Tag: money

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Unvaluable

Eaddie accidentally locked Muad’Dib out on the wrong side of the baby gate last night, so at some point I woke up and he met me on the other side of the closed bedroom door. He slept well with me after that, and I was only a little bit disoriented when my alarm went off to get ready for work.

I stopped at McDonald’s in Atkins for a bagel and made it to work a little late, as planned. My desk had already been scavenged for parts, but I still had my docking station and a couple monitors. I got things set up, and then Randy immediately had me start imaging a couple of laptops for him. I had to fix the OS deployment in SCCM after they had changed some things, but I got everything working well enough.

I probably worked more today than I did the rest of the month. Randy also needed the web server fixed to host student photos, which was easy enough to do. My biggest concern was getting what I wanted copied over and brought home.

Kyle really wanted a Chinese buffet for lunch, so Randy drove us all the way up to Jacksonville since there didn’t appear to be a closer one. Maggie and her youngest, who had been hanging out with us in the office all day, met us there. It was called “New China” and looked very similar to the one in Russellville, but I think they had a better variety of foods. I really liked it. The only big disappointments were the thinness of the egg drop soup and the temperature of the fried fish.

I cut the afternoon short because I had to get across the river to have my blood drawn before my follow up appointment tomorrow. When I got to Genesis, they seemed confused that anyone would tell me to just walk in and have blood drawn, but they got it done after a short wait. I continued toward home after that, through a little bit of rain, and decided to stop at Bitec to confirm my start time and whether I needed to bring anything else with me for my first day. Joel appeared to be the only one there, and suggested that I might bring my two forms of ID just in case any paperwork wasn’t completed.

Summer was making cupcakes when I got home, and Eaddie was preparing to have some friends over for an evening of Guitar Hero. They had me order some Domino’s at a near-extortionary price, which I then went to retrieve with Muad’Dib, because he really wanted an adventure.

Eaddie had one or two new faces over, along with a couple other familiars. They stayed in her room to play while Summer finished the cupcakes. Earlier in the day I suggested that she might just make sure to have some free time to spend with me, but it ended up being a really rough night of aggravation and confirmation of misalignment.

I took out some trash and discovered a nearly-full dumpster. Eaddie had thrown away a bunch of stuff when she cleaned out her room, and an unsurprising amount of that stuff was perfectly good to keep, sell, donate, or reuse. Much of it was brand new, and several were types of things we had recently purchased more of because we didn’t know we had any. I pulled out a small box full of stuff before I became frustrated enough with the constant swarm of flies and mosquitos, and came back inside. I cleaned up a couple of messes that were left behind, fixed some things that were done poorly or outright incorrectly, completed some abandoned laundry, and finally sped through my “me time” before going to bed.

Just because they’re intrusive doesn’t mean they’re wrong.

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Death and Taxes

Summer was basically attached to me all night, but the one time she wasn’t, she awoke in a panic and screamed for me, which jarred me awake. We made it through the night though, and I made her a latte when we got up. She went to the gym and wanted to come home to do yard work while I picked up around the house. She got stuff to make a slow cooker gumbo for dinner, I did a bunch of Vine reviews, and then I took Muad’Dib out for a slightly early run.

He wasn’t running super fast, but he came up behind me and touched the back of my legs, which scared me into thinking I was running over him, and I wiped out. The only damaged appeared to be a bruised left heel, which hurt the rest of the evening. We visited my parents, who were getting ready to go to the movies, but The Chosen was evidently sold out by the time they got there.

We made it home and I started working on my taxes until dinner was ready. Eli came over and the four of us had a great meal, then I went back to taxes. My Amazon Vine income has caused some confusion, because evidently I can claim that as a part of a business for some deductions, but Cash App Taxes seemed to input a Qualified Business Income number out of nowhere. I didn’t want to be up too late trying to learn tax law, so it would have to wait for the next day.

Well I can’t quit procrastinating now!

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Surprise Rest

I woke up this morning to a text from Diana, which reminded me of the plans I knew we had for the day. I jumped up and took a shower, followed by Summer, so we could go visit with her. Eaddie was still asleep, so we left her and made it across town in some leftover drizzle from some rain overnight. Diana was super happy to sit and visit for a while, but still had to get packed and ready to travel back north.

Summer thought she would have to close the Conway wash, but just as we left Diana’s, she got a call that one of her employees wanted to take the shift. I had been considering going with her just so we could have some time together afterward and maybe do some more Christmas shopping, but getting to stay in town with her was even better. We went home to check on Eaddie and fed the dogs. Eaddie wasn’t hungry, so the two of us went to Mulan’s for a late lunch.

After we ate, we stopped by Walmart for some more treats for the dogs. We browsed minimally aside from that before stopping by the old house to clean out the mailbox and poke my head inside to get an idea of what I might be able to move sooner than later. The problem is that I’m still struggling to find time to break down boxes of stuff that I’ve already moved, and I’m just out of room until I do. Seeing the relative minimalism at Jim’s house last night nearly made me consider burning the whole place down. It’s paralysis, and I had forgotten about the stuff Dad already moved into Bác Vân’s shed next door.

We made it home and I struggled a bit to keep my blood pressure down. Eaddie ended up going over to Eli’s for a while, and I soaked in a bath to try and relax. Summer and I talked some more and finally decided that it would be a smart idea to get another car right now, partially due to the incentives and partially in case of a breakdown in one of the older vehicles. Letting her drive her own car was important to me, and having options was important to both of us.

Eaddie came home and talked with us for a while as well, and then I helped her order a Christmas gift. Then we all settled in for bed.

Contractually convoluted

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Hi, Sharks

I didn’t sleep well, and was predictably tired getting out this morning. I was a few minutes late, but showed up as the guys were checking out our new shop building that has finally been cleaned out. Humorously, I was still the first one to my desk to begin work. I had a bit of a false start when I accidentally joined my call with PRTG an hour early. When the call finally did start, I had audio trouble and had to join from my computer and phone for anyone to hear me.

The morning ran long as nobody came around for lunch. I was going back and forth with Maggie about what to eat when she suddenly said David was coming from Howard to treat us to an impromptu lunch at Saltgrass Steak House. I was excited to try that, but she talked him into going to Longhorn instead because she liked their lunch better. My New York strip ended up being absolutely terrible because it was overcooked and unbelievably tough. I had to saw it into thin strips just to chew the thing.

It took us a while to get started because we waited for Jim to join us, and then Maggie behaved embarrassingly with our waitress, asking multiple people for an extra plate and receiving too many, and then getting out of her seat to chase down our server to ask for something near the end of our visit. She’s been a very involved secretary, which I appreciate, but her lunchtime habits are unhinged.

We made it back to the office and I finished out the day mostly struggling to troubleshoot my audio issue. I finally left and made it home to take the dogs out for a quick run. We visited my parents, and then Stilgar had to lay down in the creek for a bit while we were in the basin. They behaved well though, and got hot dogs at home.

Once I cleaned up, I had to pry Summer out of her chair so we could take the Model Y to Superfast and finally fix the piece of the bumper that was out of place. I was right, and it was relatively easy to do, and it should have been done the day of the accident to prevent further damage to the paint.

We took a moment and let the car drive us around town to cool down from my frustrations, and unboxed a couple of fun things from Amazon Vine. Julie called about an earlier text message about a loan to buy an airplane. We discussed that with a predictable tone before I finally got to wind down for bed. Eaddie came in late, as seems to be the norm. I did well to crawl into bed before ten.

High risk; No reward

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It’s All About That Cold Hard Cash, Hon

We got up, and Summer was in a little bit of a funk. She accidentally locked her keys in her car at Travis’s last night, so we had to go see Autumn at the car wash fund raiser at Burger King to get her spare key fob. We thought we might get breakfast, but both their grill and their fryer were down. Instead, we went to Hardee’s for what would have been a superior breakfast anyway. Then she dropped me off at my house so I could clean up while she went to the gym.

Summer wanted to go to a movie, but we didn’t quite make our matinee. She also wanted to make dinner, so we decided not to go to a later show. When she picked me up, we went to pick up her car. I let her take mine home while I went to trade hers for Autumn’s, since we thought Eaddie would practice driving to go play tennis with Summer.

When I got back up to their house, Summer and I dug through her Mint account and added a few other accounts to that so we could get a better picture of her financial situation. She was happy to see that, after all of her retirement investments, she was actually in the black. While we were doing that, I noticed some hummingbirds dogfighting outside, so I was super excited that they found our feeder. I’ll have to put my other one up at my house, and I wished I had bought more of them when they were on sale.

After a while, Summer and I went to Walmart for dinner supplies. She let me run through clearance as well, and I picked up a couple packages of dive fins, since I think Dad’s may have worn out a bit. We got some chicken and a bunch of zucchini, peppers, and broccoli to stir-fry. I thought it would be really good with rice, but Summer really wanted mashed potatoes.

As soon as we got home, I started prepping vegetables while she started cooking the chicken. The food didn’t take very long to cook, and I had to smile when Eaddie came out to eat and said it looked like it would go really well with rice. We ate and cleaned up while Autumn laid around on the couch, sunburned from spending all day at the fundraiser carwash without any sunscreen. I won’t feel sorry for her when it’s time to mow the lawn in the morning, because she should know better by now, especially when they had sunscreen for them at the event.

Eaddie never made it out to play tennis. Summer ended up showering and put on Baywatch, which I had never seen. It didn’t seem to take itself very seriously. Eventually I made it to bed as well.

Yes, I’m back in black!

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Ebb and Flow

I set an alarm this morning and got up to make a quick bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit from leftovers before heading home to clean up for the funeral. We got to a late start, but Mom and Dad eventually showed up and we headed to Cabot to see the family for my cousin-in-law Bob’s service. The pastor was late, but a few got up to share stories in the meantime. The whole ordeal didn’t take very long since there wasn’t a burial service.

When we got back home, they dropped me off to change, and then the girls tried to meet us at Pasta Grill for an early Mother’s Day dinner. They were booked up, so Dad called Cagle’s Mill and we went there instead. A few people came and went from the bar while we were there, but we were the only group that was really just there for dinner. The food didn’t seem nearly as good as I remembered, and the prime rib was super salty. Nearly everyone had ordered it, so after some taste testing, the manager knocked 20% off the entire bill for us.

After dinner, we came back to my house to settle in. It wasn’t long before Eaddie bailed to spend the night with Maristella. I dropped her off, and then came back home to watch Falcon and Winter Soldier with Summer. We finally finished the series, and I can definitely say I wasn’t expecting to tear up so much. I’m ready for more.

Saturday Night Live did nothing for Doge. In fact, after the episode aired, it took a huge dive and broke Robinhood again. It dipped low enough for my buy order to trigger, though for several minutes I thought Robinhood didn’t even handle that. It quickly bounced back up a bit, and was my first real successful buy in a dip that I’ve ever had. Now if I could just do that a few dozen more times, I could finally retire on a yacht.

THAT AIN’T HOW MONEY WORKS! Money is a golden rock that we dig out of the ground. Then we hope no one kills us before we trade it for pieces of green paper. IT’S A PERFECT SYSTEM!

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GUARANTEED TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

I can’t stop missing out on gains. All day yesterday, Doge steadily dropped while I held on for dear life. Then I sold just seconds before it shot up. I tried playing the buy/sell game today, all for $75. It’s just not making me rich like I wanted.

Gary took Brody and me to Crawford to relocate a classroom setup because the kids in that room apparently just kick and bite, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. It didn’t quite take us until lunch, but it was relatively close. We went to the shop for a little while, and then a group of us went to La Chiquita.

For some reason, there were a bunch of really big frogs thrown out in the parking lot. Someone must have hunted them and forgotten them in a cooler or something, and dumped them in the parking lot. It was either that, or a dark summoning portal.

After lunch, I stopped by Oakland for a signature and some hugs. Erica was there for lunch to visit, which was a nice surprise. I couldn’t stay too long though, and headed back to the shop for some more work.

I ended the day at the high school with Ethan, and we chatted briefly about robotics while I tried to troubleshoot his connection to a drone. Gary said Central Office went home at 3:30, so I left to trade vehicles before picking up Eaddie at Oakland. We ran into Michael, and I chatted to him a bit more about crypto before we went home.

Eaddie and I watched a couple episodes of House before Summer got home. They were hungry, and I still had to get Autumn from a band cookout at the marina, so I picked up some KFC on the way back up. From there, it was a quiet night in with various ailments.

THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE

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Doge You Forget About Me

Zach called me this morning and asked me to run by Crawford to look at a lunch line. That was an easy fix, but evidently the middle school was hit much harder by the storms, so I was the only one in the office for most of the day. They lost quite a bit of equipment over there due to a lightning strike that made its way to the switch from an ethernet port. Gary was replacing switches, and Zach and Josh were working on doors, cameras, and intercoms. The morning went by super quickly while I did what work I could, and watched my Dogecoin make some pretty wild swings.

Gary came back with some food for teacher appreciation week, but then Zach and Josh showed up and the four of us went to CJ’s for lunch. I got sidetracked for most of the afternoon digging through contract info, and discovered some pretty nasty stuff. Then Kyle came down to the shop and asked for some help pulling an HDMI cable through the ceiling at Oakland.

When we finished, I ended up staying super late talking to Mike about cryptocurrencies and Doge. I told him not to be crazy like me. The bubble just keeps on growing, and the fear of missing out on getting rich quickly is driving everyone crazy.

I ran home to change, but had to go by Crawford to replace the CMOS battery in the lunch line computer. Then I took the girls home from karate and finished up some leftovers there while we waited for Summer to get home. We chatted and I hung out for a little bit, but then came home to sleep while Doge picked up some more steam.

Doge stop…believing!

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It’s Curtains for You!

I went in to the office for a little while today, then got a call from Brody to help with something at the junior high. We only sort of fixed that for Matt, then piddled around with some print issues in the library until lunch.

We decided to try Whatta Burger after having possibly not been at all since I started working there. They had changed the decorations again, replacing the generic pictures of hamburgers with some squidly kites. The menu boards and POS systems were all new and lacking any character at all. The burger was fine, but the fries were pretty lame. For a $10 lunch deal, it hardly felt like a deal at all.

After lunch, I spent a good amount of time hunting for my bead curtain. Ben hid it somewhere, and I couldn’t tell whether he played some camera trickery on me. There definitely didn’t seem to be any place for it to hide in that storage room where he originally hid it. I was able to recover my pirate flag, but no curtain.

I was supposed to go by Mark’s after work but forgot in the process of getting the girls ready for karate. Fortunately he called to say he had to leave work, so we’d have to schedule another time anyway. I dropped the girls off, then went to the Neighborhood Market for some extras to dress up one of the school pizzas that Brody brought back for us.

Once I got to Summer’s, I started cooking some bacon and putting the dryer back together. The part went in super easily, and I managed to get all the screws back in the right place. I did put the drum in backwards, but it was symmetrical anyway. The pizza turned out pretty great, and was completely unrecognizable with everything I added.

The girls trickled off to showers and bed, and I headed home for the evening hoping not to lose any more Doge. It definitely hit a low where I was losing, but popped right back up within minutes. It just made me wish I was better prepared to begin with, but now that the money is in the account, trades can happen without any fear of missing out.

Rollercoaster…. of Doooooge.

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The Doge Days are Over

I slept most of my way through Thursday with a pretty steady 103ºF fever, body aches, and fortunately a lesser chill than I had during true COVID and my first Moderna shot. It still hurt to move, or to sit wrong, or to adjust, or to lye in one place for too long. I still couldn’t get up and do anything, or watch TV, or really bother staying awake. By Thursday night I was hungry enough to eat some real food, so Dad brought me some leftover chicken and scalloped potatoes.

I woke up Friday having finally broken my fever and chills, but after trying to continue with my morning routine it was clear that I wouldn’t be much use at work, so I took another sick day. Summer came over after taking Autumn to school and laid with me for a while. It was Melinda’s last day, and I didn’t want to miss sending her off, so I made it out of the house to meet everyone at Morelos for lunch. Ben pulled a quick one on us and paid for everyone. Then I headed up to Summer’s for a while since she was still feeling pretty rough.

It wasn’t long before I had to get Autumn from school. She got her phone back from Summer’s office after a paltry week without it. When we got home, their father was there to pick up Eaddie for the weekend. Autumn had previously volunteered for an event this weekend, but backed out so she could go as well.

Summer and I eventually made it back to my house for the evening, and she watched TV while I shuffled around in the laundry room. I was still working out some aches, but felt good enough to push myself a little more, so I got the dryer vent duct cut and temporarily placed. All we have left to do are a few finishing touches to seal everything into place, and then I’m ready to do laundry again!

Dogecoin has been on a tear, jumping from when I purchased it at around 4.6 cents to just over 49 cents. It felt really surreal to watch it keep climbing over the two days I was stuck in bed sick. Unfortunately I was too optimistic to cash out at its peak, but I still came out plenty ahead. It’s hard not to make snap emotional actions when you can make or lose hundreds of dollars in just a few seconds, but at this point I have enough of a buffer that I can afford to ride it out a little longer.

Wouldn’t mind another run at a dollar, though.