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Form Over Function

Today went by really fast. I spent a ton of time editing a PDF form so I can print on top of my depot service paperwork, because I didn’t want to waste a whole sheet of paper for every repair the way Dale did before. It felt mostly pointless in the grand scheme of things, but it made me feel better until I realized how much of my life is wasted in moments like that.

Allen texted me for lunch, so I convinced him to try Linh so I could get some hot soup on a cold day. I actually finished my whole bowl, and he liked his spicy, saucy, fried chicken thing. I stopped by the house on the way back so I could put some packages inside. Then the afternoon was more or less wasted as well. Time has been getting away from me in a bad way.

When I got home, I did a full panel of tests on my shrimp tank’s water chemistry. After months of neglect, the parameters are still great. I’ve got a ton of algae that I can’t seem to control, and the worms have exploded as well. The plants I was growing really well have started to wither away a bit, and I’m not sure why. I may have to start dosing fertilizers.

Finally, my first laptop repair has been shipped off.

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Blunt the Knives and Bend the Forks!

I got up this morning and picked up another breakfast pizza from Casey’s for the kids. It was a big hit as expected. The girls had fallen asleep in the middle of The Hobbit last night, so I played the first half of the 1977 cartoon to catch them up. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise how well they matched up, since they’re both adaptations of the same story. It became obvious which parts of the new movie were embellished and extended. The cartoon sort of just gets straight to the point, and for that reason it worked well to get everyone on the same page.

Noah had to work, so Summer took the kids and left me to spend the day at the house. I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, and just felt bored and listless for most of it. I didn’t want to do anything, either for fun or to be productive. It stuck with me all weekend, just like the last. The only thing I accomplished was stacking a tower of Soylent that arrived over the past couple days.

Summer made dinner in the evening, so I joined them for some delicious pork chops, zucchini, and potatoes. Then we watched a couple episodes of Glee before bed.

So, carefully, carefully with the plates!

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The Eagles Are Real Jerks

Summer went in to work for a little while this morning, so I left Eaddie to clean up. She picked up Noah when she got off, and I met the three of them at La Villa for lunch. We all filled up on bread, so there was plenty of food left to take home for later. They all went, at long last, to the climbing gym to fulfil her promise to Eaddie, while I went home for the day.

I felt so sleepy all afternoon and probably should have tried to nap and then be productive afterward, but the day was wasted instead. The girls went out with their father, so Summer brought Noah over for the evening, and the girls arrived shortly after their dinner. We settled in to watch The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, but the girls both passed out. I started to doze off a bit, and Summer was exhausted as well. We powered through, then went to bed.

See? Stories don’t have to be stretched out for no reason!

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Razing a Suddenstink

I got out of the house a little early today so I could pick up a breakfast pizza from Casey’s. It was a delicious bacon, egg, and cheese number that was an absolute delight to consume. Surprisingly few people took part in it, but I wasn’t upset to have a little left over at the end of the day.

Jason had vague projects for us to do, and I was to be with Allen all day, doing things for our two lost techs. The morning job was to run a new WAP line to the middle school auxiliary gym, where presumably nobody actually needs it. I was willing to climb up on top of the cinder block wall above the ceiling grid, but couldn’t hoist myself up that high while also climbing between tiles. Luckily Zach showed up to help, and we ran the line with relative ease.

Nobody seemed to like my idea of $5 salads from Ruby Tuesday, but somehow that’s where we ended up going. Ben and Zach were good with it, and Allen reluctantly let himself be peer pressured into riding along.

After lunch, Jason helped us replace a heavy, old SMART E70 with a newer touch panel. That went pretty smoothly as well, but when he left us, he forgot his backpack. When we got back to the shop, he was suspiciously apologetic about forgetting it, and wouldn’t stop going on about it. We could never figure out why that was, or why it was such a departure from his angrier attitude from the morning. He even let Allen and me go home an hour early, but nobody else seemed to get that same courtesy. Of course I actually ended up staying until 4:30 helping Zach look at a door, but the gesture was still nice.

I mostly zoned out after work, sitting at my computer tired and bored. I eventually called Suddenlink again because, in spite of their promise that my bill would be significantly lower, I was charged the same overpriced amount I’d paid for the last five months. Being after hours, every useful department was closed, and I could only speak to a heavy-accented “Adam Smith” that insisted my bill was still correct.

Summer got home pretty late, and it stormed a bit, but I eventually made it up to them. We watched a couple episodes of Glee as the weather alerts started rolling in. They got super nervous, but didn’t want to take shelter or accept my offer to stay at my house either, so I mostly just felt stupid for letting them rile me up, looking out the door to see if a tornado was coming.

I locked the deadbolt. It’s not getting in.

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The Figurer of Things

I had to learn all manner of things today. I felt spread super thin across all kinds of random and artificial fires. Everything was super urgent to everyone, and it was up to me to bring everything back down to an appropriate level. Amber’s been bombarding all of us with things since we came back from Christmas break. I didn’t even get to really touch any of the 1:1 stuff today, which has been their primary concern all week. I did get a fair amount accomplished, but every time I turned around, I had to figure out some new system. I didn’t mind it so much. If anything, it was entertaining.

Ben texted about Popeye’s for lunch, so I met him, Zach, and Allen there. I actually had a pretty good experience with my food being regular sized and not puny, and I even had a coupon. I tried to make a better decision with smaller portions, and the price was right.

Afterward, I spent a while at the shop working in the Google Cloud Directory Sync, which was something I toyed with back when it was GADS instead. With a little help, I resolved another of Amber’s hot ticket items for the day.

I spent the remainder of my day at the arena, trying to figure out why their AV equipment wouldn’t wake up from sleep. I shot off an email to who I thought was our supplier, but it sounds like that was a bad lead. More figuring tomorrow, I guess.

I didn’t get to spend very much time at home before I had to run to Walmart for some dinner. Summer wanted to grill burgers, and had to get the girls late, so I picked up a couple things and headed to the house to start the prep. The girls weren’t feeling up to helping a whole lot, but Summer did manage to help enough to get everything ready at approximately the same time. I grilled a bunch of bacon and made massive hamburgers, and felt a particular pride when even Autumn got up from dinner with a clean plate, especially after I had gotten adventurous with the burger patties.

Summer and I finished the evening with another episode of Glee. I hadn’t forgotten how that show made me have the occasional feeling, so I’m glad to commit to finishing it for once.

And somehow I managed to fit the whole thing into my mouth.

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MRW I Drive to Little Rock to Park the Car

I went in to work for the first half of the day today, and did a mix of working on 1:1 laptops and running around closing work orders. Then around lunch time I left to pick up Summer and Autumn to take them to Little Rock for Autumn’s checkup. I crammed a bunch of leftover veggies into my gullet before we left since I wouldn’t have time for any other lunch, and we made our way out of town.

When we got there, it was early afternoon and there was nowhere to park. At one point I blocked traffic for nearly five minutes waiting for someone to pull out of their spot, and then someone else immediately pulled up and stole it. Being in the parking lot for a children’s hospital, I did my best to maintain my composure and drove around some more looking for another spot. Luckily I found another person leaving, and managed to squeeze the Murano in with just a few inches of clearance on either side. I decided to just wait in the car since it had already been a while since the girls were called back, and before I knew it they were ready for me to pick them back up.

Summer didn’t have any other plans, so I just drove them back toward home. We stopped in Conway so I could get a carwash, and then split a cheeseburger and three chicken strips three ways at a place called The Original Pies & Fries Shop. We did not get any fried pies, but the seasoned fries were pretty good and I did try a sample pie on our way out. The samples were there when we came in, and there’s no telling how long they had been sitting there before we arrived, so the mini spoonful I had wasn’t very good. The burger was great, though expensive after paying an extra buck for cheddar cheese.

We passed a ton of police along the way home, and they had the eastbound Atkins exit closed down for some reason, but I have no idea what was going on. I called Jason to let him know he should take an earlier exit going home, and continued on to drop the girls off at home. I went back to work for about an hour to finish up something I had started in the morning, then went to my parents’ house for dinner. Summer got Eaddie from her afterschool activities and met me there for dinner, and then we split off back home for the evening.

I felt accomplished with another load of laundry and a clean cat box, so at least there’s that.

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Let them Sweat

I went to work this morning and pretty much devoted the entire day to 1:1 laptops. I didn’t take a lunch break or anything since I had brought some leftover pizza. By the end of the day, I had returned six laptops. More were nearly finished, but the day was over.

Back home, I did a load of laundry before going to get the girls from karate. Then we went by my parents’ house to pick up some banana bread before heading up to their house for the night. I dug out some leftovers and we watched a couple episodes of Glee until bedtime.

Nothing like doing a bunch of work to really make you feel like you haven’t accomplished anything…

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Soylent Hill

I slept pretty well last night and successfully made it back to work. It was a slow day, and I spent most of the morning at the shop just watching things slowly roll in. Eventually I made it to the high school to look at the sign again, and managed to get it working. I didn’t want to drive around, park, and walk all the way in just to turn around and head back to the shop a few minutes later, so I left and chatted at the office some more.

Ben was surprisingly the only one that wanted to go out for lunch after Zach bailed on me for some other plans. I gave him a few options, and he picked Linh where we had the combination lunch special. We actually made it back in the hour, and then I went straight to the high school to finish the day. I got a rash of emails for reassigned work orders, and it all ended up being from Amber, evidently sick of looking at the 1:1 devices in her queue. I got a little mad, especially with the way she told me it was time to “start adulting.” I stewed on it a bit as I toyed with Web Help Desk, but saved that conversation for later.

Suzanne texted that she was starting school next week, so she decided to come by while I did some chores at the house. She watched shrimp and played with the cat while I did laundry and dishes. As she got hungry and pondered dinner, I got to a stopping point and we decided to go to Linh for dinner. As we drove up, she remembered they were closing soon and didn’t want to rush out, so we ended up at Bocadillos for some tacos. She had never eaten there before, so she tried an assortment of tacos while I tried the torta. It was pretty good, but overall a pass for the future because it was nothing compared to the Cubana from La Plaza.

We finished up with some ice cream and a mangonada, and headed back to my house so she could go home. I folded my dried laundry and headed up to Summer’s for the evening where we watched another episode of Glee. As she went to bed, I stayed up and stockpiled enough Soylent while it was on sale to last us through the year.

Now remember – if the balloon pops, the noise makes the angels cry.

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The Finale of Skywalker

We got up this morning and watched The Last Jedi while snacking on leftovers. I took a shower while Summer and Eaddie went to the gym, and then we left for Conway to see the final episode of this new trilogy.

We had a bit of time to kill, so we walked through Dollar Tree for a little while before walking to the theater. Autumn didn’t seem to have any trouble on her crutches for that little distance, so hopefully she doesn’t fuss too much about being back at school. I enjoyed the movie, and though a ton of it seemed like fan service, I felt like it did a pretty good job of wrapping up this new trilogy. I would have liked to see the new characters developed a bit better, but I guess we have the wasted second episode to blame for that.

It was dark by the time we got out of the theater, so we headed straight back home. I dropped the girls off and went home for the night so I could get ready for work again in the morning.

It hardly seems fair – I’d only just forgotten the sound of my alarm.

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Scheduling Flop

I had to force myself out of bed a little earlier this morning in preparation for my return to work. Dad made banana pancakes, but Autumn didn’t want to go with me, and Eaddie didn’t answer her phone, so I went by myself. After breakfast, I picked Eaddie up and took her home before going home myself.

I froze all day long in my house, and could barely get anything done. I just sort of milled around all afternoon, picking at random things until I finally took a shower. Then I started messing with my new Cardo Packtalk system to try and figure out what buttons did what in the new firmware. I found it to be incredibly frustrating since they made so many changes from the manual to this firmware version. Hopefully I figured it out well enough to at least use the stupid thing more than once.

When Summer got home, we started talking about our plans to see The Rise of Skywalker tomorrow. Eaddie had her heart set on the climbing gym again, but the movie has been dropping off quickly in popularity and I wanted to see it before it left 3D XD. Summer hadn’t seen episodes seven or eight, but after we started The Force Awakens the girls remembered they had watched them with their father. Autumn went to bed partway through, but Eaddie begrudgingly toughed it out through most of it.

We’ll pick up The Last Jedi tomorrow before we leave town, and then hopefully The Rise of Skywalker can make up for how disappointed it makes me.

[STARES SILENTLY]