Tag: motorcycle

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Progress Monitor

I squeaked in to work this morning by the skin of my teeth. Really I was actually late, but nobody noticed. I don’t know what happened. I lost a couple minutes somewhere too late in the game and just couldn’t make it back up. I guess I paid for it by having to load two trucks worth of monitors when Jason took Amanda and Allen with my first truck to the high school with a 30 count, and then sent me with Heather to the junior high with 90 to replace. Heather was hungry, so we stopped for jalapeño kolaches and an apple fritter. Gary joined us as well, and we got one lab done and another started before lunch.

Allen was the only one that wanted to go eat, and without any better ideas, we settled on McDonald’s. I tried the Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger from Spain, which tasted okay but was way too messy for what it was. In the end I would have preferred a Big Mac. In spite of the decent taste, the whole thing was oversauced and greasy in a way that left me just barely gurgling the rest of the entire day.

Back at work, I got some help to load up one more truck bed with the last pallet of monitors. The three of us got about halfway into the second lab when I had to leave for a doctor appointment. I hesitate to call them doctor appointments now though, since I haven’t actually spoken to a doctor in about two years. Almost unsurprisingly, they had me fill out a bunch of paperwork again because they “got a new system.” At least there seems to be an online portal now that may help with tracking some of this that I’m dealing with.

After about an hour of that and scheduling a regular appointment for six months later, I went back to the junior high and we finished the last lab with just enough time to get back to the shop for quitting time. Amanda and Allen even joined us for the last couple monitor swaps at the end. I chatted with Ben for a little bit after work, and then went home to find a hungry Eaddie with no phone or enough sense to eat the frozen sausage biscuits. She opted for the bike, and I took her to Arby’s for a sandwich and a orange cream shake.

We started an episode of Jessica Jones and waited for Summer to get there so we could go to the park again. Eaddie and I both hurt from riding bikes yesterday, and Summer let herself get aggravated with the Grom, which never helps. After about an hour we had all had enough and came back home. They went home to clean up while I did some cleaning at home myself, and then they came back so we could finish our episode before bed.

Pancho is now the machoest tecknikken!

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Slow Grind

I got up a little earlier today and started picking at the house again. It was cooler out, so I tackled a pile of stuff in the floor of the garage, organizing things as I went along. I’ll still have to find permanent homes for everything, but at least now most of it’s out of the floor and in boxes. I even threw away some stuff, like a box of tractor-feed paper.

Summer fried chicken for tacos, but I felt to gross and dirty to get out right then. Eventually I gave in to the hunger for fear of not eating and getting stuck with a late lunch/early dinner mess of a schedule. Just as I left the house, Summer rounded the corner with some tacos, so I came back and ate at home before digging back into the garage.

The day creeped along, and I slowed down as things got hotter. It finally got to a point where I no longer wanted to be outside, so I came in to shower and then headed up to Summer’s for dinner. She pan-fried some fish for fish tacos and made an avocado sauce to emulate what I described to her from Bocadillo. Autumn skipped out and went to spend the night with her grandparents, so Summer, Eaddie, and I got to split it one fewer ways. Then we watched Aziz Ansari: Right Now before heading back to my house.

It was finally time to get Summer on the bike, so she and Eaddie rode their bicycles to the park and I caught up to them on the Grom. Then Eaddie and I rode around in circles while Summer practiced starting and stopping in a straight line. The more I watched her, the more I wished I had a bike like that when I was learning. All of the bikes I’ve ever owned were way more top-heavy, and made it more difficult to balance. The Grom is so puny that even when she stalled or accidentally revved the throttle in a stop, she was able to land on both feet. Dale and Neletta spotted us out there and stopped to chat for a minute, which was really nice. I hadn’t seen him since he left, and had been meaning to call.

As darkness approached, we all road back home and put everything away. Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones while I did a load of laundry before bed.

That was a weird comedy show.

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It’s Fryday, Fryday!

I would have expected to be put on Chromebook enrollment this morning, but instead everyone was sent off to do their own things. I’m sure a few work orders were probably completed, but the two pallets of Chromebooks aren’t going to enroll themselves, and it won’t be long before we have a bunch of desktops to image for various buildings. I went to the high school after a while, but even then I really wasn’t overworking myself.

I rode back to the shop for lunch and came across Gary walking to Smackin’ Wings and Things, so I decided to join him for a Fryday. I had the Curious George off of their specials menu, which was a heap of fries, macaroni and cheese, bacon, boneless buffalo wings, cheese, sour cream, and probably something else that I’ve missed. Gary had something like chili cheese fries with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos on top. They both looked amazing, and I know that at least mine tasted really awesome as well. We both only made it about halfway through before giving up.

The majority of my day was spent trying to image a Dell 2-in-1 device. I was excited to get to mess with the task sequence with Gary to try and get it working, but unfortunately I won’t know until next week whether the new image will work.

After work, I stopped by Superfast to give Summer my leftovers. Then I went home to change and clean up a bit before heading to my parents’ house for their anniversary. Dad rode the Grom around the block and came back grinning. Then we went and picked up a bucket of chicken because Mom didn’t feel like getting out. Summer and Eaddie met us there to eat, and then Eaddie swam for a bit by herself before we left.

Summer had to crash early in order to get up tomorrow for Autumn’s explorers competition, so I went to pick Noah up from work. Then the three of us stayed up late watching Jessica Jones until I just had to sleep.

Gotta get down on Fryday!

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Grommin Around

It was nice out today, so I decided to take the Grom to work. Gary, Amanda, and I were sent to clean up a few things at the middle school, and then Sequoyah and Oakland since Brice is out with the new baby. Heather met up with us out of the blue just as we were getting started, and we continued on all morning making the smallest bit of progress in the least efficient way possible. I did score a couple tomatoes out of the garden at Sequoyah though, and then it was nice getting to see my Oakland friends for a bit.

I was able to talk Heather and Gary into going to Taco Villa for lunch, where I scarfed down a taco salad with the house dressing. It seemed way too sweet today, so I think I should stick with my usual Thousand Island or cheese dip and hot sauce. I took the Grom since it was still super nice outside. It was less embarrassing than driving down the highway back to town when we picked it up, and though meager, it was super fun to putt around town. I stopped for gas at Casey’s because I wasn’t willing to risk my reserve to get across town to my usual Shell station. There, a kid stopped to chat with me about it for a couple minutes, which kind of reinforced how much fun I was having.

After lunch we were sent out for work orders, so I ran around with Gary fixing some networking issues that popped up after so much equipment was moved around for the sake of cleaning. I told him we should just let it be broken until we receive work orders, since being super proactive about it just creates more work for us and gives everyone else the illusion that moving things around without us is an okay thing to do.

Summer wanted me to take Eaddie to karate after work, so I ran by the high school to take care of a couple things first, then made my way up to their house. Eaddie was insistent that she didn’t want to go spar with the adults from Krav Maga since they “go hard,” so she convinced Summer to let her mow the lawn instead. I fried up some chicken strips for dinner so we could make some really awesome wraps with tons of spinach, avocado, onion, slaw mix, and anything else I could dig out of the fridge. Then we sat around and talked until it was time to head home for bed.

Got me craving that power between my legs!

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Grom

We got up this morning and finished putting together the patio furniture and fire pit. It drizzled on and off, so we actually assembled the fire pit inside while the girls did a few chores. Just as we finished moving all of that stuff around outside, I saw Chase post on Instagram that they were selling his wife’s 2019 Honda Grom with next to no miles on it. On a complete whim, I hit him up and we arranged to go pick it up at his place. I stopped by Arvest on the way home, but my debit card was expired. He didn’t mind PayPal though, so as soon as Summer got to my house, we headed on out to London. We stopped for gas at Kroger and ran into Ronda just briefly. We only stopped to chat long enough to pump our gas, and then we were on our way.

The bike was so much tinier than I had imagined. It will be a great learner bike though, and perfect for riding around in town. While we were looking around, his pet pig kept trying to get into the garage, which just tickled me so. It kept threatening rain, so we didn’t stick around for super long. We made our way back to town, and I managed to get the bike up to 60mph, tucked and coming down a bit of a hill. Screaming along that fast and sitting so high and forward didn’t feel great, but I figure it’ll still be perfect if the girls want to learn to ride too. I bet Eaddie will want to learn, and I could see her riding to high school on it eventually. I stopped by Walgreens to pick up my medication, and then ran by Allen’s place to show him. He was absolutely thrilled about it. Then I finally took it home so I could shower and clean up a bit.

I was going to go back up to Summer’s for dinner, but I first got distracted by a fraud alert email from Discover. Evidently they stopped a $503.44 charge at Nordstrom from going through. I had to call and talk to someone, and they closed my account and created a new one. Unfortunately that also meant my memorized credit card information was no longer useful. In the middle of all of that, the doorbell rang. Michael stopped by, so I stepped out to chat with him. They had some kind of party and had some leftover food, but the friend he was going to deliver them to wasn’t home. Their loss was our gain. We chatted for a bit about some of his conspiracies, the Fiero, the Grom, and his van. I never realized he had it outfitted for living. I always imagined him roughing it out in the woods, but at least some of the time he’s just been sleeping in the van.

Finally, I made it back up to Summer’s for the evening. The girls had gone with their father for the evening, so we ate some of Michael’s leftover barbecue along with some sweet potato fries, and then went to bed with some Sealab 2021. It was definitely funnier in my 20s.

 

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Pudding can’t fill the emptiness inside me!!!
But it’ll help….

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The Gift Card Investment Plan

Summer and Autumn slept in this morning, but luckily Summer jumped out of bed in time to get her up and out to the school for their quiz bowl trip. I tried not to sleep too late, but Eaddie still beat me to the living room. She wanted cereal for breakfast, but we didn’t have any milk, so I took the opportunity to try and pick up some Nintendo eShop gift cards that were on sale at the Dollar General right up the road. I must have looked like some kind of fool getting $200 worth of Nintendo gift cards, but I only paid $170, so the joke was on them. I did make a mistake though, and tried to scratch the first card with a metal file, and it chewed right through the ink on the paper. Luckily I called Nintendo, and after speaking with a couple guys, they were able to confirm the validity of the card and applied it to my account for me.

After Eaddie and I had some cereal, I messed around on the Switch some more while she watched Legends of Tomorrow. Eventually I had to find a way to convince her that she probably didn’t take a shower last night, and that she definitely needed to take one today. It took some effort, but I eventually got her ready to leave the house, and we headed back to my house so I could clean up. On the way, we stopped at another Dollar general and I picked up another $180 worth of gift cards. We should be set for some games now.

Summer was already heading back from Greenwood by the time we got to my house, so I warmed up some food for Eaddie and then jumped into the shower. Once I was ready, we took the bike to Walmart to look for a Super Mario Party and Joy-Con bundle. We ran into Ana with her grandparents there, but Ana acted all shy, and I’m pretty sure her grandparents didn’t really recognize me. We continued on to the electronics, and luckily there were still three copies of the game, so I limited myself to just the one and we headed on to Summer’s house so the girls could pack bags for their stay with their father.

Hannah and Dylan wanted to meet us at Chili’s for dinner, so Summer took a shower and we both drove to meet up with them. My food was pretty good, but cold. Summer said she liked hers, but the other two both wanted to send their sirloins back to the grill. We had a good time though, and I got Dylan’s Steam info so we can hopefully join up for some Rocket League or other games at some point in the future.

When we finished dessert, Summer and I headed back to my house for the evening. We thought momentarily about visiting the remaining three Dollar Generals in town to clean the rest of them out on gift cards, but she was sleepy and I figured $380 should last until next holiday season when hopefully they’ll have another sale.

Motorcycle weather in December, but you look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.

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That Time the Superintendent Took a Shit on My Lawn

During a day of unseasonable warmth, I rode the bike to work again. I got stuck in a polar vortex of doing things for the office at the junior high, which meant I started stacking up work orders from other people. I took a quick Taco Tuesday break with Dale, Zach, Gary, and Heather, and then ran home to get a helmet for Eaddie.

Near the end of the day, Ben sent us a pretty long email basically telling us that Brice was hired on a full four steps higher than any of us were allowed to hire on, which makes him one of the highest paid techs right out of the gate. I was bothered still by his start date a full week before he actually showed up. It didn’t make me much happier to see him sitting in the shop on his phone, but I couldn’t really blame him if he was just there to follow someone else around. I would have liked to see him trying to talk to someone instead though, since he’s got a lot of ground to cover regardless of how much he knows outside of our own policies and procedures. I certainly don’t remember being on my phone a lot during my third day on the job.

Demoralized, I left whatever I had going on to take Eaddie to karate. Summer and Autumn were at a quiz bowl event in Clarksville, so she and I got to ride the bike across town. I stopped by the shop to talk to Ben for a couple minutes, running into Ryan as I pulled in. Then I went to my parents’ house for dinner and to pick up some bánh bao. Zach called a couple times and we chatted about what we should do, and how we could possibly have a productive conversation without the lesser-intelligent bringing up irrelevant nonsense or flying off the handle. We didn’t have any great ideas.

Back home, I had lost power for most of the evening, so I took the opportunity to shuffle around some battery backups. It took me most of the night to fight through everything, and I guess I’m really no better for it.

Tell me again why I can’t be a part of that positive change.

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Swag Bag

I woke up a couple times last night, and at one time in particular had a bit of trouble getting back to sleep. Eventually Summer got up and took the girls to school, and I headed home to get ready for our bike ride. After trying unsuccessfully to nap a bit, I took a shower and then Summer came over to help load up. We headed to Fayetteville via Highways 21 and 16, stopping first in Lamar for a quick breakfast snack, then a drink in St. Paul, and finally a McDonald’s in Elkins before coming into greater Fayetteville.

When we landed at Baum Stadium, Summer was in awe of all the bikes there, but being the middle of a Friday it actually wasn’t that busy yet. We wandered through the vendors and picked up a bunch of shirts and other swag. Surprisingly no pens, but I did get a pair of AARP sunglasses for providing my name, home address, phone number, and email on the pretense that I would learn something about identity theft. I hope this isn’t one of those hard lessons, but I guess neon yellow sunglasses are worth it.
 
Summer got her hair braided at Flo’s Chop Shop, and then we made our way to Dickson street. It was every bit as thunderous and ridiculous as I remembered as we coasted downhill surrounded by people revving their idle engines. We walked down to a big food court and had an awesome seafood giro and eventually a couple big plates of barbecue. We never did make it to the fanciest of funnel cakes before we were both stuffed and the sun began to set. We got quite a bit of “higher quality” stuff this year, but I was surprised not to find a large Geico gift tent.

Maybe I’ll go again with Allen tomorrow.

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G.C. Phone Home

I spent all morning working on switching a single handset to a new Avaya model. The instructions were straight forward and overly simple, but that seems to be the only way to get others to follow them. Jason emailed me for status on several of my work orders that already had notes on them. I got a little upset, but mostly talked myself down from that just because I know I’ve had over 30 work orders since school started, while everyone else is down to almost nothing.

Sonic was doing 50 cent corn dogs, so I grabbed lunch there and ran into Keith at the drive-through. He got out and chatted with me for a bit, and then I was off to the shop to meet Ryan for some help with a couple issues I had with the phone swap in the morning. We got it halfway figured out, but he or I will have to talk to Ben about the other half later.

When quitting time finally came around, Summer left Eaddie with me, and we went home to clean the bike up before dark. We started by riding a quick loop around town before stopping at the car wash. Once I got my chain cleaned and lubed up, we went to Wendy’s so I could get a half salad for dinner, and I got Eaddie some fries to dip in a Frosty. She loved riding the bike so much, but we had to get home for the evening.

On the way back and still hungry, I picked up a couple spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy’s after Hardee’s told me all of their chicken strips were frozen. I’m still not sure if that was just a polite way of telling me she wasn’t going to make them for me, or if they actually batter them in the store and can’t make them unless they’re thawed out. After eating, Summer and I went to the junior high to pick up Autumn, and somehow we made it back out in record time. Even more surprisingly, everyone settled into bed pretty quickly once we got back home. Hopefully tomorrow will be a nice day for a ride.

Wait… which one is farther?

Adventure Time!, Let it Ride

Bikes, Blues, and BBQ 2017

I got up early this morning to meet Allen and some people he invited along to Bikes, Blues, and BBQ. For some reason I was actually a little surprised to see Kristen there with him. I guess just like him, I’ll never learn.

They had three friends meet us at the First Assembly of God, then we took the interstate to Ozark where we exited to take the Pig Trail north to Fayetteville. It was so incredibly hot, and when we weren’t stuck behind an 18-wheeler, we had freshies along to slow us down. Overall the ride was pretty frustrating. For a bit of relief near our destination, we stopped at a hipster McDonald’s where I was greeted by a girl literally training customers to use a self-ordering kiosk that will eventually make her position irrelevant.
 
Once we got to Baum Stadium, I found they had traded up Wild Bill’s $25 refillable aluminum souvenir cups for Ozark Mountain stainless steel tumblers that were nicely painted with a BB&BBQ logo for the same price. That was a purchase I definitely didn’t hesitate to make. From there, I bought a $9 ribeye sandwich that was a solid two steps below cafeteria food. It started off as a really shitty cut of meat that was served bland on a cheap white hamburger bun. That was it. That was the whole sandwich, wrapped in foil. I didn’t realize until halfway through that they had a condiment table with just the very basics like ketchup and mustard, but at that point I had already convinced myself to enjoy the childhood reminiscence of stuffing the last half of a simple bread-and-meat sandwich into my mouth to finish it in one bite. Wholly unsatisfied, I visited a different vendor and was recommended some brisket nachos that did not disappoint.

After I finished eating my nachos by myself, I wandered through the vendors looking for the gang. It had gotten so hot by that point that I was just dripping with sweat… and probably cheese and barbecue sauce. Somehow it wasn’t just completely miserable, though. Once we finished at Baum, we rode down Dickson Street for one of the guys that was with us. Throughout the trip, he seemed a simple man with a questionable moral compass and an overall negative attitude, so it didn’t help when the rest of us were ready to go home instead of walking Dickson. He claimed not to be a drinker, but I don’t see the draw to Dickson for any other reason, especially since he didn’t see any of the tits or ass he kept expecting to be hanging out on the street.

The rest of us headed back home straight down the interstate for the sake of speed, but it was such a boring drive. I still had a bit of a headache from the ride up there, and the sun was just unrelenting. We stopped by a Braum’s on the way home, and I had a surprisingly reasonably priced strawberry shortcake sundae that was really good.

In spite of everything wrong, I had quite a bit of fun doing something..anything with real life people. I made it home with a new stainless steel insulated tumbler, a free beer mug, a Geico backpack and cotton candy colored sunglasses, and a wicked suntan. I call that a success.

New Lights album, tho…