The More Geese, the Better

I woke up hungry and had a pretty bad headache this morning. Summer had made burritos while I was gone, so I made one for breakfast before taking a shower to get out for the day. By the time we got out of the house, the girls wanted to eat. Eaddie was being pretty rude, which made me mad on top of other general aggravations, so when we got to Stoby’s where they wanted to eat, I just left them and went to my house to get my computer chair.

By the time I got it loaded up, poked around the house a bit, and got about halfway to the new house, they said they were done eating. I went to pick them up and we went to the house to drop off my computer chair. Then my parents came over to go furniture shopping with us. I had made a floor plan for the living room on an app I found for my phone, so we could visualize the space a bit better this time.

We went to Strouds first, and the guy there was the opposite of a pressuring salesman. Then we went to Cleo’s where we looked at the same sectionals we had liked from before. We should have shopped again earlier, because the ones we wanted weren’t in stock. We ended up ordering one online that was much more expensive, and we had no way to test it out beyond one picture on their website. Hopefully we like it.

From there, we went to the junk store to see what they had. My parents left from there while Eaddie waited in the car for Summer and me to finish looking around. We didn’t find anything of any interest, so we went back home for a while. I had another burrito, and then they girls decided they wanted to go back out to do some more shopping.

We went to Walmart for a few things we needed, and then stopped by my old house to get some things from the pantry. Finally we made it home for the night, and Summer went to bed. Eaddie went out with some friends, and I sorted the spice cabinet.

I guess it’s not nothing.

Al imPastor

I held on to a headache for most of the day. I wanted to move some more stuff from the old house, but I guess we got rained out, or at least de-prioritized again. Maybe I’m just not being vocal, specific, or immediate enough when I say that I want to move things, but I really thought I made this weekend’s goals clear. The girls left at some point to get some stuff so Eaddie could make Oreo balls, and Summer said she was making al pastor for dinner. I didn’t unpack what she bought, otherwise I would have noticed the slab of beef.

We ended up getting two things done today. Dad came over to carve pumpkins, and brought his drain snake along to try and clean out the drain for the driveway. He tried to run an old washcloth through after he got the snake all the way down the pipe, but it wouldn’t make the turn. I’ll just have to get a hose out later to clean it out, assuming I can access the spigot at ground level on the front of the house. It’s possible that it doesn’t work, like the second on on the back of the house.

Once we finished with that, we came inside and carved pumpkins. I couldn’t think of anything more scary than “8.5% for 30 years” worth of home loans, so that was my pumpkin. I carved until my fingers bled, and then ended up cutting out the letters anyway because they weren’t visible enough.

Summer got dinner going while I went to the Neighborhood Market for the things they forgot. I found some bags of rice that apparently just had to be microwaved. They smelled good when we cooked them, but the rice was rubbery. Summer’s beef “al pastor” was tough and mostly cold and dry. I had been excited all day, so dinner was a big letdown. I don’t think she could even tell me what cut of beef she bought. I’m pretty sure she exclusively shops by complete impulse after a weekend of fighting various things around the house.

My headache compounded with at least a dozen other aggravations from the day got the best of me, so I went to find some quiet in the bedroom, and then called it an early night.

I should really have checked the murder basement.

Enough of Ceilings

I knew I’d have a long day at work by myself, so I stopped by Burger King for a couple biscuits and then McDonald’s for a McGriddle that I actually ate on the drive in. It was super quiet for a training day, but as soon as I got to work I just felt sleepy. It took me a couple hours to get into a groove, and I closed a bunch of work requests.

I ate one of my biscuits a little before lunch time and saved the last one for the next day. My last task for the day was discovering that some idiot used the wrong power adapter to power a speaker amplifier and nearly made me climb up into the ceiling to check out a perfectly good speaker.

After work, I went home to charge for a while before stopping by my parents’ house. Dad had gone to the house to help wire my doorbell, thinking I was home for the day. I didn’t stay long at their house though, because I was hungry for dinner. I went home to change and ended up at McDonald’s for a ridiculous bag of food. Two Big Macs, 20 McNuggets, and two medium fries were as much as the meal I wanted plus some nuggets to try with their new sauces.

I ended up taking it to the old house to finish charging. I didn’t regret adding the nuggets, because the new sauces were great. The Sweet and Spicy Jam was my favorite. I begrudgingly finished the fries and nuggets since they started really fresh and wouldn’t have been any good cold, but I saved the other Big Mac for later.

Summer went with Eaddie for orchestra tryouts, and Eaddie made first chair. I went home and poked my head up into the attic to see if I could find a path to the front door for the bell wire. Failing that and not feeling comfortable on the popsicle stick ladder, I came back inside and tinkered with another Nest Hub for the kitchen.

John called and said they would be over in the morning to start on the electrical work, so I got the new Tesla Wall Connector out. The girls got home and Summer went straight to bed. I chatted with Eaddie for a little bit, and was late to bed after fighting with the Arvest website to pay the mortgage. I guess I’ll have to start calling some other people to see if I can get anyone at all out to the house to fix the ceiling.

Rzlfrzl

Wiped Out

I slept in a little bit this morning, but tried to get productive relatively quickly. It was difficult, and I wasn’t super successful, but I did get some things done. I ate some leftovers when Eaddie left to meet with her robotics team. Dad came over to help replace the refrigerator part, but that didn’t actually resolve the issue. John stopped by to let me know he wasn’t actually going to be doing any work today, which seemed like it could have been a text. I was pretty aggravated by that, but whaddya do?

I cleaned up some more leftovers for lunch after Dad left, and was frustrated some more just by things in the kitchen. Then I decided to shampoo a single strip in the office nook just to see if I could get any more dirt out. It ended up not being too bad, so I decided to move Summer’s desk up into that area where it was still dry.

By the time all of that was done, I had to sit down for an interview with a couple people in Wisconsin for Rockline. It was a pretty long-winded interview for me, and I wasn’t quite sure how much I would enjoy going to work every day, especially if I have to drive to Booneville four days a week. I doubt the price will be right, but we’ll see.

Summer made it home late while I was cleaning up in the kitchen. She bathed and I got some bills and other paperwork organized and out of the dining room. It wasn’t long before she was asleep, and I actually made it to bed on time for a change.

I could do with some cheese.

Noisy Day

I spent a lot of the day by myself because Kim kept disappearing. I keep having to go through and close old work orders from a month ago that I feel like she should have done, but I’m sure she feels like I should have done more myself. It’s just hard for me to focus on random daily requests when I’m also the one that has to do anything even remotely technical. She’s not in there modifying any scripts.

She said Mel was picking up roast beef sandwiches for lunch, so I had her pick one up for me too. It was pretty decent for eight bucks at a gas station. I ate by myself after she brought food back and then left for duty. Then she disappeared for most of the afternoon before leaving early to do something else. I just don’t know what’s going on in her head, but it doesn’t seem like work.

I stayed late to close out a bunch of stuff, and then headed home to charge and feed the fish for just a little bit before heading to the new house. Summer made a pretty good dinner of stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, and citrus green beans. At least all of the components tasted good on their own, but it lacked in cohesion.

The TV never went off the entire evening, so I disappeared to the bedroom to relax in the quiet. It’s frustrating that there’s just nowhere I can go to get away from all of the noise. Kim has started leaving the TV on at work. The kids are loud outside my office door. Summer blasts cooking shows at home. There’s just no retreat.

At least there’s a conference week ahead.

Highly Illogical

Johnny called me for some help this morning on my drive to work. Apparently they have just been blacklisting Chrome extensions instead of whitelisting, so students have been getting around all of their policies. Easy enough of a fix. Denice had people meeting in her office all day, so I had my earbuds in early. Then after lunch, Kim and I went to the elementary to close out a few work orders. It’s frustrating that she’s clearly not going through them and closing them out. She seems to just come to work to socialize, and I’m just not paid enough to supervise her.

I wrapped up the day and headed home to charge for a while. Summer cooked dinner, but I showed up just as she finished eating. Then I sat on the porch for most of the evening until I came in to do my chores before bed.

Dys

Pixel8ed

I slept reasonably well through the night, so I was surprised at how tired I was when I woke up this morning. I had another annoying shower, fighting with the hot water again. Then it was a McChicken Biscuit kind of morning for the drive to work. It was a bit of a struggle getting Kim to focus, which was especially bad since Denice was in the office for most of the day. Summer sent me a picture of the back of her car where someone must have hit it with something and gouged the paint a bit. She tried to look through the dashcam footage, but couldn’t find anything.

I spent my entire day working on VMware again, and with Gary’s help, I got my log files cleaned up, and everything was working again. I learned quite a bit, but there’s still so much more. They had a pep rally in the afternoon, and then school let out for a three-day weekend that I really needed.

After work, I ran straight to the new house to get my Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel Watch 2. I spent most of the evening setting them up, until the girls got home and I went out to find some food. I went to the Neighborhood Market to see if they had anything interesting in the deli. They did not. Then I went to Kroger and ended up getting some brats to grill.

Summer was asleep by the time I got back, so I ate by myself, tinkered for a while longer, and then finally went to bed late.

Every day, there’s something new.

Bashed

I was exhausted this morning, but I made it to work early again. Eaddie ended up sleeping in and going to school around lunch time, and I was so mad and jealous at the same time. I had to dig into my VMware issues some more, but still didn’t have a fix. It looks like I’ll have to learn some more command line stuff to really fix it. It was a long day, but thankfully my coffee got me through it.

Afterward, I went straight home to charge for a while. I ended up just figuring dinner on my own because Summer made chicken salads, and I was tired of salad after eating one every day at school. I took the Shadow out, and it was a cool night for my first ride in months. I felt bad that I hadn’t taken the bikes out earlier, but I just haven’t had a good opportunity for it in a long time.

I tried going to Taco Bell at first, and it looked like they had remodeled and duplicated the Chick-fil-A method of multiple drive-through lines. Those were packed, but I wanted to dine inside anyway. When I went into the restaurant, there were about a dozen other people standing around waiting for food, and I didn’t see a single person eating anything. I decided to dip pretty quickly, and ended up going to McDonald’s for an equally poor experience. Employees were yelling at each other across the restaurant, my fries weren’t very fresh, and my Quarter Pounder wasn’t made correctly at all. The lady behind me was traveling through, and went Super-Karen because she wasn’t happy with how her food was made either. She kept muttering to herself, and I realized pretty quickly I was in CrazyTown.

I took the bike back home after I ate, and took the Model 3 for a wash before going to the new house. Summer was helping Eaddie study for tests, so I took care of my own chores and made it to bed roughly on time.

It’s the state of the civilization for me.

Imbalance

I was a little bit behind this morning, and I still had a mix of my routine at the new house and at the old house. I never brought shoes over, so I had to wear flip-flops to the old house to feed the fish, brush my teeth, and then get to work on time. I jumped right on some super old requisitions that I had, and then spent like two hours on printing asset tags. That basically took me through lunch, when I had to work with earbuds because of the noise. I hate my new office arrangement so much.

I spent most of the afternoon in PowerShell trying to figure out why our existing scripts were screwing up student accounts in Clever. I ended up staying super late after a day of hearing Kim on her phone, but I think I got most of it fixed before testing tomorrow.

My car seemed to be taking a bit longer to charge than I expected, so I was home for a while before I finally went to Taco John’s for dinner. Then I went back to the house to kill some more time, pay some bills, and charge before going to the new house for the night.

I just want to pay my gas bill.

Snoop 8-Double-0-Double-g

I got up this morning and made myself a coffee in my shiny new, white Ember Mug. Summer wanted me to smoke some ribs, so I had to get an early start for the over six-hour process. When she got up, she seemed to be having a rough day, and we could never quite put a finger on why. I think we both just feel a little stuck in a house that we can’t fully unpack in yet, and to be honest, I think maybe she’s starting to feel how I’ve felt at her house for the past several years.

I got the ribs onto the smoker, but struggled to get anything connected or updated properly. The Ember Mug refused to update its firmware, just as my other one did for years. Then the Gravity 800 smoker wouldn’t connect to the new wireless network. It took me nearly two hours to get everything connected properly.

Eaddie left for band practice pretty early in the day, so Summer and I ran to my old house for my barbecue spray bottle. We had to get back to spritz the meat, but then we went to Zaxby’s for some lunch before going to Walmart to pick up some potatoes and Brussels sprouts for dinner.

When we got back to the house, I wrapped the ribs for two more hours on the grill. Then I unwrapped them for one last hour with a maple glaze. I was pleased that we got rid of a whole bottle of Larry the Cable Guy seasoning and the ribs didn’t turn out too salty.

We also moved the cabinets out of the laundry room and into the building out back. I’m having trouble coming up with a good name for it, and I think we need another “shed” for lawn equipment. Eaddie brought Eli over for dinner, and nobody complained about any of the food. Afterward, I cleaned up the kitchen and got the smoker prepped for next time.

Just as I finally had a chance to settle down, Eaddie made it back home and came into the bedroom to tell me she had gotten a flat tire. She had some story about getting scared by another vehicle, which didn’t seem to make any sense. We went out to take a look, and the front-passenger wheel was sitting on the ground with a completely flat tire. We didn’t see a tear in the tire anywhere, and I especially don’t know how she managed to hit the front and not the back. Luckily Summer will be able to take her to school in the morning, and get the tire replaced tomorrow.

I need a substantial break, and that dog needs to shut the hell up. These new neighbors are ruining our outdoor vibe.