Tag: family

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Starting Earlier

I wanted to shift my sleep schedule back starting today, so I didn’t let myself go back to sleep after I woke up around six. I laid in bed and played Into the Breach until Summer stirred a bit. Then I got up and heated some leftover breakfast pizza. Eventually the girls got around, so I went to Walgreens across town to pick up a deal on tooth paste. Then I went to work to drop off some scrap and pick up a TV stand before going home and starting some laundry.

Eaddie was having Gavin over for the afternoon, and they decided they wanted to go ride bicycles, so Summer brought them over while I was working in the garage. They took off, and then Summer and I went to Walmart to walk around and get stuff for dinner. From there, I went back home to finish laundry and wait for the kids while Summer went home to start on dinner.

When we got back, Summer had made some delicious looking meatballs for spaghetti. I put the TV stand together and got it stood up on the old TV stand I tried to give away before it started raining yesterday. To my surprise, the red line was back. It’s not unbearable for the increase in size, but it’s not a smart TV either, so it’s annoying not having a remote for it.

Dinner was awesome, though Autumn didn’t join us since she went out with Nick. She came home ranting about him, though it seemed like they were both really just manipulating each other. The four of us that did eat really enjoyed the home cooked meal. Once we finished, the five of us played a game of UNO FLIP! It was a surprisingly short game, and then the kids all went to their rooms.

Summer and I watched the first episode of Our Flag Means Death and then I flipped through YouTube until Gavin’s parents picked him up. We stayed up a bit longer, Summer finished up a few chores, and I made it to bed early.

Feels like finals week.

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In Transit

Our meeting was fairly short this morning, as they’ve only come up with about three agenda items per week. That will grow as we bring in the two new-hires though, and we’ll continue the tradition of learning the flow of data every year and a half when we lose people. I was left mostly to myself, so I picked at a few things in my office before going to Oakland. I didn’t notice when I’ll actually start moving to Dwight, but I’m not really stoked about it.

I came back to the shop for lunch, and a few of us went to Zaxby’s. After we ate, we noticed a semi with a trailer full of identical grey Teslas going down Main Street. I had to get gas in the Shadow anyway, so I followed it until the guy parked in the turning lane at Chick-fil-A and ran across the street. I figured he was just stopping for lunch, because he was on the road again by the time I finished getting gas.

On the way back to the shop, I saw a girl tip-toeing her sport bike down the road by Summer’s new car wash, so I turned around and helped her push it over to 2nd Street. She fussed a bit about having just purchased the bike, and how they had trouble with the shift lever. They had it rigged together with some wire, and the whole linkage just fell apart. I made sure she was okay, and continued back to work when she insisted that she was fine and someone was on the way.

The afternoon was really quiet, and I spent some time cleaning out my old cubby in the office. I threw out an armful of stuff that I was saving, because my perception of value has changed quite a bit since I first started and was using that cubby. Now that I have an office, I should make room for the new techs.

When I left work, I decided to ride by Allen’s house to see if he was home. His car was there, and the front door was open, so I popped in to surprise him the day before his birthday. He was happy to see me, and we chatted for quite a while. I caught him up on all the goings-on at work, and he talked about going hunting tomorrow.

Apparently Eaddie wanted to play hooky and stayed home from school all day. Summer let her, since her lowest grade was a 94%. Autumn had to perform at an away game after school, so she was gone all evening. When I finished at Allen’s, I asked Eaddie if she wanted to go get her bike, and she quickly responded that she did. I went to pick her up, and she took off as soon as we got to my parents’ house. I stuck around for just a little bit, but they were busy either eating or watering the garden.

I went home to clean up before Summer got home. Bác Vân was outside for a little bit, and asked me to mow some of the tall grass in my front yard. I knocked that out really quickly, but then she wanted to buy my mower because she was aggravated with her own gas mower. I just kept telling her I could mow when the season comes around again.

Summer originally wanted to have a fire, but I was glad I didn’t waste the effort. She didn’t leave work until super late. Eaddie never made it home, and instead stopped at Maristella’s house. She asked me to pick her up, forgetting our conversation just minutes earlier that we had to wait for Summer to get back with the Murano. I brought her home, and then we went back for the bike once Summer arrived. They both wanted Casey’s pizza for dinner, so I ordered that before we left, and then we stopped at Kroger for some juice before getting the pizza. I ordered their beer cheese breakfast pizza and a barbecue brisket pizza, and the brisket was surprisingly good.

After we ate, we settled on watching the first two episodes of She-Hulk. I was glad I did, because I had forgotten who a couple of the characters were from the very beginning. I didn’t even realize how neglected some of those characters were as the story kept moving along. Eaddie quickly went to bed afterward, since she has a robotics event tomorrow. Autumn came over as soon as she got back to town, and Summer was quick to bed.

It must have fit, because it shipped!

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She’s a Brainiac, Brainiac on the Floor

I got a request to shuffle a bunch of stuff at Support Services yesterday, so first thing this morning, Gary, Zach, Greg, and I went over to take care of that. It ended up being way easier than I expected, and we knocked it out pretty quickly, even after we lost Zach to go watch his kid do a firefighter challenge at Sequoyah.

Afterward, I went back to my office and started in on my Network+ videos again until lunch time. It was Brody’s last day, so most of us got together and went to Cicis for lunch. While we were there, Aaron and a couple other guys from the bank came in, and he snuck up behind me to say, “hi.”

Summer had gotten a call from the neurologist that they could see her in the afternoon, which was way better than waiting for the middle of December, so she came back to town and picked me up after lunch. We went straight to their office and waited for them to open back up from lunch so we could fill out paperwork before talking to the doctor. The meeting actually went really well, and he put us at ease right away. The abnormality was some possible shrinkage of her frontal lobe that could possibly have been greater than average, but he didn’t feel like that had anything to do with the symptoms that brought her to the doctor in the first place.

Summer did a few cognitive tests with varying results, and he referred us to UAMS, which we’ll probably do at the start of next year after her deductible resets. She still felt a bit off with a headache, but I talked her into going to my house to clean up, since I had been gone from work long enough to take the remainder of the day off.

I poked around in the garage when I got home, and cleaned and organized a few more things. Summer befriended a beautiful white dog with white eyes, who I’d seen wander around the neighborhood in the past. We tested the couple of scrapped TVs I brought home, and one of them appeared to work without any trouble. The other was clearly physically broken on the left side, but it would be fine for someone that just needs one that works at all. We loaded up the better one to take to her house, and then I ran around looking for some feet. I thought I had some in my office, but I finally came back home and found them there.

Up at Summer’s house, Eaddie was already dressed down for the evening. Summer made Rice Krispies Treats, and eventually Autumn showed up from whatever she had going on. I had gotten a message that my VIN was assigned, so I hopped online to try and finalize my Progressive quote. Since the delivery is happening so late in the year, I’m actually getting a 2023 year model, which is pretty neat. I won’t have ultrasonic sensors, so I’m annoyed that some features may be temporarily disabled, but hopefully it won’t take long for that to be corrected. I had trouble making the insurance changes myself because the new year model wasn’t even in the system yet, so I had to spend quite a while chatting with support to get the changes made. My rate will be higher than I thought, but still only about half of what State Farm wanted for just one car.

The girls all wound down pretty quietly, so I surfed my nightly deals, got a little distracted, and eventually made it to bed.

We are so close to being able to speak of Tres!

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CBD Nuggets

There wasn’t much going on today, so I spent several hours watching Network+ training videos on CBT Nuggets. I was really pleased with the guy that was doing those videos, because he wasn’t terribly dry to sit and listen to for long periods of time. The videos themselves were broken up into relatively short topics, which at least made me feel like I was making progress. Whether or not I’m retaining any of the important stuff remains to be seen.

Gary, Thomas, and I were the only three to go to Taco Tuesday, and the tacos were pretty sad. The hot sauce changed and was less thick, but spicier out of the packet, but the tacos were stale and thin. We didn’t stick around too long, because they had another interview right after lunch. When we got back, I packed up and went to Oakland for a couple hours.

The end of the day came and went quietly, just as the rest of the day. I felt a sprinkle or two, but never saw any heavier rain. I rode straight to my parents’ house and caught Dad blowing leaves in the driveway. We stood outside for about an hour, talking until Mom got home from work. Then we went inside to pick at leftovers.

I noticed that the Sulphur Springs Truck Patch was going to be at a farmer’s market downtown, which I didn’t even realize was a thing, so after we ate, I rode to the train depot to see if Bryan would be out there peddling flowers. They were tearing down for the evening, but he had one more bouquet left unsold, so we chatted for a moment before I stuffed them into my backpack and ran home to get the key to the Murano.

Summer was meeting with the ATCC kids, so she was there late while the girls were at marching practice. I stuck the flowers in the car and luckily had some leftover water for them in my travel mug. Then I headed on home to poke around under my leaky sink. I didn’t feel like digging too deep into anything and then quitting halfway through, so I actually didn’t get much of anything accomplished. I thought Summer might come over, but instead she and Eaddie just sat around confused about how flowers ended up in the car. I had to remind her of how many times I’d brought her flowers, and she suddenly remembered how nice I am.

I wrapped up the evening as quickly as I could, just tired from running around all day. Hopefully tomorrow will afford me some more time to study for my Net+ so I won’t be completely lost in Mike Meyers’s training class at ACOT next week.

It’s Homestead Runner!

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On Nesting Hornets

I spent nearly the entire day on my meeting minutes, trying to research additional resources to review changes, perfecting my wording, and ultimately getting it to the members that were present so they could review and suggest changes. I forgot my watch at home though, so I felt naked for most of the morning. When everyone gathered for lunch, I quickly ran home for it before meeting them at Linhs.

In the afternoon, I finally finished my first draft and sent it out for review. Judy was quick to check it out, and had something for me to add. Then I saw it move up the ladder to Justin, who spent a fair amount of time reading it. After he left, I saw Ginni going down the whole document, and then highlight a line I had written about administration not budgeting for a Christmas bonus. A moment later, Justin was back on the document, and then Thomas appeared in my doorway and asked me to call her.

It felt like she was mostly concerned about a possibly negative perception, and I don’t think she really understood that I was on her side. I’m sick of hearing about people feeling entitled to a bonus because they can’t manage to save for Christmas on their own. I’m sick of departments that aren’t losing people complaining about pay. She had me call Justin to try and come up with some better wording, but he didn’t really have any suggestions either. In the end, I modified three of the bullet points to try and spin the story a bit in the direction she seemed to want.

After that, I noticed an urgent work order from Sheri and took off to Oakland. They had a robotics tryout, and needed some software installed so they could update their robotics hardware. Then I finished up with some trouble Sheri was having on her laptop before heading home.

Autumn asked if I could get Eaddie from her own robotics event so she could go to a volleyball game. When I eventually picked her up, it seemed like Autumn might be hiding out in the band room, so we snooped around a bit before giving up. From there, we went to Mom’s to check in on her. Eaddie wanted to ride her bike to her friend’s house to finish some homework, so I helped Mom warm up dinner while she was out.

Eventually everyone got fed, I took care of dishes, and Mom ran us off as it got late. Summer was nearly asleep when we got to the house. I never actually saw Autumn, but she seemed to be up later than usual. Eaddie practiced her flute for a while, and then spent some time with her new earbuds. I chatted with Grant for a little bit about some games, and ended the evening by finishing the Pixel 7 announcement stream.

Mmm, beefy.

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New Committee, New You

I forgot that we had our CPPC meeting this morning, so after a while at work, I had to run home to grab my Pixel for some superior notetaking. I actually got the time for the meeting wrong too, so I started walking over about 45 minutes early. I stopped in at Transportation to talk to those guys briefly, realized I was way early, then got my Pixel, and finally arrived back at Central Office. I was the first one there by a longshot. Then Justin and Justin came in. Judy brought some donuts for us. We very nearly didn’t have a quorum, but Ginni showed up along with two more administrators, and we dug right in.

I volunteered to do the secretarying again, and to my dismay, I didn’t have the right strings pulled to get Justin as our president. I’ll guess I’ll have to go for that next year. As far as the meeting went, we sped through most of it after confirming that everyone had a chance to read the changes. There wasn’t a whole lot of jibber jabber until Janie wanted to express distrust over the wording of our bonus announcement. Ginni was quick to passive-aggressively shut her down, and everything else passed with very little formality.

The rest of the day as pretty quiet. Josh and I were the only two around for lunch, so he took us to Stoby’s, where Gary coincidentally was meeting some other friends for lunch. I spent most of the afternoon working on my CPPC minutes, but had to walk back over to Central Office to take Gary a replacement UPS battery. That ended up being a faulty power outlet, so he had to call an electrician to come out tomorrow.

Autumn was supposed to meet with a recruiter after school, but changed her mind to hang out with her new boyfriend under the guise of “not feeling well enough to meet the recruiter.” This caused a conflict with Eaddie, who wanted to get home to do good kid things, like homework. I was actually able to get Summer on the phone, and she called to set her straight, and then talked to me a bit while she was on her way to Target to try and find some clearance Sony WF-1000XM3 earbuds for Eaddie.

Since Autumn took Eaddie home, I left work in pretty high spirits and great weather, so I took the bike across town and ended up at AT&T to see my old crew. Hope and Nicole both came up to give me a hug, and I spent most of my time chatting with Kevin. I hung out there for a little while until Kevin finished his shift. Then I headed on home to change before going to my parents’ house for dinner.

Mom had just gotten home from work, and they were outside looking at the ditch where they had a tree service come and clean out a couple of big trees that have been there since my childhood. I hated to see them go, and I worry about continuing erosion, so hopefully it was for the best. We went in and warmed up some curry, but Mom ate something else again. Dad and I chatted for a while, and eventually I had to head over to Summer’s to help Eaddie with her science homework.

On the way, Summer asked for food, so I ran by Lowe’s quickly to see if they still had the headlamp I had reserved over the weekend. They didn’t, so I left and picked up a burrito at Taco Bell before making it up to the girls. Eaddie came out, and Summer didn’t want to wait to gift her headphones. Then I helped with the homework, and everyone was off to bed.

I’ve waited my whole life to be a parent that knows everything.

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Yo, I’ll Solve It

I was back in my office today, and Gary brought me some stuff to work on. First was the Cognos report that I made recently, along with some ambiguous feedback and no real tools to help me resolve it. He ended up taking that one back, and let me look at a report of some other rostering issue that, at the end of the day, was completely unrelated to rostering.

The morning went by quickly though, and Thomas had the group go to lunch early because he was hungry. I went a little after they left, but still a few minutes early. I met Josh in the parking lot and told him that they left early, and then met Summer at Taco John’s to meet up with everyone else.

Lunch was quiet and quick, and then it was back to the shop for a long afternoon. I came up with a fix for my second project, and then I went to Oakland for the last 45 minutes or so to run a new video cable. From there, I went home for a little while before going to my parents’ house for some food. Mom and I finished up some phở while Dad ate some more curry. The pot of curry doubled in size after yesterday, and I still don’t fully understand the process.

I left there shortly after we ate so I could help Bác Vân with her iPad. After running back and forth to reset my router, it ended up being the iPad itself that needed to be restarted. My next step is to set up my new mesh Google router.

Finally, I ended up at Summer’s for the evening. She was winding down for bed, and the girls got home late after band practice. It was relatively early to bed for everyone.

Check out the hook!

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Evicted

We had interviews outside of my office today, so we were all told to stay away from the shop. I stopped in to get my laptop, and then walked across the street to talk to Kayla for a bit. I really just wanted to check on the size of her monitors to see if I had anything bigger to offer, but the ones I found were the same size as what she had. While I was there, I learned that Joseph actually earned his associates degree in IT, and he was interested in our open position, but didn’t apply after being discouraged from previous conversations.

From there, I headed to Oakland for the day. I got a quick breakfast on a whim, and then hung out in Steven’s office all morning. He was there for a little while, but then had to run and fend off some spitting kid. I went back to the shop only to learn that nobody was around for lunch, so I went to McDonald’s by myself.

They had remodeled the lobby since I was last there, and the front counter seemed very unfriendly. They built a wall around the kitchen area so you couldn’t really see into the back, and there was only one human register to order from a digital menu with tiny print. They were clearly trying to limit the interaction time with humans, and pushing app or digital ordering from the self-service menus. You could even have your food delivered to your numbered table.

I ordered their Cactus Plant Flea Market Meal Box for a crappy collectible, and found that it wasn’t really worth the premium price. Mellissa spotted me while there with her granddaughter, and came over to share some custodial gossip. On my way out, an employee mopped by my table and I nearly died carrying my open sweet tea back to my seat.

Back at Oakland, I spent the afternoon in the office and kept as busy as I could until school let out. I had to get Eaddie when she finished with band, and then took her home to get her bike. Afterward, I was at the house when a kid rang the doorbell to ask about my Fiero. He seemed a bit more put-together than Zach, so we talked a bit about the history of the car.

After he left, I went by the shop to plug in my laptop and get some ice. Then I went to my parents’ house and waited for Eaddie to get there so we could eat the curry Mom was making. We didn’t stick around too long after that since it was getting a bit late and Eaddie had to study. We just left her bike there and headed on up to their house.

Summer picked up some rolls from Golden Corral for me, since my points would have expired otherwise. Autumn came out of her room once, but I never actually saw her. Everyone went to their own rooms to complete chores and nightly routines, and eventually I was off to bed myself.

Beat it, four-eyes.

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What a Breach

I woke up fairly early this morning and laid in bed until Summer got up to make biscuits for breakfast. I finally finished up the gravy I had saved from a couple weeks ago, which was only a little bit questionable. Afterward, Eaddie came out for help with some math homework. I didn’t remember doing matrices as a kid, but it seemed to make sense to me now. I finally got the achievement in Into the Breach that I’d been working on for a couple weeks, and eventually Summer got ready to take me home and go to the gym.

I spent a little time outside cleaning up inside the Montego, and then poked around in the garage to get Eaddie’s bike out. I don’t know why the tires seem like they don’t hold air for very long, but I got them aired up as well. I eventually wound up in a bath, and Summer brought Eaddie over to bike. I felt much better afterward, and then we loaded up the bike rack and headed to my parents’ house for chow mein.

Eaddie met us there on her bike and ate, and then wanted to ride across the neighborhood to try and find a friend’s house. When she got back, we loaded the bike up and came back to my house to unload. Then they went home while I did a couple loads of laundry.

Summer called a little later and said that Autumn hadn’t invited her to senior night, and in fact wanted to have her grandparents walk her onto the field. It didn’t mean anything to me, because the majority of the students don’t have a senior night in the first place, and because Autumn hasn’t really done anything in particular for us to be proud of her anyway. She’s done everything she can to make our family life hell. I understand why it upset Summer, especially since Autumn wouldn’t even have a senior night herself if Summer hadn’t refused to let her drop out of band. The whole thing is a power-play, and honestly I’d rather avoid homecoming week anyway.

Move along.

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Fireworks Stand

The girls had a marching event for band today, so Autumn left really early, allegedly to do makeup. She left Eaddie behind so she could take a shower first, so Summer made her breakfast and then took her to the high school before going to the gym. I headed on home and got around to cleaning out the garage some more. I took a folding table out to the driveway and used it to sort out my super old box of fireworks.

I set a whole bunch of stuff out by the curb, and almost looked like I was having a garage sale. The folding table itself looked like I had opened up a fireworks stand. Summer came over after the gym and brought some food. I didn’t feel great, so I just had a cup of chili and she had a salad. I found the outside wall of the garage, which I hadn’t seen in years. Eventually I needed a break, so we came inside and I took a shower.

We considered grilling dinner there, but I knew the girls wouldn’t want to stay the night, and I really needed to focus on cleaning anyway. We left to drop off some toner at Staples, and then went to Walmart to walk and browse around. I saw some croissants that looked like they would be good for burgers, and Summer got some stuff to make some guacamole on the side.

The girls got home as we were cooking, but Autumn wanted to go to her father’s for the night. Eaddie didn’t, which suited us fine. The three of us ate, Autumn left, and then it was a quiet night until bedtime.

Again, but faster!