Tag: disappointment

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Less Than Marvelous

Ben texted that he was too late to meet for breakfast, and I noticed a couple of cars parked outside the Old Mill Bread Bakery & Cafe, so I swung in there to eat instead. The guy was just opening up, and had to leave to take his son to school, so he just left me with another customer in the store. Then Ben called after he realized the sessions didn’t start until 8:30, and met up with me just in time for the guy to make it back. I had a breakfast burrito and a scone with some coffee, but in hindsight I probably should have gotten something on BREAD instead of a premade spinach wrap. The food was good either way, and then we headed to the conference.

I went to a session about budgeting and finance, which I thought would be helpful to start the conversation with my business office and admin team. Hopefully I can come up with a decent proposal, and then use Technology money for a better salary. After that session, I went to Ben’s talk about Burp Suite, which was interesting. I was in a room with a very small number of very smart folk, but I wasn’t sure I had an immediate use for it.

The final session was the closing ceremony. Charlie was in Ben’s session, and he let me have his room key to get into the garage and charge. Then Ben and I sat through the closing remarks and went to the lobby for our bagged lunches. They didn’t have very many left, so we were lucky to get anything to eat at all. I figured he might stick around for a little bit to chat, but he actually ended up sticking around the entire time I was waiting for my movie. We chatted about all kinds of stuff, and then he helped me fix my eSchool student photos, which was awesome.

That left me just enough time to get across town to the IMAX to watch The Marvels. I had a reward for a free hot dog, purchased an ICEE, and sat down in my usual seat. There were only a few people there for the IMAX 3D showing on opening weekend, which I thought would be a good thing just for myself, but for some reason the bunch of old folks just kept talking through the entire movie. It would have been way more distracting if I had been more invested in the movie. I just couldn’t take it seriously at all. It was fine, but it was far from great. The dialog and plot just made it feel like another forced girl team-up movie.

After the show, I finally headed home. I stopped at the old house to check on things and air up my tires. Then I washed my car and headed to the house. Everyone was awake, but nobody heard me come in. Eaddie had left the Murano unlocked, so I made her go out and lock it up. Then I realized she left the back door unlocked, as well as the front door after she went out to lock the car. I don’t know how to correct these habits other than to make her life really annoying by making her go back outside repeatedly in the cold. Summer only got out of bed to use the bathroom while I unpacked and got things put away. I got my acrylic chair mat in, so I cleaned it and set it up under my desk. For one day, it seems like it will hold up alright, but only time will tell.

No appointing here.

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Highly Illogical

Johnny called me for some help this morning on my drive to work. Apparently they have just been blacklisting Chrome extensions instead of whitelisting, so students have been getting around all of their policies. Easy enough of a fix. Denice had people meeting in her office all day, so I had my earbuds in early. Then after lunch, Kim and I went to the elementary to close out a few work orders. It’s frustrating that she’s clearly not going through them and closing them out. She seems to just come to work to socialize, and I’m just not paid enough to supervise her.

I wrapped up the day and headed home to charge for a while. Summer cooked dinner, but I showed up just as she finished eating. Then I sat on the porch for most of the evening until I came in to do my chores before bed.

Dys

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On the Subject of Pedestals

Eaddie has been wanting to go out on a hike, so she and Summer decided today was the day. I suggested Pedestal Rock, a place I hadn’t been there since I was a child, because it seemed like an easy enough hike for someone in my condition. They jumped right out of bed and were ready to go, so I took the opportunity to shower while they went to the store to get lunch materials. Then they brought the Model Y over to charge while we took mine up to Pelsor.

Nobody had eaten yet, and I didn’t want to drive for an hour and then hike for just as long before we could sit down and eat sandwiches, so I stopped at Sonic before we got to Dover. It was a pretty middling experience, made slightly worse by the fact that we then weren’t really hungry enough for lunch on the trail afterward.

We walked the Pedestal Rocks trail, which was longer than Kings Bluff. It wasn’t too incredibly hot or humid out, but the slight changes in elevation got me huffing pretty quickly. Even micro changes wear me down really quickly, so I tried to pace myself. We made it down to the rock formations fairly easily, and I took a short break while the girls wandered around at the bottom of the formations for a bit. The hike back up to the car was much worse for me, but once we leveled out I recovered fairly quickly.

The girls ate some pita chips and hummus, but didn’t get out any of the sandwich stuff. I found a large chunk of something in what was left of our cranberry slush from Sonic. It had broken up a bit in the drink, which led me to believe it was a chunk of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, but nobody was brave enough to taste it.

Eaddie was pretty anxious to get back home by that time, so we left. As we got back into town and service, Summer noticed that Autumn had stopped by Adam’s house on the way home from Clarksville, where she had been overnight. It was clear they had spent the night together at her father’s house. Autumn’s lies about their plans pretty well sealed her fate.

We swapped vehicles at my house and then went inside to chat for a bit before deciding to go to Summer’s parents’ house to talk to them first. We felt we owed them the courtesy, but that turned toxic absolutely instantly. We had barely pulled up when Autumn called Summer wanting to know if we were there to talk them out of paying for her band camp trip. It was a short conversation before Autumn hung up on her mother, and then Summer had to talk JoAnn into coming out to talk to the three of us.

Everyone seemed to be concerned about band camp, because that’s what Autumn called them about. Gerald stomped out, white as a ghost, a few moments later and banged his fist in anger. Summer told him we were kicking Autumn out, and he said, “Good! You don’t deserve her!” I think we all felt a brief feeling of relief until he pulled the rug out from beneath us and said she could come live with him. Then he tried bringing up Summer’s past when she moved out of their house, as though that made any kind of point at all. He cast Summer away and told her not to come back. She and Eaddie went back to the car while I stood there in shock.

I tried to calmly explain the situation, but it was clear he wasn’t going to listen. He was locked into blind support of Autumn’s parasitic lifestyle, and she’ll only suffer for it. I told him that I knew they loved the girls, and for some reason his only response was that he didn’t love Eaddie. That just seemed like a cruel and pointless thing to say, and I had absolutely no response loaded for that. We headed to the house to confront Autumn, but of course they had already told her she was being kicked out, so she was packing by the time we got there.

Autumn tried ignoring us at first, but finally came out long enough for Summer to talk to her. After over a year of hearing her say she hates it with us, she said she wasn’t ready to move out, and then turned to me to ask if I was “okay with this.” I don’t know what kind of answer she expected from me after she tried to send me to jail with false accusations. Summer did a great job of laying out the expectations and where Autumn failed to meet them. We gave her twice the amount of time we told her, and then sent her off with her car title and birth certificate. We’ve wasted enough time afraid for our own safety with her around. She can mooch off of someone else from now on.

I think Summer and Eaddie handled it relatively well, but it was hard. I didn’t really expect to tear up myself, but I did while giving my parting words. They took a moment to breathe, and then Summer took me home to get the Murano. While we were there, she called Nick to explain the situation. He played dumb enough that I didn’t even think to be angry at him, since he was the one that allowed Autumn to stay the night with her 15 year old boyfriend. What an absolute putz.

Summer spent a while on the phone in her car when we got back to the house. Eaddie had taken a shower, and we were trying to decide what to do for dinner. When Summer finally came in, I suggested pizza and both of their eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning and they had just found all of the surprise presents under the tree. I ordered some Little Caesars, and spent the next 20 minutes waiting for it.

When I got back to the house, we watched Modern Family while we ate. Then the girls went to bed. New challenges await us tomorrow, but at least for now, we can breathe a sigh of relief.

If it were up to me, we would have given her car to her in cube-form.

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Straight Fire

I had to stop by the wash to give Summer her lunch that she forgot at home, and then I continued home to finish prepping for my hearing. I had pretty much all of my information where I wanted it, but I still wanted to get copies of some things to hand out to the board members. After taking a shower and starting some laundry, I went to Staples for copies of a couple pages. I didn’t realize how much the copies were going to be though, and spent over six bucks for 20 pages.

Afterward I went by the wash and printed the rest of what I needed, and then I read my argument to Summer, Justin, and Cameron before I left. I spent the last few minutes I had re-assembling my handouts and dressing up before Summer came by to pick me up. We made it to the high school a little later than I wanted, but it didn’t really matter anyway.

My dad beat us there. Kevin was inside, I suppose as “the muscle” in case things went really sideways. I was happy to see him. Thomas was manning the recording station. I remembered seeing Andrea, Chrissy, Samantha, and of course Ginni. Six of the seven board members were there, but Jason was absent. Ben showed up right before we started, and I think Jeff showed up a little after we started. Judy had to sit with Marshall, and by five o’clock we were off to the races.

The hearing more or less went how I expected. Marshall had binders for everyone with the supporting documents, which were just the statements given by those that were there when I bumped into Zach, as well as one from Thomas after our conversations. I was really surprised how much some of the statements differed, but I was most bitter about Thomas’s. I chose to assume it was misremembering, rather than outright lying. Given that he has a Pixel with an excellent audio recorder, I don’t know why he wouldn’t have recorded the conversation to get my quotes correct.

The biggest letdown was the fact that Marshall objected to me giving any background of my employment. I think I made my case to the board reasonably well, and I received sad smiles from a couple of them. They went into executive session for about 45 minutes, so I almost got my hopes up while we waited. Things were relatively light outside the boardroom doors, and I chatted with several people there.

When they let us back into the boardroom, they got right to the vote, and only Don voted against my termination. The feeling of the room read very much that there were others present that didn’t feel comfortable with the situation, but played the political game of backing the superintendent they had just hired for the next three years. Onward to Plan B.

I tried to get Kevin to join us for dinner, but it was just Ben with Summer and me. He chose Linh’s and we chatted over noodles. My phone had been blowing up, but I tried not to pay too much attention to it. I did jokingly ask Judy if I would get to fill out an exit survey. Brody confirmed he was trying to open a position for me, so I’ll have that option. Ben insisted on paying, even though I had originally offered to buy his if he actually showed up. I don’t even know why I was surprised that he said he would, because he’s one of the most supportive friends I’ve ever had. I did have to joke that it took me getting fired to bring him back to town though.

After dinner, we dropped him back off at his truck at the high school. Then I went home to clean up before catching up with Summer at her house. Shortly after I got there, I remembered I had a pickup order for some chicken strips at Walgreens, so I took the Model Y across town to get those. Summer was feeling mixed emotions about the day, but I felt nothing but relief for the moment. At least now I know what path to take next.

Six to four isn’t a bad ratio. At least I’m not a quitter!

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Fire Chicken

Eaddie decided she was going to stay home again today to catch up on homework, so I only had to drop Autumn off at the high school. I thought I’d crash the CPPC meeting in the morning, but as the time approached and I didn’t really have a reliable laptop, I chickened out. That pretty well set the tone for the day, though I wanted to get outside to try and clean up the back yard a bit. If I wasn’t going to accomplish anything for work, then I figured I ought to at least accomplish something for home.

Summer was slow at work and could take a lunch break with me, so I picked her and Eaddie up to go to New China. Afterward I dropped them off back at the shop so Summer could take Eaddie home, and I went back to my house for just a bit. Bác Vân was outside, so I talked to her a bit and went inside to power cycle her mesh router. I mentioned wanting to burn the back yard, but then it started to rain a bit.

I hung out at home for a little while, but then Summer said Eaddie wanted me to come help her with her programming homework. I hate programming, and trying to make sense of her code in a language I don’t understand just frustrated the both of us. I ended up spending the evening watching Modern Family with Summer until she went to bed.

Autumn had her final basketball game in Pine Bluff, so I had to wait until late to pick her up from the high school. Then it was straight to bed once we got home.

Fire off the apps!

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Parenting 401: Teenager Wrangling

Thomas had a meeting with some of our guys right outside my door this morning, so they shut me in. It didn’t seem like anything too serious, so I didn’t really get the whole shutout thing, but it was fine. Afterward I went to Crawford to take care of a couple things before lunch.

I tried to get Dale to come to Taco Tuesday with us, but he said he couldn’t make it. Allen happened to find us there though, and he had a lot to say. The food was pretty good today, which was an improvement over last night.

When we got back, I spent some time with Special Services, but couldn’t actually get their signature pad working for their application. Apparently the documentation specifically calls out that they do not support signature pads, so we had to take the “L.”

The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet, but relatively steady. I cleaned up some old tickets, but I’ve got some more important ones that I really need to wrap up. Most everyone left right at quitting time, so I rushed Tammy out, and then went to my parents’ house to help Dad put the gate back together.

We chatted for a while, and then I finally made it home to swap cars before heading up to Summer’s. She made salmon and Brussel sprouts for dinner, and then Eaddie started on some homework. Autumn was supposed to be at a basketball game, but I caught her driving around to the back side of the high school again and finally convinced Summer to catch her and Adam in the act.

We loaded up, and I dropped Summer off at Autumn’s car. Autumn immediately freaked out, but Adam calmly got out of her car and into the Murano with me so I could take him home. The drive wasn’t too awkwardly quiet, and the conversation with his father was probably a little too easy. At least we didn’t catch them actively doing anything too bad. I told them I understood just wanting to hang out with some peace and quiet to talk, but that if they say they’ll be in a public place for an event, they had better be there.

The girls met us back at home, and we talked to Autumn some more. Who knows if it will do any good, but at least there wasn’t any screaming by the time we got back. All things considered, she seemed to be in fair spirits. By that time, it was off to bed for everyone.

It’s clobberin’ time!

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O Plastic Tree

The girls decided they all wanted to go shopping today, but they didn’t want me along. I went home when they left, and hung out by myself for a while. Summer suggested that Autumn should cook dinner, and Eaddie decided she wanted fish tacos, so they got stuff for fish, shrimp, and ground beef tacos.

I made my way back to them around the time I thought dinner would be ready, but they were just hanging out in the living room. Luckily dinner didn’t take long though, and we all ate pretty quickly. After we ate, Summer got the Christmas tree out from under the bed and set it up in the living room. I helped a bit because Autumn was just being a complete bitch the entire time. I rigged up some blinking lights for it, but I was short by one blinking bulb for the white tree lights. I guess the replacements were too low wattage, and kept blowing immediately.

Stop accepting that you consistently choose to make everyone’s life worse.

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First Bath

Summer and I got up this morning and went to Hardee’s for breakfast. She planned to go home afterward, so we drove separately but then took mine back home when we realized I forgot our coupons. Their biscuits were awesome again, and I was glad the recipe hadn’t changed like I thought from a prior visit. They must have just had an off day.

When we finished, I went home to get some quarters and then went to the car wash to get some of the dust and grime off of the 3. I’ve driven it so much in the rain that it’s actually stayed relatively clean, but there was a bit of grime on the back end that I wanted to clean off, not to mention fingerprints showing up on the door handles.

I decided to drive around town a bit to dry off, and went toward my parents’ house. I called Brody to see if he was home, but they were only just leaving church. I chatted with him for a moment before going in to talk to Mom until Dad got home from church. She was being critical of the car again, so I did some quick math to calculate how much I’ve had to spend on fuel. I actually figured it would be more, but it costs me about 0.8 cents per mile for electricity when charging at home, versus a lifetime average of 13.8 cents per mile for gas for the Murano. I know mine is beyond overkill, but having a small, electric commuter just seems like a complete no-brainer.

I finally headed back home to shower before picking up Summer to go to Walmart. We picked up a Yonanas machine on clearance, just out of curiosity, and then went across the store for dinner. Eaddie wanted stir fry, so we got a ton of vegetables and headed home to cook.

Summer and I prepped veggies as quickly as we could, and then I stir fried everything together. It barely fit in the wok, and I overcooked things a bit again, but it still turned out really good. We had things split into “long” and “short” cook bowls, but I really need to split it up better in the future to keep things from getting mushy.

The early evening dragged on a bit just because I wasn’t used to the time change yet. When Summer was ready for bed, I found Weird: The Al Yankovic Story on the Roku channel and we watched the first half of it. I couldn’t quite tell if she was serious when she made comments about it being a true story, but I enjoyed the show. It was longer than I expected, so I look forward to finishing it soon.

Oh Tres, you’ve got chips all over your face. :(

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Zero Fawkes Given

Summer had to get up super early this morning to get Eaddie to the high school for an away robotics tournament. Then she had a 10k in Conway herself, but I wasn’t about to be a part of that. I didn’t really sleep in, but I refused to get up that early. I got up and went home just long enough to shower before Summer got home, and then had her pick me up. I had been a bit hungry all morning, so we stopped at Hardee’s for lunch before going to Conway to see Black Adam.

That movie was an absolute trainwreck. I hated it. It should have been straight to VHS. Aquaman was more realistic. The dialog was atrocious. The music was just background noise to distract from the awful CGI. It was just utter trash, and I’m rooting for DC. Shazam was incredible. I was super excited for this movie, but after seeing it, I’m upset that they even brought Henry Cavill back as Superman. I don’t want him connected to this in any way. I loved his first movie.

After that, we went to TJ Maxx and Target to kill some time. We loaded up on leftover Halloween candy and toilet paper. Summer wanted Starbucks on the way out, but she didn’t listen when I suggested we move the car closer, so she had to go get it while I checked out. Then we went to the end of the strip mall to try out Kawaii Boba House. Nearly 20 bucks later, she awkwardly split out the door before I could even set anything down. I felt dirty from shopping and wanted to clean up, but we just left. We ended up trading drinks on the way to the car because she liked mine better. I liked them both fine, but couldn’t see myself paying that much for a drink ever again.

We made our way north to Bee Branch, where her workmate Alice was hosting a Guy Fawkes bonfire. They lived like a mile down a dirt road, so I was super glad I asked about parking before we left. I would have been very angry to drive the Model 3 down the road that far, and wasn’t even sure we’d make it into the driveway.

Summer played a game with washers, we went inside for a tiny bit of food while we stood awkwardly in the kitchen. Then they finally lit the bonfire, and I was able to relax a bit in the dark. There were some little kids around, but no stupid teenagers. I did roll my eyes a bit at the girls that had to have tinny music playing from one of their phones, but otherwise it was a good time. I brought along a box of old firecrackers and sparklers for them to burn, and they seemed to like it. I was just happy to see it leave my garage.

Once Summer had enough, we said our goodbyes and made our way home via a shorter route without passing back through Conway. I was super stressed about wildlife, but we never encountered any at all. We got home, I unloaded everything and put away what I could, and then it was off to bed.

There was a frog on a dog on a hog on a log in the bog???

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Network-

I only woke up about 15 minutes earlier than usual, since I did all my prep work the night before. I didn’t love it, but it got the job done, and got me to Little Rock a little after 7:30, which gave me just enough time to settle in before finding the classroom. Greg called to tell me he was coming in late, but that he would be there since they couldn’t get a refund for his ticket. He said he felt better, so hopefully I don’t catch whatever he had.

Mike Meyers was a bit of a celebrity in the field, and I think he probably acted more that way than anybody else let on. I was only just aware of his existence in the space, but Ben wanted to come have his book autographed. When I saw that he was giving us copies of his new book, I jumped at the chance to have it signed for myself, and got a selfie with him as well.

The class itself was rather a disappointment. I had hoped it would be an intense workshop to try and cover as much material as possible, but instead it ended up almost being more of a roundtable. It would have been a nice way to decompress and chat further about things you learned in a formal class, but in and of itself, I don’t think Greg or I learned anything at all. It was almost more of a pep talk to psyche us up for the test itself.

Greg and I had lunch at the hotel, which was quite a bit smaller than I expected, but still better than the “barely a step above cafeteria food” I had documented from previous years. Half of the bar was a salad, and the other half had mostly run out of food by the time we got there. They had some chicken, and Greg found some pork when we went back for seconds. The staff were fussing that it seemed like there were more people than they were told, and we missed out on dessert as well. Ben picked up Tacos 4 Life, but I declined his offer to pick up some for us, remembering a less than stellar experience from before.

The afternoon went by relatively quickly, but with not much more productivity. By then, the hotel had managed to bring out cookies, and did a fair job of keeping the drink fridges stocked. We got through the day, but Greg mostly scoffed and rolled his eyes at the fossil that couldn’t remember his ports or acronyms. I was a bit more forgiving and could see the struggle with fitting so much historical knowledge into an eight hour course. I tried to reel the conversations back in to the test material periodically, but I don’t know how much that helped.

I made the trip back home without incident, but confirmed how much I hate traffic between Conway and Little Rock. I just don’t know how people do it. My entire life would be so much more stressful if I had to do that every day. I miss the old days of getting a hotel room the night before a day like that. I got gas, went home to unload, and then went to my parents’ house to visit for a bit.

Julie was there to talk to Dad about their trip to Disney. They warmed up some fish sticks for sandwiches, and Mom shattered one of her prized bowls full of boiled carrots and butter, slicing her hand open a bit. I didn’t really get to talk about my delivery day plans, but suffice to say that I wasn’t thrilled with the way support responded. I went ahead and made the appointment, but apparently even that can change, so if we stay the night, I’ll have to get a room that allows for refunds in the event of a reschedule.

When I left my parents’ house, I went to the high school and got some of that fancy pellet ice from the breakroom, and then went out to the stadium to watch the marching assessment with Summer. We stuck around longer and colder than I expected, and then ran out to the cars to beat the crowd out. The girls eventually made it home after the event, and everyone was off to bed in a hurry.

0/10, especially with that weird, bland rice.