Twelve Mile Island

I woke up with a bit of a headache and made some coffee this morning. Summer got started on her taxes and was in the living room all morning. I put on some old Disney tunes and took a shower, and then made tuna pitas for everyone.

Summer wanted to clean house without us around, but most of the afternoon was burned doing nothing. I eventually left on the Onewheel and rode to the old house to box up some more small stuff. By the time I was done, it was late and dark. I rode over to Arby’s for something to eat, and then lollygagged through down on the way home. I picked up a Snapple at Casey’s and stopped to take a couple pictures at the new co-create place, the middle school, and the Waco Detention Basin.

I stopped by to see my parents briefly, and Dad was outside looking at the moon while Mom dehydrated shrimp inside. Then I circled the neighborhood a couple times before finally landing at home for the night.

I have scaled these city walls.

AppLocked

I was actually early for work this morning, and I got my steak bagel that reminded me of the gristly mess that they used to give me. I spent the whole day tinkering with my Group Policy and task sequence to restrict Microsoft apps without causing annoying messages about things being blocked.

Lunch was a pretty miserable sandwich with two thin slices of lunch meat ham on a big wheat bun. The afternoon dragged on forever after that, even though Kim disappeared for most of it. On the way out, I loaded up some empty boxes to help move, and headed to the old house.

There was a ton of traffic crawling over the bridge, stretching from toplight to stoplight. I couldn’t tell whether something happened or if traffic was just that bad due to the eclipse. As I got closer to the old house, some old lady got cut off while she was flying down the road the other direction, and she nearly hit me when she tried to pass the offending car in the turning lane. I unloaded boxes and headed home to wait for Summer.

It took her a while, but she eventually showed up and took me to the Neighborhood Market for some things. We didn’t really have a clear plan for anything, but we spent some money. When we got home, I left for my parents’ house on the Onewheel and finished up the chow mein.

I called Mitch on the ride home just to check on his status. He said he probably wouldn’t be coming past Little Rock. Things were quiet when I got home, and everyone just kind of dawdled alone until we eventually all made it to bed.

Crap. Tax season.

How Now Brown’s Cow

Summer went to work for a bit this morning, and I did my best not to sleep all day after not making it to bed until three. After she got back, we went to Brown’s for a late lunch, and had some great catfish at a surprisingly reasonable lunch price. She had a headache for most of the day, so we didn’t do anything else for the rest of the day, but sit in front of the TV.

Eaddie went out at one point to buy a new paint-by-number, but otherwise we all just lounged all day. I caught up on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show episodes, and then Eaddie and I watched about three more episodes of Better Call Saul while she painted, and then everyone went to bed.

How cudly.

Slippery Dippery

We had some makeup testing today, so I didn’t feel super comfortable changing any more network configurations. I wasn’t super motivated to do anything at all, really. Kim wasn’t particularly useful, and Denice had guests in her closed office all day. I just passed the time. Slowly. With ham rollups for lunch.

I went straight home after work because Summer had dinner going. Eaddie and Eli were watching the new Cinderella movie while Summer barbecued chicken quarters. It was a nice dinner, but the chicken and green beans were both undercooked, and the potato salad was bland. I really don’t think she tries any of the food as she’s cooking, and then just sits down with everyone else at the table to find out for the first time how it tastes.

I put the larger pieces of chicken back on the grill and ate what I could, but I think I was hungrier after I ate than before I started. The kids left, and I went out on the Onewheel for a little while. My parents weren’t home, so I continued around to Ridgewood to see Grant for a minute.

Afterward, I floated through the neighborhood for a new path back home and thought I’d try the Waco Detention Basin Trail, which may not have been a path back at all. It also wasn’t dry. It was dark and completely unlit, and there was a layer of silt that I couldn’t see over the concrete trail. I narrowly escaped going down to the ground, but got a streak of mud up my jeans. I backtracked up to the road and made it home, but then rode over to my parents’ house to borrow a rat trap.

What I thought was a mouse yesterday looked a bit bigger on camera today, so I brought two larger traps home. I set them with some peanut butter, along with the little jar trap, and hoped I could catch something overnight. Summer was working late, but then I upset her with my own airing of grievances as she went to bed. I stayed up and did my load of laundry, periodically stepping out to listen to the rain.

bberry

Unmake the Bed

Something sapped me yesterday, because I was sleepy all morning today. I slept super late and then got up to some black coffee, and I made tuna pitas for the kids. Eaddie asked about moving the bed again, but there still wasn’t a place to put it in the spare room. I don’t think anyone else realized how small that room really was, and certainly no one was super motivated to actually unpack what had already been moved.

The kids left every single light on in the outhouse after they got rid of the cat, and I had to send them back out to bring all the blankets and pillows into the house. It seems like things are always left half-finished, and they tell me I’m being mean regardless of how, or how many times I point that out. I assembled the little aquarium stand I bought years ago, and eventually got Eaddie to go through some of the stuff in the spare room.

Noah spent some time online looking for work. He’s been couch-surfing for a little while, which meant his truck has been parked in our driveway long enough for me to find the new tailgate handle we bought for him several months ago, and replace it. Unfortunately, Summer lost the accompanying trim screws that I had been keeping with the handle, so I couldn’t truly complete the job. With the tailgate more or less functional, we cleaned all the trash out of the bed of the truck, and took a tarp and some straps to the old house to load up my bed.

We got everything into the spare room and I started washing all of the bedding before I started dinner. Noah mentioned possibly taking Eaddie out to eat, but he had also been talking about trying to save up money while he doesn’t have a job. I don’t know whether he had considered the cost of food and smokes over time, but it didn’t seem well-prioritized. I reminded him that I had everything for burritos, so that at least took care of dinner.

Summer got home late and tired, but we had to have a family discussion. Eaddie had been a bit contrary for a few days, and mentioned earlier in the day that she had given our address to Beth so she could send gifts. I knew the adults would have to talk first, so Summer and I caught up, then brought Noah in to discuss his plans and expectations. Finally we brought Eaddie in to wrap it all up, but Noah went for a walk because he preferred to keep his conversations one-on-one with her, even though he mirrored our own concerns about Beth.

The family talk was kind of more of the same that we’ve all heard before. I’m a mean, old man that has to have his way, and I never compliment the girls. The floors are still dirty, and I’m the only one that notices the “handwash only” stamped on the bottom of the dishes. I wonder if I’d be happier if I didn’t care about anything.

I’m going to need a specific example of what constitutes a compliment if they don’t count when they’re in response to accomplishing expectations that were previously set.

Regrounding

I slept reasonably well last night in the new house, but it was still a hassle to go home in the morning. I was reasonably early for work, and the cafeteria lunch menu didn’t sound very appealing for most of the week, so I stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast. Nothing remarkable happened at work, and things were mostly pretty quiet. I still kind of feel like a temporary guest there most of the time, and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.

The electrician finally made it out to the house, so I had Summer meet him there to test charging. The breaker never tripped, but evidently he tightened some ground wires while he was there. I’ll have to get my tools from the new house to see if that fixed the floating ground issue I had elsewhere in the house.

After work, I met Summer at the high school for parent-teacher conferences. The atmosphere there seemed to be about what I expected with the current regime. I’d love to take a survey to see if anyone has anything nice to say.

When we finished, I got tacos and went home. Summer didn’t want to get back out to help me with bulk item pickup after she got to the new house, so I just ended up staying home for the night.

Disapproval Ratings

2,000-inch TV

I was going to be super early leaving the house today, but then Summer and Eaddie both showed up separately because Eaddie forgot a bunch of stuff at home. I squeaked out and stopped at McDonald’s for a McGriddle, and then made it to work in plenty of time. The maintenance guys came around pretty early and helped me swap a couple touch panels that were being replaced under warranty. Then I spent most of the afternoon drafting a form letter for damaged devices.

I managed to leave on time today, and went home for a bit before going to the new house. My Wall Connector threw the breaker twice today, so I’ll need to check that out sooner than later. I took an armful of stuff to the house that I had been needing, but still didn’t really accomplish much. All of my plants were looking pretty sad, so I had to take care of them first.

Mom made bánh xèo for dinner, so I left to eat and then got back to the house relatively quickly. I did get the locks changed, and figured out how to use the garage keypad. I didn’t caulk the shower like I wanted, just because it seemed dirtier than I expected it to be after Summer said she scrubbed the thing totally clean. Instead, I cleaned up Eaddie’s shower around the handle that I wanted to caulk, and then realized I didn’t actually have any clear silicone.

I made it up to Summer’s, where she was in bed with some popcorn. Eaddie eventually made it home and talked to us for a while, and then everyone was off to bed.

Driveless

Pain of Glass

This week mellowed out quickly, but that may be from my own intentional ignoring of work orders. Chromebook carts are done, so we enrolled a bunch more devices to shuffle with the elementary. The internet went goofy for a while, but of course I didn’t have the tools in place to explain why. It was just bad for some reason.

I had a video call with a couple of guys from the Department of Information Systems to upgrade our VPN service. That went poorly enough that we’ll have to troubleshoot another time. Fortunately, I don’t know of anyone that actually uses that VPN service. It’s possible that somebody does, but I’ll just have to find out who when it stops working.

Fast Glass called to say that Summer’s windshield didn’t come in. I asked about mine, she said she would call me right back, and of course I never heard another word. That reminded me to go and leave a bad review for River Valley Tinting and Glass after they scratched the window trim on the Model Y back in April.

I made it home a little late and hung out to charge for a while. Julie called to update me on the Entergy job, which is to say that operations are just slower than expected, and that no news is still good news. Then I took the car in for a much-needed wash before I made it up to Summer’s. I had her start baking the casserole from weeks ago so we could try and clean it up. Eaddie came home and went straight to homework, and eventually everyone went to bed.

The scope has changed.

Shut In and Shut Up

My office was pretty toasty this morning since the air had been off all night. It wasn’t long before Toby came by and said he needed help with the HVAC server. He got hold of a couple people that directed us to reset some things on our virtual machine that ran the HVAC software, and we eventually got things running again. It took most of the day to cool my office down, but I was thankful to have some air.

Kim was out to take her boys to the dentist, so I shut myself in my office and finished up a bunch of Chromebook carts. I grabbed some chili for lunch and continued enrolling more devices, and then left just a few minutes early so I could get to Gardner before Gary left. I was hoping they had some tech tubs left, but apparently they threw most of them in the garbage and wanted to keep whatever they still had left. I understand not keeping everything, but they had so many brand new tubs that could have been used for something. I’ll never understand the money that’s just thrown away like that.

After talking with Gary for a while, and then briefly with Thomas in the parking lot, I went to both Casey’s stores to redeem some rewards. Then I went home to charge for a while before heading up to Summer’s. I stopped for tacos along the way, and saved some seeds from the Taco Villa hot sauce, hoping I could grow them to learn what kind of peppers they use.

Eaddie was out late for band practice, and Summer went to bed early. I just sat in the dark for quite a while until bed.

The toxicity of our city.

Juggling Procrastinator

Autumn woke me up this morning to ask me to take Eaddie to school because Eaddie didn’t want to get out of bed. I refused and went to wake Eaddie up myself. I couldn’t get back to sleep after that, so I got up and poked around on the computer once they were gone. I started drafting an email to my first and only interested law firm, but still wasn’t ready to hit “send” until I had more to ask. I nibbled on a little bit of leftover ham, and then left to take a box of stuff to Summer at Superfast.

When I got home, I started a load of laundry since I was out of socks. Then I bounced around a bit before taking a shower. I needed to email the lawyer, find a job, and apply for a home loan. All of this was terrible timing. Summer had a follow-up appointment at Millard Henry, so she picked me up for that and we arrived a bit late. Her blood pressure was high again, but the doctor didn’t seem concerned, or helpful.

After that, we stopped by Arvest to see if Aaron or Melissa were there so we could talk about getting a home loan. I didn’t even see Aaron when we walked in, but then another girl pointed him out to me. He came out to see Summer’s Model Y, and then we traded phone numbers for the first time ever in our years of friendship, so he could pass it along to Melissa, their loan officer and Josh’s aunt.

From there, we went by Centennial to see what they might have to say. Their loan officer was in another office, so we left my phone number and then ran back across town so I could pick up a magnet print from Walgreens. As we got there, I got a call from Melissa with some reasonably helpful information. I still don’t know if we can get the loan while I’m looking for work, but at least we know what to do to get started. While I was on the phone with her, Haley from Centennial tried to call me. I ran in for my photo, and then called her back as we ran through Rose Drug for Summer’s medication. That call was a lot shorter and not as helpful, but at least we have a direction.

Our next stop was Walmart for some groceries. Summer wanted to make a shrimp and broccoli Alfredo for dinner. I suggested going a step further with some tomatoes and spinach, so at that point I was in charge of dinner. We got in and out reasonably quickly, and then I started cooking when we got to the house. Autumn was outside cursing at the lawn mower because Eaddie left it in the rain and it got water in the system. She eventually got most of the front lawn mowed though, and then showered and immediately left for her grandparents’ house.

The remaining three of us enjoyed a disappointingly soupy dinner, and then Summer and I watched the new John Mulaney special on Netflix. Eaddie went to her room early for the night, and we never saw her again. After the comedy special, Summer went to bed and I laid with her briefly before getting up to wrap up my own chores.

Tomorrow’s goal: Finish any task.