Tag: friends

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I’ll Never Forget About Larry

Summer had to work this morning, which allowed for me to sleep in a while. With Thanksgiving break nearly over, I let myself get a pretty slow start to the day. I had to get the girls from their friend’s house, but first I stopped by the Ridgewood Brothers to try and snag some brisket. Grant handed me a cube of it out the window as I approached, and it just melted in my mouth. I picked up a couple pounds along with some sides, picked up the girls, and took them home.

Summer got home just a bit after us, we ate, and then left the girls to clean house while we went shopping. My first stop was Bath & Body Works, where I dragged her around the store sniffing soaps. I had a coupon, a need for fancy foaming soaps, and a complete lack of shame for being the one that wanted to go shopping there.

Next we stopped at my house for just a moment before heading to Walmart for groceries and other shopping list things I needed. I ended up grabbing one of those Black Friday pressure washers that Julie was going on about, since they had a pallet of them left over. I wish we could have spent a little more time looking, but we had to get back before Harry got to the house.

When we got there, the girls were inside giggling about how he was driving up and down the road trying to find their house, rather than trying to help direct him to the place. Summer started cooking most of the meal, and I changed the oil for some sweet potato fries. The kids played the Switch a bit before wandering back through the house. Dinner was simple and good, though I was still pretty full from the late BBQ lunch.

We played a couple quick rounds of Stuff Happens and Uno before the girls settled in to watch The Conjuring. Eaddie was probably the most excited to watch a scary movie, but I knew the game. Harry ended up having to leave before the movie was over, so Autumn went to her room for the night while I helped Eaddie finish the movie. Once that was over, she beat me in some Mario Kart before awkwardly snuggling to some Luke Cage. She started to fall asleep in the middle of the second episode, so that was the end of the day.

Just trying to make up for lost time…

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Super Ridgewood Bros.

I couldn’t sleep in this morning for all the light pouring into the house. Summer had to work, so it was just the girls and me all morning. Eaddie came out and played some Mario Kart and Ultimate Alliance 3 with me for a bit. Eventually I headed home to clean up, then went to pick up some food from Grant and Robert. Evidently Felix helps out there occasionally as well, and then Ray stopped in and chatted with me for a bit while I waited. Grant came around and handed me a big sack of meat that I took to the shop for Summer, along with some rolls and chips from the Neighborhood Market. The ribs were thick and meaty, and some of the best we’d ever had. At first I thought the sauce was a bit overpowered by apple cider vinegar, but it really grew on me as I continued eating.

Once we were stuffed from that, I finally stopped by Walgreens to fill my prescription. Then I headed home to try out Destiny 2 on Stadia. The game ran great, and though I absolutely despised playing it on a controller, I felt like it helped the input latency feel less significant. Overall I was very impressed with how well it ran, and also pretty overwhelmed by the unnecessarily complicated nature of the game. Hopefully Stadia will be great for some racing games though.

After a while I got really cold in the house, so I decided to warm things up by doing a little cleaning. I got all the dishes done and cleaned up a bit of space in the kitchen before Summer got here. The girls spent the night with their father since the Splash company Thanksgiving event happens tomorrow evening, and we can have a good day in Little Rock until then. Once she did get here, I showed her a bit of Stadia and how much anxiety I have about how much is going on in that game. We were going to watch Battlestar Galactica: Razor, but ended up watching a few Tesla videos instead until we were both too tired to stay up any longer.

I’m actually only feeding two, but one of them is me!

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Ramping up for Break

We met at the shop this morning but didn’t have any projects, so I ended up walking around vo-tech with Ben and some guys that were going to quote a cell dialer for our fire panels. Afterward, I went inside and did a couple little work orders before heading back to the shop for lunch. Allen was the only one at the shop, so he and I left to meet Gary, Zach, and Jason at Brangus for lunch. My beef spud was particularly good today.

After lunch I got a bit of an ocular migraine and had to sit down for a while. Gary came into Zach’s office with me since Zach left for a lockdown drill, and we chatted about what life is like being surrounded by girls. Nearing the end of the day, we started to look at my PowerShell script again, but ultimately left without learning much even after Ben joined in.

I ran home to get my delivered Stadia package inside, then went to Russellville Eye Clinic for my appointment. I had to fill out some new patient paperwork and waited just a little while before they called me back. Then they set me up at a machine with a little farm house inside it, and it wiggled around until it had my approximate prescription. Most of my time in the back was spent giving them information about my past prescriptions, but at one point they brought the insurance lady back to talk to me, and it was my old classmate Brian’s mother Donna that recognized my name and came back to chat briefly.

Overall, my experience at the clinic was wonderful, and everyone I dealt with was super friendly. I guess nobody really went way out of their way to do anything necessarily, and the girl that helped me initially seemed pretty new, but nothing about my visit was deserving of any of the 1-star reviews the place has on Google Maps. Once I complete my contact fitting and get new glasses or whatever, I’ll have to add my own comments.

When I got back home, I set up my Stadia and tried to load up Destiny 2, but encountered an error. Clint said the game servers crashed earlier today, which made me feel better about it not being a Stadia issue, but I still didn’t get a chance to play anything before I had to run to Summer’s to get the girls. Autumn had a date to go bowling, and the rest of the family chaperoned. The boy seemed nice, though awkward and possibly a bit outwardly immature for a 17-year-old. It was a good time though, and a couple girls I knew came up and bowled next to us. Taylor mentioned their annual Halloween party and said she would have to make sure I got the invite next year, and before they left I had to point Alex out to Summer because she didn’t really recognize me as the one who bought their Grom.

The girls went to bed pretty quickly once we got home. I sat down to re-skin my Pixel 2 XL, and got the new screen protector on as well. Then I lost myself in Zenni Optical for a while before heading to sleep.

I had forgotten how beautiful this bare phone is.

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Has the Moon Lost Her Memory

I nearly had to amputate my hands from the cold ride in today because I was too stupid to wear my gloves. Otherwise it was a beautiful day to ride. I started at the shop and had Gary help me look at the deployment I was struggling to fix. Then Ben came around and helped prod me through a printer setup because I was tired of all the little one-off solutions left by my predecessors. I went to the high school for a bit, then came back to meet up with Allen, Gary, and Zach at Taco John’s for lunch. That place was super quiet for a lunch hour, but I don’t know what I expected on a day other than Taco Tuesday.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly as I ran around the building closing work orders. I got a call from someone at corporate Walmart letting me know to expect a call from the local store to set up an exchange of our bad ONN television, which was far more than I expected. I’ll have to meet with a manager there tomorrow, and they seem keen to do anything to make it right. I didn’t even intend to ruffle any feathers, but it’s nice they’re going out of their way.

I ran to Sonic for some quick dinner, then to Summer’s shop to share some cheese sticks before getting ready for Melodie’s celebration of life up on Crow Mountain. Charlie was there, and the only one I knew outside of the family. Of course Brandie and Candace were there and came around to visit. It really was a perfect night to gather and remember, though for a moment on the drive I thought for sure I was being hoodwinked for my kidneys as I drove on into the pitch blackness. Ana was running around playing with the other kids, but stopped by to sass me for a bit too. I spent a good amount of time chatting up Seth just to try and lay some groundwork since I’d never met him before.

After we shut that place down, I headed to Summer’s to get her TV so I could run it straight to Walmart after work. I tried to swing by and catch Zach, the manager, tonight so I wouldn’t have to risk the rain tomorrow, but that was a bust. Finally I headed home to bed.

Burnt out ends of smoky days…

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Huttin’ for Food

I slept really well last night, and all I wanted to do was stay in bed. It was a little chilly out, but it warmed up nicely. My morning went by pretty quickly as I caught up on things at the high school. Then Allen and I went to Pizza Hut for lunch. I saw Robert and Grant there and learned that they’ve both gone full time with their BBQ business, so I feel doubly obligated to visit them sometime soon.

After lunch, I spent a bit of time at the shop getting a computer ready, then headed back to the high school for the day. I ended up staying a little late because some student data wouldn’t migrate for me, and I eventually just had to give up and go home. Once there, I cleaned up a very little bit and milled around the house for a bit until bed.

Plenty of memories down Ridgewood…

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Seven Player Megonopoly

Summer had to moderate a quiz bowl event today, so I got up shortly after they left to make some breakfast and then go home. I was a bit slow getting started, but eventually became productive. I spent too much time messing with my Google Home/Nest speakers, but discovered my Chromecast Audio devices would output an optical signal, so I eventually got that going in the living room for a true whole-home audio system that sounds great. I started to get the kitchen cleaned up as well as I bounced from one thing to another.

Eventually I got showered and headed to Walmart for cheese dip stuff, and to my horror it had already become quite the zoo. There were so many people wandering around with such full carts, and I could barely make it from aisle to aisle. I loaded my arms full of everything I needed and then some, and the only saving grace was a zero wait time at the newer self checkout lanes they recently opened.

Back at Summer’s, I made the cheese dip in the Instant Pot by first sauteing some hamburger meat with some onions, Rotel, and taco seasoning. I had twice the hamburger meat the recipe called for, but I added some American cheese to it on a whim. The whole thing came out looking pretty bad, and the cheese didn’t seem to properly melt very well, leaving what looked like tiny pellets of unmelted Velveeta. It tasted fine though, and soon we were off to John and Melissa’s.

Travis was there, along with Maria and her boyfriend Asher. Veronica showed up eventually after running around town doing very Veronica things. We snacked on dips and eventually got a game of Monopoly going for seven of us. We had to break out a different set for the extra money and player tokens, but we made it work. It didn’t take us very long to break down some of the rules, but having a couple drinkers around made everyone giggly enough that nobody cared. Much fun was had by all, lasting late into the night.

But what if we put two whole boards together into a figure-8?!?

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Meeting My Pot Dealer Before the Party

We got up this morning with enough time for a little breakfast, so I made some pretty bad Ramsay eggs to go over the last of the sourdough that Suzanne brought us. Then I went home to shower while Summer took Eaddie to the gym. Once ready, I got Summer and we went to the Hughes Center for the craft show where Suzanne was selling the last of her pottery. Summer got a mug, and I picked up a butter bell because I’d wanted one for quite a while but not enough to actually go out and buy one.

We chatted a while and lost track of time, so we had to leave in a hurry and run across town to get Gary before Dale’s birthday shindig. I expected there to be trouble parking, but it was actually relatively empty. Ben brought his family, and Allen eventually showed up with Charlotte, but that was all of our group that made it. It was a really good time, but I expected about three times that many people since Dale knows someone everywhere we go.

After the party, we headed back to Summer’s and laid around watching YouTube videos while the girls went to dinner with their father. Eventually they got back home and I had to go get Noah from work. Eaddie rode with me to DJ the ride, and then we watched an episode of Parks and Recreation before Summer went to bed. I played a little Mario Kart with Eaddie before going to sleep myself.

I miss nuts and seeds way more than I expected.

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Move It, Buster!

The clocks rolled back an hour last night, so of course I woke up fairly early and just lounged around with the cat until Summer got up. Eventually I got cleaned up, and we headed to Conway for a bit of shopping. We stopped by Kohl’s first, then Target before meeting Hannah and Dylan at Red Robin for lunch. They made the trip down after church, we ate, and then ran through Sam’s for a few things before heading on to Little Rock.

We got to Dave & Buster’s relatively early and went right in to play. I had picked up a Groupon for a “date night” pair of unlimited play cards a while back, and we had been meaning to make it down there to use them for the past couple months but just never made it. This was the last weekend before they expired, so I was feeling the pressure. They each came with 18 chips and unlimited free plays on any blue card readers, which basically eliminated anything new or that gave tickets.

It took us a little while to get used to the cards, since we were technically improperly using them for four people. We had to wait 60 seconds after scanning each card, so getting all four of us in the same racing game was a bit of a challenge. We did find that it worked well for shooters, since you could just keep scanning every minute to bank credits. We finished the entire 15-stage first chapter of Tomb Raider in a bit under an hour. At first I wasn’t sure I had made a good purchase, but I think at the end of it all they convinced me it was a good buy. It would have been less awkward to use them for just two people as intended, but I bet we could have made the kids share.

Nobody wanted to eat when we left, and it was getting a bit late anyway, so we headed on home, dropping the others off at their car along the way. I got home and cleaned up a bit before heading up to Summer’s for the evening.

A truck of Vick’s VapoRub crashed and spilled all over the highway.
There was no congestion for eight hours.

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Hey You Guize!

It was just above freezing this morning, but fortunately a clear drive home. I had to take extra care getting ready, to layer my costumes well. I was to dress up as Amanda, but I wanted a less niche and more casual outfit underneath, so I had my usual Dracula t-shirt on. Then I donned some skinny jeans, cow socks, house shoes, a blue zip-up hoodie, wet hair parted on the right, hole-punched red dot stickers for gauged ears, Red Bull, and a flask of lighter fluid to complete the look. When I got to work, I got a few chuckles, but I don’t think most of them truly appreciated how much effort I put into the ensemble.

We didn’t actually have a meeting other than to see each others costumes, so I headed on to the high school for real work. There, I ran into Doug as he was helping Misty bring some things into the greenhouse. Then I immediately changed out of my skinny jeans into some slim ones that felt suddenly very loosey goosey. I fixed a couple other things pretty quickly, and then mulled around the laptops a bit more.

I was going to stop by the shop to see if I could find a lunch partner for something a little lighter than usual. I had gotten stuck by the D&R Railroad when Ben called to see what I was eating, and we decided to meet up at Linhs. We had a really good chat over some really good food as we usually do, and then it was back to work. I decided to end the school day by blaring Thriller as the final bell rang and kids flooded into the hallways. Again, I felt like not many truly appreciated what I was doing there. The workday ended on a higher note as I was able to recover my bricked touch panel by installing the correct firmware.

When I got home, I shed all the extra clothes and tried to make sense of my evening. The girls had gone out to eat for dinner and weren’t doing anything for Halloween. Summer was working out and would have to start prepping some chili for work tomorrow. Suzanne was going to come visit and meet the family, but wasn’t certain of the time or whether she’d be able to join us for an actual meal that was up to me to produce. I ended up picking up some Taco Villa on the way up to Summer’s, and we ate as she ran around the kitchen all evening.

Suzanne eventually showed up with a gift of some fresh sourdough bread that she had labored over all afternoon, and we sat and chatted for quite a while. I do miss the days of being able to stay up and do that for longer, but hopefully this time of year will allow for more of that.

This hammock itches inconveniently.

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Constructing the Shittiest Laptops

It was really slow this morning, so I broke down and started pulling good parts off of any laptops I had in for service. Then I put all the broken, shattered, wet, and otherwise malfunctioning parts back together to make the shittiest, grossest laptops for shipment back to Lenovo for repairs. My Safelite appointment got moved to the afternoon, so I went to Wendy’s for lunch with Allen. Then we went to the middle school for some ice cream cake Charlotte got for one of her employee’s birthday.

Just as we finished up there, Safelite called and I headed to my parents’ house so we could have the repair done in the garage. Luckily it started to rain quite a bit just after I got there, so I made the right call. The repair didn’t take all that long, and though the crack is still very visible, at least now I don’t have to worry so much about it spreading. I went to the shop for a little while to check out some toothpaste Oreos that Melinda brought. I think Gary was the only one to be had with that prank. I wish I had gone to get some regular Oreos before I got there, so I could pretend to eat and enjoy them in front of her.

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the high school working on a few work orders that had come in. Then I managed to brick a Newline touch panel on the way out, which kept me there a bit late. By the time I finished up, I had to go get Eaddie from her activities. We went back to my house for a little bit before heading up to her house.

I started cooking some of the last of the chicken for salads and then we all pretty well called it a night.

Quiet contemplation over Gravity