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Child’s Play

I got up this morning to meet the guys at Taco John’s for lunch. Blake and Robert were already there, both waiting in their cars like a couple of shy guys. When I started to go in, Robert yelled out his window for me to sit in his truck with him, but as soon as I got the door shut, Blake got out of his car because he saw me.

Gary and Grant both showed up eventually, and we went in to get our food. Surprisingly I think most of us were about as unimpressed with that place as I always am. I don’t get the nostalgia, but I was happy to be a part of it anyway. We chatted for hours, or rather mostly listened to Robert as he recounted stories from his steel trap of a mind. It was absolutely awesome getting to catch up, and I wished timing had worked out for Mitch to be there as well.

We wrapped up just in time for me to go home and clean up before the play. Summer got tickets for the two of us plus my parents to see Disney’s Descendants: The Musical. My parents arrived just late enough for it to be awkward to get back to our seats, and the rest of the show went about how I expected. I was glad Summer enjoyed it, but I have absolutely no feelings about school plays at all. I loved Wicked, but this basically took everything I disliked and amplified it. It was difficult to understand some 90% of the dialog, so I relied on context clues to follow the entire plot, which I had already gleaned from the summary of the show. It would have made more sense if we were taking small children.

As soon as we got home, Summer had to take off to get the girls to band camp. I tinkered with some photo backups at home for a while until Summer was ready to eat. Then I took her a new Fitbit I picked up on Prime Day, and warmed up some leftovers for us.

At some point in the evening, I lost connectivity to everything in my house. It wasn’t a power outage, so I assumed my internet had gone out. I checked in again late in the evening, and everything was still broken, so I went home to check on it. Evidently the battery backup for the home entertainment setup had gone worse, and some of my equipment was cycling on and off. I was glad to catch it before it continued on overnight, but frustrated trying to fix it while unable to turn on any of my lights. The convenience of an everyday smart home turned a simple task into an infuriating circus.

Exhausted from all the crawling about behind equipment, and knowing I had to get up for a stupid Catapult health screening in the morning, I just crashed there for the night to save myself the drive in the morning.

LINE!

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Lively Blake

Summer was going to work in Conway today, but ended up getting the day off after all due to a chance of some rain over a carwash. I got up and met Gary at Ridgewood Brothers’ to surprise Blake, who was in town for a couple days and was supposed to pick up a preorder of food for his girlfriend’s family.

Grant chatted with us for a while, but was in a bit of a sleepy haze after working overnight. Eventually he left as Gary and I stuck it out in the heat. The girlfriend’s brother ultimately came for the food, but called Blake to get him out of the house to see us. That’s when I got the idea to hide in the smokehouse and have Robert pretend that we had given up on him and left.

It was great catching up, even if he wasn’t as close to me as the rest of that group. I got to hear reminiscent stories about Mitch’s Hypotonic, which I vaguely remember. Since Grant didn’t get to see Blake that morning, we decided to meet at Taco John’s for lunch tomorrow before parting ways. Gary and I got some food on the way out, and I went back home to eat.

I picked up some Sonic on the way home, which went great with my Bronco. They had a new “Texas” barbecue sauce that I think I actually liked better than their original. With all the time in the sun, I had developed a headache and ended up sleeping for several hours into the evening.

Meanwhile, Summer was back home cooking a roast for dinner, along with some banana pudding and even an apple pie. I made it up for the evening and groggily ate, only because I felt less than good after my nap. The food was all super good, and even the apple pie was some of the better that I’ve had. The girls were getting ready for band camp, and I just sat around for the rest of the evening trying to recover from my nap.

Why are there thousands of songs about love and heartbreak, but only one song about the boys being back in town?

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Rood Awakening

I took the day off from work but, woke up to a call from a tech from Rood to come check out my air conditioning. Melissa said it would probably be around 10:30, so I was pretty startled when he called. I rushed home and just barely beat him there. Ultimately he said he was getting a 20 degree differential between my return and the air vent, and he said the unit had plenty of refrigerant. While we were outside, Bác Vân came over and picked a bunch of jalapeños for me. I gave most of them to the tech, and then went inside to clean up.

Summer wanted some lunch and nothing really sounded good, so I went to Ridgewood and got some ribs, bacon burnt ends, and turkey along with some sides. It was just Robert and Conner, a new kid that had just graduated from high school but looked about three years shy of it. Robert said Blake would be in town tomorrow morning, so I’ll try to swing by in the morning to see him there.

By the time I got to the shop, they had picked up and Summer couldn’t join me for lunch right away. I killed some time before finally eating some. Just as I finished, she came up and ate. Then I went back home to poke around the house. I got a very little bit done but felt exhausted all afternoon.

Eventually Summer came over for the evening and we watched the newest episode of Loki. I didn’t expect it to end so abruptly. I’m not a fan of the weekly episode format. I’ll take mine in a binge session, please.

‘Cause she’s jalapeño business.

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Dull Work Now, or Dull Work Later

Everyone there was there at work today, and it felt pretty empty. Gary did his best to inspire everyone for a full day of work, but then he went home because he had been at the hospital all night with our old friend Thomas. I told him not to worry about coming back, and the rest of us quietly toiled away.

I continued work on the image while the others either split up for tickets or spent the entire day enrolling Chromebooks. Lunch time came quickly, and I went to Linh’s with Kyle and Greg. Then I took a bánh mi home for Eaddie. The rest of the afternoon went by quickly enough, and eventually we all went home.

I stopped to look at a Miata on the way home since Summer wanted to know more about it. The few deeper scratches and scuffs weren’t visible from the road, but otherwise it was in okay condition for something that old. Summer wanted to meet me there later to look at it, and she decidedly fell out of love with it. She continued on to a bowling team builder while I went home for a while.

I eventually made it up to their house for the evening and made double layer tacos for dinner, then watched House with Eaddie until bedtime.

To send a wagon for thy minstrel and refuse my letters!

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O Captain! my Captain!

I spent most of the day trying to polish my task sequence for the new student laptops. I think Gary was getting frustrated with me, but I didn’t want to ship an unfinished product, and there were plenty of other things we could send the crew to do. Ben happened to be there for what was essentially his last day, and reminded us that we have several hundred Chromebooks that are ready to be enrolled as well, which took most of the heat off of me.

A bit before lunch, a couple guys showed up in a big box truck to clean out the graveyard. Evidently we never actually scheduled a pickup date, but that didn’t matter much. I ended up babysitting them through lunch. Gary ran next door to Smackin’ Wings for food and gave me his leftover fries. Around one o’clock, I had to go back in to help Ben with new staff accounts while he printed badges. That started out as a bit of a circus, but I made it work. It did take the rest of the day though, and as everyone else left, Gary and I stuck around to see Ben out.

I thought we might go for dinner or drinks, but instead I just helped Ben carry his stuff out while I waited for Summer to get home. I got a little choked up, but I’m happy for him. As soon as I got home, Summer, Eaddie, and I went to Mulan’s for dinner.

Once we got back home for the evening, Summer went to bed and I finished up on the computer before watching an episode of House with Eaddie. Then we were off to bed.

But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

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Just Sit Down and Do Work

I was sleeping super hard when my alarm went off this morning. I made it in to work on time, but others didn’t and got yelled at by Gary. It was lax before, but now we haven’t had a leader there consistently for like a month. He sent everyone to the junior high to unbox laptops while I worked on the imaging process all day. I caught a break pretty late, but I think he’s still pretty stressed about getting it done since we still have new devices coming later in the summer.

We got our COVID checks today, which was nice. It would have been nicer if they paid us for the time we worked, and not based on the number of days that teachers worked, since we had to be there for way longer risking ourselves. I nearly died. Three times.

Greg took Josh and me to Taco John’s for lunch, and the tacos were actually great for the first time in a while. We saw Brice there with his 911 buddies, which is to say his work crew, and not a count of how many buddies he has.

After work, Summer came over and we went to Georgia Carpet Mills to trade some tile samples. I think we found a couple that I really like. She really liked a super worn pattern, but it didn’t come in long planks, and would require us to go all-in on a rustic look that I think would just be too stylized.

I went up to her place to help with the mower for a bit, and recorded a video of my Rolling Square InCharge 6 Max charge cable so I could submit a warranty claim. I don’t actually know if it’s under warranty for longer than a year, but the cable was always slow. Afterward I went to my parents’ house for eggplant soup. I couldn’t stick around any longer than that because the allergies murdered my sinuses.

When I got home, I dug the Grom out and took it for a ride around the block. It rode fine, but felt ever-so-slightly crooked. It’s a shame, but it’ll be a fine beater to teach Eaddie how to ride eventually.

W=A*V

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Not What I Herd

I really didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. I snoozed for about five minutes, then crawled out of bed for a slow start. We started the day by taking a couple pallets of laptops over to the junior high. It was super humid, but eventually the rain cooled everything off. Gary had everyone pair off to complete random little projects since Zach wasn’t around pretending to have a real plan.

Lunch time came around the time the rain started just pouring down. Gary and I ran to Subway for lunch, and then I spent all afternoon poking at the Windows deployment in SCCM. I stayed super late just because I was getting into things. I moved some office furniture around as I waited on progress bars. Ultimately I made it home for the evening pretty late and started tinkering with things there.

Prime Day has been better than the past, which is both good and bad. It’s nice to have something like this that’s not around the holidays though.

Just be hungry.

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Captain’s Log

Summer got up this morning and had to take Eaddie to her parents’ house to meet up with Autumn so they could spend the day with their father. I stayed home and started some laundry, and cleaned up the bedroom. After some gym time and cleaning up herself, Summer came back and kept me company.

Later in the evening, we met my family at La Villa for a Father’s Day dinner. I spotted Carlos and Adrian across the room, so Julie went over to greet the family.

On the way home, I stopped by Walgreens to pick up a photo print I had ordered. Julie happened to order one as well, and they actually opened it up to show her the gorilla from Disney. If I had been anyone else, I might have been upset, so I’m surprised they did that. My next stop was for some gas, and then home for the evening.

I just play one on TV.

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On Guard!

Summer made chorizo and eggs this morning before taking off with Eaddie to do some shopping. I went home and started some laundry and took a shower before they came over for the evening. I thought we would get dinner and a movie, but I was the only one hungry enough, so we went straight to UEC.

I figured for a less serious comedy, I could compromise with a local showing in theaters 5, 6, or 7. The popcorn was surprisingly great, and we got a couple refills out of the deal. We ended up being the only three in the whole theater, which was good because Summer kept jumping out of her seat in sympathetic agony. Overall, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard was pretty good.

After the movie, we came home and sat around. Eaddie went to her room while Summer and I watched some TV. I got a little frustrated without dinner and finally picked up some Pizza Hut for a really late meal. Nobody else was hungry, but they sure ate the pizza.

Summer went to bed and Eaddie and I watched some House until she went back to her room.

Wax in, wax out.

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Taco Fury

I woke up to breakfast after sleeping in today. Autumn went in for an “interview” at Tropical Smoothie, and was basically hired on the spot by a friend of her father’s. Summer went to the gym while I went home to clean up for a partially planned day.

We never made it out of town to do anything with the bathroom tile, but I did finally go to the DMV to get the Shadow title transferred. Not only that, but after five years, I got the boat re-registered with its new hull identification number. I lucked out and didn’t have to wait in line at all, and the girl that helped me was super happy to be there.

As soon as I finished, I picked up Summer and we went to Walmart for some materials for taco night at John and Melissa’s. We prepped as much as we could at home first, then carried everything over at 6.

Travis was already there, so I started cooking the taco meat while everyone chatted. I thought the food turned out awesome, but crunchy tacos are pretty addicting for me. I think John and I simultaneously had the idea to use Melissa’s bean dip as a layer between a flour tortilla and the crunchy taco shell. Then all the fixings went inside for a loaded, crunchy treat.

After we finished eating, John got out a card game called Ramen Fury that initially started out pretty confusing, but turned out to be pretty simple after going through the motions of one throw-out game. I think we all enjoyed it well enough to play again.

We didn’t stick around too long after Travis left, and packed up some of the food to take home. Autumn stayed with her grandparents, so Eaddie and I watched some House after Summer went to bed.

No one’s yelled “son of a bitch” yet!