Gunning for some Gunnars

I've been trying to get computer glasses for a while now, first starting with cheap knockoffs from Amazon that didn't fit my giant head, then trying for Gunnars. Now I have two pairs downstairs that I'll have to send back to this AV House place. Because they're not Amazon, the shipping back isn't free, and there's a bloody restocking fee on top of that. Fuckers. I'll be out about 30 bucks or so and still not have any goddamn computer glasses. Why is this so hard? I definitely would not be able to get any prescription glasses over the mail. Not with my giant noggin anyway.

As glad as I am to have this new laptop, I'm still pretty peeved that a bunch of stuff doesn't really work on it. I can't get the ODBC connections to work on it, so I can't do queries on it for work. The wireless adapters like to turn off when I close the lid or put it to sleep, so I pretty much have to reboot when I want to use it again, which is also quite silly. But I am still enjoying the laptop. The full keyboard that lights up, the brilliant display that's a nice 16:9... I guess I have to stay at the job so that I can keep my paws on this laptop. Part of me want to make the kids happy by installing Minecraft on this thing for them. But no, it's my work laptop. Installing Minecraft is a little too obnoxious.

It's been an interesting week. Started off Monday when I went to Mom's to drop off some corned beef that I had made up on Sunday evening, and after a slight delay, she opens the door and she's been crying. She tells me that my aunt, her younger sister, had passed. The details that came out were a little sad, that my other aunt had come home late from work and found her on the floor, dead. They wouldn't be doing an autopsy because either it's a cultural thing or maybe in their minds, it wouldn't matter anyway because she'd still be gone, and it wouldn't make that big a difference. Kinda a bummer though. I've been feeling rather bad for my mom, because that's her youngest sister.

The homework thing continues to be a struggle with Zoe, but I'm going to try to not let that dictate our whole relationship. I've been a little cruel when it comes to that, not enforcing it unfairly or anything like that, but letting that become the focal point of our interaction. Everytime I talk to her, it's always about remembering to hand shit in or how much screen time she won't have. It's really not making her my friend and I'm honestly pretty sick of hearing my own voice bumming everyone out. At least the weekend's here and I get some respite and Alex gets his video game time.

I've been thinking about writing, and filmmaking, and I think it's finally dawning on me that if I really had wanted to do something about it, I probably would have done it by now. It feels so terminal, that this will probably be the job that I'll do for a really long time, and that filmmaking is now so out of reach that it exists in my mind only to torture myself for the time that I squandered away. But like I said, if I was ever going to do anything with it, nothing would have stopped me from doing so. In a way, when I had kids, I grew more vulnerable and afraid to fail. I miss the old me. Having only been in a couple plays and I go out and write and put on a whole play. Something so fearless and foolish about that. Now I just do the bare minimum because I refused to accept this reality as mine. I keep waiting for something that will never come.

Yeah, I should probably move on to something else.

Take Your Kid to Work Day

So today was take your kid to work day, and Alex tagged along with me to work because we finally organized an event for this annual thing that has been going on for 23 years. Zoe had overdue assignments and since she needed to recognize that good grades equals rewards, she didn't go. Overall, it was a pretty good day because he got to do some CPR, play with some AEDs, and got to spend some time with me as well. It was actually a pretty sweet day because I got to spend some time with him, and he was having fun laughing at the various spillings of liquids on my black polo shirt that he had borrowed. The downside of today was the complete lack of productivity on my part. Between ducking in and out of those sessions, having a brand new laptop from work that isn't set up properly to do much of any work, and Mom needing me to fix the phone and scan some documents, I've barely gotten anything accomplished. I was under the false assumption that I would be able to do a little work from home before I realized that I had never really used this laptop to remote into work before. Even a little tweaking from the co-worker didn't help matters. There's so much to do and I'm crippled by my shiny new laptop which has no ODBC connections or remote functionality. I still haven't figured out what the hell is wrong with my old Nexus, but at least Mom has a working phone now. That's most of it right there, her having the means to communication. If the phone doesn't come back to life I'll just install the apps back on her old phone. Meanwhile I'm thinking if it does come back to life, I'd like to use one of the phones for Google Play Music again. Listening to the old songs on my iPod is ok, even though I end up skipping most of the oldies and weird music selections that I usually don't accommodate. Well, would like to type more but I'm pretty wound up right now. But damn, this is a good looking laptop with a crisp display. Just wished I could do some work on it.