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The girls went to work and school this morning, so I had the morning to myself. I didn’t sleep in super late, but I got plenty of rest before getting up to finish some biscuits and gravy. Then I watched some YouTube before I took a shower and eventually got dressed to go out on the Onewheel.

I rode over to Ridgewood Brothers and saw Grant and Kyler for a bit. Then I started to ride toward the wash before I remembered Summer was out of town. I circled around and headed back toward home, but stopped near Sequoyah when I got a call from Tesla. They’re about ready to buy my car back, and wanted to schedule a drop-off during spring break. I told him we were traveling, and he said he would check on the paperwork dates to make sure we’d be okay.

While I was stopped, I got a text from Dustin asking if I was okay, or if I needed a ride. I continued back toward the house and then split off to see Dad for a moment. Then Summer finally made it back to the wash and I decided to run across town to see her. I stopped at Sonic along the way to try one of their “dirty” sodas. The cream and coconut were most pronounced, and then there was a whole lime thrown in, which was surprisingly subtle.

By the time I made it to the wash, I only had about 20% left. I let one of her employees try it out, and without any experience, he jumped on and just took off around the parking lot. It was pretty impressive. I hung out for a little bit, but Summer was going to be a while, so I took the Onewheel home in her car to charge.

Eaddie was home, but about to leave the house again. I chatted with her for a little bit before she left, and then waited for Summer to finish up at work. She wasn’t hungry and just wanted to go home and take a bath, so I took her to the house and rode the Onewheel back to Ridgewood for a little smokehouse treat. It got cold out, but I kept riding and went back to my parents’ house to pick up a couple drain plugs for the kitchen sink. By the time I made it home for the night, I had ridden about 15 miles, which more than doubled my personal best.

Summer was watching the new Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle until Eaddie made it home. Then we watched a few episodes of the The Office original UK series before the girls headed to bed. I fought my computer for a couple more hours, but eventually settled in.

That’s a lot of revolutions for such a little tire.

Missing Innaction

Kim decided pretty early in the day that she just wasn’t into it, and went to the elementary for nearly the entire day. I saw her briefly for lunch, and then just before she left for the day. The cafeteria made a ton of peach “pie” that I would have called a crumble, so I took a big container home. Everyone seemed pretty ready for spring break.

I fed the fish and brought a couple more small things home, and Summer had dinner going again. Eaddie was out and talkative, and we had a nice pork chop dinner. It looked like storms were incoming, so I went out on the Onewheel for a pretty aggressive carve session around the block. By the time I made it back home, my left foot was aching pretty badly. I took some trash out and then ran by my parents’ house to see them just briefly.

On the way back home, I had my arms up as I leaned in and out of some curves in the road, and a guy came down the driveway at the end of the house, mimicking me with his arms. I stopped to chat and let him give it a whirl. He said he used to skateboard, so he picked it up really quickly. Then his little girl tried it out, and she did pretty well too, while he held on to her.

I made it back home and felt sticky from the humidity. Eaddie and I sat on the porch to chat for a little bit as the rain slowly came in. Then the girls went to bed while I dawdled for a while, enjoying the thought of a week away from work.

Let’s get goofy!

Clammy Wednesday

My temperature was down under 100ยบ this morning, so I went back to work. Kim kept wanting to talk at me, and Denice kept bringing kids back for testing, one at a time. I had to turn her daughter away when she tried to come get her backpack out of her office. She started to get an attitude with me, and the whole ordeal is kind of coming to a head for me.

I brought along some ramen in case all the cafeteria had was hotdogs, but they ended up baking potatoes too. Otherwise it was a long afternoon of humidity and slight sweatiness until I finally got to head home.

Summer warmed up some leftovers for dinner, so I fed the fish and grabbed a couple things to take home. The three of us ate, and then I rode the Onewheel to the Neighborhood Market for a couple things. It was pretty nice out, so I dropped that stuff off at home and then went to my parents’ house to see them for a bit. Dad and I went out to fly his little drone a bit, and we kept crashing when the thing was set to use GPS. Flying without was much better.

Afterward, I saw a kid riding a Onewheel on the next street up, so I rode up to try and find him. It ended up being the son of The Sign Hub folks. I met Nick and chatted with him for a little bit, but their son was off doing other things by then. I continued on home, slowly rolling by to chat with a couple old ladies that were walking the neighborhood.

The girls were both off to bed pretty early. I went out to check on the empty rat traps, and Summer and I watched What Women Want, which I don’t think aged super well. Then it was bedtime.

What an ass.

Slippery Dippery

We had some makeup testing today, so I didn’t feel super comfortable changing any more network configurations. I wasn’t super motivated to do anything at all, really. Kim wasn’t particularly useful, and Denice had guests in her closed office all day. I just passed the time. Slowly. With ham rollups for lunch.

I went straight home after work because Summer had dinner going. Eaddie and Eli were watching the new Cinderella movie while Summer barbecued chicken quarters. It was a nice dinner, but the chicken and green beans were both undercooked, and the potato salad was bland. I really don’t think she tries any of the food as she’s cooking, and then just sits down with everyone else at the table to find out for the first time how it tastes.

I put the larger pieces of chicken back on the grill and ate what I could, but I think I was hungrier after I ate than before I started. The kids left, and I went out on the Onewheel for a little while. My parents weren’t home, so I continued around to Ridgewood to see Grant for a minute.

Afterward, I floated through the neighborhood for a new path back home and thought I’d try the Waco Detention Basin Trail, which may not have been a path back at all. It also wasn’t dry. It was dark and completely unlit, and there was a layer of silt that I couldn’t see over the concrete trail. I narrowly escaped going down to the ground, but got a streak of mud up my jeans. I backtracked up to the road and made it home, but then rode over to my parents’ house to borrow a rat trap.

What I thought was a mouse yesterday looked a bit bigger on camera today, so I brought two larger traps home. I set them with some peanut butter, along with the little jar trap, and hoped I could catch something overnight. Summer was working late, but then I upset her with my own airing of grievances as she went to bed. I stayed up and did my load of laundry, periodically stepping out to listen to the rain.

bberry

Idiotecha

I was in a rush this morning, so when Summer came into the bathroom and startled me, I stabbed myself in the eye with my toothbrush. It was seven kinds of painful, but there didn’t appear to be any major damage. I got to work on time in spite of the dummies in front of me, and I poked at my switches some more. That’s when things took a turn for the worst. Something at the elementary is causing trouble upstream, and I’m pretty sure it’s a rogue DHCP server.

Summer came to talk to some students at our reverse job fair, and then had lunch with us. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to fix what I had broken. With Kim’s help, we reset things in the right order to get them going again.

After work, I fed the fish and got a few more things before making it home to ride the Onewheel. I stopped by my parents’ house briefly, and then went back toward Ridgewood. I rode by Mollie’s house and saw Craig outside mowing the lawn, so I texted her and stopped to chat briefly before finally circling around the restaurant.

I didn’t see anyone I knew, so I left straight away and rode a little ways up the bike trail. There was a neat little intersection with signage for different local destinations. When I finally got back home, I ate some leftovers and then settled in for the night.

Dis

Downtime, Downtown

I was actually early for work today, but I got a text from Kim just as I was pulling in that the internet was down. I spent the entire day trying to get the switches to respond again, and nearly overheated in the server room. I had to take a break for lunch, but ended up there again at the end of the day. I installed a pretty big upgrade on the Ubiquiti controller, which I had been saving for some downtime. Forced downtime won, but I couldn’t tell if the upgrade actually helped or not. I had Kim call DIS to try and get some help, but as soon as she got to an agent, she handed the phone to me, not even waiting long enough to hear that the poor girl couldn’t troubleshoot, and would only be submitting a ticket for us.

I eventually got the switches back online after school let out, and then I got into some fast traffic to get home quickly. Robert called from DIS, and we scheduled a call for the morning to check for the cause of the day’s outage. I fed the fish and grabbed a couple things, and then ran home to get the Onewheel.

Dad wanted to know if anyone wanted to go out for my birthday, so I rode the Onewheel across town to the carwash to find Summer. Along the way, I spotted a couple girls at James Park that looked like they stepped straight off the streets of Grand Theft Auto. Then I crossed the tracks and rode through the Superfast lot before crossing the street and coming into the back side of the wash.

Summer was slow to leave work, and was back and forth on whether she wanted to eat. In the end, Mom wanted New China, and the two of us met them there.

I thought about riding the Onewheel home after that, but Summer made a B-line for the passenger seat again. I drove us home, and settled down pretty quickly after a tough day.

Did I just get catcalled by a daywalking prostitute?

Bringing It Down

I woke up fairly early this morning and made French press coffee for Summer and myself. I’m excited to try out the new grinder, because I’ve always had coffee that was too fine for pressing and left a lot of sediment. It just feels dusty.

Summer went to the gym, and then both girls went shopping while I was in the shower. It was pretty clear we weren’t moving anything else again, and I don’t know why I ever think anyone is going with me. I ended up taking the Onewheel out to my parents’ house for a bit, and then back over to the Neighborhood Market to drop off some recycling.

Summer was in her feelings for most of the day, and wanted to make dinner alone. I guess Eaddie wanted some kind of chicken alfredo lasagna, but Summer made it with a rotisserie chicken from Walmart. Eaddie had Eli over, but didn’t even wait for him to arrive before making a plate.

I did laundry, but overall it’s just another wasted weekend.

Hue’ve gotta be kidding.

Dam Skate Park

Summer went to the gym and Eaddie went to a robotics tournament today. A little after Summer got back, we decided to go to Old Post so she could practice the Onewheel on level ground. She did really well, and got to turn around in the road and ride around on the sidewalk a little bit. On the way back home, we stopped at the Neighborhood Market for some brats and fries for a late lunch or early dinner.

Eaddie got home from robotics and wanted to go out on her bicycle. I fried and grilled some food, and then went out on the Onewheel myself for a bit as it got dark. I tried stopping by Ridgewood to see Grant, but they were busy and I didn’t want to be a bother.

Summer and I watched Modern Family when I got back, and Eli came over to hang out while Eaddie made brownies. Everyone went to bed at pretty reasonable times except me. For some reason I just kept getting sucked into time-wasting.

Woah, again!

Gummy Victory

It’s ironic how running a little late can sometimes result in a modified routine that lands me at work a little earlier than usual. A lack of traffic helped. Kim was out to take one of the kids to get a tooth pulled, so Denice and I were the only two in the office all day. That meant a wild mix of tunes and some real focus time in SCCM. Accordingly, I had great success after learning that you can’t join a computer in OSD to the default OU. This stuff is probably documented somewhere, but I don’t understand any of the reasoning behind any of it. You just have to know it’s that way because the way it is.

I continued to suck down hot tea and honey, knowing I couldn’t possibly beat the success I’d had in the morning. I could have just left for the remainder of the week after that. I tinkered with Software Center and made a deployment for Microsoft Office, which went way better than the time I did it at RSD. I ended up leaving close to quitting time and then getting stuck behind idiots the rest of the entire evening any time I drove anywhere. I seriously had better luck everywhere on the Onewheel.

Once I got back to town, I loaded a bunch of stuff into my car and headed home. Eaddie was helping with the junior high concert and Summer was late coming home from Greenbrier, so I went out on the Onewheel until she got home. I didn’t realize she was going to be so tired or fed after work, otherwise I would have eaten earlier.

I picked up some tacos, and then redeemed a $0.95 single-topping mini sundae from Freddy’s. For some reason they saw it fit to expire my birthday coupon a full week before my birthday. The app experience and the customer service were both poor enough to warrant a review. I topped the thing with some more goodies once I got home.

Eaddie eventually made it home and started working on some school work with Summer. Our ceiling fan remote died and Eaddie wanted some more strawberries, so I took the Onewheel out again well after dark and grabbed what we needed from the Neighborhood Market. Summer is going to be hot, but I’m loving riding this time of year. Maybe I should move to California.

If I had a nickel for every time I thought something was working correctly, I could almost afford a stick of gum.

Teenager Berries

I took some guaifenesin last night to dry up the crud in my chest, and it seemed to work pretty well. I woke up early and then dozed off a bit after Summer got out of bed. She went to the gym and Eaddie went to a band thing at Tech, so I got around to some coffee and eventually a shower.

Summer wanted to clean house a bit and then cook fajitas for dinner, so we went to the Neighborhood market to get groceries. I cleaned and cut up strawberries for shortcakes when we got back, and some of the berries had seeds with leaves on them. One of them in particular reminded me of a patchy high schooler’s beard, or a transition gone awry. I left it out to sprout and see if we could get any strawberry plants out of it.

Once Summer got the shortcake into the oven, we went outside so she could try riding around on the Onewheel. She got her first few falls and scrapes out of the way, but overall did a great job of moving slowly down the road and making turns. I just kept emphasizing that it was better to bail early than try and ride it out when you’re just getting started, because skill at bailing, running it out, or even falling is just as important as skill at riding.

Eaddie eventually made it home after also going to my parents’ house to rake some more leaves, but then she wanted to go out on her bicycle. Evidently Eli came over as well, and I rode around the block to find him walking alongside her on the bicycle toward my parents’ house. I popped in to say hello, and then headed back home to cook.

We considered putting the leftover chicken and some fresh veggies on the flat top to grill outside, but I ended up just heating it up on the skillet over the stove instead. I didn’t have very much room, but it worked alright and didn’t take as long to get heated up as it would have taken outside for such a small amount of food. I also cooked some black beans in the Instant Pot that turned out pretty good, though next time I’ll let the “bean/chili” setting finish instead of following some arbitrary recipe I found online.

The four of us started to play a game after dinner, and I excitedly brought out Hail Hydra, but I think it wanted at least five players. Eaddie kept fussing that she didn’t remember anything about Hydra anyway, and wanted to watch the movie instead. We all settled in and watched Captain America: The First Avenger, though Summer went to bed partway through. I enjoyed revisiting the movie, but seeing all of the hokey 3D stuff without 3D glasses felt a little silly. It was a silly movie anyway.

Eli left and Eaddie crashed as soon as the movie was over. Summer stayed up in bed to watch baking shows until I finished my own chores. I guess we plan to make more food tomorrow.

And why not? We like to eat.