Category: Uncategorised

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Hung Like a Bicycle

Again, it didn’t rain today. It didn’t even really look like rain most of the day, but it got humid in the evening. I didn’t get enough sleep, so it was a bit rough getting in to work. Once there, I just dove right back into my project.

Brody called for Bocadillos for lunch, so four of us made the trip to meet him down in Dardanelle. Evidently they have all-you-can-eat enchiladas on Thursdays, so we’ll have to go sometime for those and some dessert.

The afternoon was relatively quiet, but still mostly unsuccessful. I just haven’t had any luck this week. When I left work, I stopped by the shop to see Summer for a little while. She was actually in the office for a change. She showed me her cleaned up stock, and then I headed home.

I finally drilled some holes in the wall for a single bike mount. With my luck, one of my five screw holes hit a nail, so the load-bearing mount only has two of the three screws in. It creaks a bit too much for my comfort when you swing the bike around. On top of that, somehow my perfectly level screw holes lead to a slightly slanted mount. The mountain bikes are so heavy that I’m not entirely sure I trust those mounts, especially if someone eventually parks next to them. I guess some time with a bike up on the wall will comfort me.

And the walls kept tumbling down…

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Mmmm… hungry.

It was supposed to rain today, but I don’t think it ever actually did. It would have been a fine day to ride again, but I was happier to get my four return packages shipped off anyway. I kept trying to figure out a way to deploy a C++ compiler for Ethan’s classes, but no matter what I do it doesn’t seem to like something about our setup.

A group of us went to Quiznos for lunch, and the whole time we were there I just kept thinking about how the food is always just okay, but always feels like it’s missing a whole lot of something. I very seldom leave satisfied, and I was left hungry for the entire rest of the day. I think I’ve only ever had one sandwich there that I really enjoyed. Next time I’m going to go all-in with the vegetables to see if they look at me like I’m crazy. Subway never flinches.

After lunch, I ran to Oakland for a bit to try and fix an issue. Then it was back to the shop for a relatively slow moving afternoon. Even with that, I still can’t help but feel like time is just flying by this year. I still can’t get a grip. I feel like I’m constantly losing time.

After work, I went by to see Summer at work. While I was there, I printed a return label that I forgot to print at work, and then dropped off my last package at Walgreens for return by FedEx. Then it was home to try and pull focus on some more junk.

I got sidetracked a bit in the garage, but cleaned up one tiny box. I guess it had to be done at some point anyway. We may try to host something tiny for Halloween, so I’ve got a lot more to do in a month’s time.

I have hunger.

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If It Doesn’t Fit, It Ships!

Today was relatively quiet for me. I spent most of the day helping others with things they didn’t know how to do, which can be fun. When lunch time came around, Summer wanted to go to New China. I went to meet her, but discovered they are closed on Tuesdays now, so we went next door to La Huerta instead. They had a pretty good lunch special for three tacos, and our service was awesome. It was plenty to fill up without feeling overstuffed.

After lunch, I went to Oakland for a while to take care of some things. Then I went to the high school to help Brody for a bit. As I pulled into the high school, I saw that they had a helicopter in the parking lot with a group of people around it. I didn’t stare too hard, so I couldn’t really tell what it was from, but seeing aircraft in unexpected places is always fun.

I spent the last part of the day working on some things for myself in my office. I made it home a bit late and tried to keep busy cleaning up. I loaded some recycling into the car for tomorrow, and packaged up a whole bunch of returns to take to the post office. I ordered so many pairs of jeans from Old Navy, only to decide that I have no business wearing anything without some level of elasticity. With my size, my bits flex and squish into different shapes depending on how I’m moving around. It doesn’t help that I’ve always worn my pants too high, so they fit around my belly that really does most of the shifting. Things that fit when standing don’t fit when sitting. The flex also makes mounting motorcycles way easier, so there’s just no reason to ever go back to stiff pants.

I ended the evening scheduling a bunch of Microsoft virtual training courses for the free certification exam vouchers afterward. I’m sure it will be just as awful as that sounds. I fully expect them all to be sales pitches.

Imagine my surprise, the certifications are a trap.

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License to Deploy

The folks at PLTW have been a bit slow to respond, so I was happy to come in to a new license file today that ultimately resolved the issues I was having. It didn’t unwaste the time I burned on it last week, but at least I could close the ticket.

Lunch time came and went pretty quickly. I was just going to go home for a break a bit late since I never heard from anyone else, but on the way out Zach asked me out, so we went to Mulan’s together. He still wouldn’t tell me the big secret, but I didn’t really figure he would.

After lunch was much more relaxed since my big project was out of the way. I ended the day at Oakland running a quick HDMI cable through the ceiling and banging my head against a SMART board. I finally just gave up on that one and left.

I stopped by to see Summer at the shop, but they were pretty busy for a moment and I didn’t really get to talk to her. They were slow both times we drove by during lunch, and apparently they had only just broken the trend. I fought her bathroom door for a bit because it was wedging into the doorframe, but I didn’t have much luck.

Finally I went home to finish up some laundry and decompress for the evening. I even tried to treat myself to eight full hours of sleep.

Still better than the live action movie.

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Clean Up, Settle Up

Autumn had to work today, and Eaddie was still with her father for the weekend, so Summer and I got up to a day to ourselves. We ate some leftovers for breakfast, and before too long I headed home to clean up. I spent the entire day in and out of the garage trying to clean things out so I can park in there again. There were plenty of big things I could move around, and there’s still plenty more to go.

Summer showed up after her workout and kept me company, but by that time I was feeling really tired and clammy as it got warmer outside. I started slowing down quite a bit and really just wanted a shower, so she went home while I cleaned up.

Just as I was getting ready for a shower, I remembered that Little Caesar’s had a promotional $5 ExtraMostBestest deal, so I ran across town to pick one of those up instead. The guy at the window was super nice and polite, and the pizza was one of the prettier I’ve had from there. The crust was overly thick in some places though, and it looked more like a regular sparsely-topped pepperoni than an ExtraMostBestest. It was good though, and fit my craving.

After my shower, I was feeling really sleepy, and it felt like it should have been about eight or nine o’clock. I kept picking up and started making some ice cream before my milk and cream could go bad. Unfortunately I warmed the milk up too much when mixing the dry ingredients, so it never quite got down to freezing as it spun. I just had to pour it into some cups to stick in the freezer instead.

To wrap up the night, I had to comb through my Discover Card transactions to pull out Autumn’s purchases again. You’d think there would be a way to easily separate authorized users from everyday transactions, but there’s just not without looking at the details of each transaction. Luckily I know that I almost never go to Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Tropical Smoothie, Dollar General, or Dollar Tree.

I always play banker.

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Pessimist in Denial

I mistakenly told Summer not to let me sleep in too late today, so she got me out of bed way earlier than I was ready. I ached from the lack of sleep all day long. I had some leftovers for breakfast and eventually made it home to clean up. The grill cover I had to buy from a scalper off of eBay showed up, so I got the new grill moved outside. Eventually I got a shower and Summer showed up so we could go help Dad cover the pool.

When we got there, he said Uncle Rick tested positive for COVID, so he was trying to be careful while we were there. We covered the pool and then took off for Lowe’s.

We only needed to pick up the air filters I ordered for her, but Summer and I walked around the store for a while first. They had some nice bathroom vanity displays up, so we spent a while back there before making it through some more of the store. Then we picked up the filters on the way out.

We were both a little hungry by then, and she wanted seafood, so I took her down the road to Sam’s. We ordered the big fish, shrimp, and crab cakes platter I usually get, along with a smaller one with some chicken and shrimp to share. I wish I had just gotten the gumbo instead, because it made me feel like crap the rest of the night.

As we left, Summer expressed how she often visualizes worst-case scenarios in her mind. It finally dawned on me that she has really just been a pessimist all along and didn’t realize it. Every example I could come up with lead to her thinking of the most negative outcome. With that insight, I figure I’m an optimist in denial.

I wanted to clean up the house when we got back, but I barely picked at anything. It got hot outside with the sun shining directly into the garage, and I was already feeling sleepy. Summer went home and I tried to pick at a couple more things before following after her.

Autumn came home as we were watching Modern Family, and it was quickly off to bed for her. We didn’t stay up very late either. Hopefully I can make some use of tomorrow.

Spit Fire

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Can Michael Go Home Now?

It was another cold ride in to work this morning. We had a brief team meeting, where Thomas updated us on some procedures including timesheets. We all hate them, nobody looks at them, and as far as I know, we don’t even send them anywhere. I’ll almost prefer to have a timeclock system over a superficial policy over a technicality.

From then on, we didn’t have much else going on. The morning went by super fast, and then almost all of us ended up at Western Sizzlin for lunch. Kyle got a baked potato for like three bucks, which was genius, because he got the full potato bar with it for hardly any money. I’ll have to remember that trick.

When we got back to the shop, Kelsea was outside trying to change her tire because it was “10 PSI” low and kept slowly leaking. We tried to convince her to just drive it to a gas station to get some air, but she insisted on changing it instead so she could drive to Conway to have it fixed under warranty. I ran home to get my impact wrench and a floor jack, but by the time I got back the guys had already changed it using the emergency tool kit. Not only that, but there was a tow truck there to pick up her car, so I doubly didn’t understand why she insisted on changing the tire there. It all seemed very dramatic, and evidently I wasn’t the only one that thought she had gone a bit nuts.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet until everyone filtered out a bit early. I stayed a bit late as I finished up some things, then went home to change before meeting Summer at Walmart for some guacamole ingredients. I chopped everything up, she mashed it all together, and then we were off to John and Melissa’s.

We were the first to arrive, then Veronica actually showed up, and finally Travis arrived with the pizza. We ate and chatted around the table. No games made it out, as we just reminisced about the old days, and caught up with Veronica’s adventures. Johnny periodically came out to ask if we were all leaving yet, and for the longest time we weren’t. Until we did.

It was really good to see Travis in good spirits, and it really reminded me more of our time working together when he was a much higher functioning human being, contributing to society instead of hiding out at home with his mother. I had a great time catching up.

How do you make a dead baby float?

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My Yellow Walkie-Talkie

It was quite cool out this morning, to the point that the sweat on my forehead got icy cold on the ride in to work. I scooted in a bit late, but nobody seemed to notice I was there at all. It was a quiet day, and I just did my thing and stuck to myself. I made it to Oakland three times in total to finish up various things. I never took a lunch and just ate a handful of peanuts instead.

When I made it home for the day, I tried to keep busy. It’s been hard finding any accomplishment around here for a while, and it takes no time at all for anything I do to be undone. When I finally settled in for the night, I was spooked by something that sounded like just a second of radio chatter or something. I legitimately thought my old clock radio had gone off somehow, but I couldn’t imagine how or why.

Must be that ghost season is nearly upon us.

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Bussin’

I was surprised this morning by being thrown into a conference call with one of the transportation guys for a sales pitch. He ended up being a little bit late, so I chatted motorcycles with the two sales guys until he showed up. The meeting lasted nearly to lunch, and then a group of us went to La Chiquita.

After lunch, I stopped by to see Summer for just a brief moment since she was in the pit, and then spent some time at Oakland just closing out tickets. I had to get back to the shop in time to help with a touch panel install at Sequoyah.

The install was a bit of a cluster because Kyle, Brody, and I kept tripping over each other. When we weren’t doing that, we were forgetting half of the things we needed in order to make the setup work. On top of that, the library was just sweltering for some reason, and I just dripped sweat the entire time. That just wore me out, in spite of it being such a mild day.

When I left, I stopped by the shop again to see Summer, then went home to mostly veg out. My neighbor did come over to ask for some of the wood in my backyard, which I was happy to offer as long as he didn’t take from the stacks that Summer or I made. Most of what was left were big logs though, and he seemed disappointed that he’d have to put some work into getting it chopped up and usable.

After that, I aired up just about every tire I have because the cooler temperatures has mealt lower air pressure. Then I came inside and sat around all evening, just feeling a bit aimless without much energy. My next big project is going to be organizing a bunch of returns of clothes I’ve been trying out over the past couple weeks.

Who needs anemones?

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Gossip Girl

I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm this morning, to the sound of my security cameras going off from the lightning outside. I never heard it storm overnight, but it was mostly clear the rest of the day. I squeaked into work and spent about an hour answering questions before getting into much else.

I ended up going to Oakland before lunch, and then took lunch to go home and finish up some leftover grilled hotdogs from a couple weeks ago. It was actually kind of nice to have a quiet lunch to myself.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet as well, until my phone started going off with all the gossip chatter of our Facebook group chat. I never cared for the gossip, and said as much. I didn’t expect that to be particularly well received, but I wasn’t planning to hold it back either. That got Travis on the defensive the rest of the evening, but at least he quit going on and on.

I finished the day at Oakland, working a bit late to try and figure out a SMART board. I figure the controller went bad or something, so I gave up for the day and went to my parents’ house for some leftover phở. Once Eaddie was done with karate, I picked her up and we went to my house so I could change before taking her home.

Summer was winding down. Autumn came in late from after school events. I watched the schoolboard meeting just out of curiosity, but didn’t learn much other than that the general public seemed overwhelmingly in favor of spreading COVID. I had Eaddie read our group chat just to see if I was the asshole, and she finally concluded that I was, but just as I had said, that didn’t make me any less right. She just seemed to think that what I said didn’t change anything, but it did at least serve to change the direction of the conversation, which was my entire goal in the first place.

We finished the night with an episode of House before everyone made it off to sleep.

Don’t be silly. If anything, I’d be solar-lighting you.