Tag: family

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Wholly Holy Hole

I forced myself up this morning instead of sleeping in, with the hopes that I could get back to sleep for work the next day. Summer got up and immediately left for her nail appointment, then came back and took Autumn to the gym. I went home and mounted a couple bikes to the Murano so she could take Eaddie out for a bike ride while Autumn was at a graduation party at Old Post.

Once the bikes were mounted, I started moving things around in the garage and called Dad so we could start mounting the new dryer vent duct in the garage. I had to go to the office to borrow the hammer drill, though we never got far enough to actually need the hammer function. We had to go to Harbor Freight for a hole saw, and then Lowe’s for mounting hardware. Then we went back to my parents’ house for a couple things before we could get started.

We decided to repair the drywall next to the power outlet first, since the dryer vent would likely cover that up, or at least make it more difficult to access. We finished up the drywall and drilled a hole through the outside cabinet wall and the garage drywall. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t a bit of insulation in the garage walls. There’s at least one area with some pretty heavy water or pest damage, so I’m hoping that will be a good excuse to redo the walls with some proper insulation.

Dinner time came, and we didn’t want to start drilling brick that late, so we packed everything up for the day. The girls brought the Murano back and I unloaded, then went to my parents’ house for some leftovers. Dad and I chatted for a while after, and eventually I made it back home for the evening.

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King Zilla

I got up this morning and ate some leftover pasta while Summer went to the gym. Then I went home to clean up for our trip to Conway. As I was leaving, Bác Vân asked me to take some pictures of her garden for Bác Tran. Then I continued on up to get the girls.

I tried not to get us to Conway too early because our movie was super late, but they were getting hungry. I still had a couple gift cards for places that closed in Russellville, so we stopped by Firehouse for dinner first. We split sandwiches and used up some of my rewards points, but I’ve still got enough for another trip. There was only one guy there and they got a little bit busy, but it turned out fine. He started singing a couple times, and it was actually really nice.

Our next stop was Game Point to kill some time. Autumn wanted to look for Mario Party on the Nintendo DS, but they didn’t have it. We didn’t stay long before going to Steak ‘n Shake to burn another gift card. I also had a free burger, which I think was for my birthday, but again I didn’t consume all of the gift card.

Autumn really wanted to go to Books-A-Million, so we went there for a while and browsed around. The girls took off to go next door to Five Below, then Dollar Tree. We missed Sam’s Club because they closed early, so we spent the rest of the evening at Target until showtime.

We made it to Cinemark with plenty of time, though it took me three trips to the concession stand to satisfy everyone. We watched nearly half an hour of previews before the movie started, which just showed how much of a backlog of movies there are since the pandemic started. The next few months are gonna be bangin.

I liked the movie pretty well. The script was pretty trash, but I knew going in that we were really only going for the CG. It was almost exclusively monster action, which was probably its only saving grace. The story felt like it was just on rails the entire time so we could get to see epic titan fights. It was fun though, and you just can’t beat the screen size and audio in a theater for a good monster flick.

The drive home was fast and uneventful. The girls barely made it out of town before falling asleep, so everyone was off to bed as soon as we got home.

The movie would have been just as good, or better, with no speech or humans at all. Kind of like real life.

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An M. Night Shyamalan Plot Twist

We had a shortish meeting at work this morning, and then I unboxed a giant iMac that I would have to learn to enroll in our device management system. I didn’t notice until much later, but Josh and Brody basically burned the whole day putting the wrong image on a bunch of flash drives to take to the middle school because Josh didn’t want to image them over the network.

Most of us went to CJ’s for lunch, and when we got back, I helped make the correct flash drives while Josh started some lab computers imaging over the network. Kyle came in and kept me company while I churned out drives. I started to wrap my head around Jamf Apple computer management, but ultimately had to leave it for Monday.

Mark asked me to come by after work, so I ran home to grab my laptop and then went to his office for a little under an hour. Then I picked up the girls to meet my family at Pasta Grill to celebrate Mom’s birthday.

We had a really great time at dinner, and it was nice to see the family actually functioning and smiling. I think everyone was pretty satisfied with their food too. My blackened redfish pasta started out tasting like it was floating in butter, but either it got better or I just got used to it, and I really enjoyed the rest after a while.

When we got home, Summer wanted to talk with Autumn because I had caught her leaving town with Harry without Summer’s permission. What I thought was going to be more or less a disciplinary talk ended up being everyone coming together and spilling their guts all over the place. It was pretty hard for Summer. I’m still not really sure how I feel about some of it, but at least it was a proper airing of the past. I’ve said for a long time that therapy only goes so far, and that eventually the kids would have to come home and talk to us.

Summer and Autumn went to bed immediately after that. I stayed up a little bit longer and tried to finish an episode of House with Eaddie, but even she was tired and ended up just wanting to sleep on the couch.

We’ll never make it through the entire MonsterVerse like this!

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Mama Bear

I slept on top of the sheets last night, so it was pretty rough getting out of bed. I eventually made it to the high school to drop off the last of my CDs for Daniel to use in their play. Then I continued to the shop for the day. I told Melinda about the trouble I had the night before, and she went full-on mother-mode with the advice and being super nice all day.

Brody and Kyle came to the shop so we could hang a touch panel at Crawford, which got us through to lunch. Melinda and I were the only ones still at the shop, so she insisted that I choose, and we went to New China so I could eat my feelings. Then when we got back, she turned off her Britney Spears playlist and played Linkin Park for me for most of the rest of the day.

My office has been a big hit lately for people to mingle, which is both new and kind of neat, though distracting. I spent most of the day trying to help other people and not getting much of anything else done. I worked a little bit late, but had to get the girls to karate.

Both of the girls were pretty quiet today, and the drive to karate didn’t take long. Once they were out, I went to my parents’ house to figure out what was really going to happen with my living situation. As I suspected, it was all a misunderstanding since I’ve been watching the housing market. I’ve been pretty vocal about my plan, but still caught a lot of flak for reasons I don’t understand. At the end of the day, I get to keep living here, which is what really matters.

Dad came back with me to seal the wall back up, then move the cabinet back into its corner. We had to try multiple times because it wasn’t quite square, causing the doors to not open or not stay closed. I never got it quite perfect, but it worked well enough to load up with a bunch of stuff from the garage. Still not enough room for activities, but at least it’s easier to move around in there.

When attacked by a bear, simply lie still on the ground and cover your face and head with your hands. When the bear is finished batting you around and mauling you, contact the US Forest Service.

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Stressors

This morning started out unconventionally, but eventually worked itself out. I got to work with plenty of time and continued my investigation into why imaging was broken. Shane from Howard was taking us out to lunch at Brick Oven, so at least we had something to look forward to. I had my fill of a variety of pizzas, and even did well in breaking even with all the large pizzas I ordered for the table to share. That’s basically been my goal for forever: to successfully order for our group a perfect amount of food that would make everybody fat and happy without any waste. It turns out the answer was five large pizzas.

It took me multiple days and a bunch of consulting, but ultimately I confirmed that it was a Windows update that broke our Windows image in SCCM. I rolled back to the root image and everything was back to normal, so now I get to play “Which Update Broke Everything.”

The girls were sorted for the evening, so after work I went by Summer’s shop to find that she had already left. While I was on that side of the tracks, I stopped in to pick up my blood pressure medication. Then I went home for a little bit. Having some time left in the evening, I had Dad come over to shop at Lowe’s with me. We picked up the materials we needed to run my clothes dryer vent out of the house instead of into the garage.

While Dad was here, he took some pictures of the house for a prospective buyer. His neighbor across the street has some family moving to town that are looking for a home to buy, and evidently mine is for sale if the price is right. Nevermind the 15 years I’ve been here, presumably building equity. I assumed that building the family estate was more important, but if the house is going to be sold out from under me leaving me with no equity as though I have been renting the entire time, then all was for naught. Housing prices are high right now, so I wouldn’t blame him for selling. I’m just not sure how I feel about what I’ve paid or set aside for rent. The lesson here, kids, is to keep family and your money separate.

After a trip to lowe’s for the dryer ducting and some shopping for tile that I may or may not buy myself, we came home to a rogue cat that was wandering around the neighborhood. I spent some time outside with him, but ultimately gave up after he tried to climb up the vertical side of my car, scratching the paint on the way back down. The lesson here was apparently that you shouldn’t be nice to anything. Lots of lessons today.

I came inside and video chatted with Summer for a bit. I’d refer to Duo, except that I’m not sure the app will be around long enough for that reference to make any sense for the next person to read this. Already aggravated by life, the universe, and everything, I ended up picking a fight with her about “how many sacrifices” either of us has made for any particular reason. We ultimately had to agree to disagree in a way where everybody felt like a loser.

There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke, but uh, but you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate.

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Caustic for $200

This morning started out pretty rough. I had trouble getting to sleep last night in spite of how exhausted I was. When I finally made it to the shower, I discovered my towel had been used to wipe off what I assume was someone’s face cream that bleached the blue right out of the towel. I screamed in rage at the situation because this made the fifth or sixth time that this exact situation has happened within a relatively short amount of time, and it feels like nobody’s getting the goddamn memo. Chemicals are bad. That feeling was amplified because I put a cheap hand towel in the bathroom for them, and for some reason they still went for my bath towel. I had finally broken down and bought a really nice, complete set of everything, and it felt like nobody values any of it.

Work was fine, except that I had to cover the middle school for Josh while no fewer than three of them fixed a total of one door. I struggled to find my way around, and had at least one medium-level moment of embarrassment because hardly anyone there knows me. When I made it to the shop, I slowly discovered that I would be on my own for lunch. I considered just finishing a Soylent, but thought I’d take Summer lunch instead.

Wendy’s was a shitshow of mouthbreathers that simply didn’t have the capacity to maintain both a drive-through and inside counter. It was the same kid that was working last time, and he looked equally flustered. It’s not entirely their fault, because evidently nobody wants to work at all right now. Summer’s basically been short staffed since she started, and everyone there is burned out on hours. I ended up just eating my half of the lunch alone in her office before going back to work.

The afternoon was a little more quiet. Gary brought his new Carvana purchase in: a 2019 Nissan Altima that was used as a rental car in its past life. It had relatively low miles and looked to be in pretty good condition. We were all really happy for him as he discovered automobile features from the early 21st century. The afternoon went by pretty quickly from there as I tinkered with some things in my office.

The girls walked home from school, so I basically just came home to pick them up. We dropped Autumn off at her Explorers meeting, and then Eaddie and I went to my parents’ house for rolls. Summer and Julie showed up when they each got off from work. Tensions were manageable but awkward. Everyone filtered out, and I finally headed home for the evening.

Relaxation is requiring quite a bit of force these days.

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The Easter Boomer

I’ve felt pretty exhausted lately, and last night was no different. I slept super late today, and only got up in time for a little leftover brunch before having to get ready for a late Easter lunch with my parents. Summer made some deviled eggs, and the girls caught the irony. We let Autumn drive us all, and Bác Vân and Doug beat us there.

It was a relatively limited menu compared to our usual, but it was a great meal with much reduced stress. The girls enjoyed overhearing the adults ponder racially-charged social nuances, and it was a good time for all. After we ate, Autumn dropped Summer and Eaddie off, and I went with her to Walmart for a couple things. What should have been a pretty quick trip turned into both of us wandering around alone. It was hot and aggravating, because even when we weren’t browsing and just on a mission to pick up something specific, she felt the need to take off and leave me.

When we finally got back to their house, I loaded up and came home for the night. My left foot had been hurting all day for some reason, and the rising temperatures got me pretty lethargic and cranky. I ended up sitting on the couch for a couple hours and watching some Home RenoVision DIY videos.

Just before an early bedtime, I got out my new MonoPrice tube amplifier and hooked it up in the garage just to test it out with some old speakers. The speakers work great, and I think the amp will look super cool on top of the two larger speakers stacked on top of one another.

Nice weather means they’re sold out of tennis rackets.

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Fool Me Once… Shame on….Shame on You

It’s been cooling off this week, and I could really tell this morning when it started to sleet on my way to work. It didn’t stick at all, and just melted away instantly, but I was definitely caught off guard by the sound of it hitting everything around me outside.

I’m still recovering from re-imaging my laptop, which meant I had to build a Microsoft Office installation for myself. That and a bit of tinkering with some other things got me through to lunch at Western Sizzlin with the boys. Afterward I packed up and went to the high school to help Mike sort depot boxes. We ended the day with the lift in the band room since we finally got our lamp in.

Autumn went to the gym again, so Summer left work and took Eaddie as well. That left me to go home and clean more in the garage. Nearly forgetting to plan my shenanigans, I pulled out my old TI-99 for deployment at work. Not just the base computer though. Oh, no. I brought out the Expansion System as well. That thing was heavy. I needed some help repairing the video cable though, so I packed up and took it to my parents’ house.

Dad got me sorted with some solder and hot glue. Then he pulled out my tiny old CRT television, and things booted up perfectly. Unfortunately I didn’t have the necessary Microsoft Multiplan 5.25″ floppy, so all I can really do is look at the loading screen, but it’ll serve its purpose. He went with me to the office to help stage everything, but just as we finished setting up, Melinda walked in. It was in the dead of night, so I really thought she was there to stage her own pranks, but she was just there to pick up some things. She’ll be out tomorrow, but I was hoping to land the prank on her the next day. Unfortunately she walked right in and saw it, so it’ll just have to be for fun with the rest of the gang tomorrow.

I dropped Dad back off at home and finally headed home to finish up the last of my plotting. Tomorrow should be fun.

Duuuuuude…..

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Path of Logical Hoarding

I woke up this morning and jumped right into organizing again. It was a cool, sunny day out, which was perfect for rummaging in the garage. While I was out there, I saw Uncle Giao, Erica, and Nova pull up at Bác Vân’s, and he brought out a couple old helmets for me. The girls showed up just after that, and we decided to go out for lunch to Linh’s with them.

The service was spacy, slow, and just generally bad. I keep thinking there must be something she can do to improve the experience, but it’s just always bad now. The food was fine, except for two very obvious black hairs entwined both in Summer’s shrimp fried rice and my phở. Things weren’t going well enough for us to really feel comfortable sending anything back though.

Steven and Ronda stopped by the restaurant to drop some wine off for Summer. Then Summer had to take off early to hold an interview at the shop. When we all finally left, I stopped by the house and picked up some old brake fluid, and took it to Summer.

The afternoon was more cleaning and organizing while Summer and Eaddie went for a bike ride and Autumn went to hang out with Harry. She’s been constantly asking to go to church with this kid, and I’d be alright with it if it was actually making her a better person instead of just trying to manipulate us into letting her do what she wants to do.

When Summer and Eaddie got back, they headed home and I went to Arby’s for a quick dinner. Then I wrapped up outside and came in to archive Summer’s skydive media. Time really accelerated after that, and before I knew it, it was well past bedtime.

Let’s build a new structure, dedicated to this hobby of collecting things!

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Skydove

Summer had an appointment to go skydiving early this afternoon, so I got up and headed home to clean up. The girls were all waiting outside for me when I got back to pick them up, and we made our way to the Clarksville airport. We hadn’t been there very long before a group came down for a landing, and one of the pros that had been doing the filming for that jump came down super hard and broke his leg. They called an ambulance, but the guy ended up taking the bed of a truck instead. After seeing my nonsensical COVID bills, I don’t blame him.

It took us a while to get started on account of the injury, but Summer wasn’t phased. Another group of kids came in for a jump as well, but Summer was up next since she had an actual appointment. The plane ride didn’t take too long, but we couldn’t actually see them leave the plane because of some large clouds. I did get a bit of video as they approached the field for their landing, but she paid the extra $150 for a premium body and external cam footage anyway.

Autumn wanted to go to their father’s restaurant afterward, but he had already closed. We settled on El Molcajete instead, but as we parked, we realized that not a single soul other than myself had brought a mask. That irritated me enough on account of my hunger, but then Autumn started in on an attitude when she should have known better than to leave the house without her mask after more than a year of this.

I drove us straight home instead, where we picked at some leftovers for an early dinner. Then I sunk a bunch of time into Photoshopping an explosion behind Summer and her tandem partner in a photo I took of them walking back from the airfield. Frustrated from the loss of daylight and everyone else taking naps, I left for home and spent the evening poking around the garage.

You never look back at the explosion!