Don’t Get Testy

This morning was really warm, so I rode the bike in to work. Oakland started ACT Aspire today, so I was stuck there all morning. I was able to use their loaner laptop while I was in the office though, so I kept pretty busy just catching up on old emails. I sat there until a little after noon before ordering some Subway online, and then I picked that up and went to the shop.

I ate there and chatted with Gary for a while. It wasn’t too long after lunch until I had to go back to Oakland to meet with the guys that are running the robotics tournament this weekend. I had to find out what they needed from me, and luckily it sounded like a couple people from Tech should be around to help as well so we won’t all be completely without guidance.

By the time we finished there, school had let out, so I spent the rest of the afternoon at the shop just kind of vaguely working. When I got home, Bác Vân was sitting out back resting, so I chatted with her for a while until Julie got home so I could swing by to get the apple pie moonshine she didn’t want. We ended up talking for a little while too, but the sun was setting and I didn’t want to be out too late on the bike, so I headed to Gary’s place to give him the moonshine. I went in just because I had never seen his place before, and we chatted for just a few minutes before the girls blew up my phone.

I ran home to get the car and went to Walmart to look at some sandpaper for Autumn’s project. While I was there, I picked up a new bulb for the lamp to put over the shrimp bowl. I did a little Googling and decided that sandpaper wouldn’t work well for the papier-mâché, and left with just my bulbs. Autumn was making some slow but steady progress on her Challenger rockets. I had a little bite of what Eaddie didn’t finish for dinner, and then I had to run back home to test some aquarium water.

Earlier when I had checked on the shrimp bowl, the little baby fish was having trouble swimming. He seemed fine this morning, but couldn’t stay upright or swim straight in the evening. I wanted to test the water and try to fix it, but by the time I got home it was already dead. One of the shrimp even started to pick at it a little bit, so I just left it in the bowl. For some reason, the water was really alkaline in the bowl, but both of my big tanks have been really heavily acidic. I didn’t test the water in the 35 gallon since it’s just been sitting stagnant for years, but I’ll probably do that sometime soon. It definitely doesn’t look very good. In the end, I added a small piece of driftwood to try and bring the pH down a little bit, and got my new lamp set up on the timer.

WHATTUP FISH TANK PEOPLE

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!

Ye Olde Frands

The junior high was testing this morning, so I spent most of the day trying to stay busy there. I actually got a few things taken care of, and there wasn’t a single testing issue, so it was a pretty stress-free day. Ben and Gary came over around 9 to meet with some kid from Tech about the robotics tournaments and what they needed from us to make their equipment work. Unsurprisingly, Gary was the smartest person in the room by a longshot. It was almost impressive how quickly everyone else’s eyes glazed over, and I was proud to have mostly kept up.

Dale called for lunch, so I met him and Bryce at Wendy’s. One of the maintenance guys walked in and spun some more tall tales for us as well. It felt like a really short lunch, but it was good as usual. Then it was back to the junior high until school let out. Then I ran by Oakland on the way home to replace a projector lamp.

I had to get gas when I finally left work, since I’d been skirting empty for the better part of a week. On the way back home, I stopped by AT&T to chat with the guys there. They were super dead and overstaffed, but still joked about me coming back. It’s definitely tempting, but I really would like to start out at a higher hourly rate. I left just as an area manager pulled up so as not to disturb anyone. Then it was home to start some laundry.

Summer brought all the kids over after a little while to help with the leftover barbecue from last weekend. They watched an episode of Emogenius before heading home for the night. I cleaned up and got on the computer where I saw Jack sitting online. It wasn’t much longer until Johnny showed up as well. I was a little annoyed that there wasn’t ever any chat about playing tonight, but it is what it is. We played some Overwatch until one by one they left.

Get up off my feet and stop making tired excuses.

Short Notice

Summer and Autumn left early this morning for a quiz bowl tournament. I slept in for a little while, but tried not to sleep all morning and got up to watch some Caprica in my boredom. There were still some leftover biscuits with gravy, so breakfast by myself was easy enough. A couple episodes in, Clint sent a message saying he was in town and wanted to know if anyone wanted to meet him for lunch.

I woke Eaddie up and we both jumped into some clean clothes and ran across town to Linh to meet Clint. He was in town to get Landon after an archery tournament. It was nice to catch up a bit, though Eaddie took a while to really wake up. Clint didn’t have time to socialize after we ate, so Eaddie and I came back to their house to shower and clean up for the day.

Eventually Summer and Autumn made it back in to town, and Summer had a really bad head cold. I ran to La Villa to pick up a chicken parmesan for them to split. Eaddie made her bowl of ramen she got from the Oriental food store, and I scraped the bottom of Summer’s plate when she finished. We tried watching an episode of Battlestar, but I had some trouble getting it to play the correct episode. Instead, we watched an episode of Parks and Rec, then I put Summer to bed. Eaddie stayed up watching Home Movies, and then Legends of Tomorrow once I was ready for bed.

Cold, rainy days are sleepy enough without also being travel-lagged and sick.

Too Many Pandacorns

I slept in too late today to take Summer some lunch while she was working at the shop, so I spent the day cleaning up after the cats and fish. I moved more snails over to the 55-gallon tank too, but I’ll need to bring the PH up so the acidity doesn’t eat away at their shells. I let myself get sucked down the rabbit hole for a while on that one.

After a while, I loaded up Breath of the Wild on the TV and played until I had to get ready for dinner. Summer came over after a workout and a shower, we picked the girls up, and we went to my parents’ house for some leftovers. Zach invited us up to play a card game they got called Unstable Unicorns, so we picked Gary up as well and headed to Doverland.

The seven of us played for nearly four hours before Eaddie finally won. We were pretty severely gimped because Zach and Sara insisted that you couldn’t play an upgrade card unless you had a basic unicorn card in your stable, and then all of my unicorns were turned into pandas for the entire game. I very nearly won though, and I feel like I did win in spirit even if it was only because I had a proper understanding of the rules.

Past midnight, we headed back to town in the pouring rain, dropped Gary off, then made it back to my house to go to sleep. All the girls passed right out, and I joined them after a couple more hours.

You think the hard way is your ally, but you merely adopted the challenge!

Harry Peter

Jesica came over today with shrimp bread and twice baked potato casserole. I almost didn’t wake up early enough, but I managed to squeeze a shower in just in time. When she got here, the three of us went to Walmart to find something for us to cook. We landed on brats that I cooked on the George Foreman Grill, and we started the day on year three with the Prisoner of Azkaban. We made it all the way through to The Half-Blood Prince before Nick returned the girls. Eaddie got Autumn’s old phone, so she was on it for a while. Then Noah wanted to come over too, so I picked him up and we finished the movie.

Once it was over, Jesica gave up on the last two movies and headed out. I ended the night playing a couple episodes of Con Man until Summer was ready for bed. I had a bunch of coffee earlier, and kept eating the same stuff over and over again, so I felt a little weird and sleep deprived by the time everyone else went to bed. Tomorrow should be quite a bit different.

Binge all the things!

It’s Magic!

We all got up and ready to go to Fort Smith for the magic club’s annual holiday potluck and show. We got to my parents’ house pretty close to when we planned, but Summer didn’t feel well by the time we left and we had to swing by Walgreens on the way out of town for some meds. The rest of the trip went pretty well though. If I had realized Mom’s car had both HDMI and an AC power outlet, I would have brought a Switch dock so we could all play. Instead, we all split up and took turns, which still turned out really well. It definitely made the trip feel shorter.

The party was at a new place, with plenty of room for eating and a large raised platform for a stage. There didn’t seem to be quite the variety of food we usually see, but at least we had plenty to eat. The girls seemed to really enjoy the show, but I really think Summer was the most excited of the three of them. Most of the performances seemed shorter than usual as well, but it was a good time.

We stopped by a couple Oriental food stores on the way home, and the girls actually really enjoyed looking at all the snacks and different things they aren’t used to seeing. Dad bought them each some snacks, and we headed home. Edna and I played some more INVERSUS to unlock some more maps. She got pretty good after a few games, so it was really fun to play a little competitively until it degraded to us trolling each other.

Once we got home, the girls went back to their house and I started cleaning up a bit. I had to fish three frogs out of the tadpole tank, which meant I had to find and clean another tank for them. The betta seems to be getting worse, and I don’t know what else I can do to help her. In cases like this, it seems way easier to care for them when you have a whole school of them rather than just one solo sick species. I gave her some more meds, but I think I need to find my aquarium salt as well. I really thought I used to have some somewhere.

The Gift Card Investment Plan

Summer and Autumn slept in this morning, but luckily Summer jumped out of bed in time to get her up and out to the school for their quiz bowl trip. I tried not to sleep too late, but Eaddie still beat me to the living room. She wanted cereal for breakfast, but we didn’t have any milk, so I took the opportunity to try and pick up some Nintendo eShop gift cards that were on sale at the Dollar General right up the road. I must have looked like some kind of fool getting $200 worth of Nintendo gift cards, but I only paid $170, so the joke was on them. I did make a mistake though, and tried to scratch the first card with a metal file, and it chewed right through the ink on the paper. Luckily I called Nintendo, and after speaking with a couple guys, they were able to confirm the validity of the card and applied it to my account for me.

After Eaddie and I had some cereal, I messed around on the Switch some more while she watched Legends of Tomorrow. Eventually I had to find a way to convince her that she probably didn’t take a shower last night, and that she definitely needed to take one today. It took some effort, but I eventually got her ready to leave the house, and we headed back to my house so I could clean up. On the way, we stopped at another Dollar general and I picked up another $180 worth of gift cards. We should be set for some games now.

Summer was already heading back from Greenwood by the time we got to my house, so I warmed up some food for Eaddie and then jumped into the shower. Once I was ready, we took the bike to Walmart to look for a Super Mario Party and Joy-Con bundle. We ran into Ana with her grandparents there, but Ana acted all shy, and I’m pretty sure her grandparents didn’t really recognize me. We continued on to the electronics, and luckily there were still three copies of the game, so I limited myself to just the one and we headed on to Summer’s house so the girls could pack bags for their stay with their father.

Hannah and Dylan wanted to meet us at Chili’s for dinner, so Summer took a shower and we both drove to meet up with them. My food was pretty good, but cold. Summer said she liked hers, but the other two both wanted to send their sirloins back to the grill. We had a good time though, and I got Dylan’s Steam info so we can hopefully join up for some Rocket League or other games at some point in the future.

When we finished dessert, Summer and I headed back to my house for the evening. We thought momentarily about visiting the remaining three Dollar Generals in town to clean the rest of them out on gift cards, but she was sleepy and I figured $380 should last until next holiday season when hopefully they’ll have another sale.

Motorcycle weather in December, but you look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.

Birthday Blunders

I woke up with another headache this morning, but fortunately I shook it off after a shower. There wasn’t much going on at Oakland, so I stopped by the shop to pick up some things on my way to the junior high. It was Ronda’s birthday, so I went with her to Stoby’s to pick up a bunch of lunch orders for those of us that were eating together for the occasion.

When we got back to the library, we discovered Janie’s order was missing, and I didn’t get my cheese dip. I let them eat and went back to Stoby’s by myself to pick up the rest, and the girl found Janie’s order immediately, but then told me the people in the back were “100% certain” they gave us a large cheese dip. I confirmed that they did, in fact, give us one out of the two that we paid for. She said she would check my order to make sure I was charged for it properly, but after driving back once already for what we clearly didn’t receive, I felt like she should have at least just given me the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t until after I got back to my cold taco salad that I realized they also didn’t give me any chips for it.

Nearing the end of my meal, a guy from the home theater place that mounted our cafeteria media rack found me and wanted me to look at it with him. He didn’t seem to understand why we weren’t satisfied with their install, and insisted that there was no way the weight of the equipment could be held up properly in a wall rack. I told him we work with wall racks all the time, and that if the rack was overloaded, then they should have purchased a heavier-duty rack. I flat out had to tell him I wouldn’t allow an installation like that to pass in my home. I guess he works with a different set of standards.

A few work orders later, we reached the end of the day, and I ran home to pack up my NVIDIA RTX 2080 TI Founders Edition cards that I paid way too much for, and took them to UPS for return shipping. It was just a little over $40, which kind of surprised me. I guess that’s a fine lesson. I’m still not certain I made the right choice, and it sucks that my plan didn’t pay off better. There’ll probably be a shortage of cards closer to Christmas, and I’ll regret returning them.

From there, I went to Summer’s and scraped up some leftover dinner while she watched TV and the girls fiddled around. I had to head home for more laundry though, so I didn’t stay very long. Then I just surfed Cyber Monday deals into the evening long after I finished laundry. With any luck, I won’t go completely broke before I can find a new job.

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.

Thanksgiving Pregame

Summer went to work at the shop today. I got up a little early to get ready for lunch with Jesica. She said there aren’t any good Chinese buffets in Fort Smith and was craving Mulan’s. I saw Ronda’s car there, but couldn’t find her in the restaurant, and then she passed by us on her way out and stopped by to say hello.

After we ate, we ran by Tropical Smoothie to get lunch for Summer, and then we decided to walk off a little of our food at PetSmart. She didn’t get any treats for her new dog Harris, but I spotted an aquarium plant that was just cheap enough to try out, and the guy even let me keep the hitchhiking snail for free since he didn’t belong in the tank. From there we went back to my house to drop the plant off, but were too lazy and fat from lunch to get out again. We watched a weird vegan YouTube cooking video, and then I drooled over a couple aquascape build videos.

We headed to Walmart to pick up some dinner materials a little before Summer got out of work, where I ran into Bradley and chatted for just a minute. When I found out the girls wouldn’t be home until late, we skipped that stuff and I just picked up a couple things I needed and we made it the rest of the way to Summer’s for the evening. I surfed Netflix for a while before landing on Red vs. Blue, which always seems to surprise the otherwise uninterested with laughs. The girls got home just before we finished the first volume, so we wrapped that up before Jesica left.

Summer was the only one around with any real hunger, and she needed to carb up for her 5K turkey run in the morning, so I called in an order to La Villa and brought her some chicken parmesan. I burned a bánh bao that Bác Vân had given me earlier while I was at home because it seemed to be raw in spots. Summer got a migraine and went to bed early. Autumn landed in her bedroom on her laptop for the rest of the evening, and Eaddie binged some more Arrow until I made her go to bed. I got lost on the internet for a while, then found myself tangled up in the can of worms that is Please, don’t touch anything!

If you put him on an F150, he would be Harris on Ford!