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Independence Day

I got up with Summer this morning and went to Walmart to pick up what she needed to grill hot dogs for her crew at work. Then we went straight to the shop and got things cooking just in time for lunch. Once everyone ate, we headed back home to get Eaddie and then met Autumn at my parents’ house to help clean the pool cover. I was still plenty sore from stacking wood, so I was worthless all day long.

We went to Morelos for dinner on the way home, then ended the evening with a classic Will Smith action flick. At first I questioned watching the modern sequel in 3D, but I think I made the right choice with the original. I can’t even remember the plot to the new one.

Once again, the LAPD is asking Los Angelinos NOT to fire their guns at the visitor spacecraft. You may inadvertently trigger an interstellar war.

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Woody Woodstacker

I made it in a little bit early this morning in time for coffee and donuts. It was another slow, quiet meeting that ended with everyone splitting up to continue imaging. I think we’re about a third of the way through the high school student devices by this point. I really thought Mike might be involved with it at some level, but I guess he’s got his own things going on.

We left at lunch time, and I went home for a bit before going to Zaxby’s and picking up some food to share with Summer. I felt pretty decent just sharing a Wings and Things meal plus a free side of cheddar bites, and afterward I went back home to stack some wood.

I got about two ricks stacked up from the massive mound of wood that has been in my back yard since the trees were cut. I was almost completely in the shade and it was a bit cooler out today due to the rain yesterday, otherwise I wouldn’t have made it. I was pretty proud of my accomplishment, but there’s so much more to stack before I even get to the larger logs that will have to be split.

I went in to shower from all the sweating, and Summer brought Eaddie over later in the evening. Autumn didn’t want to stay here again, so it would just be the three of us. Eaddie wanted to meet Dave at Old Post to play tennis, so Summer took her and they stayed out pretty late doing that.

When they got home, Summer and I watched the latest episode of Loki, and I still hate the forced weekly release schedule. I’m ready to see what little Alligator Loki has in store for us.

Now would be a great time to learn how to smoke things.

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New Boss, Who Dis?

It was cooler and rainy today, which fit perfectly with my mood about Ben being gone. Thomas is back, and we’ll get to spend the next few days bringing him up to speed with what he has already identified as “same shit, different people.” At least he’s welcomed input so far, and I don’t guess I could ask for much more.

Gary didn’t have anything new for us to work on, so we split up to image computers again. Josh returned to the high school with me until lunch time. Then we met everyone back at the shop for lunch with the new boss. He picked Fat Daddy’s, who appeared to be busier than usual. I had an uncharacteristically good burrito, which may be my go-to from now on. Everyone else’s meat plates looked overcooked and dry as usual. We still can’t figure out why the service takes so long though, since all the meat is smoked for longer periods of time. It’s not like we’re waiting for it to be freshly prepared. I had joked during our brief morning meeting that Gary said Thomas was paying, and then he actually did. I must be a prophet.

After lunch was just more of the same. Gary joined us for the last few minutes, and then we were off. I went home until time to get the girls for the band camp concert at Tucker Coliseum. I don’t remember it being carpeted the last time I was there. It probably helped the acoustics, but it still wasn’t at all ideal for a wind band. The girls were placed in the top two bands, which were both markedly better than the third.

They were hungry when we left, so I grabbed a family pack from Wendy’s on the way home. Then Eaddie and I watched an episode of House before bed.

Sometimes you just have to move the numbers around a little bit. It all makes sense. Trust me.

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A Message for Our Steakholders

I thought I would be out in the sun a bunch this morning, but Gary was a bro and had me complete some work in the office instead. The others went in pairs and disassembled some digital signage for spare parts before they’re outright replaced with the new hotness. For some reason they’re replacing all of the elementary signs regardless of condition, but not the middle school sign that is like 90% broken.

Four of us went to Brangus for lunch, where my beef spud tasted like mouthfuls of dirt. I don’t know if the mushrooms or potato weren’t washed, but I figure that’s what happened. After lunch, we split up into a couple re-imaging groups. I had Kyle go with Brody for the junior high, and I took Josh with me to the high school, based on who lived closer to which campus.

After work, I went straight home and did a little more cleaning up before Summer got home. Then we went back to Brangus for dinner for another sub-par service. I really thought it would be better, but the tumbleweed was burned to a crisp, and the service was mostly absent. Brangus is normally a good pick, but they were zero for two today. The one redeeming part of the visit was seeing Melinda and Matt on their way out. I had to holler at her pretty loudly to get her attention, but as soon as she saw us, she one-upped me.

Once back home, we wound down pretty quickly and went to bed early. Tomorrow we’ll face the new boss. The last one was easy.

Too many ghosts.

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Double Your Money

We didn’t have anything pressing going on at work today, so a couple people split off to take care of other things, and a couple more went to image junior high laptops. Gary and I stayed at the shop to duplicate flash drives among other things.

My money transfer back into my savings account evidently got doubled, so I spent about half an hour talking to both Discover Bank and Arvest trying to make sure I didn’t get hit with an insufficient funds fee. Discover was uncharacteristically useless, but a nice lady at Arvest said she would set a calendar reminder to waive the fee for me once the transaction finishes tomorrow.

Lunch time came and went pretty fast. Gary suggested CiCi’s because Brody wanted it yesterday but couldn’t get Greg to go along with it. Gary and I met him over there, and they were just packed. After lunch, I went to the junior high with the last of the flash drives and found some of the ones Brody was missing. I think we’re still missing a couple, but now Gary has some new ones mixed in with the rest and I’ll never be sure again.

Gary joined us at the very end of the day, but four people was way too much for the number of flash drives we had, so I went to the high school to catch Mike and grab some flash drives from him to make in the morning. When I left, there was a road crew tearing up 16th Street and I had to take the long way home.

It was a pretty quiet, slow evening at home for the most part. I waited for Summer to get home from a day in Conway, and then the gym. I would have liked to get some more done around the house, but hopefully at least the garage door sensor will stay put.

Ah, screw it.

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New High Score!

I had to get up early this morning for my Catapult Clinic appointment. The first couple doors I tried were blocked, so I had to walk all the way around to the front like some kind of commoner peasant. The checkup went well compared to the last time when they thought I was dying. After the video conference with the nurse, I went back downstairs to make another round of flash drives for Brody’s new laptops. Then I headed up to Summer’s before she had to go to work.

While I was there, I managed to get her gas mower running again. I think I just had to burn off some bad gas at the bottom of the tank by tilting the mower all the way back with the handle on the ground. After running it for a few minutes, it seemed to work itself out and I think the girls will be able to use it again.

Eventually I made it back home where I could poke around the house. I threw away some old packaging that matters less to me now than it did before. I’ll have to do a bunch more of that. Summer came over when she got off work and we ate the leftovers I brought from her house. She watched TV as I continued sporadically picking up around the house until bedtime.

Dubble Bubble

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Child’s Play

I got up this morning to meet the guys at Taco John’s for lunch. Blake and Robert were already there, both waiting in their cars like a couple of shy guys. When I started to go in, Robert yelled out his window for me to sit in his truck with him, but as soon as I got the door shut, Blake got out of his car because he saw me.

Gary and Grant both showed up eventually, and we went in to get our food. Surprisingly I think most of us were about as unimpressed with that place as I always am. I don’t get the nostalgia, but I was happy to be a part of it anyway. We chatted for hours, or rather mostly listened to Robert as he recounted stories from his steel trap of a mind. It was absolutely awesome getting to catch up, and I wished timing had worked out for Mitch to be there as well.

We wrapped up just in time for me to go home and clean up before the play. Summer got tickets for the two of us plus my parents to see Disney’s Descendants: The Musical. My parents arrived just late enough for it to be awkward to get back to our seats, and the rest of the show went about how I expected. I was glad Summer enjoyed it, but I have absolutely no feelings about school plays at all. I loved Wicked, but this basically took everything I disliked and amplified it. It was difficult to understand some 90% of the dialog, so I relied on context clues to follow the entire plot, which I had already gleaned from the summary of the show. It would have made more sense if we were taking small children.

As soon as we got home, Summer had to take off to get the girls to band camp. I tinkered with some photo backups at home for a while until Summer was ready to eat. Then I took her a new Fitbit I picked up on Prime Day, and warmed up some leftovers for us.

At some point in the evening, I lost connectivity to everything in my house. It wasn’t a power outage, so I assumed my internet had gone out. I checked in again late in the evening, and everything was still broken, so I went home to check on it. Evidently the battery backup for the home entertainment setup had gone worse, and some of my equipment was cycling on and off. I was glad to catch it before it continued on overnight, but frustrated trying to fix it while unable to turn on any of my lights. The convenience of an everyday smart home turned a simple task into an infuriating circus.

Exhausted from all the crawling about behind equipment, and knowing I had to get up for a stupid Catapult health screening in the morning, I just crashed there for the night to save myself the drive in the morning.

LINE!

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Lively Blake

Summer was going to work in Conway today, but ended up getting the day off after all due to a chance of some rain over a carwash. I got up and met Gary at Ridgewood Brothers’ to surprise Blake, who was in town for a couple days and was supposed to pick up a preorder of food for his girlfriend’s family.

Grant chatted with us for a while, but was in a bit of a sleepy haze after working overnight. Eventually he left as Gary and I stuck it out in the heat. The girlfriend’s brother ultimately came for the food, but called Blake to get him out of the house to see us. That’s when I got the idea to hide in the smokehouse and have Robert pretend that we had given up on him and left.

It was great catching up, even if he wasn’t as close to me as the rest of that group. I got to hear reminiscent stories about Mitch’s Hypotonic, which I vaguely remember. Since Grant didn’t get to see Blake that morning, we decided to meet at Taco John’s for lunch tomorrow before parting ways. Gary and I got some food on the way out, and I went back home to eat.

I picked up some Sonic on the way home, which went great with my Bronco. They had a new “Texas” barbecue sauce that I think I actually liked better than their original. With all the time in the sun, I had developed a headache and ended up sleeping for several hours into the evening.

Meanwhile, Summer was back home cooking a roast for dinner, along with some banana pudding and even an apple pie. I made it up for the evening and groggily ate, only because I felt less than good after my nap. The food was all super good, and even the apple pie was some of the better that I’ve had. The girls were getting ready for band camp, and I just sat around for the rest of the evening trying to recover from my nap.

Why are there thousands of songs about love and heartbreak, but only one song about the boys being back in town?

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Rood Awakening

I took the day off from work but, woke up to a call from a tech from Rood to come check out my air conditioning. Melissa said it would probably be around 10:30, so I was pretty startled when he called. I rushed home and just barely beat him there. Ultimately he said he was getting a 20 degree differential between my return and the air vent, and he said the unit had plenty of refrigerant. While we were outside, Bác Vân came over and picked a bunch of jalapeños for me. I gave most of them to the tech, and then went inside to clean up.

Summer wanted some lunch and nothing really sounded good, so I went to Ridgewood and got some ribs, bacon burnt ends, and turkey along with some sides. It was just Robert and Conner, a new kid that had just graduated from high school but looked about three years shy of it. Robert said Blake would be in town tomorrow morning, so I’ll try to swing by in the morning to see him there.

By the time I got to the shop, they had picked up and Summer couldn’t join me for lunch right away. I killed some time before finally eating some. Just as I finished, she came up and ate. Then I went back home to poke around the house. I got a very little bit done but felt exhausted all afternoon.

Eventually Summer came over for the evening and we watched the newest episode of Loki. I didn’t expect it to end so abruptly. I’m not a fan of the weekly episode format. I’ll take mine in a binge session, please.

‘Cause she’s jalapeño business.

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Dull Work Now, or Dull Work Later

Everyone there was there at work today, and it felt pretty empty. Gary did his best to inspire everyone for a full day of work, but then he went home because he had been at the hospital all night with our old friend Thomas. I told him not to worry about coming back, and the rest of us quietly toiled away.

I continued work on the image while the others either split up for tickets or spent the entire day enrolling Chromebooks. Lunch time came quickly, and I went to Linh’s with Kyle and Greg. Then I took a bánh mi home for Eaddie. The rest of the afternoon went by quickly enough, and eventually we all went home.

I stopped to look at a Miata on the way home since Summer wanted to know more about it. The few deeper scratches and scuffs weren’t visible from the road, but otherwise it was in okay condition for something that old. Summer wanted to meet me there later to look at it, and she decidedly fell out of love with it. She continued on to a bowling team builder while I went home for a while.

I eventually made it up to their house for the evening and made double layer tacos for dinner, then watched House with Eaddie until bedtime.

To send a wagon for thy minstrel and refuse my letters!