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Stormin’ Mad

I was up every hour like clockwork last night, and struggled to force myself awake early this morning so I wouldn’t ruin my night of sleep before work. It wasn’t until I got out of bed and basically chugged an energy drink that I felt human enough to walk upright. Summer went to the gym while I did some laundry, and we planned to meet at my parents’ house to uncover the pool. Then a big thunderstorm whipped through town, and it rained most of the afternoon, so I stayed home and continued doing laundry instead.

My parents popped in for just a second after the rain had settled a bit, since they were there to pick some mint. Summer asked me to drop Eaddie off at the movie theater so she could watch Dr. Strange with her friends, and that was my first look at how bad the storm was. Several branches had broken all down Main Street, and there was debris everywhere. We saw one stoplight that was tilted about 45º, and another that was just blinking red. Eaddie has been making an effort to vocalize her appreciation, and it’s made every single interaction with her a thousand times better. She just comes off as much more polite.

When I got back to their house, Summer had made some stir-fry out of a leftover steak, with some fresh vegetables and a fresh pot of rice. Summer had to make Autumn eat a little bit of it, which was a huge shock to everyone because she’s always sooooooo focused on clean eating and home cooking. Otherwise, she spent the majority of the evening with a tiny baby bunny that the cats dragged in a couple days ago. Summer and I did play a short game of Mario Party with her, and things have been relatively nice at home. It’s still anybody’s guess what’s really going on inside of her head, but she’s a perfectly pleasant human in a vacuum.

Eventually I had to pick Eaddie and Zane up from the movie, dropped him off at his house, and then headed back to spend the evening with the girls. Summer made strawberry shortcakes, and we watched an episode of Middleditch and Schwartz that had everyone rolling. Summer pulled a corned beef out of the freezer for dinner the next day, but I had to clean the slow cooker again because it was filthy. Then I hid my own sponge in the house so nobody would use it to clean food off of the dishes and then leave it rotting in the sink. They’re absolutely filthy animals, every one.

What happens if the contract… is… DIGITAL?

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Peace and Boring

Summer got up and made French toast and bacon for breakfast. Autumn tried to get out of mowing, as we suspected, due to the dew. As bad parents, we made her mow anyway, and she finished the yard for the day. After a little while, Summer had to drop her off at the high school so she could participate in the graduation ceremony. I went home to clean up and started washing some socks.

While I waited, I found a deal at Lowe’s for a Nest Learning Thermostat just like my old one for $199, which was $50 less than the other colors. I was able to stack a $60 instant rebate from Entergy and a $150 Lowe’s gift card that I bought for $135 worth of Discover cash back, and was only out of pocket $1.51. I ordered it for pickup so I could install it later in the evening.

When Summer finished at the gym, showered, and made it to my house, we loaded up and headed to Conway. She had to work for a few hours in the evening, and I thought I’d just hang out again. I got bored quickly and went to Walmart for a little while. I picked up a few snacks and a package of colored Sharpies that was on clearance. When I got back to Splash, I just sat around for most of the evening. I did get my car washed and detailed, but then I had to help try to jump a customer with a dead battery. That was when we noticed coolant pouring out of the bottom of my radiator.

Summer finished up late, and we tried to go to Marketplace for a quick dinner before heading home. They had a 30 minute wait, so we foolishly tried driving further into town to try Texas Roadhouse. They had people lined up out the door, so I hangrily drove back up the road and ended up taking us to Golden Corral. They’ve always got a table open, and there’s no waiting for anything to be cooked.

After eating way too much, we headed back home, got gas, and then made it to Lowe’s just before they closed to pick up my replacement Nest thermostat. When we got to my house, I was able to install it pretty quickly, and my air conditioner started pumping some nice, cold air. Exhausted from being uncomfortably warm all day, I was ready for bed.

Calorie Bombs

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Cartagain Weather II: The Heat is On

It was hot and humid today. Everything made me sweat. I mostly missed out on our morning meeting, since I was having to investigate untruths from Autumn as she realized she was permanently locked out of her Facebook and personal email accounts, and trying to use school as an excuse to get back into them. We arranged to have her laptop returned, and for a moment thought she had skipped school and taken off in the middle of the day. We were able to track her down to a different room though, and all was fine.

eSCO came by pretty early and picked up a little over 20 old laptop carts, and we helped to haul them out the hard way, because they didn’t feel comfortable backing up to the dock. Then I had to scan a bunch of laptops that were brought back to the shop by another group. All the while, Dad was babysitting my house until someone from Rood finally showed up to look at my air conditioner.

I left for lunch early so I could relieve my dad, and my air unit was fixed with a replacement contactor, which is evidently the name of a legitimate part. Richard, the tech, said I would need a new thermostat though, because my Nest was showing an error every time we hooked it back up, in spite of no detectable wiring issue. On the way back to the shop, I just picked up a surprisingly good Big Dill pickle burger and a Red Bull slush from Sonic.

The afternoon was relatively quiet, but I went back and forth helping here and there with different things. I never got sucked into any real projects, which was a nice break from everything else I had been juggling mentally. At the end of the day, Tammy appeared to be having a hard time up front, so I just awkwardly left to run home and change.

Nick was coming to talk to Autumn and take Eaddie with him for the weekend, so I wanted to be there. I beat them all to the house, and had just enough time to finish up some nacho cheese cups that were leftover in the fridge from various visits to Taco John’s. When the girls got home, Eaddie wanted help with an English project because she had to turn in her library book before she finished the project. Then we coaxed Autumn into mowing. Nick showed up with some leftover barbecue for Summer and me, and then sat down with Autumn so we could all talk.

The conversation went about how it always does, but Nick ended it by actually shaking my hand and doing the half back-pat bro-hug thing. It felt really good to feel like I had some validation from him after all this time. With Eaddie gone, Autumn mowed while Summer and I ate. By the time she came back in, we were all exhausted enough to pass out super early.

Fun isn’t something one considers when blocking the internet, but this does put a smile on my face.

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Red Hands

I finally got a bike out this morning, and rode the Shadow to work. It was an incredibly slow day, and I had to creatively fill my time. Tammy and Kelsea went to the high school to help with laptop pickup, which was an odd choice. I had to make fun of Tammy, because the boss really did send her to the library, which has been one of her greatest fears.

I convinced Zach to take Gary and me to Sam’s for lunch, and I spent and ate way too much. I was disappointed that they weren’t as generous as usual with the servings, especially since I didn’t get out the door under $30. Zach and Gary both mentioned that it was expensive, but I guess I had just forgotten how expensive it really was.

The afternoon was more of the same. I did have to run across town to pick up Summer’s new Invisalign trays from the orthodontist, since she wouldn’t make it back to town in time. At the end of the day, I had to run home to get the Murano so I could take Eaddie home before her band awards. That was about the time that things really went downhill.

We’ve been watching Autumn’s computer usage since our encounter with DHS, and she continued to make really bad choices all afternoon, the day after we had another heart-to-heart with her. Eaddie and I thought we’d try to catch her at Denny’s with some friends while she was supposed to be practicing for color guard after school. We never encountered her, but while we were there, I triggered an email alert that let her know that something wasn’t quite right. Summer met us when she got into town from work and ate a couple pancake puppies until it was time to get Eaddie to the band awards, and then met me at my house to see how badly I had compromised our operation.

Autumn had locked her account down, but I was able to recover it. We made the decision to take ownership of her accounts and lock her out of them, and then also disabled the internet on her school laptop outside of school hours. With the cat irreversibly out of the bag, we went to the Center to watch the tail end of the awards ceremony, and collected the girls to go home. Autumn continued to try and play it off, but we had already made up our minds.

When we got to the house, Eaddie and I went to the other room so Summer could properly search Autumn for her vape. Then we had another long conversation that basically just summed up how disappointed we were in her choices. She didn’t have a whole lot to say as usual, and exhibited the same kind of behavior we see every time, except now we have no way to monitor her response to her friends. The next step will have to be reaching out to them with her, so she can correct her course. This whole thing is eye-rollingly dull at this point, and we just want it to be over. I’m thinking boot camp in a few weeks.

We’re expecting a bit of a headwind for most of our flight, so sit back, try to relax, and we’ll get you to your final destination as quickly as we can.

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Mindcraft

I really wanted to ride again today, but I didn’t since I would be picking Eaddie up after school. It was hot and humid again, for the time of year, and I’m not thrilled about August happening. At this rate, though, I’m not entirely convinced that it will!

I wrapped up my Minecraft deployment this morning, and it looked like it was going to work pretty well. Then I cleaned up some old, stale tickets I had that likely weren’t going to get any response from the clients. I didn’t really get deep into anything else for the rest of the day. Gary, Thomas, and I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, and I had an excellent chicken pot pie.

After lunch, I just happened to stumble upon the Google I/O stream, and spent a good portion of the afternoon catching up on it. After this past year with my Samsung, I think I’m extremely likely to ditch it for a Pixel 7 this fall, along with the new watch and buds. I’m not even really happy with the look of the Pixel Watch, but I figure the best bet is to match my devices.

Near the end of the day, I fought some unscannable barcodes with Gary. Then I picked Eaddie up at Zane’s house and took her straight to her flute lesson. I tried to convince her to get her phone she forgot at the junior high, but she kept refusing. I dropped her off, then went to my parents’ house to see them for the half hour while I waited.

When I got back to pick Eaddie up, Summer and Autumn were there and were clearly having words with feelings in the car. I reminded her that I was taking Eaddie home to get some stuff for her engineering project, so they went home to let Autumn start mowing the lawn.

Eaddie and I went back to my house briefly, but were held up when I realized my air conditioning was out. My Nest thermostat reported high current on one of the wires, and the compressor wasn’t clicking on outside. In my troubleshooting, I flipped a breaker that killed my internet, so then I had to go inside and swap my UPS battery. Hopefully it’ll be good for a while the next time the power goes out. We ended up leaving to get Eaddie home, so I’ll have to call for service tomorrow.

On the way up to her house, Eaddie started asking if we could get her phone. I wasn’t keen on driving across town after I had tried to get it earlier, so we continued to the house where she proceeded to whine about needing it for schoolwork. I finally relented and took her to the junior high to find it. As we approached the building, she made a comment that she hoped it was there and not in her backpack, which made me want to make her walk home.

She found her phone, and I picked up some McNuggets on the way back to the house. She got her schoolwork done, and I was right about her math homework all along. Autumn finished up mowing, and eventually we all had a sit-down conversation to level-set expectations again. This is the tightening of the leash, and it is all she will know for the foreseeable future. Any leniency will be only for our own convenience, since Summer is clearly still worn out over the whole situation. I’ve dealt with a manipulating sociopath before, so I feel particularly immune, though still annoyed. It really is the worst game of chicken.

This is why I always stay to watch discredits.

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Find x

I wanted to ride to work today, but I was running just behind enough that I didn’t have time to get a bike out. I just want a four-car garage. It can be a studio apartment if I can have enough parking.

Gary asked me to take a look at an issue in the bus shop first thing, so I chose to walk the block. It was super humid out, but could have been much worse. I’m not at all ready for summer heat. Greg ended up coming out to take a look as well, and we ultimately just left the laptop in Chris’s office for him to figure it out.

I spent the rest of the day fighting Minecraft. It took me a while to figure out licensing. Gary drove us to lunch for Taco Tuesday, and for some reason I ordered way too much food. Then the rest of the afternoon was finishing up licensing and starting to build the deployment. The only break from that was to unload a pallet of water bottles that I don’t drink.

At the end of the day, Eaddie called and wanted to know if Rick could pick her up and take her home. She couldn’t get in touch with Summer, and I was mostly just shocked and confused about who reached out. I wound up just throwing my hands in the air and letting her do whatever she wanted. I went home until Summer got to town, then met her at the Center for Eaddie’s band concert.

As I walked up to the building, Sarah was parked right in front of the building, immediately in my path. Once we got inside, we discovered the concert wouldn’t start for another half hour. Erica spotted us and came over to catch up. Then we saw Autumn and Rick in the auditorium as we found our seats. She was wandering around, loosely helping between sets.

After the show, Amber was there to get some pictures of Eaddie and Zane. Then Eaddie wanted to go out to eat with Rick. Autumn went home with Summer, since she’s grounded forever. I went home to decompress.

I’m just a guy that’s there.

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Jamf Pros

I realized this morning as I headed out the door, that I had unintentionally thrown away my silicone travel straw from the movie last night. Of course it was also trash day, as I heard the dumpsters as they were emptied this morning. I was kicking myself in frustration for the entirety of the day.

I somehow made it into work right on time, and managed to turn out a productive morning. It took me way too long, but I finally figured out enough of the Roblox deployment that I felt confident sending it on to the junior high student devices. Gary came by later and told Greg and me that he wanted to show us how to do something in Jamf after lunch. All of that made the morning go by pretty quickly.

Gary was the only one up for lunch today, so I did my best to suggest restaurants we don’t get to frequent. He landed on Sticky Rice, and I was glad he did. I ordered the combination phở not really expecting much, but the broth and everything was delicious. It was pretty difficult to eat out of a Styrofoam takeout container, but I managed. It had a great amount of heat and flavor throughout. I just wished I had a soup spoon instead of a tiny plastic one.

Shortly after we got settled back into work, Gary came back to the shop and we started updating some certificates in Jamf. He had Greg drive while I took notes to document the process. That will make the whole process a lot smoother in the future. I felt pretty confident with my understanding of everything we did.

The rest of the afternoon was really quiet, and after work I went home for a quiet evening to myself. I cleaned up the laundry room a bit for the upcoming laundry days, and tried to clear up some space in the kitchen. There’s really no excuse for the state of things, and I’ve got to whip it back into shape. The summer heat isn’t going to make it any more pleasant.

Demons are angels too.

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Nurse Normal in the Monoverse of Happiness

I slept pretty well after lacking so much the day before, and eased into the morning before showering and taking the girls to KFC to pick up a bucket of chicken to take to my parents’ house for Mother’s Day. We didn’t stick around for very long after we ate, since we had to make it to Little Rock for the movie. Mom didn’t want to go, so it was just the three of us.

We stopped in Conway to wash the car, and let Summer chat with the crew for a bit. I got some sweet tea over some pellet ice, and then we made it to The Promenade. We walked the length of the strip, but only stopped in Lululemon so Summer could spend her gift card. The number of women bringing their children into that store was absolutely alarming, but I guess I just don’t know what it’s like to live that kind of lifestyle.

From there, we headed to the theater super early. The seats were just about perfect, though not super comfortable. They were worn, and basically stuck tilted forward. I wish we would get a proper Dolby theater nearby. I wouldn’t mind the wear if it was my neighborhood theater, but for the drive and in that neighborhood, they should really have better. The movie was great though. I wish I didn’t have to take a restroom break near the end, but my eyes were floating. It was quite a bit darker than I had imagined, but maybe the MCU has just matured into something very different from where it started.

After the movie, we went across town to the Star of India. Eaddie was down to try all of the food, so we got the Chef’s Special and an appetizer sampler. We didn’t really need to order a third item, but I felt bad sharing everything, so we got Eaddie what ended up being a huge plate of rice as well. She’s not upset to have leftovers for lunch at school.

The drive home was uneventful, though there had been pretty regular traffic all day. We let Eaddie DJ the drive, which started out with George Michael too loud, followed mostly by modern boy bands. When we got home, the girls left to pick up Autumn and head to their house, and I touched base with a few mother friends. Overall, I think today was a success.

Mr. Weird, I don’t feel so good!

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Another Beautiful Day Burned

I woke up around 7:30 this morning after only four and a half hours of sleep. I should have just gone back to bed, but I foolishly thought Eaddie would get out of bed to go for a hike with my dad. Summer took Autumn to the gym and then dropped her off at the Quiz Bowl car wash before going to work. I eventually did get Eaddie up, but she was super cranky and just wanted to work on some homework.

I spent the entire day dragging along, knowing how nice it felt outside. I could have gone to sleep at any point and would have felt better for it, but instead I forced myself to stay awake and just barely dozed off in front of the TV for about an hour.

When Eaddie finally got the house cleaned up, showered, and was ready to go, we headed to my house for the evening. By then, Summer was nearly off work, but Eaddie was hangry and needed a snack, so we stopped by McDonald’s for some McNuggets. When we got to my house, we watched the second episode of What If…? before Summer got there with some corn dogs, cheese sticks, and ice cream.

Once I got Summer in and out of the shower, we crashed a bit early. Tomorrow will be busy enough.

Absolutely delusional…

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The Longest Con

We had a short meeting today, and then I took Thomas to U-Haul to pick up a box truck. Greg and Jacob took a load of carts to swap out for London, and then we had to clean out the kitchen area. At some point, Zach brought the forklift around and I got to load up a bunch of pallets of trash, and then a couple pallets of Chromebooks into the truck bed. I was just happy not to be doing any of the unloading by hand.

As old carts came back, we had to scan for Chromebooks that went back on lease this summer. We found about five more all day, which was five times what we had found so far. Brody said one of the schoolboard members was frying chicken for the high school teacher appreciation lunch, which sounded really good, but I ended up driving a carload of people to CJ’s instead.

Immediately after lunch I felt a little sketchy from the grease, but I made it. We had to scan a bunch of Chromebooks from Center Valley, but most of my time was spent on deployments. I ended up leaving about half an hour late just because I felt like I was making a little progress on Roblox.

I picked Eaddie up at Zane’s, then took her home so she could get ready before a school dance. Then we picked Zane up and I dropped them off at the junior high. They ended up not wanting to stick around because they didn’t have any other friends there, so after cleaning up a bit at home, I picked them up and took them back up to Summer’s to hang out.

Summer grilled some steaks when she and Autumn got home from the gym, so she and I ate while the kids hung out. Autumn didn’t come out much at first, but eventually made a more permanent appearance for the evening. A little later in the evening she came into the bedroom to chat, and for the first time, apologized directly to me for last week. It was pretty obviously all a manipulation though, once she basically started begging to go back to work at Denny’s. It’s looking like it’s going to be a Shit Kid Summer. I think Summer is finally down to hold her nose to the grindstone, so we’ll see how well we can whip her into shape in the short amount of time that we have.

Afterward, the five of us played a game of Uno. It didn’t last forever since we only played through to one winner. Then eventually I had to take Zane home. I took Eaddie along with me, and we stopped at my house afterward so I could get some clothes for the morning. We decided to finish up Moon Knight before heading back up to their house, which was pretty interesting, if not a little on-the-nose after this past week. I’ve had just about enough of Looney Tunes.

…and the forklift you rode in on!