Tag: food

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Other Directions

I thought today might be an okay day. I got to work and made myself a coffee, and was able to assemble my knowledge and choose a direction for my big networking project. Then things started to get gross. Around lunchtime, Blake found me in my office and told me they were going to go in another direction with the Technology Coordinator position. He didn’t have any real answers or even useful adages. He just said they weren’t going to keep me. At that point, he didn’t even know whether I was supposed to pack my things right then and there, or if I was supposed to keep working until the next Coordinator of the Week showed up. He did know that they already had someone picked for the job, by way of Western Yell County School District, but he didn’t know when he was slated to start.

We talked briefly to no end, and then I spent the rest of the day applying for every job I was even remotely qualified to take, almost all of which were more than twice the salary. I’d already missed my best opportunity for the moment in Morrilton, so all I could do is hunt through what was left. Nothing local, for certain.

I talked to Summer, Johnny, Brody, Kim, and Ben on the phone throughout the afternoon. Ben, as usual, probably had the best advice. Brody, on the other hand, was the only one with an actual job to fill. It would be a slight pay cut, but only if I’m still working by that time.

I eventually headed home without packing too much stuff out of the office. I fed the fish and then went to get Summer for dinner. Eaddie had already eaten, and Noah needed her to pick him up across town. I’m so sick of hearing from that kid, sweating on my couch all night, burning in my television, holding a savings of three hundred dollars toward buying a working vehicle since he burned up his truck.

Summer and I went to Peg Leg for some burgers. Based on our first impression from walking in the door, it was not going to be a good experience. It was a dingy establishment with an oscillating fan in the dining room, a television playing Christian music on Sirius XM, and literally zero other customers. That was when things took a sudden turn. Our server accurately guessed both of our burger choices, and forty bucks later, we were really impressed. Takeout would probably be a better deal so we wouldn’t have to tip, but the burgers were fantastic. Way more gourmet than the Gunslingin Burger across town, and with fewer creepy people inside.

After we ate, we headed home and I took the dogs for a run to my parents’ house. When we got back to the house from our extended route, Muad’Dib still wanted some more. I ended up taking him out on a solo run, and we finished the day with nearly three miles on the board. Hopefully that will keep them quiet tonight.

Summer was in bed long before I got settled in, because I had to wait for Noah to finish his laundry before I could get to mine. Eaddie chatted with me a little bit about a band opportunity, and I applied for Brody’s open position in Clarksville. I may not like it now, but I drew my line in the sand. The lesson is that integrity shown is seldom reciprocated.

Blame is better to give than receive.

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Subgetting

I ended up taking some Nyquil last night, and luckily I slept it off by this morning. It was super quiet at work all day and it seemed like everyone was either gone or busy somewhere else on campus. I finally replaced Harry’s computer while he was gone, but otherwise I mostly documented my existing subnets for future planning. It may just be a matter of going through all of the switches to make sure everything is configured correctly.

I left just a couple minutes early and picked up some stuff from the old house, then got home just before Noah got there. I took the dogs for a quick run on the Onewheel, where I ran into Tasha who apparently lives just a few blocks away by Alisha. We stopped to see my parents and then headed back home so I could put out the trash and recycling.

Once Summer got home, she wanted to take them out again. She wasn’t hungry and Eaddie wasn’t home, so I went to Taco Bell for a quiet dinner. I was still a little hungry when I left, so I stopped and grabbed some sauced nuggets from Wendy’s, which weren’t great. The sauce was mostly just oil, and I didn’t love them. They were surprisingly spicy though.

It had started to pour down rain while I was at Wendy’s, but settled down a bit by the time I made it home. I played with the dogs on the porch some more while everyone else settled in. Then I maxed out my Amazon Vine orders again and headed to bed.

“Free”

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Take a Stand

I actually woke up pretty early today, but made myself go back to sleep to catch up on some hours. Eaddie eventually got up, so I made us French bread bacon and egg sandwiches, which turned out super delicious. Then we played with the dogs for a bit before I took a shower and went to the old house to pack up some more stuff.

Dad was over there working in the yards, and helped me load up the last TV stand I had over there. Then I loaded a couple other bigger things into the car before coming back in to pack a box while I called Optimum to cancel service. That phone call was a whole ordeal, as it usually is, and I ended up keeping it for now, with two months of free service, a lower bill for a year, and a subscription to HBO Max.

I finally headed back home just as Summer was coming home from work. Eaddie was gone when I got there, but I got everything unloaded, and Summer showed up just in time to help with the TV stand. She got started on the dinner she started to make yesterday, and Eaddie brought Eli over for dinner. I fed the dogs while I was outside, and Muad’Dib kept wanting to be fed kibble-by-kibble, which I was happy to do. Dinner was great, and then we watched X-Men: Days of Future Past before bed.

The hunt is back on.

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Dirty Volunteer Work

Burger King has been knocking it out of the park with their biscuits lately. The sausage has been pretty good, and even the hashbrowns haven’t been awful. I’ve always kind of liked their coffee. I got to work just as the boys club started walking in, and then I spent several hours trying to figure out an issue with our food service application that really should have been resolved with a proper rollup.

At some point I finally made some progress with setting up a RADIUS server, but then I discovered that the board meeting was tonight. In anticipation for a reasonable salary, I decided to stay for that, and it was an incredible waste of time. Nobody said a word to me until I asked Jill if I needed to work next week. She just shrugged and said I didn’t have a contract, so she couldn’t pay me. Next week, Harry will be at a retreat with the board, so there’s just me, being angry and unpaid until who-knows-when.

Being Julie’s birthday, the family decided to take her to Brick Oven. The girls went with them, and I showed up late and ate some of their leftovers before we left. Eaddie wanted to go to the store to get dog food, so Summer took the Model Y home while I went to Walmart with her. We stopped by the old house to feed the fish, and then shopped for a bit before heading home.

It was super dark when we got home, so I took the dogs out for a walk on foot. I let them roam at the end of the leash, and they were pulling pretty hard the whole time. I’m upset that I don’t have any one-on-one time to do any real training, but I just feel like I don’t have time for anything. Summer was asleep by the time we got back in, so I fumed for a bit and went to bed late.

What a pissant.

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Zoomin

I got a couple biscuits this morning to last the day full of online training webinars. Johnny called and interrupted the first one to say that he was called and offered the Hector job even though he never applied. He was all wound up over the drama and strange nature of the position, but I told him it sounded like it could be a really good opportunity depending on whether he could make the pay work and how self-motivated he was.

I really didn’t get into anything else at all. The Veeam call lasted forever, so there just wasn’t time apart from the couple interruptions I had throughout the day. Summer had dinner going at home, so I went home for that after stopping at the old house to feed the fish.

Noah and Eli were both there as well, but I didn’t see a whole lot of them. We all ate a pretty good, but overly lemon-peppery chicken, cold pasta salad that you’d take to a potluck, and some really good asparagus.

Noah went to his room pretty early, Eli left, and then I took the dogs out for a fast run around the cul-de-sac. It was still super humid and hot, so they wore out quickly. Overall, I did a fair job of wrapping the day quickly.

Wrapped

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Half Asleep

I slept for nearly 12 hours last night, though I woke up a couple times with a pretty bad headache. Once I got around, I felt much better for the rest. Someone tagged me in a lost dog post on the Nextdoor app, but upon checking, both of our dogs were still home. They had gotten into more stuff again, so I’m having to deal with random chewed up garbage all the time.

Summer was working from home, and I was pretty hungry for some lunch, so I ended up going to Burger King to get a big bag of food. Eaddie was already awake but wasn’t hungry, so Summer and I were the only two that ate any of it. I had the best shower I’d had in a week and then took the dogs for a walk to my parents’ house to help Dad move the refrigerator out of its little nook so he could investigate a hiss and some possible steam. The dogs did pretty well, and weren’t completely chaotic when tied up to the deck. Stilgar took a dip in his pool when we got back, and then I tried to do a little bit of training with them while they were hungry.

Noah came back over after work, since he’s been driving our Pathfinder. Eaddie spent most of the day in her room while Summer worked. I eventually had to go back to help Dad move the refrigerator back into place, but I just took the Onewheel instead of walking the dogs again. Mom was hungry, so they decided to get some Taco Villa. I went with Dad to pick that up, and then headed back home in the dark after we ate.

Everyone went to bed pretty early after that. The kids took the dogs out for another walk while I was gone, so even they were pretty tired and just slept on the porch.

It’s all just noise.

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Give It a Rest

I slept in a little bit today, but didn’t want to miss seeing any animals. That was kind of the point of staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. I was the first one up and spotted an addox in the field outside our room. I woke the girls up to show them my picture, and it wasn’t long before we saw some giraffe as well. We eventually got everyone rolled out of bed to try and swim for a bit, but then we smelled breakfast cooking at Boma, the restaurant downstairs from the lobby. We were able to walk up and get a seat nearly immediately, and the buffet was incredible. There was some pretty typical breakfast stuff, but a lot of new African things to try as well. I particularly loved the orange, passion fruit, and guava juice blend, as well as the stewed tomatoes. I stuffed myself silly, and then we went outside to swim under some direct sunlight.

I didn’t want to stay out and burn, so we weren’t out terribly long. We came back to the room and the girls played on their phones. I started to doze a little bit, but never took a proper nap. We went back outside for a little bit at one point, but eventually had to start making our way to the Beach Club Resort for our reservation at the Cape May Cafe. I wasn’t prepared for another buffet, but the girls were hungry again since they hadn’t eaten much at the first one.

We took the bus to Hollywood Studios, the Skyliner to EPCOT, and then a boat to the resort, where we had some time to kill in some rocking chairs by their pool before it was time to eat. There, some of the food was super good, but then I was disappointed by some others. I guess most of the seafood I had was pretty good, but I could only eat so many fried calamari. The pork loin and prime rib(?) were both pretty tough and unenjoyable. I did really like the clam chowder, and the glaze they used on their salmon was super good. I wished I liked the taste of salmon more, because they were really thick cuts.

After stuffing myself again, we headed straight back to Hollywood Studios by boat, and then took the bus back to our own resort where we went out for another dip in the pool. Eaddie joined us at the side of the pool for a little bit, but then went back upstairs. Summer and I goofed around in the water for a little while, and then headed back up for bed.

You’re a nuisance to my plans.

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Dusted and Busted

It was super hard to wake up for a second day in a row with only a couple hours of sub-optimal sleep. We didn’t make it out of the room quite as quickly as yesterday, but we still got there for park open. Summer scored us really early virtual queue tickets to the new Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind coaster, so we ended up cancelling our breakfast reservation at Akershus and tried to be first in line. They didn’t actually open that ride until 8:40 though, and recommended we try something else for our early hours. We didn’t want to walk far, so we just stopped next door for some Starbucks and then came back.

The whole ride seemed pretty out of place for EPCOT, but it was super cool nonetheless. We were so early that there wasn’t a queue at all yet, and in fact we were the only three people on our train. The ride was incredible, and I only partially jokingly asked if we could stay on for another ride. The first guy said we didn’t want to know what was behind the door that led back to the start of the ride, but then another woman asked if we wanted to ride again, and took us through a staff door and loaded us on the back of the next train, which only two other people were on. After riding both first and last cars, I think the rear was my preferred. It really was an excellent experience, and getting to ride twice, back-to-back, was super special.

The rest of the day was some tough bouncing back and forth, partially to hit rides, and partially to make our lunch reservation at Space 220. Overall the food was great, but the experience was fairly middling. The screen for the “space window” could have been way better, and we were seated too close and too far to one side for it to be even noticeable at all.

By the time we got back to Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, the reported wait time was like 160 minutes. I think we actually got through in just under an hour though. The ride was super cute, but we kind of thought it was more kiddy-cute than something we really cared to ride repeatedly.

We squabbled a bit in pain as we decided how to attack the rest of the afternoon and evening. I really wanted to at least experience the new Frozen ride, and we eventually made it. Eaddie and I both came away with the exact same thought, that Disney has started relying too heavily on projections for their rides. We preferred actual animatronics, and felt the projections just took away from the experience.

Overall, I think most of the things we’ve experienced this trip have been disappointments, and I’m definitely falling out of love with Disney. There are just an intolerable number of people here, and everything feels like a blatant money grab. The only other highlight for the day was really the special fireworks display over the United States pavilion. Julie and Kevin missed it because they went to the front of the park, but we watched from right next to the pavilion and it was intense.

We all made it back to the resort without too much trouble, but a little worse for wear. Everyone’s feet were hurting pretty badly. I have a pinky-toe that’s more blister than toe. The girls crashed pretty quickly, but I didn’t get to sleep until late because I kept trying to wake Noah up off of our couch at home by playing music over my speakers remotely. Then I had trouble stopping them when he finally woke up. I just wish he’d leave, because I’m tired of him blatantly disrespecting us.

Wake me up before you verti-gogo!

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On Leash

I rode the Onewheel around the block this morning and found the dogs playing in someone’s garden on the corner of Ridgewood. They ran after me full-speed when they saw me, and heard me blowing the dog whistle I got from Dad. They ran all the way home, and though they hesitated to go back into the gate, they laid down on the porch like they might just rest a while. Unfortunately they were gone again by the time I left for work, and I didn’t see them as I drove away.

Shortly after I got to work, I got a notification from the same girl that posted about them on Nextdoor, and she said they were seen on Tanglewood. I sent the girls after them, and I guess they had some help from at least one neighbor who straight-up carried Muad’Dib over to Summer. Stilgar had to be fetched from the end of the road, and for some reason Summer thought it would be best to load him into the Model Y instead of just have him follow her home in the rain.

I did a bunch of Disney planning and took care of some things I’d been needing to do. Keith found me an old pallet that I could take home to mend the fence, and I eventually left that ghost town. I fed the fish and then went home to clean up. Julie called to settle a bet with Kevin, and my blog came to her rescue. I told Kevin I would have erased his name for half the price of losing the bet. Maybe now Julie understands the value I get from journaling everything.

Eaddie was out with friends, so I asked Summer if she wanted to go try the pork steaks at Ridgewood Brothers. As we were leaving, we noticed she had another crack spreading up her windshield from a pretty big impact spot in the bottom-right, so we added that to her air conditioning service appointment. Grant was at the restaurant running a full crew for a mostly empty dining room. The pork steak was good, but I don’t think ours were glazed properly when they were served. If they were, then we still needed more because they were pretty dry. Of course they were huge, thick cuts of lean meat that had been smoked and then finished on a grill. They weren’t overly tough or difficult to eat, but they would have been great with a cup of glaze for dipping.

When we got back home, we decided to take the dogs out for a walk to my parents’ house. It went pretty well until we got there and I let Stilgar off of his leash. Summer just dropped Muad’Dib’s, and he took off after a cat under the porch. I got angry and she tried to just leave me there alone, which made me even angrier. I got her to come back and help, and she saw Muad’Dib gnawing on something under the porch. We were worried it was the cat, but we were pretty sure it was just the leash. When they finally came back out, I hosed a bunch of mud off of the leash and gave them some water before we headed back home.

She went to the bedroom after that, and I took care of some things before eventually getting to bed myself. I’m constantly sleep deprived, angry, frustrated, depressed, and just about any other negative emotion there is. I’m hoping a vacation will help, but I’m already stressed about traveling, and worried about what the dogs will get into while we’re gone. Summer informing me that she’s paying Noah to come house-sit while we’re gone only made me feel worse about the situation, and angry that she didn’t consult me first. Telling me that she was going to “set some ground rules” was not the consolation she thought it might be.

I’ll have them longer.

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Nobody Asked You Patrice!

I caught the dogs in the act of digging under the fence this morning, and in spite of being in trouble, they were super excited to see me. I gave them some pets and treats with the hopes that they would stick around, and tried to cover up their start of a new hole, but they got out again while I was in the shower. As I was walking out the door, a new neighbor stopped to let us know. Summer woke up and got the front door just as I was discovering they weren’t in the back yard. Luckily we were able to get them back inside without too much trouble, but they were pretty high-energy.

There was no time for breakfast, and traffic was stupid. I got to work a little over 10 minutes late, but again, the place was mostly a ghost town. I submitted my vacation request form, though technically my contract will be over by then, and they don’t have to hire me again. I’m playing this one by ear. I ended up in Blake’s office and chatted with him for a while, and then a guy came in with three big bags of sweet corn for the school. I eventually got some for the office, and then took some home at the end of the day.

Other than that, my big human interaction was when Troy stopped by and actually sat down and chatted with me a little bit. I thought that was kind of neat, but I’m sure he mostly just needed a break from the heat. I eventually headed home and fed the fish.

I got to the house just as Summer was finishing up dinner. She thought it would be a good idea to cut up the leftover dried chicken and form patties with egg and bread crumbs. They were even dryer than the chicken was by itself, and it made no sense at all. I rolled the grill out and cooked some corn while I played with the dogs for a while. It sprinkled with a little thunder in the distance, and the dogs stuck around on the porch. It was really nice that we didn’t have to hunt for them at all today.

I wish they were trained well enough to take to work.