Tag: food

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Garth eVader

I tried to sleep as much as possible last night so today wouldn’t drag on. I made it out of the house in time to get Eaddie and meet Dad at the train depot to see Summer cross the finish line for her half marathon at right around two and a half hours. Ben and Sarah were there, and snuck up behind me while we were waiting in line to take Summer’s picture in front of their big inflatable. From there, we split back up because Summer needed a shower and Eaddie wanted to go ride her bike in the nice weather.

Once Summer was cleaned up from her morning race, I got gas and picked her up for a quick bite to eat at Zaxby’s before heading to Fayetteville. That was when I learned that she didn’t actually have any tickets because every purchase she tried to make had fallen through. She was on her phone the whole time trying to arrange for new tickets.

When we finished eating, we picked Eaddie up from her friend’s house and came back to my place. I tried to help Summer pay for some tickets, but it just didn’t work out. I started feeling sketchy about all of the different failed payment attempts, and it was getting late fast. We ultimately decided to just stay home. We let Eaddie go back out on her bike while we watched some TV to relax a while.

Eventually we were hungry enough to have a nice meal. Eaddie still wasn’t hungry, so Summer and I drove across town to see if the boys at Ridgewood Brothers had any scraps left. Grant gave us their last half pound of beef and some banana pudding, and we caught up really briefly as they finished cleaning up. I’m super excited for them to build their new place and get out of the trailer.

After running around town dodging prom-goers, we ultimately ended up at La Villa for some reward pasta for Summer. Then we picked up Eaddie’s bike from her father’s restaurant so they could go out to eat together. Summer and I watched an episode of Middleditch and Schwartz improv, which had me absolutely rolling. Then when Eaddie got home, Summer went to bed and we stayed up late watching Stranger Things.

We nearly finished the season, but Eaddie gave up just before we started the last episode. It’s just as well though, because I’d rather not have to wait for the next season to start. I’ll be curious to see if they really try to make it scary.

Flayed

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Scheduled for 2022

I got up this morning and got the okay to make breakfast, so I got the grill out and started heating up the griddle. I’ve been wanting to cook breakfast on it for so long just to try cooking on a flat-top to see how I would like it. The cast iron was a new adventure too, but I thought it turned out pretty well. I had some garlic and herb French bread in the freezer that I threw onto the top rack to heat up while I cooked a bunch of bacon. The bacon cooked a bit slower than I expected, but I think bacon always does. I’m so used to just cooking an entire package in a pot now that I forget what it’s like cooking a single layer. After that was done, I could set it on the grill grate to drain, and then fry up some eggs.

Summer enjoyed her sandwich, but Eaddie took one bite of hers and complained that the bread was too hard, and then said she was leaving to go out to eat with her father. He showed up moments later to pick her up, so I just sat in a computer chair with my ghetto fan box as a table, and ate by myself after Summer ate in bed.

We laid around for a while, and I kept trying to drift back to sleep, but couldn’t without my CPAP. I finally got up with a pretty bad headache when it was time for Summer to leave for her employee’s baby shower. I got around to clean up a bit, and missed a delivery confirmation call from Lowe’s while I was in the shower. We’ll finally get our new refrigerator tomorrow.

Summer and Eaddie came back over in the evening so we could go to my parents’ house for Mom’s birthday. I loaded up my old Denon receiver to set up for them since they haven’t been able to use the speakers I brought them after their receiver blew a component. On the drive over, I got another call from Lowe’s. This time it was an automated call confirming my delivery was scheduled for between 10AM and 2PM on Monday, April 11th, 2022. At this point I was just glad it wasn’t going to be 2023.

When we got to my parents’ house, we chatted for a while about housing. I explained my plan to build a workshop to house everything while we renovate, and finally got some traction. For some reason, Mom still thinks it’ll be cheaper to buy land and build somewhere, but that just sounds like too much for me. I would literally spend the rest of my entire life trying to plan out the perfect layout, and would never build anything. I can handle a simple workshop. What I can’t handle is my need to over-design and wire a custom home with too many custom rooms with a fully climate-controlled data closet, solar, house batteries, home theater wiring, storage, and anything else I think up along the way.

Autumn got off work a little late, and we had her pick up some Pizza Hut on the way over. We ate, and then she took Eaddie home. Summer was stuck with me while I set up the home theater receiver again. The power and input controls never work like I want them to, but I think I got it set up well enough for Mom to figure out. We headed back to my house after that, and Summer helped me move some stuff before she left. Then I did some last minute cleaning before the big delivery day.

Taxes, taxes, taxes. Taxes are next.

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Lessbius

About every other night, I’m up every hour. I still feel exhausted all of the time. I thought I’d get up today and make breakfast, but nobody was hungry. Summer and Eaddie left me for a while, and I started a corned beef in the crock pot, then cleaned up for a matinée. Eaddie wanted to go to the 1:50 show so her boyfriend could come along. His father dropped him off at the theater, and we met him there after I picked up Summer and Eaddie.

I was ready for a letdown after reading some reviews of Morbius. It was pretty bad, but overall I wasn’t upset to have watched it. The action scenes were highly stylized, but mostly garbage aside from that. It was all just blurry, dark, After Effects nonsense. The story wasn’t great either, but I guess I’m used to that from Sony.

After the movie, we had some time to kill before dropping Zane off with his mother, so we went to the park and let them wander around. Summer took a phone call, so we just sat in the car until they got back. Then I dropped him off, followed by the girls, and then went home to add some carrots and cabbage to the crock pot for the last hour.

Autumn worked all day and went straight home afterward to do homework, so just the other two came over for dinner. They ate and watched TV, then went home for the night. I cleaned everything up, and then went to bed as early as I could.

Sony, wat r u doin? Staaahhhhhp.

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Witchcraft!

We all woke up early to leave for Eureka Springs this morning. I had to stop by Superfast first though, to check my coolant level again. We took a jug of some extra along just in case it got bad later, but I really shouldn’t have, because at the end of the day we found it had leaked all over the trunk.

It was a long and pretty drive, though the trees were all still dead from winter. Eaddie did great in the car, and we didn’t even have to drug her. We got to the Inn of the Ozarks a little before the last lecture let out for lunch, so we picked up Dad, then Mom and went to the top of the hill for lunch at Myrtie Mae’s.

After lunch, we watched the matinée for Dad’s performance. Then the girls had to cut out partway through the closeup show in order to make their zipline appointment. My parents and I got back up to their room just as the girls finished up, so once they walked back across the street, we headed to The Rockin’ Pig Saloon for dinner.

They had a bunch of menu items with Wagyu beef, including an $85 ribeye that made even our server’s eyes go wide. Mom got a non-Wagyu ribeye for less than half that, and the rest of the table got a pretty good mix of things. Somehow Autumn ended up with a pepperoni pizza, and even it was pretty good. I still think the brisket at Ridgewood is more tender though.

We got back to the Inn just in time for the raffle drawings, and then we watched the evening show. It was a good time getting to see everyone again after putting the event off for COVID. As they closed up shop, we left my parents to go find our hotel across town.

The Statue Road Inn was a cute little motel, at least in the dark. There was some confusion with the check-in process, because I was sure that I paid in full online, but I received an email saying I had to make a partial payment at the inn, and the lady at the front desk didn’t have any record of payment at all. She was super friendly though, and unable to find any credit card history, I felt comfortable making the partial payment. After researching some more online, I’m not convinced that I don’t owe the rest of it, but we’ll sort that out later.

The room was kind of cute, but it looked like they had some renovations going on at the other end of the building. This was the second time I’ve had a physical, metal key for a room I’ve stayed in as an adult. Aside from the miserable water pressure that Summer reported, everything seemed to be on the up and up. I guess we won’t know for sure until morning.

Short trip.

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RSD Cribs

I dressed up a bit for work today just in case the new superintendent came back to meet everyone. I worked sporadically on a few different things, but nothing that made me feel too accomplished. Just before lunch time, the tech sent by Dell to replace a motherboard for me arrived. That didn’t take long at all, though I cut out a couple minutes before he finished since it was lunch time.

Zach took Gary, Thomas, and me to Las Palmas, and evidently the name “Used Chips” is old enough that Thomas remembered it. The food was good, but I always feel a little iffy when I pay there. They’re big fans of cash.

The afternoon was relatively quiet. I did get to shake the hand of our new boss, making her the first one I’ve ever officially met. She said she liked my office, and Thomas was there to witness it, so I guess that’s a win. I really should have left my hackertyper window open just to see if I could get a reaction from Thomas, but I chickened out.

After work, I ran through Casey’s for a free birthday cookie, and then I thought I’d try to fix Bác Vân’s sewing machine. Evidently she had been out shopping for a remedy to an allergic reaction she had to something, so I never caught them. Eventually I loaded up with some food and headed up to Summer’s.

Autumn was at work, and Eaddie did a bit of homework while Summer made alfredo pasta to go with the last of the chicken we rescued from the Great Melt of 2022. It felt good to clean up those leftovers, but it was all pretty dissatisfying to eat. I’m just glad it’s over.

We had some leftovers that needed to be refrigerated, so I decided to take it home with me. I’ve still got to make time to figure out the refrigerator situation, and I’m not sure tomorrow will be any better. I sure would like to save a couple hundred bucks though.

We’re utilizing machine learning algorithms via remote desktop protocol on the neural network to compile scripts on the mainframe to prevent cyber attacks from threats to our students and faculty.

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Not Cool

Summer discovered her refrigerator had quit working this morning, and evidently it had been warming for quite some time because everything in the freezer had already completely thawed out. I picked Gary up for work, did a little research for an appliance repair person, then headed up to her place to move any good food to my house.

The whole process took about an hour and a half, and I managed to fit everything we saved into my refrigerator. Then I headed back in to work. As I was walking in, Gary was walking out to go to Central Office to look at Judy’s new office. Evidently the new superintendent wanted to take Judy’s current office because it was bigger and wasn’t visible directly from the front door. We did that, replaced a printer for Cindy, and then went back to the office until lunch time.

I guess Gary was really craving pizza, because he chose CiCi’s after finding out that Pizza Hut no longer had a buffet or salad bar. Thomas even joined us, because he thought it was hilarious that Brody wasn’t there to join us. As soon as we got seated, I took a picture and sent it to the group chat. It probably wasn’t five minutes later, and up walked Brody. He was looking at trucks, but bailed as soon as he saw us there.

After lunch, I tried to focus on the CPPC minutes. It was pretty quiet downstairs, so I managed to get it sent by the end of the day. I dropped Gary off at home, then went home to change before going up to Summer’s for dinner. She cooked the big bag of chicken that we decided to keep, and made a big chicken and rice casserole out of it. The girls had karate, but ate when they got home.

I spent most of my time trying to troubleshoot the refrigerator. I cleaned out a nest of mice, but couldn’t really get to the two dead ones I found. The fans all seemed to be working, but the compressor was just cycling on for about five seconds every minute and a half. It was definitely not cooling, so it’ll be up to the pros tomorrow.

Just relax.

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I’m a Lumberjack

Autumn got up for a job interview at Denny’s this morning, and by the time I got up and around, she had made it back and gotten a call offering her the job. Summer had to go in for a meeting at work, and then the girls were supposed to meet her at her parents’ house to help trim some fallen tree branches. Autumn insisted that she had to go in immediately to fill out new hire paperwork, so then I was left getting Eaddie across town to help.

We ran by my house first for some gloves and a change of shoes. Then we met up with Summer and got to work cutting up some branches. The damage was a little worse than I expected, but we made quick work of it once we had charged batteries for the comically small chainsaw. I actually had fun slinging it around, but by the end of it all, Eaddie said I had become too comfortable with it. She envisioned me posing, cutting branches behind my back and doing tricks. She was probably right.

When we finished, Eaddie wanted to go to Stoby’s for lunch. She had trouble remembering the name of what she wanted, and kept confusing it for onomatopoeia. Our server was super chipper, but seemed to really have something against pitas and recommended the croissant for my cranberry chicken salad instead. Eaddie was undeterred and got her tuna pita. My croissant was good, and fully loaded with the chicken salad, but could have been made incredible if the bread had simply been toasted and served warm. I couldn’t get pitas out of my head for the rest of the afternoon though, since I now had this incredible idea for a restaurant called Onomatopita. I spent the rest of the afternoon coming up with menu items with unique, themed names based on the sound the animal made in the particular culture whose flavors inspired the dish. I imagined Eaddie ordering a BLUB Pita with a side of POP Kettle Corn and Cherry Vanilla FIZZ.

After lunch, I went home and started some laundry before taking a shower to wash the sawdust out of my hair. Then I fought sleep a while with an energy drink before heading up to Summer’s for a super boring evening until bed.

I’m okay.

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Cheesin Crackas

We got to start an hour late today because of the little ice that remained. I took my cheese, crackers, and salami in to work, but Brody and Zach were the only two that really ate any. Greg tried one, and the girls came and had a couple later, but it wasn’t until the end of the day that they really got popular.

Brody and I went along with Zach and Greg to hang a TV in Dwight’s saferoom. I discovered a photo opportunity with a little trampoline, since we had to hang the TV so high. Greg and Brody just kept playing basketball, but we got the job done.

It was nearly lunch time by the time we got back. We sat around a bit, and then Greg and I decided to chase after Brody to Umami, since it was just the three of us going to lunch for the day. I was surprised at how many people they could pack in there now, but the service was super slow. We didn’t even get our order in for the first half hour. When the food finally arrived, I wasn’t at all impressed with any of the flavors of either the food or the sauces they gave me. I saw Josh walk in and snapped a candid photo to send to the group chat, which turned out to be the highlight of my lunch hour.

When we got back to the shop, Zach had everyone go outside to move some stuff in the graveyard again. We cleaned out the kitchen area and put a bunch of stuff on shelves. As we finished, Brody and Jacob mentioned that they had never seen the murder-basement, so I took them across campus to see that. It was even grosser with all the ice and water.

From then, we didn’t have a whole lot longer until our hour-early quitting time. Ben texted that he was at the arts center helping set up for a church gig, so I went over there and made a cable for them. I thought we’d get more time to visit, but he spent most of his time actually working to get things set up. I spent more time talking to Dustin than anyone else. They did seem to really enjoy the cheese and crackers there, and ate nearly half of what was left.

I went by the shop to see Summer on the way home from there. She was just finishing up and wanted to go to the gym, so I was charged with taking the girls home. They were packed and waiting for her when I arrived, so I didn’t even have a moment to breathe before they started fussing for me to take them home. I got some gas on the way, and then warmed up some old leftover shrimp and salmon to clean out their fridge until Summer got home.

The girls kept busy all night, so Summer and I watched some Modern Family until she was ready for bed. I tried not to stay up too late past that, but still ended up losing a fair amount of time hunting for the perfect phone case/mount/charger combination.

It’ll take just a Moment to find a case with Peak Design for this new phone.

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Odd Man In

I showered late last night so I could sleep in a bit and still get my car de-iced this morning. I let it run for about half an hour before I could chip all of the ice off, and then made it in to work. The roads weren’t bad, and I expected at least a few people to show up, but not one other soul was there. I just sat in the dark by myself for a while with some hot Earl Grey and milk.

After a while, I got up to check the weather outside. Justin and the rest of the maintenance crew were there working, so I thought I’d try and catch them huddled together for warmth in their warehouse. The joke was on me though, because they were actually at Sequoyah working on something. I penguin-waddled around a while until I got a text back from Justin that they were headed to the performing arts center to unload a truck that showed up in spite of the ice weather.

It had started to thunder-sleet again, so they decided they were going home when they got back. I followed suit and finished up downstairs, then went to see Summer at Superfast. She had just left though, so I tracked her down at Walmart where we picked up some things for dinner.

I found a couple pork butt roasts on sale, so I started up the smoker and got them going as quickly as I could. The girls eventually came over for the evening, as I struggled to get the grill up to temperature to fully cook the pork. It also seemed like my Meater thermometer was reading low on the ambient temperature, but in any case, the meat spent far too many hours on the grill as I continued to shovel charcoal in. I ended up finishing the roasts in the oven, and completed the meal with baked potatoes and grilled asparagus.

The girls sat around and watched TV until they could eat. The meat was predictably dry and tough, but had a pretty good taste. Everything was pretty salty though, so I’ll have to watch that in the future. I’m sure it won’t be so hard to do when it’s not literally freezing outside. At least I got a nice smoke ring and flavor out of it.

We get an hour late start in the morning, and I’ll take advantage of it with how sore I am from running around all afternoon. It’s also time to bring some smoked cheese and crackers in. I haven’t had any with crackers, and I’m excited about the sausage slices I found.

I’ve got to clean… everything.

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Aparent

The girls let me sleep in a bit today while they did chores. I eventually got up and warmed up some tacos for a really early lunch. Summer brought Eaddie back home after going to the gym. I just hung out at their house all day, not getting into anything much. Autumn decided that she wanted to go to her father’s house, which caused a bit of commotion since we had dinner plans with my parents. She continually pushed us with attitude until she finally finished her chores enough so that she could go.

Noah showed up after a while, and let us know that he lost his job at Walmart. We talked a bit, and I had him start on an application for the school district. Summer made a lime pie, and we headed to my parents’ house to grill some steaks for Mom.

Autumn showed up with plenty of time while I got things cooking. Mom didn’t have any of her usual teriyaki seasoning, so she winged it with some soy sauce and ginger. The food was good, and we all had a little bit of time to visit, but the girls had homework to finish up, so we headed back home before it got too late.

Summer went straight to bed. Autumn went straight to her room. Eaddie came out and did homework next to me, randomly asking for my opinions on her choices or wording. I dug into the wide world of aftermarket MagSafe charging, but never solidly landed on any products in particular. I’m anxious to find something semi-universal that we can implement though.

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS