Wild Deal Chasing

Summer got up and hit the gym. I finished a bunch of mashed potatoes and stuffing from several weeks ago. Both were accomplishments in their own way.

Once I was ready, I picked Summer up at her house and we went to Gamestop to do some Christmas shopping for the quiz bowl team’s adopted Whirlwind. They didn’t have any Nintendo 64 stuff, so we went to Game X Change and picked up a console, a couple games, and an extra controller. From there, we headed to PetSmart to look around. Summer got some turtle food, and I drooled over more aquarium stuff. I spent a good amount of time trying to accumulate enough in purchases to use my $10 off $50 coupon, but in the end I found myself frustrated with the higher prices negating the savings of the coupon, and I put everything back.

We were both pretty hungry at that point, so I ordered some snacks from Sonic that we picked up on the way back to her house. The girls arrived shortly after we did, and Autumn packed a bag for her grandparents’ place since she has a blood sugar test in the morning. Mom made curry for dinner, so Eaddie and I headed that way while Summer dropped Autumn off.

Eaddie said she had just eaten and wasn’t too hungry, but she still enjoyed some curry. Summer went a little light, but I went back a couple extra times. Then it was back to my house for the evening. Eaddie took a shower before we all sat down and watched a couple episodes of The Office before bed.

Hang on a sec. Your mom and I are trying to have a fight!

Home Sweep Home

Summer and I got up and played some more Torchlight II this morning. I put on The Christmas Chronicles for the girls while they munched on whatever they could find for breakfast. Eaddie still wasn’t feeling the best, but she pretty well kicked it by the end of the day. Evidently she had a rough night though, and I had to get my carpet/upholstery cleaner for her bed.

While I was at home, I started up some laundry, cleaned up after the cats, and did some work on the aquariums. I didn’t get to visit PetSmart like I wanted, but I guess it was just as well. I don’t have the time or space to put much more effort into my tanks anyway. I got to a stopping point and headed back to Summer’s with the cleaner, then went to my parents’ house with Julie for some leftovers.

After dinner, I headed back home and did some more laundry and picking up. There’s still so much more to do. I also got a reminder that I have to call Sunday night to find out what day I have to go to Little Rock for what I’m assuming is jury duty selection. I’m tired of coming back home to so much anxiety.

At least I was successful in my controlled laundry shrinking experiment.

Tough Pill

Just after I fell asleep, I was woken up by a call from someone looking for pills. It took me a little while to fall asleep after that nonsense, but I managed. I seem to remember having a few weird dreams though.

We didn’t really have any group projects today, but Ben wanted to go over some phone documentation with me so I’d have a clue what’s going on. Nobody else is at all interested, and I’m still trying to sponge up everything I can. Brain to marshmallow fluff, that got me almost to lunch.

Dale, Zach, Jason, and I went to Morelos for lunch. That made two days of Mexican in a row, but it was good. I had the chili verde lunch special, and it was awesome even if I missed having the salad extras they include with fajitas.

I spent the afternoon at Oakland fixing a few things, but mostly socializing before everyone left for Thanksgiving break. Then I wrapped up with about half an hour at the shop with everyone before we left a little early.

Once home, I had a couple beers and watched my Rocket League solo rank drop some more. Seriously, those silvers are pulling off some crazy moves. I feel like things have changed since I last played competitive solo very much. It wasn’t too long before Summer was home and wanted me to pick up some chicken strips for dinner, so I ran by KFC on the way up, and we wrapped up the night with an episode of Stranger Things, followed by a couple odder episodes of The Office.

Huggy time!

Call Me When It’s Over

I started off trying to finish up my printer work this morning, but was interrupted when Ben called to see if I could look at the junior high’s phone system with him. He had just gotten to my office when I noticed an email from my counselor at Oakland about an issue during Aspire testing. I failed to create calendar entries for the testing dates and completely forgot that it was happening today, so I had to drop everything and go there to sit on my hands after she resolved the issue by restarting the devices.

I sat mostly useless until lunch time when Jason texted me directly asking about lunch. I assumed he needed someone to go with so he wouldn’t be lonely, so I let him talk me into Fat Daddy’s in London, but when I got to the shop, he and Allen were outside waiting for me to pick them up. I ate some overly heavy nachos that left me dissatisfied, and then made it back to Oakland for afternoon testing.

When that finally wrapped up, I headed back to the office and tried to absorb as much information as I could from Ben as he showed me a bit about the Avaya system. I felt completely lost and overwhelmed, but I know I’m going to have to become intimate with that stuff sooner than later, so I soldiered on. After school let out, he and I went to the junior high to finish what we tried to start in the morning. Once he figured that out, he came to help with my printer issue, which we ultimately gave up on, and resolved manually on each machine.

After work, I headed home to gather things for the conference before heading to Summer’s for the evening.

‘Til you died, but you’re still alive.

Today’s Theme: Internal Conflict

I haven’t felt even close to 100% all day, and there’s always some thing or another gnawing at my brain. I had quite a bit of trouble getting out of bed this morning, but finally made my way to Oakland to play catch-up from the end of last week.

When I got back to the Gardner building, I wandered upstairs to check out the maintenance guys’ progress on gutting the auditorium seating. They were tearing everything out to haul to the scrap yard. I had, and still have strong urges to salvage a couple rows of seating to build a proper home theater. They told me to take all I wanted, but in the end I told Wesley I wouldn’t take any because I have too many higher priority projects that I’m already having trouble starting.

It would have been a pretty amazing opportunity to restore some of those seats, and they were infinitely customizable. I could have built a multi-level seating area and had a real home theater with as many seats as I could physically fit. In the end, I had to make the tough choice not to get any because I wasn’t sure that aligned with the best possible endgame – not to mention simply not having any more physical storage for something like that. Still, it felt like such a shame to let it go to scrap metal.

Insides in knots from my decision to pass up on the seating, I went to Taco John’s to redeem a reward for a combo meal. At least lunch was free today. Then I spent the afternoon at the junior high picking at random work orders to close.

After work, I went to Walmart to try Ronda’s suggestion of haggling with a manager for the electric lawn mowers. I was again conflicted, asking myself why I was there to buy a lawn mower at all. I hadn’t even mowed my lawn in years, but depending on where you look, they were originally $478, $358, or $250. The local store had them for $199.99, and with only two left, I had some dire need to have them both for under $200. They called a CSM out to help, and she said she could only do $300 for the pair. I started to text Summer for feedback, and she came down to $275, then just as quickly to $250 for both, which I accepted. I guess this was my motivation to start mowing.

From there, I went to Summer’s for some leftovers before heading home for the night. That was when I realized that the manager had actually scanned two of the gas powered mowers on my receipt, and had the maintenance guy load one of each into my car. It was an easy mistake to make with the way they were stacked on the shelf, so I guess I’ll have to go back tomorrow to correct it. It’ll be interesting to see if I can talk them into giving me a refund on top of the exchange to get my price below $200 like I wanted.

Josh, Aaron, and Justine were online when I sat down at the computer, so I played a couple really quick rounds of PUBG with them before heading to bed. With any luck, I won’t keep myself up by thinking about all those theater seats going to waste.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Life Aquatic

I had a rough start this morning, but it worked itself out in the end. Summer was worried about poor weather, so we skipped going to Clarksville and went to the Russellville Aquatic Center instead. I was still coming out of my local anxiety, so I told them to go separately and met up with them a short bit later. When I got there, I didn’t realize she had already paid my way, and ended up paying separately. We couldn’t get a refund, but after a bit of rigmarole, we were able to spend the credit on concessions that weren’t obscenely overpriced.

It was an interesting place, but it’s hard to understand how Clarksville can have such a better one. There was a floating obstacle course the kids got to take turns running, but otherwise it wasn’t much more than a couple of indoor pools. It’s not surprising to see they’re having trouble keeping the lights on.

After the swim, I went to my parents’ house to take a look at their home theater receiver and TV. So far it seems like they have a couple bad HDMI ports from a surge or something, but I’ll have to mess around with it a bit more before I know for sure.

From there, I picked up some things from work, then made it up to Summer’s for dinner. She grilled some big, thick burgers, squash, and zucchini that all turned out great. We finished with the Game of Life, then settled in for an episode of Stranger Things before everyone was pretty well tuckered out for bed.

This is annoying.

Once more, with feeling.

I may have fussed a bit this morning about always being on Team Lift. Jason broke down and said I could trade with noodle-armed Amanda if I wanted, but I didn’t want to do that to her. That shouldn’t have been my call to make. I ended up having to break away to fix something at the junior high anyway, so I had to catch up to the guys at the high school after that was done. We ended up hanging one TV twice because Dale wanted it higher after the fact. We only managed two inches higher, but every bit helped.

After hanging those TVs, we took a break for lunch. I started thinking it, and then Dale said it out loud – Western Sizzlin. We were on the same wavelength, so it was a done deal.

When we got back from lunch, and after a bit of arguing about Jason’s incorrect direction for the naming of Allen’s 90 new laptops, we touched every one of them again to correct them. I ended up hitting a wall, and nobody else was anxious to do any work as usual, so we rode it out until 3:00 and headed home.

I got home and was assaulted by anxiety-inducing emails and tried to mellow out with a couple beers. Such a wasted evening. I was tired anyway.

She’s done worse for only two inches.

One Time at Band Camp

I got up this morning and had to get ready for Autumn’s band camp concert. I hadn’t been to one since my sister played the flute, so this was a bit of nostalgia mixed with a whole lot of anxiety. I made it out alive though, and we celebrated with La Huerta.

Summer insisted on mowing the lawn in the middle of the day, so I went to get her some Powerade, then went home to take care of my own house. I was so drowsy all afternoon that I had trouble staying awake, but I managed to get some stuff done. Summer and Eaddie came over once they were done, and I snooped around my breaker box for a bit to try and find the doorbell chime. I couldn’t ever get it to power down, so I’ll probably just kill the whole house tomorrow so I can install my Nest Hello.

They watched more of The Flash while I played some Overwatch with Clint and Jack until bedtime. Eaddie’s completely obsessed with the show, and I’m a little sad I didn’t get in on it with them, but there are plenty of other shows for me to watch.

Take two Advil and wake up in the morning.

“We’re ready master.” “I’m not ready!”

Back to work. I woke up pleasantly ahead of schedule and made it to work a few minutes early. It was a pretty light day, with just a couple touch panels to install in the morning, and then the afternoon to myself at Oakland. I guess as far as coming back to work, this wasn’t too bad.

After work, I came home and set up my mini fridge. Summer came over to take me to meet Autumn at band camp for dinner, but I ended up not going. As I got the fridge set up to the point that I had to let it cool down, Mom texted for me to come clean up some leftover spring rolls. I ate and ran, coming home to fill the now-cool fridge with drinks. I ended up removing a couple shelves to get things to fit the way I wanted. It’s a silly convenience, but I like the way it looks with how it’s stocked.

Summer and Eaddie got here just as I was finishing up there, and we had some of Dad’s banana bread with ice cream before bed. I feel exhausted for what little I’ve done today.

I miss being away.

The Eaddiest Beattiest Birthday Party

We got to play real-life Tetris today, except none of the luggage disappeared when I got it perfectly loaded into the trunk of the Murano. I’m still not entirely sure how I got everything to fit. I think it was mostly the soft stuff that filled the odd empty spaces. I should invent amorphous luggage.

Once we got everything loaded up, we stopped by Boston Store in the mall to search for deals. I kept getting stuck on dress shirts and jackets, first because non-universal sizing is ridiculous, and then because even at 60% off, some of the prices were still super outlandish. I dig a brand-name thing occasionally, but not for the things I was finding. I did actually end up finding a great deal on a puffy Nautica coat and a Chromecast Ultra. I wished the store was closer to home so I could really spend some time there finding the best deals.

When we finished shopping, Eaddie decided she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese’s for her birthday. It wasn’t quite as nostalgic as I thought it might be. I think it was mostly due to the location. It was, however, a great time once we got past the eating. They have a new system for gaming where you just get a certain amount of time instead of having to spend a finite number of tokens. I think the whole experience actually lost something for not having the tokens, but at least they kept paper tickets.

From there, we headed out of town, stopping by a Harbor Freight to pick up a locking hitch pin. We made it to Chicagoland in just about the amount of time Google Maps stated, and with only minimal cursing over toll roads. Overall I think I’m just glad we didn’t die while following other traffic at 20 over the limit. Years of offensive driving habits prepared me for this.

You can’t show people how many you are anymore!