Tag: food

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Milk Duds

We all slept pretty hard last night after such a big day, but we didn’t sleep in terribly late. Summer wanted to go to the gym, but wasn’t in a big rush. I wanted to make breakfast, but that slowly slipped into brunch, then lunch, then a late lunch. I got Summer to try Half-Life: Alyx in VR with some success, but we still need room to play properly. She ended up wanting to take a nap before going to the gym while I cleaned the kitchen.

Eaddie left with Eli for the day. I had Summer pick up some milk on the way home, and I got out some old cube steak she had in the freezer. I’d never made country fried steak before, but I figured it would be a good way to get the meat out of the freezer. The breading and frying turned out pretty good, and I warmed up some canned corn at her request. We had some instant mashed potatoes, and I made gravy from what was left of everything, so there was zero waste for the entire meal. I think some of it came out a bit more dense than it should have, but overall it wasn’t bad for my first try. Unfortunately, I think all the milk in that, plus the latte that I had earlier, gave me some intense stomach cramps for the rest of the day.

I laid around a bit trying to feel better, but eventually needed to take Muad’Dib out for a run. We skipped a couple blocks on the way to my parents’ house, and then headed home pretty quickly as it got dark. On our last block, we ran into the old mechanic from around the corner again, and he wanted to come up and shake my hand and chat for a minute. He was excited to have walked off some weight and gotten his heart condition under control, and wanted to share that some lady offered him $2k less than the $10k he was asking for an old Nissan Titan he fixed up.

After another handshake into a shoulder pat, we made it home and got cleaned up for bed. I took a late shower, took care of my plants, and crashed a little early.

Dyshidrotic?

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Screamin’ Good Times

I got up early with Summer to go to Dardanelle for a run. Muad’Dib and I ran a couple miles with the Onewheel, and after stopping for a moment, I turned around to see him lying in a puddle to cool down. Summer made first in her age division, so she was super happy with her progress. Afterward, we went to Waffle House for some breakfast before heading back home.

We cleaned up and had a bit of a break before Eaddie left to get her friends. Then Summer and I drove separately to drop Muad’Dib off with Mom, and headed to Hot Springs. I had been belting out songs in the shower earlier, and we continued on rocking out while we were driving, so I didn’t notice how much the car was speeding. I got pulled over, and I think it was the same guy that got me when I was working at Two Rivers. He gave me another warning, and we were on our way.

We stopped at Clampit’s Country Kitchen for a late lunch on the way. We had never been, but they had 4.7 stars and the pictures looked pretty good. It was a large building with cases of meats and some other little grocery items. The deli had plate lunches, so Summer got some brisket nachos and I got half a rack of ribs to add to that. I could not have been more disappointed. I didn’t detect any smoke on the meats at all. The hot sauce wasn’t hot at all. The nachos were just yellow corn chips with Velveeta cheese dip, cole slaw, baked beans, and a bit of brisket. The ribs weren’t sauced, smoked, or tender. It was edible, but the most stereotypical “white people” lack of flavor I could possibly describe. I think the only way the meat could have been worse is if they boiled it.

The kids caught up to us and stopped there, and then we continued to Magic Springs. The parking lot was fairly empty, so we were excited to enter with basically no lines for anything. Eaddie brought Eli, Ceci, and Jenny along, and we rode some rides and had a good time. Early on, I found an abandoned refillable cup, so we ended up cleaning it out to use for the day. We got stuck on Brain Drain the second time we went up, because the guy accidentally slipped off the button to lift the ride. They had to bring it down and run a test before it could be unlocked, but Summer really wanted to do a haunted house and it was getting dark. We wandered through a couple small ones, but by the time we made it back to the larger ones, the lines had formed. I was already burned out from yelling so much and running around, and we decided to leave the kids and head home.

I let the car drive the entire way, and it did great. We picked up Muad’Dib and made it home. Summer went straight to bed and I stayed up late just catching up. The kids ended up going to Conway for some reason, so I didn’t wait up for them. They had just taken a trip to Tulsa, so a bit of extra driving in-state must not have seemed much to them. I’m just glad I’m not paying for their gas.

Poppa’s is better somehow.

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Fix It Clean It Play It Eat It

Even without the girls here, Muad’Dib got up in the middle of the night to check if Eaddie was home, then came right back to bed. After that, I had a bit of a late start followed by rain the whole way to work, so I had to drive myself if I wanted to get there on time. It was mostly clear by then. I had gotten an email overnight about our Traverse issue, to which I replied. I expected the worst, but they pulled it off and got Tammy going again before she even got there.

I bounced around a bit after that, but eventually focused on cleaning up sensors in PRTG and performing some updates across the whole stack of servers, from the bare metal, all the way down. It felt like a super long day, and the afternoon especially dragged on after going to Sonic just a few minutes early.

A new girl brought our food out, and then remade my sundae because it didn’t have any peanut butter in it. That meant Muad’Dib got a bunch of ice cream for himself. Things were quiet after that, and dragged until we finally left for home. Mom said she had a frog in the skimmer, so we went there first to clear that, hoping to save it from drowning. We did. Summer had to close, so we waited for her to get off before riding back over for shrimp soup.

Mom had already eaten after I came over the first time, so Summer and I ate and then left. She hadn’t slept well at Autumn’s the night before, so she went to bed early for her race in the morning. Eaddie came home late from their trip to Tulsa, and chatted with me about it for a bit before going to bed. I didn’t mean to stay up late, but got hungry again and cleaned up some crusty old pizza before finally going to bed.

Charge it use it beat it view it

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Traverse Engineering

I had points to burn at McDonald’s today, so we stopped in for a sausage biscuit on the way out of town. It wasn’t awful, and it was the friendliest service I think I’ve ever had at any McDonald’s ever. Everything looked clean, and I even got a “good morning” when I walked in the front door. We made it to work pretty casually without a clear goal, and ended up tinkering in Traverse for most of the day.

It was a long and boring day, otherwise. I went downstairs to talk to Rhonda about her issue a couple times, and I think I learned some stuff. We took a super late lunch for some cheap Wendy’s, and then I decided to pick up a snack at Sonic on the way back. There was an old lady at the drive-through window that I’d never seen before, and she was so excited to see Muad’Dib. She gave him a little whipped cream pup cup, and he was just as happy as he could be. I made him eat it slowly, so he still had most of it when we got back to the office. I was surprised that he turned away from it as soon as Charles came upstairs, but that just shows how much he gets fed down the hall.

It was a short afternoon after that, but I had a decent place to start again the next morning. We came home pretty casually as well, but witnessed a close call with a car cutting off a motorcycle when we got back into town. Everyone drove away, but there was a lot of head shaking.

Eaddie came home just after we got there, and said she was packing up to go to Oklahoma with Eli. Summer made it home from the gym to see them off, but later in the evening they decided to wait to leave in the morning. Summer took a shower while I ran Muad’Dib, and then we met at my parents’ house for egg roll salads. My parents were watering plants for most of that time, but eventually made it in.

We didn’t get home until after dark. Summer was exhausted from a few nights of poor sleep, and I felt okay but hadn’t been doing much better. I did okay to get to bed at a reasonable time, so hopefully we’ll finish the week strong.

What’s new?

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PL-Seas

I got out a hair early this morning and had a pretty relaxing drive in with my last breakfast burrito for the week. I planned to go up to the mix room to hook up to the PLCs, so I cued Charles up for that. I had to leave Muad’Dib in my office, and I went up to meet Charles, who had trouble getting his laptop on. It seemed like the battery was just bad and reporting a bad status, but I had mine with the software I thought we needed.

It took me a while, and eventually Charles left me up there to do my own thing. I went through three different versions of the Crimson software, and couldn’t get it to connect over a direct USB connection. Strangely enough, when I finally got it to connect, I discovered I could have done the same from my desk.

I went back to the office to tinker with it some more, and spent all day pretty focused on that project. I completely forgot that they were providing boxed lunches from a local burger fundraiser, so we went downstairs to eat with everyone crammed around the little breakroom table. I didn’t really get my fill, but Summer wanted to go to Brown’s for dinner, so it worked out well.

The afternoon was super quiet because I was there by myself for the last couple hours. I eventually got my configurations that I wanted to push to the Red Lion controller so I could monitor the PLCs, but I didn’t want to do it at the end of the day on a Friday. I ended up getting locked in, but we made our way out and got home through some pretty fast, but still annoying traffic.

My Steam Frame came in, but I had to set it aside to take Summer to dinner. Muad’Dib waited in the car, and we both filled up pretty quickly on a mound of fried food. I wasn’t as impressed today, but I’d also had worse. We came back home and walked Muad’Dib up the cul-de-sac before Summer went back inside. Then I took him on a run to my parents’ house.

Mom had a bunch of basil for me, so we picked the leaves off of that for pesto. Then Muad’Dib and I made it home to put Summer to bed. I unboxed my Frame and tinkered with it on the couch for a while, but I never actually got to play anything at all. The UI seemed a little goofy, but I had zero experience with a full VR headset outside of the old phone boxes you could strap to your face. I couldn’t get Rocket League to run, so I ended up downloading a bunch of other free VR tools to try later.

Eaddie came home pretty early for a Friday, but pretty much went straight to bed. I started to feel pretty exhausted, so I didn’t stay up late.

I’ve been Framed!

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Modbus?

I felt myself get warm and cozy this morning, but I fell back to sleep and woke up just minutes later from a super deep, dream-filled sleep when my alarm went off. I remember finding a clam in a small grotto, but then being in some weird, dark alley or basement area with my buddy Brandon, talking to a vendor selling a variety of large mussels to eat. I felt like I was having to wake up from the dead, and crawled around on the floor to stretch and try to wake up.

I got out the door a little later still, but had time for a burrito. I realized it was a mistake to sub cheddar for the nacho cheese, because the hot, melty, gooey breakfast burrito was way better. We made it to work after fighting traffic that wanted to come to a complete stop on the onramp.

I was pretty excited to get into PRTG and my PLC project again, but of course the more I learned, the more I discovered that every path I had taken over the past couple days was probably wrong. Furthermore, I had asked Charles’s vendor buddy about the Modbus protocol when I first started, and he replied that the controller didn’t support it. Now that I understand a little bit more about the different components, I feel more confident in saying he was wrong.

We went to Taco Bell for lunch since we hadn’t been in a while, and then it was a long, dragging afternoon. The drive home was pretty easy, but the car wanted to take the second exit instead of the third for some reason. I couldn’t tell if there was backed up traffic or something, but I didn’t fight it.

Summer was hungry when she got home from the gym, and wanted to get some Chinese. I had a big lunch, and suggested the Spices food truck instead of a buffet. She jumped at the chance, so we loaded up and went to eat at the picnic tables there. Muad’Dib was laser-focused on the cat and kept trying to chase it under the truck, so I had to zap him several times. Sometimes something just gets into him and he goes out of control like that, and I have to assume the cat said something ugly to him.

We shared some noodles and I had a little cup of soup. Then we took Summer home and went on a run in the dark. Dad gave Muad’Dib a bunch of spaghetti noodles, and we eventually made it home to get ready for bed.

Wrong so many times I became right again.

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Bloody PLCs

I had a rough start this morning, but not as rough as Summer. Autumn called her around three in the morning, crying about unbearable abdomen pain. Summer told her to call the emergency room if it was that bad, and then drove to Clarksville to meet her there. She didn’t get back home until after noon.

I managed to get out in time for another breakfast burrito, then made it to work for our first staff meeting in a couple months. As usual, I had been fretting a bit about it for nothing. It was fairly short with a couple new projects to work on.

I spent most of the day trying to learn a way to pull data from a PLC controller to dump into PRTG. It can’t do it natively, but evidently there may be a way to do it through another container I could spin up on my Docker VM. We took a break for some Sonic, and then I actually built out the tool, but couldn’t get it to connect to the PLC before quitting time.

I told Summer I wanted to make sure she got a good dinner when she got home. She had gone in to work for a bit after getting an afternoon nap, so we stopped by the lube to see her on the way home. Once we got home, I had to get cleaned up before she got home, and then we ended up going to Ridgewood Brothers.

It was super nice outside, so we had a good time at the picnic table. We ate too much, and then came home to drop Summer off before Muad’Dib and I did a quick run around the neighborhood. Dad got home just after we got there, but Mom didn’t wake up from all my banging around. We didn’t stay long since it had already gotten dark.

There was a bit more cleanup since Eaddie left food in the trash and we got ants again. Summer went to bed, and I finished up early.

red red red

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Taco Tuesday

Hard to believe it, but for as many times as we’d been to Taco John’s on a Tuesday, the title wasn’t taken. We left a little early so I could pick up a breakfast burrito, but their terrible app had them walking it out to me about ten minutes late. We got to work nonetheless, quiet as ever. Shane hit me up early about the approval process I built out, so he got to test it for me. There was more to do with it, but as usual, the problem is deeper than that.

Between permissions structures and the network, I feel like my work will never be done. Maybe that’s good. Who’s to say. I bounced between a few things throughout the day, then went to Ortega’s by myself I thought the girls downstairs might want to go this week, but nobody said anything. While I was there, Nicole spotted me from across the restaurant and came to say hi. She was out on maternity leave forever.

The afternoon dragged a little bit. I was there a little late, but made it home easily. Summer was home a tad early, and then Eaddie came home for a bit. I got a big package that was supposed to be a motorcycle stand, but ended up being a case of 192 one-ounce amber glass spray bottles. I took Muad’Dib for an early run, took my parents a solar light, and then made it back home before dark.

Eaddie took off, Summer went to bed, and I did my usual cleaning up and prep before bed.

Lace ’em up!

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MisgAIded

I spent all day fighting with Power Automate to get my approval process working, and a big part of it was broken because I had the wrong email connector. For some reason there was no warning about a certain v3 connector that simply wouldn’t work, and Copilot kept telling me to try fixing it the wrong way. Finally, Gemini set me straight and I had it working by the end of the day.

Somewhere in there, I took a really late lunch. We were headed to Sonic, but the app wouldn’t let me submit my order, so I ended up at Wendy’s instead. I refused to go to Sonic without being able to redeem my rewards, and Wendy’s had free chili. I ate fairly light and then finished up the quiet afternoon.

Summer was having a dumb day and wanted a drink, so I stopped by the liquor store for her on the way out of town. When I got home, I started prepping sandwiches for us, and we had a nice dinner of pesto chicken on pretzel buns. That cleaned up a lot of the leftovers, which was great. Then I took Muad’Dib on a quick run to try and beat sundown.

It was still pretty dark when we got back. Summer settled down for bed and I cleaned up and prepped for work before crashing.

60.1%!

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Pizza and Beer and Dog and Eggrolls

I didn’t let myself sleep in today, instead opting to continue writing reviews and cleaning up. I had some coffee and Summer went to the gym. Eaddie left to go with Eli’s family and help with some stuff in Little Rock. I told Summer I really wanted to take Muad’Dib out somewhere for lunch since we were stuck in the house all day yesterday, so when she got home and cleaned up, her choice was Point Remove.

We headed downtown to a mildly busy bar, ordered some wings, pizza, and beer, and had a good little lunch date. Muad’Dib got lots of oohs and ahhs as usual. Afterward, we came home and tried to find something to watch. That took a while since neither of us really had anything in mind. I eventually put on Jo Koy’s new Netflix special, which I didn’t love. I didn’t remember him being so needlessly vulgar, but he had some sentimental bits that I guess made a good story.

As we finished that up and I started to get hungry for dinner, Mom called and told me to come fry eggrolls. Muad’Dib and I took the Onewheel over and I started frying. Summer eventually made her way over, but ended up doubled over in gas pains, so she didn’t eat. It was late by the time I finished, so we headed home and I wrapped things up for bed.

Still serving my sentence…