What are Traditions: Father’s Day 2018

We got up early this morning to go to Conway for Father’s Day. Before that, we went to Harbor Freight to pick up a trailer hitch cargo carrier. Julie was running behind, so we left about 45 minutes than we planned. Mom and Dad wanted me to drive, so I got us to Red Robin for some burgers. We managed to squeak in with a relatively short wait time, and made it out just in time to get to the other side of town for the movie.

With just a few minutes to kill, we ran to Harbor Freight across the parking lot so I could get a moving blanket to wrap stuff on the cargo carrier, and then we went in to watch Incredibles 2. I don’t know if it was because I was so hot and tired, or if the movie just had a way slower pace than I expected, but I had trouble staying awake during the first half. I wasn’t the only one though, because Mom fell asleep and then woke up screaming about how she couldn’t see anything.

After the movie, we came straight home and I started putting together my cargo carrier while Summer went to the gym. As I was finishing up, Lelan texted and wanted to know if I could help Stephen with a Mavic Pro drone they were having trouble flying, so I met him at his office to see what I could do. We managed to get it airborne, and he flew it around in their big lobby area because it was a bit too windy outside to be flying near an airport. Once he was satisfied with that, I came back home to meet up with Summer for dinner and The Office.

Don’t be koi.

Caress Your Balls

A brief interruption in power woke us up really early this morning. I didn’t feel particularly tired, so I got out of bed pretty early for a Saturday. Most of this morning and afternoon was just a lazy day. I spent some more time fighting with my media server, and Summer napped for a while. We eventually got out of the house to meet up with Ronda and Steven for some Fat Daddy’s.

On our way out the door, Summer checked the mail and found my free pair of glasses from Zenni Optical, courtesy of EyeQue. They seem to have a lot of glare, even from the reflection of my own eyes on the back of the lenses. They’re fine for near-sight, but looking at anything far away seems way blurry at first. My eyes will adjust eventually, but I think they’re giving me a headache. It’s definitely time to go back to the eye doctor to find out my official prescription anyway.

After dinner, we all went to the bowling alley for a couple games. I don’t think any of us had been bowling in quite a while, but it was a good time. It went by faster than I expected it to. Steven won the first game, and then Summer squeaked by me for the win in her extra frame at the end of the second game.

We stopped by the Walmart Neighborhood Market on the way home because Summer wanted some cake, and we watched The Office until bedtime.

Yakety yak!

Dine Together; Work Alone

This Friday was in rare form. I was left by myself all day without any group work, so I finished running my 10 lines from the library to the switch closet, terminated and organized where everything came into the switch, and started setting up new computers in the library. I was pretty happy with how it all turned out overall. Summer joined a big group of us at Brick Oven for a long lunch. It took over 40 minutes to get our food, which seems typical for a party of four or more there.

Ben let me go at 2:30, so I headed home before picking Summer up at the shop. They still couldn’t find anything wrong with the A/C in her car after tinkering with it for a while, so I took her on the bike to pick it up again, then went to my parents’ house to see what they wanted to do for dinner. We landed at Pasta Grill, where Erica seated us next to an overly excited baby shower. The food was pretty good for anything I’ve had in town.

When we finally got back home, I guess my house had misunderstood a command and ended up heating the house for a little while, so it took a bit for the air conditioner to get things back to normal. Now that it’s cool again, I’m exhausted and ready to go to sleep.

One more week.

The Long Way

We got a ton of cable in today, and they finished the floors on the east side of the junior high, so it was my time to run nearly 4,000 feet of cable. It was a relatively easy run to the library, but splitting the lines up to run down individual tubes of conduit got a bit hairy. We spent literally all day working there, with a break for lunch at a barbecue cookout/vendor meetup at Elliott Electric Supply.

After work, I came home and got the house cleaned up before Summer brought Noah over. He wanted to spend the night, so she brought some Domino’s home and we watched When We First Met and the first episode of Black Mirror. Just before bed, I ran into some trouble with my file server. I’m hoping I can recover without too much trouble, but it seems to be an issue with some software. Ironically, if it had been a hardware failure with a drive, I would have had no trouble at all.

Computers are stupid.

The ol’ Taco Switcheroo

We had a really chill day at work. It started off with too many of us imaging too few computers. I went to Oakland to take care of a couple things and had a chat with Sara since she just received her Apple Pencil. It was dumb.

A bunch of us went to Taco Bell for lunch after I announced they were giving away free Doritos Locos Tacos. I didn’t read the fine print though, and the timeframe was only from 2-6pm. I felt a little bad, but then I had a chalupa cravings box and everything was better. After lunch, I spent some time helping Amanda run around Sequoyah setting up miscellaneous replacement computers in some of her rooms. I didn’t really understand why she had such a hodgepodge of models, but she didn’t seem too concerned with making it better.

We left work about 15 minutes early and I came home to clean up the kitchen. Summer stopped by for just a second before going to meet Julie for a mani/pedi. I kept cleaning until she got back, and we went to Chili’s with a bonus gift card I had. Our waitress was pretty awesome, if not a bit rushing. Overall it was a good time.

It is Wednesday, my dudes.

Pursuit of Trivia

It was mostly a pretty slow day at work. We spent most of it cleaning out computers at a few campuses. I spent a disproportionate amount of time driving when we had to visit London. Dale, Allen, and I met Summer at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salad bars. The service was pretty slow. I think only one of us ever got a refill at the table. Then the afternoon was more miscellany.

After work, I came home and started washing socks before getting ready to go to The Old Bank for trivia night. Summer wanted to meet up with Jenna, and we ended up joining forces with Summer’s Quiz Bowl cohort Johnny and a couple of his friends. It was a slow night for trivia with a substitute running the show. We placed third, and I wasn’t completely useless. My shining moment was being able to spell “szechuan.” We placed third.

All in!

Is this trash?

It was kind of an odd day at work today. I had to run to Oakland first thing to take care of some summer school stuff. While I was there, I found my tadpoles were more frog than tadpole. I’m pretty sure they ended up being leopard frogs. They’re going to have to be released in a day or two.

When I finished there, I met Amanda, Dale, and Allen at the middle school to hang a TV and clean out computers. I basically ended up dusting out an entire computer lab before lunch. I met Allen at KFC, then went back with him and Amanda to finish hanging the TV and rearrange another room. That move was so involved, it lasted until the end of the day even with all three of us. It was nice to have a group project where everyone actually kept busy.

After work, Summer and I went to pick up the betta from the library at the junior high, but Jessica had already taken it home because I took too long. From there, we went to Gardner to check out some discard stuff. We ended up taking every bit of it – two full-sized filing cabinets, two bookshelves, a kid’s table, and a couple raised monitor stands. It took us three trips to the junior high to drop off most of that, and then we took the table to Summer’s house for Eaddie. On the way, we stopped to pick up some Taco John’s because we worked up our appetites, then took it back home to eat over an episode of The Office.

There’s an ugly monster in my head that someone put there a long time ago.

The Kayak Hunt

We got up this morning and decided to go to Conway to hunt for a kayak. I texted Mom to see if they wanted to go to Sam’s, and Summer and I went to get some pork chop biscuits from Hardee’s for breakfast. She headed to the gym while I got ready, and then we went to pick my parents up when Dad got home from church. We went to Old Chicago for lunch, and the poor girl flipped my slice of pizza face-down on the table while trying to serve us. I don’t think I’ve ever had them serve the first slice, so it was a bit odd in the first place. I think I’d rather just figure that out on my own.

After lunch, we headed to Sam’s Club and wandered around. We ran into Steven there, and Summer and I started video chatting Ronda on Marco Polo while she sat in the car waiting for him. We didn’t buy a whole lot, but I did pick up a Bug-A-Salt gun, and I’m super excited to ruin some pest lives during our next cookout. I may even season some food with it. The salt. Not the bugs.

From there, we went to Dick’s to check out the kayaks. We ultimately decided to wait for a proper deal, so I’ll just have to keep watching online for a great price. We walked to Old Navy to spend some bonus money I had, then went to Marble Slab for some ice cream before heading home. We stopped for just a minute at Walmart to look at their kayaks before taking my parents home. It’s back to group projects tomorrow, and I’m less than thrilled. Vacation is coming.

Shop ’til you drop.

Got it Covered

We woke up late this morning and went to my parents’ house to help Dad clean the pool cover. We had tentative plans to grill with Jesica, but she didn’t get back in touch with me until late in the afternoon, so we swam and had soup for dinner with my parents. Summer worked up a wicked headache on top of her already injured neck, but rehydrating seemed to help that quite a bit.

When we got back home, we watched a few episodes of The Office before bedtime. I wanted to get to Maria’s sweet sixteen, but it just didn’t work out. It would have been nice to see that whole gang again.

Sick burn, dude.

Like Day and Night

I rode the bike to work today since Summer was still having her alternator replaced. It was a pretty good day for it, particularly in the morning. It wasn’t too hot on the ride in to work in the morning, and the afternoon was cool and overcast with just a few sprinkles on the way home.

Work started out a bit awkward without any real plan of action. We didn’t have enough cable on hand to do the line pulls I needed, so we started blowing out computers and projectors instead. I helped out at Dwight with Jason and Allen while everyone else found something better to do.

The three of us managed to stretch that out until close to lunch, then went to La Plaza Restaurant. Jason forgot his wallet at the shop, so I’ll have to remember to collect next week. After lunch, we swapped Allen for Amanda and went to her buildings to check the status of some rooms. The painting wasn’t done, and the electricity hadn’t been run, so the entire afternoon was basically a huge bust. Then we left half an hour early.

I made it home and started on some laundry. Summer eventually made it back and we went to get her car. While we were out, I wanted to stop by Harbor Freight to check out their sidewalk sale. In the few hours we were there, I picked up a pair of gloves to throw in the car for an emergency. Then it was back home for more productivity.

My sheets ended up getting bleached in several places by some skin cream. I was super angry about it, but in reality nobody looks at them anyway, and they still feel the same. We’re a little over halfway through The Office. It didn’t seem like it ran for this many episodes when I was watching them as they came out. I guess time really does fly.

Learn the lesson and move along.