Uncategorised

Opinions Are Like Family

Summer had to work this morning, so I let the girls sleep in a little while before showering and taking them to my parents’ house for the day. Julie was already there swimming with some friends, so we went in to meet with Chellie and Phil. Dad invited them over to learn a bit about film and print photography.

Julie had picked up some Popeye’s for us for lunch, so we had a little to eat before I sent the girls out to swim. They were a bit shy to get out there because of how much noise Julie and her two friends were making, and Eaddie wasn’t super excited to swim in the first place. I just laid on the couch inside and dozed off a little between apneas.

Eventually I got a grill going and pattied some hamburgers. I managed to fit all of the corn, four types of tubed meat, and some burgers on one grill. The more impressive part was that I finished cooking everything and toasting buns just as the last of the charcoal turned to warm ash.

The food was good, but somehow Julie got onto some tirade about racism. Lelan showed up at one point for just a few minutes, and Summer eventually showed up late after work. It was all a bit more excitement than I could really stand.

On the way home, I stopped by to see if Grant was cooking so I could talk to him about a possible catering job. It was just Felix hanging outside talking to a friend, so I headed on home. Autumn put on Coco much to Eaddie’s umbrage. Summer went straight to bed, so I played a couple rounds of Overwatch with Clint. Then I finished the night with an episode of The Punisher with Eaddie.

A Dothraki wedding family reunion without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair.

Uncategorised

Aw, Shucks!

Gary called us all to the shop this morning in Ben’s absence, and arranged for the whole crew to unbox student laptops at the high school. For some reason Zach kept wanting to just hand-load the laptops onto the trucks instead of getting maintenance to use the forklift, but thankfully in the end we had it done right. Chris drove the forklift over and kept talking about how much of a real man he was for being able to load the pallets for us.

We ended up sitting right inside the back doors to shuck boxes, since we had to take the trash back out anyway. Then we wheeled carts full of laptops into my office and under the cubbies.

Most of us went to La Chiquita for a super fast lunch. We were all pretty tired and drenched in sweat already from the humidity, but lunch was a good break. Afterward was finishing up more of the same, and then Gary and Josh stayed to help finish up a couple mini pallets that were already rolled up to my office.

When we left, Autumn and I stopped by Casey’s for the freebie of the day, and then I dropped her off at her house before going home to change. Ronda called and said that they were driving through Searcy and saw Michael on the side of the road. They hydroplaned and totaled their car, and the cops were already on the scene to help. I finally got a hold of him to confirm everyone was okay and that someone was on the way to pick them up.

After chilling out a bit at home, I went to my parents’ house for a dip in the pool. Then I finished up the last of the eggplant soup before heading up to Summer’s for the evening. We caught an episode of Master of None before bed since the girls were both off in their rooms.

Sweat dreams are made of these…

Uncategorised

Everything of Something, and a Little of Everything

I got up this morning and went home to clean up before coming back to pick up Summer and Autumn. We made it down to the Children’s Hospital with plenty of time to spare, so I tried to redeem a free meal from Taco Bell while I waited. Evidently so were millions of other people, so both the website and the app were down.

Fortunately it wasn’t long before the girls were done, so I got them and we drove across town to our first Target on University. They had a few Philips light switches and motion sensors left on clearance, so I bought them out. Then we stopped by Big Orange Burger for some lunch. Autumn was trying to avoid a burger with an egg on it, and somehow she managed to order the only hamburger that came with an egg on it. I still can’t even.

After lunch, we went by the Splash main office so Summer could pick up a check. Jeff gave me a handful of Splash gift cards, and sent us on our way.

We had to drive way across Little Rock to get to the Target on Chenal, where I picked up way more Philips stuff. They didn’t have theirs marked down or moved to a clearance rack, but I lucked out and they all rang up at the clearance price.

With my Operation: Spend All My Money complete, we headed toward home and stopped at Sam’s in Conway to spend more money. This time it was mostly essentials, and I took the opportunity to stock up on some meats in case COVID gets really bad as things keep opening up. Then it was back home.

We stopped to get Summer’s car, and we both went to get some gas. Then I ran home to do some chores while they went back to their house. I had forgotten that I had to do some laundry, so I got my load of socks going, changed my furnace air filter, and tinkered with a motion sensor.

When I finally got to Summer’s, Autumn helped me split up the bulk meat we bought, then I had some of the chicken dinner she made for everyone. Summer was already in bed not feeling well, so I stayed up and tinkered with a Sinus server for Johnny and the rest of the gang to use on my TeamSpeak server. It looks like a pretty robust piece of software, and I’m surprised there wasn’t better documentation for the initial setup. I managed to get most of it figured out though. I’ll have to tinker more with it later.

They couldn’t think of any better names?

Uncategorised

Wood You Look at That

I took a couple personal days this week so they wouldn’t turn into pumpkins sick days at the end of the month, but I forgot to turn my alarm off for this morning. Overall I think I was satisfied with the amount of sleep I got, and I still beat the kids awake anyway.

I got up and had some leftover breakfast pizza, then played some Overwatch. Eventually Noah woke up and we finished District 9. I woke Eaddie up, and before long Autumn came home with Subway for lunch for all three of them.

The afternoon slipped by pretty quickly, and after minimal fussing at the kids to clean up the house, I just had to get home to try and be a little productive myself. I spent the majority of my time there cleaning off my computer desk, and I finally managed to get down to bare wood in at least one place.

As the night quickly approached, I made my way back up to Summer’s, had some leftover rice and chicken for dinner, and played some more Overwatch until Summer got off the phone with Aunt Beth. We caught up a little bit until it was time for her to go to bed. Then I was going to stay up and watch an episode of The Punisher, but the kids lost the remote and none of them wanted to hunt it down. Instead, I subdued my rage with a few rounds of Overwatch, then went to bed.

Therapy is not a substitute for effective communication at home.

Uncategorised

Taco ’bout a Party

We got up this morning and pretty immediately started prepping for Eaddie’s birthday lunch. I prepped vegetables, then got the chicken started in the Instant Pot, and it finished cooking shortly after everyone arrived.

The chicken tacos turned out amazing, and Summer had all of her dressings for them out and ready to go. Nick brought his new girlfriend Robin along, and it was a pretty quick lunch shindig before the opening of a few presents.

When everyone left, I headed out to spend some time at home. I tinkered with my Kobalt cabinet again, and got the doors to close a bit better after some leveling. I got a little cleaned up inside, played a bit of Overwatch, and spent a bit more time trying to configure Plex. I think I’m about ready to start up a rack server for some of that stuff, but that will take some excavation.

As the evening came, some guy rang my doorbell looking for signatures on a petition to remove the county from the list of counties eligible for a casino. I forget how many signatures he said they needed, but I hope it helps.

Eventually I made it back up to Summer’s for the evening. Noah was there, and we watched an episode of Black Mirror before putting Summer to bed. Then the three of us watched the first half of District 9 before Noah and I were ready for some sleep. Eaddie quietly turned 13 and wandered off to her room as well.

Fookin prawns.

Uncategorised

Juicy Fruit

We tried to sleep in a bit today, but the sun got me up early. I went outside to bang on my new cabinet to try and get the door straight enough to close properly. As I was finishing up, Summer left with Autumn so they could start their day.

I bounced around the house for a little while until I settled on the computer to troubleshoot my Plex subtitle problem. I never could get it to behave properly. Zach came by at some point and worked on the Fiero for a bit. I eventually took a shower and headed up to Summer’s house.

Autumn went to spend some time with her father, so Summer and I just picked at some leftovers for dinner and then sorted out what we needed for Eaddie’s little birthday gathering tomorrow. Then we went to Walmart and picked up everything for chicken tacos. When we got back to the house, Summer started prepping some sauces and sides, and I started some refried beans in the Instant Pot.

When we both got to a stopping point, we watched some Master of None. As soon as the beans finished cooking, I scooped them out of the water and blended them. That really made all the difference both in taste and volume, and Summer liked them so much she wanted a bowl to eat right away.

By the time everything was finished, there wasn’t much point in going back to my house just to sleep, so we ended the evening with another episode before bed.

Yabba dabba doo it!

Uncategorised

Movers of Things

Autumn chose to come to work with me yet again, so we met what was left of the crew at the shop this morning. Everyone but the newbies had taken the day off, so I met Ben, Greg, and Josh at the high school to load laptops into the trailer. They hauled everything out so quickly that I actually lost count, and ended up shorting them by one box of 20 laptops, so I’ll probably have Heather come pick those up later. I’m done doing all of this extra work for no good reason or appreciation.

The guys were meeting some old coworkers from Service Plus at Linh, so I convinced Autumn to try it out, and we picked up Ben from the shop. After lunch, we went back to the shop to pick up a bunch of old model laptops that were pulled from the junior high and took them to the high school. We stopped for some happy hour drinks from Sonic along the way, and though my Red Bull Summer Edition Slush was good, I did not necessarily feel like it gave me wings.

The afternoon was much more relaxed, and we eventually started sifting through laptops we had set aside with what I considered to be heavier damage. Fortunately most of those are actually just cosmetic damage that we can ship back to Lenovo without any additional service.

We ran back by the shop after work so I could sign my contract for the next school year, but everyone had already left the auditorium. I had mentioned the Bargain Barn to Autumn earlier, so we decided to stop in to see what they were about. Allen told me about them and mentioned that they had good snacks. I had no idea. It just seemed like a normal little thrift shop from the front, but then we walked through a door in the back of the room and it was like walking into some kind of slumlord Willy Wonka shop. We picked up a couple things, including a giant tin of butter cookies to take to Summer. Then we went home until dinner.

Since Eaddie was staying with her grandparents another night, Autumn and I decided to go to Cici’s for dinner to try and catch the Corona again. They had plastic wrap all around the front of the buffet so they could serve you cafeteria-style. It was pretty empty, but the drive-through looked busy. All the pizza on the bar was pretty dry and gross from the lack of traffic, so I asked them to make me one with everything. It was absolutely Zen.

When we left, Autumn wanted to go Bowling, but somehow I convinced her to go shop with me at Lowe’s instead. We wandered around for a bit just chatting along until I stumbled upon a big 48-inch Kobalt garage cabinet that had been marked down to half price due to some damage. I figure with just a very little bit of work, I could get the thing back into nearly new condition.

I spoke to a manager, took Autumn back to my house, then went to Allen’s to borrow his truck. The trip back into Lowe’s was a little more chaotic just because of how busy they were, but eventually I got someone to help me check out and load the cabinet into the truck. I only had to adjust it once, just because the cabinet door wouldn’t lock shut, and the wall-mount straps on the back were blowing around and hitting the glass.

Autumn helped me unload the cabinet and I walked it into the garage, then I went back to Allen’s and chatted with him and Charlotte for a few minutes. Eventually I made it back home, and I watched some random stuff on TV with Autumn until Summer got home from her late night bowling teambuilder. Then I put on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 until everyone got bored, and we went to bed.

Come with me
And you’ll be
In a world of out-of-date confections.

Uncategorised

The Hired Help

Autumn came with me to work again today, and again outworked and outperformed the paid help. Heather was exactly as late as usual, which makes me wonder why she can’t just set her alarm ten minutes earlier.

We started off walking down to the storage area under the cafeteria and found some waxed chicken boxes we could use to haul the laptops to the junior high. Then we went back upstairs and finished imaging everything we had. Once we had the last of the laptops on the benches, I sent Heather to go track down the older 20GA models so we could ship those back. I did not hear from her again, other than to tell us to which room we should deliver her laptops tomorrow in her absence.

Autumn and I went to Chick-fil-A and picked up lunch, then went to eat with Summer. Afterwards, we stopped by the shop to see if we could intercept Heather or anyone else. Gary and the newbies were in the breakroom having lunch, so Autumn and I went back to the high school and retrieved the boxes from the dungeon.

I built a spreadsheet to compare what serial numbers Lenovo expects to receive back while Autumn folded boxes. Then the two of us started my third inspection cycle of all 1,015 laptops while we packed them into the boxes for transfer to the junior high, ensuring that they would receive the best of the best of these gross, teenager-used devices.

When we left, I dropped her off at Old Post Park for an Explorers meeting and ran home to clean up. I decided to pick her back up on the bike, so I got the pressure washer out to blow the cobwebs off of the R1. She had never ridden before, but reacted much more calmly than ever before when I had suggested she try to ride with me in the past.

We went by the shop to meet up with Summer and Eaddie, but they were inside waiting for a tow truck that would deliver a vehicle that had seized up after dropping all of its oil when it left. I noticed the streak of oil in the road, but I thought it was just a wet spot from someone leaving after everything had been cleaned at closing time.

Eaddie was picked up by her grandparents, and the rest of us went back home. Summer, having had a pretty bad day, sent me to Wendy’s for a bag of Baconators. Then I took Autumn home to clean up and get some fresh clothes before coming home for the night. Of course, around that time I realized I had forgotten to do my own load of laundry I needed for the next day, so it was a bit of a late night for me.

Bye bye, birdie.

Uncategorised

Bring Your Daughter to Work Day

Autumn wanted to go to work with me today, so I let her come help with the laptop processing. She ended up being a huge help, and even spent less time griping about the work than Heather. Having her there filled the little gaps where Heather and I were previously tripping over each other. The downside to that improved efficiency was that there was basically no downtime at all. We were basically moving the entire day, so we pretty much finished sorting all the laptops out.

Ben texted that they were heading to Bocadillos for lunch, so I took Autumn there instead of Chick-fil-A where she had been asking to go all morning. We’ll probably end up there tomorrow to make up for it. I wasn’t even hungry, but ate anyway and ended up regretting it. I really kind of preferred just working straight through lunch.

At the end of the day, Ben stopped by to see our progress and chat for a bit. The logistics of getting 875 laptops to the junior high are still a bit daunting, and there are a lot of options on how to handle which laptops will be returned for the lease. At least I can take comfort in knowing I still have some time left to file the warranty claims.

Autumn and I headed to my house to change, then went to Walmart to pick up some stuff for dinner. She made both teriyaki and Buffalo sauces for some chicken and rice. I helped a bit, and made some broccoli to green things up a bit.

When Summer got home from the gym, we ate and then packed up to head to my house for the evening. We had to stop by her parents’ house first to meet her sister and niece. Eaddie decided to bail on us and stayed the night there, so Autumn came back with us and we watched an episode of Game of Thrones before bed.

What do we say to one more episode?
“Not today.”

Uncategorised

Squatsville

Today was day two of the great laptop imaging race of 2020. We found our stride a bit quicker this time, and got up to around 600 laptops done. I also discovered that the warranty is good until the middle of August for most of our laptops, which was a tremendous relief.

After work, I went home to decompress for just a little bit before meeting the girls at my parents’ house for dinner. Autumn and I went out for a short swim before dinner while Mom finished the eggplant soup. Eaddie and I ate soup, and Summer and Autumn had some leftovers instead.

Eventually we made it up to Summer’s for the evening. I got a massive cramp in the front of my right thigh, which seemed like a really weird place to cramp. I figured it was from the two days worth of squats moving laptops around. I still prefer that to the hundred depot laptop claims I’ll have to file.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or more!