Tag: family

Uncategorised

Time to Waste

Somehow I managed to stay pretty busy today while Oakland was testing. Bryan emailed me earlier this morning before I even had my shower, and then called me while I was sitting in the office. He was having trouble signing into his school email on his Samsung email app, and I guess he didn’t feel like asking Amanda. When I failed to resolve it over the phone, he called Gary who came up with another working solution. Then I spent a good portion of the morning messing around with a stack of atomic wall clocks that I was told didn’t work. As far as I could tell, they all kept time. It’s possible they just weren’t syncing with the WWVB time signal but would keep time if manually set. In any case, I made a wall of them by the window and got jokes or comments about it from every soul that made it through the office today.

I met Dale, Allen, and Brice for lunch at Subway. I had a BOGO code that I used to order online, which saved me the headache I saw everyone else go through while in line. Having two 6-inch subs also meant I got to choose two different types, so I ate the tuna there and took the BMT home for later. It ought to warm up nicely in the oven.

After lunch, I spent a little bit of time at the shop before heading back to Oakland. I brought entertainment, but I didn’t even get to break it out, much to my own surprise. When they finally finished testing, I headed to the junior high to take care of some older work orders.

When I got home from work, I cleaned up a bit at home and got Grey to eat a little bit of a new can of food. I guess she just doesn’t like leftovers. Then I ran by Walmart to pick up some lettuce for dinner. Summer grilled burgers and baked some sweet potato fries that all turned out really well. Then I pushed her to make her own photo book before we all headed to bed.

I’ve got toooo much time on my hands!

Uncategorised

Failure to Launch

I had a little bit of a slow start this morning, and even got to embarrass myself in front of the whole crew when Ben wanted to go over some relatively convoluted phone stuff as soon as I walked in at 8am. I made it though, and I even managed to get out of any project work in the morning. At one point, Ben and I ran to the aquatic center to help someone before a swim meet, but by the time we got there he had already figured it out.

Everyone but Ben went to Western Sizzlin for lunch, which was an amazing feat in itself. It was a pretty quiet meal too, I think it was partially because everyone was hungry, and partially because nobody could talk shit about anyone else because everyone was there. I cut myself a little short on food, but then ran long on dessert. I couldn’t resist the brick of Rice Krispie Treats. Or the pecan pie. Or the no-bake cookies. Or the blueberry cake. Or the banana pudding. Or the ice cream. But mostly that first one.

After lunch, Dale, Allen, and I hung two touch panels. I had one at Oakland, and then Allen had one at Crawford. We had gotten a slightly newer model than the ones we were purchasing, and the software on them is pretty significantly different. I didn’t get a whole lot of time to play with them, but it definitely seemed less intuitive. I wasn’t a huge fan, but Dale loved the fact that they had handles on both sides. They were mounted a little low on the panels though, so the thing was top heavy and would tilt over when we picked it up.

When I got home, I cleaned house until the girls got there, and then we went to my parents’ house for some leftovers. I was really proud of Autumn for letting herself be forced to eat more than just egg rolls for dinner, and she even liked the bite of weird beef she originally didn’t want to eat. We didn’t stay very long though, because we had to get home to rest before the big day tomorrow.

The girls put on Coco for a little while, and then they all went to sleep while I tried to catch up on some esports craziness. We didn’t get a tournament team going before the midnight cutoff, but it’s looking like we’ll have a pretty good turnout tomorrow for a LAN party while Summer is hosting a quiz bowl tournament. I’m a little worried about noise levels just because I don’t know how many people are going to show up, but I won’t be afraid to shut it down if they don’t behave.

-Email Signatures

Uncategorised

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I had a decent start to the day, and managed to close out a few more work orders. I’m up to just 20 behind Amanda again, but I’ve got to keep on chugging along. I’m still not sure how she got nearly 100 more to beat me, but I’m going to assume it was work that wasn’t done properly before, and that had just caught up to her. Gary had time in the morning to help me get an email group made for esports, which made things a lot easier.

Zach, Sara, and I met at Taco Bell for a relatively light lunch. Then I made it to the junior high to take care of a few things before picking at a few more esports things. I have an account set up now for money, so I can start accepting donations and the like for kids to compete, or presumably purchase necessary equipment. I’m hoping I can get some donations by way of accessory sponsorships and swag giveaways, but I’ll probably need to clarify what is actually legal before I take too many actions.

After work, I ran home to clean up after the cats. While that was going, I pinched off a piece of Ludwigia and replanted it so I’ll hopefully grow an additional stem in the aquarium. It’s looking pretty nice the way it’s growing in, and I can’t wait to see how it does if I can ever find the time to start some CO2.

As soon as I finished those chores, I ran up to Summer’s to get Autumn to help grab a couple pizzas from Little Caesar’s. We pulled in just as Summer was leaving with hers, but we still had to wait a few minutes for ours to come out of the oven. We ate, and I finally got my first esports newsletter out to the members. I also selectively spammed a few key people with the hopes of catching a little bit of positive publicity. I really hope it goes well, but trying to enlist a proper team is proving difficult with such a short timeframe. To compound that, evidently I need to confirm that our school allows 8th and 9th grade students to compete in “high school” sports. It all seems like semantics to me, but in the end it’s just frustrating to everyone involved. It sure seems like a lot of work and money just to play a free-to-play game.

This is fine.

Uncategorised

Early Saturday

I couldn’t sleep in this morning and got out of bed right around 8. Summer and Autumn were already gone for a quiz bowl tournament. I had some leftover barbecue for breakfast while Eaddie slept in. Eventually I got her up and we got ready to go to my parents’ house where Uncle Giao and Aunt Teresa had come to visit. Bác Vân was there too, and Mom made phở and egg rolls for lunch. We ate, then hung out for a little while before heading back to my house.

Eaddie watched Legends of Tomorrow while I milled around the house and tried to organize some things for esports. Summer and Autumn got back around dinner time, and we packed everyone up to go back to my parents’ house. We ate and socialized until Uncle Giao and Teresa were ready to head out. As we were driving away, he stopped and asked me to lead him to the hotels, so I drove him up north. I don’t know why they wouldn’t just stay in one of the spare rooms at my parents’ house, but whatever the reason, it was annoying enough to me that he would rather ask me to drive them to a hotel instead.

Since we were already on that side of town, I decided not to go back for Summer’s car, and we just crashed at her place. I couldn’t get Battlestar Galactica to play properly and Summer was ready to pass out, so that was it for the night.

Relax, don’t do it, when you want to go to it.

Uncategorised

V-Games for V-Day

Oakland was pretty crazy with Valentine’s Day stuff this morning, so I was just in and out. I spent a bit of time at the shop trying to organize my thoughts about esports, and then made it to the junior high just before the 8th graders went to lunch. I grabbed my flyers and waited nervously in the lunch meeting room. As soon as Matt made the announcement, the kids started pouring in. It was pretty rowdy, and I was a little disappointed in how little most of them knew about the games being offered. I got a bunch of questions about adding shooters, and I just kept having to point them to the fact that we’re going to have a hard enough time convincing parents that video games are good for school without throwing violence in with it.

The 9th graders seemed way more prepared. Hands shot up for all the games, and there were plenty of people that already played them at home. It ended up being almost entirely a question/answer session. I was glad that Summer and Hannah came to the 8th grade lunch for support though, and even Autumn brought a couple friends. I felt like I had a pretty decent handle on the introduction the second time, but the hardest part is still ahead. I spent all afternoon running around the building getting input from different people about how to get the word out to parents. Once I can get my mind to slow down a bit, I’ll be able to enlist the EAST project kids to do most of this legwork.

I never did make it to a lunch, and I spent the end of the workday setting up AppLocker for League of Legends so I can restrict who can actually run the game. I got to chatting with Ben for a little bit before I left, and then headed home to meet up with Summer. Once I got a hold of my parents, everyone agreed on my suggestion of Taco Villa for a Valentine’s Day dinner. It was a relatively easy way to avoid the craziness of all the sit-down restaurants today. I forgot to grab cash on the way out the door though, so we had to run back home for that before we got the food.

I think we all ate too much. I confirmed that I still don’t love tamales, especially that aren’t homemade. There was a lot of cheese. Everywhere. When we got back home after dinner, I felt like I slammed into a brick wall of exhaustion, but had to finish washing a load of socks. Summer went home to receive the girls as I stayed in to wind down as quickly as possible.

Here’s to the last 80.

Uncategorised

Mounting Pressure

Zach really pushed me to deploy four TVs at the junior high today, so I made the call and made it happen. Ben helped me load the trailer while Allen and Brice did something inside. I shinned myself pretty badly on a Chromebook cart, dumbly trying to bring it downstairs from the graveyard by myself. They were small and relatively light, so once Ben started helping it went smoothly. We dropped the carts off at the middle school for Amanda, and then the three of us headed on to hang TVs.

I got a little flustered trying to call the shots just because I really only had two that wanted or needed to be swapped out. I managed to get two more done though, in spite of the unnecessary nature of the replacement. Allen and Brice were surprised that we got that many done before lunch.

The three of us met Summer and the girls at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. Zach followed shortly thereafter. They had a bacon balsamic dressing that was okay, but I think I used too much. The peaches were amazing, as canned peaches are. On the way back, we dropped Brice off to do a work order before Allen and I unloaded the trailer full of junk. Then I spent most of the afternoon at Oakland pulling relatively newer technology out of classrooms that traded for new Chromebooks. At least they seemed more aware of the request than the ladies at the junior high.

Central office closed at 4, so we also got to leave early. I ended up sitting and chatting with Ben for another half hour though, so I didn’t get home until nearly 5. I did a couple small, quick water changes before heading up to Summer’s for the evening. She made rice, grilled chicken, and some mixed vegetables that smelled so good that I couldn’t resist a small bowl even though I was still pretty full from lunch. Then we watched a couple episodes of Parks and Rec before bed.

Make yourself irreplaceable, make others do the work, and then take all the credit.

Uncategorised

Domo Arigato Mister Conky 2000, Ha Ha!

I had to wake up this morning to meet at the robotics tournament around 8, and the place was already pretty packed. Everything went pretty smoothly, and I only worked for about an hour before they cut me loose. I went up to Summer’s to see what they were doing, and she left Eaddie and me there while she went to the gym. I ate the last of the leftover noodles and then played on the Switch for a little bit while Eaddie took a shower. Just after Summer got back, I got a call about some trouble at the tournament, so I had to head back there.

I couldn’t find anything wrong with the wireless other than a slightly higher number of users in the area. I would think the access points could have handled the 30-40 users per device without too much trouble though. I spent a little while fiddling with it to see if I could narrow down the trouble, but in the end the only advice I could offer was to restart their tablets.

When I left, I met Summer and Eaddie at Sumo for lunch. They were super busy and our cook was unusually quiet for the venue. What made it even worse was that our noodles were basically completely inedible due to the amount of salt in them. They burned my mouth as I ate them, so I had to mix them with the rice to make them palatable. Then he forgot Summer’s vegetables and had to scrape enough from the scraps on the table for her. Overall I just felt like they were trying to hide poor quality with tons of sauce and seasoning.

From there, the girls went home so they could go with their father. I ran home to clean up some oil or grease stains on my shirt, and then made it back to the robotics tournament just as they were cleaning up. It went well for the most part, so hopefully the payment situation will be fairly straightforward. If I’m lucky they’ll contribute my extra to retirement as well. I left once most everyone was gone and headed back home to meet Summer.

On the way home, Zach texted and invited us to come play games with him, Sara, Gary, Bryan, and Daspri. We got there just in time to see that it was actually a dinner party they were having. We were still so full from lunch that we just awkwardly stood there and chatted with them while they ate. Apparently that’s a pretty regular thing for them to do though, which was kind of a bummer to learn. I thought we were getting in on something new there, but I ended up feeling like extras. It was still a fun time though once we started playing Unstable Unicorns. We even played by the proper rules this time so we didn’t get stuck in a stalemate for four hours. We wrapped up the evening with a learning game of Bears vs Babies. It went okay.

Enough with the grumblies!

Uncategorised

Feeling Flushed

It was a dreary second day of testing at Oakland this morning. Someone brought some toppings to the cafeteria and made some fantastic cinnamon rolls. I had a brown sugar and pecan one at first, and then one of the teachers gave me her fig one that was tasty, though not even half as good as my first. I decided to leave for a regular lunch this time, and I met some of the guys at CJ’s for an overpriced burger. At least the fries were super hot and a little crispy.

After lunch, I took care of some things at the junior high before going back to the shop to deliver a touch panel to Oakland. Just after I got the panel and toolbox out and pulled the truck up, it started to pour down rain, so I had to move the stuff under the awning. Just about then, I saw Crystal pulling the mail van in, so I abandoned all hope and ran the truck back to the lot before she locked the gate. I figured we would just deal with being a little late tomorrow, since Zach, Gary, and I should be able to hang it super fast anyway.

I went home for a bit before heading up to Summer’s for dinner. She picked up a couple buckets of KFC that the three kids destroyed. Autumn originally tried eating leftover buffalo chicken strips instead, but when they turned out dry and rubbery she gnawed on about a quarter of a breast before leaving it to be thrown away. Luckily I spotted it and Summer finished it off, but it’s that kind of wasteful spirit that infuriates me to the point that I want to physically harm her. There’s just no reason someone that age shouldn’t be more thoughtful about those things. They have too many outs when they don’t get their way.

As I finished the last little bit of gravy with a biscuit, I somehow managed to punch a tiny hole into the styrofoam and dripped gravy across the entire house and myself. I just felt so defeated, and ended up taking my shirt off to wash it in the sink. I didn’t stay long, and left after about three episodes of Parks and Recreaetion. I headed toward home to get gas, then clean the cat box and shrimp bowl. I pulled some of the stringy algae out, and thought for a while that I had accidentally pulled out the ghost shrimp as well, just before heading to bed I checked again and found him.

Triumph of the day.

Uncategorised

I don’t wanna be in this family any more!

I spent the morning at the junior high after being away all day yesterday. It was supposed to be another warmer day, but the cloud cover and moisture in the air made it a pretty cold ride in. I worked there until lunch and met the guys at the shop before riding with Zach to Popeye’s. After lunch, he helped me take a little mini Chromebook cart to Oakland before we got sidetracked with a call over to Sequoyah. Apparently they’re adding on to the cafetorium there, and there’s some cabling that runs across the outside of the building that will have to be relocated or removed. There were a couple kids there from Tracer that didn’t seem to be much help, and we ended up waiting for Ben to get there and make the final decision. I think ultimately we’re just going to end up cutting it and seeing what goes down.

When we finally finished there, I worked a bit late on a computer at the front desk of the junior high to try and figure out why it would only work with a static IP address, and the best I could come up with was flaky termination on a patch cable in the switch closet. The computer was a bit janky when I set it back up, but it eventually worked itself out and restarted without issue several times, so I left.

I ran by the bank to see if they had $2 bills for lucky money and ran into Aaron there. I didn’t realize that was his branch, so we chatted for a little bit before we both left. I went to my parents’ house for some red envelopes and then had to run home to get the car to pick up Eaddie from karate. We ran back by my house so I could change and check on the pets, and then headed on to her house.

We watched an episode of Parks and Rec over leftover dinner, and Summer and Autumn put some more work into her National History Day project. Meanwhile, I racked my brain over trying to promote Summer’s Google account to family manager status, and was basically left with account deletion as an only resolution. Unfortunately since Summer was already a parent on Autumn’s family group, removing herself meant that she couldn’t even create a new family group with a brand new Google account for Eaddie until waiting out the 12-month cooldown period between families. Eaddie basically doesn’t have a way to create a new account without lying about her age. Google chat support was worthless and just plain bad, which was a huge surprise.

0/10 with rice.

Uncategorised

Don’t Get Testy

This morning was really warm, so I rode the bike in to work. Oakland started ACT Aspire today, so I was stuck there all morning. I was able to use their loaner laptop while I was in the office though, so I kept pretty busy just catching up on old emails. I sat there until a little after noon before ordering some Subway online, and then I picked that up and went to the shop.

I ate there and chatted with Gary for a while. It wasn’t too long after lunch until I had to go back to Oakland to meet with the guys that are running the robotics tournament this weekend. I had to find out what they needed from me, and luckily it sounded like a couple people from Tech should be around to help as well so we won’t all be completely without guidance.

By the time we finished there, school had let out, so I spent the rest of the afternoon at the shop just kind of vaguely working. When I got home, Bác Vân was sitting out back resting, so I chatted with her for a while until Julie got home so I could swing by to get the apple pie moonshine she didn’t want. We ended up talking for a little while too, but the sun was setting and I didn’t want to be out too late on the bike, so I headed to Gary’s place to give him the moonshine. I went in just because I had never seen his place before, and we chatted for just a few minutes before the girls blew up my phone.

I ran home to get the car and went to Walmart to look at some sandpaper for Autumn’s project. While I was there, I picked up a new bulb for the lamp to put over the shrimp bowl. I did a little Googling and decided that sandpaper wouldn’t work well for the papier-mâché, and left with just my bulbs. Autumn was making some slow but steady progress on her Challenger rockets. I had a little bite of what Eaddie didn’t finish for dinner, and then I had to run back home to test some aquarium water.

Earlier when I had checked on the shrimp bowl, the little baby fish was having trouble swimming. He seemed fine this morning, but couldn’t stay upright or swim straight in the evening. I wanted to test the water and try to fix it, but by the time I got home it was already dead. One of the shrimp even started to pick at it a little bit, so I just left it in the bowl. For some reason, the water was really alkaline in the bowl, but both of my big tanks have been really heavily acidic. I didn’t test the water in the 35 gallon since it’s just been sitting stagnant for years, but I’ll probably do that sometime soon. It definitely doesn’t look very good. In the end, I added a small piece of driftwood to try and bring the pH down a little bit, and got my new lamp set up on the timer.

WHATTUP FISH TANK PEOPLE