Category: Uncategorised

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No Cats, No Play

I took the Shadow to work today since Summer needed to take her car. Fortunately I spent all day inside, so I never had to deal with any heat until quitting time. Zach was back, but most of the team was out on vacation. Kyle and I spent most of the day together imaging desktops for the cafeterias while Zach, Gary, and Greg ran around doing other things. They came back to get me for Taco Tuesday, but we all rode with Zach for that.

Kyle left to do other stuff in the afternoon, which left me in the back by myself for the rest of the day. Gary came back for a little while, and we worked loosely on a few different things. Then some guys came to clean out our air handlers near the end of the day. They finished up around the same time we did, and I went to my parents’ house for dinner.

Summer was out with sciatica and didn’t want to leave the house, so I just ate kabobs with my parents and then rode back home until Autumn could come pick me up. We stopped by Zaxby’s so she could get some dinner, and then it was a pretty quiet evening. I watered the plants, Summer went to bed, Autumn watched YouTube, and Eaddie hung out in her room all night.

Just before I went to bed, Eaddie came out to tell Autumn about some ex-boyfriend drama. I butted into the conversation just enough to confirm that it was normal teenage drama and that she wasn’t getting pulled into anything too toxic, and then it was off to bed.

Some grow, while others swell.

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I’ve Got a Yankee Doodle Sweetheart

I slept through an anxiety attack early this morning, and then slept late afterward. We eventually got up and showered before going to Walmart to pick up an online order I had placed the night before. They had a Bodum glass and tea strainer on sale, similar to the glass that Suzanne had accidentally broken when we had them over a while back, so I took the opportunity to re-complete the set. They didn’t offer a way to pick it up inside, but I wanted to take a peek through the clearance section while we were there. Just as we got into the store, they called and asked what stall I was parked in, which seemed to be a mistake in the app setup. I don’t know why they have you check in when you’re just “on the way” if they’re going to assume you’re already there.

I drove over to the pickup section to get my glass, then went back to the garden center to finish shopping and fetch Summer. We were out relatively quickly, and headed on to my parents’ house to start grilling. I was super hungry and was anxious to get the burgers done, but Dad had only just lit off the charcoal. I helped patty the burgers, and then got things cooking as quickly as I could. All total, we had burgers, corn on the cob, shrimp, and finally a rack of ribs to grill. I tried using my smoker tube, but I guess I smothered it with all the smoke from the charcoal. Mom had some beef for kabobs, but I told her to wait until tomorrow since we were out of coals after the ribs anyway.

After we ate, Summer and I went for a swim to cool back off. It was so hot and humid that I could barely walk outside without breaking a sweat. She enjoyed the heat, but I absolutely loathed it. I felt smothered by it. The pool helped, but she still wanted to go to the train depot for the holiday entertainment.

We drove back to my house to wait out the sun a bit, and then went up to her house to check on the cats and set out some pork for dinner later in the week. One of the cats pooped on the shower matt, and it just reminded me how much I hate having pets.

From there, we made our way downtown for the festivities. We actually got decent parking, and some clouds came in to block the sun. There was a light breeze that kept things just barely bearable for me, and I was glad to see some friendly faces in the form of Boundy and her husband, Mike. We chatted for a bit, and then we wandered over to a crêpe food truck. While we were there, something happened to one of the band members, and the singer announced to the crowd that “somebody” should call 911. I don’t know if anyone ever did, but the bicycle cops at the back of the crowd didn’t appear to be in too much of a hurry to get up to the guy. At some point, another band member announced that their keyboardist was also a cardiologist, so I guess things worked out?

Back at the food truck, there appeared to be a pretty long line, but we learned that everyone there was actually just waiting for their food. The line to order was actually very short. I frustrated Summer when I said I didn’t really want to eat much of one in the heat, and she took off back to the car. We went home, talked about it a bit, and I explained my struggles with sticky foods and drippy sweat. We discussed going up to Nebo like I had suggested earlier, and then ultimately decided to go back downtown on the Shadow, since it had cooled off considerably by then, and we could park more flexibly.

We made it back to the Peter’s lot and parked, marveling that our vacated parking spot from earlier was still available. We wandered back to the music area, decided against waiting in any of the ridiculously-long lines for treats, and walked back to, and across Arkansas to where someone was selling kettle corn. Fortunately there wasn’t a line there at all, so we got a bag of that, when out of nowhere Boundy showed up with a half-eaten bag for us. We took it, and then found a seat at a picnic table right beside them. I ended up running back across the street to bring the bike over so we could have an easier getaway, and it worked splendidly.

Summer enjoyed the show, though it was weird to watch one from so close with absolutely no music or any kind of rhythm to it. The show lasted a bit longer than I expected, and then we took off as soon as it was over. We made it home in record time, and I couldn’t have been more pleased on a night before going back to early days at work. Summer went straight to bed with incredible nerve pain, and I wrapped up my usual deal hunting as quickly as I could.

I DECLARE INDEPENDENCE! I didn’t say it. I declared it!

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Ozark Lunch Jaunt

Summer and I got up and out of the house today for a ride on the Shadow. I was back and forth on a couple of places to ride for lunch, but landed on the Ozark Cafe in Jasper. I had never been, and the reviews looked to be pretty good. We gassed up and hit Highway 7 out of town just in time to make it there by lunch time.

We stopped at the Rotary Ann for a break from the bad vibrations. The restrooms were nice and cool, and we got some toilet paper to stuff in our ears that made a huge difference in our ride quality. My whole head was ringing when we stopped, but the rest of the ride went great.

We pulled into town and walked right into the restaurant without having to wait for a seat. They had a lunch buffet that we opted for after a quick glance at their newspaper-style menu. I started with a big salad, and then moved on to a couple plates of what I would call southern comfort foods. I was anxious to try everything, so of course I was absolutely overstuffed by the time we left. Summer wanted to walk around a bit, so we went a couple doors down and visited an antique shop for a bit before heading back home.

I kind of wanted to stop at a couple more overlooks that I had never visited before, but I wasn’t sure how well the food would sit. We went up the road to a Dollar General to find some real earplugs, and then made it all the way back to the Rotary Ann for a quick break before making it the rest of the way home. I was a bit nervous about needing to stop for fuel, but I didn’t hit my reserve until we were about halfway home from Dover.

We got some gas once we were back into Russellville, and then we stopped by Summer’s for her swimsuit and to take a bit of a breather. My whole body was numb from the vibrations, and I was achy from the ride posture of that bike as well as the sunburn. After some rest, we got the cats inside away from the night’s fireworks, and made our way back to my house to trade up for the car.

I went next door to get some bánh bao that Bác Vân got from Linh, and then we went to my parents’ house for a swim. Mom was asleep inside while Dad was working out back, but he took a break to swim with us for a while. The water was nice in the shade, and I never got the shivers. When we were done, I loaded up on ice water for the night, and we came back to my house.

Summer sat on the couch on her iPad while I put on the last half of my Stranger Things episode. Once I finished with that, we watched the latest episode of Middleditch and Schwartz. That had me rolling as it usually does, and then I continued with a bit of a Ricky Gervais special I had started some time ago. Summer was ready for bed before it finished though, so we did a quick scan for brown recluses and went to bed.

Not enough Shadow to prevent star damage!

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Convenience Over Results

Summer made eggs and sausage for breakfast this morning, and then the girls got ready for a long weekend with their father. I showered there before sitting down with the kids to reiterate my role, and the fact that parental decisions would be shared between Summer and myself. I could tell that Autumn had just been playing nice to get permission to drive to Lamar on her own, but Summer wanted a break from shuttling her around everywhere.

Before they left, I went home while Summer went to the gym. I tried setting up an old GPS tracker that I had purchased years ago, but the battery appeared to be completely toast. We met back up at their house to see the girls off, and then we spent the rest of the day laying around.

We watched the original Top Gun, which did not impress me much, in case we wanted to go to the theater to see the new one. Then we went to Colton’s for a steak dinner. By the time we finished there, Summer decided she’d had enough fun for one day and we went back home where we burned the rest of the evening. She watched TV while I laid around not feeling great, and eventually we went to sleep.

So noisy, and nothing’s getting done.

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Thaw in my Side

I thought it was going to rain today, but the forecast went down enough that I felt pretty comfortable taking the Shadow in for our second half-day. We had a brief meeting about moving over our old tickets from Web Help Desk to IncidentIQ, and then I was sent to fix imaging. I still wasn’t sure what broke it in the first place, but it needed to be fixed as quickly as possible.

Everyone else pretty much wandered off, except for Kyle, who stuck around the shop for a while. I was deep in my testing when he came into my office to share some news he had just read online while he was sitting around, and I wasn’t super receptive since I was actually deep in thought. Gary was in and out, but didn’t really have a whole lot for me.

After testing several boot images and even trying to build one from scratch, I finally took a snapshot of the VM and updated the ADK, which ended up fixing our issues. I was stoked, but by that time everyone else had been long gone. Even Thomas left me in the dark downstairs. I went home and just waited for Summer to get off work about an hour late.

I made my way up to the girls, who were all just sitting around the house. Eaddie was still in a bit of a mood, and Autumn was a normal level of cranky. She griped about how there was “nothing” to eat in the house, so in response I asked her why there was zero room in the chest freezer. Summer was in a bath by then, so I just bit my tongue and cooked a quick frozen skillet meal while we waited for Summer to finish cleaning up.

Eaddie went to bed, but the rest of us ate. Then I had Autumn take every single thing out of the freezer and take inventory while I defrosted and cleaned out the inside of it. It took a while, but there was gross chicken blood and juice all over the place that just needed to be melted out. We ended up throwing out eight pounds of chicken thighs that they’d had in the freezer since before I came around.

Everyone went to bed shortly after we finished loading everything back into the freezer. I stayed up to try and update my laptop, but there wasn’t much else I could do.

Hours and hours of cumulative updates…

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Night at the Belongia

I took the Shadow to work again today, but then spent the morning riding around in the work truck with Brody. We sent everybody except Gary to hang the new 75″ touch panels at the high school. We were able to fit five on each truck, along with the toolbox and mounts. The first one went okay, but it quickly devolved into multiple people sitting around. I tried to lead a group of the half that were sitting to prep the other rooms, and then circle back to hook everything up once the panels were hung. That worked for a little bit, but we just have so many guys that can’t work without direct supervision.

We made it back to the shop just before lunch, and then went to Linh’s for some of the best food we’ve had from there in a while. Our server seemed nervous, or at the very least, inexperienced. We got our food, and then never saw her again. At least she had an automatic gratuity for our party size.

After lunch, I had to stick around the shop in case some desktop computers showed up. Fortunately they just coincidentally showed up shortly after everyone else had left. I got the forklift and unloaded the pallet in record time, and then Gary and I took them all downstairs. The rest of the day was spent trying to get the network image working for them.

After work, I went home to change and then went up to Summer’s to get ready for Eaddie’s band camp concert. She was already home and trying to find a nice outfit to wear for the concert, but we could tell she was tired and cranky. She would never say it, but I think she was happy to see me.

We made it to Witherspoon just before the first (last) band started, and somehow Summer was able to find three unoccupied seats. Autumn immediately disappeared, refusing to sit with us. Summer’s mom showed up, followed by my dad, right before the second band started, but we had room after people left from the first set. Eaddie really wanted me to record the second band, so I just recorded the entire set, as well as her last (first) band.

We took our time getting out to avoid the traffic, but then took Summer’s mom home before getting the girls home. Everyone was pretty tired after a late night, so it was showers for the girls, and then everyone was off to bed.

We’re almost there.

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Cruis’n RSD

I took the Shadow to work today, and it really worked out in my favor. We were tasked with visiting every campus to check for rooms with A/V equipment where we could host large classes of sensitivity training. Three of the guys went to the high school to continue imaging student devices. Greg and Josh went to the high school to scout that campus’s rooms, and I got to ride my bike all around town to visit all of the elementaries.

I stopped by Oakland first, though I already knew what equipment they had. Then I ran home to put in my contacts and sunglasses, since I would be spending so much time on the road. Crawford was a pretty quick in-and-out, and then I made my way up to Center Valley. It was nice to get a little bit of a ride in, and then I hunted around in the dark to investigate their setup. One of the custodians saw me come in but didn’t know who I was, so he chased me down to investigate.

While I was there, Gary asked me to meet him at Sequoyah to pull some cables out of the ceiling because they were somehow in the way of the maintenance guys. Gary didn’t realize we left the lines with the intent of using them for whatever goes in the room next, and had already cut them at the ceiling. We probably could have still kept come, but we ended up pulling them all out anyway. When we finished, Greg and Josh showed up for some reason, and we chatted outside for a while. Then when I left, Selvin was taking pictures of my bike, so I let him ride it around the parking lot. Maybe I can get him and Marcela to buy one, and then I’ll have a new riding buddy.

I stopped by Dwight to take care of it before lunch, and then left London for the afternoon. On the way back, I stopped by the new Ridgewood Brothers’ build site to take a picture of the framework. They were putting trusses up with a big crane, so I took a few pictures to share before heading back to the shop.

I suggested Freddy’s for lunch, and Gary seemed excited by that. Thomas took him, Greg, and Josh, and I rode the bike. The service was actually really fast for dining in, but we were also there early enough to beat the lunch rush. The burger I had was really good, especially with all the added veggies. After that and some cheese curds, I didn’t have room for any custard.

When we got back to work, I was sent to find Mary Beth to help with a printer issue. She wasn’t there, but Thomas was in the conference room waiting on her for a meeting. I waited for a bit, but then was called away when a truck load of 75″ Newline touch panels showed up. They were stacked two pallets high, so I had to get the forklift and shuffle them around quite a bit in order to unload everything. I felt like an expert though, and we got everything into the graveyard without incident.

By that time, I still needed to run out to London, so I left again. I decided to stop and see Grant and Robert on my way out of town, and showed them my pictures while they trimmed up some briskets. They were high-energy as usual, but I couldn’t stay long. It felt like a super long trip out to the final elementary campus, but it was a nice ride across the lake. I checked an extra room there, since the cafeteria didn’t actually have any equipment in it at all. The room with the stage might actually work pretty well.

The rest of the afternoon was super quiet. Some of the guys filtered back in and sat around for a while. Thomas eventually came back and let us go just a few minutes early, though he seemed to indicate that he meant to let us go even earlier. The long days feel absolutely ridiculous, and I don’t think anyone at Central Office is even working that late.

I rode home and changed, then went next door to talk to Bác Vân about her high electric bill. She said they added four pounds of refrigerant to their A/C unit at the start of the season, so I’m wondering if it’s low again. In eight days, she’s used almost as much electricity as she did all last month.

I finally made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and Autumn was already silent in her room. Summer was horizontal on the couch watching TV, so I snacked on some leftovers, and then she went to bed super early. I took the opportunity to do the same, a little uncomfortable that there was still enough light to see outside, but also fully aware of how tired I feel when I wake up that extra half hour early for work. At least we’re over the halfway point.

Hell if Fi knows.

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Pull It

I got the R1 out for a ride to work today. It was a beautiful ride in the morning, and then a little warm in the afternoon, but still nice at speed. We all ended up going to the middle school to pull a few lines, except for Brody, who misunderstood the assignment and went to the high school by himself.

I rode with Kyle to the building, where he parked in back, a ways away from where we needed to be. Then we had to walk to the front anyway, since we had to help unload the truck and bring everything inside. I kind of got stuck with him on one of the jobs, and though he seemed to be trying, he definitely had some issues climbing the ladders. He said he was terrified of them, but for being so small on such new, sturdy ladders, I just couldn’t see it. I tried not to be too frustrated with him, and definitely tried to nurture him along. I still ended up doing most of the climbing, and an hour job ended up taking us the whole day.

We tried using a couple of old lines that were already in the room, but only one worked. The others we found went back to where an old switch was located. There, we discovered a huge bundle of cables that had just been cut and left in the ceiling. We’ve been struggling to find work all week anyway, so I decided we should clean out all the old cable from the ceiling. We got most of it done before lunch, when Kyle dropped me off back at the shop.

I rode to Taco John’s and met with four of the others for a cheap lunch. I hate when they don’t automatically print receipts, because then I don’t get extra rewards points. The tacos were incredible today though. They were loaded with well-seasoned meat, and were some of the best tacos I’ve ever had from there.

We went back to the middle school to finish in the afternoon, but still had a couple hours to kill before quitting time. I took the old cable to Cunningham for scrap, then stopped at Casey’s for some snacks. When I got back to the shop, they had received one of the Dell dock/port-replicating monitors to test out, and everyone was in Thomas’s office trying to get it to work. I sat in the shop for most of it, since I was completely beat from going up and down ladders all day, plus I stank from the sweat, and I wouldn’t have really added anything to the group that was already working on it. Greg came back and ate some deer, offering me a couple bites, and then shared the top secret location of his cabin. It was neat that he wanted to talk to me about hunting for a bit, because it wasn’t like he was just talking to another hunter about things he had killed.

After work, Gary followed me home to get the weighted blanket I picked up for him. Then I went to my parents’ house to swim for a bit before picking Autumn up from karate. She wasn’t at all happy to see me, but she became nicer once we got home. Summer worked from home and made a corned beef for dinner, so the three of us ate at the dinner table before Autumn got current with Stranger Things.

I had sent Eaddie a picture of the corned beef, and she asked me to bring her some to band camp after nine, so I had her call me once she was ready. My old buddy, Neal, was there delivering some pizzas, so after I got my hug from Eaddie, we stood outside and chatted for quite a while. He always has all kinds of random stuff to talk about, and it was fun catching up a bit.

Everyone was off to bed when I got back to the house, so I tried not to waste any time myself. Hopefully I’ll sleep better after such a long day today.

Add it up.

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Towsday

I had trouble sleeping last night, but fortunately it wasn’t too hard to get around this morning. I took Summer’s car home and debated taking a bike to work since the weather was supposed to be super nice. I knew I had to meet David to have the Murano towed sometime in the morning, plus I wasn’t sure what else I might have to do for work, so I decided to take the air conditioned option just in case I ended up in any uncomfortable heat. I’m definitely just a fair weather rider these days.

Zack and Gary were both out, so Thomas met with us and had Greg split the crew up for whatever work they could find. There wasn’t much, so nobody batted an eye when I just hung out at the shop all day working in SCCM. A couple ladies from other districts came downstairs for eSchool rollover, but I was gone for some of that to escort my tow to Accurate Automotive. Summer has sent customers there for some time, and even David said he trusts their work, and have had their work truck serviced there in the past.

Greg came back and ate at the shop, so I ended up just skipping lunch entirely for an apple and a bag of Cheetos Puffs. It was a really quiet day, and even quite cold in the air conditioning. The ladies outside my door weren’t there for long, since evidently eSchool was down for a bit. I just listened to music and tinkered at my own pace.

After work, I went home to change and then went to my parents’ house for some leftover shrimp soup. We chatted for a while about the car situation, and I was a little disappointed to find the value of the Murano to be under about $13,000. It is older now, but still in pretty fair shape. Hopefully the engine isn’t damaged, but I feel encouraged about buying a new car now that I’ve had a good raise, saved some extra money, and have another raise coming in a matter of days.

I eventually made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and I thought Autumn was going to be sour, but she ended up being pretty good all night. We got our letters absolving us of any wrongdoing in the case against Autumn, and enjoyed the weather on the front porch for a bit. Then I dressed up some of Autumn’s leftover chicken rollup things for Summer’s dinner, and everyone went to bed pretty early.

I’ve never gotten so many letters in my entire life!

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This Time, at Band Camp

I slept in a bit today before getting up to take Eaddie to band camp. We all loaded up to take her to Paine Hall and found her dorm room. We didn’t stick around very long, because she was excited to get started. On the way back to the house, we stopped by the Murano to get an old Quiz Bowl buzzer set out of the trunk. I was curious to see if it would work. Summer briefly daydreamed about having a trivia team builder for work. Aside from some broken cable clips, which appeared to just be RJ45 connectors, everything seemed to work fine.

Autumn had been a bit argumentative all morning, but then tried to convince Summer and me to play Monopoly with her. We just kind of stared blankly at her for a moment, since she couldn’t seem to process why we might not be interested in playing board games with someone who says she hates us. She acted like we were only going to ignore her for the week because Eaddie’s gone, but Eaddie has been over her shit for just as long as us.

Summer eventually went to the gym while I tinkered around. I ended up taking a shower, and then the two of us went to New China for lunch when she got back. Autumn spent all day banished to her room, and that’s how she’ll stay as far as I’m concerned. She verbally expressed that she doesn’t want to verbally express anything to us, so I see no need to dance around each other pretending like everything is fine.

Autumn was out of her room making some food when we got back, and it didn’t take long for her to have an attitude with Summer, so she went back to her room for the rest of the evening while Summer and I laid around being super lazy for the rest of the afternoon and evening. We both struggled to stay awake. At one point, I put on School for Scoundrels, and then we watched some standup on Netflix before bed.

Ants everywhere but in my pants.