Tag: food

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Gold Medal Flower

I got up early and dropped Eaddie off at the high school to go to her big string orchestra for the day, then went home to clean up before our day in Little Rock. My parents met us at Summer’s house, and we all piled into Mom’s car for the drive. Our first stop was MarketPlace Grill in Conway for lunch. We ended up having to wait about 45 minutes for a table. They were only seating about half of their tables, but disappointingly, they were still just packing everyone in super close to one another. One would think that COVID would have them spreading everyone out, but everyone seems to have just moved on from that sort of thing around here.

After we ate, we stopped by Kohl’s to do a little bit of quick shopping before continuing down to Little Rock. When we did finally get closer to showtime, we ran around Little Rock trying to find some flowers to take Eaddie. We stopped at a Kroger in the hood that didn’t have any, then tried to find a nearby florist that appeared to be a bad listing on Google Maps. Finally, we stopped by another grocery store that also didn’t have flowers, but they did have flours. Summer and I picked up a Gold Medal, and then ran back to the car to make it to the concert.

We showed up just in time to get some decent seats before the two bands got started. Eaddie’s junior high band was first, and they seemed very disjointed. I knew that Eaddie was good, and expected her to be in an orchestra of equally-talented people, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

We stuck around for the high school band, and then filed out of the building to decide on what to do next. Mom wanted to hit up a couple Oriental food stores, so we did that first, and then ended up heading back to Conway for dinner after failing to get into The Butcher Shop without waiting an hour or more to be seated.

On the Border was probably the best decision we made all day. The service and food were both pretty great, and Eaddie got her fill of everyone else’s food after having repeatedly told everyone that she wasn’t hungry enough for dinner.

As soon as we finished, we loaded back up and Dad dropped us off at Summer’s house. Eaddie and I stayed up to finish season six of House. We were both exhausted by then, so it was off to bed for the night.

How do you even play a whole note on a drum?

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Rain on the Parade

I took the Shadow to work this morning in spite of the wet, since it would be clear all day. I didn’t get a whole lot done before lunch, outside of working up an email and sharing my salary comparison worksheet with Judy. Gary took Brody and me to Arby’s for lunch, and when we got back, Judy had actually started looking at my sheet, and we chatted for a while within the document, which was cool. She actually fixed a couple of the issues I found, but still didn’t make the changes I suggested for our department.

It took me a while, but I finally made it to Oakland in the afternoon about an hour before school let out. I found out that Mollie’s been out sick, so I reached out to her later in the evening to see how she was doing.

They let us off of work early to go to the Veterans Day parade. Autumn asked me to go so I could see her walk the American flag at the head of the parade, so I met Summer and Eaddie at the church downtown. We stayed for almost the entire parade, but left just before traffic got stupid.

We went back to my house for just a few minutes before Summer dropped Eaddie off to have dinner with Autumn and their father. Then I met her at Nonna Bella’s for a pizza before she had to go to the superintendent search committee meeting. Christina was evidently working there and served us, which was only a little bit odd considering I knew her from the call center days, and she knew the girls through their father.

Summer took off just before her meeting started, and I headed home for the evening. Mollie finally responded and said she had a hard limit of one visitor per day, so I may go visit her if we can plan it successfully.

All the positive vibes.

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Looky Looky Who Plays Hooky

I knew I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep in time last night to be productive at work today, so I took a sick day to recover from the trip. The girls were already at school by the time I woke up. Summer had to go to work for a bit, so I ate some leftovers and then went home for a while.

It was cold in the house, and I had a hard time getting motivated to do anything. I mostly just sat around until I headed back up to Summer’s for the evening. She grilled pork chops and made mashed potatoes and asparagus for dinner. The girls had to do some chores when they got home from school. Otherwise it was a quiet, early night.

It’s super affective!

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Köttbullar

We slept in a little this morning without losing much time, thanks to daylight saving time coming to an end. We went downstairs and loaded up on breakfast, and then cleaned up and packed for the return home. We still had a full day planned though, so it was a slow drive across the city to find an Ikea.

I’ve wanted to go to an Ikea for ages, and we never had a chance to stop the last time I saw one in person in St. Louis. There were two to pick from in the Dallas area, so we went to the one up north. Summer thought I was kidding about meatballs, and the look on her face when she saw the sign at the entrance was worth the drive all by itself.

Having never been, we were really impressed with the showrooms as we wandered through the maze. Some of them looked really incredible, and I could really see us building something entirely out of what they had available. As we finished our way through the upstairs showrooms, we entered into the restaurant where even there, you could get a push cart for your trays full of food. Summer got the regular Swedish meatballs, and I tried the salmon meatballs so we could share. Everything was pretty good, and it was a neat break from shopping.

After all of that, we really had to rush through the downstairs area in order to make our movie on time. I wish we could have spent a bit more time there, because there were actually a couple things we wanted to buy, but we ended up grabbing a couple bottles of fruit juice with mulling spices that totally wasn’t real wine, and running out the door.

The drive back to the AMC wasn’t too bad, but parking was a chore. We finally found a parking garage and briskly walked to the theater just in time to get settled in before the show. The theater was incredible, with countless Dolby speakers on practically every surface. As the previews came on, they barely scratched the surface of the experience. The seat shakers felt natural, and brought an additional layer of depth that I loved. I just wished the movie had lent itself more to that kind of theater.

I enjoyed Eternals, though I understood that it wasn’t exactly a blockbuster style action film in the traditional way. I couldn’t see it being rated poorly though. There were some things that probably could have been done better, but overall it had a nice pace for how long it was. It wasn’t like Dune that felt super slow the entire time, and then ended just as things got good.

Once out of the movie, we made the drive home. The GPS took us on our alternate route this time, heading north through Oklahoma. It was a slightly shorter drive by distance, but also shorter in time with the lack of traffic leaving the city. We stopped once for gas and food at a Moe’s inside of a Pilot, where we got surprisingly good service worthy of a tip.

Eaddie was still awake when we got home, but took a shower and went to bed as Summer crashed. I still had my own routine to go through, but then it was off to sleep as well.

Literally hundreds of speakers.

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Over and In and Down and Out

I slept in a little bit today before getting ready for our trip. Summer had to work, but thought she might get off earlier than expected. That ended up falling through, so we left around two and headed toward Little Rock. We stopped at the Splash in Benton for a quick car wash, and then we headed practically straight through to our destination.

We stopped in Rockwall, since it was the first In-N-Out Burger we encountered. I’ve wanted to try it for ages, and we finally had a chance to stop in. Summer got a double-double, and I had to go with the triple-triple. Overall I guess it really was comparatively cheap. The biggest surprise was the poster advertising the pay for new hires. I also wasn’t quite sure how masks would be down here, but only like two people we encountered there were wearing them, and neither were employees.

The last bit of the trip was hectic, even for a night drive. We made it through traffic in the dark in unexplored territory, and nobody died. The hotel was relatively easy to find, and the studio room was pretty cute. Summer pretty much crashed as soon as she hit the bed, so I didn’t dawdle before wrapping it up for the day.

Hopefully COVID doesn’t mess with you guys…

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Lil Pops

Today was another really chill day at work. Kelsea brought a chocolate cake for Gary’s birthday, along with a 3D-printed topper. I eventually made a “candle” out of a stripped piece of Cat 5e cable with the exposed wiring inside making up the flame. I helped with what I could in the morning, and then most of us went to Sumo for lunch for dinner and a show. It was pretty muted with everyone in masks, but the food was alright.

I spent some time at Oakland in the afternoon, and then came back at the end of the day for some cake. My final act was sending out the CPPC minutes, and then I headed home for the long weekend.

It wasn’t long before Summer reminded me that the girls’ father was having a soft-open at his barbecue joint, so eventually she came by to pick me up for that. The girls were already there, but hadn’t really had dinner since they were waiting on us. He had run out of ribs, so I tried the nachos with some brisket. Unfortunately I couldn’t find much of the brisket under the canned nacho cheese. Eaddie’s bologna sandwich looked pretty good though.

After we ate, the girls headed home. Summer dropped me off, and I spent the night prepping for the trip. It got quite cold inside, and I ultimately settled down and watched Shazam! until bed. I’ve really got to find some quality Atmos content.

Time to find out who really shot J.R.

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Mouse Toss

It was a little warmer today, but still cool out. It made for a really great day to be moving stuff around outside, which we did. We ordered several hundreds of computer mice and headphones, and split them up for delivery to every campus. Even Thomas came out to help us toss mice into the trucks, which ended up being super fun. I had some sort of back pain going on all day, but it started before we did any of that, and I never felt much worse throughout the day.

They ended up going to lunch about half an hour early, but I made the mistake of meeting them at Fat Daddy’s in London. I’ve just never ever been impressed with their food there, but for some reason the others like it. The problem today was that they tried to meet Brody at Dwight, but Brody showed up at Crawford on accident. I just waited outside the gas station/restaurant until they showed up, and then ordered a sloppy, overpriced, uninspired plate of nachos.

It was a relatively quiet afternoon, and I didn’t get too deep into much of anything. We put a couple metal shelves together for our storage room. Then near the end of the day, Gary brought me a basket of hotspots he found and asked me to test them. All but one appeared to work normally.

When I left work, I stopped by the shop to find that Summer had already left. From there, I had to wait for a train, then made my way home to set up the storage stuff I had ordered from Kohl’s. Summer and Eaddie came by to Eaddie could try on an old Papa John’s uniform as a Halloween costume. Then they left so Eaddie could go to her boyfriend’s birthday party for the evening.

Eventually the kids made it back to town, and I picked Eaddie up at Zane’s house. Summer was still awake when we got there, but we closed her up in the bedroom while we watched an episode of House before bed.

Beanelephant

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to the

I woke up absolutely dreading getting out of bed this morning. I was absolutely beat, and needed another several hours of sleep, but I willed myself up and into the shower. It was pretty quiet at work, but I still spent most of my time working on other peoples’ issues. I finally got the CPPC minutes sent out to the applicable email groups, and immediately afterward, Thomas asked me to remove the “Assistant to the Director of Information Systems” line in my email signature. I wasn’t particularly surprised, but it still kind of made me feel uneasy about my life there. It all started when Ben moved me into the office to the right of his, literally making me his right-hand man. We joked about how people in the district just made up their titles with seemingly nothing to back them up, and went with the Dwight Schrute “to the” moniker.

I worked through lunch since nobody said anything to me about it other than Brody, who actually took lunch about half an hour late. By that time, I was two minutes away from the Pixel 6 launch announcement, so I just stayed and watched that in my office. Then after lunch, I eventually made my way to Oakland and finished out my day.

When I left work, I went straight to the high school to pick Eaddie up for karate. We went to my house for just a bit before deciding to meet Summer at a taco truck for dinner. Eaddie really wants to quit karate, so we didn’t make her go, and I think Summer will finally let both girls drop out. Eaddie, particularly, will still have ways to be active. Autumn needs more encouragement, so I’m not sure whether we’ll let her drop out, but for now at least, she has plenty of afterschool activities that keep her occupied.

Summer couldn’t stay until we got our food, so Eaddie and I ate on a bench there and had what were probably very funny and awkwardly inappropriate conversations in front of other patrons as they came through. Then we took Summer’s food back home and waited for her to get off of work.

I finally got my missing grill parts in from China, so I put that together while we waited. Then a little while later, Summer called to say she didn’t realize we were going to my house to wait for her, and that she had gone to her house instead. Autumn came over instead, and picked Eaddie up to go home. I stayed behind and watched a Pixel Superfans stream, which didn’t really provide me any more insight into the device. The price for the smaller device was lower than I expected, but the Pro is about where I thought it would be for the storage size I wanted. I’ll have to wait and see if Google Fi has any deals around Thanksgiving time.

Black Friday will finally look right in photos on the Pixel 6!

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Three Meals a Day

I got up a little bit early this morning so I could go by McDonald’s for a free “Thank You” meal for working in education. Even being out of the house early, the line at the drive-through was slow enough to make me a few minutes late to work. The morning was otherwise pretty quiet as I worked on a couple different projects.

Suzanne came by the shop a little bit before lunch just so she could see my office, and then we went to Linh’s to eat. It was nice catching up a little more since this was really only the second time we’ve talked in several years. After that, I spent the rest of the school day at Oakland taking care of some work there.

Just as school let out, I went to the high school to talk to Ethan and one of his kids that was wanting to compile some C++ code but couldn’t run the executables due to our security restrictions. We discussed some workarounds and basically settled on having a couple unrestricted computers for his overachieving students to use.

As I left work for the day, I realized that Summer was at the high school as well for a marching competition. I went on home to clean up, and then met her at Chili’s for a date night while the girls were both at the competition.

When I got back home, I got right to cleaning carpets again. The water still isn’t coming up clear, but it wasn’t crispy either. Hopefully I can be done for a while after today, but if it’s still bad, I have some ideas for tomorrow’s cleaning session.

Heck, it took 30 years to make it. It’s not coming out overnight.

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What’s Cookin’

Summer got up and made breakfast this morning. I got super stiff last night in bed, which I felt the numerous times I got up in the middle of the night. It really made it hard to move around for a while, but I never got up to much of anything anyway. We did finally play UNO Flip, which was a great twist on the classic game. Then we watched The Princess Bride while Eaddie did something else.

Eventually dinner time came around and Summer wanted to cook up some stir fry with the leftovers we had. She dug out some frozen veggies and cut some extras up, and then I threw in the leftover steak and sausage, filling up the wok nearly to the top, once the rice and everything else was in it.

Eaddie really approved of dinner, and then Summer made some pumpkin bread for dessert. We made Eaddie play a game of UNO Flip with us, and then everyone filtered off to bed.

I just want you to feel you’re doing well. I hate for people to die embarrassed.