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Black Holiday

I took a personal day to hang out with Eaddie since school was out for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Summer had to work. It was quiet when I got up, so I had a pancake and started watching Luke Cage. Ronda messaged me on Marco Polo to say that Long John Silver’s had a for-lease sign up, which made me pretty sad. When Eaddie eventually came out of her room, she watched a bit of TV with me. She didn’t want to leave the house at all, so I left her to her chores while I went home to shower.

I hadn’t been there in a while, so the inside temperature had actually dropped super low. I had to give it some time to warm up before I could do much of anything. Eventually I had my bath and then had to head back out for dinner. I decided to make shredded beef street tacos with chipotles in adobo sauce so we could eat the aging cilantro and sour cream in the fridge.

I got everything loaded into the Instant Pot and sat down to a couple more episodes of Luke Cage while we waited for Summer to get home. Autumn was dropped off with McDonald’s for her and Eaddie, which aggravated me beyond having the already super late dinner. I thought the tacos were pretty good, but I forgot to get the veggie mix out of the fridge again for some reason.

I hate that this whole weekend was just another bust. It was a long one, too.

This is worse than a lack of motivation.

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Gleekout

Today was a day of leftovers and television. The kids got a proper yellin’ after showing some attitude, and fixed it surprisingly quickly. Summer had them clean up house a bit after taking Autumn to the gym. Later she took her to her parents’ house so her mother could make Autumn a formal dress.

I warmed up some more leftovers for dinner, and the three of us watched a bunch more Glee until bedtime.

So you like show tunes. It doesn’t mean you’re gay. It just means you’re awful.

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Dear Journal,

Summer took Autumn to pick up the breakfast pizza I ordered, then took both girls to their all-region band event. She was still feeling sick and came back to nap in the floor while I watched some more renovation YouTube videos. Eventually she had to go take the girls home for lunch and to clean up before their concert.

I cleaned up and took a bath for a while, and eventually left to get stuff for dinner. I stopped by Harbor Freight first to return my broken fireman’s axe that didn’t even make it through one log. Then I went to Walmart for beans and veggies to throw in the InstantPot. Summer wanted a coffee, but Starbucks had a line coiled around the building like a constrictor, so I went back towards McDonald’s instead. She liked the hot mocha just as well, and it probably cost less than half as much.

I started chopping up onions, celery, and carrots to throw in with our old ham bone, then threw it all in the pressure cooker. Clint stopped by while I was prepping, just briefly enough to pick up some network cable and then hit the road again. A couple hours later, we had a pretty decent soup made. I thought it was a bit bland and lacked inspiration, but I was in a little bit of a rush anyway.

Summer, Eaddie, and I binged on several episodes of Glee until we couldn’t take it any more. It was well after all of our bedtimes anyway, and even I felt weepy tired.

Once again, I’ve won!

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On Magical Auras

We didn’t have much of a meeting this morning, as they wrapped up interviews for our two new positions. I went to the high school and just did work until lunch. I thought Allen and I would be going to Smackin’ Wings and Things, but some jackwagon convinced everyone to go to CJ’s instead. I begrudgingly ordered a $12 hamburger and ate both halves because the leftover half would have been terrible.

After lunch, Gary and I went to the arena to take a look at the Crestron controller, but it had miraculously started working after I spoke to our vendor about it at lunch time. He said his wife calls it his magic aura that makes things work as he approaches. I call it not having to waste any more time fixing other peoples’ hardware.

I wrapped up the day chatting with Clint a bit about a cable run he wants to do at his workplace, and then went to run a tiny line just within a single closet for an engineering class. When I got home, I started watching video tutorials on drywall, and found an excellent compilation video clocking in at just over two hours. I made it about halfway through before Summer got here from work.

She was feeling particularly sick, so I made us both some ramen for dinner. Then she crawled into bed and I waited to get the girls from an all-region band event later in the evening. They came home and watched some TV, and then we all crashed a bit early for the weekend.

I shouldn’t need a cross reference book to find a battery.

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Your Lift Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher

I slept so well last night, and though I woke refreshed, I would’ve loved to stay in bed a while. I made it in to work in plenty of time and started picking at my stack of laptops. Things feel just slightly more organized now, and though I still have many in various states of disrepair, I feel a little less stressed over them.

Allen suggested Taco Villa for lunch, and by the time I got back to the shop, Zach and Gary had agreed to ride along. I thought I was going to do the right thing and only eat half of my nachos, but I guess the half I was looking for was on the bottom. When we got back to the shop, I hung out there for just a little while and tried to help with a stuck headphone plug before heading back to the high school.

I had to borrow the lift to get up to the choir projector and replace the lamp. Most of the lamps I’ve replaced out there have been pretty straightforward, but this BenQ was evidently made form over function. Once I found the hidden screw to release the cover, I still had to pry the lid off, and then the lamp didn’t have any rails or anything to slide it into position. I just had to hold it up and get the screws locked down.

On the way back to my office, I got a work order that some kind of cable had come down into the road at vo-tech. I went out to investigate, and it ended up being one of the new fiber lines we’ve just had run out to all the campuses. Someone had run over it and crushed a good portion of it, and I couldn’t tell where it was actually supposed to go, but they’re definitely going to have to run a new line now. Fortunately I don’t think it was actually in use yet, so it won’t cause any outages.

When I got home, I received the bag-in-box Coca-Cola syrup spigot I ordered, and tried making a Coke in my SodaStream. Light flavoring and heavy carbonation tasted pretty good, but I wish the syrup wasn’t so expensive. When I last did the math, it wasn’t significantly less than the cost of a 2-liter per volume.

Next up was moving car insurance around, just in time to run and get the girls from karate. I took them home and snacked a bit until Summer got home, at which point all the girls got ready for bed. I convinced Summer to let Eaddie stay up for one episode of Glee in bed with us, and then it was lights out.

I hate cats.

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Bridge Buster 5000

I spent most of my morning working in the engineering classroom trying to get their SSA1000 working over a serial connection. I ended up giving him my serial-to-USB cable, which got the machine talking to the computer, though the program still wouldn’t save data properly. It worked well enough that the kids could make do, though.

Allen wanted KFC, so I picked him up at the shop. It worked out well, since I didn’t have dinner at home. I kept busy in the afternoon, and spent a little time in the library with 1:1 stuff. Then I started on some laundry when I got home. I tried vacuuming some of the sand blasting media in my shrimp tank, and it worked reasonably well considering how many plants were in the way. I did find at least one tiny baby shrimp in the bucket afterward though, so I’ll have to leave it and try to get it back in the tank later when I can reliably see it.

Cast Away had been on my mind for a little while today, so I put it on for just a little bit before heading to bed early.

Coo coo for coconuts!

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I’m not kidding! Why do they always think I’m kidding???

The middle school started ACT Aspire testing this morning, and I drew the short stick. I burned the entire morning sitting in Sara’s office, and only got called out twice – both times to unlock a door in the counselors’ room because someone forgot their key. At one point, Robin brought the counselors to talk to me about trying to get their campus to a 1:1 device ratio so they could test all the kids at once. I vehemently replied that we should instead be reducing the device count, and that testing everyone at once is a very bad idea. I’m still surprised when people are shocked to hear me say as much.

Nobody wanted to join me at Ruby Tuesday for another $5 salad bar, so I went by myself and just sat at the bar. It was a quick and quiet lunch, but not inside my head. A group of employees were mingling at the other end of the bar talking mad trash about how people had been coming in all day asking for John. John’s served my tables many times in the past. He is far and away one of the best servers I’ve ever had at any restaurant. He’s always courteous, professional, prompt, and most importantly conscious of what’s happening at the table. Even today, he stopped by to say hello, commenting that I wasn’t with my usual posse. Never once has he even suggested that we should ask for him by name, and I honestly don’t feel like that has anything to do with why people do so. If any of those employees spent half as much time hustling as leaning, maybe they’d have eager repeat customers.

After lunch, Allen drove me out to London so I could show him that he didn’t properly re-enroll a Chromebox after powerwashing it. I figured I had already burned half a day, so I might as well get a trip out of it. When we got back, I spent a little time at the shop before heading to the high school. I got a very little bit done. My Adobe form was printing unpredictably.

My evening flew by as usual. I went home for a little while before going to Walmart for some things. I needed cat food, and wanted to peruse for a while without someone nagging about it. It’s funny, because I used to always want someone to go with me, but oftentimes now it’s more peaceful just to go alone at my own pace. I picked up some cold fried chicken on a whim in case anyone was hungry, and headed up to Summer’s.

We ended the evening with some more Glee. There’s just something about that show that completely sucks me in emotionally.

So blame it on my ADD, baby.

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Form Over Function

Today went by really fast. I spent a ton of time editing a PDF form so I can print on top of my depot service paperwork, because I didn’t want to waste a whole sheet of paper for every repair the way Dale did before. It felt mostly pointless in the grand scheme of things, but it made me feel better until I realized how much of my life is wasted in moments like that.

Allen texted me for lunch, so I convinced him to try Linh so I could get some hot soup on a cold day. I actually finished my whole bowl, and he liked his spicy, saucy, fried chicken thing. I stopped by the house on the way back so I could put some packages inside. Then the afternoon was more or less wasted as well. Time has been getting away from me in a bad way.

When I got home, I did a full panel of tests on my shrimp tank’s water chemistry. After months of neglect, the parameters are still great. I’ve got a ton of algae that I can’t seem to control, and the worms have exploded as well. The plants I was growing really well have started to wither away a bit, and I’m not sure why. I may have to start dosing fertilizers.

Finally, my first laptop repair has been shipped off.

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Blunt the Knives and Bend the Forks!

I got up this morning and picked up another breakfast pizza from Casey’s for the kids. It was a big hit as expected. The girls had fallen asleep in the middle of The Hobbit last night, so I played the first half of the 1977 cartoon to catch them up. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise how well they matched up, since they’re both adaptations of the same story. It became obvious which parts of the new movie were embellished and extended. The cartoon sort of just gets straight to the point, and for that reason it worked well to get everyone on the same page.

Noah had to work, so Summer took the kids and left me to spend the day at the house. I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, and just felt bored and listless for most of it. I didn’t want to do anything, either for fun or to be productive. It stuck with me all weekend, just like the last. The only thing I accomplished was stacking a tower of Soylent that arrived over the past couple days.

Summer made dinner in the evening, so I joined them for some delicious pork chops, zucchini, and potatoes. Then we watched a couple episodes of Glee before bed.

So, carefully, carefully with the plates!

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The Eagles Are Real Jerks

Summer went in to work for a little while this morning, so I left Eaddie to clean up. She picked up Noah when she got off, and I met the three of them at La Villa for lunch. We all filled up on bread, so there was plenty of food left to take home for later. They all went, at long last, to the climbing gym to fulfil her promise to Eaddie, while I went home for the day.

I felt so sleepy all afternoon and probably should have tried to nap and then be productive afterward, but the day was wasted instead. The girls went out with their father, so Summer brought Noah over for the evening, and the girls arrived shortly after their dinner. We settled in to watch The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but the girls both passed out. I started to doze off a bit, and Summer was exhausted as well. We powered through, then went to bed.

See? Stories don’t have to be stretched out for no reason!