Sitting in an Office and Doing Stuff

It was way cooler outside today after all the rain, so I decided to take the bike in to work. They didn’t really need me for group work, so I stayed at the shop and worked on things in my office. It was really quiet all day, and I only took a break to pick up lunch with the guys.

We had Tacos 4 Ever again, and this time I tried the nachos. At first I was worried that they looked small, but they really packed a lot into that foil dish. The chips got soggy too, so there wasn’t a lot of air taking up space where the precious food could go. It was packed densely with lots of meat and flavor.

I spent most of the afternoon tinkering with the wiki again, and I think I’ve been fighting incompatible versions with the VisualEditor extension. I stayed late again just because I felt like I was making a little bit of progress, and then Ben ran me off again.

The ride home was nice and I wished I could have just ridden off somewhere, but I had to get home and out of work clothes. Then I just didn’t feel like getting back out, so I played some Overwatch and sold some turnips on someone else’s island.

Eventually I made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and the girls were back home from their father’s. Summer was already in bed though, so I just laid around with her until my own bedtime.

Make sure your output correlates with the input.

MATTE BLACK EVERYTHING

I took Zach with me to the high school this morning so we could try and move some laptops from the library back to my office, but the custodians had the whole hallway taped off so they could strip the floors. I’m going to have to get in there to do some work sooner than later, but I really haven’t been too ambitious about anything anyway.

For lunch, we went by Tropical Smoothie for a couple free smoothies. Then I picked at a few things at the office until Gary mentioned something about doing some network equipment changes at London. I volunteered to go out with him even though it would extend a couple hours past my quitting time.

We drove out, got two switches replaced and set up two existing ones that just weren’t configured yet. I was mostly just another set of hands, but it was nice to get out and do something else for a bit.

After work, I went by to see Summer at the shop before heading home and starting laundry. Some of the guys started showing up online and I just sort of passively listened to them while they played something. As my last bit of laundry finished up in the dryer, I played a few rounds of Overwatch. Then it was off to bed.

THE GAME

Quarantine Schwarantine

Everyone was back to the office today, though the only new face I actually saw was Allen. I guess Heather was either out or staying away from the shop. I went in and planted my flag to officially commandeer Jason’s old office, and started picking at little things to do. I really needed to go to the high school to clean up some more laptops, but I just never made it over there.

Zach, Gary, Greg, and I went to Wendy’s and started in line by the road. It took us quite a while to get around, I’m guessing because everyone ahead had multiple orders like we did. Ours seemed to come out pretty quickly, and the fries were cold and soggy for all the time we waited, but otherwise it was good. Everyone got spicy chicken sandwiches, which I’ll bet was what Wendy wanted since beef seems to be super expensive now.

After lunch was mostly more of the same, just picking at old work orders and closing out what I could. I tried updating one of the LanSchool servers, but couldn’t even successfully log into it. On the way out for the day, I tried convincing Ben to just spend the extra money on Impero because it’s better anyway, and administration won’t let us actually have any of the money that we’ve been saving the district. I think it’s time we try a new strategy of running out of money and making them come up with more for us to spend.

When I got home, I spend a good amount of time in Overwatch just trying to get my wins in for the week. It just felt like children everywhere though, and I kept getting the dumbest teammates. Eventually Summer showed up and we went to my parents’ house for dinner.

At the end of the evening, I did my chores in Animal Crossing, then researched some more gaming laptops before bed.

At a dollar a day, can I really afford not to invest in a new computer to last me the next decade?

Do You Pay My Automo’ Bills

I got up pretty early this morning after going to bed early, and managed to get invited to another island to offload the rest of my turnips. The stalk market has been good to me, and today turned out to be a pretty good day in the stock market as well. I even hosted a couple other people to my island to buy the rare royal crown item that was being sold at my tailor’s shop.

Autumn told me around lunch time that Noah forgot his work clothes here when he went home, so I had to leave pretty early to deliver them back to him. I stopped at Casey’s on the way for a free water, dropped off his clothes, then went on to my house for the afternoon.

I did my best to stay at least a little bit productive, but I was pretty easily sidetracked today. I did manage to pay off a couple old medical bills that I had been avoiding because it appeared as though they kept fluctuating due to insurance. In the end, most of them did still have to be paid, and I’ve decided that a better course of action would have been to follow my own advice with what I already understood of my own body, rather than go to a doctor and a specialist to end up paying a bunch of money just to confirm what I already knew.

Mom and Dad came by to look at my porch columns, and I fed the bettas some fresh larvae I spotted in my water bucket. I ate my leftover pasta from last week, and generally milled around the house all evening before finally taking a shower and heading up to Summer’s for the night.

I – Don’t – Think – You – Do!

Predatory Loan Officer, Tom Nook

I got up kind of early this morning and went to check on the bunny. It seemed slightly better, but still wasn’t at 100%. I just let it burrow into my arm while I played Animal Crossing. I bought a ton of turnips and found someone on Reddit that had time traveled so I could turn right around and sell them. Traveling to their island didn’t go as smoothly as my previous visits to other islands, but I managed to sell enough to pay off my final loan in the game.

Summer got up and made some pasta with rib meat that everyone really loved. Then everyone had to jump to cleaning house before the girls had friends over for the night. Eaddie and Noah mowed, and Eaddie plowed right over the flower I planted next to the stairs in the front yard.

I went home for a while to clean up and decompress. Overwatch was holding their anniversary event, so I spent most of my time trying to earn as many loot boxes as I could before heading back up to Summer’s for the evening.

Summer picked Noah up from work and got back shortly after I got there. The girls and their friends were all inside playing. Noah and I warmed up some chicken Alfredo that Summer made for dinner. Then I spent some time with the bunny because it looked like it was on the edge of death. It seemed super dehydrated and skinny, so I kept trying to force it some water and milk. Eventually it did pep back up a bit, but I don’t know why it seemed so much worse seemingly within just a few hours.

Eventually everyone found their way to bed for a pretty late evening.

Multibellionaire.

Not Friday

I wanted to sleep in so much this morning, but one of the cats came up and bit me on the forehead. The cool weather all night with the windows open had me at an absolutely perfect level of cozy, but I had to get up and face the day. Autumn got up and made bacon and pancakes for breakfast, but we didn’t have any syrup, so they sent me to Dollar General for that, Nutella, and ice cream for later. I used the app to check out, but the tablet at the front was turned off for some reason. Luckily I found the power button and got it booted up, and was able to check out without any trouble.

Breakfast was great, and then I got into some work for a while. I took some game breaks either with Animal Crossing or Grid on Stadia. Since Google was giving away two month trials of Stadia, I figured I could hop back on and try it again now that there are more games available, and I was pretty pleased with Grid. I wasn’t any good at it, but it looked and played well.

Eventually I had to get the girls out of their rooms to do something, so Autumn started on some laundry and cleaning the house while Eaddie went outside to mow the front lawn. They get along way better when they’re separated and productive, but Eaddie definitely takes the lion’s share of the work without too much fuss. We’ll have to watch for that though, and still need to reign in their screen time.

When Summer got home, we had some leftovers while the girls went outside and had dinner with their father. Then we packed up and headed to my house for the evening since I didn’t get to go during the day. I played a game of Yahtzee with Autumn, then she went to sleep watching Alice in Wonderland. Eaddie and I ended the evening with a pretty good mid-season episode of Luke Cage.

Calloo-callay, no work today. We’re cabbages and kings!

Ride Along

Summer had to stop by the shop this morning, so she picked up some Wendy’s breakfast for us on the way home. Then she took Autumn to pick up the car her parents were planning to give her so she could practice at the high school. The brakes were so bad that they ended up leaving it, and she ended up practicing in Summer’s car anyway.

Eaddie rode her bicycle out to meet them, and I followed along on the Grom so Summer could get some time on it. I rode around the lot for a while, practicing some little wheelies while Eaddie rode down the trail she had found before. I eventually stopped to warm up in the sun on the arbor bench for a little while until Summer was ready for some time on the bike.

Autumn did a pretty good job of driving me around, and I tried to have her focus on parking and spatial awareness. She was pretty bored by the time I got to her, so we weren’t there much longer before we headed back to my house.

We were pretty hungry by that time, so Summer and I rode across town to try and pick up some BBQ from the Ridgewood Brothers. Grant said they had just sold out though, so we sulked back toward home. We stopped by the Neighborhood Market briefly to pick up some groceries first, and then Summer took the girls home to clean up.

When they got back, Nick wanted to come by and eat with the girls, so we all sat out in the backyard together where we could maintain a decent space. He brought us all an assortment of food and stayed to chat for a little while since he hadn’t really seen the girls since the quarantine started.

After he left, the girls came inside and wanted to play Jackbox games. I had just picked up the fifth collection in the series, so we played a round of each of the games in the pack before settling in for bed. Eaddie and I outlasted everyone else as usual, finishing up the second season of Jessica Jones before bed.

Even the littlest bikes can buck the unsuspecting rider.

Reluctant Day

With a surprising exception of Autumn, nobody wanted to get around to doing much of anything today. She started a few chores early in the morning and then wanted to sit in her room the rest of the day. I rolled around first thing and tried my hand at day trading, but ultimately only saved myself from losing about 50 cents. Then I spent the rest of the day working between breaks in Animal Crossing. A part of me really hates the grind in that game, but another part of me feels satisfied enough with the progression that I keep going back for more.

The girls went outside for a while in the afternoon and tried cleaning up their weird nightmaremobile that’s been parked under the back porch for as long as I’ve known them. Eventually Summer came home from work and demanded dinner in the way that a working spouse would.

I baked some chicken thighs and legs in some Buffalo sauce and tried my hand at frying some sliced potatoes and onions. Summer warmed up a can of peas to round out the meal, and the girls all seemed pretty happy with it all. After dinner, Autumn wanted to watch WALL-E with us and Eaddie absolutely refused on account of hating wonderful things.

In the end, Autumn couldn’t even finish the 103-minute movie, so she and Summer went to bed. Eaddie and I stayed up for too many episodes of The Punisher. It’s been moving quite a bit faster than some of the others in the franchise, so it’s kept us hooked.

One batch, two batch…

Rabbit Seeds

BUTT STUFF

Summer and Autumn made biscuits and gravy with eggs for brunch this morning. Then we all colored some eggs for Easter. It didn’t take long because we only had around 20 eggs between the four of us. I guess we could have made more. I think Dad used to make a few dozen for us when we were growing up, so we always had gallon ice cream buckets of eggs for weeks after Easter.

I joked that the girls would have to play Russian roulette to find a single raw egg I had hidden in the batch. Just seconds later, Autumn accidentally cracked one that completely fell apart with a raw yolk, and we discovered that the eggs hadn’t cooked all the way through for some reason. We had a couple different sizes of eggs all mixed together, but didn’t figure that made all the difference. A week or two ago we had frozen eggs because the refrigerator was too cold, so maybe that was the problem. In any case, I ended up boiling them again to make sure they were all done, and the colors all faded to a uniform pink.

We thought briefly about going to my house for the night, but in the end we left the kids home and Summer went with me for a workout while I took care of the cat and cleaned up at home. She was surprised by how much of a workout she got from doing the P90X yoga video.

When we got back to their house, I made a big “everything” French loaf sandwich that everyone devoured, and then played some Animal Crossing until bed.

The wind is always better on the hilltop.

Mandatory Fun

Summer got up this morning and made pancakes for breakfast. Then we snuggled up for some Master of None for a little while before Autumn came in and pitched an absolute fit about wanting to go visit her grandparents. I simply couldn’t empathize with her, because I’ve never been that way with anyone. Especially not at her age, and doubly so for being in the middle of a public health emergency. I get being cooped up for two weeks has been different, but it’s been far from difficult. We’ve had everything we could possibly need, and she’s always the one to sit around and do nothing anyway. Even when we did try to get out and actually do something outside of the house, she resisted when everyone else showed nothing but excitement. Realistically, the only thing she’s really missed out on is a bunch of Wendy’s and a “proper” public school education. After a bit of screaming and crying, Summer went and talked to her one-on-one, and then had me join them to talk about her frustrations with me. Who knows if any of it will stick, but at least I’ve made my own motives clear.

After that, she turned around and wanted to make a board game, so she and Summer found the old box from Summer’s digital smart scale and started to paint it. I played and tinkered for most of the day, and got the kids to play a tiny bit of the Switch with me. Most of the day felt kind of like a wasted blur of a day. Summer and Autumn did get together to make a spaghetti and meatball dinner, and then we played a long and complete game of Phase 10 in which I decimated even the Dominant One.

Summer ended the evening in bed with a little TV before going to sleep. Overall it was a good evening, but I wish I had gotten to spend a few hours at home.

And with that, Spring Break 2020 was over.