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Prime Age

It was cool enough this morning that I didn’t want to ride in to work again, but it didn’t take long for the sun to come out and make me regret it. I spent pretty much all day messing with 1:1 laptops, so I found myself tired, bored, and generally wanting to hang myself.

Allen was still craving KFC, but I convinced him and a bunch of others to ride with me to Brown’s Catfish for my birthday meal. I don’t know why everyone’s too bashful to actually accumulate rewards points, but I only got four bucks worth myself after my discount.

After lunch was more of the same, and I just wanted to leave more than anything else. Eventually I did, and instead of taking advantage of the day, I just went home and played some Overwatch until Summer got home. Then I stopped by Arby’s to use another birthday coupon to get her some food on the way up. I ran into Scott and Jodi there, and I hadn’t seen them in forever. I felt a little awkward just because my brain was tired. I had already started to wind down from interacting with people for the day, so I had a hard time forming small talk.

When I got to Summer’s, everyone had already wound down for the day. Summer had a rough one, so she was pretty much done for the evening. We watched what was left of her baking show, and then everyone went to bed.

Hopefully only halfway through the primes.

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That’s a Lot of Poop

Today was quite a bit cooler with heavy cloud cover. I took the Grom to work and quickly felt the chill. My morning was mostly spent talking to people that didn’t have a clue, and wanted me to figure everything out for them. I felt completely surrounded by all manner of different test sessions, and I spent over an hour just trying to understand what they all were.

I made it back to the shop just in time for lunch and convinced Allen to try IHOP with me. I had a coupon for a birthday stack of pancakes, so I tried the churro style. Both the food and service were excellent today, and I loved the renovation and design update the place had received. To top it all off, we even made it back to work with time to spare.

Holy ShitAfter lunch, I had to go back up on the lift to replace the band projector lamp again. It didn’t even last a whole day, so I stuck the pristine old one back in with the hopes that it had only failed as a fluke, along with a defective brand new bulb. I spent a little while longer running around campus until it was time to go home.

Summer was going to work late, so I poked at the shrimp a bit before starting some laundry. Then I played some Overwatch until it was done, and headed up to Summer’s for the evening.

I’ve overeaten a lot in my lifetime, but never by enough to have a me-sized turd.

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Bye Forever!

It was nice enough, and I got out of the house early enough that I got to ride the bike to work this morning. The first thing on the agenda was to get some plants planted in the new office goldfish aquarium. It’s way overstocked and way underfiltered, so I figure some plants would help as much as anything else. The rest of the day was mostly spent working on laptops while the rest of the building started on testing.

I made it back to the shop for lunch just in time to hear we were all taking Jason to Taco Tuesday for his last day. For some reason, eight of us didn’t want to squeeze into the two appropriately-sized tables, but I guess there were still open tables for others. It wasn’t a particularly sentimental moment the way that others might have been, but we enjoyed our time together. Then I rode back to the high school to chug away at more laptops.

Classes let out early for the students to watch the basketball tournament in the arena, so it was really quiet. My office got super cold super fast, and it finally got to the point that I just had to get up and leave. I went back to the shop for the last 30 minutes or so, and chatted with Ben about his plans for the department moving forward. I would have liked to just take over the position, but I also know some of who I would be up against. Instead, I think he’s really leaning into adding a second tier for us so that multiple employees can benefit from an overdue wage increase.

I rode home for just long enough to get cleaned up, and then I met Summer at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. John served us, and I shared stories of his greatness. As we left, I finally asked the best way to pay our compliments, and proceeded to submit my entry through the company’s corporate website. Summer was exhausted from work, so I got Eaddie from karate and Autumn from hanging out at the basketball tournament. We headed home and everyone settled in to bed pretty quickly. Even I was feeling pretty exhausted.

Whatever you do, do it well.

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It Must Be My Birthday

It was so nice out today with just a tiny chance of rain, but I didn’t get out of the house early enough to ride the bike in to work. The morning went by pretty quickly as I picked at things in my office. Then I had to go by the shop for a projector lamp.

Allen said he was going to Firehouse with Gary, Zach, and Jason, so I was volunteered to drive again. They had a pastrami Reuben that was absolutely killer. Then Jason dropped the bomb on us that tomorrow would be his last day. Evidently there was an opening at Atkins, and he said the superintendents agreed to let him go without having to work out his two weeks, and we were the first to find out. In all the excitement, I didn’t get a chance to make jokes about Brice coming to fill the position.

After lunch, I spent a little while riding the lift around between band rooms to change lamps and clean projectors. Then it was back up to my office for just a little bit until I was called out to identify some liquid damage to a screen, and then again down to the arena to scan the CCTV channel into a couple TVs.

The whole day really just flew by, probably in part due to how nice it was outside. I really didn’t get to spend any time in it. I went home, started some laundry and picked out some aquarium plants to take to work, then made my way up to Summer’s for the evening. I squeezed in a little Overwatch between tasks, but otherwise felt like I was just barely hanging on.

What wonderful news! I can’t wait to see how we screw it up this time!

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Little John Mountain

We got up a little early this morning so we could have a day up on Petit Jean. Summer took Autumn to get things to make sandwiches while I went home to clean up. Then the girls and my dad met at my house so we could drive up the mountain. We went up the back way and stopped at the bear cave trail first, where we had lunch in the back of the car. It was cool, but great weather to be out in the wilderness. We climbed up on some of the rocks where we found some chiseled out steps, and I collected a few mosses, and Dad took a bunch of pictures of nature. Autumn didn’t originally want to go at all, but once we were there she insisted that her knee was fine to continue trailblazing and climbing up rock faces.

The next stop was Mather Lodge to clean up a bit, and then we continued to the Cedar Falls overlook. As the day progressed, it seemed to get windier and cooler, but the rain never showed up. Summer wanted to go to a new coffee shop on the mountain, so we had some drinks while the girls played Scrabble. Then it was off to the Petit Jean gravesite. That’s where it was the coldest with the most wind. I don’t think Eaddie really put anything together in her head for the homework she had on the subject, but it was still a nice day to get out of doors. It was personally very aggravating to feel how I’ve aged since I last spent any significant amount of time hiking, and I think Dad felt the same way. I guess the best thing any of us can do is keep at it to maintain dexterity.

We took the interstate back home, which felt quite a bit longer, and definitely more boring. Dad and Summer each went home while the girls stayed with me to watch TV while I started some laundry. Once that was done, Summer came back and we met my parents at Bocadillo for a birthday dinner and ice cream. Mom didn’t seem too happy that it wasn’t the same type of Mexican place they usually visit, but I thought it was good. Afterward we got some dessert and I split a strawberry and cream funnel cake with Summer and Eaddie that was just divine.

With this year’s birthday plans out of the way, I took the girls back to their car and went to Amanda’s to check on her cats one last time. Then it was back home to finish up some laundry before bed.

I’ve really taken a lichen to you.

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Dungeons & Dragons & Knights, Oh My!

I got up this morning and warmed up some leftovers as Summer motivated the kids to start chores. Eventually she left for a manicure and the gym, and I went home to do some cleaning up myself. I had to stop by Amanda’s first to check on the cats, then went home and took care of my own. I did a little quick maintenance on the fish tanks as well, and made time for a couple rounds of Overwatch with Johnny.

The evening snuck up on me pretty quickly, and I headed back to Summer’s for our night of Dungeons & Dragons with Travis, John, and Melissa. I stopped by Dollar General for some snacks first, then we made our way up the hill. The two kids didn’t show up, but I think overall it was better for it. We had only really done one little short prebuilt campaign before, so this was our first time with character sheets and the like, and I think it stressed Travis out a little too much. We ended up quitting really early and just sat around quietly visiting for a little longer before going home.

Summer crawled into bed pretty quickly with Autumn, so I started the old musical Camelot that I picked up with some Amazon digital credits. I remembered precious little of the movie from my very early childhood, but it’s always stuck in my mind, so I figured why not burn some free credits on it. Eaddie started to watch it with us, but then almost immediately left when she realized what it was. Autumn fell asleep to it really early as well. Summer made it a little over halfway before asking if it was some kind of 4-hour feature, so we quit there.

Never be too disturbed if you don’t understand what a woman is thinking. They don’t do it very often!

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Feed Me!

We had a little training session this morning, and Ben brought little sausage rolls and donuts for us. When we finished there, Allen asked for some help picking up a cart, but wanted to stop by the middle school first. Charlotte gave us some apple dumplings and ice cream, and then one of her ladies gave me a big Salvadorian sandwich she had made that I ate on the way out to London. It ended up being a tiny cart that Allen could probably have actually fit in his car, but it didn’t matter at that point.

We got back to the shop with a little time before lunch, so I chatted with Gary for a little while. The guys decided on Fat Daddy’s in London for lunch, and I wasn’t hungry at all, but for some reason I let them peer pressure me into driving them out there. The place was completely empty when we got there, and the owner walked in right before us and said he wanted to take care of our meals, so we all got to eat for free. Being full already, I just had a bowl of chili that stuffed me over the edge. It was alright, but tasted too barbecue saucy for me.

I spent a little while in the afternoon chatting with Ben before going to the high school to finish up the day. He said we could go home at 3, but Johnny called needing some help at the aquatic center for a diving competition and I opted to try and help out. We don’t actually have anything at all to do with any of that equipment, and nobody out there really knew what they were doing or how to help me help them, so I spent a good amount of time on someone else’s iPhone talking to their IT guy. He pointed me in a few different directions, but we could never get the scoreboard to work.

With the work week over, I stopped by Summer’s to see her on the way home. She wanted me to stick around and wait for the kids, so I sat on the bench for a while and ended up video calling Suzanne to catch up for a bit since she’s been at school. The kids never showed up, and it started getting really cold outside, so I left for home and played a bunch of video games.

Bác Vân called with some TV trouble, so I went next door to help with that and she sent me home with some papaya salad. Then Jack and Johnny got on to play Deep Rock Galactic, which was weird and entertaining, but long. We ended the night with some Overwatch with Aaron and eventually Clint. Finally, I made my way up to Summer’s for bed.

Leave it to shrimp paste to ruin the day’s trend.

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Mama Don’t Take My Photochrome

I made it out of the house a bit earlier today, so I decided to try Wendy’s Breakfast Baconator. It took me longer to get across town than I really expected, so I ended up getting to work late, but it was worth it. It didn’t look like much, and for something called a Baconator I would have expected the bacon flavor to stand out more than the spicy, squared sausage patty, but it was delicious. The seasoned potato wedges were just as much of a star in this breakfast trio, especially with how hot, fresh, and perfectly crispy they were. The Frosty-ccino was okay, but nothing special.

My morning was busy with a fair amount of running around. I had to go to the arena again for a little while, and along the way I ran into Ben and Jason in the cafeteria with River Valley Home Theater. They thought it was going to be a training issue, but there ended up being a component failure in the AV cabinet. Then on the way back inside from the cafeteria, Kayla made a comment about my glasses and I had to look up my order and confirm I had actually gotten the photochromic lenses. I’m just never out in the sun with them long enough for it to have much effect.

I was going to go to IHOP with Allen for lunch, but just as I was walking out, I got a call that one of the lunch lines had malfunctioned. I ran over there to take a look and ended up staying late, so I just skipped lunch and finished my Soylent from a couple days ago. I continued working on laptops all afternoon until it was time to go.

When I got home, I started a load of laundry and played a couple ranked matches of Overwatch. One of the games was really close, with three really close matches. The other two were absolutely garbage, and made me remember why I only play the arcade mode. Once my laundry was done, I headed up to Summer’s to make burritos, and we sat down and watched Hancock as Summer reeled in pain from her day-long headache.

The only thing spicier than Wendy’s breakfast sausage is their Twitter feed!

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Turn it Off and On Again

I got to work a little early this morning, but as soon as I sat down at my desk I started in on an ocular migraine that kind of set the mood for the whole day. I didn’t feel bad really, but just kind of offbeat all day. I spent all morning working on laptops and stacking up a pile of them ready to go off to the depot service center. I don’t really want to send more than about five off at a time just for my own sanity, but the service hasn’t been particularly fast so I may have to just do them all at once. I had to stop a couple times for a rescheduled fire alarm, which also kind of threw me off for the day.

Allen was out today and I never hear from anyone else about lunch, so I just stayed in. I snacked on things in my office and just continued to work into the afternoon. Ben stopped by for an unexpected visit, and we went down to the arena to try and figure out their CCTV system. We didn’t have a good monitor with a cable tuner, but fortunately I had an old, small, flat panel TV that was scrapped for not having a backlight. It would work well enough, so we dragged it across campus with us. After climbing all around the arena more than a couple times, the fix ended up being a reboot of the computer that was already successfully transmitting data to the jumbotron.

With that fixed, we went down to the athletics office to try and track down a license for their badge making software. When it was all said and done, all she really needed was the ability to print using Publisher, so I plugged the badge printer up like a regular printer and created a Publisher template for the badge size. I had a little fun making some test badges, and then headed back up to my office to wrap up for the day.

It got super cold really fast when the sun went down. I eventually left to get gas and head up to Summer’s, but with as cold as it was going to be, I decided to head back home instead. I didn’t want to wake up extra early and sit in the cold car long enough to warm it up just to get home again. While I was getting gas, some lady pulled up a couple pumps down and asked another guy to help. She said it was a rental and that she had never gotten gas before, and I wondered how she had gone that far in life without ever pumping gas. On the way home, I stopped by McDonald’s for a Big Mac, then ended the evening with some Overwatch by myself.

And now for a lesson in m-m-m-m-m-oney management.

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Tron of the Jumbo Variety

I spent a while this morning trying to reverse engineer the closed circuit television system in the arena. I didn’t actually get it working as they expected, but I did get to control the Jumbotron for a bit in my experimentation.

Summer had a moment to get away from work and have a salad with Ronda and me at Ruby Tuesday, where the stench still lingered all through the bar area. After lunch, I mostly worked on things in my office until quitting time.

When I got home, I played a little Overwatch, did a little cleaning, then picked up the girls from karate. Summer cut up a bunch of fresh fruit and veggies for dinner, and then we had a long heart-to-heart until bedtime.

You felt the gravity of tempered grace falling into empty space.