Tag: food

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Raining Dogs

Summer left early this morning for a run in Conway. I slept in a while, but was up when she got back home. Eaddie left for marching practice before a game in the evening, so Summer and I got around to go to La Huerta for a late lunch. We brought Muad’Dib along and were able to sit with him out on their back porch. We were the only ones out there, so service was fairly slow even in spite of the restaurant being mostly empty due to how late it was.

It rained pretty hard all day, but we thought we’d try taking him to PetSmart just to get him out a little bit. I let him out of the car and he ran up to the door and inside, so I had to wrangle him to put his leash on. After that, he went nuts smelling everything in the store. He didn’t seem nervous, but he just wanted to chase after everything. He didn’t get to burn off any energy because of the rain.

We needed to go to Walmart after that, but I didn’t want to get out in the heavy rain, so we just went back home. The three of us laid down to watch Thunderbolts and did some laundry. Dad sid they had bánh bao, so I took Muad’Dib over there to have one while they were still a little warm. Then we came home and went to bed super early.

No cats.

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Lockdown: Not Just for Schools!

I thought McDonald’s would be busy again, but we breezed right through for a coffee. Mitch called just as I was leaving the house, so I called him back to tell him all about our resident alien. After that, the drive in got a little crazy because some idiot with out-of-state tags was cruising in the passing lane, below the speed limit, in perfect lockstep with a semi truck in the right lane. A whole line of cars was swerving and peeking around angrily, trying to pass. I finally got around and slowed way down in front of him to try and get him to move over to let other cars pass, but I also had an upcoming exit.

I cooled down at the office and got into some stuff there. We didn’t have a call in the morning like I expected, but I dug into the security stuff all day. We went for our Big Mac break and I had an apple pie with a vanilla cone, and it was spectacular. I was surprised how good their ice cream was, and the apple pie was perfect with it.

When we got back from lunch, I spotted no fewer than three cop cars near the property, including one parked right near where I always park. Teisha didn’t answer her phone, but I got a hold of Tammy, who let me in and said there was a car chase, and they thought someone jumped our fence. They had locked down the best they could while operations continued in the plant. Muad’Dib and I went back to work.

The afternoon wasn’t very fruitful. Kandi finished her last day without much fanfare that I could see. Muad’Dib and I left a little late, so I skipped our slushie stop and we made it home through heavy traffic. It wasn’t very long before Dad texted that they had bún thang for dinner, so Summer got out of her bath so we could go eat. Muad’Dib got a little antsy, so I let him out to run part of the way. Dinner was good, but we headed home soon after because Summer had an early run in Conway the next morning.

Eaddie was home briefly but left. I was feeling pretty worn down, so I didn’t stay up much later than usual before going to sleep.

Some guard dog.

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Fall of Man

We went all the way across town for a smoothie this morning, and that McDonald’s was way busier than the other one. I don’t know if it was the timing or location, but I thought it would be a shorter and faster detour. We got to work and had a bit of productivity in the morning until I started reading more of my predecessor’s old ChatGPT logs.

At this point, I am completely convinced that Brandon was not real. He was not human. He was an alien, or some kind of lizard person with primative knowledge of our species. I’ve seen the memes about AI, but I could never imagine such intense and immediate reliance on “artificial intelligence” for literally every aspect of seemingly everything he was doing. Every email, every presentation, and every written interaction from him was constructed by ChatGPT. He didn’t even write his own “heartfelt” resignation letter to the company. It was entirely crafted by ChatGPT. What really sent me over the edge was the fact that he asked it to “tell me about 4th of July.” He asked about things that should have been muscle memory for anyone that has been even tangentially interested in IT as a hobby, much less as a career.

Flabberghasted, we went to McDonald’s to decompress. I took the whole hour.

The afternoon wasn’t much to speak of. I wrote some more documentation. I wrote it myself. I didn’t ask ChatGPT to write it for me. That’s what I got from Brandon. Literally a roadmap written by AI to tell me how our network is set up. Even I know what a /24 subnet is. Asinine.

We ran into traffic on the way home and took the Atkins exit just in time to pass Summer, who was stuck due to a wreck ahead of us. I took Highway 64 the whole way home and beat her by just a couple minutes. She had a “beef stroganoff” with meatballs going in the slow cooker all day, so I took Muad’Dib for a quick run and made it back to eat outside with the girls. Eaddie left again for band, Summer went to bed, and I did a bit of cleanup before crashing myself.

This is how AI takes our jobs – not directly, but by empowering those that are simply not qualified for the jobs they conned themselves into.

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Clownin’

I got five orders into McDonald’s today. We started with a coffee before leaving town, then stopped in Morrilton for a chicken biscuit. I spent all morning documenting printers, and then we went for a late lunch and redeemed points for a free Happy Meal. The six McNuggets didn’t quite satisfy me, so I redeemed a free Double Cheeseburger, which was quite a bit heftier than I remembered. I was actually quite pleased. I wrapped that up with a free Apple Pie for dessert.

As I was finishing up, a young, very McMethed-out girl approached and asked if I had a hot spot. I was polite and tried to learn what she really needed, and she said she was trying to get a ride to her uncle’s place that was “less than ten minutes away.” I had to decline her at that point, and she walked up to a kiosk to order something before walking over to talk to someone else, who I think was an employee.

The afternoon went by quickly, and then we made it home so I could eat some leftover chicken before taking Muad’Dib on a run. I originally thought I’d run him to the high school to meet Summer for the marching assessment, but she wanted me to run him first, and then go with her for the entire time she would be there.

Muad’Dib ran well, but I had to zap him a few times when he kept trying to chase cats, or generally wouldn’t listen. He was mostly good, but just wasn’t being as obedient as I needed him to be. Summer and I had a chat when we got back, and then we went to the high school to watch a couple bands play before Eaddie would go out with the Tech band.

We brought Muad’Dib along, and he was immediately wound up and alert for all the noise and goings-on. He didn’t even wait to get out of the car, and sprung out as soon as I opened the door, which was very unlike him. As we entered the stadium, there was no one to turn us away. He got more and more anxious as we entered the crowd of people. We got seated and watched one band, but then I decided to take him off to the side of the field to decompress in the grass. We walked around for a couple of bands, and then he finally felt okay to come back for Tech.

Summer was straight to bed as I tried to clean up some stuff in the garage and kitchen. I didn’t feel great, but I eventually made it to bed.

Makin’ my way downtown, walkin’ slow, faces pass, and I’m homebound.

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Off Grid

Today started out fairly tense. Summer and I left for Little Rock to see Tron, and it was just awkward silence the whole way. Things lightened up after that as we went through a whole bucket of popcorn before the previews started. I thought the movie was okay, but it was grungier than I liked. A huge part of the appeal for me was the digital perfection of everything, so it was kind of ick that the main character was a program who looked like he hadn’t showered in a couple of days. Of course Daft Punk could never be replaced for the soundtrack, and NIN only added to the grungy feeling of it all. Ultimately it was an entertaining flick without too much Morbin’.

We hunted for food after the show, and ended up driving a ways further south to eat at La Patrona Asian Sushi Buffet. It was an odd fusion of Asian and Mexican, split pretty closely down the middle. The food was okay. I liked the variety, but it wasn’t a huge selection. The service was very lacking because we didn’t seem to have a dedicated server, but we had already paid up front. I’d eat there again, if I were hungry, and if I were already very close.

After that, we made it over to the Outlets of Little Rock, which was a cute little outdoor courtyard type shopping center. It reminded me very much of Disney Springs, but only in the way that Arkansas could do it. The highlight was probably the weird Asian arcade behind the weird Asian pop culture store. There was hardly anyone there, except for one guy that was really getting into whatever piano-style rhythm game he was playing.

We made the loop and headed toward home, stopping in Conway so Summer could pick up something from the wash there. Once we got to the house, I took Muad’Dib for a quick run as the sun went down, and then it was a rush to bed.

end of line

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Wheely Kneely

The Onewheel went out for delivery today, so Dad came over to the house to sign for it, and tried some more to find the doorbell transformer. After a few hours, one of those missions was successful.

Muad’Dib was a little ornery, but was overall reasonably well behaved. I left him in the car while I had a Quarter Pounder, and we finished up the afternoon to get home for a proper run.

Summer had a rough day but wouldn’t talk about it. I took Muad’Dib out, and he was even slower than usual because he hadn’t been run in so long. We stopped to see if Mom had shrimp soup ready for dinner, and then made it home to get Summer to go eat.

I wrapped up super early because I’ve been sleep deprived, and we have a team meeting in the morning.

I’ve got nothing.

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I’m in a Hurry to Get Things Done

Muad’Dib was full of some extra energy today, so I had him run up and down the stairs several times in the morning, and again in the afternoon. Things were a little oddly quiet, but I got called down for a task, which was nice. Otherwise I get bored of all the Microsoft documentation all day.

We took a break to get some McNuggets, and the experience was quite good. It’s to the point that I’ll have to update my review, which is great for everyone.

Summer and I planned to go to Cici’s for a cheap dinner salad, so we got to the house and I put Muad’Dib out back. It was the fastest, cheapest dinner in town at $6. The salad had plenty of options, and the pizza was coming out fresh.

Summer had to go to bed pretty quickly when we got back, and I took Muad’Dib to my parents’ house to look at Dad’s computer. For some reason, it wouldn’t allow user authentication for file access over the network until I created a whole different user account, but that worked perfectly.

Once back at the house, I planned to vacuum but had to do some other cleaning up first, and then wanted to get to bed early after missing so much sleep last night.

It’ll do 0 to 60 in 2.9

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Cloud Failings

Today started out pretty early with SharePoint sync issues, which reinforced my frustrations with Microsoft cloud services. I’ve avoided OneDrive at home for so long, and the business experience is no better. Sync had broken on one of the computers downstairs, and reconnecting overwrote all local file changes with the older cloud version, which it thought was newer.

Lunch was interesting because I wasn’t the best dressed person in the Morrilton McDonald’s. There was something in the air, because it looked like there was a higher-level manager on duty, and there was actually someon walking the lobby to keep it clean. The usual staff was still just as curt with their yelling order numbers, but the food was good, and otherwise it was a decent experience.

Muad’Dib had some big zoomies to run out when we got back to the office, and fortunately it was a quick afternoon after going to lunch so late. Mark texted earlier in the day, so I called him on the drive home. Then I stopped by Julie’s house to trade a Dutch oven for a pretty loaf of sourdough. We talked for a bit before I continued on to visit my parents.

When we left there, Muad’Dib started whining and I let him out of the car to run home. He did great as I followed him in the car, and then Summer and I ate some leftover enchiladas before she wound down for bed. I opened up some Vine stuff and then continued vacuuming until I had an anxiety attack, which mostly just left me feeling suddenly extra-exhausted, so I wrapped up to go to bed too.

Sleep Paralasys

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Lesson Retention

I woke up surprisingly early today, but time dilated and I didn’t get the chicken onto the smoker until right at noon. I made lemon pepper wings and seasoned the thighs with an assortment of whatever spices felt right, and then when the smoking was done, I added some different sauces to some of both. We ended up having an early dinner with some steamed rice and some frozen veggies I threw into the chicken juice from yesterday.

The food was pretty good, but I always forget the little things I learn between cooks, and the barbecue sauce burned a bit. Dad stopped in to pick up some aging bananas, and I rested for a little while before finally starting to vacuum again. The vacuum cleaner was completely full after Eaddie used it, and then I also noticed the brush was completely covered in hair, so that was a chore to clean up as well. Cleaning that really helped extract more dirt from the carpet.

Too short.

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Enchiladas Good; Fire Bad!!!

I slept in kind of late whiel Summer ran a 10k in town. She came back and said she wanted to run another 5k this evening with Muad’Dib, which would be a glow run in the dark. Eaddie also wanted to have a fire with Eli, and I ended up responsible for dinner. After not much cleaning up, I went to the Neighborhood Market for stuff to make enchiladas.

The afternoon flew by as Summer helped me by making guacamole. I threw chicken into the Instant Pot and probably cooked it longer than I really needed. Summer helped me roll that into tortillas that we covered in sauce and cheese, and then broiled.

Everyone seemed to like dinner, and we had twice what we needed, so dinner will be ready for a day or two this next week. Summer took Muad’Dib for their run, and I tried to start a fire with the kids. Past Michael was a real bro and filled the fire pit with a bunch of dry starter, which went up super easily. Unfortunately, the wood I had been chopping didn’t want to take, so the fire turned into a smokey, smoldering pit that the kids didn’t want to sit around.

Dad came over for a little while, so I took the leaf blower out back to try and get some more flames, but they just wouldn’t last. The kids stayed inside after making pigs in a blanket, Dad lelft, and Summer went to bed.

I don’t remember.