Tag: family

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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.

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Tacoboutit Tuesday

I hardly got any sleep last night, so I really appreciated being left to my own devices again today. I made a bunch more flash drives for the imaging parties that are about to start, and that really got me most of the way through lunch.

We went to our usual Taco John’s, where I had a cheap meal, and then after we regrouped, I was sent on a side quest for some bubble wrap to help protect unboxed TVs that we needed to relocate. After a little research, I found that U-Haul actually had boxes for shipping TVs of various sizes, so I went and picked up four of those. They packed super small, which was neat. Then Greg and I went to the high school to retrieve four TVs out of Brody’s office.

It was nearly time to go by the time we got back to the shop. I parked my truck in the bus yard, and then helped Jacob park his in the pen since it was his first time. Everyone met in the shop to go over projects for the rest of the week since every day we’ll be missing one of the three head honchos.

I went home to cool down after sweating over those TVs. Then I went up to Summer’s for the evening. She had a work meeting to properly turn Superfast over to Justin, and then picked Autumn up from karate. Eaddie was just enjoying some alone time at home, so I warmed up some leftovers to eat while we waited for everyone else.

Autumn basically ignored me all night. I talked with Eaddie alone for a bit just to try and get her honest feelings without worrying how they might affect her mother. Then Summer and I chatted some more before bed, but I tried not to stay up too late. These extra-early mornings and long days are awful.

Don’t forget to submit!

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The Parent Trap

Today was our first day of our three week “summer hours” nonsense, and it turned out worse than it had any right to be. I actually went to bed super early, so I didn’t have much trouble getting out of bed. It was cool outside for the drive in, but I knew it was going to heat up to an uncomfortable high on the bike. I kind of assumed I would be left alone again, but instead I was sent with a group to the high school. We had to possibly relocate some network lines to move the student computers in the library, and then remove the old journalism computers from the lab. Beyond that, we had to start inventory at that building, and there’s no mistaking how I felt about that.

Kyle and I rode with Brody, and I convinced them to work on inventory while I did all the network and computer pulling by myself. We ran into Al on his last day there, and I chatted with him for a minute before we started. From that point, the morning actually went really well by myself. Lunch time was an about-face.

Brody and Kyle were slow coming up to the office, and Kyle didn’t want La Chiquita, so I took the opportunity to skip as well while Brody caught up with the others. Instead, I ate an apple and chatted with Tammy at the shop until people started showing back up. Gary was the only one to ever come back, and it took me a while to find anyone else. I had to go back to the high school anyway, so I could unload the old computers from the cart I borrowed.

I finally found Brody, Jacob, and Kyle trying to pull a bunch of network lines to the old journalism room, and I caught them just as they discovered that three of their eight boxes of cable were not long enough for the run. The excuse was that they checked the length of available cable in the boxes, but not the actual length of the physical run. Frustration mounted as we finished that run, and then tried to wrangle up more boxes of cable to make another run. In the end, we decided to wait for a new delivery of cable, and I sent everyone to work on inventory for the rest of the day.

I went back to the shop and just announced very loudly outside the offices of the holy trinity that I needed a safe space where the republicans couldn’t get to me. Thomas jokingly called out to me, and I took his leave to cry exasperatedly at him about my experience with the crew. Zach came around the corner and joined in on the conversation, and we set forth a plan to grow from the experience. I spent the rest of the day hooking up a new-to-me desktop in place of my frustrating laptop.

Summer said Autumn was cooking dinner, so I went home to change before heading up. I was already emotional from the day, on top of being ignored as a parental figure yesterday, so I fell apart once I got there. I took Summer aside to talk to her, and found no comfort. I finally came out to the dinner table and started the uncomfortable conversation about whether I improved any of their lives. I knew what Autumn’s answer would be, but as usual she fell silent when confronted. Eaddie wasn’t any comfort either, but at least backed me up when I called them out for bad vibes. It took a couple of hours of talking, but we finally dug deep enough to find the root of some of the issues, and hopefully the growing and learning will continue with some action.

Obvious Protip: Don’t vent to the children.

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Fauxther’s Day

I woke up early in the bright bedroom this morning, and didn’t allow myself to go back to sleep. Instead, I sat on the couch with the cat for a while, until I figured it would be a good time to wake Summer up. She got ready for her hike, and I made a hamburger. I was really wishy washy on whether I wanted to go to Petit Jean as well. Noah showed up, and I decided I didn’t really want to go if I wasn’t going to add anything to their day.

They went to get the girls from Hannah’s house while I went home, but then I decided I would ride the Shadow up the mountain with them, rather than sulk in the house all alone all day. I met them all at Casey’s to fill up, and we made our way to the mountain. Our first stop was the bear caves, and they climbed around on the rock formations while I puttered around on the ground.

Next up was the Cedar Falls overlook for some pictures. Autumn said she wanted to hike all the way down to the falls, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to, and Summer decided she didn’t want to either. Our last stop was the overlook and grave site. They sat on the bluff while I stayed out of the sun. Then the kids wandered around one of the old buildings there before we headed home.

I went straight to my house to get beach towels, and then met them at my parents’ house to swim. Dad had just started the grill when we got there, and threw on some ribs while we swam. Then I started the chicken wings, along with a kielbasa, and some hot dogs for Autumn. We fought the flies to eat outside, but Mom and Julie ate inside.

After a long day, the girls took Noah back to the house and I headed home. Tomorrow starts our three weeks of a modified work schedule that nobody seems to be able to justify. I guess some idiot in a tower just thought it would be a good idea.

…to me?