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It’s a Match?

Allen and I were sent off to do some finishing work at Crawford today. Evidently Jason had trouble toning out a line the other day, so I had to do it. The second task was to set up a touch USB line over Cat-5, and it was actually already set up, but plugged into the wrong port. All of that took us until lunch time, but I think most of the truly heavy lifting was giving relationship advice to Allen.

The two of us went to Wind Taste for lunch, so I’ll owe him lunch again. Then the afternoon was spent with Jason cleaning up and rearranging rooms at Center Valley. They got new cubbies and cabinets in several of the rooms, which necessitated some cable relocation. We were overstaffed with three, and with Jason we didn’t even have all of the equipment we needed in one trip, so I had to run back to town once, and then we’ll have to go again tomorrow.

After work, I rode home and waited for Summer to drop Eaddie off, and we watched a couple episodes of Daredevil. When Summer got back from the gym, we went to my parents’ house for dinner, and that pretty well burned up the last bit of the day. Eaddie and I finished the evening with one more episode, and then it was bedtime.

As I started my evening routine, I noticed an email from match.com confirming a new account setup. Having never even visited the site before, my internal alarms started going off, and I immediately went through the process of “forgetting” the password so I could gain control of the account. There didn’t seem to be any profile information there, and it wasn’t even set up with my name – only my email address. Evidently I was a male seeking another male in Colorado. Once I gained control of the rogue account, I shut it down and went on to bed. I have to admit I was a little curious what would have happened if I had left it open for a day, because it appeared as though they require some kind of review process before anything is actually posted to your profile, so it’s possible there was some information provided for it. I’m fine with not existing as a weird, gay impostor on the internet.

This is a weird form of identity theft.

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Geoffrey the Friendly Zombie

When we got up this morning, Summer got the girls ready to leave with their father and I went home to clean up. I messed around with the aquariums a little first though, and I seem to be missing my last big gold mystery snail. I can’t find it in the tank anywhere, and every time this has happened before they’ve ended up dead. I wish I knew why, because this one always seemed quite active.

Once out of the shower, I headed back to get Summer, and we met Travis, John, and Melissa at La Huerta for lunch. It was John’s birthday, so he got to wear the Panchito hat. It was even funnier because his family came in with their kids and sat right behind us. I was surprised to see they made their own fresh tortillas there, so we’ll have to go back more on account of the deliciosity.

We were a bit early for our escape room, so we chatted outside under a pun tree for a while. Once we got in, we suited up with our flag football belts to prepare for the zombie actor experience. I was a little overly worried about moving too quickly through the room after what the hostess said, and I think overall I would have preferred the event without the actor, but it did make for an entertaining visit with the group. Overall it was a really good time, though I felt bad for the guy in the rubber mask. I thought for sure it would be makeup, but no such luck. He ended up helping us on a couple clues, possibly because the hour was just too much for him.

We beat the room with just a few minutes remaining, and then went our separate ways. Summer and I cleaned up a bit at her house and then headed back to my place to practice riding the Grom, but Mom texted with spaghetti and we had dinner instead. I hit a wall of exhaustion while we were there, but woke up enough for a couple chores before bed.

Oh, I only have to clean up everything.

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Gotta Spend Money to Save Money

I slept in a bit this morning since Summer had to work. When I got up, I made some tacos out of leftover beans, cheese, and veggies, and then the girls and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones. After that, I headed home to clean up before Summer got home. I ended up having to do some water changes in a couple of the aquariums, and I think one of my black skirt tetras that got stuck in Spongebob’s pineapple window may be on its way out. I guess they are pretty old by now, since I got them second-hand about five years ago. I don’t have a clue how old they were when I got them from the random Redditor.

As soon as I was cleaned up and ready, I headed up to Summer’s with my mango tree since it seemed not to be doing so well since my air conditioner was replaced. They walked out the door as soon as I got there, so we didn’t waste any time getting to Conway.

I had $30 in rewards to use at Dick’s, so we picked up a paddle for Summer’s kayak, then went on down the strip to let the girls do some back to school shopping. It was the start of the tax-free weekend, so Summer picked up quite a bit of stuff for them. By the end of it all, we were all pretty hungry and agreed on Golden Corral for dinner. We all stuffed ourselves and then headed out for one last stop.

We dropped the girls off at Books-A-Million to let them wander through that shopping center while we went to Sam’s. I wanted to pick up some hanging shop lights for the garage since it’s incredibly dark out there. I may have gotten too many, but it will be nice to have when I need it. We made one last stop at PetCo to check on their shrimp inventory before heading back home.

Summer and Autumn went straight to bed while Eaddie and I finished up the first season of Jessica Jones. Then we got one episode of Daredevil season 2 in before Eaddie was too tired to go on.

I mean, why not just “Snuffcarcass?”

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All Passed Out

I barely slept a wink last night, after rolling and tossing around all night. I had a pretty good kink in my back for the longest time, and I just hurt all over from the lack of rest. The show had to go on though, with a full seven hours of straight laptop handouts. We had our biggest rush first thing in the morning, and then they just came in waves the rest of the day. It seemed to die a bit around lunch time, but then we got a big rush right after. I think next year Al wants to cut it down to the same time slots we had for the seniors and juniors.

Melinda brought us some Umami and I had the hibachi ribeye, which was waaaaaaaaaay less greasy than Sumo. I could actually taste individual flavors instead of an overpowering, oily salt block. Ben brought Heather and Amanda in the morning, but it wasn’t really busy enough to warrant all three of them, so he cut Amanda loose after lunch. We wrapped things up at the usual time, and I worked on a couple things to finish up the day.

I came home to rest a while, and had just enough ambition to finish up my tiny sump aquarium. I dug out the Black Diamond sandblasting media and washed it up to use for a substrate cap. I think ultimately I added too much soil and water to the tank yesterday, because dropping the sand in seemed to make it mix unevenly with the potting soil instead of letting it layer evenly on top. After cleaning up the floaty bits, it actually looked pretty nice though. I trimmed a few varieties of plants and got it planted. I doubt the stock lighting will be enough to really grow much, so I added another light to give it a little kick start.

Finally, I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie and I watched a few episodes of Jessica Jones while I had my fourth wind, and then I headed to bed.

Who dresses these kids???

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Little Fiero Bro

Today was junior laptop handout day, and Zach and Gary came to help again. It was quite a bit busier than yesterday, but still wasn’t much work for us. Things go really smoothly in the library, and they pretty well have a system down at this point. Melinda brought us Stoby’s for lunch, but I don’t think she stuck around to eat like yesterday since I didn’t see Ben around with her. It was a good ramp-up day to get us to tomorrow’s all day event with the sophomores.

After work, I came straight home and started taking care of the fish. I got the new sump tank cleaned up a bit better and started getting ready to dirt it when a kid came by on a bicycle and wanted to talk about the 87 Fiero GT Fastback. He was super excited by it, and seemed to want to try and help work on it with me so he could buy it from me later. I mentioned Summer’s desire to work with the high school to get an intern at her shop, and he seemed really excited about that too. I texted him back when the girls got here to see if he wanted to come talk to her, and he replied instantly that he was already here. She talked to him a little bit, and then he hung around and looked over the car some more while I sifted potting soil.

As it got dark, he went along his way and I came inside to watch Jessica Jones with Eaddie before bed.

Clockwork Congestion

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Looking for a Handout 2019

Senior laptop handout day was finally upon us, and overall things went swimmingly. Gary and Zach came to help, but we really didn’t even need two more people there. My intern was pretty worthless, which was super disappointing. I would have liked for him to try and be a little more involved, and maybe he was just too shy, but I expected him to do more than sit in a chair by himself on the other side of the room for five hours. He was willing enough to help if I gave him a direct request, but otherwise he just didn’t have any ambition for anything at all.

Ben and Melinda brought Papa John’s for lunch, and we pecked at it while we worked. We ended up handing out just over 200 devices, which I’m told is good for seniors. Evidently a lot of them just wait until the start of school to get them. Tomorrow should be busier, and then Friday will be an all-day affair with kids that are brand new to the 1:1 program. At least they’ll be people I recognize, so I think that will help.

After we finished with the laptop handout, I went back to the shop to help Gary, Zach, and Ben re-rack some server equipment. We were able to eliminate one rack entirely in our consolidation, though in the end I’m told that some of the stuff we moved is only temporary until we can move it to another campus. It would have been nice to just move it once, but I guess that’s not how we do things. I was really happy to get to play with it though, so I shouldn’t complain too much. It was fun in spite of how much work it was, and really I didn’t have to do any of the really hard stuff.

I went straight to Summer’s house when I left, and brought the leftover pizza for them. I ate Autumn’s leftover sandwich from her boxed lunch last week, and then came back home for a quick unwind and early bedtime.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

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Shrimp Berries!

Things got off to a rough start this morning. Jason started rambling incoherently about moving carts and laptops around in about a dozen different ways, giving us more odd counts and half measures than any of us could keep track of. Four of us kind of looked at each other, so I spoke up and said he should write it down or something, to which he responded that I should take notes. Then he started talking down at us like we were all idiots for not understanding what he was trying to communicate. That pretty much got everyone in a foul mood all day, but we eventually got things written on the whiteboard and divided up into groups.

Just as Allen and I were hooking up the trailer, Jason called to tell us to stand down because the middle school was actually hosting active shooter training today, and that we would instead spend all day on work orders. Heather, Gary, and I decided we would work together to clean up the junior high while Allen left to work on his “50 work orders” by himself.

From that point on, I was just kind of more annoyed to be there than anything. Heather kept pestering me about selling things on GovDeals while I was already still annoyed by all of my things she had been throwing away while I wasn’t there. It kind of felt like she spent most of the morning on the phone anyway, but I tried not to hold that against her since I know she spent at least some of that time trying to help Melinda in her new role. I just tried to stay busy by myself.

Allen and I met up at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads, and then he left me about 15 minutes early because he’s paranoid about getting back to work on time. I finished cleaning up at the junior high and finally left to get some of my own things done at the high school. I was already feeling a little overwhelmed with all the new people, learning the layout of the campus, and just the logistics of working on computers that may or not even actually exist in the building when I finally get a chance to come work on them. I did have a fair moment in the office which made me feel a bit better, and they gave me a name tag for the first time in the district.

I finished up work and headed home where I found Eaddie sitting around on her phone surrounded by half-eaten crackers in the cushions. Their couch is always so disgusting, and I envisioned the same kind of foodstuffs crammed into mine if I let her hang around my house for too much longer. I don’t think my general fatigue really let me express how displeased I was, and I’m not sure how much it would have mattered anyway. She had karate but didn’t bring her bag, so we had to run to their house before I could drop her off. Then I went and spent about an hour wandering around Walmart just hitting all the aisles I never get to visit with everyone else in tow.

Summer finished up at the gym and got Eaddie home, so I went to Lowe’s to recycle some compact fluorescents and finally caught up with them to help dig out some leftovers for dinner. We watched an episode of Parks and Rec just to keep it short, and I headed home to relax.

As I replaced one of the bulbs on my shrimp tank, I noticed I had two berried females and started researching breeding. Hopefully in about a month I’ll see some little babies. Wouldn’t that be neat.

I should just let them go, but!

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Progress Monitor

I squeaked in to work this morning by the skin of my teeth. Really I was actually late, but nobody noticed. I don’t know what happened. I lost a couple minutes somewhere too late in the game and just couldn’t make it back up. I guess I paid for it by having to load two trucks worth of monitors when Jason took Amanda and Allen with my first truck to the high school with a 30 count, and then sent me with Heather to the junior high with 90 to replace. Heather was hungry, so we stopped for jalapeño kolaches and an apple fritter. Gary joined us as well, and we got one lab done and another started before lunch.

Allen was the only one that wanted to go eat, and without any better ideas, we settled on McDonald’s. I tried the Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger from Spain, which tasted okay but was way too messy for what it was. In the end I would have preferred a Big Mac. In spite of the decent taste, the whole thing was oversauced and greasy in a way that left me just barely gurgling the rest of the entire day.

Back at work, I got some help to load up one more truck bed with the last pallet of monitors. The three of us got about halfway into the second lab when I had to leave for a doctor appointment. I hesitate to call them doctor appointments now though, since I haven’t actually spoken to a doctor in about two years. Almost unsurprisingly, they had me fill out a bunch of paperwork again because they “got a new system.” At least there seems to be an online portal now that may help with tracking some of this that I’m dealing with.

After about an hour of that and scheduling a regular appointment for six months later, I went back to the junior high and we finished the last lab with just enough time to get back to the shop for quitting time. Amanda and Allen even joined us for the last couple monitor swaps at the end. I chatted with Ben for a little bit after work, and then went home to find a hungry Eaddie with no phone or enough sense to eat the frozen sausage biscuits. She opted for the bike, and I took her to Arby’s for a sandwich and a orange cream shake.

We started an episode of Jessica Jones and waited for Summer to get there so we could go to the park again. Eaddie and I both hurt from riding bikes yesterday, and Summer let herself get aggravated with the Grom, which never helps. After about an hour we had all had enough and came back home. They went home to clean up while I did some cleaning at home myself, and then they came back so we could finish our episode before bed.

Pancho is now the machoest tecknikken!

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Slow Grind

I got up a little earlier today and started picking at the house again. It was cooler out, so I tackled a pile of stuff in the floor of the garage, organizing things as I went along. I’ll still have to find permanent homes for everything, but at least now most of it’s out of the floor and in boxes. I even threw away some stuff, like a box of tractor-feed paper.

Summer fried chicken for tacos, but I felt to gross and dirty to get out right then. Eventually I gave in to the hunger for fear of not eating and getting stuck with a late lunch/early dinner mess of a schedule. Just as I left the house, Summer rounded the corner with some tacos, so I came back and ate at home before digging back into the garage.

The day creeped along, and I slowed down as things got hotter. It finally got to a point where I no longer wanted to be outside, so I came in to shower and then headed up to Summer’s for dinner. She pan-fried some fish for fish tacos and made an avocado sauce to emulate what I described to her from Bocadillo. Autumn skipped out and went to spend the night with her grandparents, so Summer, Eaddie, and I got to split it one fewer ways. Then we watched Aziz Ansari: Right Now before heading back to my house.

It was finally time to get Summer on the bike, so she and Eaddie rode their bicycles to the park and I caught up to them on the Grom. Then Eaddie and I rode around in circles while Summer practiced starting and stopping in a straight line. The more I watched her, the more I wished I had a bike like that when I was learning. All of the bikes I’ve ever owned were way more top-heavy, and made it more difficult to balance. The Grom is so puny that even when she stalled or accidentally revved the throttle in a stop, she was able to land on both feet. Dale and Neletta spotted us out there and stopped to chat for a minute, which was really nice. I hadn’t seen him since he left, and had been meaning to call.

As darkness approached, we all road back home and put everything away. Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones while I did a load of laundry before bed.

That was a weird comedy show.

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The Militant

I slept in super hard today and missed lunch with Autumn. When I did finally wake up, I got showered and took Eaddie with me to Autumn’s graduation ceremony from the Law Enforcement Explorers program. Dad met us there too, and we got to see their small group do a few vaguely military-like things. It seemed a little generic, and probably not as structured as some of them needed, but I was proud of Autumn for doing something intentionally difficult.

When we left, Summer wasn’t feeling great but the rest of us were hungry, so I took all three kids to Zaxby’s for BOGO Big Zax Snak meals. They were a bit mouthy on the way, but once we got seated the conversations cooled down a bit and we all had a good time. Noah had to work in the evening, so we headed straight back to Summer’s after our late lunch. He and I played a bit of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 while Eaddie hid in her room and Autumn showered.

I wanted to get some things done around the house, so I took Noah to work, then headed home for the evening super early. I didn’t have any primary focus, but continued to peck at the laundry and kitchen areas all night. The garage is still so overwhelming to look at, but I’ve got to tackle it tomorrow so I can park there again.

Gotta review those statements.