Together We Can Take the Long Way Home

Eaddie beat us all up and into the shower this morning, which was great. We all managed to get ready and left right at checkout time. The kids actually left a little before us so they could get lunch downtown. I thought my parents had already left, so we headed toward Rogers for lunch, but then discovered they were still back at the hotel. Summer and I got to the Supercharger and walked around with Muad’Dib for 20 minutes or so, then put him back in the car and walked to Việt Buffet.

My parents arrived with perfect timing just shortly after we walked up, and we had a great lunch. I’m worried they won’t last long because of how many people were on staff and how empty the restaurant was, but all of the food was great. It’s a long drive even for a day trip, and there’s not much else up there to do that we can’t find closer.

Mom and Dad left a little before us, and then we still had to walk back to the car, but we got home just behind them. I took Muad’Dib on a run since we hadn’t been through the neighborhood in a couple months, and I could tell he was tired from an adventurous weekend. We visited my parents briefly, then made it home to unpack and clean up.

Eaddie had a sorority thing in the evening, so took a moment to decompress, and then I had to load up my loudspeakers to take to work for the upcoming picnic. I’m excited to actually get to use them properly, especially with all the new accessories I’ve been picking up.

Summer passed out early, and even Eaddie got home and went to bed before I finally got there. It was a fun and exhausting weekend, but man, what a year.

Better than watching Geller bending silver spoons

Best Mex

We narrowly grabbed some Taco John’s on the way out of town today. The app seemed confused about whether the restaurant was open and accepting orders, and based on prior experience, it seemed like the staff might be confused too. We ended up being able to order there, and hit the road in a decent amount of time.

I continued with my Intune and Autopilot learning all day, only stopping to meet Summer for lunch. We had the best food we’ve ever gotten from Ortega’s, and our server knew us well enough that he basically had our orders. It was an excellent visit.

Summer took Muad’Dib home with her since she didn’t plan to go in to the stores today. I finished up my afternoon and made it home to find her in bed wrapping up her work. Eaddie got home from her trip to the northwest to have Eli’s horn serviced, and brought me some Hawaiian Bros. Summer started eating it, so I had a few bites before we put it away.

I eventually took Muad’Dib out for a little walk before it got dark. We stopped briefly to see my parents, but I was feeling exhausted. I ended up having an anxiety attack just as we were finishing up, just a couple houses up the road. I didn’t feel great after that, but I was still really tired, and it cooled off quite a bit as well.

I cleaned up minimally and laid down with Summer for a little while. Julie called to discuss a possible family vacation, and then I wrapped up for bed.

I’m ready for my air coccoon.

The Difference is Staggering!

We had our staff meeting first thing this morning, and I didn’t have a whole lot of exciting news. The whole day kind of dragged on a bit, possibly because it seemed like it was going to be such a nice day out. We went to Taco Bell for lunch and had an okay time, but I think the salt got to me later in the afternoon.

I let Muad’Dib out for a run on the way back to the office, and we finished out the day quietly upstairs. I had another quick anxiety attack that snuck up on me. Summer wanted to go to the yoga Sip + Stretch at Point Remove shortly after I got home, but I felt my blood pressure was high and had to relax a moment at home first.

Summer went to her thing for an hour, and Muad’Dib and I walked all the way downtown to meet her. It worked out perfectly, because we arrived just minutes before she finished her hour, and we didn’t have to sit around entertaining ourselves the whole time. We had some wings and a few drinks, then drove back home for the night. She passed right out, and I finished up my stuff fairly early. I would have gone to bed early too, but Eaddie got home early and came to my office and chat for a while. She’s got spring break coming up, and is excited for all the new, fun stuff that comes with independence.

It’s a five minute walk from my house to the bar, but an hour walk from the bar to my house.

Walk and Roll

I didn’t sleep great last night, but I think it was mostly the dog’s fault. We made it to work, but I had trouble focusing as well as I have the past few days, so I switched gears and looked at some other company portal stuff. Between that and a couple phone calls, I managed to stay fairly busy. I was put in Vine jail for my lack of reviews, so that’s finally caught up with me. Between that and taxes, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

I went back and forth several times with Clifford from Future Motion, and they insist it’s completely my fault for my footing that is causing the motor to cut out on my board. I feel like I’ve tested every possibility of that, but it doesn’t sound like they’re going to do anything else for me, and at this point the board has been out of my possession for over 100 days since I bought the damn thing.

I brought my pastrami sandwich from Ridgewood for lunch, along with a little bowl of some Hawaiian Bros since the sandwich looked pretty small. The sandwich was great, but I could have done with some more of it. Afterward, I walked Muad’Dib outside and found a roll of material out next to the dumpster, and had the idea to take a closeup photo of it for a background image to use in the company portal.

Muad’Dib got rowdy and wouldn’t listen when we came back in, so he got a spanking. Then the afternoon dragged on for a bit since we never actually left. I had just been thinking about how I hadn’t had an anxiety attack in a little while, and then one snuck up on me out of nowhere. That put me in a little bit of a daze for a while. I ended up losing track of time by a lot, so we left late and got home nearly half an hour later than usual.

Summer was home and just out of the shower, so we walked to my parents’ house for spring rolls. Julie and kevin showed up just after us, and we all sat down to eat. The kids were invited, but couldn’t make it. It started to get a little darker by the time we left, so we walked straight home and got ready for bed.

Believe it or not, straight to jail.

Intune with Nature

I had another good day in Intune policies all day today. It was really quiet and a bit rainy otherwise. If I had realized it wasn’t raining at lunch time, we would have gone to Sonic, but instead I had already ordered Subway for pickup. We got that and I ate in the office.

The afternoon was more of the same, if not a little distracted. Summer got home early and made dinner, so we rushed back for that. Then I started some more laundry while we took Muad’Dib for a walk to my parents’ house. We visited briefly and then let him lead the rest of the way home, which was a surprising twist from his usual route.

I cleaned up a bit more when we got back. Summer went to bed, I updated WordPress, and then it was off to bed a minute or two early.

Shoutout to Updraft for keeping backups dead simple!

Still Walking

I woke up feeling okay and took my smoothie and matcha to work for breakfast. I didn’t drink my Soylent just because I didn’t really feel hungry, but then we went to Subway to pick up lunch before a call with Aptean in the early afternoon. That ended up being pretty boring with just Tammy and me on the call, and I didn’t love feeling like we’d just have to report back to others. They’re definitely expecting more from us, but we’re also expecting more from them for how much we pay.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly and I started to lose a bit of focus as my tab count grew larger and the tabs themselves became unmanageably small. We nearly made it home when I noticed Summer was still at work, so we turned around and went to Ridgewood instead.

Grant and Kyler were out back talking, so we popped in to chat for a while. I got to try their upcoming shepherd’s pie special, and hopefully they’ll have some of everything left by the time I can get there on St. Patrick’s Day. As Summer started to head home, I went in and got some meat to put on our leftover baked potatoes at home.

We ate, and then had to run downtown for her glow run. We took Muad’Dib, dropped her off to pick up her packet, and then I ended up parking way over behind Papa John’s. There were a couple gas burners parked in front of the new EV chargers that were installed, but I’d later learn that they weren’t powered up anyway.

It was pretty noisy and Muad’Dib didn’t love it, so we mostly stood back and waited for Summer to finish her race. She placed, so we waited for her medal pin and then headed back to the house for the night. Eaddie went to a concert of Eli’s, so I didn’t see her again all night.

It’s just indigestion… maybe.

More Less Better

I woke up to some weird, strange, scary dream last night, but I couldn’t remember anything about it. I didn’t think I’d be able to go back to sleep, but luckily that didn’t last long. I still had a bit of a rough start, and though I got up early for a free birthday drink from Starbucks, I didn’t end up going because they must have been out of milk somehow.

We got to work and I did a pretty good job of focusing on my Autopilot task. It’s finally starting to get kind of fun to tinker with that stuff, though there’s still plenty I don’t understand. It still wasn’t rainy during lunch time, but I really wanted to try the new BIG ARCH burger at McDonald’s, so Muad’Dib just had to wait in the car.

I didn’t realize how big it was, so I also got a small Happy Meal for some McNuggets and a Changeables toy in order to bump the total up enough to qualify for a discount. I ate that first, so when I actually opened the burger and realized how big it was, I knew I was in trouble. I was actually really pleased with the burger though. It was tasty enough to drown out the noise of the obnoxiously loud group of teens that were at my usual bench seats. There must have been a bus of them somewhere, because I later saw several groups of them convene across the street at Taco Bell.

I let Muad’Dib run some more coming back to work, and a little later in the afternoon Janice had cake for me. She made me a lemon poke cake, and it was super good. It felt really nice to be in a work family that did stuff like that again, though there’s no telling whether that will continue to be a thing when she retires. Hopefully we can continue in some fashion.

I had an anxiety attack sometime in the afternoon, but I don’t remember if it was before or after cake. I felt progressively worse all afternoon like I had gas in my chest that just kept coming out as burps. I did my best to relax because my heart was racing as well. I lived to see the end of the day, and picked up my Starbucks on the way home to save for later, then found Summer in a bath.

She was really hungry, so we decided to take Muad’Dib to Point Remove for some boneless wings and a couple beers. As soon as we got there, a lady recognized Muad’Dib and asked if he was the dog that kept getting out in our neighborhood. She remembered me working at Two Rivers, and I think I remembered encountering them on a run or something. It really feels like I’m living with a celebrity sometimes.

I only finished Summer’s first stout because she wanted to try one of the wines, and then I only had a couple of the wings just to take it easy. I felt a little better by the time we left, and we swung through Tropical Smoothie for a free smoothie to save for the morning. Then Summer went straight to sleep when we got to the house. I kind of wanted to go for a walk, but also wanted to get to bed early. I started to feel a lot worse for a bit, but checked my blood pressure and took a clonidine since I was right at the cusp of being that high. I felt better as I continued to burp, and wondered if it was mostly due to the poor nutritional value of the food I’ve been eating. I think it’s time to go regular on the Soylents again.

I’ve never been this many before.

Talko Boosday

I felt pretty terrible this morning, but we managed to get to work before eight. It was a super slow recovery until lunch time at Ortega’s. I think I had an anxiety attack somewhere along the line. Later in the afternoon, one of the guys called for help with HubSpot, and of course I knew nothing. At least tech support couldn’t help either.

We left a little early to get to therapy, though we’ve been starting late enough that I think I can leave at my regular time and still make it. Summer was busy until just after five, and even then we had to wait for Dwayne to come let us in.

We ended up sitting outside with Muad’Dib and his little dog, Lucy. They played more than we talked, and I was a little surprised at Summer’s recollection of the weekend. I haven’t been very happy with our sessions so far, so I don’t know how much longer I’ll be interested in going.

Summer had a meeting, so I went to the house and cleaned up a little. Eaddie was in the shower when I got there, but left shortly thereafter. Summer eventually came home and seemed continually troubled, but didn’t know why. She went to bed pretty quickly, and I followed soon after.

Uninteresting

Intune with Feelings

I tried to make today another super focused day, and it went better than average. It started out a little slow, but I eventually wiped a laptop a couple more times and built out a couple more policies with some better experience. I really needed to work on product imports for HubSpot, but I just dread that.

I brought my other Five Guys burger for lunch, so we didn’t leave the office again. Scott brought Maple, so she and Muad’Dib almost got to playing around together a bit. I thought I’d ask if I could take them both outside for a bit, but I missed them somehow. I just walked Muad’Dib around a little bit and then we came back inside to finish up the afternoon. It was super quiet upstairs all afternoon after Janice left early. I had an anxiety attack at some point.

Summer had a meeting in Rogers first thing in the morning, so she was home and lifeless on the couch when I got there. We went to my parents’ house for red envelopes since Eaddie would be out all evening. We let Muad’Dib run outside the car on the way, I ate some leftover noodles they had out, and then we drove him back in the dark.

We watched Rental Family, which I thought was really good. Then Summer went to bed. I stayed up quite a while longer and then noticed we caught a small rat in the trap in the kitchen, so I asked Eaddie if they could go release it when they got home. Then I went to bed.

One at a time.

All Signs Point to Less

We had our staff meeting first thing this morning, and it was relatively short. I somehow made it through without much ado, and then chatted briefly with Teisha before going to play with the new digital sign in the plant breakroom. I didn’t even get to show anything, since I still really hadn’t settled on a content management system yet.

Most of my day was actually derailed trying to wipe a laptop for Jon, because he was still having trouble with his being slow. I had an anxiety attack sometime in the morning, and then I messed around with Autopilot some more after failing to do a simple wipe from an ISO. We did take a break to go to Sonic and had a pretty good burger and fries. As we left, Muad’Dib spotted a beaver in the creek, so I had to shoo him into the car.

I let him run a bit on the way back to work, and then took him with Teisha to walk the property and see where we would be hosting the company picnic. We encountered some soft dirt and my shoes got a little muddy, but it could have been worse.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly, without major success on any of my projects, but I did at least feel like I made a dent in some infrastructure building. We had to run home because Summer was making dinner. We still had steak, so she made some vegetables and some linguini with pesto to go with it, and it was one of my favorite meals she’s made. Then we watched a little bit of YouTube before she went to bed. I eventually got there too.

Just trimmings.