Tag: family

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Armed Brother

Thomas and Zach were out today, so Gary was calling the shots. I was initially directed to the Support Services building to investigate a bunch of equipment moves, but was quickly pulled off of that to start a help ticket with Jamf. I thought they might actually be quick to respond, but I never heard anything back all day.

I went to Oakland for a little while to troubleshoot my weird lunch room computer issues, but didn’t get very far. I consistently had issues with both computers there. I made it back to the shop for lunch, but Gary and Tammy were the only ones there, and he had to stick around for Ritter to show up. He did end up picking up some food, but then had to meet the guy that showed up while he was out. I wound up just skipping lunch entirely, and picked at various things I found around the office.

I didn’t really get a whole lot accomplished the rest of the afternoon. I sat with Tammy for a little while as she got emotional. Gary eventually showed back up after she went to pick up some food for herself, but it was still quiet downstairs all afternoon.

Summer took Autumn to therapy, and then brought back some food from Big Poppa’s after dropping her off at karate. I went to Kroger to pick up some freezer bags, and then met the other two at home to eat. Summer wanted to go to the gym, so I dropped Eaddie off at tennis for an hour while I set spider traps all around the house. I look forward to being horrified by how many bugs I catch.

Summer got Autumn and I got Eaddie after their activities, and we headed back up to the house for the evening. Tonight was my turn to get a long call from sister, and we chatted about Randall’s upcoming wedding next year, then therapy, then vacations, then frustrations. I hope an unbiased third party will help now that I’ve had some experience communicating thoughts and feelings.

Naked force has resolved more conflicts throughout history than any other factor.

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Cleared for Nothing

Eaddie had a couple days worth of fun planned with friends, so Summer dropped her off for church and a day on a boat, followed by a night with her friend. Then she went on to the gym while I slept in. Eventually she made it home, and she, Autumn, and I decided to go hang out at Walmart for a little while. Jaylinn had told Summer that a bunch of stuff was on clearance, so we thought we might find a deal.

Nothing really caught our eye, but Summer did finally get her kitchen zester. About halfway through our shopping trip, Autumn developed a scowl that nobody really understood. Eventually she came out and said she didn’t like me showing public displays of affection to Summer, but really all I had done was hold her hand or walk with my arm around her. Autumn was just acting lonely and petty, and wanted to lash out. She even tried getting me in trouble for some new scratches on the side of Summer’s car, even though it was pretty obviously done by someone else pushing up against it from the outside.

Autumn wanted us to take her back home instead of to my parents’ house to swim, but I thought we might do her one better and take her to her grandparents’ house for a while. We first drove around the block a few times to look at some houses for sale, and then dropped her off to help with some housework. Then Summer and I went to my parents’ house for some swimming and spring rolls.

Julie eventually showed up as well, and helped with a bit of the prep work before we ate. I tried slicing some meat, but had trouble getting it very thin since the very outside of the block of meat had thawed out to be very soft while the inside was still frozen. The rolls were good though, and Julie appreciated an accidental, early, birthday dinner of one of her favorite foods.

Summer and I eventually headed home, stopping at Walgreens to pick up an order along the way. Then it was back up to her house for the evening, where we tried to finish up our written document for Autumn’s FINS petition. She baked a boxed cake mix we got from Walgreens, then did some stuff for work. We fought a couple separate ant infestations, Autumn was dropped off super late, and then it was off to bed.

Ungrateful swine.

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Swim&Ms

Summer scrambled some ham, cheese, and eggs together for breakfast this morning. Eaddie didn’t want to come out of her room much, but she at least ate with everyone else. Autumn actually wanted to come swim with Summer and me, which was a bit of a surprise. It didn’t take long for her to start acting a bit cranky though. We eventually made it to my parents’ house, and Dad came out to join us while Mom slept in.

After we finished swimming in the midday sun, they dropped me off at my house so I could clean up before our double date with Melinda and Matt. I tinkered a bit, but didn’t get up to a whole lot. I watched a little bit of Ms. Marvel just to see if I thought Eaddie might be interested in watching it with me. I’m not sure she’ll care much about the characters, but some of the effects are pretty neat.

Summer eventually made it back down to pick me up, and we headed to Cagle’s Mill for dinner with my old workmate and her husband. I really didn’t have much to say, and Summer spent quite a while just talking about work, so I think it was a little more awkward for Matt and me than anything. The girls enjoyed their drinks though, and all of their food looked pretty good. My ribeye looked awful, but tasted alright. After Summer’s work talk, Melinda kept the small talk going until we decided it was time to head home.

The girls were watching the last episode of Stranger Things, so Summer and I went to the bedroom for some quiet. Then everyone made it to sleep relatively early.

Puff!

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Doubles

Gary had me spin up a VM for our upcoming Jamf Cloud migration, which took most of the day worth of tinkering. I felt good about setting up the VM, and followed along well enough as we made firewall changes. Unfortunately the application didn’t have very good documentation, and the installation got stuck near what I think was the end of the process.

Zach took a bunch of us to CJ’s for lunch, and I spent the ride coloring in the back seat. The burger was pretty messy today, and had me gurgling a bit in the afternoon. I continued to tinker with our Jamf project until Thomas let everyone go about an hour early.

Summer took the day off with the girls, but didn’t get up to a whole lot, I don’t think. She wanted to take a nap about the time I got home, so I just stayed there and tinkered around until later in the evening. When I finally made it up to their house, Eaddie wanted to go out to play tennis. Autumn decided to surprise us with her participation as well, so I figured I should complete the set.

I ate some leftover stir fry really quickly, and then we had Eaddie drive us to the city park to see how busy they were. She really wanted to go to Old Post though, so we went to my house for my racket and some more balls, and then made our way to the lock and dam. I was surprised the courts there weren’t packed with how nice it felt outside.

We switched around from playing singles to doubles, and everyone had quite a bit of fun. Autumn eventually tapped out, and then a little while later our lights went out and we couldn’t get them back on, so we decided to wrap it up. Summer took us up to Caudle Overlook so Autumn could see the dam, and then we headed home to wind down and head to bed.

Feels like 40, love.

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Clever Boy

I thought it was going to be another quiet, uneventful day at the office, but shortly after I dug into some work, Gary called and asked for help with a couple guys from Raptor that were there to test and troubleshoot our alerting system. Evidently among all of the brightest minds there, not one of them thought to “think different” and bring along an Android device.

I headed to the high school and had to sit while they discussed some things before we actually got started. Then we wandered to a couple places, both inside and out, in order to test different scenarios, logging in and out of the app repeatedly until we had enough data points. I don’t think we unearthed anything groundbreaking, but hopefully they were able to take back some good feedback.

We worked into lunch, but then the guys offered to buy lunch. Terry gave them the option of CJ’s or Old South, and we went for the southern comfort food. I should have gotten the chicken fried steak breakfast platter that Albert ordered, because it looked awesome. My fried catfish wasn’t bad, but I was definitely jealous.

When we got back to the high school, Gary sent me off to meet up with Greg in Chrissy’s office. He was having trouble with the Macs over there, but unfortunately I wasn’t much help. We also checked on Daniel’s, which he ended up taking back to the shop. I spent the rest of the afternoon, quietly in my office. I did managed to get a couple things done, and then headed up to get Eaddie for tennis practice after work.

While I waited for Eaddie to finish, I set up an Echo Show, which didn’t really impress me much. I haven’t really liked the Blink Mini camera that came with it either. I don’t think I’ll return them, but I just don’t care for the quality.

Autumn and Summer made dinner back home, which made everyone quite happy. Then I suggested a game of Phase 10 before everyone was ready for bed. I did my best not to stay up too early on account of how behind I’ve been on sleep. Weekends happen too fast and too far apart. I don’t know why I can’t just live on a boat forever.

Or in a robot car…

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Freeze!

I spent most of this morning very slowly trying to replace the cafeteria computers at Oakland. While I waited for them to boot up and update, I ended up exploring the walk-in cooler, as well as the freezer section located through a second doorway inside the refrigerator. I panicked a little bit as the button to open the door from the inside had frozen stuck for a moment, but I escaped. After that, I tinkered around until lunch time when a group of us went to Freddy’s.

I misspoke and got my burger without all the veggies, which was detrimental to its flavor. I also still wonder what a sport pepper is, since they didn’t have any. I was the only one to end my meal with any custard, but I had earned a free concrete in the form of a key lime pie. It was delicious, but I only had a few bites before we headed back to the shop.

I spent most of the afternoon helping Zach and Greg run a couple lines at Central Office. It was frustrating to see all of the renovations there, while we can’t even drink the tap water downstairs. I got a little itchy from the insulation in the ceiling, but fortunately it was a short run. I spent more time terminating than actually running the cable.

I walked across to the Transportation office for the last bit of the day, and ended up talking to Kayla well past quitting time. We shared our gossip, and she tried to offer any advice she could for our situation with Autumn. Summer texted that they were home and ready to cook dinner, so I had to run home and change before stopping by Walmart for a few last-minute ingredients.

When I got there, Summer and Autumn were both in the kitchen, dancing around each other. Summer made a sort of stir-fry while Autumn baked snickerdoodles. We had a good dinner, everyone got along, and then Summer did some stuff for work before heading off to bed. Autumn ended up sleeping on the couch while I documented our troubles with her for our FINS petition. I stayed up later than I wanted, but I think I got most everything written down.

It’s important to be historically accurate!

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ReHeated

As soon as I climbed into bed last night, I got a notification from Nest that my air conditioner may not be working correctly. It severely underestimated how bad things were, because the unit had actually been running for about 28 hours straight, and was not at all cooling the house. In fact, I presume it pushed a bunch of heat down from the attic to reach a balmy 92 degrees inside.

I ran home to check things out, and at least nothing was on fire. Everything appeared to run as expected outside, so I’m not sure what the problem was. I couldn’t get it going again though, which meant a hot weekend before someone could get out to service it. I turned everything off, opened the back door, and went back to Summer’s to go to sleep in the cool.

I tried not to sleep in too late, and got around to bathe while Summer got up to do some work from home. The girls were all three pretty cranky any time they were around each other, so Summer ended up taking Eaddie and her friend to the gym while Autumn and I were sent to shop for a couple things.

We stopped by my house first, so I could try a couple more things to troubleshoot my air conditioner. The condensation line wasn’t clogged, and the breakers were all in good order, so we left it just as I had left it last night and continued to Walmart. We only needed a couple things, so shopping didn’t take long. I took us to Sonic for a couple slushes afterward, and tried their special Shark Week flavor in honor of how the day had been with the girls so far.

Summer cooked a ham and some potatoes, rice, and veggies for dinner. By then, everyone had mostly cooled down to eat. Then Autumn wanted to play a game, so Summer and I played a full game of Phase 10 with her before bed.

I’m not making it weird. The weirdness is making it weird.

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The Legend of the Space Viking

I slept in pretty late today after staying up way too late last night. Summer got up and went to the gym with Autumn and returned home around the time I was getting ready for a shower. We didn’t waste any time getting out of the house and headed to Conway for lunch. Eaddie had mentioned Big Orange, so we went for Red Robin instead so we could eat earlier in the day. The restaurant was pretty quiet, but service was incredibly slow. Our server brought out our “endless” fries in tiny baskets that had barely enough fries for one person, and then one cup of the campfire sauce for all four of us to share. Then when the food finally showed up, Summer’s salad was the best looking meal on the table.

Disappointed, we made our way to Little Rock and went straight to Goodwill. The girls really wanted to shop for some clothes, which was a little surprising to me. I figured by now they would be used to buying enough stuff new that they wouldn’t have any interest in thrifting. The store was a bit warm, and all the employees seemed to hate their lives. They were super busy, and the checkout line stretched halfway across the store. I found a cow butter dish, and we got a couple arms full of clothes for the girls by the time we left.

From there, we went on to the Promenade and got Eaddie some ice cream from MaggieMoo’s. It was Summer’s idea, but by the time we got there, she wasn’t feeling up to eating any, so Eaddie was the only one that got anything. I helped her with her cone, and then we crossed the street to get to the theater.

We all just wanted to cool off more than anything. The sun was incredibly hot outside, and the air conditioning in the IMAX couldn’t keep up. John and Melissa showed up just before the show, and then we all sat down for Thor: Love and Thunder. I thought it was a great movie, and it was nice that none of the previews really gave anything away. It really did kind of jump all over the place.

After the movie, we all went to Chuy’s for dinner. The service there wasn’t a whole lot better. They also seemed understaffed, and our waitress struggled to keep chips and salsa on the table. Summer and Eaddie weren’t super hungry, so I just shared a double order of fajitas with them.

We visited for a while and then hit the road for an uneventful ride home. Eaddie went through all of her clothes from Goodwill to show us, and then everyone was off to bed.

What a classic Thor adventure!

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I’ve Got a Yankee Doodle Sweetheart

I slept through an anxiety attack early this morning, and then slept late afterward. We eventually got up and showered before going to Walmart to pick up an online order I had placed the night before. They had a Bodum glass and tea strainer on sale, similar to the glass that Suzanne had accidentally broken when we had them over a while back, so I took the opportunity to re-complete the set. They didn’t offer a way to pick it up inside, but I wanted to take a peek through the clearance section while we were there. Just as we got into the store, they called and asked what stall I was parked in, which seemed to be a mistake in the app setup. I don’t know why they have you check in when you’re just “on the way” if they’re going to assume you’re already there.

I drove over to the pickup section to get my glass, then went back to the garden center to finish shopping and fetch Summer. We were out relatively quickly, and headed on to my parents’ house to start grilling. I was super hungry and was anxious to get the burgers done, but Dad had only just lit off the charcoal. I helped patty the burgers, and then got things cooking as quickly as I could. All total, we had burgers, corn on the cob, shrimp, and finally a rack of ribs to grill. I tried using my smoker tube, but I guess I smothered it with all the smoke from the charcoal. Mom had some beef for kabobs, but I told her to wait until tomorrow since we were out of coals after the ribs anyway.

After we ate, Summer and I went for a swim to cool back off. It was so hot and humid that I could barely walk outside without breaking a sweat. She enjoyed the heat, but I absolutely loathed it. I felt smothered by it. The pool helped, but she still wanted to go to the train depot for the holiday entertainment.

We drove back to my house to wait out the sun a bit, and then went up to her house to check on the cats and set out some pork for dinner later in the week. One of the cats pooped on the shower matt, and it just reminded me how much I hate having pets.

From there, we made our way downtown for the festivities. We actually got decent parking, and some clouds came in to block the sun. There was a light breeze that kept things just barely bearable for me, and I was glad to see some friendly faces in the form of Boundy and her husband, Mike. We chatted for a bit, and then we wandered over to a crêpe food truck. While we were there, something happened to one of the band members, and the singer announced to the crowd that “somebody” should call 911. I don’t know if anyone ever did, but the bicycle cops at the back of the crowd didn’t appear to be in too much of a hurry to get up to the guy. At some point, another band member announced that their keyboardist was also a cardiologist, so I guess things worked out?

Back at the food truck, there appeared to be a pretty long line, but we learned that everyone there was actually just waiting for their food. The line to order was actually very short. I frustrated Summer when I said I didn’t really want to eat much of one in the heat, and she took off back to the car. We went home, talked about it a bit, and I explained my struggles with sticky foods and drippy sweat. We discussed going up to Nebo like I had suggested earlier, and then ultimately decided to go back downtown on the Shadow, since it had cooled off considerably by then, and we could park more flexibly.

We made it back to the Peter’s lot and parked, marveling that our vacated parking spot from earlier was still available. We wandered back to the music area, decided against waiting in any of the ridiculously-long lines for treats, and walked back to, and across Arkansas to where someone was selling kettle corn. Fortunately there wasn’t a line there at all, so we got a bag of that, when out of nowhere Boundy showed up with a half-eaten bag for us. We took it, and then found a seat at a picnic table right beside them. I ended up running back across the street to bring the bike over so we could have an easier getaway, and it worked splendidly.

Summer enjoyed the show, though it was weird to watch one from so close with absolutely no music or any kind of rhythm to it. The show lasted a bit longer than I expected, and then we took off as soon as it was over. We made it home in record time, and I couldn’t have been more pleased on a night before going back to early days at work. Summer went straight to bed with incredible nerve pain, and I wrapped up my usual deal hunting as quickly as I could.

I DECLARE INDEPENDENCE! I didn’t say it. I declared it!

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Cooling Issue

We got up and made Autumn mow the back yard today, and then Summer scrambled some eggs with some sliced up sausages from last night. Everyone else got a pretty slow start to the morning. The girls didn’t want to go to the Clarksville Aquatic Center like Summer had been planning all week, but she did convince them to go to a craft fair at the fairgrounds. I went home to clean up first, but was already unsure about joining them if it was held out in the heat. I ended up bathing for a bit, and then sitting it out.

When they finished at the fair, I met them at Walmart so Eaddie could get some things for band camp. My parents were on that side of town as well, having dropped off Mom’s car to have a couple tires replaced after ripping off a part of one of the sidewalls. I picked up some Stranger Things themed goodies on clearance, as well as some banana Soylents and a weighted blanket for Gary.

The girls were hungry when we finished, and my parents had mentioned food before we all met up at Walmart, so we all met back up at Zaxby’s. Summer and I shared a Zalad and a Wings & Things meal, which was a good mix. I ended up having to take off before everyone else, and went home for a bit before going to Wesley’s house to help with a WiFi issue.

Mister Wesley was outside working on an addition to the house, which I thought was just incredible. I didn’t realize how much he had built onto the property, but it was all really well done. The wireless issue was just due to some equipment removal after they dropped cable, and I had to give them their new wireless SSID and password. The rest of the time we just chatted about what he had built around the house, work, and anything else that came up.

On the way back up to Summer’s, I took the turn at Whatta-Burger at my usual speed, and the Murano sputtered. The engine service light came on, and the temperature was on the under-intimidating “H” so I kept driving, hoping to make it to the house. I got right up to G-Ray’s, and it sputtered enough that I decided to pull over rather than risk dying at the end of the driveway. Summer left the gym and went to my house to pick up a jug of water, but it didn’t suck it into the radiator from the overflow like we expected. She had me start the car and rev it a bit, but we never had any luck.

She dropped me off at her house, and then took Autumn with her to the gym while we waited for the car to cool in the shade. Afterward, we went back and added water directly to the radiator, but it appeared to pour right back out from wherever it was leaking. We went back home, and I messaged my old coworker, Marlena, to see if her husband might want a tow job on the side. That was about the time I realized that it was actually his father’s family business, so I felt incredibly stupid. It took her a while to respond, but she said he wasn’t on call this weekend. Dad and I decided to try and ghetto-tow it in the middle of the night.

The girls eventually dug out the Stranger Things brownies that we bought, and started to bake them. Eaddie had fun cutting out all of the accessories for that, as well as the drink mix. Autumn had apparently come back from the gym with some attitude about me, so I pried at that for a bit until she clammed up and we sent her to her room forever. Eaddie just wants to survive the year and be done with her too, but I’m hoping they can keep the pressure on her.

Dad came over after everyone had wandered off either to bed or to prepare for bed. On the first trip, we discovered my battery had died, and I guessed I must have left the power on. We came back to the house for some sockets to remove the battery and prevent an even deeper drain overnight, but those didn’t work. Fortunately(?), the positive cable was barely snug and I was able to wiggle the cable up and off of the post before giving up for the evening. After this evening and the rest of everything that’s come at me recently, I’m basically expecting the engine to be toast.

No execution. That’s the problem here. I need more executions.