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Freeze!

I spent most of this morning very slowly trying to replace the cafeteria computers at Oakland. While I waited for them to boot up and update, I ended up exploring the walk-in cooler, as well as the freezer section located through a second doorway inside the refrigerator. I panicked a little bit as the button to open the door from the inside had frozen stuck for a moment, but I escaped. After that, I tinkered around until lunch time when a group of us went to Freddy’s.

I misspoke and got my burger without all the veggies, which was detrimental to its flavor. I also still wonder what a sport pepper is, since they didn’t have any. I was the only one to end my meal with any custard, but I had earned a free concrete in the form of a key lime pie. It was delicious, but I only had a few bites before we headed back to the shop.

I spent most of the afternoon helping Zach and Greg run a couple lines at Central Office. It was frustrating to see all of the renovations there, while we can’t even drink the tap water downstairs. I got a little itchy from the insulation in the ceiling, but fortunately it was a short run. I spent more time terminating than actually running the cable.

I walked across to the Transportation office for the last bit of the day, and ended up talking to Kayla well past quitting time. We shared our gossip, and she tried to offer any advice she could for our situation with Autumn. Summer texted that they were home and ready to cook dinner, so I had to run home and change before stopping by Walmart for a few last-minute ingredients.

When I got there, Summer and Autumn were both in the kitchen, dancing around each other. Summer made a sort of stir-fry while Autumn baked snickerdoodles. We had a good dinner, everyone got along, and then Summer did some stuff for work before heading off to bed. Autumn ended up sleeping on the couch while I documented our troubles with her for our FINS petition. I stayed up later than I wanted, but I think I got most everything written down.

It’s important to be historically accurate!

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She’s a Little Runaway

I hardly slept last night, but got up and back to my cooler house after its first night of air conditioning in a while. We were a little scattered for projects during our meeting, and I could have hidden away in my office all morning, but instead I rode around with Zach to work on a few doors. We chatted, and it really helped keep my spirits up.

Summer had to go to Little Rock for a meeting, but then came back to work from home for the rest of the day. She wanted to get lunch, so after Zach and I finished running around trying to fix and lock all of the doors we were working on, I met her at Sumo’s. I still wasn’t feeling great about the situation at home, but we finally talked a bit and tried to come up with a plan. I suggested that she try and take Autumn to a recruiter and see what options might be available to her.

I went back to work, and after a followup text, Summer said she was having trouble with Autumn, and then called in tears to say that Autumn had blown up again and “ran away” down the road again. I reminded her that she could file a FINS petition, so she made a phone call and then had me meet her at the juvenile office next to the courthouse. The lady there did a whole lot of talking to sell the program to us even though we were already all-in. Eaddie sat in the corner quietly while we chatted, and then they went home to fill out paperwork while I went back to work. I figured Autumn had most likely called her grandparents to pick her up, and of course Summer confirmed my suspicion.

I worked out the rest of the day, and even a little bit late to update our Jamf server prior to our migration to their cloud service. Everyone else left me in the dark, but I was just happy to accomplish something of my own before I left. Then I went home until Eaddie finished with tennis practice and then met Summer at her house. They cleaned up a bit, since Summer had also worked up a sweat at the gym. Then we went to Stoby’s for dinner before fetching Autumn.

Eaddie went inside to visit, and perhaps to survey the situation. Her grandmother came outside to talk to Summer, but Autumn hid away inside until we talked her into going back inside to get her. I had to threaten calling the police, and then ultimately made the call when Autumn came outside but refused to come with us. A few minutes later, she realized how dumb and wasteful she was being and agreed to comply, but by then the trucks had already rolled and we had to stand at the end of the driveway talking to four officers for the next hour.

Autumn had cooled down, and was very talkative with Eaddie in the back seat. She kept wanting to talk to us, but of course we were sick of even hearing her voice. We had them shower as soon as we got home, and then they went to bed while Summer worked on the FINS petition with occasional help from me.

Having a written record of your life is pretty handy…and incriminating!

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Heat Waive

I made it home to shower this morning, but then couldn’t dry my hair in the heat and humidity before making it in to work. Everyone was sitting around the conference table awkwardly without me, but we didn’t have much to talk about. Everyone was sent off to take care of little things, and I spent all day in my office trying to look busy. I tinkered with a task sequence for a while, but couldn’t really test anything out without a lab full of computers.

Rood couldn’t get anyone out today to look at my air conditioner, so I called Roy’s. The lady I spoke with said they could get someone out in the same day, so I took that bet without knowing any kind of timeframe.

Gary and I met the others at Brangus for lunch, though I wasn’t really hungry enough for that. Just before we got our food, Veronica walked in, followed a few minutes later by her husband and Junior. Then on the way out, we saw Grant and his mother as they were leaving right behind us.

I spent most of the afternoon taking Net+ quizzes until quitting time. I figured my air conditioner probably wasn’t going to get fixed and went on to get Eaddie to her tennis practice. Rather than wait in the sun, I went home to sweat it out inside until Eaddie finished. A little while later, I actually got a call from the Roy’s tech. I was super surprised that he would be working that late, but he was super friendly and got me up and running again super fast.

The house only cooled down a couple degrees by the time I left to get Eaddie, and then I took her on home because she just wanted to eat leftovers. I finished up the rice and beans from Chuy’s while she cleaned the kitchen, and then sat around until Summer and Autumn got home.

We had both had a pretty long day, and Autumn had been running her mouth again, which lead to another family conversation. It’s really hard not to blame all of it on Autumn, because she’s making everyone in the house absolutely miserable. She does fine for a while, and we can spend time with her laughing for minutes at a time, but she eventually always reverts to a hateful, bitter kid. Eaddie’s been growing into her own person as well, so Summer’s feeling that loss as well. Seems nobody wins today.

Any one you walk away from, right?

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ReHeated

As soon as I climbed into bed last night, I got a notification from Nest that my air conditioner may not be working correctly. It severely underestimated how bad things were, because the unit had actually been running for about 28 hours straight, and was not at all cooling the house. In fact, I presume it pushed a bunch of heat down from the attic to reach a balmy 92 degrees inside.

I ran home to check things out, and at least nothing was on fire. Everything appeared to run as expected outside, so I’m not sure what the problem was. I couldn’t get it going again though, which meant a hot weekend before someone could get out to service it. I turned everything off, opened the back door, and went back to Summer’s to go to sleep in the cool.

I tried not to sleep in too late, and got around to bathe while Summer got up to do some work from home. The girls were all three pretty cranky any time they were around each other, so Summer ended up taking Eaddie and her friend to the gym while Autumn and I were sent to shop for a couple things.

We stopped by my house first, so I could try a couple more things to troubleshoot my air conditioner. The condensation line wasn’t clogged, and the breakers were all in good order, so we left it just as I had left it last night and continued to Walmart. We only needed a couple things, so shopping didn’t take long. I took us to Sonic for a couple slushes afterward, and tried their special Shark Week flavor in honor of how the day had been with the girls so far.

Summer cooked a ham and some potatoes, rice, and veggies for dinner. By then, everyone had mostly cooled down to eat. Then Autumn wanted to play a game, so Summer and I played a full game of Phase 10 with her before bed.

I’m not making it weird. The weirdness is making it weird.

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The Legend of the Space Viking

I slept in pretty late today after staying up way too late last night. Summer got up and went to the gym with Autumn and returned home around the time I was getting ready for a shower. We didn’t waste any time getting out of the house and headed to Conway for lunch. Eaddie had mentioned Big Orange, so we went for Red Robin instead so we could eat earlier in the day. The restaurant was pretty quiet, but service was incredibly slow. Our server brought out our “endless” fries in tiny baskets that had barely enough fries for one person, and then one cup of the campfire sauce for all four of us to share. Then when the food finally showed up, Summer’s salad was the best looking meal on the table.

Disappointed, we made our way to Little Rock and went straight to Goodwill. The girls really wanted to shop for some clothes, which was a little surprising to me. I figured by now they would be used to buying enough stuff new that they wouldn’t have any interest in thrifting. The store was a bit warm, and all the employees seemed to hate their lives. They were super busy, and the checkout line stretched halfway across the store. I found a cow butter dish, and we got a couple arms full of clothes for the girls by the time we left.

From there, we went on to the Promenade and got Eaddie some ice cream from MaggieMoo’s. It was Summer’s idea, but by the time we got there, she wasn’t feeling up to eating any, so Eaddie was the only one that got anything. I helped her with her cone, and then we crossed the street to get to the theater.

We all just wanted to cool off more than anything. The sun was incredibly hot outside, and the air conditioning in the IMAX couldn’t keep up. John and Melissa showed up just before the show, and then we all sat down for Thor: Love and Thunder. I thought it was a great movie, and it was nice that none of the previews really gave anything away. It really did kind of jump all over the place.

After the movie, we all went to Chuy’s for dinner. The service there wasn’t a whole lot better. They also seemed understaffed, and our waitress struggled to keep chips and salsa on the table. Summer and Eaddie weren’t super hungry, so I just shared a double order of fajitas with them.

We visited for a while and then hit the road for an uneventful ride home. Eaddie went through all of her clothes from Goodwill to show us, and then everyone was off to bed.

What a classic Thor adventure!

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Gone Finishing

Today was our last day of “summer hours,” and I was so excited to “sleep in” for half an hour to make it in to work by eight. Gary brought Shipley’s donuts instead of our usual, and they tasted very different from our usual. They were good, but I think I like the traditional ones better. I don’t know what they’re doing to their dough, but it just has a different taste and texture, and they’re glazed hot, which seems to melt most of the glaze off.

We sent Kyle to the junior high to finish up the imaging. Tammy was out, so I stayed in the shop to watch the phone that never rang. Gary took Zach and Greg to move some equipment around in a rack first thing, and then I think they spent the rest of the morning at the shop. Greg came back and chatted with me a little bit while I looked at CompTIA Net+ practice tests.

Greg insisted that we were supposed to go home at 11:30, so the other two followed him out. Kyle and I both independently worked until the dictated noon time, but he just left straight from the junior high. Gary ended up coming back with some lunch because he wasn’t sure anyone cleaned up the coffee pot. I had already taken care of it, so I just sat in the breakroom with him while he ate.

I went straight up to Summer’s to pick up Eaddie so we could watch the last episode of Stranger Things. I didn’t realize Autumn would be home, so I relented and invited her along too. Evidently Eaddie told her it was just going to be the two of us, so Autumn pitched a fit before I got there, and then refused to come with us. On the drive home, Eaddie mentioned that Rick really had contacted her for her Social Security number, and said that it was so he could put her in his will. That seemed very sketchy to me, especially as she described him as doing well with his new girlfriend. She seemed to acknowledge that it was weird for him to be so vague about what he was doing, so hopefully nothing comes of that. It’ll still have to be a parent talk soon though.

The season finale was pretty awesome, but I kind of felt like it was longer than it needed to be. Some of the scenes dragged on, and I thought they could have built the story about the main ‘tagonists a bit better. It just felt a little shallow, when otherwise it’s been an excellent show. As soon as we finished, Eaddie rushed me to take her home and wouldn’t even finish the credits because she said Summer told her to clean her room.

We made it back up to their house and Autumn was still lumped in front of the TV watching mindless YouTube videos. Summer eventually made it home, but then took Autumn to the gym while I made her a fresh salad, and fried some cod fillets to make sandwiches for Eaddie and myself. I felt a little bad not having anything explicitly for Autumn, but she didn’t set out any new food, and I cleaned up all of the leftovers in the fridge. She just didn’t want what little was left.

After we ate, Autumn was in a pretty good mood and wanted to play Monopoly, so Summer and I joined her. It was a comparatively fast game, and I went out early to help Autumn secure the win. Then everyone was off to bed.

You sank my battleship!

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Last of the Longs

The guys that were working on the air handlers in the shop yesterday had left my thermostat set on 65, so the air wasn’t blowing cold at all, and likely froze up outside. I didn’t want to mess anyone up by turning it off though, just in case they were testing something else. I just had Gary put in a maintenance ticket for it, but if it’s still on tomorrow, I’ll probably turn it off and let it rest over the weekend.

Gary wanted me to run to Central Office to investigate a work order, and then Greg mentioned another one about adjusting a monitor stand, so I took care of all of that before making my way to the junior high to work on imaging with Kyle.

That’s all I did the rest of the day, aside from lunch at Tarascos. The salsa there was good, but the fajitas were a huge disappointment. They looked fresh, having been all plated together with the rice, beans, and vegetables, but the beef was so tough that I couldn’t bite through it, I only got two tortillas, and none of it had any seasoning. The rice and beans had more flavor than the meat and vegetables.

The afternoon dragged on as we wasted time on our phones and finished up most of the laptops. Then I went home for a while before heading up to Summer’s. I picked up a peach milkshake from Chick-fil-A, and then filled up with gas on the way.

Summer was worn out from working sick. Autumn didn’t say much of anything to anyone as she laid on the couch watching YouTube all night. Eaddie never left her room as far as I could tell. It was pretty much straight to bed for everyone. At least this is the last long day of summer hours. I’m finally happy to see a half-day Friday.

Goddamn ants.

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A Splitting Image

Zach and Gary sent Kyle and Greg to image laptops at the junior high this morning while I worked on an Adobe licensing issue. I just happened to resolve it with trial and error, but I failed to understand how their licensing model was actually supposed to work. When I finished, I met the other two for imaging until lunch time.

Greg and I came back to the shop, and the four of us went to Quiznos for lunch. I love their lemonade, but man are those sandwiches overpriced. The bread was good today, but the sandwich didn’t seem quite as filled as it should have.

After lunch, I ran to the high school to dig up some better flash drives, and then took Greg with me back to the junior high to catch up with Kyle. We spent the rest of the afternoon staring at a clock that was stuck at 4:48 until we could finally leave at five.

I ran home to change, and then went to Walmart to pick up a few things for the dinner that the girls were making. Summer stayed home with nerve pain, so I thought the kids were cooking. I ran into Zach a few times while I was shopping, and then made my way up to the house to find Summer doing all of the work.

The al pastor tacos she made were pretty great, and I ate too many of them. Evidently she had bought a couple different seasoning packages that were identical in every way except for the preparation instructions on the back. Even the UPC was the same, but one method used a skillet, and the other boiled the meat in a pot, and I had sent her a picture of the slower instructions. It worked out in the end though, and everyone was happy.

The girls had been getting along well and playing their band instruments, and after we ate, Autumn wanted to finish our game of Phase 10. We finally finished and got everything put away, and then Autumn started bargaining to stay home instead of going to work with Summer in the morning. She got angry at the very first sign that she wasn’t going to get her way, and then escalated her argument all the way to bed. Nothing has changed.

I’m on to you, sucka.

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No Cats, No Play

I took the Shadow to work today since Summer needed to take her car. Fortunately I spent all day inside, so I never had to deal with any heat until quitting time. Zach was back, but most of the team was out on vacation. Kyle and I spent most of the day together imaging desktops for the cafeterias while Zach, Gary, and Greg ran around doing other things. They came back to get me for Taco Tuesday, but we all rode with Zach for that.

Kyle left to do other stuff in the afternoon, which left me in the back by myself for the rest of the day. Gary came back for a little while, and we worked loosely on a few different things. Then some guys came to clean out our air handlers near the end of the day. They finished up around the same time we did, and I went to my parents’ house for dinner.

Summer was out with sciatica and didn’t want to leave the house, so I just ate kabobs with my parents and then rode back home until Autumn could come pick me up. We stopped by Zaxby’s so she could get some dinner, and then it was a pretty quiet evening. I watered the plants, Summer went to bed, Autumn watched YouTube, and Eaddie hung out in her room all night.

Just before I went to bed, Eaddie came out to tell Autumn about some ex-boyfriend drama. I butted into the conversation just enough to confirm that it was normal teenage drama and that she wasn’t getting pulled into anything too toxic, and then it was off to bed.

Some grow, while others swell.

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I’ve Got a Yankee Doodle Sweetheart

I slept through an anxiety attack early this morning, and then slept late afterward. We eventually got up and showered before going to Walmart to pick up an online order I had placed the night before. They had a Bodum glass and tea strainer on sale, similar to the glass that Suzanne had accidentally broken when we had them over a while back, so I took the opportunity to re-complete the set. They didn’t offer a way to pick it up inside, but I wanted to take a peek through the clearance section while we were there. Just as we got into the store, they called and asked what stall I was parked in, which seemed to be a mistake in the app setup. I don’t know why they have you check in when you’re just “on the way” if they’re going to assume you’re already there.

I drove over to the pickup section to get my glass, then went back to the garden center to finish shopping and fetch Summer. We were out relatively quickly, and headed on to my parents’ house to start grilling. I was super hungry and was anxious to get the burgers done, but Dad had only just lit off the charcoal. I helped patty the burgers, and then got things cooking as quickly as I could. All total, we had burgers, corn on the cob, shrimp, and finally a rack of ribs to grill. I tried using my smoker tube, but I guess I smothered it with all the smoke from the charcoal. Mom had some beef for kabobs, but I told her to wait until tomorrow since we were out of coals after the ribs anyway.

After we ate, Summer and I went for a swim to cool back off. It was so hot and humid that I could barely walk outside without breaking a sweat. She enjoyed the heat, but I absolutely loathed it. I felt smothered by it. The pool helped, but she still wanted to go to the train depot for the holiday entertainment.

We drove back to my house to wait out the sun a bit, and then went up to her house to check on the cats and set out some pork for dinner later in the week. One of the cats pooped on the shower matt, and it just reminded me how much I hate having pets.

From there, we made our way downtown for the festivities. We actually got decent parking, and some clouds came in to block the sun. There was a light breeze that kept things just barely bearable for me, and I was glad to see some friendly faces in the form of Boundy and her husband, Mike. We chatted for a bit, and then we wandered over to a crêpe food truck. While we were there, something happened to one of the band members, and the singer announced to the crowd that “somebody” should call 911. I don’t know if anyone ever did, but the bicycle cops at the back of the crowd didn’t appear to be in too much of a hurry to get up to the guy. At some point, another band member announced that their keyboardist was also a cardiologist, so I guess things worked out?

Back at the food truck, there appeared to be a pretty long line, but we learned that everyone there was actually just waiting for their food. The line to order was actually very short. I frustrated Summer when I said I didn’t really want to eat much of one in the heat, and she took off back to the car. We went home, talked about it a bit, and I explained my struggles with sticky foods and drippy sweat. We discussed going up to Nebo like I had suggested earlier, and then ultimately decided to go back downtown on the Shadow, since it had cooled off considerably by then, and we could park more flexibly.

We made it back to the Peter’s lot and parked, marveling that our vacated parking spot from earlier was still available. We wandered back to the music area, decided against waiting in any of the ridiculously-long lines for treats, and walked back to, and across Arkansas to where someone was selling kettle corn. Fortunately there wasn’t a line there at all, so we got a bag of that, when out of nowhere Boundy showed up with a half-eaten bag for us. We took it, and then found a seat at a picnic table right beside them. I ended up running back across the street to bring the bike over so we could have an easier getaway, and it worked splendidly.

Summer enjoyed the show, though it was weird to watch one from so close with absolutely no music or any kind of rhythm to it. The show lasted a bit longer than I expected, and then we took off as soon as it was over. We made it home in record time, and I couldn’t have been more pleased on a night before going back to early days at work. Summer went straight to bed with incredible nerve pain, and I wrapped up my usual deal hunting as quickly as I could.

I DECLARE INDEPENDENCE! I didn’t say it. I declared it!