Tag: family

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Staring at the Sun Again

Eaddie and I got up this morning and went out on the Shadow. We were hungry, but wanted to cruise around town quickly before going to my parents’ house for the eclipse, so we stopped at Zaxby’s to pick up some chicken. Then we ran by my old house so I could put in some contacts and feed the fish, and we continued past the nearly empty Hickey Park and high school parking lots. We wanted to go by the soccer complex, but we ran a little behind. The Confederate Mother’s Memorial/Pine Knob Mountain Bike Park was full of people, much like the back of both Walmart parking lots we passed, but Sequoyah was empty as well.

Dad was outside with several telescopes and cameras, and Mom came in and out as the moon slowly crossed the sun. Summer left work early and met us there with plenty of time to eat and peek through the telescopes. Totality was longer than the first time we saw it, but it didn’t seem quite as momentous for me. Maybe it was because there was so much else going on with so many telescopes, or maybe because I kept having to tell Summer to take her glasses off. The solar prominences didn’t seem as big, there weren’t any big jet trails revealed, and the mountain blocked our view of the 360º sunset. The crickets and bats came out though, and everyone really enjoyed the event. I preferred being in a quiet place away from all the public screaming or music playing.

We didn’t watch much of the last half of the eclipse. The girls headed home and I ate some bánh bèo that Mom made before catching up with them. We went back out to check out a pretty disappointing “eclipse market” that was just a small handful of vendors that didn’t interest any of us. Then we finally went past the soccer complex and Old Post Park before going back to the other side of town for some free Freddy’s. Much to the girls’ dismay, I took us to Price Break, and Eaddie waited in the car while Summer and I sorted through bins of Amazon returns. I had to poke fun when Summer bought way more stuff than I did by the end of it all.

Once we made it back home, the girls settled in. I had a leftover burger and then rode the Onewheel to the Neighborhood Market to take in the recycling and pick up some more oranges. I ended the night with some laundry, and it’s back to the grind in the morning.

Thank goodness we missed the rain.

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Preclipse Day

I got up and made Summer a freshly-ground cappuccino this morning, which she seemed to like. I’ve only used it twice, but so far I’m pretty happy with the grinder we got. I finally cleaned up the corned beef and had a shower, and then struggled to start the smoker to get the ribs cooking. Summer and Eaddie ran to Kroger to pick up some charcoal for me, and the lumps were tiny. I eventually got the smoke rolling, and the girls prepped the bikes to go for a ride downtown.

We parked at the middle school, which in retrospect wasn’t much better than if we had just left from the house. The girls biked and I rode my Onewheel through some neighborhood trails before going back up to Kroger and heading downtown. There weren’t a ton of visitors there that we could tell, but there were tons of cops and “workers” riding around trying to look important. We stood in line and got some stuff from NASA, and I couldn’t tell whether I had actually offended the guy when I asked how long NASA has known the moon and sun are the same size, and why they were keeping it from us.

We didn’t really find much exciting at the depot after that, so we got Eaddie a shirt and then rode through Tech to Bona Dea. We did a small loop and then headed straight back to the car. Eaddie decided to ride all the way home, and I actually had plenty of battery to do the same, but I drove Summer home instead.

I decided to assemble the outdoor sink and prep table with the hopes that I could use it for the ribs. Summer “helped,” but we didn’t get it done in time, and I ended up bringing the ribs inside to wrap. Eli came over, I eventually got the ribs sauced, and then we had dinner. The meat was way too tender and just turned into mush off the bone, but it was still good. I just wanted a bit more bite to them. Everyone else loved it. Summer made mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts, and we had a good meal.

The kids hung out for a while and Summer wound down quickly. I started dragging pretty hard, and felt a bit sick from sinus trouble. I assumed it was allergies this time, but I just felt crummy all night.

He’s really not gonna like my questions about why the moon is a flat circle instead of a flat square.

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Lab Aid

McDonald’s was super busy this morning, and the lady inside was yelling at all of her employees for wasting food. I didn’t realize until I got to work, late again, that they didn’t put egg on my bagel. More on that later.

I had a few distractions throughout the day, but my big accomplishment was getting Kim out after lunch to replace 17 more lab computers with me. We had a student help as well, which was nice. We ran out of video adapters and cables, which was a bit of a surprise. The entire lab was set up with HDMI cables, so we had to go from DisplayPort to VGA. I don’t want to spend any more money than I have to, so we’ll limp along for the remainder of the year.

I had run out of gas on the way to work and had to switch over to my reserve, so I stopped in Ola for some gas on the way home. I couldn’t tell if I was flying down the road or not, because yesterday I kept getting passed at an unexpected rate. Wind isn’t my friend on the Shadow, so it’s just not comfortable going fast. I prefer something more upright.

When I got into Dardanelle, I stopped to file my complaint at McDonald’s, and bartered some free fries for my missing egg. They were the hottest, freshest fries I’ve ever had from McDonald’s, so that was a treat on a surprisingly cold ride home. Then I fed the fish before going to Orr to check on the status of the Pathfinder. Tim said it would be about three or four weeks before they could even look at it.

I stopped to see Summer at the wash, but left as it continued to get colder. Just after I got home, Dad said they had leftover spring rolls and chow mein, so I took the Onewheel over there, narrowly beating Julie and Kevin. Food wasn’t at all ready, so Kevin and I watched Julie eat spring rolls, and then Kevin, Dad, and I had chow mein once that was done.

Summer was in the bath when I finally made it back home for the night. Eaddie got home late after band solo and ensemble. We all caught up a bit, and then it was off to bed at a reasonably normal time.

Boy, do I miss Tres.

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Rolling Cycles

Mom said we were having beef spring rolls today, but we weren’t sure if it was for lunch or dinner. We invited everyone to eat at our house since we had more room, so Summer went shopping so she could make cupcakes and banana pudding. I got up to some coffee and then cleaned up the dining room. I wanted to set up two cooking stations for the beef, and three plates with veggies. Noah came over too, so we had eight people to fit around the table. I couldn’t find our new electric skillet even though I knew I brought it to the new house, so I ran to the old house to make sure. Summer ended up finding it above the refrigerator.

I stopped by my parents’ house on the way home to get some of the food. Then Dad brought over some more, and Julie and Kevin showed up. I thought the dining table worked out perfectly for that many people. The only thing I would have changed was the seating arrangement, just to make sure someone mindful was next to the rice paper water bowls.

Once everyone left, I had to take a couple trips on the Onewheel to give my parents the things we forgot to give them on the way out. We got the kitchen cleaned up, and then Summer and I ran around town to O’Reilly for an oil filter and oil, and Superfast for some tools to change the oil in the Shadow.

Unfortunately the oil pan we borrowed wouldn’t fit under the bike, so we went to borrow one from Dad. We still forgot wrenches for the drain plug, so once we got back to the old house, we decided to just take the bike to the new house to do the work there. That was when we also realized that the dip in our driveway gave us enough room to use the oil pan from the shop.

Rather than dirty up Dad’s oil pan and funnel, we decided to go back across town to get the dirty one we borrowed from Superfast. We also brought the R1 over to the new house, so I could bleed the front brake line and change the oil in it as well. Once we got everything in place, Summer was quick to drop the oil out of the Shadow. She had a fancy new headband light too, so I didn’t even get to hold the flashlight for her. The bike took a bit more than the 2.5 quarts of synthetic oil that I expected, but Summer signed off on the leak check and it was good to go. She can wear the pants in the family all she wants, because I was just glad to keep my hands clean.

I ended up riding to PDQ to air up the tires, but tomorrow may rain anyway. I may not even get to ride it, but it’s ready. The kids stayed up a bit late, and Noah ended up staying the night, but I finally convinced him to sleep in a bed this time. We’ll take the small wins with that one.

I bet we wouldn’t have had to use more than half of that one bottle if we had just let the first two bottles drip a bit longer.

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OneYoke

I was early enough for work this morning that I decided to swing through McDonald’s for a McGriddle for the drive. It was relatively quiet compared to earlier in the week, though we still had visitors in the office behind us. I tinkered with imaging for a while and discovered that resetting the BIOS to factory defaults didn’t actually reset the storage settings. I ended up loading up another desktop with the OEM operating system, and exported drivers that I can tinker with next week.

Kim left after lunch to sell enough cattle to pay for the flooring in their new house, which meant the office was eerily quiet for the rest of the day. Apart from a conference call with the GoGuardian folks, there really wasn’t anything going on.

After work, I fed the fish and dug out my factory floormats in case they want me to return them with my car tomorrow. Then I headed home to get Summer so we could go to Superfast and replace my yoke with the original steering wheel. The new instructions I found didn’t cover all of the steps, but fortunately I found the old video I watched to install the yoke in the first place.

Eaddie was out with friends, so Summer and I went straight to my parents’ house for chow mein. It would have been a nice evening for a ride on the Onewheel, but it was dark by the time we got home. I took it for a figure-8 around the block, and then we waited for Eaddie to get home with her girlfriends for their sleepover.

You’re a good car.

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RAID, the Enemy

I got to try out the autopark feature on my car this morning, for the first time since I bought it, and it didn’t even include reverse summon, or even summon for that matter. After that, I spent nearly the entire day trying to image one of the new computers for a computer lab. I had new Rapid Storage Technology drivers and everything, but it still seemed to be a problem after the Operating system deployment was completed. I did get one machine done, and I sent Kim to replace it in the lab while I worked on two more. All the while, Denice had people in and out of her office all day, which had me playing the doorman.

I left work a bit late and went home to feed the fish. I didn’t get much else from there, and headed straight home to find Summer working in front of the TV. We eventually went to my parents’ house for meatloaf for dinner. When we got home, I went out on the Onewheel for a couple laps around the block before coming in for the evening. I stopped briefly to talk to the Sign Hub family as they walked the neighborhood as well. Eaddie got home late after watching some bands, and watched most of Tron: : Legacy before everyone was off to bed.

Chaos. Good news.

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Asshole Pickups

I had a terrible time crawling out of bed this morning. I must have been in an incredibly deep sleep, because it took me nearly an hour to wake up. It was bad enough that I wonder if snoozing for a few more minutes might have helped. I made it to work, but Kim wasn’t there the entire morning. She showed up for duty and then was around in the afternoon, but she didn’t really have anything to say about where she was, other than looking for one of the boys’ lost backpack all over town.

It took me a little while to get focused, but eventually I hammered out a couple of software deployments. I should be able to try imaging one of the new computer lab machines by tomorrow morning. At least it’s quieter in the side room when the air handler above our office starts shaking and buffeting the air pressure against our heads.

It only took a couple miles to find my first asshole on the way home from work. Some guy in a big, red pickup ran up behind me at the end of our two-lane stretch of road and passed about eight of us, including a full logging truck, on a double-yellow on a blind curve/hill with oncoming traffic. It I had better signal out in the county, I would have called 911 to report it, but I didn’t trust my call would be comprehensible.

I fed the fish and grabbed a handful of stuff before going to the wash to see Summer. They were busy, so I just washed my car and went home to wait for her. On the way home, I saw another truck cut off two people downtown. Then he took a turn in front of oncoming traffic as the second light turned green. I’d have given anything to be a stealth cop today.

Once Summer got home, we went to my parents’ house for some bánh tôm chiên khoai lang, which is just a more difficult way to say and spell, “fried shrimp cake with sweet potato.” Eaddie came over to eat as well, once she was done with some band concert event.

We weren’t home for ten minutes after eating before Summer had to go back to work to help clean the lube. She said someone called in, and I just couldn’t comprehend why someone in her position would feel like she had to go in to cover it.

Little DNS, little code, little vCard

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OUTAGAS

We all slept in this morning after I initially woke up just before five as Eaddie jokingly suggested as a departure time. We loaded up quickly, and Summer and I went in for some breakfast while Eaddie sat in the car. Then we met Dad at McDonald’s to pick up some steak, egg, and cheese bagels for Julie and Kevin. The kid at the register kept wanting to tell me too much information about his struggle finding the right picture on his employee register, or how he’d eat his Quarter Pounders with leftover gravy from the morning’s breakfast. Eaddie wanted to try one of the bagels, so we split one before we left.

Dad followed us while we kept getting stuck behind slow traffic, but eventually we passed most of it and got ahead of him. We stopped for a restroom break in Ozark, but didn’t need to charge. Eaddie had rehearsal at Tech after we got home. I unpacked and then left on the Onewheel to see Mom, and then ride the bagels over to Julie across town. She suggested I could go find Kevin at the airport, but I ended up a couple blocks over at my friend Kevin’s place.

Kevin hopped on the board and rode a little bit, but then wanted Matthi to try it out. That kid wasn’t afraid of anything, and immediately jumped on with reckless abandon. He got pretty good at it too, and then brought out a RipStik and a classic two-wheeled hoverboard to show me. Kevin and I ended up chatting for quite a while before I left and circled through the old house to feed the fish.

I didn’t quite make it back home before my battery died. I would have made it if I hadn’t circled through the Ridgewood Brothers’ parking lot, and nobody was there anyway. I had to walk most of the way up Honeysuckle, and the Onewheel got heavy fast. I got to the top of the hill and was able to ride it for a few more feet, but then had to walk it from the end of the street back to the house. It was the hardest workout I’ve had with the thing, but it was worth it.

I eventually had a shower after getting all sweaty carrying the Onewheel. Eaddie ate with Eli, so Summer and I had some leftover corned beef. She spent most of the evening like the rest of the weekend, not feeling great. I thought for sure I had seen something about not having school on Monday, but I don’t know where I hallucinated that, because there’s even a lunch menu. I’ll have to take another day off to take the Model 3 back to Tulsa, which makes me a bit sad, but I think it’ll all be worth it in the end.

I could ride you, but I’d have to charge.

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This Is Just a Tribute

Summer and I got up early for breakfast, which was a lot of “fresh” berries, yogurt, bagels, and some frozen bacon, egg, and cheese bagel bite things. There was also some kind of hashbrown-looking fried meat patty that wasn’t terrible. Eaddie didn’t come down, but we brought some food back to the room for her.

Once we were all ready, I rode the Onewheel back down to the car, and the girls decided to just walk on down as well. We took the car downtown to look for a place to park, but it was busy enough that there weren’t a lot of options. We ended up circling around and going up the mountain a bit, through a part of town I don’t think I’d ever been. We found Grotto Spring, and then drove up around the post office. The girls got out a couple of times while I babysat the car, and then we ended up heading back to the convention center to pick up my dad.

We went to the Pizza Hut Classic, which was a minor blast from the past with their old tablecloths, light fixtures, and posters. It seemed unremarkable to everyone else there, and they still didn’t have a buffet. We had some pizza and then went back for the matinee magic show. The girls enjoyed that, and then we headed back downtown to walk around.

We couldn’t find parking again, so we went back to the top of the hill to charge, and bought trolly tickets to ride to the opposite end of the strip. We leisurely walked down the hill, and Eaddie picked up a couple trinkets. We made it back down to the lower station just in time to get back to the hotel and then meet Dad for dinner.

Dad always likes to go to the Bavarian Inn Czech-German restaurant, and we’d missed it for a year or two. I think the girls liked their food alright. Mine wasn’t bad, but I didn’t realize it was what I had the last time. It gave me a little bit of a stomach ache though. Afterward, we took Dad back to his room, and we went to ours to kill some time before the evening show.

The evening show was entirely a tribute show from Ring 75 to Bill. I was a little worried about some of the laypeople, but the show eventually produced some entertaining tricks with less back story for the inside jokes. The girls enjoyed it, which is my barometer for the quality of the show, since I’ve been behind the curtain for so long.

After the show, I took the girls back to the room, and I ended up going back to the “afterparty” at the suite to let Larry drive the Model 3 around the parking lot. It wasn’t an ideal area, but nowhere in Eureka is. The trip home in the morning will be a different story.

Might as well have been an Unbirthday weekend.

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Body Bonk

Summer woke us up with omelet burritos for breakfast this morning. Then we got ready for our trip to Eureka Springs. We didn’t have any real time table to meet, so we left in the afternoon and fed the fish at the old house, and then aired up tires at Superfast before we left town.

We stopped in Ozark to charge, but we really didn’t need to. We made it with plenty of charge left, and the Osage Creek Lodge was right across the street from the free public charger. It was a slow charger, but I figured I could park there overnight and ride the Onewheel up the block to get back to the room.

I knew there was a dispensary on site, but I didn’t really expect the hotel lobby to smell so much like marijuana. Fortunately the rooms were all smoke-free, and they seemed to be kept up well. Once we got unloaded, we drove up the road to find Dad at the Best Western. We took him for a ride downtown, though we didn’t stop anywhere. He didn’t have long before the first evening show.

We went back to the hotel to research things to do, and I got the Onewheel out to ride around the parking lot. There were some speed bumps I wanted to try and jump, which went fairly well. My foot placement shifted a little, but it wasn’t unmanageable. Unfortunately I jumped a little too high on a smaller bump in the pavement, and I fell pretty hard in front of the girls. I got some pretty gnarly bruises on my hands and left arm, but no major breaks in the skin. The worst damage was some light scratching on the camera bar on my phone. The camera lenses themselves were fine, but I was still upset at the damage.

We eventually made it back to the conference center for the show, and then the four of us went back downtown to eat at The Spring on Main. They were open late, but only a couple other tables were there the entire time we were there. Mitch called me briefly before we got our food, but I’d have to catch up with him later. The food didn’t come out super fast, but it was super good. We paid way too much for slices of breaded avocado, but the burgers were fairly reasonable for being upscale.

After we ate, we dropped Dad back off at the hotel and then I took the girls back to our room. I drove back over to the public charger and got the car charging, and then rode the Onewheel back to the hotel for the night. The girls showered, and then we watched the end of Iron Man 2 and then the first part of Fantastic Beasts before bed.

Grip Affected