Tag: friends

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Rooting For You

We started testing today, so it was pretty quiet. It sprinkled for most of the day too, so I didn’t make it down to the field house. Gary had a few minutes to call me and help with some things I had been tinkering with, and I think I learned a bit, and maybe even proved myself a little.

I took an early lunch to meet Ronda, Steven, and a coworker of his at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. It was pretty quiet there today, but it’s possible that was just due to how early we were. I went by the shop for a little bit afterward, then went back to the high school in the rain.

I guess I was a bit too ambitious, because I didn’t quite finish all I wanted to before quitting time. I actually ended up staying pretty late, fighting with a replacement computer I deployed. I actually didn’t even finish, so I’ll have to check on it in the morning as well.

Dad left me a big, flat drain tape to run up under the house, so I met Summer at home to see what we could do. The girls sat in the car the whole time because I don’t think they realized how long it was going to take me. I ran the snake all the way up the sewer pipe without too much trouble, so I had to coil it all back up and go down from the inside of the house. It wasn’t too difficult in spite of how gross the toilet mounting bolts looked. They were so rusted that I could just about pull the whole thing straight up.

With the toilet out of the way, I could see a bright orange root snaking around the drain. Inside was a literal wall of cat poop, completely blocking the pipe. Water could only seep out the drain, and a lot of that was probably my fault for flushing dry cat poop out of the litter box. I’m about at the point that I’m ready to quit using that half-broken automatic CatGenie and go back to a regular box. I called Dad, and we decided to get Roto-Rooter back out to properly snake the drain.

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up a bit, then went to Summer’s for the evening. All the extra work running around the house made me hungry, so I cleaned up some random leftovers and eventually made it to bed.

Well, shit.

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Just a Formality

I couldn’t sleep in much today because of how bright it was in my room, so I spent most of the day pretty tired after my long night. Summer took Eaddie home, so I got straight to cleaning up for the day. After my shower, I finally tested out my new faucet and found that it leaked pretty badly at the drain. After mopping up all the water under the sink, I spent a little while tightening up all the connections until it didn’t really seem to leak any more. I’ll have to test it some more later, but I think it will probably be good enough when used normally and not pumping water into the bowl as fast as I can.

I had to go to my parents’ house to get some red envelopes for the kids, but Bác Vân came over and asked to borrow a bunch of money on my way out. I typically don’t have instant access to that much cash on a weekend without any notice, so I wished her good luck and many learned lessons. When I got to my parents’ house, Dad was recovering from feinting a bit after his surgery. I didn’t have time to stick around for very long because Summer had lunch ready, so I grabbed some envelopes and headed up to their house.

Summer’s mom was there finishing up Autumn’s dress, so I had lunch and just sat around with the kids. When she left and after we had all eaten, Summer and I went to Walmart for some stuff for dinner. Once she had that going, we watched some TV until Autumn’s date for the formal arrived. We missed the really good lighting, so I just did the best I could with what we had. Then we settled in and watched Glee until the dance was over.

Suzanne was in town and stopped by for just a little while to watch one episode with us. Then we chatted for just a little bit more before she left. Autumn eventually made it home, and the girls all crashed. I played some Overwatch with Clint, Josh, and one of his friends, then went to bed myself.

Well, you’ve missed the golden hour, so you get the tasteful yellow glow of a porch light.

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Soylent Hill

I slept pretty well last night and successfully made it back to work. It was a slow day, and I spent most of the morning at the shop just watching things slowly roll in. Eventually I made it to the high school to look at the sign again, and managed to get it working. I didn’t want to drive around, park, and walk all the way in just to turn around and head back to the shop a few minutes later, so I left and chatted at the office some more.

Ben was surprisingly the only one that wanted to go out for lunch after Zach bailed on me for some other plans. I gave him a few options, and he picked Linh where we had the combination lunch special. We actually made it back in the hour, and then I went straight to the high school to finish the day. I got a rash of emails for reassigned work orders, and it all ended up being from Amber, evidently sick of looking at the 1:1 devices in her queue. I got a little mad, especially with the way she told me it was time to “start adulting.” I stewed on it a bit as I toyed with Web Help Desk, but saved that conversation for later.

Suzanne texted that she was starting school next week, so she decided to come by while I did some chores at the house. She watched shrimp and played with the cat while I did laundry and dishes. As she got hungry and pondered dinner, I got to a stopping point and we decided to go to Linh for dinner. As we drove up, she remembered they were closing soon and didn’t want to rush out, so we ended up at Bocadillos for some tacos. She had never eaten there before, so she tried an assortment of tacos while I tried the torta. It was pretty good, but overall a pass for the future because it was nothing compared to the Cubana from La Plaza.

We finished up with some ice cream and a mangonada, and headed back to my house so she could go home. I folded my dried laundry and headed up to Summer’s for the evening where we watched another episode of Glee. As she went to bed, I stayed up and stockpiled enough Soylent while it was on sale to last us through the year.

Now remember – if the balloon pops, the noise makes the angels cry.

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No One Mourns the Wicked

I slept in a little later than I meant to this morning. I had to wake Eaddie up to get her to her friend’s house, and then I stopped by the post office to return my first Fossil watch on the way home. I had a lunch date with Brandon, so I headed home to shower and then met him at Linh. He had come down to visit after moving again to Seattle, so we had a lot of catching up to do.

As soon as we finished, I headed home to change, then picked Summer up to head to Conway. I had a bunch of Kohl’s Cash to burn, and then we continued to Little Rock to meet Julie and my parents for dinner. They decided on Samantha’s Tap Room, and boy was I unimpressed. It felt like high prices and fine dining portions, but almost everyone’s food was overcooked and dry or tough. Our waitress was nice enough, but nobody wanted to send anything back. Having to pay for sides à la carte just added insult to injury. I felt like they just grabbed bottles of “Asian” sauce and used it wherever they could to seem worldly. I would have had to stop by a Wendy’s afterward if I hadn’t gotten some hunks of steak from Mom and Julie after I finished my lamb “lollipops.”

We all took Mom’s car to the Robinson Center for the show, and made it inside with plenty of time to spare. Julie had gotten us all tickets to see Wicked, which I’d wanted to see several years ago, but with little priority. It was an incredible story, though it was difficult for me to understand well over half of the words being sung. I was familiar enough that it didn’t have a huge impact on my enjoyment, but Mom apparently fell asleep during the first act. The intermission didn’t seem particularly necessary, but seemed nice anyhow. The set changes were awesome to see live, but I wished I had binoculars in spite of our relatively close seating.

After the show, it took us forever to get out of the parking garage. It seemed like they just cleared out everybody in front of us before we could leave. Once back to my car, Summer and I headed home, making one quick stop at the Conway Rally’s for some fries to fill my completely unsatisfied belly.

Like a ship blown from its mooring.

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What Wood You Axe of Me?

Summer left with Eaddie for their hair appointments this morning. I thought they would be gone through the afternoon for a trip to the climbing gym, but they came back and loaded up the rest of the kids instead. Jesica was passing through from Dallas and wanted to get lunch, but I had already eaten some leftover pizza. She fussed that she doesn’t like any of the Chinese places in Fort Smith, so we went to Mulan’s where I just had a bowl of hot and sour soup for two bucks.

Afterward I made her tag along to Harbor Freight so I could pick up an axe to chop some firewood. A couple guys in the aisle spoke up to give me some advice and pointed me towards the axes with synthetic handles, but for the limited use it would see, we decided the big, red, wooden-handled fireman’s axe would be the coolest looking one to have hanging in the garage. We headed back to my house so Jesica could be on her way, and I loaded up as many logs as I could fit into my trunk.

I still had to run by Walmart for some s’mores materials and cilantro, and then it was off to Summer’s to prepare for our guests. I started by trying to chop some wood, and though my aim was true, I struggled to split the logs very evenly due to their age and having been partially eaten and weathered. Summer joined me outside to take out some of her own aggression, and ultimately we split the wooden handle and separated it from the head of the axe. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to run back by Harbor Freight for one of the previously suggested axes. They were closing early, but I was fortunate to have arrived five minutes before they did. Then I stopped by Walmart and ran all around looking for a decent lighter. I settled for a cheapo single pack from the garden center, then made my way back up to the house.

As though I’d found a calling from the wild, I split the remaining logs with the greatest of ease. Hair sprung from my chest and my voice dropped an octave, and we had firewood. Summer made a smorgasbord of pico de gallo, guacamole, ranch dip, deviled eggs, pigs in blankets, and a veggie tray while I took the lazy road with an Instant Pot of cheese dip, and we were ready to party. Ronda, Steven, and Maleea showed up while I was tending the coldest fire I’ve ever made. It didn’t get super hot until it was just coals at the end of the night.

Most everyone stayed inside since the fire wasn’t really hot enough to keep anybody warm. The girls watched some TV and played some Switch. Steven even got in on some Mario Kart with us for a few rounds. They couldn’t make it to midnight though, and left with only 50 minutes to go. Autumn had already gone to bed. Eaddie stayed up watching TV, but as soon as we finished cleaning up, Summer was off to bed.

…AND MY AXE!

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Trimming the Fat

I got out my puffy coat today, and boy did it keep me toasty on the way to work. My morning was pretty relaxed as everything has wound down with semester tests. Traffic was a mess at lunch time again because most of the kids checked out. I was craving KFC after reading an article about the Christmas tradition in Japan, so I rounded up Allen, Gary, and Brice to go along with me.

I spent the afternoon closing out a couple more work orders, so my Web Help Desk doesn’t even have a scroll bar any more. I also learned officially that Amanda is leaving us, so she and I chatted back and forth for a while. I stayed a bit late to call SuddenLink about my bill increase and got my 400mb service dropped to $57.49. The guy in their “save” department kept trying to convince me that customers signing up for the $39.99 price-for-life promotion would end up paying more than me, but I can’t imagine a 44% increase due to taxes and other fees. That’s cable company math for you though.

The evening seemed to go by pretty quickly at home, though I didn’t get a whole lot accomplished. I’m just ready for the break.

The call center has a lot of work from home positions too, which may be up your alley from what I hear…

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Just a Quiet Christmas Dinner with the Crew

I had to run back to the shop this morning because I forgot to grab a document camera on my way out yesterday. I stuck around for a little while just because it was so quiet there, but eventually I did make it up to the high school and successfully deployed Adobe Acrobat DC as a package instead of an application, because Adobe is stupid. We had a good size crew for lunch, which we wanted to keep light for the sake of having a Christmas dinner later in the evening, so we went for Taco Tuesday.

After lunch, I spent a bit more time at the shop before finishing up at the high school. I left work later than I should have because I was tinkering with some stuff, so I was just a little bit late getting changed for the party. I ran to pick up Summer, and we made our way to Old Bank for dinner. About half of the crew was already there, but with relationships and crew members shifted from where we were a few years ago, the whole night ended up being pretty quiet. To call it dull would be harsh, but we were upstairs by ourselves and the whole place just seemed really quiet.

When we finally split up, Summer and I went to get the girls and headed home. She and I watched a bit of YouTube while Eaddie did her homework, and then we were all off to bed.

This Tuesday feels an awful lot like Friday. Are we sure it’s not Friday? How would we really know for sure?

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Surprisingly Productive

I got up this morning and headed home to get ready for my all-you-can-eat date with Allen at Long John Silver’s. He called while I was in the shower and said he was on his way back from church, and then immediately gave up on me and went to eat without me instead of picking me up like we had planned. I met him there, but he had already finished eating. I made sure he wasn’t going to just get up and leave by the time I got my food, and we ended up sitting and chatting for a while. I was pretty aggravated at first, but I let that fizzle out as usual.

After I was stuffed with fish and chicken, we both headed home and I started washing my sheets and cleaning up the bedroom. I worked on that all day and late into the evening until bedtime. A better person would have made more progress, but I was happy with what I accomplished in my one little corner.

Well that was nearly half of my entire life.

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Gettin’ Weepy

The girls had all region today, so I got up alone and had some salad for breakfast before heading home to clean up. I had to get Aimee’s laptop from the high school to her at the junior high, and ended up sitting and chatting with her for quite a while. By the time I left there, Summer had already left the concession stand, so I left and stopped by Ridgewood Brothers to pick up some smoked turkey. I must have clicked something on the iPad that made it not charge my credit card, so when I got back to the car and realized it, I ran back to pay Robert and he handed me a side of slaw to go with it.

I ate a little when I got home, then cleaned the vacuum cleaner so I could clean up the bedroom a bit. There’s still a ton of junk in there to sort through and discard, but at this rate that will always be the case. Eventually Summer got everyone home, so I went to pick her and Autumn up so we could go to Walmart. I volunteered to make burgers and Autumn wanted to pick up some snacks for Eaddie and herself while Summer and I were out with friends.

We dropped Autumn off and gathered everything up to head to John and Melissa’s. Travis was already there, and Veronica and her kids showed up a bit after that. We had a great time eating and drinking, and then tried to play some Magic: The Gathering until we gave up on teaching three new players and switching to Cards Against Humanity. Asher had brought it and wanted to play, but we refused until he could beat Travis at Magic. The kids ended up leaving to go to an escape room anyway, which made it all the more funny when they returned to us playing their game.

By the end of the night, Travis had gotten pretty weepy about everything, so we tried to sober him up enough just for us to take him home. As I walked him into his house, he seemed very concerned about the Dust from His Dark Materials. I did my best to reassure him, and locked him in his house so I could get home with Summer for some sleep.

I AM THE DARKNESS! I AM THE ONE WHO DUSTS!

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Busy Start to a Busy Weekend

Amanda and I coordinated our Weird Al shirts for today’s meeting. Allen and I were going to team up for the day, but before we could do that we had a conference room meeting about job expectations. It was a little foreboding, but I was hopeful.

Allen and I first went to the high school with the trailer to pick up the cart that had mysteriously appeared in my office the day before. We took it back to the shop, then took a touch panel to Crawford to be installed in the afternoon. Since we were on that side of town, I offered to ride up to Center Valley with him to check out their sign. I pulled the truck right up to it, which worked perfectly for climbing up to the raised panels. We couldn’t get any video out, so we pulled the computer and headed back to the shop for lunch.

I had been thinking of Fat Daddy’s, and I guess that psychically rubbed off onto everyone else, because a huge group of six of us went to the one downtown. I got the nachos since they were presented so much better than the one in London. Then it was back to the shop to get ready for Allen’s touch panel install.

When we finished with that, we ran by the high school so I could check on Ethan and his robotics tournament setup. We got him squared away, then stopped in to see Al, who had accidentally hidden all of his desktop icons. Jason called us all back to the shop at the end of the day, which was predictably bad. It’s upsetting to see that happen to a friend, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to do the things if you’re going to have a job. I really love Ben as a boss, but I hate how easy it is for people to take advantage of his want to see the best in everyone.

With that done, they let us out a bit early and I headed home to bring in the day’s shipments. It wasn’t too long before I had to head to Walmart for some drinks for dinner with Ronda and Steven. Inside wasn’t too bad, but traffic outside was an absolute zoo. I was running behind and still had to swing by to pick up the girls. We ran on up the mountain and had a great time and an incredible feast of M-E-A-T! Steven grilled marinated pork chops and ribeyes to go with some asparagus and tomatoes, twice-baked potatoes, and more. Every time I turned around, he was making something else for us. He really pulled out all the stops for us, and I hate that I don’t think I could ever top that, but I think he and I just really enjoy hosting like that.

We all ate so much, and the girls had fun with Maleea, but we had to get everyone home for all region band in the morning. I had to give up programming their DirecTV remote, and we got everyone to bed with a medium amount of fighting. Looks like we’re going to be running all weekend.

What an extravaganza.