Tag: cleanup on aisle 5

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Interview Season

I let myself sleep in a while since I was up so late, but I still wanted to get up early enough to shower before my phone interview. I had leftover waffles for breakfast while Summer was at work, and then went outside to clean up after the dogs. They had gotten into a bag of potting mix and dumped it all over the porch, and at some point they also killed a possum. I cleaned up some poop in the yard, but I’d have to borrow a better shovel to dig a hole for the possum.

Eaddie went out with her friend Autumn once they got up. I sat down for my interview with DeepNet, and as the appointment time passed, I saw an email from the lady saying she couldn’t make it due to a family emergency. Fortunately I also made the shortlist for a job with Moodle, and the pay should be comparable to what I’ve been making. It’d be nice to get a raise, but not having to leave the house will save me some money and a lot of time.

Dad was mowing the lawns across town and wanted help moving a display case out of Bác Vân’s house, so I called Eaddie back with my car and headed over. The restoration people were also there to fix the drywall in the front bedroom, but I didn’t see much of them. It took some work to air up the tires in an old dolly to move the case, but we got it into his car and then I headed back toward home. I stopped and saw Mom along the way to borrow a shovel. Summer was home when I got there, so I sat with her for a little while.

Mom had leftover pork chops and noodles for dinner, so Summer and I headed over for that. We tried to get Eaddie to walk the dogs over, but she insisted that she couldn’t, and I drove back home to take them on the Onewheel while she drove over. We got there, I tied the dogs up, and then Summer and I went for a swim. Eaddie yelled at me for disciplining the dogs for being bad around the cat in the yard, and I got mad at her for speaking out of turn when I’ve been the only one to actually try and fix their behavior.

From there, the girls went home and I continued around the block with the dogs. They were still pulling really hard and trying to chase things, but we made it home alive. Everyone went to bed pretty quickly after that.

Sleep time.

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Cook and Clean

Summer had to go to work today, and Eaddie spent the entire day locked away in her room. I got up and made some eggs with RO★TEL® for breakfast, which was great. I went out to see the dogs for a bit, and they were relatively calm, though I discovered someone had chewed up one of my grill covers and ripped the VELCRO® off completely on one side.

I cleaned up around the house and cleaned up a whole lot in the kitchen before Summer got home. Then she went out to do some yard work. Dad needed some help removing the diving board to work on the pool light, so I took the dogs for a run to their house. The dogs did great, but the bolts were completely rusted, so I took the dogs back home and got my impact wrench. We just ended up snapping the bit though, so we ran to Leonard’s to get an impact bit that did the exact same thing.

Failing that, I rode back home and finished some leftover pasta for dinner. Then I laid on the couch with Summer for a while and started to doze off a bit. I tried getting to bed super early, but just barely made it after 10. The dogs have their neuters in the morning, so I had to make sure they didn’t have any food or water after midnight. Then it was off to sleep.

Unparked

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Walk and Roll

I slept fairly well after a long day yesterday, and got up at a decent hour to make some breakfast for myself. Summer got up and found that Stilgar had pulled the fountain apart and chewed up the spout and the intake filter. After feeding them, she took the dogs for a walk and then went to the store with Eaddie to get stuff to make burritos for dinner. I went through boxes of stuff to try and make room to bring home more stuff from the old house. My office badly needs to be organized, especially in case I actually get one of these work from home jobs.

Summer went to the gym, and then took Eaddie out to walk the dogs again in the afternoon. I started cooking some refried beans in the Instant Pot, and eventually got the taco meat going as well. We had to send Eaddie to the store for olives and tomato sauce, and then Dad rode a bottle of fish sauce over on his bicycle.

Dinner turned out pretty good, and afterward I took the dogs for a slow ride on the Onewheel. It wasn’t miserably hot by then, and they did much better than Friday night. We rode to my parents’ house and I kept them on a short leash. Then we took a different route home through Promenade Circle. They got a little slow, but overall did really well.

Once we got back home, I finished putting away the leftovers and started getting ready for bed. It wasn’t as late as I thought it was, but I still didn’t get to bed early on account of some dawdling and some email and bill housekeeping.

You have to separate them by color, just as people should be!

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Grills Night

Everyone got up and cleaned house this morning so Eaddie could have a friend over for the night. Summer did the lion’s share, and baked a strawberry cheesecake on top of it all while I milled back and forth doing the odds and ends, and cleaned up outside around the dogs. We talked about possibly grilling some food, but my parents also wanted to go out to dinner for their anniversary.

Eaddie eventually went to get Jenny, and then we all went to my parents’ house so the girls could swim, and Summer and I took my parents to meet Julie and Kevin at Pasta Grill. The food was pretty good, but I think I had the same thought last time in that I had enough other stuff to support about three times as much pasta. Everyone ended up taking some leftovers home.

When we got back to my parents’ house, Mom came out with a stick and started knocking over the hundreds of mushrooms that were sprouting all over the front yard. I thought they looked really cool, and several of them Googled as edible, but nobody was brave enough to try them. I hated that Mom wanted to eradicate them.

The girls wanted to swim for a bit longer, so Summer and I headed home. I took the dogs out for a run around the block, and the girls were home making their dinner when I got back. Summer and I settled in to watch X-Men: Apocalypse, and finally it was off to bed.

Each generation has cried out for a new world, but has built the same the old one: Corrupt and weak.

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Take a Stand

I actually woke up pretty early today, but made myself go back to sleep to catch up on some hours. Eaddie eventually got up, so I made us French bread bacon and egg sandwiches, which turned out super delicious. Then we played with the dogs for a bit before I took a shower and went to the old house to pack up some more stuff.

Dad was over there working in the yards, and helped me load up the last TV stand I had over there. Then I loaded a couple other bigger things into the car before coming back in to pack a box while I called Optimum to cancel service. That phone call was a whole ordeal, as it usually is, and I ended up keeping it for now, with two months of free service, a lower bill for a year, and a subscription to HBO Max.

I finally headed back home just as Summer was coming home from work. Eaddie was gone when I got there, but I got everything unloaded, and Summer showed up just in time to help with the TV stand. She got started on the dinner she started to make yesterday, and Eaddie brought Eli over for dinner. I fed the dogs while I was outside, and Muad’Dib kept wanting to be fed kibble-by-kibble, which I was happy to do. Dinner was great, and then we watched X-Men: Days of Future Past before bed.

The hunt is back on.

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Ground Beef Week

I was super groggy again this morning after taking nighttime medicine. I knew better, but I just felt so gross last night. I did manage to make it to work on time, since the traffic hasn’t been bad now that school is out. It was another quiet day all to myself, and I spent nearly all of it cleaning the office. I figured out a stupid imaging problem I had, because I had disabled a step in the task sequence that was causing trouble previously. That allowed me to set up a “guest” workstation for new teacher setup and the like.

The cafeteria has been on a hamburger meat kick, with burritos on Monday, tacos on Tuesday, and Frito chili pies today. I doubt we’re having actual hamburgers tomorrow, because I’ll bet that’s too much work for the small number of people they’re feeding.

Ben called at the end of the day to check in and confirm he’d be coming to visit tomorrow. We chatted for a little bit as I packed up to head home. The girls were hungry, so I picked up some Domino’s after I fed the fish. Just as we sat down to eat, someone knocked on the door wanting to sell us a security system. Summer struggled to turn him away, and now I’ll be worried he’ll rob us.

After dinner, Eaddie and I watched an episode of Better Call Saul before bed. She was struggling with a head cold as well, so I guess it’s just going around.

S’all good, man.

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Pint of Alements

I woke up feeling pretty rough, with a worse throat and somehow a dry tongue. Summer wasn’t feeling well either, but we were both hungry, so I got up and made some eggs with bagels for breakfast. Afterward, Summer said the bedroom fan was being super noisy, so I looked again and saw that it had walked across the ceiling a bit. I climbed up onto the bed and found that one of the two mounting screws had come out. There were two holes that were both completely stripped out.

Around that time, Dad wanted to borrow my pick set to extract a gasket. He rode a bicycle over and got them, and then I rode the Onewheel over to their house to find a larger screw from his jars of screws. That made quick work of the fan, but the other side didn’t look to be in great shape either. It’ll probably be a good idea to replace that screw too.

Summer had been thinking about going to Conway for the day since she had to get some work stuff from there before Monday. By the time I had a shower and was ready to do anything, she had become aimless, which frustrated me. I ended up taking her to the old house to pick up some more stuff in the Pathfinder. We took three trips, but never at capacity. We had room on the porch for the outdoor chairs though, and also picked up a couple UPS batteries. On our last trip, I replaced the thermostat so I could ship the old one back in exchange for the replacement I got.

We were hungry for an early dinner by then, so we went to Stoby’s for one of the worst meals we’d ever had there. My burger was dry to the point that it was burnt, and so incredibly salty and dry that it was just hard to choke down. Summer’s pasta was watered down and lacked its usual creaminess. I kind of wanted some possum pie, but I was afraid to try it after that meal.

We were both feeling pretty rough by the time we got home. I still had a massive headache, which I figured was likely from blood pressure. I took some medicine for that, started some laundry, and came out to watch a movie. Unfortunately X-Men: Days of Future Past was no longer on Disney+, so I ended up playing The King’s Man since I loved the first two in the series and had never seen this one. I didn’t think it was nearly as good as the other two, but it had some really good moments.

I guess I’ll try to get up and be the motivator tomorrow.

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Biscuit Bitec Boat Check Boot

I considered working a partial day today, but my headache from last night carried over and I figured I had days to burn. I got Summer up so we could grab some Hardee’s for breakfast, but by the time we both got there and got the food, I was worried about making it to Morrilton in time. Summer took her chicken biscuit and I ate mine on the drive.

The interstate was more boring than a drive through the county, but speed and distance work out to about the same commute, minus stupid Dardanelle and school traffic. I arrived with enough time to spend a few minutes in the holding area before I met with Joel and David.

The interview itself was much more conversational than I expected. I anticipated at least some questions, but I think it really was just getting to know each other and getting a feel for culture fit. Everyone there seemed pretty relaxed, and the few interactions I saw seemed really pleasant. It’s almost odd to me coming into a place with people that know some of the stuff that I do, especially when it’s not really their primary job function. We talked a bit more about future plans, and then I got to take a short tour of the plant. Overall I thought it went pretty well.

When I got back to town, I stopped to see Summer at the wash, and she still looked pretty sick. I headed home and she left work a little later. When Eaddie was done with school stuff, we checked her out early so we could go to the DMV and register the Pathfinder. While we were there, I remembered that I had my boat registration at home, which couldn’t be done online. I raced to get it so we could take care of everything in one trip, but then realized I needed a picture of the hull identification tag. This was strange to me since last time they made me get a new one because they wouldn’t accept the original 4-digit tag. I called Dad and had him take some pictures for me, though I was just able to find my old pictures at almost exactly the same moment. Ultimately, I was told that they actually reverted that rule and could have accepted the old ID if we hadn’t already gotten a new one.

The girls were hungry after that, so we ran by the bank and then stopped at Foodie’s for a late lunch or early dinner. I was super disappointed in my burger, which looked awesome in the picture. The girls liked their gyros alright, but Eaddie thought her lamb was too tender and we ended up splitting our meals in half and swapping.

We were going to go shopping for snacks for Eaddie’s trip, but decided to just go home and start packing her stuff instead. We already had a bunch of snacks stockpiled anyway, so we figured she could pick from that first. I rode the Onewheel to see my parents, but they weren’t home, so I came back and waited for Eaddie to finish so we could go clean up the Pathfinder.

We went to the wash and did a quick detail of everything inside. Then we used the cleaner and some elbow grease to get some of the sap off of the hood and front bumper. The car was nearly unrecognizable afterward. I think Eaddie was the most surprised, and she actually got excited about it for the first time. From there, we ran by the old house to pick up some stuff, and then by my parents’ house to see if she left her swimsuit there last season.

We eventually made it back home and got settled in for the night. It was a long, and mostly sticky/humid day, and the bed had been calling my name for some time.

That seems like an awful lot of money split that many ways. Somebody’s getting rich.

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Spring Server Room Cleaning

I took some cereal to work for breakfast, which actually worked out really well out of my coffee mug. I also brought my Onewheel so I could run quickly back and forth between my office and the server room. I took a couple trips worth of trash out to the dumpster, swept the floors, and then spent all afternoon troubleshooting one of my distribution switches that wouldn’t show up in the controller.

Summer was feeling better enough to get out of the house and have dinner ready for us, but wanted me to stop by the store on the way home. I ran to the old house to feed the fish first, and then went to Walmart. It’s been so long since I’ve been in the main store, and I love to shop. I hate feeling like I never make time for anything I enjoy any more.

Eaddie had Eli and her friend Autumn over for dinner, and I guess they couldn’t wait for me to get home. I got frustrated by that, and by the fact that Summer didn’t just have the kids go to the store so I could come straight home. By the time I got there, I had a pretty good tension headache going, and I just wanted some internal peace.

Denice emailed me to say that their internet at the house went out. I thought everything came back up after I worked on it, but I guess their point-to-point radio connected to the wrong upstream point or something. I messed with it a bit and got them working again.

We all ate and the kids eventually left. Then I took the Model Y out for a wash so I could take it to my interview at Bitec in the morning. Summer had a bag of some stinky clothes in the trunk, so I emptied all of her crap out of the car before coming in to go to bed.

It’s the same crap that was in there six months ago.

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Get Your Mind off of the Gutters

I did manage to get out of bed at a reasonable hour this morning so we could go to Stoby’s for a pancake fundraiser. Eaddie left early to go help out, and I finally got up on the roof to clean out the gutters. It could have been worse trying to reach the edge of the roof, but if I just get up there a little more often, I won’t have to shovel out all of the pond sludge. Two sides of the house had to be scooped out, but the rest was dry and only partially full, so I got to use the leaf blower on that.

With the gutters cleaned out, I came in for a cold shower before breakfast. I wasn’t sure if they would have peanut butter, so we stopped at the Neighborhood Market on the way. The kids were mostly just hanging out at the restaurant because of the number of adults that were already there helping. Autumn was present and came over to talk forever. Then all three kids had planned to meet up after they left.

Summer and I went home so I could clean house while she went to the gym. It didn’t take long for the humidity to sap me again, and I kept a headache for most of the day. I did get a bunch of cardboard broken down and into the recycling, but I didn’t get as much other stuff put away as I really wanted.

Later in the afternoon, Eaddie brought Eli and Noah over, and Summer played Mario Party with them in the sunroom. I kept cleaning a bit and then sat down to eat some leftover rice and steak. Summer and I ended the night with some YouTube while the kids left, and then it was off to bed.

It’s like chewing air.