Category: Uncategorised

Uncategorised

Burninating the Countryside!

Summer had to work for a little while today, so Autumn and I got up and had breakfast at Hardee’s. We had a pretty good chat, then dropped a sandwich off for Summer on the way home. Eaddie eventually got around to eat and came outside to help Autumn and me burn the brush in the back yard. I was a little surprised how well it burned, considering how much green was back there. The trick now is to mow it regularly so it doesn’t get bad again this year.

As the fire died down, Eaddie went through and clipped down larger plants that didn’t burn down. Autumn moved some of the ash around to try and level the ground, and found a box turtle that we accidentally roasted. I dug a hole for her to bury it, and then went to clean out the garage. Once the girls were tired of working in the yard, Autumn came inside and Eaddie took off on her bike.

Eventually I got the girls back home to clean up, and we had to sit down for a family chat about wanting to go to their father’s for the weekend. I still had to get cleaned up myself, so we started Eaddie on mowing the lawn. Summer went to the gym, and I stopped by to give Robert another Cyberathlete Professional League sticker I found. He gifted me a little bit of brisket, and finally I headed home to shower.

I started feeling pretty sick after my shower, with a bit of a chill and some general wooziness. I made my way up to Summer’s for the evening, but there was so much noise in the house that I had to break out the XM4s to just chill out in silence for a bit. Summer took Eaddie to get Dairy Queen since I was killing her vibe. Then everyone went to bead.

Burninating the peasants!

Uncategorised

No, I Said Get the Cardigan!

We sort of had a team meeting this morning, mostly about the questionable future of the department. I think most of us are pretty nervous, and it would do a whole lot of good to promote internally just for the sake of morale alone. We finally split up for a couple tasks, and I went to the junior high with Brody to round up some old laptop carts.

I think Josh and Kyle were supposed to bring us a truck and trailer to return the carts to the graveyard, but they never made it by lunch. Somehow lines were crossed and they ended up burning the whole morning trying to image a lab at the middle school.

Everyone that was there today went to lunch together at the Ridgewood Brothers. It was nice to have some solidarity, and of course the food was great. Then after lunch we finally got our carts. It took three trips, and we still didn’t finish, but we had to call it quits in order to make a touch panel delivery to Center Valley before quitting time.

Zach met Brody and me out there, and we hung the touch panel as quickly as we could before time to go home. Then I went by the shop to take Eaddie home so she could ride her bike. By the time we got there, we both agreed that traffic was being too stupid for her to risk it, so we stayed in and watched House instead.

Summer came over with fundraiser chicken dinners, and then Eaddie and I went to get Autumn when they were done. I took them home to clean up and pack, and then we came back to my house where everyone immediately collapsed into bed.

In retrospect, I may have in fact just been carjacked.

Uncategorised

10 Hours Sitar Music with Crickets

I made it in to work early so I could light my incense and smoke the place up. It didn’t really pay off as much as I had hoped, but everyone enjoyed the Texas Instruments computer I set up on Melinda’s desk. It was otherwise a very quiet day, and one where I struggled to do much. With Ben on the way out, and it being that time of the year when everything gets really slow anyway, it’s just been really hard to do work.

Gary, Greg, Brody, and I went to Fat Daddy’s for lunch, and I was talked into getting this monster of a sandwich. It was okay, but truly I’m spoiled on barbecue. We may even go for Ridgewood Brothers tomorrow. I want to try the bacon burnt ends.

As the day came to a close, I made my way home for a little bit before taking the girls to karate. Then I went to my parents’ and helped Dad put a couple tarps over their plants to prevent them from freezing. Once the girls were done, I took them home and we ate some take-and-bake pizza from the school and watched an episode of Glee before everyone was off to bed.

I’m just numb to chirping now.

Uncategorised

Fool Me Once… Shame on….Shame on You

It’s been cooling off this week, and I could really tell this morning when it started to sleet on my way to work. It didn’t stick at all, and just melted away instantly, but I was definitely caught off guard by the sound of it hitting everything around me outside.

I’m still recovering from re-imaging my laptop, which meant I had to build a Microsoft Office installation for myself. That and a bit of tinkering with some other things got me through to lunch at Western Sizzlin with the boys. Afterward I packed up and went to the high school to help Mike sort depot boxes. We ended the day with the lift in the band room since we finally got our lamp in.

Autumn went to the gym again, so Summer left work and took Eaddie as well. That left me to go home and clean more in the garage. Nearly forgetting to plan my shenanigans, I pulled out my old TI-99 for deployment at work. Not just the base computer though. Oh, no. I brought out the Expansion System as well. That thing was heavy. I needed some help repairing the video cable though, so I packed up and took it to my parents’ house.

Dad got me sorted with some solder and hot glue. Then he pulled out my tiny old CRT television, and things booted up perfectly. Unfortunately I didn’t have the necessary Microsoft Multiplan 5.25″ floppy, so all I can really do is look at the loading screen, but it’ll serve its purpose. He went with me to the office to help stage everything, but just as we finished setting up, Melinda walked in. It was in the dead of night, so I really thought she was there to stage her own pranks, but she was just there to pick up some things. She’ll be out tomorrow, but I was hoping to land the prank on her the next day. Unfortunately she walked right in and saw it, so it’ll just have to be for fun with the rest of the gang tomorrow.

I dropped Dad back off at home and finally headed home to finish up the last of my plotting. Tomorrow should be fun.

Duuuuuude…..

Uncategorised

Computer Chores

Today was almost entirely spent taking care of old, stacked-up chores on computers. I finally wiped my work laptop and got it loaded back up to where I needed it. While that was going, I had to poke around on the SCCM server to make some space so I could see if that was the reason I wasn’t able to build a task sequence image yesterday. I took lunch with Zach, Greg, and Gary at Las Palmas where they’ve started charging more if you pay with a card.

After lunch was more of the same, but at least it was quiet. The girls had a ride to karate, so I just went home after work until time to pick them up. Then I cooked some spaghetti noodles for the leftover sauce. The girls all went to bed pretty early, so I spent hours cleaning up email and picking through Autumn’s Disney receipts to calculate what she owes me. She figured a little under $300. I calculated a little over $600. Looks like there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

This is the first time I’ve been outright unable to hear a high frequency sound that I used to hear, and it made me feel old.

Uncategorised

Treasure Hunt

I’d been out of work so frequently lately that I forgot my backpack this morning. This was a problem because I actually took my laptop home over spring break, and I needed it for work. I ran back home, then ended up at the high school for the morning to help Mike replace some laptop screens, which turned out to be pretty simple.

Summer and I had a lunch date, but I had to be back to the shop in time for training right after, so I quickly ran to get her and get to Mulan’s. The food was super good today, which made me that much sadder that I didn’t have time for dessert. I barely made it back in time. Karie was already at the shop and had already started, but it was just a refresher for me anyway. She kept it short, because the real TLDR is that we have to fix things without looking at anything.

I stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, and had to go hunting for all the things Melinda took out of my office. She found the cricket and hid it in the ceiling right above me, which wasn’t at all creative. I felt like I was annoying others more than anything, since I had to go through their things to find my own. She took so many things that I didn’t even remember what all was missing, but I think I found it all with some help from the others that were less than excited by her shenanigans.

The girls walked to Oakland after school, so I picked them up and took them home after work. Then I dropped Autumn off for her third last day of Monday night school. I stopped in to fix a couple computers in Ethan’s lab, then met Summer at the house so we could watch the newest episode of Falcon and Winter Soldier with Eaddie. As that ended, they had to leave and get Autumn.

I just relaxed for the rest of the evening. My blood pressure has been high without my medication, so I’m starting back on it in the mornings to see if it makes any difference compared to taking it in the evening. Hopefully the anxiety attacks don’t return, but if they do at least I’ll be prepared with a better explanation for them.

April Fools is coming…

Uncategorised

Path of Logical Hoarding

I woke up this morning and jumped right into organizing again. It was a cool, sunny day out, which was perfect for rummaging in the garage. While I was out there, I saw Uncle Giao, Erica, and Nova pull up at Bác Vân’s, and he brought out a couple old helmets for me. The girls showed up just after that, and we decided to go out for lunch to Linh’s with them.

The service was spacy, slow, and just generally bad. I keep thinking there must be something she can do to improve the experience, but it’s just always bad now. The food was fine, except for two very obvious black hairs entwined both in Summer’s shrimp fried rice and my phở. Things weren’t going well enough for us to really feel comfortable sending anything back though.

Steven and Ronda stopped by the restaurant to drop some wine off for Summer. Then Summer had to take off early to hold an interview at the shop. When we all finally left, I stopped by the house and picked up some old brake fluid, and took it to Summer.

The afternoon was more cleaning and organizing while Summer and Eaddie went for a bike ride and Autumn went to hang out with Harry. She’s been constantly asking to go to church with this kid, and I’d be alright with it if it was actually making her a better person instead of just trying to manipulate us into letting her do what she wants to do.

When Summer and Eaddie got back, they headed home and I went to Arby’s for a quick dinner. Then I wrapped up outside and came in to archive Summer’s skydive media. Time really accelerated after that, and before I knew it, it was well past bedtime.

Let’s build a new structure, dedicated to this hobby of collecting things!

Uncategorised

Skydove

Summer had an appointment to go skydiving early this afternoon, so I got up and headed home to clean up. The girls were all waiting outside for me when I got back to pick them up, and we made our way to the Clarksville airport. We hadn’t been there very long before a group came down for a landing, and one of the pros that had been doing the filming for that jump came down super hard and broke his leg. They called an ambulance, but the guy ended up taking the bed of a truck instead. After seeing my nonsensical COVID bills, I don’t blame him.

It took us a while to get started on account of the injury, but Summer wasn’t phased. Another group of kids came in for a jump as well, but Summer was up next since she had an actual appointment. The plane ride didn’t take too long, but we couldn’t actually see them leave the plane because of some large clouds. I did get a bit of video as they approached the field for their landing, but she paid the extra $150 for a premium body and external cam footage anyway.

Autumn wanted to go to their father’s restaurant afterward, but he had already closed. We settled on El Molcajete instead, but as we parked, we realized that not a single soul other than myself had brought a mask. That irritated me enough on account of my hunger, but then Autumn started in on an attitude when she should have known better than to leave the house without her mask after more than a year of this.

I drove us straight home instead, where we picked at some leftovers for an early dinner. Then I sunk a bunch of time into Photoshopping an explosion behind Summer and her tandem partner in a photo I took of them walking back from the airfield. Frustrated from the loss of daylight and everyone else taking naps, I left for home and spent the evening poking around the garage.

You never look back at the explosion!

Uncategorised

Bike Day

Eaddie and I got up this morning and rode the Shadow to the Ridgewood Brothers for lunch. I called Dad and had him meet us there too, and Grant was so excited to see all of us. I finally got to try the cheddar jalapeño sausage, and it was fantastic. I had the bronco sandwich, which had a link on it, and got an extra one to go as well. Felix was feeling some attitude today, but overall came through in taking care of us.

After we ate, we ran by the shop to share some banana pudding with Summer. Then Eaddie and I took a long motorcycle ride around town. We went around the marina, peeping at houses along the way. Then we took a slow cruise through the park before continuing up the mountain and back down to Old Post. She wanted to get off and play around in the park a bit, so we goofed around a bit and had some swing time. Sheri spotted me and came by to ask if I would be applying for Ben’s job. I appreciated that she at least said I would be good at it.

Once Eaddie got tired of the park, we went back up the mountain and finished the Skyline loop before making it back home. We watched a couple episodes of House, and then she took off on her bicycle while I poked around the garage some more. It was just the smallest amount of organizational progress, but at least it was something. Eventually I needed a break and took the R1 across town to deliver the CPL sticker I had forgotten to bring Grant earlier in the morning. We chatted for a little while more before I headed home.

Eaddie met me there, and we drove back up to Summer’s for the evening. Autumn was feeling moody, I suppose, and secluded herself as usual. Eaddie convinced Summer to watch a couple episodes of Glee, which finally got us started on the final season. At this point I’m just ready to be done with the show. It’s so far beyond everything that I used to love about it, so I’m ready to move on to the next thing.

Riding around town was more fun than the long highway ride to the rally, and the barbecue was leagues better too.

Uncategorised

Like the Snake?

When I got up and around, Autumn was already fussing about being hungry and not liking whatever I could possibly come up with. She tried convincing Eaddie to ride their bikes to Arby’s for lunch so they could take some to Summer at work. I told her it was raining, but she insisted she could just wear a hoodie until we opened the garage and she saw the deluge with her own eyes.

I had my shower, then took them on home for the day. It wasn’t long until Mark responded, and I went to his office to do some more printer finagling. When I finished up, I still had a little time to kill before the kids had to be at karate, so I ran across the street to see if either of the Bros. were there.

That’s when I met Nate. Nate seemed pretty cool; a younger guy, a professor at Tech. We chatted for a little bit until Grant showed back up. We had a couple laughs before Summer got off work. Then she took the girls to karate and met me at Brown’s for dinner. I still had my birthday coupon, after all.

It must have been RSD past and present night, because I saw Denise, Tammy, Josh, and Kristin all scattered throughout the dining room. I couldn’t blame them, because the food was delicious. I ate too much, but the fact that I couldn’t burp from my root beer that really hurt me.

Summer headed on home while I got the girls. I had to drop Autumn off at her grandparents’ house for the night, then took Eaddie home to shower and get a change of clothes before coming home for the night. Summer was already in bed when we got there, so Eaddie and I watched some House until bedtime.

Go for the fish. Stay for the chicken.