Tag: food

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Nobody toucha my spaghet!

I got to spend all day at work on my own, and it was nice to only have to motivate one person to work for once. I spent most of the day at Oakland, but made some time for the junior high as well. The start of school casts an ominous shadow over what summer work has yet to be completed.

Gary, Zach, Sara, and I went to Morelo’s for lunch. Summer was at work right across the street, so I took her some on our way back to the shop.

After work, Summer came over and we went to my parents’ house for dinner. We stopped at Atwood’s first to see if they had any deals on kayaks, and then went to Kroger for a loaf of French bread. I’ve missed the garlic bread my parents made when I was a kid because they started buying premade frozen garlic bread slices. Mom watered her garden while I made the garlic bread, and then we ate when Dad got home. My bread didn’t come out as well as I remember it from the past, but I’m not really sure why. I think maybe the oven wasn’t hot enough at first.

Dad and Summer got on a Ray Stevens kick as we finished dinner. Then I snapped a picture of the moon on the way out.

At this rate, there won’t be any left!

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Ghastly Gasping

We got hit with a pretty bad storm last night that knocked out power for half the town for the better part of the day. I was fortunately only without power for a couple hours compared to some others, but it still wrecked my sleeping for the night. I tried sleeping everywhere from the bed, to my computer chair, to the recliner. I had the most luck in the latter, but even that was very sparing as I found myself waking up gasping for air just as soon as I’d get a little deeper into sleep. When the power finally came back on around 4:30, I went back to sleep in the bed and dreamed that I met Elon Musk and proposed an idea that he liked well enough to offer to send me to Mars. Summer wasn’t too happy about it, but I didn’t get to go anyway because I had to pee too badly. His loss.

When we finally got up, Summer and Eaddie left and I ate some leftovers for breakfast. I didn’t do a whole lot else on my own because I was still pretty run down from the mixed night of sleeping. Josh wanted to go out tonight since we missed last night, so once Summer got back from working out, we met him at the Dardanelle Club for dinner and drinks. Our waitress seemed like maybe she was having an off day, but we made the most out of what we had.

After dinner, Summer and I came back home and watched some TV while I did a load of laundry. Here’s hoping to no more surprises tonight.

Like the crack of the whip, I snap attack!

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Heated Rampage

This week really flew by. Half of the crew was out today, so the remaining five of us kept busy with the few things we could do. First thing in the morning, we prestaged 10 of the non-touch TVs at the high school for mounting once the wall mounts come in. I was ready for two more truck loads, but nobody else wanted to do it, so we killed the rest of the morning waiting for a FedEx freight shipment. It finally got there right before lunch, so we unloaded it before heading to Subway for a quick lunch.

I spent most of the afternoon taking care of a few things at Oakland, and then it was home to change into something cooler to deal with the 114º weather. My Yakima FullTilt bike rack came in, so I unboxed it and mounted it to the Murano to check the fitment. It was super heavy, but seemed really sturdy and came pre-assembled. I’m pretty happy with it. The Murano looks ready for so many adventures.

The girls came over as soon as they could, and we took Bác Vân to meet the rest of my family at Western Sizzlin for a birthday dinner for her and my sister. It was a bit chaotic with so many people, but overall I think it went pretty well. Once we parted, we dropped Autumn off at her grandparents’ house for the evening, and the rest of us went back home to watch Rampage. It was pretty silly, yet entertaining. The 3D was excellent again, and I really felt like they’ve started getting that right recently.

I can’t stay awake.

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Won’t you take me to Junkytown?

Today had me beat. We spent all day taking down projectors and SMART boards from the high school, and almost every single room was really hot with no air circulation. The heat, plus lots of boards mounted to drywall instead of brick made for a difficult and sweaty time. We filled up two truck beds before lunch and had to unload them into an already full graveyard. Someone got wise and asked if we could take the projectors and mounting booms to the scrap metal yard, and we got a little over 30 bucks for it all. For technology that really probably wasn’t all that bad, I found that to be pretty frustrating.

After a quick lunch at Quiznos, we jumped right back into it at the high school. The guys at the scrapyard indicated to our guys with the first load that there needed to be more metal than what they got, so Zach and I drove to a different scrap yard in the afternoon. They didn’t want to pay anything at all, but they offered to let us throw them into a junk pile. It kind of broke me a little inside to be throwing that stuff away when presumably it could be sold or donated to someone in need. Summer gears are turning, though, and we have to move the merchandise.

When we got back to the shop, we were told we had a truck coming with several pallets of stuff for us, so we all had to wait outside and clean out more room in the graveyard to store the new stuff. That took us the rest of the work day, so there was no hope of going home early for most of us. Somehow Jason managed to disappear somewhere, and Dale waved goodbye as he drove off.

I went straight to my parents’ house to have a swim in the pool for a while. Summer and Eaddie came over to join me eventually. I left for a bit to get cheap Kroger gas with Dad and Julie, and then it was back to swim. Mom made pork and shrimp spring rolls for dinner, so we stayed for that. Everyone else was pretty tired by then, so we came back to my house to crash.

Where the heck did I put that box fan?

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Phở Real?

More heavy lifting today. This morning we managed to install three touch panels before 10AM. We were on such a roll that we went to CJ’s for lunch on the way back out to drop off four more panels and remove a whole bunch more. We ran out of mounting hardware, which makes the 50 TVs and touch panels in our warehouse completely useless until we get more, which had Dale reeling all afternoon. Removing old setups in the afternoon at least served to let the painters in between hardware to patch up the walls.

After work, Summer and Eaddie came over to go to my parents’ for phở. They both really liked it, and the spaghetti squash salad, and the avocado dessert drink. Eaddie even managed to make it through the whole meal with chopsticks.

We picked Noah up on the way back to my house, and we landed on watching the Get Smart movie remake from 2008. None of them had ever heard of it before, and I had never seen the new movie. I didn’t love it compared to the original, but I also haven’t seen the original since I was a kid. After showing them a compilation of the old show on YouTube, I was proud that Summer at least identified the voice of Inspector Gadget.

Sorry about that, Chief!

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ANT-onio Banderas

I tried not to sleep in too late today so I wouldn’t ruin my first morning back to work tomorrow. I guess it worked, because I’m exhausted now after a day in Conway.

I went to Summer’s to pick everyone up, and we headed to the movie. We picked up some cheap snacks first, and then grabbed our best seats for Ant-Man and the Wasp. I was a little worried at first, because the guy sitting next to me seemed to have negative comments for every single commercial that played before the trailers. He calmed down by the time the lights came down though, so all was well. The movie was great, and it really stoked everyone for the next Infinity War.

After the movie we went to Sam’s Club to try and exchange my succulent that rotted. They didn’t have any more, but they gave me a refund for half of the two plants, which was perfectly fine. We roamed around for a while, and I ended up picking up a super cheap mini fridge like the ones I’ve been eyeing for a while. It was about 25% cheaper than what I’d been watching on sale, so I couldn’t turn away.

We came straight back home where Summer grilled some brats and fried some potatoes for dinner. The Sam’s salsa we picked up was a disappointment, but everything else was awesome. Then we watched a couple episodes of The Office before I had to head home.

Aaron came online shortly after I got home, so we played one round of PUBG before bed. I didn’t die without at least one kill, so I call it a successful return.

You can do it. You can do anything. You’re the world’s greatest grandma.

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Rollin’ with the Stars

I made sausage, eggs, and hashbrowns for breakfast this morning that turned out pretty good. Summer went to pick up the girls and work out while I mostly lazed around the house. When they all came back over, we went to my parents’ house for beef spring rolls. Eaddie seemed to like them pretty well. Autumn met every expectation of not particularly enjoying anything at all. Even the seven layer dip wasn’t too big of a hit with her. Julie eventually came over to eat too, but she was mostly there to eat and run after just returning from Florida.

After we ate, the girls and I went out to swim, and Dad got out his telescope to see what he could find for them. We got a pretty good look at Jupiter and four of his moons. Everyone was pretty tired by the end of it all, and I’m blaming it all on jetlag and time zones. Ant Man tomorrow though.

At least my bed is cold.

Adventure Time!

Homeward Bound

I successfully canceled our hotel in Branson for tonight, and we got everything packed back up for the trip home. After a whole lot of sweating, I managed to get everything to fit into the trunk so I could strap my new Aeron chair to the hitch cargo rack. It felt solid enough that I called the guy back and met his wife to pick up his other chair as well. Why buy one when you can have two for twice the price? Even better, I got it for half what I paid for the first one due to a couple lines in the fabric of the seat.

From there we started our six and a half hour drive back home. We finally stopped at a Jack in the Box just outside of town after talking about it for a few days. It was about what I expected, but I just had to try it after all these years of seeing commercials.

We got back home around 9:00 and went to my house first to drop some things off and check on my plants and animals. It could have been worse, but I’ll have plenty to clean up this weekend. The worst was another ant infestation in the cat food. One of my succulents also seems to have melted away somehow. I think that was probably the most upsetting thing, because it was supposed to be hardy and able to not completely wither away in just two weeks.

From there, I took the girls home and got unpacked. Summer warmed up the last of my leftover egg rolls, then we watched a few episodes of The Office before bed.

How is it possible that so much house cleaning is necessary after two weeks of being gone?

Adventure Time!

Relatively Prehistoric

Today started off particularly slow and late. My Aunt Diane called after she got out of church so we could set up an early dinner. We left the hotel in the early afternoon to go shopping at an Old Navy that offered less of a deal than I expected, and then killed the rest of the afternoon there until we met my Aunt Diane and Uncle Rich at Greek Islands for dinner.

It was nice to visit with them, but they insisted on paying and the place wasn’t particularly cheap. It was probably the fanciest and most different meal we’ve had our entire trip though. I had a roasted suckling pig, Summer got lamb, Autumn had some kind of chicken spaghetti, and Eaddie had something with spinach and a flaky crust. The flaming cheese appetizer seemed to be pretty popular with other tables as well, and it was really good with the bread they had. None of my cousins could make it, but we managed to keep a conversation going.

After dinner, we separated and went our different ways. Summer spent the evening trying to prepack things to load in the morning so we could go catch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom at an IMAX just a few blocks away. It was a super late showing for the girls at 10:20. The theater was a full-service dining experience, which was new to all of us I think. I don’t think I’d do it again except for a movie I’m really not interested in seeing. It was too distracting for my taste, and the screen wasn’t a traditional IMAX size. The girls had fun though, and we all got to experience a Dyson bathroom faucet with built-in hand dryers.

Life, uh, finds a way to pay.

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Gettin Spacey

I grabbed a Groupon for a year family membership to the Adler Planetarium, which got us all in for under 80 bucks. We ended up having to park at the stadium parking garage for an extra $25, and it was a pretty long, hot, and humid walk. I’m not sure why the planetarium parking was blocked off, but it was super annoying to see so many empty spaces there. We did, however, get to peek on some pretty expensive boats on the lake, and even saw a Tesla Model X in the parking lot there.

The girls seemed to really enjoy the couple shows we got to watch once we got into the planetarium. One was of the Chicago night sky, and then another was called Planet 9 about the search for Pluto’s replacement as the solar system’s ninth planet. Even better, they seemed to really enjoy the rest of the museum, but we had to leave in order to make it back to dinner with Beth and Bryan at Giordano’s.

The pizza was pretty good, but we ordered about three times more food than what we needed, so it was a chore to get the leftovers to fit into the mini fridge back at the hotel. We stopped at a huge Goodwill on the way back, and the girls picked up some clothes. They had a reel mower that looked to be new in box, but may have been missing some parts. I couldn’t tell, but for 40 bucks, it would have been a great deal if I wanted to start mowing someday. Still on the fence there.

Mom’s a bed hog.