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Screamin’ Good Times

I got up early with Summer to go to Dardanelle for a run. Muad’Dib and I ran a couple miles with the Onewheel, and after stopping for a moment, I turned around to see him lying in a puddle to cool down. Summer made first in her age division, so she was super happy with her progress. Afterward, we went to Waffle House for some breakfast before heading back home.

We cleaned up and had a bit of a break before Eaddie left to get her friends. Then Summer and I drove separately to drop Muad’Dib off with Mom, and headed to Hot Springs. I had been belting out songs in the shower earlier, and we continued on rocking out while we were driving, so I didn’t notice how much the car was speeding. I got pulled over, and I think it was the same guy that got me when I was working at Two Rivers. He gave me another warning, and we were on our way.

We stopped at Clampit’s Country Kitchen for a late lunch on the way. We had never been, but they had 4.7 stars and the pictures looked pretty good. It was a large building with cases of meats and some other little grocery items. The deli had plate lunches, so Summer got some brisket nachos and I got half a rack of ribs to add to that. I could not have been more disappointed. I didn’t detect any smoke on the meats at all. The hot sauce wasn’t hot at all. The nachos were just yellow corn chips with Velveeta cheese dip, cole slaw, baked beans, and a bit of brisket. The ribs weren’t sauced, smoked, or tender. It was edible, but the most stereotypical “white people” lack of flavor I could possibly describe. I think the only way the meat could have been worse is if they boiled it.

The kids caught up to us and stopped there, and then we continued to Magic Springs. The parking lot was fairly empty, so we were excited to enter with basically no lines for anything. Eaddie brought Eli, Ceci, and Jenny along, and we rode some rides and had a good time. Early on, I found an abandoned refillable cup, so we ended up cleaning it out to use for the day. We got stuck on Brain Drain the second time we went up, because the guy accidentally slipped off the button to lift the ride. They had to bring it down and run a test before it could be unlocked, but Summer really wanted to do a haunted house and it was getting dark. We wandered through a couple small ones, but by the time we made it back to the larger ones, the lines had formed. I was already burned out from yelling so much and running around, and we decided to leave the kids and head home.

I let the car drive the entire way, and it did great. We picked up Muad’Dib and made it home. Summer went straight to bed and I stayed up late just catching up. The kids ended up going to Conway for some reason, so I didn’t wait up for them. They had just taken a trip to Tulsa, so a bit of extra driving in-state must not have seemed much to them. I’m just glad I’m not paying for their gas.

Poppa’s is better somehow.

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Fix It Clean It Play It Eat It

Even without the girls here, Muad’Dib got up in the middle of the night to check if Eaddie was home, then came right back to bed. After that, I had a bit of a late start followed by rain the whole way to work, so I had to drive myself if I wanted to get there on time. It was mostly clear by then. I had gotten an email overnight about our Traverse issue, to which I replied. I expected the worst, but they pulled it off and got Tammy going again before she even got there.

I bounced around a bit after that, but eventually focused on cleaning up sensors in PRTG and performing some updates across the whole stack of servers, from the bare metal, all the way down. It felt like a super long day, and the afternoon especially dragged on after going to Sonic just a few minutes early.

A new girl brought our food out, and then remade my sundae because it didn’t have any peanut butter in it. That meant Muad’Dib got a bunch of ice cream for himself. Things were quiet after that, and dragged until we finally left for home. Mom said she had a frog in the skimmer, so we went there first to clear that, hoping to save it from drowning. We did. Summer had to close, so we waited for her to get off before riding back over for shrimp soup.

Mom had already eaten after I came over the first time, so Summer and I ate and then left. She hadn’t slept well at Autumn’s the night before, so she went to bed early for her race in the morning. Eaddie came home late from their trip to Tulsa, and chatted with me about it for a bit before going to bed. I didn’t mean to stay up late, but got hungry again and cleaned up some crusty old pizza before finally going to bed.

Charge it use it beat it view it

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It Must Have Been Bluff

I woke up super sleepy this morning and got a really slow start. I felt pretty crummy for most of the morning, but I eventually got better. Janice was full of head crud all day, so hopefully that doesn’t go around the office, or else I’ll have it forever. Tammy was having some trouble with closing, so I had to open a ticket with Aptean. It took all day, but they finally responded that it was the same issue we encountered months earlier, and evidently a hotfix they applied was overwritten by a later build update.

We started to go to lunch a little early, but ended up going around the usual time. It was Taco Bell today since the weather was still pretty nice. It was windy, but Muad’Dib loved it. He was super good today.

Summer had to leave work late in the morning to go take Autumn back to the women’s clinic after feeling some more pain, and then was surprised to learn that Autumn completely forgot to start taking the antibiotics the doctor had given her before. It ended up being just as well, because she had an attack while they were there, and an ultrasound showed a twisted ovary.

Later in the afternoon, they took Autumn back for emergency surgery and ended up having to remove an ovary. Summer stayed with her the rest of the night. I finished up the day and left a little late, and had to fight some of the worst traffic I’d ever seen, nearly the entire way home. I expected to have to go to Clarksville, so I took Muad’Dib for a run in a drizzle. Dad wanted me to add some water to the pool, so we stopped there first and ate a salad with Mom before continuing back home.

Summer eventually got Autumn back home and said not to bother driving out, so I got cleaned up and tried to make it an early night.

But it’s ovary now!

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Traverse Engineering

I had points to burn at McDonald’s today, so we stopped in for a sausage biscuit on the way out of town. It wasn’t awful, and it was the friendliest service I think I’ve ever had at any McDonald’s ever. Everything looked clean, and I even got a “good morning” when I walked in the front door. We made it to work pretty casually without a clear goal, and ended up tinkering in Traverse for most of the day.

It was a long and boring day, otherwise. I went downstairs to talk to Rhonda about her issue a couple times, and I think I learned some stuff. We took a super late lunch for some cheap Wendy’s, and then I decided to pick up a snack at Sonic on the way back. There was an old lady at the drive-through window that I’d never seen before, and she was so excited to see Muad’Dib. She gave him a little whipped cream pup cup, and he was just as happy as he could be. I made him eat it slowly, so he still had most of it when we got back to the office. I was surprised that he turned away from it as soon as Charles came upstairs, but that just shows how much he gets fed down the hall.

It was a short afternoon after that, but I had a decent place to start again the next morning. We came home pretty casually as well, but witnessed a close call with a car cutting off a motorcycle when we got back into town. Everyone drove away, but there was a lot of head shaking.

Eaddie came home just after we got there, and said she was packing up to go to Oklahoma with Eli. Summer made it home from the gym to see them off, but later in the evening they decided to wait to leave in the morning. Summer took a shower while I ran Muad’Dib, and then we met at my parents’ house for egg roll salads. My parents were watering plants for most of that time, but eventually made it in.

We didn’t get home until after dark. Summer was exhausted from a few nights of poor sleep, and I felt okay but hadn’t been doing much better. I did okay to get to bed at a reasonable time, so hopefully we’ll finish the week strong.

What’s new?

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Where Did That Bring You?

We stopped by Hardee’s again, and for the first time that I’ve ever seen, they were having some kind of issue behind the counter. The drive through was lined up, and there were a bunch of people inside waiting as well. I had to wait several minutes to get my biscuit, so we didn’t get to work until almost eight. I tried to jump back into the import project, but then I kept getting pulled away to different things. By the end of the day, I had to push it back to Greg to match the data properly.

I took a really late lunch to Ortega’s by myself, and then the afternoon went quickly. We had to get home so Summer and I could go catch the Endgame encore before it left the theater. I was disappointed we wouldn’t get the IMAX exclusive bonus scene, but since the movie only played in IMAX for a week, our only weekend was tied up in band concerts.

Eaddie and Eli were home, so we left Muad’Dib with them. I cleaned up a bit, and then Summer and I made it to UEC for our movie. We got our preferred seats, free popcorn, and a free drink on discount night, so it was a cheap date. I would have loved to see it in IMAX again, but we got three bonus scenes, so that had to suffice.

We made it home to the smell of some salmon that Eaddie cooked, and headed to bed.

Back to me.

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All That for a Line Graph?

I had a terrible time getting to sleep last night. Maybe it was how late I slept in, but I laid in bed, wide-eyed, for at least two hours. Luckily the morning wasn’t too rough, and we got out in time for a Hardee’s burrito and still made it to work a little early. I talked to Charles about pushing a config to the controller, and his response was to just send it, so I did. That was the most excitement I had all day, after the burrito.

I spent a good part of the day tinkering with PRTG, trying to get it to show my data after that. I did finally get some graphs going, but it wasn’t easy or intuitive. We took a late lunch to Taco Bell and ate relatively light, then got back to work to try and clean up some HubSpot data.

Near the end of the day, I got a message out of the blue from Jack. We chatted for a bit, and it sounded like he needed a motorcycle ride. I went back and forth with him for a little bit, but had to pack up to head home. Traffic was rough and unpredictable, so that had my attention for a slow drive home.

I cleaned up a bit before Summer got home, and then I warmed up some pizza for her before taking Muad’Dib to my parents’ house for dinner. I warmed up some leftover bún bò Huế and Mom came in to fix me a bowl. I had a really bad anxiety attack while I had my head in the fridge looking for veggies, and that knocked me out for a bit. I got super lightheaded and woozy for a bit, and just had to sit back in a chair for a while.

After I ate, Muad’Dib and I continued on his run in the dark. The air felt great, and he had a good time before jumping up into bed with Summer for the night. I cleaned up a bit more and prepped for work quickly so I could get some better sleep.

Sun’s gettin’ real low.

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No Game

I slept through some more wild dreams last night. I don’t know if the quality of my sleep has had anything to do with it, but I don’t think I’ve dreamed this much since childhood. Summer got up to let Muad’Dib out, and I ended up sleeping pretty late. I got up in time to take my morning meds, and Summer wanted to go run the neighborhood to prep for her 5k this coming weekend. I ate some cheese and crackers and messed with my Steam Frame accessories for a bit since my Arcturus vision camera came in.

I wanted to try and see the Endgame encore locally since we wouldn’t be able to make it to a better theater, but Eaddie had a concert in the afternoon. We got cleaned up and took Muad’Dib to stay with my parents and then went to New China for a quick lunch before the concert. We were a hair late to a packed parking lot, but they were still practicing when we got in the doors. We found seats on the front row, so I don’t know what all the cars were there for.

The concert was pretty good, but Summer said Eaddie didn’t care for the last piece and suggested we could leave early to catch the movie. I didn’t really want to miss part of it, or slip out between songs, or rush to get to the theater and find good seats, so we ended up staying until the end with plans to go to the late showing of the movie.

We picked up Muad’Dib and Mom gave me more basil for pesto, so we headed home and I got that going. I had trouble with my first big batch, but it eventually turned out. The second went much quicker, but by then we were rushing to get to the theater again. We left Muad’Dib at home and Summer got the car ready to go.

I had forgotten the late show was in auditorium eight, so that was a bit of a disappointment – but not as much of a disappointment as it was when we sat there for 15 minutes past the start time for the movie, and a young lady came in to tell us the projector was broken and they wouldn’t be able to start the show.

We got a refund for the tickets, but I had to push for a couple extra vouchers for the popcorn and drink they couldn’t refund. We made it back home and I took Muad’Dib for a short run to my parents’ house to drop off some redneck tupperware. I let Muad’Dib lead us back home through a shortened reverse route.

Summer was getting ready for bed, so I cleaned up some more in the kitchen and finished up a few more things before finishing up surprisingly early.

Wrap it up!

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Masse in the Clouds

We slept in a little bit today, but I got up with Summer when she took Muad’Dib out. I made some coffee, and showed her the Steam Frame. She actually got into a game before I did, and started playing PUNCH FIT in the living room. It looked like she was enjoying it, so I tried it out for a couple jabs and had fun. It was nice, since I hadn’t had any luck with anything else I’d tried on it at that point.

A while back, Netflix invited me to preview some unfinished content, so Summer and I sat back and watched a movie that was available. They put a watermark over the screen with my email address, which was a bit distracting in some scenes. Otherwise, the movie was terrible. We just couldn’t relate, or even understand who the target audience might be.

After a while, Eaddie got up and left to spend the day with friends. I cleaned up a bit, Summer went to the gym, and I got dishes done and took a shower. Summer brought Little Caesar’s home for a late lunch afterward, so we ate and then got ready to go to Mt. Nebo for Brass in the Clouds.

We picked up Dad and made it up the mountain to a massive crowd. We couldn’t see the band at all where we were sitting, so I guess if we really want good seats, we need to be up there for lunch. Muad’Dib was a pretty good boy and did reasonably well off leash when we were in transit. I kept him on the leash while we were seated so he wouldn’t get bored and wander off.

It was dark by the time we headed home. We dropped Dad off and I got Summer inside so she could go to bed. I finished putting together a shoe bench and eventually got to sleep.

Completed!

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PL-Seas

I got out a hair early this morning and had a pretty relaxing drive in with my last breakfast burrito for the week. I planned to go up to the mix room to hook up to the PLCs, so I cued Charles up for that. I had to leave Muad’Dib in my office, and I went up to meet Charles, who had trouble getting his laptop on. It seemed like the battery was just bad and reporting a bad status, but I had mine with the software I thought we needed.

It took me a while, and eventually Charles left me up there to do my own thing. I went through three different versions of the Crimson software, and couldn’t get it to connect over a direct USB connection. Strangely enough, when I finally got it to connect, I discovered I could have done the same from my desk.

I went back to the office to tinker with it some more, and spent all day pretty focused on that project. I completely forgot that they were providing boxed lunches from a local burger fundraiser, so we went downstairs to eat with everyone crammed around the little breakroom table. I didn’t really get my fill, but Summer wanted to go to Brown’s for dinner, so it worked out well.

The afternoon was super quiet because I was there by myself for the last couple hours. I eventually got my configurations that I wanted to push to the Red Lion controller so I could monitor the PLCs, but I didn’t want to do it at the end of the day on a Friday. I ended up getting locked in, but we made our way out and got home through some pretty fast, but still annoying traffic.

My Steam Frame came in, but I had to set it aside to take Summer to dinner. Muad’Dib waited in the car, and we both filled up pretty quickly on a mound of fried food. I wasn’t as impressed today, but I’d also had worse. We came back home and walked Muad’Dib up the cul-de-sac before Summer went back inside. Then I took him on a run to my parents’ house.

Mom had a bunch of basil for me, so we picked the leaves off of that for pesto. Then Muad’Dib and I made it home to put Summer to bed. I unboxed my Frame and tinkered with it on the couch for a while, but I never actually got to play anything at all. The UI seemed a little goofy, but I had zero experience with a full VR headset outside of the old phone boxes you could strap to your face. I couldn’t get Rocket League to run, so I ended up downloading a bunch of other free VR tools to try later.

Eaddie came home pretty early for a Friday, but pretty much went straight to bed. I started to feel pretty exhausted, so I didn’t stay up late.

I’ve been Framed!

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Modbus?

I felt myself get warm and cozy this morning, but I fell back to sleep and woke up just minutes later from a super deep, dream-filled sleep when my alarm went off. I remember finding a clam in a small grotto, but then being in some weird, dark alley or basement area with my buddy Brandon, talking to a vendor selling a variety of large mussels to eat. I felt like I was having to wake up from the dead, and crawled around on the floor to stretch and try to wake up.

I got out the door a little later still, but had time for a burrito. I realized it was a mistake to sub cheddar for the nacho cheese, because the hot, melty, gooey breakfast burrito was way better. We made it to work after fighting traffic that wanted to come to a complete stop on the onramp.

I was pretty excited to get into PRTG and my PLC project again, but of course the more I learned, the more I discovered that every path I had taken over the past couple days was probably wrong. Furthermore, I had asked Charles’s vendor buddy about the Modbus protocol when I first started, and he replied that the controller didn’t support it. Now that I understand a little bit more about the different components, I feel more confident in saying he was wrong.

We went to Taco Bell for lunch since we hadn’t been in a while, and then it was a long, dragging afternoon. The drive home was pretty easy, but the car wanted to take the second exit instead of the third for some reason. I couldn’t tell if there was backed up traffic or something, but I didn’t fight it.

Summer was hungry when she got home from the gym, and wanted to get some Chinese. I had a big lunch, and suggested the Spices food truck instead of a buffet. She jumped at the chance, so we loaded up and went to eat at the picnic tables there. Muad’Dib was laser-focused on the cat and kept trying to chase it under the truck, so I had to zap him several times. Sometimes something just gets into him and he goes out of control like that, and I have to assume the cat said something ugly to him.

We shared some noodles and I had a little cup of soup. Then we took Summer home and went on a run in the dark. Dad gave Muad’Dib a bunch of spaghetti noodles, and we eventually made it home to get ready for bed.

Wrong so many times I became right again.