Tag: food

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Won’t Stand for This

I got up really early this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I took my jump start on the day and made steak, eggs, and hashbrowns for breakfast. Eaddie said she really liked it, but I thought the steak was pretty middling. I took a shower, and then we went out to look for a TV stand at several places. We tried West Main Gallery, but they were closed. Then we went to CJ’s Consignment and found one really small one that might work. We went by Stroud’s and Cleo’s again, but they didn’t really have anything we liked. Our last stop was Sofa City before we gave up and went to the old house to load up the last of the speakers.

Once we got the speakers into the house, we went back out to try Hilltop Mall, but they didn’t have anything either. There was a new name attached to the old Bargain Barn, so we stopped there on the way to Walmart and found nothing. We made it into a busy Walmart and found one that might work, but we had to judge based on a tiny picture on the box because they didn’t have one out on display.

Summer got back to town, so we went and saw her at the wash. She reminded us about River Valley Furniture, so we checked them out and were subsequently directed to the old Staples building where they had a warehouse of furniture to sell. They didn’t have a single thing that would fit my receiver, so we finally just went back to my house to get my old TV stand. That didn’t really take as long as I thought it would, and we made it home so I could start cooking some beef tacos in the Instant Pot.

Once the food was started, I took Summer back out to the Neighborhood Market to do her grocery shopping. Then we went to Kroger for some fire wood before going to my parents’ house to pick up what groceries they got for Summer. Finally we made it home, and Eaddie and I ate while Summer boiled eggs.

I ended the night by assembling the home theater, and was disappointed to see that one of my subwoofers wouldn’t power on. It worked the last time I used them, so I don’t know if I broke something in moving, or if it got hit by lightning, or if it was just dumb luck to go through another subwoofer. I got the amp out of it, and maybe Dad will be able to find the bad part.

Smooooooth.

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Let’s Table That

We woke up reasonably early today, but it took us a little bit to get started. Summer went to the gym while I messed with things around the house. After she got back, we met Julie and Kevin at my old house to get the dining room table and futon. For some reason I thought he had a short truck bed, but everything fit perfectly and we got it all set up at home.

Eaddie made it home, but then left to spend the day with friends. Summer and I went to Ridgewood Brothers to try their baked potato, and Grant made us some extra special ones. He seemed a little off, so I invited him to the house after work. At first he said he couldn’t, but on the way out he asked if I was off tomorrow, so hopefully he comes around.

After that, we went to Lowe’s to exchange the toilet seat we got yesterday. We compared it with another new one in the box, and it was painfully obvious that the one we got yesterday was a return. From there, we picked up a couple things I forgot from the old house, and then made it home where I spent the rest of the evening casually cleaning, organizing, fixing, and generally trying to stay productive. Summer didn’t feel well, so she did a puzzle and watched TV all evening until bed. My big accomplishment was doing a deep clean on the washing machine, because it was smelling pretty bad. I don’t think the girls had ever cleaned it, so it was very mildewy.

I’m going to make this place into a home, one light bulb at a time.

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Boxed Whine

I made it to my usual breakfast place at my usual time for my usual seat at the bar. It’s almost been disappointing to have a different server every time, but I guess that’s staffing? Today I had the shrimp and grits with a Vietnamese coffee, and both were great as expected.

When I got to the Embassy, the parking lot was full and I couldn’t find a place to charge, so I just parked in the very back. Ben was walking to the building just as I was getting my things collected, so I followed him around for a while. Classes weren’t bad, but having a live barista helped. I even got a little heart in my latte. I was a little lost because there were so many sessions that I just wanted to attend, so hopefully the recordings will come in good quality. I really don’t know how they expect the microphones to work on those little tablets in the back of the room.

Lunch was better than yesterday, with fried chicken and some kind of fried steak patty. I ate at a huge round table with Ben and a bunch of strangers. Thomas brought Zach and Ryan just for the day, but I didn’t see them a whole lot. I did talk with Zach more than I really have since I’ve been gone from Russellville.

The afternoon dragged a little bit, but I liked the presentation with Amanda’s brother, Josh. As the conference wound down for the day, it had started to rain pretty hard. I circled through the exhibition hall, but didn’t get a single piece of swag apart from the Fortinet backpack I collected from trivia the night before. I couldn’t find anyone to hang around either, so I headed back to the hotel to clean up a little bit.

Summer texted, so I called and talked to her for a little while before heading back out. Howard had their dinner party at The Butcher Shop, so I met Ben there after charging briefly at the Embassy. Brody didn’t make it, so it was just Ben and me talking through dinner until we left. From there, it was back to the hotel until I heard from Brody at the CDW party at Hibernia Irish Tavern. We were just there long enough to win the raffle where I got a box of ready-to-drink margarita. Brody left first, and then I ended up chatting a bit longer with Charlie and Kristina before heading back to the hotel to crash for the night.

Guess lower!

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EAT Conference

I went to Big Bad Breakfast again this morning because the Old Mill Bread Bakery & Cafe was closed, in spite of their Google Maps listing to the contrary. This time I had the shrimp po’boy, which was both an interesting breakfast choice, and also delicious. It was served with fries, which were piping hot and seasoned well. It didn’t even take long for them to prepare, which was incredible based on how busy they were in comparison to yesterday.

I made it to the conference in time to park up front and charge, which was good because I didn’t have a key card to get into the garage. Overall the sessions were a bust. The first couple hours was the state CISO basically just telling us the schools needed stronger passwords. Strangely enough, that’s what we’ve been telling them for years. The time after the morning break would have been a little better because some districts who had been compromised got up to talk about their experiences, but I was stuck in the hallway for that part.

Lunch wasn’t great, and afterward Ryan told us about seeing one of the employees leave the bathroom after doing some business, skip washing his hands, and then immediately grab some cake from the dessert table. The bathroom itself just got worse and worse, and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since last Thursday. It has gotten progressively worse every single time I’ve been in there.

The afternoon wasn’t much better. I went to one session with a really sharp guy, but he was all excitement and no real education. He just talked about smart things for a bit, scared everyone, and then it was over. Then I heard from a legislative auditor, which was expectedly boring. Finally I went to a class with one of the DIS guys that I would’ve liked to chat to, but I didn’t get much out of that either.

The highlight of the day was scoring ninth in a post-session trivia game with over 60 other people. Cory was right behind me to win the last prize for the day. I let him pick first, so I was left with an IOU for a swag bag from Fortinet. I didn’t really want the $75 worth of gift cards anyway.

I hung out by myself in the lobby for a bit, unable to decide where to eat for the sake of eating on someone else’s dime. Then I went back to my hotel for a quick breather before going to Tokyo House. Eating a buffet by myself was a bit surreal, and I don’t think I’ll do that again. When I finished, I headed back to the Embassy to hang out for Casino Night.

A girl named Kristina walked up and introduced herself to me out of the blue, and we talked for a bit. She was actually the tech for Deer and Mt. Judea after Andrew left, so it was funny to make that connection. Brody eventually came along and joined the conversation, followed by Cory. Then she left and Steven walked by, and I took the opportunity to introduce myself to him. The group of us chatted for a while before eventually splitting off to our rooms for the night.

We’ve got a breacher!

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Surrounded by Giants

I got out of the hotel this morning and went to a place called Big Bad Breakfast to eat. They had pretty good reviews, but I didn’t really expect it to be quite so “upscale.” I sat at the bar, turned down a mimosa, and had a Creole omelet with some fresh-squeezed, ruby red grapefruit instead. The juice was a bit more bitter than I expected, but the omelet was delicious. The andouille sausage and shrimp were unusual for breakfast, but great.

After breakfast, I headed to the Embassy and got checked into the conference by Darrel himself. Just after I got through, I caught Gary and Ryan coming in. Then Derrick snuck up behind me and said my name, and I chatted with him for just a moment. He was only there by happenstance, and wasn’t even aware of the conference.

I eventually made my way back to the classroom where we got things started. Brody showed up late, but he didn’t seem terribly interested in most of what they had to say anyway. I really don’t have a clue what he does in Clarksville, but I wish I had his job at that salary. The unbelievable luck of that kid is astounding to me.

Lunch at the hotel was pretty good, but awkwardly placed. They had different stuff for tacos, but it was arranged in a poor order for assembling, so I ended up with a huge plate of mush that I just sort of mixed together and ate with cold, crumbly tortillas.

I thought our session was great, and got a ton of useful information out of it even though we ended a bit early. I even joked that we had paid for the full session, and asked for a refund for the unused time. I caught up with Gary out in the lobby while he was waiting for Ryan, and ended up spending the rest of the evening with them.

We went up to Gary’s room for a little bit and chatted some more there while Brody went to the gym. Then we met him at Genghis Grill for dinner, but he was late to that too. The food was pretty good, but I had forgotten just how expensive that place was. When we got back to the hotel, I used Gary’s key card to get into the garage to charge. Then we hung out in the atrium where they had a band cranked up way too loud for being in the middle of an open area in a hotel with rooms facing inward. We could barely hear ourselves think, much less hear each other without absolutely screaming at each other. We could have easily cut the volume in half and been better off.

I was the last one out, and played on my phone in the car for a little while until I finished charging. Then it was back to the hotel to wind down and sleep before a day of cybersecurity.

No fair.

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Country Roads

I was mostly packed up, but getting last-minute things together meant I ran a little late for work. Summer felt like she was getting sick, so she stayed home. Kim was back at work, and there wasn’t a whole lot going on there. I got fairly frustrated that she spent so much time talking and didn’t actually seem to close any new work orders, but we’ll see how she does while I’m gone this week.

I brought some leftovers to eat since the “pizza crunchers” didn’t sound too good. Then at quitting time, I headed through Plainview to get to Little Rock. I don’t think I’d ever been back that direction before, and it was a beautiful drive for as long as the sun was up. I got into the city well after dark, and my car routed me to the wrong hotel, so I had to turn around.

Check-in was fast for me after the guy ahead of me finally finished his business. I got settled in, and then drove across the street to charge at the Wingate while I walked down to eat at a place called Cheba Hut. I let the guy surprise me, and I ended up with a fancy BLT that I thought needed about six times more bacon. The sauces on the sandwich were amazing though. The flavor was there, but after an eight-inch sub, I was still super hungry.

I hung out and tinkered on my phone for a while just so I could get some more charge, and then headed back to the Hilton Garden Inn, where they lacked both EV charging and convenient parking. I’ll never make the mistake of registering late for a conference again. Once I got back to the room, I wound down and did my best to ignore the dog barking next door, and went to bed.

They’re a little too proud of those two free water bottles in the room.

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BATTLESTATIONS!

Today started out really quiet because they were doing some testing. I dug back into my domain controller replication issue and enjoyed the efficiency of being alone. Once testing was over, my office was a parade of people. That was on top of screaming kids right outside my door. I started to get a little snippy about the situation, and judging from how ultra-sweet Denice started talking to me, I think she might have figured out how I felt about our new arrangement.

The good news was that I finally got replication going again, and my Group Policy configurations started expressing themselves as expected. Hopefully after a few reboots, the rest of the computers in the district will start acting a little more normally. I think the next big project has to be imaging, and I shouldn’t be far off from having that functional. I just need to focus, and time to focus comes at a premium these days.

Earnie called me in the afternoon after a few beers. He had apparently had a bad day and wanted to vent a little bit. I didn’t have the time to talk then, so I called him back on the drive home and we talked for just a little bit. Once I got back into town, I stopped to feed the fish, changed clothes, got a car wash, and then stopped at Ridgewood to try their new Mohawk Sandwich. I talked to Kyler and Grant for a bit, and then headed to the house to eat with Summer.

After dinner, I spent the rest of the night working on the office. Eaddie and I decided the desk would be better situated in the back corner, and though I may miss facing the TV that will eventually be mounted behind me, I think it does open up the room quite a bit. I spent all night getting everything just right, but I’ll still need to come back with a better solution for my monitor. The alternative would be to somehow mount the giant center channel speaker above it, and that might look a little silly. At least it sounds good.

I don’t need a whole lots of money. I don’t need a big fine car. I got everything that a man could want. I got more than I could ask for. And I don’t have to run around. I don’t have to stay out all night. ‘Cause I got me a sweet, a sweet computer, and it keeps me up past my bedtime.

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Electrifying

I had a really good Sausage McMuffin on the way to work this morning, and I was glad I did because lunch was a pretty small portion of a “walking taco” with a strange bag of low fat Doritos and a tiny scoop of meat and cheese on a big, plastic lunch tray. I didn’t really complete any big projects, but I jumped around a lot to figure out some new things that have been sitting in my queue for a while.

Dad spent most of the day at the house while the electrician was there running cable for the Wall Connector and then replacing the whole electrical panel. They finished up near the end of the school day, so when I left work, I went to the old house briefly to feed the fish before going home.

Summer beat me there and was cooking dinner. The floors were left a mess with drywall dust everywhere, but I had one mission on my mind, and that was to set up the Wall Connector. I got it mounted to the wall and started charging my car, and then we all ate a good dinner.

Afterward, Summer cleaned the floors, Eaddie vacuumed, and I cleaned up other stuff before getting Summer’s car turned around to charge. At the end of it all, it was a successful day.

Definitely haunted.

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Noisy Day

I spent a lot of the day by myself because Kim kept disappearing. I keep having to go through and close old work orders from a month ago that I feel like she should have done, but I’m sure she feels like I should have done more myself. It’s just hard for me to focus on random daily requests when I’m also the one that has to do anything even remotely technical. She’s not in there modifying any scripts.

She said Mel was picking up roast beef sandwiches for lunch, so I had her pick one up for me too. It was pretty decent for eight bucks at a gas station. I ate by myself after she brought food back and then left for duty. Then she disappeared for most of the afternoon before leaving early to do something else. I just don’t know what’s going on in her head, but it doesn’t seem like work.

I stayed late to close out a bunch of stuff, and then headed home to charge and feed the fish for just a little bit before heading to the new house. Summer made a pretty good dinner of stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, and citrus green beans. At least all of the components tasted good on their own, but it lacked in cohesion.

The TV never went off the entire evening, so I disappeared to the bedroom to relax in the quiet. It’s frustrating that there’s just nowhere I can go to get away from all of the noise. Kim has started leaving the TV on at work. The kids are loud outside my office door. Summer blasts cooking shows at home. There’s just no retreat.

At least there’s a conference week ahead.

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Bashed

I was exhausted this morning, but I made it to work early again. Eaddie ended up sleeping in and going to school around lunch time, and I was so mad and jealous at the same time. I had to dig into my VMware issues some more, but still didn’t have a fix. It looks like I’ll have to learn some more command line stuff to really fix it. It was a long day, but thankfully my coffee got me through it.

Afterward, I went straight home to charge for a while. I ended up just figuring dinner on my own because Summer made chicken salads, and I was tired of salad after eating one every day at school. I took the Shadow out, and it was a cool night for my first ride in months. I felt bad that I hadn’t taken the bikes out earlier, but I just haven’t had a good opportunity for it in a long time.

I tried going to Taco Bell at first, and it looked like they had remodeled and duplicated the Chick-fil-A method of multiple drive-through lines. Those were packed, but I wanted to dine inside anyway. When I went into the restaurant, there were about a dozen other people standing around waiting for food, and I didn’t see a single person eating anything. I decided to dip pretty quickly, and ended up going to McDonald’s for an equally poor experience. Employees were yelling at each other across the restaurant, my fries weren’t very fresh, and my Quarter Pounder wasn’t made correctly at all. The lady behind me was traveling through, and went Super-Karen because she wasn’t happy with how her food was made either. She kept muttering to herself, and I realized pretty quickly I was in CrazyTown.

I took the bike back home after I ate, and took the Model 3 for a wash before going to the new house. Summer was helping Eaddie study for tests, so I took care of my own chores and made it to bed roughly on time.

It’s the state of the civilization for me.