Games All Day

Taco John’s was supposed to have BOGO breakfast burritos this morning, but the app was uncooperative. The friendly, but otherwise lackadaisical staff eventually got around to greeting me at the counter, and took care of the order. Muad’Dib hadn’t been to work with me in a while, so he was super excited to see everyone.

I thought I’d have a call at some point with someone from Garland, but it never happened. I carried on through lunch at Taco Bell where more corporate shenanigans took place with rising prices, and coaching people through placing their own orders at the kiosks. I would have ordered through the app if I could have used my paper coupon.

We had a good time eating outside in the reasonable weather, and then I grabbed some mozzarella sticks from Arby’s next door before heading back to work. We were the last ones out of the office at the end of the day, and it was a reasonably relaxed, quick drive home.

Summer had to close the lube, so we stopped to see her before making it home. Dad had met Adam about some of the finishing touches in the living room, and he’ll have to come back again tomorrow to get paid. They patched the hole they put in the wall, which was our biggest concern. The paint finish wasn’t great, but we’re ready for it all to be over. I could sell the house at any moment to be rid of it all.

Eaddie and Eli were around for a bit, but Muad’Dib and I went out for a run. We cut a block to avoid a noisy poodle, visited my parents for a little dinner, and then experienced another Onewheel battery failure on the way back to the house. I had Dad come get us so I wouldn’t have to carry the stupid thing the rest of the way, but after a couple blocks I got out and walked with the dog the rest of the way and just let him drop the board off at the house for me.

I looked at the living room some more, and it seemed like the rafters might have shifted some more where they crawled up to fix the ceiling fan box. There were lines that were more obvious than before. I was just ready to move on from everything.

Games all night.

Assemblance

I worked from home today since the guys were supposed to finish work on the ceiling. They did a bit of painting, I pointed out some issues, and they touched up. The total cost increased by about $500 due to some extra construction elements they had to do to raise and level the whole ceiling. They got ceiling fans re-hung, and I immediately noticed a missing pull chain. I looked all over for it under the deck, but didn’t have any luck.

Dad came over to look at some of it with me since he would be over to hand off the second half of the money the next day. Summer got home and started making spaghetti. I took Muad’Dib for a run to the bank to get the money, and we went inside to talk to Aaron for a bit.

When we got back to the house, Dad wanted to go to the other house to uninstall the microwave so they could have the cabinets replaced. I picked him up and we got that taken care of. Eaddie finally got home so we could eat, and then I took Muad’Dib out for another run. While we were out, Summer noticed a hole in the wall, some broken trim near the floor, and I found a broken USB cable from one of my security cameras, so I had to send another email before wining down for bed.

Spaghetti and Squealy Olive Balls

Aweem Away

Summer never got her work stuff out of my trunk, so she asked me to drop it off for her on my way to work. I did that as quickly as I could, then picked up some spicy chicken biscuits from Hardee’s on the way out of town. It was a bit wet out, but I couldn’t tell that we really got any more rain the rest of the day.

I finally got into Brandon’s old Vimeo account to cancel the subscription he forgot to cancel. Then Charles and Matt were saved by my superior/existent network documentation. I had a fairly heavy anxiety attack at some point.

Dad said they should be able to finish the house tomorrow, so I got the okay to leave work early and then work remotely the next day. Summer was supposed to be off early too, but got stuck again. The guys were packing up just as I got home.

Mom said they still had spring rolls, and Julie and Kevin were coming over, so I took Muad’Dib over too. Dad suggested I take a dip in the super cold pool to try and wash off some of the dog before coming inside to eat, but I couldn’t stay in for long. Mom got everyone going and then disappeared to the back of the house, but we had a good visit otherwise.

After dinner, I took Muad’Dib on a surprisingly short and slow walk. I thought he’d run harder with the cooler weather, but he just wanted to lollygag. Summer was in bed, so she wouldn’t get up to inspect the ceiling work with me. I had some wine and crashed a couple hours early.

Seek differing opinions. The fact that they’re haters doesn’t make them wrong.

Big Yikes

Summer made us bacon, eggs, and Cheddar Bay Biscuits for breakfast before she went to the gym. We weren’t really sure when my parents would be ready to leave for Hot Springs, but it was earlier than either of us expected. We got cleaned up and ready to go just about the time they were ready to pick us up, and we were off.

We parked near the Malco and walked down the strip and back, stopping for a few pictures and a walkthrough of the Fordyce Bathhouse museum, and a couple other shops. We only made it about halfway down before turning back and landing at The Porterhouse for dinner.

We all ordered their off-menu specials, but the three of them had the fillet and shrimp, and I had the ribeye with mushroom, onion, and pepper gravy. It was good as always.

There was still time to kill before the show, so we made another loop before coming back to the theater. We arrived a little early, but eventually found our seats and watched a slightly different show than what we had seen previously.

Something seemed off with the pace of his speaking and it was really difficult to understand him, but it was also his last weekend before retirement. I went up on stage with Dad afterward to see him, but we didn’t get the same response of recognition that we had last time. There were a bunch of people hanging around afterward, so we headed on home.

Mom and Dad didn’t want to drive in the dark, so they had me drive slowly back up Highway 7. It was late, so Eaddie was actually asleep, and Summer went straight to bed.

Headstrong to take on anyone.

Bitumen and Bitumen Accessories

I slept in a little bit since I was working from home. The girls left, and the guys showed up to start working on the ceiling. For most of the day, it was just one guy mudding the whole thing. I bounced between my nested remote sessions and virtual machines, and spent a bunch of time trying to make sense of our catalog of products so I could rebuild the entire thing in HubSpot.

Just before lunch time, I hit up Gary and then picked him up for Taco Tuesday. Tacos had gone up to something like $1.39, so I spent over $10 when I used to eat for half of that. Dad had come to babysit the house while we ate, so I let him go as soon as I got back to the house. Summer had called while we were out eating and said she terminated someone and wouldn’t be able to be at the house the next day. This was upsetting for a number of reasons.

The afternoon went by kind of slowly after that. Eaddie came home for a little bit, but then left. I took Muad’Dib out for an extended run around a modified, reverse path. Then I scavenged for whatever crappy food I could find before bed.

6215+0

Gramblin Man

I left Muad’Dib at home today to babysit Dad while he babysat the guys working on the ceiling. It worked out well since we had a staff meeting first thing in the morning anyway. I didn’t really come prepared to say anything, but took up enough time with what updates I had anyway. After that, I spent all day messing with the newer Dell server they picked up last year, but hadn’t actually been doing anything since then.

I went out for a really late lunch, and decided to go to Blue Diamond Cafe for some table service since I didn’t have to worry about time with the dog. I made the mistake of asking my young server for a suggestion, and ended up getting a super basic hamburger because of it. It was good, but lacked dimension. Next time I’ll just have to go in and know what I want.

The afternoon was short after that, and I stopped by the wash to see Summer just as she was about to leave. My car has been filthy for quite a while, so I stopped for a quarter wash on the way to the house, and then washed the inside and outside of my windows once I got there.

Our ceiling had been completely removed, and they hung plastic up to cover the hole, and tarped the whole area, though air could still freely pass through. Luckily it’s been slightly cooler, so the air wasn’t struggling quite as much to keep up. It wasn’t long before I took Muad’Dib out for a run.

We picked up a small dog along the way, who has been roaming farther and farther every day, looking for things to hump. I ended up picking up my pellet pistol from my parents’ house to take along with us, in case he follows us again.

We got back to the house just as it got really dark, and I gave Muad’Dib a bath. Then it was a relatively early night to bed.

Drive

Downed

I was up late moving some more stuff, and I finally got a call early this morning from Adam, who asked for our address because he had put my parents’ address on our quote. He and two younger guys showed up, I handed over $3,500, and then Adam left the other two to it. They had to drop off a trailer and then go get supplies, so I took Muad’Dib for a quick run around the block. Then they came back to move some furniture and hang plastic around the room.

I tried to get some work done, but I still had so much other stuff to clean and move around that I actually couldn’t concentrate on anything. Coupled with a stomach ache for much of the morning, I just wasn’t productive. Eaddie came home from her first day of college, I scolded her for the state of her bathroom and had her clean it up so the guys could use it, and they eventually finished up pretty early in the afternoon.

The whole house was hot and dusty – moreso after more of the ceiling was missing. The plastic sheet slowly fell throughout the evening. I felt gross, and a shower didn’t help a great deal. Summer had to work late, so when I asked what she wanted for dinner, she immediately responded with Brangus. I mistook the message and drove to Check-H, then realized my mistake and drove the extra few blocks.

Summer enjoyed her meal, but just about ever aspect of our visit was middling-to-poor for me. It started with stale peanuts and a burned tumbleweed, then followed through with an old, dried up baked potato, and rounded out with a cold steak.

We got back to the house and I took Muad’Dib out for a run because the quick spurt of rain we had just before dinner had dried up on the ground. It felt quite a bit nicer, but got dark quick. I had more cleaning to do before bed.

out

You’re All Inhale and No Exhale

We shared some Burger King hash browns on the way to work, but then I had to leave Muad’Dib in my office while I went to meet with a vendor and the operations guys about the sensors they want to install. I thought he’d never forgive me after how long it took us to walk to the two PLC cabinets. I started to get a little bit pushy because it seemed like Matt was talking in circles a bit, but hopefully we’ll have something in place by Friday.

We picked up a Subway sandwich for lunch and ate in the office because I thought it was supposed to be super hot outside, but it actually didn’t feel too bad for the couple minutes we were outside. The afternoon dragged on a bit, and then we ran to the house to start moving smaller things out of the living room, hoping that R&R Unlimited would actually show up to start repairs on the ceiling.

Summer got to the house shortly after we did, but wasn’t expecting the work. She took a long bath, then came out and helped to move and vacuum things as I pulled them out of the living room. It was hot and dirty, and no kind of fun. It got dark, but I took Muad’Dib out for a run, hoping that it had cooled down a bit. It actually felt worse without any wind.

We visited my parents, then made it back to put the dog to bed whiel I spiraled down myself.

False Hope 🌎☄️

All Symptoms Nominal

I decided to fast before my afternoon appointment, just in case they failed to ask me to do so. I made it with a single cup of black coffee, barely over half full. As the afternoon approached, we had a conference call with the folks working on the new website, so I got in the car and hopped on the Google Meet. It lasted for almost exactly the entire length of my commute home, where I changed clothes and left Muad’Dib at the house for Summer, who had left work and made it through the gym early.

The clinic must have been overbooked, because my total visit was about two hours. I waited several minutes to get called back, had my blood pressure taken, waited forever and had it taken again because it was so high the first time, and then waited some more until Crystal came back to chat with me. I got renewed on my meds, which was the primary goal, and then she had the nurse come back in to do an EKG as a part of troubleshooting the ongoing anxiety/panic/spaceout attacks.

Summer hadn’t really eaten either, so I picked them up and we went to Ridgewood Brothers to see Grant for his birthday and to get some dinner. We got a full order of nachos, which were a full tray of chips, some grainy cheese dip, and an ultimately disappointing amount of brisket. They tasted great, but the ratios just seemed way off and I couldn’t tell if they were made incorrectly, or if the recipe just needed some work. For the size of the gray we got, I wouldn’t mind paying more to get more meat on them. They were just so chip-heavy. Muad’Dib got a bone out of a pork butt, but we had to take it away from him as he started to tear it up.

We started watching Bee Movie to cool down when we got back to the house, but I got up in the middle of it to take Muad’Dib on a run to Walgreens to pick up my prescription. I should have brought his water, because the heat was unrelenting, and it got him just barely walking. I thought he might have to stop to cool down for a while, but he powered through. We got to the house and cooled down, and finished our movie before bed.

We are go for lunch.

Southern Tails

I’m having trouble finishing up some tasks at work because of the randomness of it all, and from simply not knowing what I’m doing every time I receive a new one. Rhonda came up first thing and said her internet wasn’t working. I checked the switch and everything seemed fine there, so Muad’Dib and I went down to have a look. Peyton was having trouble as well, and while Muad’Dib and Bear were playing, Bear peed on the ground. Peyton cleaned that up, and as soon as he walked out, Muad’Dib peed on the trash can, so I had to clean that up. Fortunately it didn’t take terribly long for me to find that their DNS settings were manually set to the old domain controller, which I had inadvertently turned off, but shouldn’t have been used for DNS any longer anyway.

I took Muad’Dib outside for some impressive and unexpected zoomies around the parking lot. He had wild eyes, and his tongue flew back in the wind as he sprinted in a figure-eight. We eventually made it back upstairs and started poking at the old server and the old virtual domain controller. The server had been running out of space, and it looked to be from backups of its own database, so that’s something for me to clean up.

We eventually took a break and went to Taco Bell for lunch since they had a couple tables outside. I wasn’t expecting it to be so hot in the sun, but it was blazing with only a few clouds in the sky. He did well while I ate, but then snuck through the door the second time I went back inside to throw my trash away. One of the employees shooed him out behind my back, so I took him out and put him in the car.

I spent some time in the afternoon looking at our security cameras, trying to figure out why the IPs appeared to match our existing scheme, but also may have been duplicating IPs. Confusingly, I think it’s on a completely different physical network and they just happened to use some of the same range.

At the end of the day, I changed into some shorts and we headed to Southern Tail in Little Rock to meet Mitch, Blake, and their friend Aaron. We got a table outside and pretty quickly got into some food. We expected at least one other person who never showed. I was super disappointed in the portions with my chicken sandwich, and I didn’t love the fried green tomatoes. It seemed like the fish and chips have been the only really impressive thing I’ve had there, and that was mostly because it was salmon. Muad’Dib did great though, and we had a good time chatting, though it was a bit more scattered in conversation than the last couple times we visited. It was an enjoyable evening though, and then we eventually made it back home and straight to bed.

What’s eating you‽