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Do Some Pilot Shit!

I slept in a little this morning and then finished up some leftovers for breakfast. Autumn had some trouble mowing because of the dew, and came back inside spitting-mad with frustration, and she wouldn’t just shut up and cool down for a bit, instead choosing to try and fight us over it. We didn’t engage, and eventually she went back to normal and finished the job. Eaddie didn’t really come out of her room all day because she was finishing up her painting, and I’m about ready for her to be over that phase, because we never see her.

Summer took Autumn to retrieve some clothes from the storage unit, and I went home to shower after talking Summer into a matinee with me. I made it back to pick her up as quickly as I could, and we made it just in time to catch the trailers. The center speech channel was coming through super muffled though, and the only other couple in the theater decided to get a refund. The manager on duty didn’t seem to have a clue how to fix it, so she just had us come back for the three o’clock show in the recliners.

We ran home for an hour, and I moved the water hoses around while Summer did some more chores inside. Then we headed back to the theater for the show. There were quite a few more people there, but we had decent seats in the front. A cut in the screen kept bothering me, and it just made me wish we’d get a nice Dolby cinema. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, but I wouldn’t have missed much if I hadn’t seen the original earlier this year.

Dad said he tested positive for COVID today, so we stopped by Walgreens for some supplies for them. Then we ran by my house briefly before heading back up to the girls. Summer took Eaddie to play tennis while Autumn and I went to Walmart for some extras for dinner. I grilled some chicken breasts with pineapple, and prepped some lettuce, tomato, onion, and avocado for sandwiches. The sandwiches turned out really great, but the grilled banana I made for dessert just tasted like warm banana with a tough, dry skin. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really worth the effort.

The girls went to bed early for their first day of school in the morning. I wound down as quickly as I could. Hopefully it won’t get too crazy this week. I feel underprepared.

Talk to me, Goose!

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It’s All About That Cold Hard Cash, Hon

We got up, and Summer was in a little bit of a funk. She accidentally locked her keys in her car at Travis’s last night, so we had to go see Autumn at the car wash fund raiser at Burger King to get her spare key fob. We thought we might get breakfast, but both their grill and their fryer were down. Instead, we went to Hardee’s for what would have been a superior breakfast anyway. Then she dropped me off at my house so I could clean up while she went to the gym.

Summer wanted to go to a movie, but we didn’t quite make our matinee. She also wanted to make dinner, so we decided not to go to a later show. When she picked me up, we went to pick up her car. I let her take mine home while I went to trade hers for Autumn’s, since we thought Eaddie would practice driving to go play tennis with Summer.

When I got back up to their house, Summer and I dug through her Mint account and added a few other accounts to that so we could get a better picture of her financial situation. She was happy to see that, after all of her retirement investments, she was actually in the black. While we were doing that, I noticed some hummingbirds dogfighting outside, so I was super excited that they found our feeder. I’ll have to put my other one up at my house, and I wished I had bought more of them when they were on sale.

After a while, Summer and I went to Walmart for dinner supplies. She let me run through clearance as well, and I picked up a couple packages of dive fins, since I think Dad’s may have worn out a bit. We got some chicken and a bunch of zucchini, peppers, and broccoli to stir-fry. I thought it would be really good with rice, but Summer really wanted mashed potatoes.

As soon as we got home, I started prepping vegetables while she started cooking the chicken. The food didn’t take very long to cook, and I had to smile when Eaddie came out to eat and said it looked like it would go really well with rice. We ate and cleaned up while Autumn laid around on the couch, sunburned from spending all day at the fundraiser carwash without any sunscreen. I won’t feel sorry for her when it’s time to mow the lawn in the morning, because she should know better by now, especially when they had sunscreen for them at the event.

Eaddie never made it out to play tennis. Summer ended up showering and put on Baywatch, which I had never seen. It didn’t seem to take itself very seriously. Eventually I made it to bed as well.

Yes, I’m back in black!

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Gotta Catch ‘Em All

I took the Shadow to work for our second and final day of Capturing Kids’ Hearts, along with my tiny butterfly knife and the Disney “cow” shirt that Julie made for me, just to continue to throw everyone off. It seemed like a lower-energy day, but there were still some activities. Unfortunately they were even less fun for me than the ones we did yesterday.

When we finally took a break for lunch, Michael was hanging out talking to someone, so I offered to share a Subway BOGO deal with him. He drove us to pick it up, where I ran into my old coworker, Tracy. I was a little surprised she remembered me, because honestly I only barely remembered her. I knew that I knew her, but I couldn’t remember from where. Michael and I took the sandwiches back and ate in his classroom while pondering simulation theory until it was time to get back to class.

The afternoon was actually when we did most of the activities, but it still dragged on a bit. I got a little more vocal, and probably a little more difficult for our trainer, but hopefully not too annoyingly so. We finished up, took a group photo, and then I helped tear everything down before heading home.

Eaddie had a parent night at band, where she wanted to teach me how to march. I took the R1 out to that, and had a bit of fun with my kazoo. She ended up stealing it, but wouldn’t play it after we finished the teach-your-parent portion and the kids played their mini-concert preview. When we finished, I went back home for a little while before heading up to their house. Autumn wanted to spend the night with her friend, Maddie, but I had to contact Summer through Melissa while they were at Travis’s for a girls’ night.

I was hungry and stopped at Taco Bell on the way to Summer’s, and had one of the quickest, yet most interesting drive-through interactions ever. I wish I could have filled out a survey, because it really was a great experience. I couldn’t quite tell if it was a very small guy or a girl because of some ambiguous hair choices, but I’m pretty sure it was a girl. She popped out the window with a shaka, and just had a highly animated customer service voice that made the whole moment feel awesome.

Eaddie was in her room coloring all night, so I waited up for Summer to get home and then it was off to bed.

I can’t wait to implement a social contract so I can start fouling some motherfuckers.

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Decoy Day

I was surprised I made it to work in such good form this morning after having so much trouble going to sleep last night. I would expect to be exhausted after such a long drive home, but I seem to always have trouble falling asleep after that. Today was our first day of training with Capturing Kids’ Hearts, and without going into too much detail, it went exactly as I expected it would. It seems we paid half a million for two days of teambuilding exercises sporadically placed between lectures about child psychology. I was surprised that so many people thought it went better than they expected. Evidently the usual teacher professional development is absolutely hot garbage, and this was new and refreshing.

We took an hour for lunch and were told to “leave no teacher behind,” and immediately my entire table disappeared without a word. I ended up going to McDonald’s on my own, and had a pretty terrible experience, along with everyone else that was there. I saw so many orders go back up to the counter in such a short amount of time. My burger was made incorrectly, and tasted terrible to boot. It was as though they placed the meat patty on a mound of salt to cook.

In the afternoon, we finally got to our “sentimental item” sharing activity. I had brought the giant stuffed cow/body pillow thing that Summer got me when we first started dating, but also my BaliYo butterfly/balisong pen. I decided at the last minute to switch it up and tell a story about the pen instead of the obvious, giant cow. It barely got a giggle, and nearly every other person in our enormous circle of staff had stories that made them sob.

We wrapped up “early,” but I was absolutely positive that the dismissal time was planned. I went home for a little bit to change, and then met the girls at The Center for Eaddie’s sophomore orientation night. The girls immediately left us, so it ended up being Summer and me by ourselves in the middle of the crowd. Feeling pointless, on top of some creeping anxiety, meant that I made it through the commons to the library before having to duck out.

I went home to wait for the girls, and then got a text from Dad that Mom was feeling chilled with a fever. I ran an expired at-home COVID test to them, and then stopped by to see Grant for a couple minutes as I waited for the girls. Once they were done, I met them at La Huerta for dinner, and then went home with them.

Summer went straight to bed, so I played Aperture Desk Job to completion on my Steam Deck, which took it down to about 49% battery. Then it was off to bed.

What a colossal waste of time for so many people that are already so far behind.

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The Pretty Tired

Today was basically our last day before school, because the next two full days will be completely burned by some unnecessary training for us. I did hear one person at least report some positive secondhand feedback, but since we don’t really ever interact with the students, our time would be better spent finishing up projects. Nobody seems ready this year, and it’s worse than ever before.

I spent all morning at Oakland, just running around like crazy trying to close as many work orders as I could. I made really good progress, so I felt okay taking a half day off. It had rained a bit though, so I worked up a good sweat.

I ran home to quickly clean up, then grabbed some McDonald’s for a quick lunch before picking up Eaddie. She wanted to stop by the business expo to see Summer, so we did that before heading out of town. Then once we hit the interstate, I gave a call to the friend of the ex of the girlfriend that was in search of some technology help.

We had to stop in Fayetteville for some fuel, and then found a nearby pizza joint called Geraldi’s for some dinner before the show. The reviews didn’t lie, though we were a bit surprised to be one of only two tables there. It was a bit early for dinner though. We were able to finish up and make it to Rogers with plenty of time.

I was surprised again at how little traffic there was, and even more surprised by how many open seats there were. We grabbed a couple shirts and then found a place to sit on the lawn near our previous spot. Lilith Czar was interesting, but I think The Warning was actually my favorite until Halestorm came out. The Pretty Reckless seemed very exhausted, being near the end of the tour. Taylor seemed like she could just barely sing at all. Lzzy and her gang put on an absolutely incredible show though, and we really enjoyed it. Eaddie really liked seeing the difference in the crowd compared to her pop concerts.

Getting back out was a breeze again, and my only regret was not picking up a Halestorm shirt as well, but I just didn’t love any of them a whole lot.

I miss the bad things!

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All Hands on Deck

It started out kind of quiet today, so I spent most of it working on an Autodesk deployment. It’s a new teacher this year, so hopefully she reads her part and registers the students for their licenses. Eventually I started getting pulled in several different directions, but it wasn’t too bad.

Gary came back and said they wanted to go to lunch a little early, and Zach took us to BFD. Brody met us there a little bit late, which just extended our lunch. I thought I was getting the lunch fajitas, but ended up paying like $5 more somehow. I just haven’t been super impressed with that place in a while, but at least the food was fairly good today.

A little later in the afternoon, my Steam Deck was finally delivered, so I brought it to the shop and showed the guys before throwing it on the charger for the rest of the day. After work, I started loading games on it and was going to show them, but it wound down to Zach, Thomas, and me, and then Thomas politely asked me to leave, presumably because I wasn’t quite in an inner-enough circle to hear whatever he had to say.

Autumn had her karate test in the evening, but Eaddie wouldn’t get out of band until after it started. I picked her up, and we met Summer and my dad there, and she was already just barely doing any of the exercises. I know that it’s physically demanding, and that it’s hard, and that I couldn’t do any better, but it’s frustrating that she’s been treating it like she’s going to just magically get so much more respect from the others in the classes for being a higher belt, when she couldn’t even begin to keep up with the juniors. It’s obvious she doesn’t work for it, and every other lifestyle choice she makes is contrary to whatever she says about karate in the moment. I want her to do well, and I want her to work hard, but I don’t trust that she’s not doing the bare minimum and then talking big just to keep up appearances. We could have been watching OneRepublic and NEEDTOBREATHE.

After that was all finally over, I went home and cleaned up for bed as quickly as I could. Tomorrow night will be a long night, and I aim to stay awake for the drive home.

Just another way to collect unplayed games.

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International Cat Day

I had so much trouble getting to sleep last night, and then tossed and turned until I woke up before my alarm. Somehow I wasn’t completely worthless for the morning, and finally made it to Oakland to close out some work orders. I actually made it back to the shop a bit before lunch, and then started to leave with Gary before Zach and Thomas ran out to meet us at the car.

We went to Wendy’s, and Zach’s Baconator was delivered as a regular Dave’s Single, which was really sad next to my actual Baconator. At least my food was good. It was a quick lunch, and then back to the shop where I spent the afternoon working on some software deployments. At one point, Zach helped me bring a TV back to the shop, and I finally got my Pixel Buds Pro a week late. They were surprisingly uncomfortable in comparison to my other pair. About halfway through the afternoon, I started to have some anxiety or panic feelings about the cats that the girls dumped yesterday.

I went straight to my parents’ house after work and had some fish soup. Then my sinuses started acting up, so I didn’t stick around long. Eaddie asked for a ride just as I was getting home, so I picked her up from band at the high school and took her home. Autumn arrived after her color guard, and eventually Summer made it home from work really late. She had me call Nick to try and help one of his friends with what she thought were IT issues, but I think were actually just complaints about her ecommerce site.

I ended the night picking up a couple of tickets to see Halestorm, The Pretty Reckless, The Warning, and Lilith Czar on Wednesday. Summer decided she didn’t want to go, but Eaddie did, so that’ll be fun to hang out with her.

Ironic, innit?

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Good Old-Fashioned Ultraviolence

I woke up a little late this morning and got the sense that the girls were in a bit of a panic to get the cats out of the house. Evidently Summer got a formal eviction warning letter, and she counted only two days left to have them gone. Since nobody actually addressed me about it, and since I had already expressed my own frustration about the situation, I just did my best to help out with breakfast so they could finish what needed to be done.

After we ate the kielbasa and veggies with eggs, they went to Dollar General for some cat food before taking everything up to Noah’s house, and I went home to shower. I got incredibly frustrated with always being made the villain, and Suzanne said I was “cold, cold like the wind” for being so unsympathetic, but I likened it to God sending people to Hell for eternity because they worked on a Sunday. People show up in droves to worship that guy, but I’m the fucking bad guy here for reminding them that they’re not allowed to have pets.

I had a couple drinks and a shower to relax, and then Summer wanted just the two of us to go to the movies to see Bullet Train. I thought I was the only one that was really excited to see it, but I don’t think she really knew what to expect. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it reminded me a lot of Kill Bill, without being quite so vulgar, but with some classic ultraviolence. All of the characters were great, and I really liked the cinematography.

After the movie, I tried talking to Summer about my feelings on the way home and I blew up for a bit that she kept saying I wasn’t being comforting or supportive. I knew it was hard to watch her kids hurting, but she enabled them by buying all of the cat supplies instead of shutting the whole thing down early, and I needed her to understand that it was okay to take the loss. She didn’t have to try and lessen the blow, and it was okay to just have a bad day and accept that every single one of us did something wrong.

When we got back to the house, Eaddie was still very upset. I learned that they just took the cats outside Noah’s house, so Sweetums got into a fight with his dog and immediately ran up a tree. I don’t even know how big of a tree it was, or if she’ll be able to get down on her own, but even Eaddie knew that she didn’t have any time to associate Noah or his house with anything good. I’ll be astounded if she doesn’t get picked off by a predator overnight, but I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I wasn’t present to do the thinking for all four of them, so if it’s two dead cats, it’s two dead cats.

I tried to coax Eaddie out of the house for some fish soup with my parents, but she didn’t want to leave. Autumn wanted to go to her father’s for some reason, so the lawn still didn’t get mowed over the last two weeks that we’ve been asking. I just have to assume I’ll be the bad guy again next weekend when it still hasn’t been done.

I went to eat and visited with my parents for a little while before heading home. Bác Vân called while I was on the way and asked me to come over for a bit. I helped with her iPad for a bit, then went home to do some laundry before bed.

L

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Nothin to Taco’bout

I slept super hard last night and woke up last, but not too late. Summer had to go to work for a bit and then went to the gym, so I went home for a while. I cleaned up, but didn’t get around to a whole lot.

Summer decided she wanted to try something new for dinner and needed me to pick up an extra tomato on the way back up to her place. While I was at Walmart, I picked up an ice cream cake for Eaddie since that’s all she wanted for her birthday and nobody ever delivered. The taco casserole was great, and I made mine into a big salad that didn’t feel heavy.

After we ate, Summer wanted to watch a movie and we settled on Red Notice. Eaddie got up and left pretty early into it, but Autumn watched it with us. I was underwhelmed by it, possibly because of how much I usually like Ryan Reynolds and The Rock movies. It just felt really slow in comparison to their others. The twist was good, but not completely unexpected.

Summer went to bed watching TV, so it was a really early night to bed for everyone.

I love lamp, but not as much as they love lamp.

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Hanky Panky

I was sent on a surprise quest upstairs today to finish up what Greg had started yesterday. I didn’t get anywhere close to finishing, because most of the desktops were missing USB drivers and were therefore unusable until I remoted into each one to install them. Messing with that got me to lunch, and six of us met up at Brangus, where Thomas was already having lunch with a couple of his boys. He ended up paying for all of ours except Brody, who showed up late and had to order as we were getting our food.

I got caught up in the afternoon fighting SCCM and imaging a couple old Lenovo student laptops for Zach, for Gary. I got one of them to work finally, but I’ll need to go back and modify a script that isn’t naming them correctly.

As soon as I left work, I went home to change so I could run to Conway and pick up Summer. She had tickets to see Hank Williams Jr. with Ashlen in Little Rock, but Ashlen wouldn’t be passing through for them to ride together. She didn’t want to eat either, which was fine on account of how much I had for lunch. I picked her up at the Conway Splash and then dropped her off at the arena.

For nearly six hours, I wandered around Little Rock. My first stop was Walmart on McCain. I actually found one of the grills I had been looking for, but wasn’t sure it would even fit in the car. I think I’d really rather get the larger one anyway. I killed quite a bit of time wandering through the whole store until I decided to get some food.

It took me a while to decide where to eat, but I ultimately landed on Rally’s, which was right in the same lot. When I walked up to the window, an old guy seemed to be having trouble communicating his burger customizations to the employee. Then she stuck her head out the window and started dropping F-bombs and telling the guy he didn’t have to talk to her like she was stupid. I definitely did not witness the same interaction that she did, and I probably should have turned around and left then. She continued to be loud and crude the entire time I was there, but astoundingly the food was actually pretty good.

After I ate, I went across the street to Home Depot to kill some more time. There, I actually found an assembled version of the larger grill, which looked pretty awesome. It would be great for the amount of food we normally end up grilling, and I’d love to be able to use it for smoking. I nearly closed that place down, but decided to move on to a McDonald’s that showed to be open until 10.

When I got to McDonald’s, the sign confirmed the hours posted on Google Maps, but the door was locked. I didn’t bother to ring the doorbell, but another girl came up after me and actually rang it. A guy appeared from around the corner and made a big C with his hand through the window. The girl seemed a bit confused, and the guy ultimately let her in so her baby girl could use the restroom.

Just about then, Blake texted and said he was done with his date and invited me over to his place. He was about four miles on the other side of the arena, so I met up with him at the apartments. We visited with rapid-fire questions back and forth until Summer texted that she was walking out of the concert.

I drove back to the arena, but my instructions weren’t clear enough and I still got stuck in traffic. It wasn’t too incredibly bad, but the construction on the interstate made things much worse. We made it back to Conway for her car, and then on home as quickly as we could. The girls were already asleep, and we weren’t far behind.

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