Tag: family

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No Spring in This Step

I woke myself up this morning with a cough, and decided to just stay up so I wouldn’t have trouble sleeping tonight. I didn’t feel it until much later, but only having a couple hours of sleep really sapped me.

Autumn beat us all up and was watching Criminal Minds when I got out of bed. Summer got up and around just a little bit later, and then she had to drag Eaddie out of bed in order to get them all home. I had a bit of a stomach ache that kept me from being too active, but I did get my bills paid, and I arranged a meeting for Clint to taxi some fish from Fayetteville for me.

Summer came and got me after she finished at the gym, and we went to Walmart to get dinner. We ran into Bác Vân and Doug there and only stopped for a moment in the busy aisle before we were off. I tried finding some more wet food for Grey, but she’s so picky that I even got a bag of treats to see if she would eat those.

Back at Summer’s, she fried up some veggies that Tammy brought me to go along with some grilled cheese brats and corn. The girls had a bit of trouble getting along, but also suffered from their own negativity or inability to focus. It’s tough to discipline them at this age because they’ve already grown into habits and personalities. Conversations work sometimes, but I feel like I really missed out on the belt phase of the child rearing.

I tried having some fun with New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, which is frankly just a stupid and ridiculous name for anything. I don’t think anyone was prepared for the amount of cooperation that was needed, and the fact that the whole screen froze when someone took damage made it that much more difficult to control things. Eaddie was eventually sent to bed for having an attitude, and after finishing the second level, Autumn left Summer and me to watch a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation.

I started falling asleep in Summer’s lap, and headed home to try and feed Grey one more time. She ate the treats, but not much of the gravy. She doesn’t act sick, but she’s just a fuzzy skeleton at this point. It won’t be much longer.

SUPERHACKER

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Captain Overpowered

I got up this morning and came home through the drizzle to take care of the pets and clean up while the others got ready at home. Then I picked them up to go to Conway for the day. We made it to Old Chicago for lunch, which was a treat. Not only did I have a birthday discount, but they accidentally made the kids’ pizza on the wrong crust, so they gave us the extra wrong pizza for free. There weren’t any complaints about it, and I even had a slice myself that was delicious. They had some pretty good looking brunch menu items that I wouldn’t mind coming back to try. I even got a free ice cream with some cookie dough bits and a cherry on top.

Stuffed to our ears, we loaded up and headed to Sam’s to look around. I had a $45 credit from my promotional signup that I used to stock up on a bunch of bulk meds, and then I grabbed a bag in a box of Coca-Cola on the way out. After doing the math, 2-liters of Coke on sale are quite a bit cheaper than the syrup from Sam’s, but I wanted to try it out at least once with the SodaStream to see how I like making diluted, super-fizzy drinks. The kids got restless and ended up waiting for us in the deli area, where I also ran into a pair of my esports parents. They said they were really excited about it getting their kid out of the house, which is a phrase I literally never would have associated with video games. But it’s 2019 and esports are genuine high school athletic sports, you can pick your own gender, Donald Trump is the president of the United States of America, and I am a coach in a public school district.

We had time for two more quick stops before the movie. First it was Books-A-Million, and then it was Five Below. I had to cut it short at the last stop because I wanted to make sure we could make it all the way across town without incident. We had a little time to spare, but I also didn’t feel like we were really missing anything for it. The parking lot was super full, but it didn’t seem like the theater was as packed as I’ve seen it in the past. There were still plenty of open seats around the ends of the aisles. Autumn wanted a collector’s drink cup and tin of popcorn, and the girl at the register told us she could make it a combo with a shirt for the same price, which was pretty awesome.

Noah was the most upset at the movie’s faults. I didn’t love that they broke the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division gag, and it was weird that Fury called it SHIELD right off the bat when he met Vers. I was also a little fuzzy on the timeline for the tesseract, but some Googling after we got home made me feel a little better about it. Most notably though, the character is unapologetically overpowered. I agree with critics, and think that flying through enemy spaceships to destroy them was a bit too easy.

When we got back to town, I dropped Noah off at home, and the rest of us came back to my place to watch Man of Steel after talking about how bad Justice League was. I guess we just needed to crack the DC universe. At least I really liked this first entry. Autumn passed out before we even got started, but the other two seemed to like it alright.

Did my washing machine just travel through time?

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Above the Fold

My voice was still gone today after losing it last night, and it never really got any better all day. I had to run to the high school to pick up something from Dale’s office, and Al caught me in the parking lot to ask for some personal PC care. I offered to come by his place since he’s not far from my parents’ house for a measly 20 bucks, which he giddily accepted. Then he mentioned that the esports article had already hit today’s paper. I ran into Karen as I made my way inside, and she made a comment about me being a celebrity, so I stopped by the library to take a look at the paper there. She let me keep a copy, and I made my way back through Oakland and then to the shop to show everyone.

Jason was finally back to work, at least for a half day. He seemed much softer spoken than before. I didn’t notice the weight loss the way Gary had, but hopefully it helps him kickstart the changes he needs to make in his life anyway.

When I finally got to the junior high, Ronda and Jessica called me down to give me a collage they made of the newspaper clippings. Jessica even designed a gamer cow clipart, complete with a little cow patty. It didn’t stop there, though. After a quick lunch at McAlister’s with Zach, Gary, and Heather, I came back to a shirt with “DIRECTOR COW” on the left breast, and “CYCLONE ESPORTS” on the back. It was really all a bit much right off the bat, but I was excited that they were happy.

I finished up the day by wrapping up a bunch of work orders, and even took Autumn with me to Oakland to do a couple before picking up Noah. From there we met Summer at CiCi’s for dinner. We ran into Karen again while we ate, and eventually I headed home for the evening where I did anything I could to clear my congestion before going to bed early.

I don’t know anybody that’s ever been in the paper and said afterwards, “yeah, I said that!”

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Convenient Recovery

I woke up yesterday morning with a scratch in my throat that only meant one thing. I went down for the whole day with fever and aches. We went to Summer’s before lunch and cleaned up some leftover pork chops, but she brought it to me in bed as I spiraled downhill.

I couldn’t ever really sleep, and didn’t want to, so I never donned my CPAP as she went about her day. She cleaned house and eventually went to an Eagle Scout ceremony for a past student, and to take the girls something. She came back with some egg drop soup from Linh, which along with a healthy handful of black pepper, helped me feel better for a bit. I think I ate too much though, and eventually felt a little sick to the stomach when I finally tried to go to sleep.

She girls eventually made it home and milled around finishing chores before bed while I passed out. At some point, I woke up and fetched Summer from the couch.

This morning, I arose to my hour-early alarm with relative ease. I coughed up a bit of the darkness, and then headed home without too much trouble. I met Ben at 7 to make our way to Arch Ford for the ARKSTE conference. I didn’t feel too bad, and I think the DayQuil helped. The drive did feel like it took a super long time, but it really could have just been me experiencing that drive at the speed limit.

We got there just a couple minutes before they unlocked the doors, then made our way in. I saw some familiar faces from other conferences, and had a little better time putting them to locations. Things kicked off a bit late, which seemed to set the tone for the rest of the day.

My first breakout session was a bust. There was literally nobody there to teach the class. Shane came in, said it was “Powered by Howard,” and then told us to talk amongst ourselves. I left and had a donut, eventually meeting up with Ben for a minute before splitting off to an 8-bit computer session. I was a bit late, but I didn’t seem to miss a whole lot. It was a neat project though, for at least a couple of kids.

Lunch was late. David’s Burgers flipped the date or something, so we were told it would be a few more minutes. We continued through an awards ceremony, and ultimately to our next sessions while food was promised in the vendor area. The session I attended was no more helpful than the others, but did seem useful for the teacher that spoke at my previous one, so at least one of the four of us in the room got something out of it. I eventually made it in to a Minecraft session lead by some hippie from DC that didn’t seem to have much of a clue about anything other than the pH of the water he was drinking. It wasn’t wholly unentertaining though, as we broke into conversation a couple times for the laffs.

Neither Ben nor I won anything at the closing raffle, so we made our way back home with handfuls of leftover burgers. I chatted with Gary for a bit until quitting time, and then went home for a bit. I started to feel pretty bad almost immediately, so I didn’t really get any of the cleaning done that I wanted. Instead, I gathered myself and headed to Summer’s for the evening and crawled into bed.

I started to feel better after laying in bed for a while, but this fever just keeps coming and going. I guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Maybe I’ll die from it all.

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Large Scale Shopping Trips

We got up this morning and headed to Hot Springs to pick up the aquarium stand I bought from PetSmart. There wasn’t an option to do a store transfer, so we just decided to make a day of it. We stopped in Ola for a potty break, and then made it as far as Nimrod Dam before she ran off to the bathroom again.

When we got through most of the mountains, we stopped at The Shack for lunch. I let myself get a little rushed when placing my order, so we both just got small burgers, and then we had some sweet potato fries and onion rings. It was all pretty good, but unremarkable. The homemade lemonade was amazing though, likely because of how much sugar it had.

Once into Hot Springs, we went straight to PetSmart and wandered around for a while before driving across the parking lot to go to Bed Bath & Beyond. I don’t even know how many hours we spent in there. I passed up some clearanced clear ice molds in favor of splurging a bit more on some larger round ones. We did pick up a FitBit smart scale though, which turned out to be a bit cheaper than I expected. It didn’t take much thought to decide to return to the store to pick up the last three on the shelf. As I was checking out, the cashier mentioned hearing us talk about them and said she thought about getting one for herself. I left her one to stick under the counter, and we were on our way.

It was time to eat again, and it took us a while to settle on something. We ended up at Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar, where I had trouble finding anything that looked good on the menu. I didn’t realize it when I declined the option to sit at the grill, but evidently they had different menus depending on where you sat. It turned out okay though, because Summer really liked her teriyaki combination, and I had the katsu don, which was really tasty and cost about half that of what I would have ordered from the hibachi.

After we ate, we stopped by the sexiest store in town to see what all the fuss was about. It was really just another one of those places where retail pricing is still ridiculous, and I was super surprised at the variety and quantity of people that passed through while we were there. I guess it’s just marketing and convenience, and hopefully not a generous return policy.

We stopped by the spring water fountain and filled our box full of bottles on the way out of town. I took a perceived shortcut on the way out just to see what it was like, but the lack of lighting made it a worse choice overall. We did just barely make out a yard full of toilets though. As we made it out to Hot Springs Village, we stopped at Walmart for another bathroom break and perused a bit for some cookies, beer, picture frames, and any clearance stuff we found interesting. Then it was over the mountain and through the fog to get back home.

Alexa? Lights! Camera? Action!

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Time to Waste

Somehow I managed to stay pretty busy today while Oakland was testing. Bryan emailed me earlier this morning before I even had my shower, and then called me while I was sitting in the office. He was having trouble signing into his school email on his Samsung email app, and I guess he didn’t feel like asking Amanda. When I failed to resolve it over the phone, he called Gary who came up with another working solution. Then I spent a good portion of the morning messing around with a stack of atomic wall clocks that I was told didn’t work. As far as I could tell, they all kept time. It’s possible they just weren’t syncing with the WWVB time signal but would keep time if manually set. In any case, I made a wall of them by the window and got jokes or comments about it from every soul that made it through the office today.

I met Dale, Allen, and Brice for lunch at Subway. I had a BOGO code that I used to order online, which saved me the headache I saw everyone else go through while in line. Having two 6-inch subs also meant I got to choose two different types, so I ate the tuna there and took the BMT home for later. It ought to warm up nicely in the oven.

After lunch, I spent a little bit of time at the shop before heading back to Oakland. I brought entertainment, but I didn’t even get to break it out, much to my own surprise. When they finally finished testing, I headed to the junior high to take care of some older work orders.

When I got home from work, I cleaned up a bit at home and got Grey to eat a little bit of a new can of food. I guess she just doesn’t like leftovers. Then I ran by Walmart to pick up some lettuce for dinner. Summer grilled burgers and baked some sweet potato fries that all turned out really well. Then I pushed her to make her own photo book before we all headed to bed.

I’ve got toooo much time on my hands!

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Failure to Launch

I had a little bit of a slow start this morning, and even got to embarrass myself in front of the whole crew when Ben wanted to go over some relatively convoluted phone stuff as soon as I walked in at 8am. I made it though, and I even managed to get out of any project work in the morning. At one point, Ben and I ran to the aquatic center to help someone before a swim meet, but by the time we got there he had already figured it out.

Everyone but Ben went to Western Sizzlin for lunch, which was an amazing feat in itself. It was a pretty quiet meal too, I think it was partially because everyone was hungry, and partially because nobody could talk shit about anyone else because everyone was there. I cut myself a little short on food, but then ran long on dessert. I couldn’t resist the brick of Rice Krispie Treats. Or the pecan pie. Or the no-bake cookies. Or the blueberry cake. Or the banana pudding. Or the ice cream. But mostly that first one.

After lunch, Dale, Allen, and I hung two touch panels. I had one at Oakland, and then Allen had one at Crawford. We had gotten a slightly newer model than the ones we were purchasing, and the software on them is pretty significantly different. I didn’t get a whole lot of time to play with them, but it definitely seemed less intuitive. I wasn’t a huge fan, but Dale loved the fact that they had handles on both sides. They were mounted a little low on the panels though, so the thing was top heavy and would tilt over when we picked it up.

When I got home, I cleaned house until the girls got there, and then we went to my parents’ house for some leftovers. I was really proud of Autumn for letting herself be forced to eat more than just egg rolls for dinner, and she even liked the bite of weird beef she originally didn’t want to eat. We didn’t stay very long though, because we had to get home to rest before the big day tomorrow.

The girls put on Coco for a little while, and then they all went to sleep while I tried to catch up on some esports craziness. We didn’t get a tournament team going before the midnight cutoff, but it’s looking like we’ll have a pretty good turnout tomorrow for a LAN party while Summer is hosting a quiz bowl tournament. I’m a little worried about noise levels just because I don’t know how many people are going to show up, but I won’t be afraid to shut it down if they don’t behave.

-Email Signatures

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Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I had a decent start to the day, and managed to close out a few more work orders. I’m up to just 20 behind Amanda again, but I’ve got to keep on chugging along. I’m still not sure how she got nearly 100 more to beat me, but I’m going to assume it was work that wasn’t done properly before, and that had just caught up to her. Gary had time in the morning to help me get an email group made for esports, which made things a lot easier.

Zach, Sara, and I met at Taco Bell for a relatively light lunch. Then I made it to the junior high to take care of a few things before picking at a few more esports things. I have an account set up now for money, so I can start accepting donations and the like for kids to compete, or presumably purchase necessary equipment. I’m hoping I can get some donations by way of accessory sponsorships and swag giveaways, but I’ll probably need to clarify what is actually legal before I take too many actions.

After work, I ran home to clean up after the cats. While that was going, I pinched off a piece of Ludwigia and replanted it so I’ll hopefully grow an additional stem in the aquarium. It’s looking pretty nice the way it’s growing in, and I can’t wait to see how it does if I can ever find the time to start some CO2.

As soon as I finished those chores, I ran up to Summer’s to get Autumn to help grab a couple pizzas from Little Caesar’s. We pulled in just as Summer was leaving with hers, but we still had to wait a few minutes for ours to come out of the oven. We ate, and I finally got my first esports newsletter out to the members. I also selectively spammed a few key people with the hopes of catching a little bit of positive publicity. I really hope it goes well, but trying to enlist a proper team is proving difficult with such a short timeframe. To compound that, evidently I need to confirm that our school allows 8th and 9th grade students to compete in “high school” sports. It all seems like semantics to me, but in the end it’s just frustrating to everyone involved. It sure seems like a lot of work and money just to play a free-to-play game.

This is fine.

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Early Saturday

I couldn’t sleep in this morning and got out of bed right around 8. Summer and Autumn were already gone for a quiz bowl tournament. I had some leftover barbecue for breakfast while Eaddie slept in. Eventually I got her up and we got ready to go to my parents’ house where Uncle Giao and Aunt Teresa had come to visit. Bác Vân was there too, and Mom made phở and egg rolls for lunch. We ate, then hung out for a little while before heading back to my house.

Eaddie watched Legends of Tomorrow while I milled around the house and tried to organize some things for esports. Summer and Autumn got back around dinner time, and we packed everyone up to go back to my parents’ house. We ate and socialized until Uncle Giao and Teresa were ready to head out. As we were driving away, he stopped and asked me to lead him to the hotels, so I drove him up north. I don’t know why they wouldn’t just stay in one of the spare rooms at my parents’ house, but whatever the reason, it was annoying enough to me that he would rather ask me to drive them to a hotel instead.

Since we were already on that side of town, I decided not to go back for Summer’s car, and we just crashed at her place. I couldn’t get Battlestar Galactica to play properly and Summer was ready to pass out, so that was it for the night.

Relax, don’t do it, when you want to go to it.

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V-Games for V-Day

Oakland was pretty crazy with Valentine’s Day stuff this morning, so I was just in and out. I spent a bit of time at the shop trying to organize my thoughts about esports, and then made it to the junior high just before the 8th graders went to lunch. I grabbed my flyers and waited nervously in the lunch meeting room. As soon as Matt made the announcement, the kids started pouring in. It was pretty rowdy, and I was a little disappointed in how little most of them knew about the games being offered. I got a bunch of questions about adding shooters, and I just kept having to point them to the fact that we’re going to have a hard enough time convincing parents that video games are good for school without throwing violence in with it.

The 9th graders seemed way more prepared. Hands shot up for all the games, and there were plenty of people that already played them at home. It ended up being almost entirely a question/answer session. I was glad that Summer and Hannah came to the 8th grade lunch for support though, and even Autumn brought a couple friends. I felt like I had a pretty decent handle on the introduction the second time, but the hardest part is still ahead. I spent all afternoon running around the building getting input from different people about how to get the word out to parents. Once I can get my mind to slow down a bit, I’ll be able to enlist the EAST project kids to do most of this legwork.

I never did make it to a lunch, and I spent the end of the workday setting up AppLocker for League of Legends so I can restrict who can actually run the game. I got to chatting with Ben for a little bit before I left, and then headed home to meet up with Summer. Once I got a hold of my parents, everyone agreed on my suggestion of Taco Villa for a Valentine’s Day dinner. It was a relatively easy way to avoid the craziness of all the sit-down restaurants today. I forgot to grab cash on the way out the door though, so we had to run back home for that before we got the food.

I think we all ate too much. I confirmed that I still don’t love tamales, especially that aren’t homemade. There was a lot of cheese. Everywhere. When we got back home after dinner, I felt like I slammed into a brick wall of exhaustion, but had to finish washing a load of socks. Summer went home to receive the girls as I stayed in to wind down as quickly as possible.

Here’s to the last 80.