Tag: family

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Accounted

Autumn came to work with me again today, and we finally got most of the old lease boxed up and ready to ship. I spent most of my time trying to account for every serial number that Lenovo expects to receive back. We did a pretty good job of sorting everything out, but it wasn’t until I got some feedback from the library staff that we really had everything accounted for.

We went to Cici’s for lunch since I had another BOGO. Then we stopped by the shop to catch up a bit. With all the older, purchased devices I’ll be shipping back, I’ll actually be keeping quite a few of the old leased devices as a sly upgrade.

We finished up at the high school and then came back to my house for just a little bit. It was then that I realized the new leaf blower I bought did not use the same battery from my lawn mower like I expected. Failing that, we headed out to pick up Eaddie, then went to my parents’ house for some leftovers.

I got the girls food, then let Autumn swim while I finished up some super-veggie spring rolls. They were basically the plant version of sausage in a casing. Fiber for days.

On the way back home, we stopped to get Summer some food from Tropical Smoothie since she had a long day, and I watched a couple episodes of The Punisher with Eaddie before bed.

Well that blows.

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Lowering the Standards

I stopped by Casey’s this morning to grab my free slice of pizza before it expired. Then it was a solo day at the high school, all day long. I put on some tunes and crunched through over 100 laptops with higher levels of damage, and pulled out the small handful that would need to be repaired, and boxed up the rest that just had heavier cosmetic damage so they could be shipped back to Lenovo.

Nobody reached out about lunch, so I worked straight through with half a Soylent. That’s something I’ve been wanting to get back into, but haven’t had the opportunity either because of social eating, or because Autumn was with me.

At the end of the day, I stopped by central office to sign my contract, then visited the shop to see what everyone else had been up to all day. There was a huge pile of iPads in the floor, so I guess that was my answer.

On the way out, I stopped by Casey’s again for a free cookie, then by Summer’s shop to see her. She would be leaving soon for the gym, so I headed home to change before meeting her back at my parents’ house for dinner.

Mom made phở out of some leftover beef from spring rolls and frozen broth. Then I took a bunch of plants to Bác Vân’s house before heading to Summer’s for the evening.

The girls were finally back home, and Summer said she was hoodwinked about Autumn going skydiving. I guess I wasn’t really surprised to hear of the 18-year age requirement, but I hadn’t considered it before. The girls must have all been pretty tired, because they all disappeared to their rooms pretty quickly. I took the opportunity to get to bed a bit early myself.

103 down; ??? to go!

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Cleankering

We slept in pretty late today, which was a great recharge. I made tuna croissant sandwiches for lunch, and then Summer went to the gym and home to clean up. I played a little Overwatch, then cleaned and tinkered randomly around the house until Summer got back.

We went to my parents’ house for spring rolls for dinner. Julie was late even though she was the one that decided on the time. It wouldn’t have mattered, but Mom was super worried that she had fallen asleep and wasn’t going to come over.

When we got back home, I started some laundry while Summer watched a cake show. Then I got the cat box cleaned up before bed.

Three-day weekends should be standard.

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From Womb to Tomb

Summer took the girls to meet up with their father today while I cleaned and tinkered at the house. Eventually she came back over and we went to my parents’ house for some dinner.

Evidently Autumn went skydiving, and we didn’t learn about it until after the fact. I don’t think either of us really minded except that we didn’t learn that it was even a possibility until after the fact. It’s possible I was more upset about it than Summer.

After dinner, we came back home and watched Cloud Atlas. It was pretty tough to keep up at first, and it was more impressive how many characters each actor portrayed than anything than anything else. After three hours, we decided we liked it, but I’m not sure I’d watch it again. Just another one checked off my list.

I ended the evening tinkering with my TeamSpeak Sinus bot some more, and managed to get YouTube search and streaming to work. I just don’t understand how something so well designed and refined can have such completely absent documentation.

Our lives are not our own. we are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.

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Opinions Are Like Family

Summer had to work this morning, so I let the girls sleep in a little while before showering and taking them to my parents’ house for the day. Julie was already there swimming with some friends, so we went in to meet with Chellie and Phil. Dad invited them over to learn a bit about film and print photography.

Julie had picked up some Popeye’s for us for lunch, so we had a little to eat before I sent the girls out to swim. They were a bit shy to get out there because of how much noise Julie and her two friends were making, and Eaddie wasn’t super excited to swim in the first place. I just laid on the couch inside and dozed off a little between apneas.

Eventually I got a grill going and pattied some hamburgers. I managed to fit all of the corn, four types of tubed meat, and some burgers on one grill. The more impressive part was that I finished cooking everything and toasting buns just as the last of the charcoal turned to warm ash.

The food was good, but somehow Julie got onto some tirade about racism. Lelan showed up at one point for just a few minutes, and Summer eventually showed up late after work. It was all a bit more excitement than I could really stand.

On the way home, I stopped by to see if Grant was cooking so I could talk to him about a possible catering job. It was just Felix hanging outside talking to a friend, so I headed on home. Autumn put on Coco much to Eaddie’s umbrage. Summer went straight to bed, so I played a couple rounds of Overwatch with Clint. Then I finished the night with an episode of The Punisher with Eaddie.

A Dothraki wedding family reunion without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair.

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Aw, Shucks!

Gary called us all to the shop this morning in Ben’s absence, and arranged for the whole crew to unbox student laptops at the high school. For some reason Zach kept wanting to just hand-load the laptops onto the trucks instead of getting maintenance to use the forklift, but thankfully in the end we had it done right. Chris drove the forklift over and kept talking about how much of a real man he was for being able to load the pallets for us.

We ended up sitting right inside the back doors to shuck boxes, since we had to take the trash back out anyway. Then we wheeled carts full of laptops into my office and under the cubbies.

Most of us went to La Chiquita for a super fast lunch. We were all pretty tired and drenched in sweat already from the humidity, but lunch was a good break. Afterward was finishing up more of the same, and then Gary and Josh stayed to help finish up a couple mini pallets that were already rolled up to my office.

When we left, Autumn and I stopped by Casey’s for the freebie of the day, and then I dropped her off at her house before going home to change. Ronda called and said that they were driving through Searcy and saw Michael on the side of the road. They hydroplaned and totaled their car, and the cops were already on the scene to help. I finally got a hold of him to confirm everyone was okay and that someone was on the way to pick them up.

After chilling out a bit at home, I went to my parents’ house for a dip in the pool. Then I finished up the last of the eggplant soup before heading up to Summer’s for the evening. We caught an episode of Master of None before bed since the girls were both off in their rooms.

Sweat dreams are made of these…

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Everything of Something, and a Little of Everything

I got up this morning and went home to clean up before coming back to pick up Summer and Autumn. We made it down to the Children’s Hospital with plenty of time to spare, so I tried to redeem a free meal from Taco Bell while I waited. Evidently so were millions of other people, so both the website and the app were down.

Fortunately it wasn’t long before the girls were done, so I got them and we drove across town to our first Target on University. They had a few Philips light switches and motion sensors left on clearance, so I bought them out. Then we stopped by Big Orange Burger for some lunch. Autumn was trying to avoid a burger with an egg on it, and somehow she managed to order the only hamburger that came with an egg on it. I still can’t even.

After lunch, we went by the Splash main office so Summer could pick up a check. Jeff gave me a handful of Splash gift cards, and sent us on our way.

We had to drive way across Little Rock to get to the Target on Chenal, where I picked up way more Philips stuff. They didn’t have theirs marked down or moved to a clearance rack, but I lucked out and they all rang up at the clearance price.

With my Operation: Spend All My Money complete, we headed toward home and stopped at Sam’s in Conway to spend more money. This time it was mostly essentials, and I took the opportunity to stock up on some meats in case COVID gets really bad as things keep opening up. Then it was back home.

We stopped to get Summer’s car, and we both went to get some gas. Then I ran home to do some chores while they went back to their house. I had forgotten that I had to do some laundry, so I got my load of socks going, changed my furnace air filter, and tinkered with a motion sensor.

When I finally got to Summer’s, Autumn helped me split up the bulk meat we bought, then I had some of the chicken dinner she made for everyone. Summer was already in bed not feeling well, so I stayed up and tinkered with a Sinus server for Johnny and the rest of the gang to use on my TeamSpeak server. It looks like a pretty robust piece of software, and I’m surprised there wasn’t better documentation for the initial setup. I managed to get most of it figured out though. I’ll have to tinker more with it later.

They couldn’t think of any better names?

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Wood You Look at That

I took a couple personal days this week so they wouldn’t turn into pumpkins sick days at the end of the month, but I forgot to turn my alarm off for this morning. Overall I think I was satisfied with the amount of sleep I got, and I still beat the kids awake anyway.

I got up and had some leftover breakfast pizza, then played some Overwatch. Eventually Noah woke up and we finished District 9. I woke Eaddie up, and before long Autumn came home with Subway for lunch for all three of them.

The afternoon slipped by pretty quickly, and after minimal fussing at the kids to clean up the house, I just had to get home to try and be a little productive myself. I spent the majority of my time there cleaning off my computer desk, and I finally managed to get down to bare wood in at least one place.

As the night quickly approached, I made my way back up to Summer’s, had some leftover rice and chicken for dinner, and played some more Overwatch until Summer got off the phone with Aunt Beth. We caught up a little bit until it was time for her to go to bed. Then I was going to stay up and watch an episode of The Punisher, but the kids lost the remote and none of them wanted to hunt it down. Instead, I subdued my rage with a few rounds of Overwatch, then went to bed.

Therapy is not a substitute for effective communication at home.

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Taco ’bout a Party

We got up this morning and pretty immediately started prepping for Eaddie’s birthday lunch. I prepped vegetables, then got the chicken started in the Instant Pot, and it finished cooking shortly after everyone arrived.

The chicken tacos turned out amazing, and Summer had all of her dressings for them out and ready to go. Nick brought his new girlfriend Robin along, and it was a pretty quick lunch shindig before the opening of a few presents.

When everyone left, I headed out to spend some time at home. I tinkered with my Kobalt cabinet again, and got the doors to close a bit better after some leveling. I got a little cleaned up inside, played a bit of Overwatch, and spent a bit more time trying to configure Plex. I think I’m about ready to start up a rack server for some of that stuff, but that will take some excavation.

As the evening came, some guy rang my doorbell looking for signatures on a petition to remove the county from the list of counties eligible for a casino. I forget how many signatures he said they needed, but I hope it helps.

Eventually I made it back up to Summer’s for the evening. Noah was there, and we watched an episode of Black Mirror before putting Summer to bed. Then the three of us watched the first half of District 9 before Noah and I were ready for some sleep. Eaddie quietly turned 13 and wandered off to her room as well.

Fookin prawns.

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Bring Your Daughter to Work Day

Autumn wanted to go to work with me today, so I let her come help with the laptop processing. She ended up being a huge help, and even spent less time griping about the work than Heather. Having her there filled the little gaps where Heather and I were previously tripping over each other. The downside to that improved efficiency was that there was basically no downtime at all. We were basically moving the entire day, so we pretty much finished sorting all the laptops out.

Ben texted that they were heading to Bocadillos for lunch, so I took Autumn there instead of Chick-fil-A where she had been asking to go all morning. We’ll probably end up there tomorrow to make up for it. I wasn’t even hungry, but ate anyway and ended up regretting it. I really kind of preferred just working straight through lunch.

At the end of the day, Ben stopped by to see our progress and chat for a bit. The logistics of getting 875 laptops to the junior high are still a bit daunting, and there are a lot of options on how to handle which laptops will be returned for the lease. At least I can take comfort in knowing I still have some time left to file the warranty claims.

Autumn and I headed to my house to change, then went to Walmart to pick up some stuff for dinner. She made both teriyaki and Buffalo sauces for some chicken and rice. I helped a bit, and made some broccoli to green things up a bit.

When Summer got home from the gym, we ate and then packed up to head to my house for the evening. We had to stop by her parents’ house first to meet her sister and niece. Eaddie decided to bail on us and stayed the night there, so Autumn came back with us and we watched an episode of Game of Thrones before bed.

What do we say to one more episode?
“Not today.”