Tag: family

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I Am the Director Now

I had another chicken biscuit this morning on my way to work. Conference food made me pretty queasy all night, but fortunately today went okay. I was surprised to see Maggie in the office when I got there, and further still that she was still there when I left. I felt the pressure of more people needing me today, plus I had a couple of conference calls scheduled. I only went to one of those because the teacher was unable to reproduce an issue for a vendor.

I had placed an order for a Reuben at Arby’s the night before, since I had a discount code. Randy and Jim really wanted to go to a place called North Bar, so I picked up my food and then met them there. It was a more expensive place with a variety of burgers, wraps, and such. Jim’s chicken sandwich looked pretty good because the chicken was more than twice the size of the bun. Randy’s order was put in wrong, so his got comped and we split my burger, and then his when it eventually came out. I liked his bologna burger better than my blueberry one, but both were pretty good. Overall I thought the flavors were great, but it just wasn’t worth the price for the portion size. Everything being à la carte didn’t help, because I had to pay extra for fries with the burger.

I stopped by Target on the way back to the office to get an online order of Tide that I had placed a few days ago. Randy left in the afternoon, and said he was leaving me as the de facto director. I laughed that I was the newest hire, but he responded that I was the one with the most experience in his role. After that, Maggie had me sign a bunch of data privacy agreements. I told her it felt like he was leaving so they could use me as a fall-guy on some sketchy paperwork.

I was a bit hungry after lunch, so I actually ended up eating my Reuben before I left work. Then it was a dull ride home to find Summer in the kitchen and Eaddie and Eli watching TV. I took the dogs out for a run to my parents’ house and then spent some time with them when we got back. I skipped the chicken Alfredo because of the dairy, and drank some dinner instead. I had to rearrange the dishwasher after the girls poorly cleaned up the leftovers, and I kind of stewed a bit until bedtime.

unappoint

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Mudpuppies

Eaddie went out with her father today, so Summer and I had the day to ourselves. She went to the gym while I messed with some things around the house and eventually took a shower. Then we decided to take the dogs out for an early run. I got some shock collars in from Amazon Vine that I wanted to try out, so I got them set up first while Summer prepped a bicycle. Then she rode it while I took the Onewheel with the dogs.

We rode to visit Mom first, and she offered leftover soup for dinner later if we would pick up some cilantro and green onion. Summer and I continued our ride down to the basin, which she wasn’t even aware existed. We rode all around and let the dogs get into the little pond again. It seemed even muddier than last time for some reason, and Muad’Dib was stoked to be able to sink into it. I didn’t want them to go too far, and I also didn’t want to unleash them. The shock collars were theoretically water resistant, but I didn’t trust them to be submerged, so I took those off.

After a bit of rolling around, we continued our run and made it home. I got cleaned up, then Julie called so she could order some discounted Domino’s gift cards for me. She had trouble with Costco online, but eventually got it going. Then I had to run to the Neighborhood Market for some cilantro. I got the dogs some more biscuits as well, and then Summer was waiting for me outside when I got back to the house. That meant I forgot to get the green onions out of our refrigerator, so once we got to my parents’ house, she drove back to get them while I helped Mom prep bowls of soup.

Dad got home from his magic convention while Summer and I were eating. Eaddie came home while we were out, and then texted because someone knocked on the door and freaked her out, so we headed home as soon as we finished eating. We didn’t see any extra packages or flyers, so there was no telling who was at the door. I need to finish tracing the doorbell wire so I can get my Nest doorbell installed.

Summer wound down pretty quickly, and I tried my best not to get too distracted. It’s always tough restricting myself to a 24-hour day during the week. I think I’d be a lot happier on a 30-hour planetary rotation.

Bzzzt!

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Good Buy Pizza Pie

I didn’t sleep terribly late today, and hand-ground some coffee for breakfast. The girls were both up pretty early, so Summer went to the gym and Eaddie did some cleaning before her evening plans for the Sadie’s dance. Julie texted asking to borrow a phone for Kevin after he ran his over with a lawnmower, so I spent much of the afternoon cleaning up my Galaxy S21 Ultra for them.

Once the phone was wiped, I took the dogs out for a run through the neighborhood. We stopped to see Mom, and then went up the hill and through Pinewood before making it back home. Then Julie and Kevin came over to get the phone, and I gave Julie an iPad Mini to use when she’s flying.

Summer and I hadn’t eaten all day, so I ordered some Domino’s and we went to pick it up together. They were super busy, so we ended up waiting in the parking lot for a while before I went in to get it. Then we took it to Mom to surprise her with dinner. We ate and then headed home for the evening.

Get to it.

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Cafeteria Dumplings

I actually made it to work about a minute early today, which meant I was the first one in the building. I continued rearranging devices in PRTG, and helped Randy with anything that he had going on. After a little while, he took me to the annex to hunt down some old cameras to try and repurpose them for a classroom. I grabbed a few things from scrap there, and then we headed back to the office.

I was super excited that we had ice and water back again, so I stayed hydrated today. I ate an old, giant cheesecake that had been in the fridge a while, and then we had to get on a conference call with Acer to hear about their Chromebooks. Afterward, Maggie and I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, where the food was good, but the service was awful. I don’t know if she was overwhelmed, or just bad at her job, but we had actually finished our food before we even got our appetizer.

The afternoon was super relaxed as well. Randy left a little early, and then Maggie left, and even I left a few minutes early so I could be home in time for the dinner that Summer was making. It was some kind of shredded chicken, spinach, and mushroom cooked in canned soup or something, which we ate over rice. It tasted a little bit like the dumplings I had, but mostly reminded me of cafeteria food.

After we ate, I took the dogs out for a longer run to my parents’ house, and then through the basin. They were really good again, so once we got back to the house, I broke up a hot dog for them, which they absolutely loved. Summer also made cake, so we ate some of that before getting cleaned up for the night. Eli was there for dinner and helped Eaddie finish her musical instrument project. Once everyone else was wound down, I made my way to bed earlier than usual.

Biscuits and cornbread!

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Switch it Up

Summer wanted to take the Tesla to Little Rock today, so I had to take the Murano. It got me there much more stressed than usual, and I did not arrive feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as usual. I think if it hadn’t been so quiet and relaxed in the office all day, I would have been far more tired. I snacked a bit in the morning, so I wasn’t super hungry by lunch. Nobody came around to eat anyway, so I ended up going down the road to Louisiana Famous Fried Chicken to get something to eat by myself.

This place was an old Hardee’s with some new colors. For being such a targeted restaurant name, they had a strange mix of stuff. They had fried chicken on the bone, gumbo, jambalaya, fried rice. It was kind of wild. There was a nice black lady at the counter that had no problem scolding the sketchy, jittery fellow that didn’t quite get all of his trash into the can on his way out. In the back were a couple of brown guys, but I couldn’t tell what kind. They didn’t quite look Indian, but maybe Bangladeshis. I’m working with limited international experience.

I got jambalaya with some fried okra, and both tasted good, but the jambalaya didn’t look anything like the picture. It seemed to be missing some sausage, among other things. The shrimp in it was tasty though. I left a little bit hungry through, having gone à la carte, so I grabbed some fries from McDonald’s across the street on the way back to the office.

Maggie brought her daughter to the office after a dentist appointment, so the lights were out for nearly the entire day. I added all of the switches to PRTG manually, since the automatic scans just produced a bunch of other trash. I ended up leaving late because I got a call from Progressive about our auto claim. Evidently I should have just called GEICO directly instead of dealing with our insurance, since I wasn’t at fault. Later on the stressful drive home, I got a call from GEICO to get the claim started on their end.

I had felt a bit gurgly all day, so I took a break when I got home, and then took the dogs for a run to my parents’ house to eat. Summer watched a couple movies on the couch while I was gone, and then I sat outside with the dogs for a while when we got back. I got them some new food that was on sale on Amazon, and then cleaned up the kitchen a bit before bed.

This is incane.

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Do Not Be Alarmed

I was a little late to work today, but I passed Randy along the way, and he was groggy anyway. Strangely enough, I’ve got the hour drive to wake up, so I arrive all bushy-tailed. Nobody jumped into anything right away, but I poked at PRTG some more. Then I got an email reminder from Ben that he was leading an APSRC call, so I hopped on that to listen in. It was all the same stuff that everyone has been screaming at us for years, but evidently a lot of people don’t even know their districts are members of the APSRC, so they wanted to highlight themselves as a resource.

Time flew by pretty quickly, and we went to Cotham’s for lunch. I almost can’t resist the hubcap burger there. I could normally take or leave a burger at a restaurant, just because I can make one at home for a fraction of the price, but there’s something special about the hubcap.

As we left, a girl came up to me to say that she had hit the Tesla. I hate that the alarm notification on my phone sounds exactly like every other notification, so I didn’t even realize something was wrong. I got out to look, and sure enough, she left a big, black streak across the front driver-side corner. We exchanged insurance information and phone numbers, and then Jim guided me back to the office “the slow way.” It was interesting to see some of those quieter roads that I’d never really traveled before, and to see how they connect to the places that I had.

The afternoon went by quickly as well. I took a bunch of pictures and filed an insurance claim. Otherwise it was almost more social than work until quitting time. I headed straight to the old house to get some things, then stopped by Superfast to show Summer the damage to her car. It wasn’t awful, but there may be some broken clips where the bottom of the bumper is out of place slightly.

On the way home, Mom called and offered bún thang, so we dropped the Tesla off to charge and then I drove Summer over there to eat. The soup was still frozen, so Dad took me outside to fly the DJI FPV. He said he had flown it up high over our house and up the mountain to John’s, so I took it up towards our house and lost the signal. It came back though, and we recovered it without any trouble. I got it up to just over 60mph and buzzed overhead before circling around and landing a couple times.

Summer was inside finishing up some work on her laptop. I helped assemble bowls and we ate quickly so I could get home to run the dogs. Eli was still there helping Eaddie with a project. Summer got ready for bed, and I took the dogs out for a run in the dark. Stilgar was significantly more rambunxious, but we made it back home alive. The kids finished up, and I did my best to make it to bed for as close to seven hours of sleep as I could.

I just… I have to have my few minutes in the bed watching my show.

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Pizza and Dogs

I woke up around one or two in the morning to the dogs going absolutely berzerk right outside the bedroom, so I yelled at them through the side door. They would run into my line of sight, and then immediately run away again, so I had to grab a flashlight and follow them to see what all the commotion was about. In the distance, I could see two glowing eyes of a medium-sized possum, terrified and motionless as they barked at it. I shooed the dogs away and hoped it would scurry off, but it just sat there motionless. I ended up grabbing a shovel and scooping it up against the fence. It started to waddle a little bit, and climbed up the rabbit wire we placed to keep the dogs in, but it wouldn’t go any farther than that. I had to scoop it up and carry it out the front gate, where it slowly trundled off into the night.

Summer let me sleep in a while, and then I got up and started to pick up in the kitchen. I warmed up the leftover fried chicken for her so she could go out and mow the lawn, and then I took a shower so we could go to the store. I was craving Cici’s, so we went there to eat first. I thought the food was pretty good today. Afterward, we went to Walmart for a relatively big shopping trip, since we hadn’t been in a long time.

When we finally got back home, I took the dogs out for another good run. They were a bit more excitable than the past couple days, but they did alright. We stopped by my parents’ house, and then went up the hill again to get back home. They got some food, and then I came in to rewatch WandaVision with Summer until she was off to bed.

Roll back!

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Doggy Paddle

I got up pretty early this morning, but things went pretty slowly after that. The girls eventually got up, and Eaddie left for church with Eli. I made a “grilled cheese bacon, egg, and cheese” sandwich out of some frozen grilled cheeses and leftover bacon that I found. Then Summer and I wanted to take the dogs to the lake to see how they’d like the water.

We waited around for Eaddie to get home in the afternoon, and we loaded everyone up to go to the marina. We walked around a little bit at first, and the dogs had to run around sniffing everything. Then, as we predicted, Stilgar dove right into the water. Muad’Dib was a little slower, but eventually did get all the way in on the boat ramp. Stilgar would have tried to swim to the other side of the lake if he hadn’t been on the leash. We let them run around to play, and I even let Muad’Dib off of his leash for a little bit. I wasn’t quite confident in Stilgar’s recall to let him go, but he stayed on the long leash.

After we had enough of the water, I rode them around the loop on my Onewheel to dry off. We encountered a persimmon tree right by the road, and they absolutely loved those. I had one off of the ground, and it was pretty sweet. I tried not to let them eat too many of them though, for fear that some of the seeds would get stuck coming out.

We made a couple loops, and then Stilgar passed something bright orange. I thought maybe the persimmons had just gone through him that quickly, but when I picked it up, it seemed really hard. I couldn’t tell what it was, and I wasn’t willing to dig through the poop to figure it out. We finished our loop and packed everyone in to go home.

The dogs got fed as soon as we got back, and then they were pooped out. I went and got some KFC for the rest of us, and then the girls retreated to their televisions. I took a late shower and wound down pretty quickly. It was a fun day, but the weekends feel particularly short now.

Three months of driving…

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Too Familiar

We got up early to head to Tulsa this morning, and drove straight to the service center in one go. It wasn’t unbearable after driving so much, but I still don’t favor it. Life on the highway is boring. We got to the Tesla service center without any issues on one charge, checked in, and got a loaner to find something else to do in town.

We went to Michael’s and walked around, then walked next door to Kohl’s. We didn’t really find much, aside from a table of Mickey Mouse Farberware cookware. I sent some pictures to Julie, and then we left to find something to eat. I wanted something unique, which landed us at Oh-K Dog in the Woodland Hills Mall. They had Korean rice hotdogs with potatoes and stuff fried on the outside, and they were incredible. Summer and I each had one, and then went back for seconds. The price felt reasonable, which probably says more about my acclimation to inflation than it does about the value proposition of a hot dog fried in rice batter.

After we ate, we walked the mall in absolute awe of a functioning relic of our past. Only two or three shops were closed, and those appeared to be for renovations and not just due to a collapse in popularity. There were several stores with no customers at all, but it was also the middle of a Monday afternoon.

From there, we actually got a message that they were done fixing Summer’s Model Y, but we still wanted to find something else to do. We ended up finding a Cinemark nearby and went to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice in D-BOX seats. Summer was surprised, but enjoyed the rumble motion seats. I thought it was a treat, but it would have been overpriced if it hadn’t also had a very large screen. Theaters in large cities astound me, but it’s not worth the people.

I didn’t think the movie was bad, but I just wasn’t interested in that world. I wasn’t nostalgic about it, so I could have easily gone without it, but at least it wasn’t boring. After the movie and a successful summoning of the car to the front door of the theater, we headed back to Tesla to get our car back. I had to drive the Model 3 Performance before we left though, and it really did seem to have a little more pickup than my old car. When we got back, I asked about a Model S Plaid, and the guy had to go ride along with us. We found an empty dead-end road and he let me do a full launch, and it was spectacular. If prices keep falling, I may have to hold out for one of those.

Once we were done there, we headed toward home with the hope we could make it without charging. I decided to stop in Van Buren for a restroom break anyway, and then got to Ozark where I decided to stop for some Taco Bell before it got too late. Eaddie beat us home from working the concession stand again, and I did my best to wind down quickly. She was still full of energy though, and ended up taking the dogs out for a late walk while Summer and I went to bed.

Just give me some stalks, man.

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Smoked Meats and Drinks

Eaddie went out this morning to volunteer at a cat adoption event downtown. I got up just in time to take a shower and take Summer to pick up some Ridgewood Brothers to take to Diana’s house for lunch. Grant hooked us up with some heavy handed servings and sausages, which was awesome. I forgot to ask for some plates, and I wasn’t even sure they had any even for takeout, so we ran back to the house to get some and made our way across town.

It was a nice visit, and we chatted for quite a while. Lunch was great, and fortunately we seemed to avoid any trouble with her gluten allergy. I talked to her about my thoughts for the house, and she seemed really excited about it, so I think we may actually talk to the bank to see what kind of offer we can get there.

Summer left for the gym once we got back home, so I took the dogs out for a run to my parents’ house. Dad was getting ready to cover the pool, so I took the dogs back home and waited for Summer to get back. Eaddie was home when we got there, so I showed her the leftover barbecue, which was a mistake because she took it upon herself to feed her friends. She also wanted to go ride bikes with them, so I drove her to my parents’ house to get her other bike back, since not all of her friends had bikes. I’m not sure how I got suckered into that either.

Once Summer got home, we walked the dogs back to my parents’ house and covered the pool. By the time we got back home, I was sweaty and wanted to take a quick shower. Summer didn’t pay attention and left her leash outside where the dogs got into it, so I went back out later and found the rubber grip had been shredded all over the yard, and the poop bag holder was destroyed with plastic bags strewn all over the place. This caused a bit of a fight, because I’ve been beyond sick to death of her running around completely aloof, not paying attention to anything. I’ve got to get her back to the doctor to find some way to calm her mind.

Eaddie and Eli made it back to the house and hung out for a while, and then I got out my cocktail smoker and we tried smoking some Fireball whiskey for Summer and myself. The smoker worked great, and we didn’t even set off the fire alarm.

I ended the night submitting some reviews for my Amazon Vine products. I guess I’ve got to wait two weeks to be allowed to search for items again, because my review count dipped below 60% of the items I’ve ordered. The website only ever said I needed to review 90% by December, so I had no idea I was going to get suspended.

Come on!