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Ride Along

Summer had to stop by the shop this morning, so she picked up some Wendy’s breakfast for us on the way home. Then she took Autumn to pick up the car her parents were planning to give her so she could practice at the high school. The brakes were so bad that they ended up leaving it, and she ended up practicing in Summer’s car anyway.

Eaddie rode her bicycle out to meet them, and I followed along on the Grom so Summer could get some time on it. I rode around the lot for a while, practicing some little wheelies while Eaddie rode down the trail she had found before. I eventually stopped to warm up in the sun on the arbor bench for a little while until Summer was ready for some time on the bike.

Autumn did a pretty good job of driving me around, and I tried to have her focus on parking and spatial awareness. She was pretty bored by the time I got to her, so we weren’t there much longer before we headed back to my house.

We were pretty hungry by that time, so Summer and I rode across town to try and pick up some BBQ from the Ridgewood Brothers. Grant said they had just sold out though, so we sulked back toward home. We stopped by the Neighborhood Market briefly to pick up some groceries first, and then Summer took the girls home to clean up.

When they got back, Nick wanted to come by and eat with the girls, so we all sat out in the backyard together where we could maintain a decent space. He brought us all an assortment of food and stayed to chat for a little while since he hadn’t really seen the girls since the quarantine started.

After he left, the girls came inside and wanted to play Jackbox games. I had just picked up the fifth collection in the series, so we played a round of each of the games in the pack before settling in for bed. Eaddie and I outlasted everyone else as usual, finishing up the second season of Jessica Jones before bed.

Even the littlest bikes can buck the unsuspecting rider.

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Speaker Phone

I made it through another week at the office. Like the rest of the week, I stayed pretty busy all day and felt pretty good with what I had accomplished. I even successfully helped a couple people over the phone while Ben was on a conference call, including the superintendent. He has no idea who I am.

Josh drove me to Morelos to pick up lunch for the three of us. When I called to place the order, the couple guys I talked to seemed really confused. Our orders seemed a bit off, and we didn’t even get half of an acceptable amount of chips for how much food we ordered. Regardless of any of that, my nachos filled a void inside of me that I didn’t even know I had.

The afternoon went by quickly as usual, and we even stayed a little late trying to sort a voicemail issue for the music department. By the end of it all, I at least made it functional. It was past quitting time anyway.

I spent a little while at home relaxing to some Overwatch before digging into my desk. The center channel speaker I ordered had arrived, and I wanted to hook it up on top of my desk between the bookshelf speakers.

The girls eventually came over, and Autumn went with me to get some Burger King for dinner. After we ate, I realized they forgot the jalapeño cheddar bites, and I had to go back to get them. At least they threw a small order of fries in the bag too, to make up for it.

The girls finished Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which to me seemed like a story about a single father of two’s slow descent into madness. I made some speaker wire and got my computer sound upgraded a bit. Summer went to bed, and Eaddie sat reading her book until I finished what I was doing, and then we ended the evening with a couple episodes of Jessica Jones.

Some people breed big cats. Me? I think I’ll try mosquitos.

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Fish and Dogs

Apparently I sat on my key fob last night and I woke up with my car windows halfway down in the rain. I guess I was just lucky that it didn’t rain any harder than it did.

Ben took the day off, so Greg and I were left with Melinda to man the phones. We both had work orders to take care of, so we kept at least a little bit busy all day. Nobody was having lunch there today, so I ended up just hanging out at the shop with a Soylent. The afternoon went by pretty quickly too.

After work, I spent a little time at home getting some bills together and called to see if I really did owe anything from my colonoscopy in November. I didn’t get in touch with anyone, but I left a message and went on about my day. I got a little Overwatch in, and then headed up to Travis’s to pick up an aquarium.

He had evidently neglected it pretty badly and just wanted to get rid of the whole thing, so he handed a bucket of fish and the tank to me through the window. The bristlenose catfish had its barbs stuck in the net, so it took me a little bit to get it out, but we got everyone loaded up and ready to go. I got the catfish and three tetra GloFish, and headed to Summer’s.

Autumn decided she wanted the tank, so I had her do some furniture swapping to get a 20 gallon tank-worthy stand into her room. I cleaned the new tank out the best I could with the water pressure I had, and we got it moved into her room. In the middle of that, Summer came home and I ran to Sonic with Autumn to get 50 cent corn dogs for dinner.

When we finally finished cleaning up the filter and setting up the tank, I dropped the fish in a little prematurely since we didn’t really have anywhere else for them to go. Summer crashed, and Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones before bed. I checked in on the fish and one of them didn’t look so great, so we may already be down one by tomorrow. I’m almost sure of it.

Genetically modified meat on a stick.

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It Slices! It Dices!

We had another conference call this morning with a company we’ve never dealt with before. By way of chance, the guy actually got through to Ben on the phone, and we actually happened to be reviewing classroom management software, so Ben scheduled the meeting today after the two prior days of the same. I liked this one guy a lot more than the four we talked to yesterday, and though he didn’t demo the Windows functionality for us, he at least acted like he knew that it existed.

After the call, Ben and I went to Dairy Queen to pick up lunch. I decided to try the chicken and biscuits basket they had, and spent over twice what Ben did on his meal. I ended up getting plenty that I could split it with Summer on the way back to the shop. Ben was talking about phone shopping anyway, and wanted to compare the size of his old Nexus with Summer’s Pixel 3.

The afternoon went by really quickly with a few more work orders, and then I went to get Autumn for her physical therapy. I killed a little time in Animal Crossing until it was time to drop her off, and then I ran home for a bit. When she called for me to pick her back up, I stopped by Casey’s for a free water and ran into Keith and chatted to him for a minute in the rain.

Once I got Autumn, we ran back by my house to get my package from UPS that didn’t arrive until after I left. Then we ordered some Papa John’s for dinner and picked it up on the way back up the hill.

I mostly waited for Summer to eat, and decided I didn’t much care for their rendition of the Philly cheesesteak pizza. The girls liked their buffalo pizza enough. I brought in the toaster oven/air fryer/dehydrator/roaster/whatever-elser and set it up in the kitchen, and then Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones while Summer watched some of her show. When we finished that episode, we all got together for an episode of Glee before Summer went to sleep. Eaddie and I caught one more episode of Jessica Jones, then went to bed ourselves.

Sometimes it’s 10 minutes. Sometimes it’s an hour.
It depends what inspiration hits, and what deals are found.

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Taking it Offline

It was just a little bit cool this morning, but I decided to take the Grom in to work. I got a bit of a slow start, mostly messing with what we collectively agreed were “Michael problems” that are oddly specific, unique and important only to me, and necessarily unimportant. By the end of the day it helped me learn some stuff though, so it was a good day.

Ben drove us to Taco John’s for lunch, where I tried to use the app’s new online ordering feature. I didn’t realize I had to tap a button to “check in,” but that was resolved in short order. The tacos, on the other hand, were terrible. I should have ordered soft tacos, because by the time we got back to the shop, they were soft anyway.

Ben and I had another conference call after lunch, this time with a whole group of people representing Relay. I should have known just by how the meeting started that it was going to be kind of typical office-lingo corporate nonsense. In the end, they just couldn’t demo anything that we really needed, and then couldn’t really properly answer some of the technical questions we had with their four people on the call. Gary stopped by and sat in for a while, and spent most of the time rolling his eyes, but that could just be typical Gary.

That wrapped up the work day, so I stopped by the shop to see Summer on the way home. Once I got settled in a little bit, I started making some decent progress in cleaning some things up a bit. It felt really good to be that productive. Summer came by when she got off, but ended up going home to work out instead of going out for a run.

After giving her some time to work out, I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie and I watched some Jessica Jones, then I picked at some leftovers for dinner while pan frying some hot dogs and cheese for Summer. Then the three of us ended the evening with an episode of Glee.

We’ll take our Trump Bucks elsewhere.

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9,000 Miles

It was back to the office today, this time with Ben and Greg. I kind of feel bad that Ben hasn’t really taken any time at home, but maybe he likes to get out of the house away from the kids to get things done. It was a quiet day except for a conference call with the Impero chaps. They all really do have the best accents, because they’re 100% understandable, but they just sound like a more formal version of ourselves. The software demo went well, and they can fill the gaps we’ve had for the past three years, but it’s going to cost us.

Greg and I ran to Wendy’s for a quick lunch, and then the afternoon was pretty relaxed. I actually ended up leaving before the other two just because I didn’t really have anything going on.

I ran by Staples to pick up a little table I ordered, and then went to get Autumn for physical therapy. I had enough time to put the table together before dropping her off, then I ran home to clean up a bit and check on the new aquarium organisms. The guppies seemed to be doing great, but were hungry enough to swarm the food I dropped in. The red root floaters seem to be struggling a bit, but it’s too early to tell really.

When Autumn was done, I loaded up the trolling motor and went to get her, and then we stopped by my parents’ to see them for a minute. Dad and I unboxed the motor to test fitment on the boat, and then we headed back to Summer’s to wait for her to get off.

Once she got home from work, I got to making salads out of leftovers. When everyone went on to do their own things, I pulled Autumn’s failed pizza dough out of the fridge, and tried to make cinnamon bread. It wasn’t awful, but it rose quite a bit more than I expected. While it baked, I cut up the pineapple we bought a while back.

And just like that, I found a stopping point.

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Recovery Room

I had to get out right as I was getting into bed so I could cover the fire pit before a storm blew in. Then I slept for a while, but still woke up several times throughout the night. It felt a little like I was too dependent on the higher constant pressure of my CPAP at Summer’s, but my newer one at home shouldn’t have any trouble adjusting as needed. I guess I could bump up my minimum pressure to see if that helps.

I was still incredibly sore when I woke up, but the worst of it worked itself out throughout the day. The girls got up and went home pretty early, so I had some time to clean up around the house.

The oldest male guppy that Brittany brought me yesterday wasn’t doing very well, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to arrange a place for him to go into quarantine. At first I put him into a little container of his own, but then ended up splitting my external breeding tank into three compartments so he could join my two bettas. I could see he had gotten really stiff and would just float in the corner breathing, but nothing else looked really wrong. A few of his fins were a little thin, so I wondered if he was getting harassed in his overcrowded container while I acclimated them overnight. At the end of the day, he finally stopped breathing and I sent him off for a burial at sea.

While I was messing with the fish, I also noticed a bunch more dead leaves floating in my bathroom aquarium, so I cleaned it up a little and added some soda water for a little carbon dioxide kick. I’m hoping they’re still just dying off because of how neglected the tank was, but there could be something else going on too. Only time will tell.

Summer wanted to get Sumo for dinner, but evidently they closed up at the start of the COVID-19 stuff, so I just ate the girls’ leftover Taco Villa before heading up to their place. When I got there, I tried working on Kayla’s laptop with absolutely zero success. Summer went to bed after some TV, then Eaddie and I watched a couple episodes of Jessica Jones before heading to bed ourselves.

But why is work, anyway?

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Burn Everything…

I didn’t sleep very well last night just because I hadn’t slept in my own bed in so long, but at least I didn’t wake up in pain like I have been. Summer had to work, so the girls and I took our time getting up and around. Eventually I started putting together an everything-loaf sandwich for lunch, and we packed a couple backpacks for a bike ride. We rode to Summer’s shop and had a surprise lunch with her while they were slow.

When we finished eating, we rode over to the city park for just a moment, then took the long way around Detroit back to 4th to get home. The girls did a great job of riding together, and the pandemic has traffic manageable, so it was a great time. It was under an hour total, but my hands and arms were still pretty sore by the time we got home.

I let the girls rest for a little while inside, and then we went outside to start cleaning up the yard. They were both pretty slow to get productive, but eventually we got a little bit of a fire going, at least enough to reduce some of the brush we pulled up. They pressure washed the back patio until they ran out of power cord and hose, so there was a strip of black concrete still on the north side.

Brittany stopped by to give me a few more plants and some guppies she had been breeding. I had too much going on, or I would have thought to send her on with a couple little baby shrimp. I guess they’re a little more sensitive to the alkalinity of the water anyway.

Summer came over when she got off, and brought hot dogs to cook over the fire. We spent a good long while trying to get a decent fire going in the fire pit since the logs weren’t burning well at all. It was enough to get the food warm, but it was a lot of work to maintain. I was pretty upset that some embers blew up and melted a couple holes in a couple of the cushions, but it’s all over now. I would have hoped for something a little more retardant.

As the sun went down and we lost all of our light, the girls filtered back into the house and I trudged back and forth getting everything else put away. I could barely move after being so active all day long, but I had to get a shower before bed.

…the calories too!

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The Villa My Dreams

I really didn’t want to get out of bed today, and when I finally did, I got up with some pretty bad neck pain. It worked itself out pretty quickly though as I got to work. The girls got up and ate, and I set them up with the pressure washer again.

Autumn had physical therapy, so I took her in and then went home to shower. When I picked her up, we decided we would be staying at my house for real tonight, and we’d get Taco Villa for dinner. We went to get Eaddie and packed up a few things to take to my house, and met Summer there when she got off of work.

It took me a little while to get my call into Taco Villa, but when I finally did, the girl said it would only be about five or ten minutes, so I headed out. They had the lobby wide open with a posted limit of six customers at a time. I almost didn’t recognize Chelsea in the back corner waiting for her food. I think I’d seen her maybe twice since graduation. After just a little wait, I boxed up my food and headed home.

The girls kept arguing about what to watch, so I put on an episode of New Girl while we ate. They had never had Taco Villa before, and it seemed to really fill them up. Reviews were about like I expected them to be. It’s not amazing. It’s pretty good. Sometimes you just get a craving.

After we ate, I tried putting on Brightburn, but couldn’t get it to play well. I bounced between a few things and settled on Batman v Superman just in time for everyone to feel sleepy. I put Summer to bed, and Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones before I started feeling pretty sleepy and called it a night.

Wrinkles in time, indeed.

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Go Pro or Go Home

Today was undoubtedly the most productive day of the week. I woke up to a little Animal Crossing before taking Autumn on a ride-along to get $1 roast beef sandwiches from Arby’s. We stopped by to feed Summer at work, then went back to their house to eat with Eaddie.

When we finished eating, I set the girls up with the pressure washer out back and had them clean the side of the house and the deck. They didn’t stay outside very long the first time, and Autumn came in complaining about not feeling well. She immediately laid down on the couch and started watching Harry Potter while Eaddie complained that she didn’t want to be outside alone. I gave them a few minutes inside, then made them go back out for over an hour before I’d let them back in. They got a lot more done that time, and the house looked so much better.

I eventually had to run home to clean up, then stopped by Walmart to fill some gaps for dinner. Autumn wanted to try making a copycat Chick-fil-A nuggets recipe along with some homemade macaroni and cheese. Summer got back from work shortly after I got there, and Autumn got to work on dinner. I helped a very minimal amount while Summer and Eaddie went on a run. We ended up deep frying the chicken instead of frying it in a pan, and they came out really great. Everyone was really impressed with dinner, and baking the mac and cheese with some extra cheddar broiled on top was the right decision for everyone’s lives.

Afterward, I finished WALL-E with Autumn, then started an episode of Jessica Jones with Eaddie. We quit after just one episode because we were both really tired, but then she started chatting away, so I sat and talked with her for quite a while.

Earlier in the evening, Julie started asking for my opinion on a waterproof case for her phone. I suggested a purpose-built camera instead, arguing for hours that spending more on camera was a better value than spending less to protect a phone that also has a camera on it. In reality, the resulting photos or videos will probably be seen half a dozen times before they’re forgotten in the great digital cloud vault. Such is the nature of our instantly reminiscent age. She even ended up calling me after she got tired of texting, but in the end I won because I am so smart.

So, so smart.