Mounting Pressure

Zach really pushed me to deploy four TVs at the junior high today, so I made the call and made it happen. Ben helped me load the trailer while Allen and Brice did something inside. I shinned myself pretty badly on a Chromebook cart, dumbly trying to bring it downstairs from the graveyard by myself. They were small and relatively light, so once Ben started helping it went smoothly. We dropped the carts off at the middle school for Amanda, and then the three of us headed on to hang TVs.

I got a little flustered trying to call the shots just because I really only had two that wanted or needed to be swapped out. I managed to get two more done though, in spite of the unnecessary nature of the replacement. Allen and Brice were surprised that we got that many done before lunch.

The three of us met Summer and the girls at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. Zach followed shortly thereafter. They had a bacon balsamic dressing that was okay, but I think I used too much. The peaches were amazing, as canned peaches are. On the way back, we dropped Brice off to do a work order before Allen and I unloaded the trailer full of junk. Then I spent most of the afternoon at Oakland pulling relatively newer technology out of classrooms that traded for new Chromebooks. At least they seemed more aware of the request than the ladies at the junior high.

Central office closed at 4, so we also got to leave early. I ended up sitting and chatting with Ben for another half hour though, so I didn’t get home until nearly 5. I did a couple small, quick water changes before heading up to Summer’s for the evening. She made rice, grilled chicken, and some mixed vegetables that smelled so good that I couldn’t resist a small bowl even though I was still pretty full from lunch. Then we watched a couple episodes of Parks and Rec before bed.

Make yourself irreplaceable, make others do the work, and then take all the credit.

Feeling Flushed

It was a dreary second day of testing at Oakland this morning. Someone brought some toppings to the cafeteria and made some fantastic cinnamon rolls. I had a brown sugar and pecan one at first, and then one of the teachers gave me her fig one that was tasty, though not even half as good as my first. I decided to leave for a regular lunch this time, and I met some of the guys at CJ’s for an overpriced burger. At least the fries were super hot and a little crispy.

After lunch, I took care of some things at the junior high before going back to the shop to deliver a touch panel to Oakland. Just after I got the panel and toolbox out and pulled the truck up, it started to pour down rain, so I had to move the stuff under the awning. Just about then, I saw Crystal pulling the mail van in, so I abandoned all hope and ran the truck back to the lot before she locked the gate. I figured we would just deal with being a little late tomorrow, since Zach, Gary, and I should be able to hang it super fast anyway.

I went home for a bit before heading up to Summer’s for dinner. She picked up a couple buckets of KFC that the three kids destroyed. Autumn originally tried eating leftover buffalo chicken strips instead, but when they turned out dry and rubbery she gnawed on about a quarter of a breast before leaving it to be thrown away. Luckily I spotted it and Summer finished it off, but it’s that kind of wasteful spirit that infuriates me to the point that I want to physically harm her. There’s just no reason someone that age shouldn’t be more thoughtful about those things. They have too many outs when they don’t get their way.

As I finished the last little bit of gravy with a biscuit, I somehow managed to punch a tiny hole into the styrofoam and dripped gravy across the entire house and myself. I just felt so defeated, and ended up taking my shirt off to wash it in the sink. I didn’t stay long, and left after about three episodes of Parks and Recreaetion. I headed toward home to get gas, then clean the cat box and shrimp bowl. I pulled some of the stringy algae out, and thought for a while that I had accidentally pulled out the ghost shrimp as well, just before heading to bed I checked again and found him.

Triumph of the day.

Detlef Shrimp

I got up this morning and warmed up the last of the leftover quesadillas for breakfast. Eaddie continued watching Legends of Tomorrow until they left for home to get the house cleaned up. I’d like to say I cleaned up as well, but truthfully I spent most of my time staring at the shrimp. I ended up moving all four of them to the little bowl after deciding that the darker “ghost shrimp” may be a lighter male cherry red. Then I threw the clear ghost shrimp in as well just because I felt bad leaving it in the larger tank with the tetras. One of the reds molted at some point, and I was upset to have missed it.

I eventually got a shower and headed to Summer’s for dinner. She warmed up some leftover barbecue and made some really good cheesy potato pancake things out of the really gross nacho cheese potatoes. We watched an episode of Parks and Recreation while we ate, and then Summer continued helping Autumn with her papier-mâché rockets for history day. I played Breath of the Wild for the rest of the night, trying and failing repeatedly to defeat the island challenge. I’m going to have to step up my creativity.

It takes shrimp to make shrimp!

Jack of All Your Labors

Summer had a quiz bowl tournament today, so I slept in a little before warming up some leftovers for brunch and heading home. Back home I played a little Overwatch to get my weekly loot boxes, then spent quite a while sifting through rocks so I could make a shrimp bowl with only black gravel. I found some plants that were still alive in my 35 gallon tank, so I pulled them out and threw them in along with the two cherry red shrimp and my last little baby molly.

By the time I finished with all of that and had a shower, Summer was done and brought Eaddie over to go have dinner with Mom. She picked up a bunch of giò in Houston and made noodles for it today. Then we spent an hour trying to dissect a jackfruit without getting all of its sticky sap everywhere. I tried following a guide I found on YouTube, but it seemed like ours wasn’t ripe enough to pull apart like that.

When I finished with that, Uncle Mai called and gave me several minutes of advice and let me know that the value of his gift to me didn’t matter as long as I would use it at least once and that I liked it. Everyone was pretty tired by then, so we headed back to my house where Summer crashed, Eaddie loaded up Legends of Tomorrow, and I dug around to see if I had a lamp I could use to light the new shrimp bowl. Spoiler alert: I need to go to Walmart.

Now my fingers smell like sweet, fruity butt.

Pretzel Thief

Somehow I managed to get out of the house just a few minutes early today, so I stopped by Burger King for some breakfast for Summer and myself. The junior high had more testing, so I spent all morning smartly working on things there. Kevin came over for a little while and got on a rant about Chicago gang bangers and how Obama had empowered them. Then I met Allen at Wind Taste for lunch.

I stopped by Oakland for a little bit after lunch, but then spent the rest of the afternoon at the junior high cleaning up a few things. During last period, Jaiden the library aide tried to look me up on the school website. He scrolled down and, completely out of the blue said, “who’s Jason Williams? He looks like a butthole.” I lost it.

When I finally left, I stopped by the house for a few things before getting Autumn to pick up a couple pizzas. She, Summer, and I split up and ordered three of them from Little Caesar’s so we could all get promo 2-liters. When I told the guy my name, he gave me one for Mitchell and made a comment about not being able to spell. I told him it was an online order so my name shouldn’t have been misspelled, and he suggested that maybe I had misspelled it. It took me until I got to the car to check and see that I had failed to press the button to complete my order, so I ran back inside to explain myself and then completed the order on my phone so they could get paid for what I took. The guy seemed really cool about it, but then afterward I just kind of lost him staring into space.

Everyone loved the pretzel pizzas except Autumn, because it was different and she didn’t want to try it. I lost count of how many slices I ate, which was a very bad thing. When the kids went to bed, I played a little Breath of the Wild, then put on a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation before bed.

Well he’s not wrong.

Sunday Pickins

We slept in a little today after a good, long night of sleep. I started to clean up around the bedroom just a little bit, but it ended up being more like picking through a time capsule than a true cleaning day. Eventually Summer took off to go to the gym and shop for dinner stuffs. I ended up playing a little bit of Overwatch with Clint to pick up the last of my bonus loot boxes for the week. Then I got a shower and headed to Summer’s for dinner.

The girls had other food sorted and went to bed pretty soon after that. Summer made a really great pasta out of some of the leftover pulled pork, and I transferred her big tray of leftover baked beans to smaller containers for freezing. Then Summer and I watched an episode of Parks and Rec before I headed home to do one last load of laundry for the weekend. Clint and I ended the night with a few more rounds of Overwatch while my towels dried.

Baked beans, the plentiful legume.
The more you get, the more you entomb.
The more you entomb, the cheaper you eat,
So freeze beans from every quiz bowl meet!

Something Fishy

I should have dug out the battery charger last night so we could charge Summer’s car. I spent most of the morning stressing over whether I would be getting a group gas discount with my parents at Kroger, and after I finally gave up after waiting all day, I found out that Julie used all of the fuel points by herself. I ran on fumes all day long just to end up getting a couple gallons to last me until Wednesday for 10 cents off per gallon.

We started the day by taking Autumn to her friend’s birthday party. Then we stopped by my house for the battery charger and so I could check on the house. To my surprise, the betta was super dead, and looked to have most of the color drained out of her overnight. She was alive when I left last night, so I don’t know what happened so suddenly. I knew she looked a little pale and I wanted to change the water last night, but I figured I’d have time today. It looked like she laid a bunch more eggs again, and then just died. I was super disappointed after nursing her back to health over the course of a month. She seemed really healthy again, so this caught me by complete surprise.

From there, I dropped Summer off at the gym and went back to her house to charge her car battery, shower, and try to plan the rest of my day. Eaddie failed to shower early or quickly enough, so by the time I actually took mine the water was ice cold. As soon as I finished, I went straight to the water heater and raised both thermostats quite a bit. Then I went to pick up Summer at the gym and Autumn at Hourglass Escape Rooms. They just barely finished the room in time, so I was proud of their accomplishment. Finally I took them back home and got things ready to go back to my house and start dinner.

I had a roast thawed out for Saturday, so I had to get it cooked. I tried using an Instant Pot recipe using some of the homemade wine that Allen gave me, and it turned out pretty good. It would have been even better with the dry rub, but I just barely had enough time to get it done for the kids to go back home and to bed. They came over and watched Criminal Minds while it cooked for 35 minutes, then Emogenius while they ate. Then I got dishes started before crashing myself.

So much for planning.

Glasstric Bypass

I had quite a bit of trouble falling asleep last night, and then it felt like I slept really lightly all night long. Then we had to get up early to make it to Conway for the movie. Summer took the kids home to shower and clean up, and I did the same before heading out to pick them up.

We made it with plenty of time to get seated. It was actually really nice, with only a few other people in the theater. The tickets were quite a bit cheaper as well. We watched Glass after having seen Unbreakable and Split earlier last year. I thought it was pretty amazing, but I think the plot twist did more to aggravate the others. It makes me wonder if they’ll actually continue with more movies, or perhaps a series.

After the movie, we took the kids to Game Point to look around. We let them pick up a couple games, and I even grabbed a couple myself. Then we went to Walmart to see if I could find any of the clearance-priced Chromecast and Google Home Mini bundles. They were all sealed up behind glass, and BrickSeek indicated it was “limited stock” anyway, which likely meant they had none at the $17 price. By the time we left there, we were all pretty hungry, so we started the quest to find someplace to eat.

We drove through greater Conway to find something, and ultimately landed at Golden Corral. It worked out well for everyone to find something they liked, and we all pretty well stuffed ourselves beyond any reason. I actually didn’t overdo it as much as I often do, but I was already pretty full from popcorn anyway.

From there, we went to Sam’s to walk off some of the food. I very nearly picked up a box of Dr. Pepper syrup to use with the SodaStream, but I ultimately passed with a 2-1 vote against from the kids. I’m still not really sure how that happened. Then we went by PetCo to look for some shrimp, followed by BestBuy to cruise for deals. With nothing of interest there, we made a final stop at Target, where we picked up just a few things before heading home.

I dropped them off at Summer’s house and headed home to prepare for their arrival, but Summer said her car wouldn’t start. I dug out the Xbox so they could play their new game and headed to their house for the night. Autumn crawled into bed pretty early while Eaddie watched Noah play Left 4 Dead 2. Summer and I ended the night with a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation.

I have a dream that my four little coworkers will one day work in a department where they will not be judged by the length of their employment, but by the quality of their work.

Closet Racism

Jason was supposed to spend half the day with me “in the field,” but he ended up having me cover his campus for testing instead while he went to work on some of Allen’s stuff. Just as we were discussing that, our usual Dell service tech showed up to replace a power cable in one of my teacher’s computers. I took him over to Oakland and walked him all the way to the back of the building, panting and wheezing. Luckily she was super nice about the random, unexpected interruption, and I took her computer to a nearby closet for service.

As we situated ourselves, the tech learn-ed me about the “Vietnamese Squat” he had to perform to sit in the unusually small elementary school chair. I commented back that yes, my Vietnamese mother had spent many a night squatted over a giant bowl of egg roll ingredients. From then on, it was mostly comments about how the white man had wronged people like the Indians. It was still less awkward than the OSHA presenter that joked about submitting a new hazard pictogram of a guy with a turban to warn of explosive chemicals.

I spent the rest of the morning trying to wipe Summer’s mother’s iPad that she had activation locked, since I had to sit around to babysit testing anyway. A big group of us went to Mulan’s for lunch, and then I eventually made it to the junior high to close a few work orders.

After work, I ran home to get a few things before heading to Summer’s for dinner. She made chicken salads, but we didn’t quite get to eat before her mother showed up to retrieve her iPad and finish the unlock process. I was really impressed with the proximity setup process, and even the camera authentication that would normally show a QR code was made to look more stylized and futuristic. You know, I disagree with Apple on many counts… But you cannot deny they’ve got style.

When everyone finished eating and acting up, we managed to quiet everyone down for the first half of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Evidently Noah watched it recently, and he was upset that Summer decided to stop us right before The Tale of Sir Lancelot.

Why can’t you guys settle down and obsess over your repressed depression like normal teenagers?

Bumday’s a Drag

Summer was super sick all day, so I just sat around with the kids all day. Autumn came out and watched Criminal Minds while Eaddie played Mario Odyssey all day. Summer ended up going back to bed and slept most of the day while we just sat around bored. Eventually I shut everything down and tried to get the kids to do something else constructive, and they went to clean up their rooms a bit. Eventually I went home to clean up and figure out dinner.

I cleaned up after the cats and did some partial water changes on the tanks. One of the lights on my 55 gallon tank had gone out, and I figured out it was the bulb and the starter. Luckily I had a spare from Julie’s tank, so I got it running again. After a shower, I went to Walmart to pick up what I needed to make red beans and rice in the Instant Pot.

Back at Summer’s, I got dinner going while they watched TV. It took me a bit longer than I expected, so I cut up some summer sausage and cheese to eat on crackers as a snack while we waited. Once I could relax and let the food cook, I propped up against Summer and watched the first episode of the first true season of Battlestar Galactica. That ran both of the girls off to their rooms, so we just finished the one episode before dinner was ready.

Autumn snapped at Eaddie when she tried to fetch her for dinner, so Summer didn’t let her have any. The other three of us sat in the kitchen to see how I had done. The beans seemed slightly undercooked again, which was a little frustrating. It wasn’t too bad, but it definitely could have used some more time. I don’t know why dry beans are requiring so much more time than the recipes are calling for, but I’m afraid if I start off that much longer, they’ll end up mushy. It was still plenty edible though, and Eaddie seemed to like it pretty well. There were quite a few vegetables in it, so it seemed at least a little healthy.

After dinner, the girls pretty much went straight to bed. Summer and I went to the bedroom and watched an episode of Parks and Rec before she really started feeling the Nyquil. I emailed work to take a half sick day to help out getting the kids to school and stuff. Hopefully my sinuses don’t flare up more overnight.

Baby snails doo doo doo doo doo doo.