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Tulsa Major

I woke up an extra hour earlier than work today, and headed up to get the girls. We left town just after seven, and stopped at Hardee’s in Clarksville for a quick breakfast before powering right through to Bixby. As time ticked by, I became more and more frustrated by people driving well under the speed limit. To escalate things further, Waze landed us in the wrong place, and we had to switch to Google Maps to arrive at the 181 Ranch.

The girls started their Conquer the Gauntlet race while I went back to the car. I only lasted inside for a couple of minutes before I sweated out, so I popped the hatch and broke out my camp chair. I was so glad I brought it, because I would have had to leave and come back otherwise. The sun was just too much for me. I played Into the Breach until they finished nearly two hours later, and then we packed everything up to head to lunch.

Summer picked a place right in the heart of Tulsa, and I probably should have vetted it first. I guess it was my fault for providing the list of places in the first place, but I found the list on a popular comment on Reddit, and didn’t really have the time or interest to look into them myself. We ended up at a place downtown called Prossimo Ristorante that wanted to know if we had a reservation. To say that we were underdressed would be an understatement. We were seated under chandeliers by the bar, surrounded by people day-drinking champagne. They weren’t even busy, which made the fact that they asked for a reservation even sillier. I could tell immediately that we were about to go on a very expensive date for four. The chef was kind enough to come out and prepare their fresh alfredo for us, but to add protein and a tip, we hit around $175. I was glad the girls enjoyed it, but I surprisingly hated the pasta. I found it to be too salty and too hard.

After we ate, we headed back out of town to find the hotel. On the way, the Murano popped a service light and I stopped at an O’Reilly’s to quickly have them check the code. It said something about an evap system leak, which Summer assured wasn’t likely to be anything serious. We made it to our hotel with additional navigation frustration, because even Google Maps wanted us to take stupid directions. I didn’t understand it at all.

We got checked into our suite, but I wouldn’t call it that myself. The room was the size of a regular hotel room with a king bed and a sleeper sofa. If I had realized it wouldn’t be a real suite with multiple rooms, I would never have paid extra, and I would have gotten a real bed for the girls to sleep on. With everything sprawled out, we barely had room for everything, and clothes and towels ended up absolutely everywhere. We relaxed for a little bit before making the girls come out to the pool with us. I figured the water would be swimmable, but it was super cold. Summer, Eaddie, and I got in, but not for long.

The girls showered when we got back to the room, and then we went out for our night on the town. I stopped at Krispy Kreme first, and was excited that their light was on. Unfortunately that was a lie. Their conveyor appeared to be broken, with some pretty gross-looking donuts sitting on the non-moving belt. We got a dozen assorted donuts out of the case, ate, and then headed on to the Cinemark.

I had never seen Jaws before, so it was cool to get to watch it in the IMAX. The theater was super busy, likely because of the $3 movie tickets for “National Cinema Day.” We waited in line forever to get some popcorn, but we had plenty of time before the previews even started. I thought the movie held up really well. I definitely enjoyed it more than Top Gun. I was sad that they ran out of posters before I could get one at the end of the movie.

On the way back to the hotel, we ran to Walmart up the road for some supplies, and then rounded everyone up for bed. It didn’t take any time at all for the girls to fall asleep. I thought I’d get to bed sooner, but it just didn’t happen. Hopefully we come up with some fun stuff to do tomorrow.

Wing it.

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Sheesh Hulk

I woke up around two or three in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep for hours. I barely felt like I dozed off at all, but somehow I wasn’t completely dead when I got to work. We had a pretty short meeting over nothing, and then I headed over to Oakland to hook up the couple of touch panels that we didn’t finish yesterday.

Lunch time eventually came around, and nobody could decide where to go. I think Brody actually had Gary and Greg talked into CiCi’s, but Zach was a hard pass. We ended up going to La Chiquita and had pretty good service for once. It’s normally not awful, but our server was just really attentive today. The salsa wasn’t very good, but the burrito I had was fair.

I spent most of the afternoon staring at Cognos, trying to figure out how to get the data I needed out of a report. I texted Ben for a bit, and then talked to Kayla since she had a fair amount of experience. In the end, I found some documentation, but it still wasn’t really what I needed.

I left work a little late and went home to get ready for the weekend. I decided to stay home to try and get some better sleep, since we’d have to leave an hour earlier than I normally get up for work. I did manage to squeeze in the first episode of She Hulk, which wasn’t awful, but was basically just every teaser trailer they’ve released. I’ll be interested to see if it gets good, but so far it kind of feels like filler. Nothing has touched how good Loki was.

Bye bye money!

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TV Is Not a Roman Numeral

I slept really hard, straight through the night again last night, and then woke up about five minutes before my alarm. I was feeling some Margaritaville, so I found a playlist of that name that gave me a weird mix of some classics and some more modern country. I thought Greg might say something, but he never did. In fact, he ended up leaving for a while. I mostly had the morning to myself, and dug into Cognos again so I could automate some data.

Nobody came around for lunch, so I just sat at my desk for a while until I decided to run through Sonic for some 99-cent cheese sticks. I thought the girls might want some, but they were both gone when I got back. I gave a couple orders to Greg though, and he was super excited about it.

Zach scheduled Brody, Josh, and Jacob to help me move two older touch panels at Oakland, and then hang two new ones in the old rooms, as well as replace an old SMART board with another new touch panel. We knew it was going to be an annoying job, but we didn’t realize how annoying. Every single room gave us issues, and Zach ended up sending Greg to help.

The first room should have been an easy SMART board swap, but they used half-width cinderblocks that were too thin to allow toggle bolts to expand. The next two rooms had every-other column of the block wall filled with cement, so we couldn’t get toggles into the brick. The two new small rooms had their own issues. The wall between then was really thin, so Brody blew out the back side of the cinderblock in one room. Then the last room was a mount on drywall. Greg ended up just mounting it to two studs with a couple of bolts we had to tighten with an actual wrench.

Greg, Brody, and I worked a little late to finish up, but we got it all done aside from the wiring. That would end up being a problem for Future Me. I headed home to get the wall charger that had just been delivered, then changed to head up to Summer’s pretty immediately. She had been running around with the kids most of the day, since Autumn had her heart checked and Eaddie needed to see someone about the blisters she got from the bugs. While home, she made a corned beef for dinner that the three of us slurped right up.

Autumn was out doing something, followed by some tutoring with Jennifer at the city mall. She came home in good spirits though, and it was overall a really quiet night. I’ve constantly felt like I’ve just been juggling a ton of different things at once, and I think it’s just the time of year. Starting school is always crazy, but it just usually seems more crazy before school actually starts.

It’s happening…!

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Impromptumus Prime

I slept really well last night, but that meant I really didn’t want to get out of bed. I was a couple minutes late, but spent the first several minutes just untangling mice anyway. I thought I would spend the first part of my morning closing things out at Oakland, but I kept getting dragged into other things that nearly ate up the entire first half of my day. I did eventually get over to my building, but ended up having to go back after lunch anyway.

Several of us went to Quiznos, where we ran into Heather and who was apparently her newest baby daddy. I thought she was married to some white hillbilly kid, so I assumed this was a new guy today. If I had known he was the crazy one, I totally would have antagonized her. Instead, we all just said a quick hello and continued through the ridiculously long line.

After lunch, I got some more random things done, including going back to Oakland. I just kept feeling super distracted, but thankfully Jacob has been diving right into anything we’ve given him access to. I ended up leaving work on time, but just went straight home to start some laundry.

I spent some more money on grill parts so I can put it together and get it out of the garage. My delivery date was moved back again, so there’s really no time to waste in cleaning out the garage. I ended up staying home for the evening, and just fought off mosquitos until bedtime.

Time to put those points to use!

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Driving Results

I had so much trouble sleeping last night because my mind just kept racing about anything that floated by. I dragged myself into work, but had trouble getting started on anything. Summer took Eaddie in for her second attempt at her driving test first thing this morning, and fortunately she passed. They relaxed a bit with some breakfast before coming to trade cars with me and taking Eaddie back to school.

The whole day seemed to go by pretty slowly. I had a light lunch for Taco Tuesday, and then I spent some time upstairs in the afternoon. At the end of the day, I went to the junior high to help Jacob hang a television, and then unloaded some tools back at the shop before making it home.

Summer had her big VIP night at the new Maumelle wash. The girls had band until super late. I just hung out at home by myself all evening. I left for some McDonald’s fries and a Zaxby’s sandwich, and both were pretty incredible. I got to McDonald’s just as a busload of mullet-bearing kids were leaving, so my fries were super fresh. The sandwich from Zaxby’s could have been the best fast food chicken sandwich if it only had some lettuce and tomato.

Eventually the girls came over so Autumn could get her car back and drop off the Montego. Eaddie was in a mood, and Autumn was painfully dehydrated. They didn’t stick around long. I got my new grill mostly unboxed, but I think the assembly will need a little more open space than I had available at the time, so I ended up leaving it to watch some YouTube videos on the assembly and mods. That turned into science videos, and ended with Tesla mods before bed.

You’ve got to be yoking.

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Smokin’ Hot Deal

I was on fire at work today. I closed out as many work orders as I could, and actually felt pretty accomplished by the end of the day. We didn’t catch a critter over the weekend, but I was glad we hadn’t caught one that ended up being stuck over the whole weekend in a tiny cage. Kyle was back after a week of COVID, and for some reason felt compelled to follow me into my office. Then Brody walked in right behind him, and they were both crowding me until I shooed them off.

I worked on a couple deployments, and even resolved a long-standing issue with some JROTC software. I really can’t imagine those kids learning 10 gigabytes of information all year, but that’s how big the software was. It was really quiet downstairs all day, so it really made it easy to get things done.

Zach came back to get me for lunch, and Gary took us to Slim Chickens. I was super disappointed in my chicken strips. One of them was smaller than my thumb, and I don’t even mean the back joint by my wrist. It was puny, and I was mad. I forgot that their gravy is awful too.

I tried going upstairs in the afternoon after school, but everybody I needed to see had disappeared for the day. I ended the day at Oakland to set up a new phone for their new resource officer. When I left for the day, almost on a whim, I texted Zach to see if he would help me get a grill home from Walmart.

I decided I really wanted the grill for its smart temperature range and oven-like convenience, and at less than half of retail it was probably the best price I was going to get on it. Summer’s grill, like her car, had rusted out and was very near the end of its life, so I figured I’d take her the dual-fuel grill I bought last year and keep the new charcoal smoker at my house. Zach met me there just in time to load it up, and boy was it heavy. I wished it had some handles or something, but we got it onto the ground as I poured sweat.

As soon as Autumn finished up at school, she brought Eaddie over and traded cars with me. Then Eaddie and I drove the driving test course a couple of times before heading up to their house. She had broken out pretty bad from the bug bites, but apparently Gavin was worse off and skipped school to get a steroid shot. I helped load her up on anything we could find to mitigate the itch, and then I headed to my parents’ house for some ribs Dad had just cooked.

After we ate, I ran by Kroger to see if they had any more of those ribs for 99 cents per pound. I picked up the limit of five, along with a half gallon of orange juice, and then tried to get over to Walgreens for my lisinopril refill. That was when I ran into Robin, who wanted to stop and chat about her big life drama. I learned a lot in a really short amount of time. I got out and rolled up to Walgreens just as my medication reminder rang at eight o’clock, which was evidently when they closed the pharmacy.

Eaddie had left her phone at my house earlier, so I ran home to get it, and then met up with the girls back at their house. Summer was busy doing more work stuff before a big couple of days away. Autumn had said she was going to the gym after dropping Eaddie off, but she really went to McDonald’s. Eaddie was still just miserably itchy, so we had her dope up on some diphenhydramine and go to bed. I tried not to stay up too late, but I just felt overstimulated most of the day. It must have been all the money I’ve been spending.

Dun dun…

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Birthday Bucket

I went home for a little while this morning while the girls went to see a gospel quartet with Dad at church. After a while, Summer asked me to get Eaddie from her father’s house in Clarksville since she had to finish up the desserts while Autumn mowed her parents’ lawn. It was a really pretty drive out in the country, and I enjoyed how quiet it was out there.

I got gas on the way back since it was significantly cheaper in Clarksville. Then we picked up Summer and the desserts to head to my parents’ house for Dad’s birthday dinner. Eaddie had been eaten up by chiggers, so I had her take a dip in the pool until Julie showed up with a bucket of KFC. As soon as Autumn showed up, we came in to eat.

We didn’t stick around very long because the girls had homework. We had Eaddie drive me home in the Matrix since she needed the practice before her next attempt at the driving test on Tuesday. She was super nervous at times, but she did great once she shook out her nerves. From then on, it was a really quiet night. I don’t know how many hours I played Into the Breach today, but it was probably a shameful amount.

At least I have chicken.

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Moneys Are Just Where You Laid Them

We didn’t sleep too late today. Summer got up and made eggs for herself and Eaddie, while I finished up some leftovers. Autumn had a fundraiser car wash for most of the day, and then wanted to spend some time with friends for the rest of the evening. Eaddie wanted to go play tennis, so I went home and showered while everyone was gone.

Later in the afternoon, Eaddie wanted to go to her new boyfriend’s house and then stay the night with her father. I met them back at the house after Summer finished at the gym, and then we headed north of Lamar to drop her off. Summer and I stopped by my parents’ house on the way back into town to wish my dad a happy birthday. Then we continued to Walmart for some casual shopping around and then groceries.

When we got back to the house, I grilled us a couple burgers and some corn while Summer fried some potatoes. Then after we finished eating, she started making some desserts for Dad’s birthday dinner tomorrow. She got pretty frustrated trying to melt chocolate for dipping strawberries, but in the end everything looked really good. Eventually Autumn showed back up, and then Summer went to bed. I stayed up way too late just tinkering online, but at least I cleaned out a bunch of emails.

Why stop now? They’re printing more all the time!

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Down With OPWO

Thomas got us two dozen glazed donuts today instead of one being chocolate covered, which meant that we actually ate them all by the end of the day. We did a little training in the morning to teach everyone about the flow of data from our information systems, and it feels like about the fourth time I’ve been through that conversation.

We were all split up to work Kyle’s work orders again, and this time that included me. I was sent to Dwight, which wasn’t that bad, but again seemed like a bunch of really little stuff that he could have closed out if he’d just go to the actual room to see the teacher instead of waiting on responses in the work order system. I tried to be useful without stressing too much over how few of my own bigger projects I was completing.

I made it back in time for lunch, but it was only Zach, Brody, and myself since Gary was out. They wanted to go to Chick-fil-A, and I was game for a salad. I was surprised how run down the inside of the restaurant looked, especially considering how long they were closed due to COVID. They put a bunch of work into the drive-through, but the inside seemed very pieced-together. I also felt like my salad had shrunk, and if they had a self-service fountain, a lemonade would have made me much happier. Instead, I grabbed a peach milkshake on the way out.

I didn’t even get back out in the afternoon, because I had enough things to do from my office. I still feel like I spend about 60% of my day fighting the work order system, which is astoundingly frustrating. I wrapped up the day as the last one in the office, trying to get some help through chat for one of our systems. They kept trying to refer me to James, who hasn’t been in that role in over a year. I finally just left.

When I got home, I unwound with some Into the Breach until Summer got back to town and finished a workout. She wanted Stoby’s, so I met her there for dinner before heading up to her place. The girls had a football game, so they didn’t get home until really late. I was exhausted from the day and week, so I didn’t stay up long.

Did we just create a new timeline…?

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Make Work Count!

I woke up in the middle of an ocular migraine this morning, but fortunately that didn’t slow me down. I made it in to work a few minutes early and got right to it. Eventually I got around to making a cup of coffee, but when I brought it back to my desk and tried to dunk an old, stale donut into it, a piece fell into the cup and splashed coffee onto my desk mat. I rolled it out from underneath my keyboard and washed it the best I could in the sink, and then hung it up on my door to dry.

A while later, Thomas came into my office and asked me to count my phone calls since Monday. It wasn’t very accurate, but I added messages, texts, and emails to the list of things that required “non-trivial” amounts of work. It truly felt like I just couldn’t self-prioritize anything today.

Zach came and got me for lunch, and we went to Fat Daddy’s downtown. I tried their Thursday lunch special, which was a BLT with pulled pork. It was probably one of the better things I’ve had there, but I wished it had more bacon and less pulled pork.

After lunch, I got to spend some time at Oakland to close out some work orders. One of them got me a little heated, because she just bought her own computer and didn’t cancel the ticket, so all the time and effort I spent on it was completely wasted. I got out just before the kids were released, and ran into Robert and his tiny toddler for parent walkup.

The rest of the afternoon went by quietly, and I left a bit late so I could finish up one last project for the day. Summer beat me home with Chipotle, and we ate at my house before she headed home. I ended up following her after a while, and we called it an early night.

I can’t fix willful ignorance and a discernible lack of effort.