Category: Uncategorised

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Flushed

We slept for a really long time last night, and woke up feeling pretty good. The girls were up around the same time, so Summer took them home while I got started tearing my toilet apart. It could have been a simple three minute fix to replace the lever arm, but I was tired of the flapper valve getting stuck on the chain because it was oriented incorrectly, so I decided to strip out all of the hardware and completely rebuild it.

Summer met me at Lowe’s in the afternoon so we could walk around and browse for some deals too. They didn’t have anything great, but I got a little Frankenstein pot with a succulent in it for half off after Halloween. It was nice just to shop around for a bit together without dragging the kids around too.

Afterward, I went to my parents’ house because they made some bánh giò. I helped them move some plants around in preparation for the potential frost, and then I picked at some older leftovers for dinner.

On the way back home, I stopped by a house near the end of the street where someone recently moved out, and picked up a huge sheet of half-inch acrylic and a couple other little things. Then I got to work putting the toilet back together. Now I’m ready for the next project.

After spending all day fixing a toilet, I think I know my useless superpower. I can do things in super slow motion, while appearing to move at regular speed.

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“Strenuous” Hike to a “Waterfall”

I got up this morning and went to meet with Mark for about an hour while Summer went to the gym. When we got back, Summer and Autumn picked up some corn dogs for lunch. Then we all loaded up and went to Mt. Nebo for a hike.

We went down a short path to a tiny waterfall first. I struggled way more than I thought I would or should coming back up. Then we started around the rim trail until it was time to turn around and come back.

The girls went home to clean up while I did the same. Then they came back over and we went to my parents’ house for a movie night. Dad grilled burgers and hot dogs, and then we watched the original Clash of the Titans. I missed out on a big chunk of it while I got up to make popcorn, and I didn’t remember much of the story from my childhood, but I can always rewatch it later.

By the time we got home, everyone was pretty exhausted and went straight to bed.

What if courage and imagination became everyday mortal qualities?

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Becoming a Spooky Ghost

I crawled out of bed after a few hours of sleep, and got things rolling for my big, spooky ghost show at work. I got there nearly an hour early and started setting up. Melissa was already there fogging the area for Coronavirus, but I didn’t get in her way. Allen showed up about half an hour before work, and I had to hide all of my laptops in a hurry and then sneak out the back door before he saw me. Unfortunately, once I got set up in the graveyard, I realized that two of the laptops weren’t set up right, so I made the decision to go back downstairs and fix it, even though it would give up the joke to him.

Everyone else started trickling in, but Greg and Josh were both gone. It ended up being Allen, Zach, Gary, Kyle, Ben, and Melinda in the shop. To my surprise, some guy from Hector schools showed up to pick up some of our scrap. That was all fine and dandy until nearly the entire crew showed up at the door to the graveyard. Ben was giving the guy a walk around the whole area to pick through any scrap he wanted. I didn’t have anywhere to go, but luckily both Ben and the guy from Hector didn’t say a word when they caught glances of me, and Zach took the others back downstairs.

Once they got the meeting started, I had Zach turn the lights off and I began my Spooky Ghost performance. Melinda seemed to have a lot of fun running around the room trying to find where I was actually hiding. They didn’t realize I could actually hear them at first, so when I started responding directly to them, it got even more exciting.

After the meeting, I went with Ben, Allen, and Kyle to the junior high to repair student laptops all day. We got several of them done, but at the expense of getting none done at the high school since the start of the year. That’ll be fun later.

We took a break to go to Sam’s for lunch, and then Ben and I went back to the junior high to finish up. I was supposed to get to go home early for dressing up, but since Ben was my ride, we ended up staying a while after four. They can see if I ever dress up again.

The girls all came over in the evening, and we watched some Glee until bedtime. Hopefully I’ll wake up well rested tomorrow, and can get some stuff done.

I’m obviously in the Great Beyond.

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The Conjuring of Spirits

I woke up with an ocular migraine today, and it took me most of the morning to get over it. My systolic blood pressure was also the lowest it’s ever been, and I felt pretty sluggish all day long.

Summer took Eaddie to work, and Autumn slept most of the day at the house, until I made Summer wake her up to do school work. I picked her up for lunch, and met Summer and Eaddie aet Morelos. Then I took her back to the house so I could go back to work.

The power went out in the afternoon, which interrupted Autumn’s TV watching. It took her a while after that to realize it also took out the internet that she was supposed to be using to complete her school work.

After work, I ran by Allen’s to try and help him lower his spare tire off of his truck. It looked like he had a locking lug nut on it, so we didn’t accomplish anything. Then I got the girls to karate before going back by the shop to set up my spooky ghost prank for tomorrow morning.

I spent over six hours getting everything ready, so hopefully it works out. The hard part is going to be getting to work before everyone else just so I can watch them trickle in while I wait out in the cold.

When Native Australians die, do they become apparitinals?

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Witches Get Stitches

My days are very quiet right now. It was cold and rainy all day, but luckily I think my thermostat actually works to some degree. I cranked the temperature up to like 75, and it actually got up to 68 or so. I’ve always just assumed it was a wall mounted placebo, but maybe it will surprise me.

I came home for lunch and made a mess of a burrito, but at least I cleaned up the last of the ingredients. I didn’t accomplish a whole lot in the afternoon either, since I was still fighting SMART Notebook downgrades. Summer had to run home to check on Autumn because she sliced her hand open while slicing some bread. We decided it would probably be alright if she just wrapped it up though.

After work, I went to the Election Commission Headquarters and voted for the first time in my life. Driving up, it looked like there was a crowd that I didn’t want to suffer, but once I walked in, it was about as painless as I could imagine. Old people that volunteer for stuff like that are always so nice, and I guess they don’t let the senile ones help, so it was a good experience. They were all so happy I was there. I even got a free stylus and a sticker, so I guess that was worth the price of admission right there.

On the way up to her house, I stopped to see Summer for a bit. Then I continued up to get the girls. We went to Little Caesar’s for dinner, since I didn’t want to bother dragging Summer’s meal prep stuff across town in the rain. They were doing something at the church on that side of town that had traffic backed all the way back to the train tracks, and around the corner on Parkway. It just aggravated me that they would even let that happen.

When Summer finally got home from the gym, Autumn undressed her cut again and they decided to go to MedExpress for some stitches. Unfortunately they didn’t take ARKids, so they ended up at the emergency room for four hours again. I figure at this rate, they’re going to start remembering Summer by name before the end of the year.

Is the ballot box supposed to make that grinding sound when I feed my paper into it?

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#UnexpectedCrucifix

I went by the shop this morning to pick up a couple TVs for Athletics, and dropped them off at their office. After that, I stayed quietly busy in my office for most of the day. Allen invited me out to lunch, so we decided to try The Gunslingin’ Burger.

The staff was friendly, and the menu was quaint. They had a TV up with a special Murder Burger that looked pretty good, so I just got that without even bothering to look at anything else. Loaded Beer Cheese Fries on the side brought my total to just under $15, which set the bar pretty high.

After we ordered, we noticed the rest of the decor, which consisted of a giant, life-sized, floor-standing cross, and a jail cell. We took a photo op with the more interesting of the two, and then were relatively quickly served our meals. I was more than a little put off by the overall presentation, but it was cool that Allen could get a side of chili with his. My fries were pretty good, and the burger was tasty, but the price was all I could think about. The burgers were disappointingly flat, at about half the thickness of the photo. More vegetables would have given it the thickness I craved, but the sliced celery was an interesting addition that I enjoyed.

The cook came out a couple times, once to check on another couple of guys that were there, and again to check on us. The approach was a little bit awkward, but I could appreciate his desire to connect with his patrons. I hadn’t fully made up my mind by the time he came to us, so we just responded that everything tasted good, which wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t worth $15.

I actually left hungry, so I ran home and cut up another peach for my afternoon at work. I did a bit of running around, had a sit down political conversation in the library, and then left work to meet up at Summer’s for dinner. She grilled a bunch of meats to eat for the whole week, so tonight was rice, chicken, broccoli, and cheese. I threw all of mine into a bowl and just sort of mixed it up, and it was great. She didn’t take the girls to karate, and Autumn decided she didn’t need to go to the high school for whatever band fitting they were having, so I ended up leaving them there for the night so I could come back home.

I wanted to clean up a bit more, but most of my evening was spent getting distracted by different problems everywhere, and I was never satisfied with any fixes. My new WEMO switch still isn’t working, my WiFi is a mess because of it, and I’m overall just super frustrated with the whole process.

And for some reason, I’m still freakin’ hungry.

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Cold and Rainy, but Not Complainy

It took all night for my new battery to charge, but hopefully doing that first thing will help it to last longer. I think I’ll try charging it every three to four months just to top it off and see if that helps with the premature wear I’ve always seen.

I got in to work just as it started to sprinkle a tiny bit, and it was cold and lightly rainy all day long. The whole day went by super fast, which was more disorienting than anything else. I took a late lunch and was going to just go home and make a burrito, but McDonald’s had a free Big Mac with purchase. They ended up giving me a medium fry when I ordered a large, so I had to make a loop and come back through to get the right size. Then I went and ate at home before going back to work.

The afternoon went by just as quickly, but I got a few things done that had been sitting around a while. Then I went home for the evening and spent most of my time researching and testing video editors for Librado. I did get a cabinet cleaned out a bit, but now I don’t know what to do with the old pots and pans I removed. Surely I’ll need some of it to make a batch of thermite for a weekend experiment.

Damned WEMO.

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In Charge

Summer and I got up this morning and went on a mission to replace the battery in the Murano. I didn’t even bother trying to start the car, and instead just pulled the battery out. We stopped at Wendy’s to pick up some breakfast just for the two of us, then ate it in the AutoZone parking lot before going inside. When we went inside, the store manager wasn’t there and we got a pretty young kid to just take the battery back and exchange it no questions asked. He didn’t even press me to let him test it. He just wandered straight back and got me a new one.

When we got back to the house, we got the battery in and then Summer took all the kids home to start their chores. I stayed pretty busy for the rest of the day. I opened up the car and pulled out the spare tire to find a big puddle of the spilled spring water from yesterday. Then I walked around outside with Bác Vân for a while. We moved one of the water hoses to the other side of the house, and chatted for a bit about the landscaping she’s done.

I spent the afternoon going in and out of the house, randomly cleaning and reorganizing things. I can actually walk up to one end of my workbench now, which was an accomplishment in itself. The only time I sat down for any length of time was after I installed another Belkin WEMO light switch and couldn’t get it to connect to my wireless.

Summer eventually made it back over for the evening after dropping Noah off at work and taking the girls to their father’s house. She settled in while I continued tinkering with my WEMO. Hopefully leaving it on overnight will help, and I won’t have to spend any more hours tomorrow getting the stupid thing to work.

I can’t even imagine not having to spend six hours connecting a smart device any more.

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What Pandemic?

We planned a trip to Magic Springs today, so I got cleaned up and waited for Summer to bring all three kids over. As soon as they got here, I remembered the souvenir cups were at her house, so she and Autumn ran to get them while we waited for Dad to get here. Then we hit the road.

It was a pretty good drive down, in spite of getting stuck behind every Jeep. Seriously, if you drive a Jeep down Highway 7, screw you, buddy. When we got to Hot Springs, Summer and I decided to go back to Rolando’s for lunch. The strip was absolutely packed though, and we made it all the way to the top of the parking garage without finding a space. Luckily there was a lot of foot traffic back to the garage, and we found two people leaving just as we turned around at the top.

It was a pretty good, brisk walk to Rolando’s. I was surprised they weren’t completely packed, but we got right in and sat in the 1920s-30s speakeasy themed floor. The rest of the visit was pretty disappointing, unfortunately. The food looked great, but it was all just barely warm. It didn’t take much time to come out, so I don’t know if it just wasn’t cooked fresh, or what. Evidently they also didn’t serve chips and salsa for lunch unless you ordered it as an appetizer. Then the salsa didn’t taste as good as any of us remembered. Overall it was super disappointing compared to the incredible experience we had on their rooftop deck last time.

From there, we made our way to Magic Springs, and wandered through to a few rides. They were pretty busy too, with really long lines for the roller coasters when we first got there. We split up a little bit to get some rides done, and then all ended up back at the Gauntlet, where the line had diminished to almost nothing. We all rode it twice, and then everyone but Summer and Autumn rode it a third time since there was hardly a wait.

We wanted to get some funnel cakes on the way out, but we got really lucky and missed out, because they stopped making them over half an hour before they would close. Instead, we went back downtown and walked all the way to the end of the strip to a place called Kringles and Kones. Kyle, the sole person there, was an amazing and friendly host. It was a bit weird to be so Santa-themed, but the Santa’s Way danish and ice cream was incredible.

After that, we walked back to the car and filled up some water bottles while Dad checked on some tickets to see Maxwell Blade’s show. It was a packed theater, but he got us tickets in the back corner, and it really wasn’t that bad. It was a great show, and Dad got to visit with him for a bit after it was over. Everyone was exhausted by that time, but it was a great way to end the day.

I had to hit the brakes pretty hard on the way home to avoid hitting a deer, and that lead to about a gallon of spilled spring water in the back of the car, so when we got home I had to sponge a big pool of it out from under the spare tire. Of course it’s all in the carpet and everything too, and it won’t evaporate very well in the cold weather. I’ll just have to deal with it tomorrow. Along with replacing my car battery.

And I won’t take “no” for an answer.

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Don’t Carve

Summer got a portion of her loans forgiven today, which was a great start to the day. I made it to work just in time to squeeze in for our morning training, and then Kyle and I were sent to the junior high to do work orders. Virtual Fridays at the high school actually give me a pretty good break anyway, so it at least seems possible to keep work orders under control.

I left Kyle to service laptops while I visited a couple rooms and closed out individual work orders. I spent the majority of my time in the library just so I had some office space to use. Then when lunch time rolled around, we headed back to the shop to meet up with most everyone. The high school had burgers grilled by First State Bank, so we headed that direction.

When we got to the high school, we rode all around trying to find a grill outside, but after fist-bumping the superintendent from my Shadow, we found the food inside. He actually came and sat near us, which could have gone either way, but it wasn’t long before Mary Beth came to occupy his attention.

I spent most of the afternoon there at the high school, but ended up back at the shop just in time to see Ben’s email that we could leave early to go vote. I ended up sticking around until after four just chatting with him about life, politics, and everything anyway. When we did finally leave, I just missed him in finding out my battery had gotten too weak to start the bike. Luckily I had access to the tools, could strip the bike, and then get a jump from Jared, who happened to be right there chatting with someone else.

On the way home, I stopped by the shop to see Summer, and then we went to my house to get the car before getting gas and picking up the kids to go to my parents’ house. We already had the pumpkins there, so as soon as Julie showed up, the kids got to carving. Mom was the only one that refused to participate, and I was honestly really surprised at how well every single one of us did. Even after Autumn’s broke and was left looking like an upside down helmet, I could make it resemble a tiny house at the right angle.

I tried, for the first time, doing some shading by not carving all the way through the pumpkin. I hand-sketched a shadow monster from the game Don’t Starve, then used an Xacto carving knife to slowly dig deeper and deeper into the pumpkin until there was just a thin layer of flesh inside.

We took a bunch of pictures and then picked at some leftovers before heading home for the evening. Hopefully the slugs won’t devour our pumpkins overnight, so we can have some to eat later.

Have fun, damnit!