hard, so we ran back to the car and just waited for them to get back.

The kids wanted nothing but Red Lobster after that, which I hated, because there were so many more exotic things we could have tried. There wasn’t really much around us either, so I drove us through Muskogee on the way home to find the Red Lobster there. We missed a turn out in the farmlands, but got headed back in the right direction. We charged just as we got into town, then made our way to Red Lobster. As we got close, it looked completely dark and there were zero cars around the place, so I continued on toward home. The kids had been chanting “Red Lobster” repeatedly, intentionally annoyingly, and I didn’t have self-driving and had to actually pay attention to what we were doing, so I shut them down and continued driving toward home.

After some back and forth, I agreed to drive them way out of the way to get to the Red Lobster in Fort Smith. Our server was incredible, so at least I had a full plate of shrimp in front of me at all times. We ate, then stopped in Ozark for one last charge before making it home.

I had been communicating with a lady about a Onewheel Pint X she had on Facebook Marketplace, and agreed to meet her once we got back into town to buy it. Then Summer informed me that her debit card had been compromised, and she hadn’t gone to get a new one yet. I started worrying about figuring out my own ATM situation since I no longer do any local banking, but the lady said Cash App would be fine.

As soon as we got home, the others unloaded and I took Muad’Dib to meet the family at Kroger. I had previously offered $700 out of the $750 she asked for, but after I paid her, I learned that her son was trying to save up for a dirt bike. With a heart full of approval and knowing what it’s like to want a motorcycle, I sent her $20 more for the cause. I let their son ride my GT-S around the parking lot to see how it felt, then loaded up and headed back home with our new Pint X in “Honda Grom Blue.”

Muad’Dib had been telling me the entire time that he really wanted to go for a run, so we did a short loop to my parents’ house, then back home before dark. Summer had wound down for bed while Eaddie was out and back, presumably fetching cars with Eli or something. I had a bunch of inefficiently packaged Vine products to unbox, but I also finally got my new Pixel 11 Pro. I got the screen protector installed, but didn’t bother going any further than that before bed.

Don’t fight it!

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Long and Boring

It poured rain all night, and was still coming down when we left in the morning. Traffic was expectedly dumb, but mostly uneventful apart from someone who had wiped out right after my onramp to get out of town. Troopers were already there blocking the left lane, and the vehicle was on a wrecker, so we carried on and made it to work. It seemed to dry up fairly quickly, and was otherwise a pretty dull day.

I booked a hotel for Summer’s Conquer the Gauntlet trip, and then bounced between a couple different thoughts and projects. Microsoft licensing is a forgettable nightmare, but hopefully I can get us built out correctly for not much more than we’re paying now.

We took a late, disappointing lunch at Arby’s. My Buffalo chicken sandwich was small and sad, and it seemed like they shrank the fries and drink. I even considered stopping somewhere else for more food, but ultimately decided against it. We got back to work and finished out the afternoon quietly.

Johnny called and chatted with me for a bit on the drive, then lost me as he got out of signal. He called again later because he had to go back in to work, but I couldn’t stop to help since we had to pack. I got things started before anyone else got home. Then Summer showed up and I took Muad’Dib on a run to the Neighborhood Market to pick up my prescriptions. Afterward, we ran straight to my parents’ house for fish soup before making it back home to load up.

Eaddie and Eli showed up late after their school stuff, and we got loaded up as quickly as we could. We stopped in Van Buren to charge, then made the long, boring drive all the way to Tulsa for the night. I managed to make it up five flights of stairs, and everyone crashed while I waited for my laptop to finish some update nonsense before bed.

These roads are bad for coffee.

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Feeling Azure

I was in a deep dream state when Summer had to wake me up this morning. My alarm was going off, but I was knocked smooth out. I got going pretty quickly and made it out the door just a couple minutes early, so the drive in was fairly relaxed. There wasn’t anything pressing, so I looked at consolidating licensing again now that I understand our needs a bit better. Later on, that lead to some Azure stuff, and trying to automate account cleanups there.

We took a late lunch and went to Sonic to try their new meal deal. I think I preferred the chicken over the sundae, but at least I was able to add peanut butter for free. There were a bunch of carhops I hadn’t seen before, which I guessed was because of school. Everyone loved seeing Muad’Dib, and he got some pets and a pup cup. He tried to eat the whole thing, cup and all, so i got a bit messy trying to slow him down. Fortunately they had a water spigot right by the picnic tables.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly, but only thanks to the late lunch. Just as I was about to pack up, Johnny called to talk about his latest adventures. I tried to pack up while he talked, but we still left a bit late. We got slowed down a bit on the drive home, but not terribly so. Summer was having a bath when we got in, so I heated up the pretzel bites we bought, along with the brie with some nuts and hot honey. I didn’t care for it, but it needed to be eaten amidst the everpresent ants.

It sounded like a storm was coming in, so I took Maud’Dib out a little early for a good run. It felt quite a bit cooler out, so he did great. We visited my parents quickly and made it home just as it got dark. I microwaved some Lit’l Smokies and corn to eat with the remaining pretzel bites, and then got ready for bed.

Winter is coming.

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Tablet for Now

I had another charley horse last night and had to get up and walk it off after it slowly built up. I landed on the couch once it settled down, but eventually got back to bed for a little longer. I woke up a little later from the gentle warmth of the BedJet, and got ready for work at a leisurely pace. Once at work, I was able to finish my managed tablet project and hand it off to Marivic to test out in the lab.

I got called downstairs a couple times, and had our engineering call with Aptean. That took way less time and effort than I expected, and then it seemed like they had it fixed in just a few minutes after the call. I took a really late lunch to go to Wendy’s for another Pretzel Pub burger, and then the afternoon was for tying up other loose ends.

I ended up getting distracted and worked fairly late. Then it was a pretty relaxing ride home since the heavier traffic had passed. Summer was already in pajamas when we walked in, so I did my own thing and cleaned up a bit. We ate some leftovers together, and then I took Muad’Dib for a late run. He lead the way for most of it, and skipped a few blocks, but at least he ran well. We visited my parents for a bit, then made it home well after dark. I took out the trash, then hurriedly made it to bed.

One down!

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Lessen Learned

I woke up in the middle of the night with a charley horse in my left leg, eventually got back to sleep, and then woke up to my alarm and another charley horse starting in my right leg. I was able to walk it off fairly quickly, then got ready for work. I kept thinking we had a call in the morning, but Tammy reminded me it was for tomorrow. I was all out of sorts, but eventually got into my tablet project again. I finally went down and showed Marivic, then took it back upstairs to tinker some more.

I met Summer at Ortega’s on her way to Little Rock, and they sat us way in the back. Not long after, Joel, David, and Shane walked in and sat at a table beside us. I didn’t overstuff myself, and had a better afternoon for it. Later, Shane came by to talk to me just briefly, and then it was super quiet the rest of the day.

When I got home, I had a strangely lumpy package to unbox. Inside was a poorly packaged box of nearly the same size, full of glass bottles of soda. A surprising few of them were smashed, but I still had to take them all apart to clean up the broken glass. Eaddie got home in the middle of that, and then Summer arrived just as I finished.

Summer was basically in the bathroom until she went to bed. Eaddie left, so I made myself a chicken sandwich and then took Muad’Dib for a run. We did most of our regular route, but he cut us short a couple blocks. It didn’t feel terrible, but it was still very hot, and he was tired. I aired up my tire at my parents’ house because I forgot to do it before we left the house. Then we got back home just after dark. I cleaned up where Eaddie had left a bunch of sugary dishes out to collect more ants, and got to bed.

Tired of oopsies.