Tag: food

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Learning ALL THE THINGS

I tried pretty hard to get things done today, and though I closed a few little things, I felt better about learning and knowing processes and things. I wish I had time to just sit and document some of this stuff, or better yet, organize the documentation that we already have so it’s more accessible. I worked into lunch a bit, but got hungry and bothered enough to leave. I tried to go to CiCi’s with Summer, but she got stuck on the phone while I was waiting for her, and I had to run to Wendy’s really quickly instead.

After lunch, I chatted with Ben for a bit so he could help me better understand some of the things I had been working on. I was on the right track, which made me feel at least a little competent. It’s starting to feel like I’m the everything-guy though, and it’s aggravating being around people that make more for less. I also about had a fight with my phone over how stupid it was being, but then out of the blue it fixed itself as though it could sense that I was preparing to pull the trigger on a full factory reset.

I finished up the day a little late, then headed home to do some more laundry while I waited for Summer to get off work. Then we went to my parents’ house for spring rolls, and the girls brought some homework along as well. They did really well today, but they couldn’t stick around for too long. I had to head home to finish laundry and clean up after the cat too, and then it was a relatively early night to bed.

Shrimp everywhere!

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Lunch with LeRoy

Today was pretty incredibly scattered for me. I got a few things done, but I had trouble prioritizing things to actually get them off my plate. Instead, I kept starting new projects and finishing nothing. I had planned to go get a $5 garden bar with Summer for lunch, but Ben invited everyone to Taco John’s, and I couldn’t pass up seeing him again after his retirement. Ben’s order got made and delivered twice, so I took the leftover tacos to Summer so she’d at least have the same light lunch I had in case she wanted to go to Ruby Tuesday later in the afternoon.

The afternoon was more of the same scattered nonsense for me until I finally left and had to get the girls from the shop to go home to change for karate. They did a good job of hustling and I got them dropped off just in time, and then I went to my parents’ house for some leftovers. I didn’t realize how late it had gotten when Summer left work for the gym, so Autumn called when nobody came to pick them up. I ran to get them, then cooked up some chicken sandwiches for their dinner before going home to complete some laundry.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to sit down and just do a thing.

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Meet the Nerites

It was so hard to get out of the perfectly snuggly bed this morning after staying up too late. We had to get to the lobby for breakfast though, and I was excited for an omelette from the chef. I was disappointed to learn that he wasn’t there, and I’m guessing they only bring him out for conferences. The rest of the food was okay, but not great. The biscuits were a surprising win.

We went back to the room to get ready for the trip back home, and finally left right around noon. I tried calling a couple local pet stores, but everyone was closed for the holiday. Without any other plans, we headed straight home. I dropped Summer off with the kids and then headed to PetSmart to look for some snails for the Imagitarium. They actually had some ghost shrimp in stock too, and one was berried, so I picked up a couple of them to mix up the gene pool. They had one black racer nerite and a tiny horned nerite that looked fun, so I got those for the algae and headed home.

I wanted to take a nap, but spent most of the afternoon with the aquariums instead. I got some laundry going and headed to my parents’ house for some eggplant soup, then came back home to finish up laundry and headed to bed really early.

That is a horny gastropod mollusc.

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Let’s Get Weird

We got up a little early this morning so we could get out of town for lunch. Our first stop was Home Depot to pick up some work lights I bought, and then we went to a little diner called Taylors’ Made on the other side of Conway. Summer had breakfast food, and I got the reuben. It was all pretty good, but I didn’t care for the super thin onion rings. I wish we had tried some of the appetizers.

As we got into Little Rock, I decided to go down to the Park Plaza Mall rather than the usual McCain. I figured it would be closer to the hotel, and we could kill enough time there until check-in time at the hotel. Summer was happy to look around but was reluctant to pick up anything. I got an armful of clothing from Dillard’s, which reminded me of how much I hated shopping there with my parents as a child. It was just always so boring, but now I get it. We covered most of the mall by about 3 in the afternoon, and then headed to the Wyndham Riverfront to get our room.

Eventually Amanda messaged me back, and we met her at the Red Lobster for dinner. Sarah decide she didn’t want to go to the concert, so she brought her father along instead. Summer and I got our fix of endless shrimp, and then we headed back for the concert.

We both parked at the hotel and walked the quarter mile or so to the arena. We were early, so we had to stand out in the heat for a little while before we could go in. Once the line started moving, I had trouble getting the TicketMaster app to load the tickets, but fortunately I saved them to Google Pay and that worked to get us in.

The concert was incredible, but I was surprised they didn’t have the upper bowl open. We were in a lower section of removable seating right by the stage, so we could see everything really well. It was awesome having the orchestra there, especially seeing a McLovin lookalike on the French horn. They started off with some Indiana Jones, and we loved the Superman theme song. They took a 20 minute break after the warm up routine, and then Weird Al came out with his crew and performed a huge mix of songs I expected, as well as some I’d never even heard before. Afterward, Summer and I made our way through the merch line to get a couple shirts, and then walked back to the hotel for the evening.

And protect them from the evils of the world, like trigonometry and prime numbers!

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I Am Shrimp Mother

I was so happy to get to sleep in a bit today. When we did wake up, we sat in bed and watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica. After that, I went home to get ready for the evening. I was supposed to meet Ronda, Mollie, Erica, and Leslie at Fat Daddy’s, but Erica wanted to push it back an hour and then Ronda cancelled on us entirely, so we just gave up for this weekend.

I spent the rest of the afternoon into the evening taking care of my aquariums and giving everyone a full chemistry check. I learned a bit more about the red cherry shrimp and how to sex them, and now I’m thinking I inadvertently split up the males and females. Apparently the males can be less colorful, and those are the ones I put in the Imagitarium, while the ones in the old shrimp tank all appear to be female.

Summer decided to make a wonderful dinner for us all since I wasn’t going to be out for the evening, so once I got everything packed up, I headed up to her house for the evening. She grilled some chicken, squash, and zucchini, and roasted some itty bitty potatoes. Noah brought his new dog over, and the girls had the old mattress in the floor to lay around. Noah wanted to watch a scary movie after dinner, and I had been wanting to watch I Am Mother since it came out, so we settled for the suspense right before bed.

Do you ever feel like murdering robots?

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Unbirthday Pie

We managed to sleep in a bit today, and it really helped. We ate some leftover French toast, then watched some more Battlestar Galactica in bed while the kids got up and around. Before we knew it, lunch time came around and Julie brought pizza for Dad’s birthday. We met everyone at their house to eat, and then Autumn and Noah played some Magic: The Gathering in the floor while the rest of us sat around.

Noah had to go to work in the evening, so Summer took everyone home to get ready for that, and I headed home myself to do my weekend chores. Murderface seems to look a little better, but he’s still got some weird scales out of place. I need to move the fat betta back into the community tank so she’ll have some more room. It looks a lot better without the duckweed in there too. The Imagitarium is looking quite nice, and I did a full panel of tests on the water quality for the first time. It took quite a while, and then I tried to learn about the general hardness and carbonate hardness a bit since I plan to keep shrimp in it.

The night went by super quickly, and I ended it with some more browsing for CPAP supplies. I get so angry over how much of a racket it is, but I’m super dependent on my machines to sleep.

And I still need new glasses, too….

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On the Subject of Drowning

I got out a bit early this morning to bring Doug home after dropping his car off at the Cogswell Collision Center. He had a little fender bender the other day and asked me to give him a ride back. I actually made it to work just a few minutes late, which I thought was pretty impressive. It was all downhill from there.

All day I felt like I was just scattered and scrambling to make sense of it all. Ultimately I got several things closed out, but I’m still getting covered up with work orders and I haven’t had a chance to touch any of the 1:1 devices. The stack of repairs isn’t getting any shorter, and the anxiety is mounting. I didn’t even take a lunch, and opted for a bit of Soylent halfway through the day instead. It got me to the end of the day without too much trouble, which I guess was ideal.

Eaddie took the bus to the high school so I wouldn’t have to get her from the shop, and we went to my parents’ house for more spring rolls. I helped slice up the smoked pork and shrimp while Eaddie played on her phone. We didn’t waste any time, and ate as soon as everything was ready. Julie came by and finished up her beef spring rolls too.

I decided to take Eaddie out for ice cream after dinner, and we settled on Bocadillos for something different. She got an ice cream cone with mint chocolate and Nutella. I got a churro with strawberry cheesecake ice cream. It was all delicious and expensive. Then we stopped by my house so I could change before making our way to their house for the night. Summer spent all evening at Tech for some kind of involvement fair, so we made another stop to get her some Taco John’s for dinner. I was upset to hear they “couldn’t do Potato Olés” for some reason, but I don’t think they charged the whole combo price either.

It sounds like they’re still shaking things up at Splash, so it’ll be exciting to see what happens next. Right now all I can think about is my pillow.

House slippers in the summer just make me sweat.

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Rollin’ in Greens

We didn’t sleep in very long this morning considering how late we got in, so I felt a little drowsy pretty much all day. Summer went home to clean up, and then Bác Vân called me out to get a bunch of plant material for Mom. I got everything loaded up, showered myself, and then went by their house to drop everything off before going up to Summer’s. I couldn’t wait for our “early” dinner, so I finished up a bunch of salad greens there before we headed over to my parents’ house.

The girls wanted to swim, so they went outside for a bit until it started lightly storming. I skimmed a little bit of sleep in Summer’s lap for a while, but ended up feeling more tired for it because of my apnea. I did at least feel relaxed though. Julie came over to eat too, and we all had beef spring rolls, except a predictably fussy Autumn who ate Mom’s famous “chicken nuggets.”

After dinner, the girls went to swim a little more before they headed home. I came home myself and made a really early night of it.

The fun weekends are always the shortest.

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Catching up with Bae

Summer took the girls to the high school for a 5k color run this morning. I ate a few leftovers there before heading home to clean up. I’m pretty sure I lost one of my ghost shrimp, and I couldn’t ever find any of the berried ghost/amano/whatever shrimp they were. I don’t know if they’ve been hiding, or if they dropped the eggs, or if they perished as well. I didn’t want to disturb the tank too much, but it didn’t get as busy in there as it usually does while I did a water change. I guess I’ll just let it be, since it’s fully established with decent parameters.

Summer dropped the girls off with their friends around lunch time, and we headed toward Conway. We were pretty hungry and decided to stop at Yesterday’s in Morrilton so we wouldn’t be eating too late in Conway. On our approach I was worried it would be more bar than grill, but once we got our food I was convinced. The appetizer sampler with fried green beans, pickles, mushrooms, and cheddar was amazing. Summer’s chicken and grilled vegetables were great. My chicken fried steak was a bit tough but not bad. The loaded mashed potatoes were stellar. Even the toast was delicious. It was a great date that we both needed.

As we came into Conway, Summer arranged for us to get a carwash at the Splash since she wanted to visit her employee that was on loan there and get a tour of the place. It was a pretty cool experience, but odd to see the lube side completely dead. I don’t know if it’s just a bad location or lack of marketing, but there wasn’t a single lube job done while we were there. It was awesome getting the car washed inside and out though. I think I still prefer to maintain it myself, but every now and again this would be nice just to dust out the whole vehicle.

From there we went to Andy’s for some frozen custard, and then killed a bunch of time at Kohl’s. I spent forever looking through the clearance sections, but didn’t find much that was marked down enough. I almost picked up a jacket or two, but decided against it after remembering how little I actually go out in the winter for long enough to need one. It was already getting a little late, so we went straight to Sam’s after that and ended up picking up a bunch of bath towels for her.

Hannah and Dylan were slow to respond as usual, but eventually we managed to meet up with them, and we went on to Little Rock for Dave & Buster’s. We did a Jurassic Park VR adventure that was pretty awesome and didn’t cost as much as I expected. It really just made me want a VR setup at home, but I keep hoping an esports budget or stipend will help to fund that. We wandered around the midway until we all ran out of credits, then hit a Wendy’s on the way home since we never really stopped for dinner. We were both exhausted from a long but great day, so it was straight to bed once we got home.

“Let’s build a wall to keep the immigrants from bringing crime into our town!” -the townspeople
“Let’s build a casino in our town!” -also the townspeople

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The Walkabout Campus

I headed in to work just a few minutes early today after waking up a few minutes before my alarm. I still felt tired, but not as bad as earlier in the week. I went by the shop first to have Jason submit warranty claims for a couple laptops. Then I ended up chatting with Ben for a while before heading to the high school.

I didn’t start in my usual place by going to the office. Instead, I had to go to the old field house to set up a printer we removed before the renovation. I drove around a bit at first, but eventually parked at the front of the building and walked around campus for most of the day. I went to the arena a couple times, back out to the field house, over through vo-tech, and up and around the main building. I still haven’t had a whole lot come up, but I’m feeling a bit of anxiety again about repairing laptops. I spent a decent amount of time yesterday doing just that, and I don’t want to get sucked into doing too much there and not focusing on learning the things I really want to learn.

Nothing really jumped out at me for lunch, so I just snacked on leftover donut holes most of the day while walking all over the place. I didn’t leave too late either, and only have a couple more hours to work tomorrow to hit my 40 hours for the week. I almost feel like I should be more stressed, but the long hours haven’t bothered me too much. I’m just physically very tired all the time. I need to just commit to a Soylent diet for a while to see if it helps.

I relaxed at home for a little while before heading up to Summer’s for dinner. I was going to make chicken salads, but ended up making everyone clean up the super old mashed potatoes and ribs that were left over from forever ago.

Happy fridge; happy belly.