Infinity Cords

It took me five and a half hours to do what should have taken 20 minutes, and I have a lack of documentation to thank for it. I expected to be pulled for project work today, but nobody said a word to me. Instead, I spent all morning and some of the afternoon tending to an “emergency” issue with the intercom bells at the junior high being slightly offset from the red clocks in the halls. It should have been easy to find the switch port that had been locked due to a tripped port security setting, but instead of reading a label, I had to follow the line all the way from the intercom to the switch closet.

We took a brief break for lunch at Fat Daddy’s in London, but everyone was eager to get back to work for some reason. I just got stuck sitting on all of my work orders. I even thought for a brief moment I’d get to leave on time, but no such luck.

After being stopped in the hallway for another 30 minute job, I went to Summer’s and waited for her to get home. I warmed her up a leftover hamburger, then we came back to my house to watch Infinity Wars in glorious 3D. We even caught the end of Ragnarok to bring us up to speed with the refugee ship.

#thanosdidnothingwrong

On Frugality

I tried not to sleep in too late today, and got up to clean the kitchen before Summer got up to cook breakfast. She made little ham, egg, and cheese pucks that tasted really good, but I think made better sense for a weekly meal prep. It’s super convenient to grab and go during the work week, but on a lazy weekend, for not much more work and an easier dish to clean, I’d rather have custom individually fried or scrambled eggs in a pan.

The girls wanted to watch the last bit of Split from the point Eaddie fell asleep, so we did that through breakfast/lunch until they wanted to go pick Noah up for his 16th birthday. I had fleeting moments of frustration with how wasteful the girls can be, or how they’re unnecessarily messy, or how they can’t seem to correctly put a single fucking lid back on any goddamn thing. It was nice to start and end with a clean kitchen though, so I guess I have their messiness to thank for that. This lid thing is seriously going to awaken the beast pretty soon, though.

After I got my shower, Noah’s pick for a birthday dinner was CiCi’s, so they all came back to pick me up. To contrast how money/waste conscious I am, I had us split into two groups to pay so we could double up on coupons. Everyone got their fill, and then I ran the circuit of dropping everyone off at home for the evening.

This is going to require everyone’s buy-in.

Split

While Summer woke up early this morning to go to her 5K event at the high school, Eaddie and I slept in until nearly noon. When she got back, I got up and had a shower. She and Eaddie went to pick Autumn up, then I met up with them at their house for a late lunch.

The girls were going to spend most of the evening with their father, so Summer and I met up with Ronda and Steven at Fat Daddy’s for dinner and drinks. After that, Summer and I went to Davis Pet Store to pick up some feeder goldfish and mealworms for the turtles. Back at home, I had lost internet due to an outage in the area.

When the girls got back from the tailgate event at the high school, we watched Split. Those that weren’t too terrified fell asleep on the couch. Summer, though trembling from broken nerves, said she thought it was a good movie. I’m just excited for a different kind of hero movie.

The broken are the more evolved.

Relentless

We didn’t have a team meeting this morning, so I spent all day in my buildings trying to keep my head above water. For some reason people feel like now is the best time to try and request new things from everyone, so on top of them finding things that have been broken since last year, they’re creating new work for us as well.

I met up with Summer at New China for lunch, then continued on with more of the same until it was time to go. I took Eaddie along with me while Summer went to work out, and we got some milkshakes from Sonic on the way home. Once Summer got here, we all went to pick up some Wendy’s for them before coming home to watch Unbreakable.

Monday will bring out the priorities in everyone.

Mush!

I had to drag Allen and Amanda along to do some work all day today. It was an easy task of blowing out computers and projectors on my campuses, but neither of them wanted to do anything. They both periodically ended up on their phones or sitting, and I had to drag them from room to room. Even pulling cable usually goes better with these two, but this was just too much for them.

We took a break for lunch at Firehouse, and I stopped by to give Summer some medicine at the shop. Then it was back to more dusting. We split up for most of that, so I’m absolutely positive they didn’t do it correctly while they were out of my eyesight. It’s things like this that make me want to just do it all by myself.

After work, I waited for the girls for a while until they were ready to go to the pet store. We had to pick up some more mealworms for the turtles. The floating ramp we found for Autumn’s red-ear was way too expensive for my taste, so we’ll have to come up with something from home. It shouldn’t be too bad, but it will take a little bit of work.

Once everyone got here, we watched Tomb Raider, which was stellar. The 3D was spot-on, and the surprises and suspense had Summer wringing most of the blood out of my hands. I really hate that I missed it in theaters.

Shoulda bought two for when the first goes out.

Sweat Child o’ Mine

I got up this morning and spent a while making a big egg and hash brown breakfast. Everything turned out pretty good, and I learned some things along the way. It’s all about the low, slow heat when it comes to the hash browns.

The girls got stuck watching The Flash literally all day long. Summer and I dug the 55-gallon aquarium out of the garage and started cleaning it up to take to her house for Autumn’s turtle, Apollo. We even managed to get her outside to help scrub the tank for a bit.

It was super hot outside, but it wouldn’t have been so bad in the shade if it weren’t for the humidity. Even my house struggled to keep up as the inside temperature reached four whole degrees warmer than the thermostat was set. I don’t know if it froze up, or if it was low on refrigerant, but it cooled off in the evening after leaving it off for a while.

After we dropped the tank off at Summer’s, we all went to my parents’ house for some hot dogs and eggplant soup for dinner. The girls got stuck there watching the finale of Harry Potter. I’m sure I probably have, but I can’t remember ever consuming that much passive entertainment all at once. They’ve just been completely gripped by this stuff today.

When the movie finished, I took the girls back home and headed home to a cool house. I’ll have to keep an eye on things tomorrow in the heat to see how it does. I didn’t feel particularly sleepy, and it was cool enough outside that I got the bug to install my Nest Hello. I finally found the correct breaker to switch off and got to work. Everything went pretty smoothly, and I’m pretty happy with the install except for the narrow passageway up to my front door. I’m pretty sure I’ll end up moving the whole installation to the gate next to the garage.

I’d rather live with the constant threat of my island blowing up than sweating to death every summer in this humidity.

ANT-onio Banderas

I tried not to sleep in too late today so I wouldn’t ruin my first morning back to work tomorrow. I guess it worked, because I’m exhausted now after a day in Conway.

I went to Summer’s to pick everyone up, and we headed to the movie. We picked up some cheap snacks first, and then grabbed our best seats for Ant-Man and the Wasp. I was a little worried at first, because the guy sitting next to me seemed to have negative comments for every single commercial that played before the trailers. He calmed down by the time the lights came down though, so all was well. The movie was great, and it really stoked everyone for the next Infinity War.

After the movie we went to Sam’s Club to try and exchange my succulent that rotted. They didn’t have any more, but they gave me a refund for half of the two plants, which was perfectly fine. We roamed around for a while, and I ended up picking up a super cheap mini fridge like the ones I’ve been eyeing for a while. It was about 25% cheaper than what I’d been watching on sale, so I couldn’t turn away.

We came straight back home where Summer grilled some brats and fried some potatoes for dinner. The Sam’s salsa we picked up was a disappointment, but everything else was awesome. Then we watched a couple episodes of The Office before I had to head home.

Aaron came online shortly after I got home, so we played one round of PUBG before bed. I didn’t die without at least one kill, so I call it a successful return.

You can do it. You can do anything. You’re the world’s greatest grandma.

Relatively Prehistoric

Today started off particularly slow and late. My Aunt Diane called after she got out of church so we could set up an early dinner. We left the hotel in the early afternoon to go shopping at an Old Navy that offered less of a deal than I expected, and then killed the rest of the afternoon there until we met my Aunt Diane and Uncle Rich at Greek Islands for dinner.

It was nice to visit with them, but they insisted on paying and the place wasn’t particularly cheap. It was probably the fanciest and most different meal we’ve had our entire trip though. I had a roasted suckling pig, Summer got lamb, Autumn had some kind of chicken spaghetti, and Eaddie had something with spinach and a flaky crust. The flaming cheese appetizer seemed to be pretty popular with other tables as well, and it was really good with the bread they had. None of my cousins could make it, but we managed to keep a conversation going.

After dinner, we separated and went our different ways. Summer spent the evening trying to prepack things to load in the morning so we could go catch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom at an IMAX just a few blocks away. It was a super late showing for the girls at 10:20. The theater was a full-service dining experience, which was new to all of us I think. I don’t think I’d do it again except for a movie I’m really not interested in seeing. It was too distracting for my taste, and the screen wasn’t a traditional IMAX size. The girls had fun though, and we all got to experience a Dyson bathroom faucet with built-in hand dryers.

Life, uh, finds a way to pay.

What are Traditions: Father’s Day 2018

We got up early this morning to go to Conway for Father’s Day. Before that, we went to Harbor Freight to pick up a trailer hitch cargo carrier. Julie was running behind, so we left about 45 minutes than we planned. Mom and Dad wanted me to drive, so I got us to Red Robin for some burgers. We managed to squeak in with a relatively short wait time, and made it out just in time to get to the other side of town for the movie.

With just a few minutes to kill, we ran to Harbor Freight across the parking lot so I could get a moving blanket to wrap stuff on the cargo carrier, and then we went in to watch Incredibles 2. I don’t know if it was because I was so hot and tired, or if the movie just had a way slower pace than I expected, but I had trouble staying awake during the first half. I wasn’t the only one though, because Mom fell asleep and then woke up screaming about how she couldn’t see anything.

After the movie, we came straight home and I started putting together my cargo carrier while Summer went to the gym. As I was finishing up, Lelan texted and wanted to know if I could help Stephen with a Mavic Pro drone they were having trouble flying, so I met him at his office to see what I could do. We managed to get it airborne, and he flew it around in their big lobby area because it was a bit too windy outside to be flying near an airport. Once he was satisfied with that, I came back home to meet up with Summer for dinner and The Office.

Don’t be koi.

It’s a little hard to hear you with that pity-dick in your mouth.

I ran into a sad Daredevil in the shower this morning. Sometimes I see some pretty weird stuff in there, but this one was picture-worthy. It was a bit hard to capture, what with him being made of hair and all. Toast would’ve been an easier medium to capture, I think.

Work was a bit more fun than usual today. I got a few things done, had lunch at KFC with Allen, and got to play with $160,000 worth of new flash storage in the server room. It was pretty impressive, and well thought-out, which was nice because we had to mount it at face level. I guess when you’re spending that much money on something, they really want to make sure you get your screwdriver, because the packaging for that was a little beyond ridiculous.

When we finished up in the server room, we were greeted outside by a pretty big, flooding thunderstorm. I didn’t expect the rain, but I at least drove to that building due to the heat. The problem was that I accidentally pulled off of the sidewalk and into the dirt when I parked, so I nearly got stuck getting out. I was just barely able to rock the car back and forth enough to hop out of the rut. That was after having to climb in from the passenger side because there was such a large mud puddle on the driver’s side.

Josh met me at my house right after work, and we went to Conway for some Old Chicago and then to catch Deadpool 2Solo comes out this weekend, so we wanted to catch this while it was still in the XD theater. It was a great movie that really just kept running with the jabs at literally anything else. We decided that it would be pretty hard to mess up a Deadpool movie, simply for the fact that it’s so self-aware and never takes itself too (at all) seriously.

Listen to the pain. It’s both history teacher and fortune teller. Pain teaches us who we are, Wade.