Author: gallopingcow

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Collector of Worst Practices

I got up super early today to make sure I would make it in to work on time. I wasn’t sure how the commute would go, but I was pleasantly surprised at how uneventful it was. I made it in early and had to track down someone to let me into the office. Blake was at a picnic table with several other admins watching kids come in from the buses, and came inside to let me in before I had keys or a badge. Those showed up pretty soon after that, though.

It was a fair first day. I spent most of the morning filling out my new hire paperwork. Kim and I had chicken noodle soup for lunch from the cafeteria, and then I spent the afternoon just poking around, generally getting sidetracked by one horror after another. It appeared that every prior tech coordinator still had active accounts in the systems. Among other things, I also found an installation of Starcraft II, and a VM dedicated solely for a Plex media server, which was hosting a singular video – The Polar Express. It was then that I knew without a doubt that my entire life was a work of satire.

I really didn’t accomplish anything at all, and only barely found some of the systems I needed to access. I’ll probably have to dig into one of their more pressing issues tomorrow, just so they don’t feel like I’ll also be putting all of those things on the backburner indefinitely. Everyone filtered out about an hour earlier than I anticipated, but I stuck around to tinker some more before heading home.

The drive home was literally much faster. Traffic just worked out that way. Some guy flew up behind me, so I just followed him at interstate speeds until we got to Dardanelle. Autumn called and wanted to know if I would get Eaddie after a middle school band concert, so I went home to wait. When Summer got back into town, I met her at my parents’ house for dinner, and then she went home while I went to the high school for Eaddie.

Summer was in bed by the time we got there, so I tinkered on my new work phone for a bit, and then went through my nightly routine so I could get to bed as early as possible. I didn’t sleep super well last night, and I don’t think tonight will be much better.

Seriously, nearly all of this is a very bad, bad idea.

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Omelette du Fromage

I woke up naturally pretty early today, and made Summer an omelet out of a bunch of leftovers. Hers was the ugliest, and then mine happened to turn out the prettiest. Eaddie didn’t wake up until much later, but when I made hers, it came out looking somewhere in the middle.

Summer didn’t want to do anything, so I eventually left to shower and get ready for my first day at a new job. I spent some time trying to fix my still-leaking kitchen water lines. I couldn’t really tell where the water was coming from, but I think I mostly fixed it. Then I took a shower and got my backpack loaded before heading up to get the girls for a late lunch or early dinner with my parents.

Autumn stayed home, and the remaining three of us went to my parents’ house for fried shrimp and sweet potato. Dad was working up quite a sweat outside, as I had done earlier from the heat and humidity. We mostly finished eating before my parents made it back inside, and then visited for a little bit before heading back home.

Summer and I watched Jerry & Marge Go Large until Noah came over later in the evening and spent some time with us. Then I played some random YouTube videos on the TV until Summer went to bed. Eaddie hung out with Noah for a while after everyone else went to bed, and I tried to get to sleep really early.

I hate being the new guy again.

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Grilled for Mothers

I woke up a couple minutes before my alarm and got out of bed so we could go downtown for the girls’ 5K. Summer got the others up, and we went down behind the city mall where people were gathering at the starting line. As soon as the girls were ready to queue up, I started walking back toward the car to get away from the loud music. It was a relatively small crowd, so I just didn’t want to stand around waiting all alone.

Ian spotted me as he walked up, and stopped to talk at me for the duration of the race. We watched everyone take off down El Paso, and he stood next to me as I leaned against a light pole. He didn’t really have anything useful to say, and just mirrored complaints I had been hearing for weeks.

Summer finished in good time. Eaddie was farther behind than I expected. Autumn took nearly an hour. Summer wanted to wait for the awards ceremony, which was good because Eaddie won third place in her division, and then Summer won second in hers. We dropped Autumn off at home after that, and then went to Stoby’s for some breakfast. I was quite happy with the “Blast” with the biscuit, hash browns, and all of the proteins with a side of gravy. It even came out to less than the eggs Benedict that Summer and Eaddie had.

After we ate, we went to Walmart to get everything I needed for twice-baked potatoes. Then we headed back to the house so I could cook them before dinner with my parents. Autumn left to take Adam to the Clarksville aquatic center, so we were free to enjoy ourselves. I baked some bacon and then got the potatoes into the oven before taking a shower. Then I gutted the potatoes and mashed everything together with some butter, sour cream, bacon, green onions, and cheese.

Once the potatoes were done, we loaded up and headed towards my parents’ house, with a brief stop at my house to change shirts. My parents had all kinds of stuff to grill, but none of it was ready yet. The charcoal was nearly ready though, so I raced to get things prepped and started cooking.

Julie and Kevin came over and we had steak, potatoes, squash and zucchini, corn, fried shrimp, and a couple plates full of smoked sausages that nobody touched. It was a lot of food, and it exhausted me for the day. We hung out for a little while after dinner and continued to watch some Vietnamese girl harvest bamboo shoots on YouTube. Autumn brought Adam over to deliver graduation tickets, and evidently asked if she could have a pool party for her birthday. I could have told her the pool wouldn’t be ready by then, but I guess she felt like she’d have better luck bypassing everyone else.

We ended up leaving before them, as Dad showed Adam his camera collection. We made it home and everyone went straight to their rooms. I fought sleep long enough to finish my own chores, and then it was off to bed.

Next time, I’ll use the stand mixer.

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Phonekiller Base

Summer took the day off, and I made us a couple breakfast biscuits out of some leftovers. We laid around for a while until she wanted to get out to go shopping. Then we went to TJ Maxx, Five Below, Belk, and PetSmart. The only place we actually got anything was Five Below, and then it was just candy she wanted.

She was hungry for lunch after that, and I figured I should use my Brown’s Catfish coupon before it expired. Evidently we showed up late, because the servers were just sitting at a table nearby, waiting for people to finish. I begrudgingly left a tip at all, and then we went back to Summer’s house.

I didn’t get into anything else for the rest of the afternoon. Summer went to the gym for a while, so I laid on the couch on my phone. Once she made it back home, it wasn’t long before she went to bed. The girls got home late, after an end-of-the-year band gathering. There was a chance of rain, so they moved it from Old Post to the high school.

Eaddie ended up getting back last because she went to hang out with some band friends after the school event. The three of them all had a 5K in the morning though, so everyone was off to bed really early. Except me, nearly halfway through my phone battery for a second time.

It’s going to be exactly the same for my car, isn’t it?

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Accepting Rejection

I was happy enough with the response I got this morning, along with the general excitement expressed in the offer, that I’ll start at Two Rivers on Monday. Unfortunately we ended up offending the sellers of the Ouita house with our offer enough that they outright rejected our offer, along with the verbal one they received. I talked with Alisha some more, and the seller’s agent finally talked them into negotiating some.

Summer worked from home, so I took a shower and she took us to Mulan’s for lunch. I ate way too much and then had to go home so Dad could come help me fix my leaky faucet. That project snowballed on us, and it took one trip to Leonard’s to fix the leak at the knob, but then the shutoff valves wouldn’t close enough to stop the water and we had to shut it off at the curb. Of course the box was completely full of water from all the rain. I tried blowing it out with my leaf blower, and all that muddy water ended up in my face. We took another trip to Leonard’s and got some washers for the shutoff valves, but using the impact to remove the caps may have caused them to leak somewhere else. There’s still a small drip at the shutoff valve now.

I took another shower to clean off the mud, and then I had to go get Eaddie and a friend of hers from robotics. We dropped her off a couple blocks from my house, and then I took Eaddie home until we had to go back to the high school for their band participation awards.

The house lights stayed on the whole evening, and then having the directors read out every single activity that each individual senior had done in their entire school career was just the start to how ridiculous the night would be. After they finished the seniors, they called every single junior and sophomore onto the stage to collect their participation trophies. We almost left early because Summer thought they were going to call eighth and seventh graders up as well, but they didn’t.

The girls went out with friends, so Summer and I came home and watched a couple episodes of Modern Family. The girls eventually made it home and I added some flavor and correctly-sized vegetables to the pico de gallo that Autumn basically blended yesterday. I got a little sidetracked after that, but tried not to stay up too late.

How can I be so tired and so restless?

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Two Streams

I got home fairly early this morning after stopping for a car wash, and then dawdled around the house a bit before my interview in the afternoon. There was a decent chance of rain for most of the afternoon, so I didn’t get out for anything else. I just ate my leftover Damgoode pie and tried to do a little bit of research on Two Rivers.

I left early enough to get to Ola about 15 minutes early and found my way into the high school office where I was pretty quickly met with a panel of interviewers, which included the superintendent and assistant superintendent, the technology assistant, and the facilities director. Everyone really seemed to wear a lot of hats though, and I was reasonably surprised by how much overlap there was. It was pretty evident they had a history of having to know how to fix things themselves between technology coordinators.

My interview went really well, in spite of repeatedly reminding them that I was terminated from my prior district. After they finished going around the table, Todd gave me a tour of the facility. I was shocked by a few of the things I saw, but overall the facility itself seemed much nicer than my last office that periodically flooded with two to three inches of water when it rained.

I called Gary on the way home to laugh about them hiring the guy I would be replacing. Before I could even make it home, Blake called to offer me the job. Summer didn’t answer the phone when I tried to call her earlier, but then called me when I texted her that I got the offer.

Autumn was making dinner for the evening, so I headed up to their house when Summer got back into town. It took her a while to get everything finished, so I messaged Alisha to check on the status of our offer on the house. She indicated the seller thought the offer was really low, but that we should hopefully hear a counter offer soon. I made some guacamole out of some super green avocados, and then ate a minimal amount of the enchiladas that Autumn made, after adding some fresh ingredients to her otherwise awful, heavy meal. Then she disappeared into her room while I cleaned up the kitchen.

Eaddie climbed into bed with Summer, but then wet herself in a tickle fight. Everyone was off to bed at that point, but I got a little sick to my stomach. I felt exhausted, but didn’t go to sleep until much later.

Inside of you are two gators.

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Day 4 of Travel

I got up this morning and immediately started getting ready for my fourth day of travel. I stopped by the election commission headquarters on the way home and voted in the school board election. Then I continued home to get ready for my interview in Maumelle. I made it down the interstate fast enough that I got off early and drove through town to save a little bit of range. Of course the navigation was faulty, so I had to make a block, but I got there with plenty of time.

I only had to wait a couple minutes for them to come interview me. I talked to Tim and Ryan to first determine whether I could talk to humans, and then whether I could talk to computers. After Tim left, I felt much less confident in my answers, simply because Ryan was really looking for specific examples of projects I had completed. The work I’ve done for the past several years has been so sporadic that I really didn’t have any good solo examples. After we finished talking, he left me with a paper test and a pen, and I had to write out answers to the best of my ability. Once I finished that, I had to place it on the receptionist’s desk and basically walked out waving to the guys that were in their offices with headsets on.

Mitch was at Blake’s apartment, so I went there next to change and then take Mitch to a late lunch. As we did that, he told me that I was invited to dinner with Blake, but I didn’t realize it was at his girlfriend’s house and that she was cooking. We had lunch at The Fold, which had some killer fancy tacos which were a bit pricy, but the guacamole and cheese dip plate seemed really reasonable in comparison. Both the food and service were excellent.

We struggled to come up with a solid plan after that, so we went to Franklin’s Charging Station after that to get a little bit of free juice while we waited to go to dinner. I showed Mitch my Steam Deck while we sat in the air conditioning. After a while, I decided we would head on over to Justina’s house since I wasn’t sure how traffic would be. We actually arrived before either of them, but then she pulled in right behind us. Her two boys and their dog were all over the place while she started cooking dinner. Blake eventually showed up and we took turns playing Mario Party with one of the boys.

After dinner, we played a tiny game of Uno, and then another game called Forbidden Island. It was a cooperative game with tiles that were spaced out randomly. It was a little scattered at times, but eventually I had a fair grasp of how to strategize. We just barely won, but I thought it was a lot of fun.

As the kids went to bed, we parted ways. I took Mitch to another friend’s ritzy apartment complex with agate code and literal fire on the road sign. The amenities sounded pretty intense as well. We said our goodbyes, and I made the lone trip home in the dark. Just past Conway, I could barely make out a black tire in the middle of the black road. It appeared to be a whole tire, so I called 911 after failing to reach the state police using the short code on the road signs. They connected me to the state police, and I let the officer there know what I had seen so they could try and get it out of the road before someone got hurt.

I made it home safely, swapped cars, and then headed up to Summer’s for bedtime. Everyone was long asleep, so I finished up quickly and went to bed.

I just want my job back.

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The Clown Who Juggles

I woke up to an unexpected notification for a hard credit inquiry, which got me heated. I was under the impression that the pre-qualification for a mortgage loan would only be a soft inquiry, so having two banks check had me in a panic. That may have been premature though, as I later read that if they fall within a certain timeframe, only one will count against me for the actual loan we take.

From then, I continued to be bombarded with new information. I got two interviews scheduled for the next two days, and I very nearly had to go pick up Gary from Little Rock. Fortunately his parents warmed up to the idea of getting him themselves, because then Summer needed to take some supplies to Fort Smith in the afternoon.

I made it home to get cleaned up before Autumn’s military signing luncheon, all while communicating with loan officers. Then while we were at the luncheon in the Black Box, Alisha texted to let me know there was another verbal offer on the table, which got me in a rush to complete our loan application. The lunch itself was some pretty decent barbecue for free. The national anthem was played by a singular, laughably bad trumpet player. I got the feeling he should have been significantly better, but he must have gotten choked. It did feel very fitting to be as bad as it was for Autumn, who happened to also have zero support from the Navy. She ended up inviting the librarian and getting her boyfriend out of class to come sit at our table.

On the way out, Jeff stopped to talk to me and ask how things were going. I wished I had recorded the conversation just to have a record of him saying how gut-wrenching it was to watch them terminate me. We immediately went to get Summer’s car and load it up with a big box of towels from the wash, and then we were off to Fort Smith.

I spent the entire drive going back and forth with Alisha, and responding to the loan officers. We have no idea what the other offer is, or if ours will be laughed off. It’s difficult to keep from doing too much with buyers’ anxiety, especially now that our credit has been hit. We weren’t in a rush to purchase a house, but we liked this one enough to go through the paperwork. If it doesn’t work out, I don’t know if this will screw our credit for the next time, if we don’t find a place soon enough.

We made it to Fort Smith by way of Highway 22. It aggravated Summer to drive so slowly, but the whole roundtrip was only about 20 minutes slower than the interstate, but 10 miles shorter. That’s assuming we wouldn’t have hit traffic in the construction zones on the interstate. On top of that, we saved quite a bit of battery power going so much slower. She ended up talking to their quirky shift lead Viking for a while, so by the time we made it back home it was too late for her to go back to Superfast to close the shop. We stopped to get Eaddie, and then we got her car on the fast charger before they headed home.

I took my car to the wash for a thorough cleaning, then stopped by Casey’s for a couple drinks before making it up to Summer’s for the evening. I cleaned up some Popeyes they brought home, Autumn left for a multi-hour signing and awards event at the high school, and I took a call from Donna, who had questions as a challenger in the school board election. I got some possibly-useful information from her on who might be able to help my case. I don’t know if she got anything useful from me. I certainly don’t have any time to go out campaigning, and I’ll be lucky if I remember to go out to vote in the morning.

Eaddie and I wrapped up the evening with El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. I thought it was a decent, if not unnecessary sendoff for Jesse. It did run a bit long, and brought in some unnecessary new characters, but it was an okay story. I think Better Call Saul will probably be better.

Seriously, a kazoo would have been better.

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Surpies!

I had to force some productivity this morning, and finally got loan applications done for Arvest and Centennial. Not having work yet has me worried that we won’t get approved, but it won’t be the end of the world. After that was done, Summer went to the gym and I did an online personality test for a prospective employer. It would be a long commute, but at least it would get some money flowing. At this point, it may not suit me to be so picky.

With all of that out of the way, I made it home to shower so I could head back to Little Rock for Blake’s surprise birthday party. As soon as I turned onto the onramp, I realized traffic was at a standstill. Luckily I had only barely turned, so I had enough room to back up and turn around. I took Highway 64 to Atkins, and from there traffic had gotten up to around 60 or 70. When I got into Little Rock, I got a little bit lost trying to take the Cantrell exit and wound up going through some really cute neighborhoods. Once I got back onto the main strip, I saw some pretty wicked tornado damage.

I arrived at Damgoode Pies fairly early and wasn’t sure I’d know anyone there, so I waited in the car for a while before going in. To my surprise, we had most of the building occupied for the party. There were a ton of people there, and I didn’t know a single one. Luckily Mitch showed up with an old bartending buddy of his, and he and his girlfriend joined me at my crowded table. Robert and Karen showed up shortly after that and sat at another table in the middle of the dining room. Then Mitch hid in the restroom until Blake and his girlfriend showed up.

It was an awesome surprise, and Blake spent most of the evening just floating from table to table. It definitely blew his mind. My “Underdog Stuffie” was pretty delicious, with a crispy double crust and thick bite of cheese inside. Robert spotted it and wanted to trade a slice for their Supreme, which was also pretty good. I mostly sat in awkward silence while everyone else socialized, and as people started to filter out, I convinced Mitch to go to the hospital with me to see Gary.

It rained a bit, but it wasn’t too bad. The drive to the hospital was surprisingly short, and it was a good surprise for Gary as well. Mitch had some other socializing that he wanted to do, so we didn’t stay super long before I had to take him back to Daniel’s place. Then I headed straight home in the black of the night.

It was a long and boring drive, but I made it home without incident. I dropped my car off to charge, and then it was off to Summer’s where everyone was fast asleep. I tried not to stay up too late, and made it to bed shortly after Midnight.

Prettygoode Pies

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I am Groot

The girls didn’t seem to feel great this morning, but we had to get to Little Rock for our movie. I went home to shower and then came back to pick them up. Neither of them were very hungry yet, so we decided to stop in and see Gary first. Eaddie waited in the car while Summer and I went into the rehab clinic, only to learn that we’d have to make our way over to the main hospital where he had been since surgery the day before.

We chatted for a while through his pain. It was probably the worst I’d seen him yet, but even then he was still in pretty good spirits. I had hoped he might stick around the hospital a while longer, but he seemed to really want to go home the next day.

From there, we went straight to the Promenade to try and find some food before our movie. Unfortunately we only had about an hour to kill, and both Big Orange and Local Lime had long wait times. I was surprised, because it was already well into the afternoon. We ended up going to Maggie Moo’s for some ice cream instead, but that made the girls feel even worse without any real food in their bellies. We ended up going to McDonald’s to split a snack combo I found in the app.

We made it to our movie with plenty of time, and I was surprised again at how empty the theater was for opening weekend. I just can’t believe 3D is so unpopular. It makes all the difference in the world to me. On the other hand, maybe the 2D showings are just as sparse. I wouldn’t know, because I always go the premium route whenever possible.

I kind of expected the movie to have some back story for some of the characters, but I absolutely didn’t expect any of what we saw. It started off on an emotional tone, and then immediately jumped right into heavy action. There were several parts where I got a little bored, or at least physically uncomfortable or restless due to my seat. Then the heavy emotional scenes hit, and it made the whole movie a lot better for me. It definitely felt different than anything we’d seen before though.

After the movie, I convinced the girls to stop for some food. we tried a place called Ocean’s At Arthurs, but Summer didn’t want to get out of the car after she saw that they had valet parking. I would have given it a try anyway, but it really might have been upscale enough that we’d look pretty rough going in. We ended up at a hole in the wall called Lazy Pete’s Fish and Shrimp instead, and the food was awesome. It didn’t look like much at all, but it really was great.

We made it back home and I let Summer take the Murano to her house while Eaddie decided whether she still wanted to go to the hot air balloon show. She ultimately decided against it, so I took Summer’s car to the wash and then we headed home for the night. The girls both went to bed, so I laid down with Summer for a bit. That was when I got a sudden surprise call from Mitch, who said he was coming to Little Rock via a “MEGABUS.” We only talked briefly since he was going to be on the bus for the next six or so hours, and I got to bed.

I am Groot!