Tag: family

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Rebut

I couldn’t quite sleep in this morning, and got around to some leftovers. Autumn actually wanted to go to the gym with Summer, so they left and I went home to get some errands started. While I was there, Clint messaged me looking for some old video games to collect. I wasn’t prepared for that, but I offered to meet him at my office so we could catch up a bit.

As soon as I got to the office, I realized I forgot my keys. Clint hopped in and we ran back to my house to get them, and then we went to my office so I could finally submit my disciplinary rebuttal. I hate it, but I tend to agree that I should probably seriously look for new work.

When that was done, we went by Ben’s old house and I rang the doorbell to see if they had a package he had accidentally had delivered there. The wife of the guy that answered the door said she dropped it back off at the post office this morning, but they were closed, so I wasn’t sure if she just dropped it into a box or something.

I dropped Clint off back at his car, and then went home to grab a couple presents before heading back up to Summer’s. She had icing colored and ready for me to help load into bags, and then the kids came out to decorate cookies.

We probably only did about half of the cookies she baked before we got tired of it. I think it was partly because of their age, but also partly because everyone was just feeling super lethargic all day. We got everyone back to the table to play a partial game of Phase 10, and then everyone went to bed when Noah left for the evening.

The computer’s a lot faster at this than you.

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It’s Better Than Diggin’ a Ditch

Summer left early for the ribbon cutting at her new wash. I was sleeping really well after a rough night, and had to get up in time to make it to Summer before the big ceremony. I thought I would be going back to pick up Eaddie, but Autumn decided to bring her down herself. I brought a little PA system for them to use, which was moderately helpful. The girls showed up looking absolutely homeless in the baggiest clothes they owned.

Cindy showed up, which was a great surprise for Summer, and played into her own speech after Paul’s, about how she found a new home, a new family, and a new career after teaching. It was a beautiful, tear-jerking, fist-pumping welcome home speech.

I stuck around to mingle and help with random things after all the important people left, but as the wintery mix quickly blew in, I ran to Orr to get Julie’s car keys before they closed. Evidently Tim was working there now, so I gave him a ride around the block in the miserable weather.

From there, I went home and waited on Summer to get there so we could go back and actually get Julie’s car. We dropped it off at my parents’ house, and then she took me back home while she went to the gym. I was pretty sure that I was down to two ghost shrimp, which was a bit of a surprise after watching them appear perfectly happy. My new JBL Studio 550P came in to replace my prematurely-failed Polk PSW 505. It felt unnecessarily heavy, and then after I got it set up, sounded pretty underwhelming. Hopefully that’s due to settings.

When Summer finished at the gym, she came back to get me and we went to Ridgewood Brothers in the ice for some barbecue. Even with the weather, they really never had much time between customers coming through the line. As Summer and I picked at our huge platter of meats, Kyle came through and took some to-go. It was mildly frustrating, because I’d seen him call in to work due to better weather.

After we ate, we went to visit with Mom for a bit, and I put out some fresh, not-frozen water for the stray cat(s?). The girls had their boyfriends, Noah, his roommate, and his girlfriend over to the house, so we headed home right after that. They were playing cards when we got home, and eventually the visitors filtered off while Summer went to bed. The whole day felt super short, though it was longer than yesterday. I stayed up to see that Adam made it out the door, and then it was off to bed.

This isn’t your home.

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Hit the Gymnasium

I rolled into work a hair early this morning, and everyone was already outside with trucks loaded and ready to go to the middle school. We wasted no time getting started with running like seven new lines all around the gym. I was vaguely over a crew with Jacob, Jeff, and Kyle. We had to get four lines from outside the coaches offices to the switch closet. Greg mostly drove a lift around to run two access points up the opposite wall. We had all hands on deck, so several of us bounced around a lot.

Thomas cut everyone loose as soon as we were done, but I was stuck on a ladder trying to finish up one last wireless access point. We ultimately gave up, and I headed to the carwash to check on Summer. She and I thought we would get lunch, but passed Autumn and Eaddie as they were pulling into the wash. We turned around to give them a tour, and then decided to join them for lunch at CiCi’s.

After we ate, the girls left and Summer and I went to Lowe’s to pick up a bathroom cabinet for the wash. I started putting it together when we got back, but we were actually missing a part out of it all. Jordan and I went back to Lowe’s to try and get the part, but ended up buying a whole new cabinet just to scavenge the part from the box. Then after I finished putting the first one together, I returned the other to Lowe’s.

On my way out, I spotted Zach leaving and ran up from behind to tackle him. I was pretty impressed with my jog until I got back into my car wheezing. I went home to clean up for a bit, and then went to visit with Mom. She didn’t have any trash to take out, so I just hung out on the couch with her until my phone and I were both too tired to carry on.

I stopped by Ridgewood on the way home just to check on the guys. Grant was needing some alone time in the smokehouse, so I chatted with Robert out back and tried to be helpful as he stacked some wood. Those guys are working themselves absolutely ragged, and I wish I could do something to help every time I see them. I didn’t stick around long since it was so late, so I went home to change and headed up to Summer’s for the evening.

Everything hurts, and I’m too old for this.

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Dropped Merch

After not feeling well last night, I slept in today and then left for work a bit early, unrelatedly, so I could pick up some McDonald’s on the way in. They were supposed to have a merch drop with some kind of shirt or beanie, or possibly something else. Unfortunately I never got the notification in the app, and never made it to the store.

Work was pretty boring, as we lead up to break. I went back to McDonald’s again for some fries on my way to Dwight, but never got the link to the secret store for that either. When I got back to the shop, a group of us went to Quiznos for a proper lunch break. I just had a little cup of soup, since I had already eaten so much that morning.

When we got back to work, Gary sent me down the block to set up a computer for a new girl with Child Nutrition. Shane came by with some macarons from Kneading Hands Bakery, which were delicious. Then after work, I hung out with Gary while he upgraded the firewalls.

I went to see Mom when I left, and she had rice soup warming up for dinner. Summer needed to pick up a prescription from Rose Drug, so I offered to grab it quickly since I was already on that side of town. I went back to eat with Mom, and then headed home to change before going up to see the girls.

Autumn was finishing up with baking some cookies. Eaddie had been wanting to play Rocket League, so she got it loaded onto the Switch. She drove in circles a bit, and then had me actually play to show her how the game works. Playing on a new profile had such bad players that it was mostly everyone running into each other as they chased the ball. I didn’t play long on her profile though, because I didn’t want to get her into a rank where she couldn’t compete. I was surprised to see they moved the goals in from the outside walls for the hockey mode. That was neat.

The girls eventually went off to bed, and I wrapped up later than I wanted. Phase 10 still has my attention on the phone, but I managed not to check in on ExoMiner today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, though.

Probably not merch. ಠ_ಠ

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“Violent” Is in the Title

I was sent on a quest to Walmart this morning, so Summer could go to the gym and still have time to bake a ham for the Superfast Christmas potluck this afternoon. The light bulb aisle was frustratingly unorganized, and the choices weren’t really very good for a simple spherical vanity bulb. All of them had labels printed on the top, and weren’t frosted very evenly. I got what we needed though, and then made my way across the store for some foil and wax paper. I had to get help from an employee to climb up and fetch some wider rolls of foil, but I caught the case I wanted, to keep it from crushing her.

When I got back to the house, I took Eaddie to my parents’ house for bánh mì for lunch. Summer finished up the ham and went to the Secret Santa potluck while we were gone, and we all got back to the house around the same time.

Summer wanted to go see Violent Night, which shocked Eaddie and me a bit. Autumn didn’t want to go, citing “homework” while she spent all morning in front of the TV. My parents met us at the theater, and decided to join us instead of watching Wakanda Forever. I think Dad expected more humor than ultraviolence, but I thought the movie was great. The dialog was a little overly vulgar for me, but the violence was over-the-top enough to be humorous at times. Summer didn’t expect it to be so gory or violent, but we had to remind her it was in the title.

When we got back to the house, Eaddie wanted to make Oreo balls. Autumn immediately disappeared to her room, except to come out and gripe about laundry. Eaddie had also been trying to get video games going on their desktop computer all day, but never had much luck. I guess kids these days are just in the habit of using their school emails, and repeatedly make new personal email accounts any time they need one for something. I can’t relate, but we’ll need her to come up with a permanent one for many things in the near future.

Everyone made it to bed relatively early. With a band concert and up to three more Christmas parties, this week will be busy. I’m glad I’m not actually doing anything important for the holidays.

What kids have become, they are little junkies. They’re little shits!

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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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Oh, It’s Friday

We had a meeting this morning to talk about how to tighten up our cyber security a bit. Overall, Gary has most of our stuff set up pretty smartly, but the whole system is only as strong as its weakest link, and we hire almost exclusively weak links. Zach split up a couple groups for some work that shouldn’t have taken much time at all, but ended up taking the whole day. Thomas left to go to a tech directors meeting to discuss the different districts that have become compromised around us. I was left to my own devices, which was mostly just boring.

I went to Dwight for a bit and got trapped in the office while they performed, as far as I could tell, an exorcism. I might have been more shocked if I hadn’t just had to deal with Autumn for the past two years, but at this point I’m an expert on crazy.

I got back to the shop right at lunch time, and Kyle came out to tell me that everyone was splitting up. He wanted to try Ridgewood, but I expressed concern that he likely wouldn’t get to order before his lunch break was over. A minute after he left to roll the dice, Greg and Josh came out of the shop and said they were planning to go to La Chiquita, so I drove them. There, our server was pretty awkward, but friendly. He got me a cheese enchilada instead of chicken, so I had him bring me another and just ate both.

After lunch, I had to go investigate Dina’s computer, because a bunch of people got phishing emails from her, and Thomas wanted to see if her computer was compromised. I neither expected nor found any evidence, but I also wasn’t sure what tools would be best for discovering any.

The rest of the afternoon was really quiet, but then at the last half hour, Kelsea came back to tell me that Burris finally showed up with furniture for the child nutrition folks. They were supposed to have it all done in the morning, so I had to send out a message to recall a bunch of guys to help finish moving them. On the way out, Zach parked the truck and looked pretty defeated by the door they had been trying to wire all day long.

After work, I hung out at home for quite a while, and spent my time between watching the shrimp, playing Phase 10 on my phone, and trying to get Disney+ to work on my TV. Summer made it home late, so I met her there while the girls were at some lights event downtown. It was a dull night until I made it to bed, an hour earlier than I ever do during the week.

Never once in step.

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Magic Hippies

It was a bit of a struggle to get up today, but I had to get home to shower before meeting my parents to go to the magic club’s annual potluck and Christmas show. We knew Autumn didn’t want to go, but Eaddie changed her mind after originally saying she would go with us. Summer picked me up, and then my parents drove. Phone games kept me occupied for the trip, but then we arrived at a mostly abandoned looking facility.

Larry invited a bunch of his church crew, which was a rather odd looking group of folks. Most of them arrived before anybody I recognized, and then the potluck appeared a bit sparse for that many people. The Walmart chicken was pretty awful, but at least there was plenty of it. At least I don’t think anyone went hungry.

The show was very typical, and then the cleanup went relatively quickly. We didn’t stick around, and loaded up to leave pretty quickly. We stopped very briefly at the Midland market so Mom could look for some stuff, but it was probably the shortest visit I’ve ever seen her make. I picked up a bag of rambutans and some lychee gummies, and then we headed home.

For feeling so tired, we actually got home pretty early. Summer dropped me off at home so I could bring the car back up to her house. Eaddie had Summer quiz her for a test, and Autumn had some laundry going that she left in the machine after I called at her to take them out. Otherwise it was a really quiet, early night to bed.

Fraking gnats, everywhere.

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One of Everything

Eaddie woke us up at four in the morning to be dropped off at the high school for an away robotics tournament. I got frustrated with her when she asked for food after we had already started driving the wrong direction for that, and then we tried two different gas stations that ended up being closed for the night. She ended up changing her mind about it, but then wanted me to drop her off to kill time by wandering around the campus in the dark. I at least got her in the building, and then checked up on her on camera once I got back home and into bed.

I didn’t let myself sleep too long though, because I wanted to make it to the Ridgewood Brothers for their soft open at 11. I got cleaned up, and Summer and I went across town. We were actually the second ones there, but I think the other lady might have been there the night before as well, so I was fuzzy on how the invites or events went out. Gary showed up a little while after we did, and came to join us. We were all really surprised there wasn’t just a line of people wrapped around the place.

They had a somewhat limited menu, but we definitely weren’t short on food. They could have just opened for regular price, and I would have paid it just to support them, but they were giving dine-in orders for half-off for the day. The one new thing I got to try was their new cheesy jalapeño rice grits. I thought they were fantastic, and could have started the day with a bowl of that for breakfast.

After we ate and finished socializing, Summer and I headed back to the house to get my yoke, and then went to Superfast to borrow some tools. They ended up having to buy a socket adapter that I would have had at home, but I didn’t have a breaker bar or a 10mm hex to go on the end of one. It took a little bit, but I ultimately got the wheel off with an air impact. I ended up swapping the whole front facia and using my OEM buttons, rather than separate the horn springs and whatever else was contained in the wiring harness. In the end, I thought it looked pretty good, and the experience of driving with a yoke was exactly like I expected: In no way better, but tolerable as a style choice.

We went to my parents’ house to show them, and they at least liked the look of it. We made plans to come back for dinner, and I took Summer back to the house so she could go to the gym. I poked around the house for a little bit, and tried to clean up some oil or grease stains on my hoodie from spending more than a couple minutes at the shop. Then I stopped by Walmart for bread flour, yeast, and a forgotten cucumber before heading up to get Summer for dinner.

Mom made egg rolls the other day, so Dad fried some up for salads. Eaddie was heading home on the bus the entire time, so we didn’t stick around too long after we finished eating. I dropped Summer off, and then immediately went to the high school to get her. We stopped by my house so she could get some things she had left, and I showed her my first three ice spheres from my new fridge. I was pretty happy with how they turned out, especially for the first batch.

Summer was making bread when we got back home. Eaddie chatted a bunch about her day, and then everyone was off to bed pretty early. Autumn made it home from Quiz Bowl, but didn’t bother to greet anyone before closing herself up in her room. I was absolutely heartbroken.

I feel personally attacked!

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Bro

I squeezed in a minute late today, but beat Tammy by nearly 20 minutes. Thomas was apparently out on some (possibly?) surprise trip, so Zach set the guys out on some projects after Gary had a spiel about how the high school is being stupid about their guest WiFi access. I didn’t have to do any of that, so I spent some time in my office for the morning.

After a little while, I started getting phone calls. Kayla was still having trouble with transcribing her time cards, and then one of my old teachers at Oakland called asking for some help with a display issue. I kind of wanted an excuse to go back over there anyway, so I did.

Brody wanted to eat lunch with us since he was finally off on Fridays. We met him at Zaxby’s, and he did the surprised Pikachu face when he saw me pull up in my Tesla. He said he hated his new job, and had an interview with Ryan for a network engineer job in Clarksville. I guess Ryan didn’t remember having lunch with him when we picked up the carts from Bentonville, otherwise he might not have gotten the interview.

After lunch, I went across the street to spend some time with Kayla. She was still super stressed over the time cards, and Rebecca wasn’t really any help with her payroll knowledge. I did some more tweaking on the spreadsheet, and tried my best to make her job as easy as possible before going back to my office to send out the CPPC agenda.

After work, I stopped by to see the Ridgewood Brothers, and they had the restaurant ready to roll, with tons of staff everywhere. I thought I was helping, but didn’t realize they actually had an event scheduled that evening. I went home to get a tablet, but got sidetracked by picking up my blood pressure meds from Walgreens, and then cleaning up my new fridge so I could power it on. By the time I made it back to the restaurant, they had two parking lots FULL of people.

I went back home for a bit before meeting Summer at Arby’s for dinner. Then we came home and waited for the girls to get there. They both had to get up super early for school events the next day, so they wanted to stay close by for a shorter drive to the school. Summer watched some TV in bed as usual, and everyone was off to bed pretty early, except me, who was not at all used to sleeping at home.

Of course my refrigerator has a firmware update. How could it possibly keep my food cold without firmware?