Tag: family

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Entitlement

The girls got up this morning and went home so I could clean up around the house some more. I semi-randomly wandered around and cleaned up clutter, throwing out a fair amount of trash in the process. I looked some more for the title for my ’84 Fiero, but all I found were old check registers and medical bills.

When dinner time came around, I went to my parents’ house for shrimp noodle soup. Then I headed back home a little melancholy. I spent some more time cleaning in the kitchen, and what would you know, I found the title. It was on the kitchen counter all this time, because evidently I couldn’t find a better place for it.

It’s been all carrot and no stick for too long.

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Eat It, Fix It, File It, Find It, Wipe It, Roll It, Fail, Upgrade It

I met Josh and Aaron at Waffle House for breakfast this morning. We had a really good time catching up over coffee, and we collectively realized that we’ll have to just schedule something every month, like the old folks that congregate for breakfast at Hardee’s every Sunday.

When we left there, I stopped by Mark’s for about an hour and finished up some work for him. I was successful with everything I had to touch today, which was a relief. Hopefully the Outlook sync finished up fine after I left. There was still plenty of the day left to waste unintentionally, so I went home to try and clean up while the girls were gone.

I filed some old paperwork, but couldn’t find my old Fiero title. I assumed it never left my parents’ house. Summer came back by for a little bit to help, but I had already lost my way for the most part. While I was running around the house, I had trouble getting music to play on the speakers I wanted. I ended up pulling out an old router and wasting the rest of the afternoon trying to set it up as a range extender to see if better WiFi coverage would help.

The girls eventually came back over and we went to my parents’ house for spring rolls. Dad picked up Nova for dinner as well, and then we all sat down to watch Rustlers’ Rhapsody. I didn’t realize how old it was until I looked it up later, but I should have known.

When we got back home, I completed my wireless repeater setup and put Summer to bed. Finally, Eaddie and I ended the night with the last episode of the first season of House.

What’s so great about you is you always think you’re right. And what’s so frustrating about you is you are right so much of the time.

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No Egg Omelette

We were down to four plus the boss today, so it was a quiet and slow start. I convinced Zach to sign up for Robinhood, and I placed some buy orders for myself. Then we split up into a couple groups to run down some tickets at neglected campuses. Josh and I went to Crawford to retrieve a cart as well, which got us just into lunch, so we took Zach with us to meet Ben and Kyle at CJ’s.

After lunch, I helped Zach swap a television, which should have been a 15 minute job, but turned into a two hour job after we hung one new TV that was damaged out of the box, and then had to re-run an HDMI cable because the new model TVs didn’t have VGA inputs.

Ben let us go early, but Zach and I ended up sticking around most of that time to chat with Ben. When I did leave, I just waited at the house for the girls to come over, and then we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made bánh xèo and warmed up some leftover curry, and we sat and chatted a while.

When we finally made it back home, the two seasons went straight to bed while Eaddie and I watched the next episode of WandaVision. I really liked the progression, and I think Summer might like it too, so we’ll probably end up rewatching it soon. Then we watched a couple episodes of House before bed.

An alarm on Saturday morning? Sounds reasonable.

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B-

I got up this morning and cleaned up some old frozen French toast sticks the kids refused to eat themselves. Then I tried going through some more practice tests before it was time to check in for my A+ exam. I didn’t really get as much cramming done as I had hoped, but the first test was more or less a breeze. I felt pretty confident about most of my answers and ended up passing with what I’m guessing was a mid 90%.

My second exam was scheduled a little later so I had time for a shower and a little more studying. Then literally moments before I had to check in for the test, Summer said she was bringing Autumn home to shower because she suddenly couldn’t withstand her scented body wash. I told her that they would have to be completely silent and not come anywhere near me, so one could imagine my rage when Autumn started blaring music in the shower.

I had already started my exam and couldn’t back out or do anything to signal to her to turn the music down. So for half an hour, or an entire third of my allotted exam time, I shook with absolute rage that I couldn’t even read the questions in front of me. The exam was a big deal that I had put off for four years. I specifically scheduled a time when no one would be home, and when that didn’t pan out, it was a simple request for silence. I thought I had absolutely, without any doubt, completely bombed the test. My stomach was in knots for the entire 90 minutes, and when I read that I had passed, I was absolutely astounded. Of course when I confronted Autumn, the only response I got through her door was that “it wasn’t that loud.” I was just glad it was over and that I had another hour pass since my hottest moments.

Hungry and relieved, I re-prepared some awful hamburger meat that Autumn cooked a week ago. It only needed an intelligent touch of seasoning to be great enough for Eaddie and me to eat for dinner, but the star chef just couldn’t crack the code and left it to rot in the fridge.

Summer took Autumn to therapy and I took Eaddie home with me so I could pick up my contacts for real. Then we watched an episode of House until it was time to get Autumn and drop them off at karate. I waited for them at my parents’ house, where I finished setting up their new Chromecast with Google TV. I didn’t have long before I had to get the girls, and we got home just in time to realize Eaddie had forgotten her phone at the dojo. Summer eventually got home, and everyone was pretty quick to wind down from there.

If you’re not going to be prideworthy, at least be respectful and considerate.

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Brain Dump

This morning started out pretty slow, but I eventually got to be pretty productive. I worked in the shop all morning, then went to Linh’s with Greg for lunch. Apparently we’re on the fence about an interviewee, so the tenured had a lunch date with him to see if we’d all mesh. Spoiler alert: We won’t. At least not at first. It is tried and true that everyone always hates on the new guy at first, no matter how seasoned.

I spent the afternoon at the junior high, fighting off a bit of anxiety and killing time until school let out by working on some laptops. When Eaddie got out, I took her to her flute lesson – twice because she forgot her flute in my office the first time. Then I picked up Autumn and took her to the shop for a few minutes until quitting time.

We retrieved Eaddie, then went to pick up my contacts from the eye clinic. They wanted to charge me $188 for two boxes after insurance. The first and only contacts I’ve ever purchased in my life were purchased from Contacts1st.com without any insurance for $148 for FOUR boxes, and that included $10 for shipping. Now I get to call “the girl that does the insurance” tomorrow for an explanation and/or correction.

I dropped the girls off with Summer at her shop since none of them cared to go to karate. Then I stopped by the house just momentarily before remembering I could get a free scarf from T-Mobile. I picked that up, then stopped by Zaxby’s for a quick bite before going home to binge on A+ practice exams. I felt pretty good about my test results, but then I read about something called “performance based questions” that got me scared.

At least it’s scheduled, and not a moment too soon.

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Or Nothing

We had a brief meeting this morning, and then Mike and I helped Josh hang a couple touch panels at the middle school. It went alright, for having a newbie on the crew. We dawdled enough all morning that it was about lunch time by the time we got back, so almost all of us went to Slim Chickens to eat. I had the chicken and waffle, which was good, but I felt like I was paying an awful lot for the waffle to only come with three chicken strips. At least the strawberry lemonade was great.

After lunch, I stuck around the shop and did some more remote work on SCCM. Ben, Gary, and Zach had an interview with a guy that Melinda said was just like me without the fun parts. I told her we shouldn’t hire a complete asshole. Then for some reason I had to rate her on a scale of 1-10 on how much she’s like the devil.

Librado stopped by at some point and got a badge made for his new position as a relief custodian. It was otherwise a quiet day at the shop until Melinda started shooting everyone with her tiny off-brand foam dart pistol. She got me near the eyes a couple times, so I figured I should break out the big guns when I got home.

After work, the girls came over and I baked the pizza that Autumn brought home from school. It took me way back when I had to cut the thing inside of an actual pizza box, and it really made me miss working in pizza. I can see it now: Cow Pies.

We wrapped up the night with the first two available episodes of WandaVision. Summer wasn’t impressed with the highly stylized format, but it was clear things were going to change pretty quickly. I just hope it’s good, and can tie in appropriately with the future of the movies.

It’s NERF!

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The “S” is for “‘Spensive”

It was another quiet day at work, which meant I got to tinker with some older projects and things. I was ultimately successful with my Microsoft Office uninstall/upgrade task, and I think I have Web Help Desk configured in a way that will help me keep a better eye on both the junior and high schools.

Summer took the afternoon off and met me for lunch at Brangus. The food was good, but the service was lackluster, or at least mostly absent. I spent the afternoon at the junior high fighting a copy machine. It could have gone worse, but I was pretty sure it was the fault of the printer.

After school, I took Eaddie with me to the shop, then to the high school to pick up Autumn. Then I took them home where Summer had made a delicious pork chop dinner. We watched an episode of Glee, and then I had to head home to do some laundry.

The Samsung Galaxy S21 and its premium variants were announced recently, and Google Fi had a 50% discount promotion, so I finally started the process of porting my old Sprint number over. I’ll save money in the long run, but for now this is just another expensive toy. I figure I’ll eventually switch over to it as a primary device when the 90-day requirement runs out for the promotion.

Don’t worry, there’s no charge.

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Don’t Get Attached

I was back at the high school with Mike again today, but nothing exciting happened. I got to focus on some work in SCCM, which was nice. I only really have to run to classrooms at the junior high right now.

Melinda wanted to go to lunch again today, and I told her she was getting too attached, because this was twice in one week. She, Ben, and I went to Mulan’s, and I did my best not to overdo it. I think it was a success. Melinda decided that she wanted to have a cat at the shop, but I don’t think she realized how bad that might be for a cat to be alone for that many hours of every week.

I worked a little late, then changed at home and picked the girls up at their friends’ house. I helped Eaddie with some math homework until Summer got home, and eventually we got around to watching an episode of Glee before bed.

Just have an outdoor cat. That lives on the other side of town.

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Panic at the Get-Go

I’m still dreaming a lot lately, which kind of knocked my morning off balance. I had a short panic episode out of nowhere, and just generally had a rough start to the day. Once I made it in to work, everything was fine. Ben, Zach, and Greg were all back from quarantine, so I stopped by the shop before heading to the junior high.

I wasn’t as productive as I probably could have been, but I still got a lot done and never really felt not busy. I ended up working through lunch just to get things done. I was going to take Eaddie to her flute lesson after school, but apparently Summer had already arranged for her mother to take her there and then to the shop when she finished. Instead, I ended the day at the high school to get Autumn. We picked Eaddie up and made it to karate plenty early, so we sat in the car for a few minutes and talked.

When I got back home, I checked in on Bác Vân next door, who seemed to be in good spirits, though annoyed that her in-home physical therapists seemed to be completely pointless. I explained to her that they were probably used to the typical, lethargic patient that wasn’t already doing their own physical therapy on their own time.

Summer came over after work, and we picked up some Arby’s for dinner before she had to get the girls. She said she hit a possum on the way there, so I drove out to make sure it didn’t leave any babies. It took a couple rounds, but I found it on the side of the street, still breathing, but dying and covered in blood. I didn’t have a good way to finish the job, and my stomach wasn’t much up to stomping it to death, so I just left it to die by the curb, feeling pretty sick about it.

I’m all talk.

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Watched Pot

Today was almost entirely a bust. I got up and ate some leftover pizza and milled around the house until the girls left for lunch with their father and Summer went to the gym. I should have left, but instead I burned time all day long waiting for everyone to get back so we could continue to do nothing.

I did at least cook the turkey carcass to make stock for soup later. We finished our game of Phase 10 from days ago. I had to stay up late to boil the soup down a bunch for easier storage. I also sold what little bit of bitcoin I had for $4.21, which was a profit of 3.21 times my investment. I can only dream of an alternate life where I made it rich off the stuff, but I’m happy with my three bucks.

If only buying bitcoin had been easier to do back in the day…