Tag: parenting

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No, I Do Not ‘C.’

Summer got up and we had some coffee before she went to the gym. Eaddie came by to clean up before going to practice for the game in the evening. I finished up some leftovers and then got cleaned up for the day. Kevin came over to mow, and I went outside to pick up some fallen branches and sticks out of the yard. After Kevin left, I tried swapping license plate frames on our cars, but my original screws weren’t long enough, and the ones that came with the frame were the wrong diameter. I was able to get Summer’s replaced, though.

The afternoon went by quickly, and we had to go to Tech for the party in the plaza. I dropped Summer off and had to go park out by the pastures. Just as I got on the Onewheel, I noticed a giant caterpillar in the middle of the parking lot. I scooped him up and carried him with us to the band, who was just finishing up. A young officer came up and asked me to leash Muad’Dib, who was being a bit ornery anyway, so I unwrapped it from around his neck and held onto him. The guy seemed impressed with Muad’Dib’s behavior, but I wasn’t.

Summer and I struggled to get the caterpillar off of her stadium seat where it had been riding along with me, but we eventually got him onto my sleeve. Muad’Dib and I went back to the car and then headed to my parents’ house for a while. It got cold fast, so Muad’Dib and I did a quick run around the block at his fastest speed since last winter. After that, we headed home for a few minutes before going back to pick up Summer.

We had to wait in the car for a few minutes, but we got Summer and headed back to my parents’ house so I could get some food. I hadn’t felt well all day, but by that time I was super hungry. I cleaned up some lemon grass chicken and rice, and then we went home for the evening. I dug out a new rimless aquarium for the caterpillar and set it up in the garage for the winter while Summer went to bed.

I assumed it was the cappuccino that had me burping all day, and I’m sure the tiny scoop of ice cream I had for dessert didn’t help. I just couldn’t stop, and my chest felt full all night long.

I know. I have improoooved it.

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Glowout

I slept in a little bit today and felt rejuvenated for it. We still had milk, so I made a cappuccino and sat with Summer in the living room for a bit. Eaddie left for marching rehearsal and Summer mentioned going to Walmart to order a cake to donate to the junior high, but we ended up skipping that so we could relax a while before going to Eaddie’s game.

We eventually made it to Tech and I rode a couple circles around with Muad’Dib. We got a picture of Eaddie while they were practicing and then made it back to Summer for their march in. As soon as they finished, we left Summer to watch the game, and went home to clean up a bit around the house.

Mom had called earlier about coming to eat rolls, but then just said to come make it myself. Summer had a run immediately after the game, so I figured I should take my opportunity to get a meal for the day. As Muad’Dib and I pulled in, my parents were leaving for the grocery store. Mom had just a little bit of bún bò Huế left in the pot, so I finished that instead of making rolls.

Summer texted with perfect timing that they were almost to halftime, so we left and went straight back to the stadium to pick her up. She ended up being hungry and had more time than she expected, so we stopped by Ridgewood Brothers for some ribs. We sat outside with Muad’Dib, and he sat up on the bench with me. Grant was finishing up his day and came out to chat with us for a little bit, and invited us out to their soft opening for the Conway location, so we were excited to go to that.

We still had time for Summer to go home and change for her run, and then we headed to St. John’s after dark. They were having a glow run fundraiser, and Summer warned me of fireworks from last year. We dropped her off and parked on the opposite end of an adjacent parking lot, then rode the Onewheel over to the crowd. Muad’Dib did really well at that time, but we had to ride away and hide for the start of the race. We should have gone back to the car, but instead I took him around to the other side of the building where I thought I could shield his ears a bit. He still squirmed away and laid down under a bush.

After the fireworks were over, I tried taking him back out to run around some more, but then a helicopter came in for a landing right next to us at the hospital. That really freaked him out, and he took off running. I had to chase him down the street, but luckily he didn’t get into too much traffic. He ended up coming back around to the car, and we sat down in the cool air with some music to settle down. Once Summer was about done, we headed back to the crowd, but he was still high anxiety. I kept him on a leash at that point, and he got a few pets while Summer was cooling down. The kid I bought the Pint X from came up to tell me he got his e-bike, and then wanted to ride his old Onewheel around a bit. I let him take off on it and he buzzed through the crowd. Summer didn’t want to stay for awards, so we left after that.

We made it home and I dawdled way too long. Summer was long in bed, and I gave Muad’Dib some melatonin so he could rest well. Eaddie brought Eli over to watch TV, and I eventually made it to bed after midnight.

Now in stereo!

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Screamin’ Good Times

I got up early with Summer to go to Dardanelle for a run. Muad’Dib and I ran a couple miles with the Onewheel, and after stopping for a moment, I turned around to see him lying in a puddle to cool down. Summer made first in her age division, so she was super happy with her progress. Afterward, we went to Waffle House for some breakfast before heading back home.

We cleaned up and had a bit of a break before Eaddie left to get her friends. Then Summer and I drove separately to drop Muad’Dib off with Mom, and headed to Hot Springs. I had been belting out songs in the shower earlier, and we continued on rocking out while we were driving, so I didn’t notice how much the car was speeding. I got pulled over, and I think it was the same guy that got me when I was working at Two Rivers. He gave me another warning, and we were on our way.

We stopped at Clampit’s Country Kitchen for a late lunch on the way. We had never been, but they had 4.7 stars and the pictures looked pretty good. It was a large building with cases of meats and some other little grocery items. The deli had plate lunches, so Summer got some brisket nachos and I got half a rack of ribs to add to that. I could not have been more disappointed. I didn’t detect any smoke on the meats at all. The hot sauce wasn’t hot at all. The nachos were just yellow corn chips with Velveeta cheese dip, cole slaw, baked beans, and a bit of brisket. The ribs weren’t sauced, smoked, or tender. It was edible, but the most stereotypical “white people” lack of flavor I could possibly describe. I think the only way the meat could have been worse is if they boiled it.

The kids caught up to us and stopped there, and then we continued to Magic Springs. The parking lot was fairly empty, so we were excited to enter with basically no lines for anything. Eaddie brought Eli, Ceci, and Jenny along, and we rode some rides and had a good time. Early on, I found an abandoned refillable cup, so we ended up cleaning it out to use for the day. We got stuck on Brain Drain the second time we went up, because the guy accidentally slipped off the button to lift the ride. They had to bring it down and run a test before it could be unlocked, but Summer really wanted to do a haunted house and it was getting dark. We wandered through a couple small ones, but by the time we made it back to the larger ones, the lines had formed. I was already burned out from yelling so much and running around, and we decided to leave the kids and head home.

I let the car drive the entire way, and it did great. We picked up Muad’Dib and made it home. Summer went straight to bed and I stayed up late just catching up. The kids ended up going to Conway for some reason, so I didn’t wait up for them. They had just taken a trip to Tulsa, so a bit of extra driving in-state must not have seemed much to them. I’m just glad I’m not paying for their gas.

Poppa’s is better somehow.

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It Must Have Been Bluff

I woke up super sleepy this morning and got a really slow start. I felt pretty crummy for most of the morning, but I eventually got better. Janice was full of head crud all day, so hopefully that doesn’t go around the office, or else I’ll have it forever. Tammy was having some trouble with closing, so I had to open a ticket with Aptean. It took all day, but they finally responded that it was the same issue we encountered months earlier, and evidently a hotfix they applied was overwritten by a later build update.

We started to go to lunch a little early, but ended up going around the usual time. It was Taco Bell today since the weather was still pretty nice. It was windy, but Muad’Dib loved it. He was super good today.

Summer had to leave work late in the morning to go take Autumn back to the women’s clinic after feeling some more pain, and then was surprised to learn that Autumn completely forgot to start taking the antibiotics the doctor had given her before. It ended up being just as well, because she had an attack while they were there, and an ultrasound showed a twisted ovary.

Later in the afternoon, they took Autumn back for emergency surgery and ended up having to remove an ovary. Summer stayed with her the rest of the night. I finished up the day and left a little late, and had to fight some of the worst traffic I’d ever seen, nearly the entire way home. I expected to have to go to Clarksville, so I took Muad’Dib for a run in a drizzle. Dad wanted me to add some water to the pool, so we stopped there first and ate a salad with Mom before continuing back home.

Summer eventually got Autumn back home and said not to bother driving out, so I got cleaned up and tried to make it an early night.

But it’s ovary now!

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No Game

I slept through some more wild dreams last night. I don’t know if the quality of my sleep has had anything to do with it, but I don’t think I’ve dreamed this much since childhood. Summer got up to let Muad’Dib out, and I ended up sleeping pretty late. I got up in time to take my morning meds, and Summer wanted to go run the neighborhood to prep for her 5k this coming weekend. I ate some cheese and crackers and messed with my Steam Frame accessories for a bit since my Arcturus vision camera came in.

I wanted to try and see the Endgame encore locally since we wouldn’t be able to make it to a better theater, but Eaddie had a concert in the afternoon. We got cleaned up and took Muad’Dib to stay with my parents and then went to New China for a quick lunch before the concert. We were a hair late to a packed parking lot, but they were still practicing when we got in the doors. We found seats on the front row, so I don’t know what all the cars were there for.

The concert was pretty good, but Summer said Eaddie didn’t care for the last piece and suggested we could leave early to catch the movie. I didn’t really want to miss part of it, or slip out between songs, or rush to get to the theater and find good seats, so we ended up staying until the end with plans to go to the late showing of the movie.

We picked up Muad’Dib and Mom gave me more basil for pesto, so we headed home and I got that going. I had trouble with my first big batch, but it eventually turned out. The second went much quicker, but by then we were rushing to get to the theater again. We left Muad’Dib at home and Summer got the car ready to go.

I had forgotten the late show was in auditorium eight, so that was a bit of a disappointment – but not as much of a disappointment as it was when we sat there for 15 minutes past the start time for the movie, and a young lady came in to tell us the projector was broken and they wouldn’t be able to start the show.

We got a refund for the tickets, but I had to push for a couple extra vouchers for the popcorn and drink they couldn’t refund. We made it back home and I took Muad’Dib for a short run to my parents’ house to drop off some redneck tupperware. I let Muad’Dib lead us back home through a shortened reverse route.

Summer was getting ready for bed, so I cleaned up some more in the kitchen and finished up a few more things before finishing up surprisingly early.

Wrap it up!

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Masse in the Clouds

We slept in a little bit today, but I got up with Summer when she took Muad’Dib out. I made some coffee, and showed her the Steam Frame. She actually got into a game before I did, and started playing PUNCH FIT in the living room. It looked like she was enjoying it, so I tried it out for a couple jabs and had fun. It was nice, since I hadn’t had any luck with anything else I’d tried on it at that point.

A while back, Netflix invited me to preview some unfinished content, so Summer and I sat back and watched a movie that was available. They put a watermark over the screen with my email address, which was a bit distracting in some scenes. Otherwise, the movie was terrible. We just couldn’t relate, or even understand who the target audience might be.

After a while, Eaddie got up and left to spend the day with friends. I cleaned up a bit, Summer went to the gym, and I got dishes done and took a shower. Summer brought Little Caesar’s home for a late lunch afterward, so we ate and then got ready to go to Mt. Nebo for Brass in the Clouds.

We picked up Dad and made it up the mountain to a massive crowd. We couldn’t see the band at all where we were sitting, so I guess if we really want good seats, we need to be up there for lunch. Muad’Dib was a pretty good boy and did reasonably well off leash when we were in transit. I kept him on the leash while we were seated so he wouldn’t get bored and wander off.

It was dark by the time we headed home. We dropped Dad off and I got Summer inside so she could go to bed. I finished putting together a shoe bench and eventually got to sleep.

Completed!

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Bloody PLCs

I had a rough start this morning, but not as rough as Summer. Autumn called her around three in the morning, crying about unbearable abdomen pain. Summer told her to call the emergency room if it was that bad, and then drove to Clarksville to meet her there. She didn’t get back home until after noon.

I managed to get out in time for another breakfast burrito, then made it to work for our first staff meeting in a couple months. As usual, I had been fretting a bit about it for nothing. It was fairly short with a couple new projects to work on.

I spent most of the day trying to learn a way to pull data from a PLC controller to dump into PRTG. It can’t do it natively, but evidently there may be a way to do it through another container I could spin up on my Docker VM. We took a break for some Sonic, and then I actually built out the tool, but couldn’t get it to connect to the PLC before quitting time.

I told Summer I wanted to make sure she got a good dinner when she got home. She had gone in to work for a bit after getting an afternoon nap, so we stopped by the lube to see her on the way home. Once we got home, I had to get cleaned up before she got home, and then we ended up going to Ridgewood Brothers.

It was super nice outside, so we had a good time at the picnic table. We ate too much, and then came home to drop Summer off before Muad’Dib and I did a quick run around the neighborhood. Dad got home just after we got there, but Mom didn’t wake up from all my banging around. We didn’t stay long since it had already gotten dark.

There was a bit more cleanup since Eaddie left food in the trash and we got ants again. Summer went to bed, and I finished up early.

red red red

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But Did You Document It?

I took my little baby bottle full of creamer to work today, and after we got there and I shook it up, it leaked all over the place. When I tried tightening it down, the threads snapped off of the top part of the lid, so then I was stuck with a full, broken bottle all day.

I contemplated wiping my phone again, but I think I finally got most of my text messages transferred through. I hate that Google Fi doesn’t keep all of that in the cloud any more, and that was a big part of why I switched to them in the first place. Now with RCS encryption, backing up and restoring is a lot more iffy.

Eaddie called me pretty early in the day, trying to get tickets to see Harry Styles. If she had told me they had an Amex presale, I could have found my card and gotten her tickets easily, but instead she missed out because my card wasn’t in the stack on my desk where she could find it.

After that, I was fairly focused on a couple of projects. I keep bouncing between different things that all ultimately rely on big network changes, so I think now is the time to start building out new subnets and VLANs. I broke out NetBox yesterday, and continued documenting things there today. Hopefully with that, along with my “little friends” as leadership like to call them, I can get things migrated smoothly.

We had Sonic for lunch, but I forgot to redeem my extra snack, so I gave Muad’Dib some of my ice cream. The carhop actually offered a pup cup, but then didn’t return with one. Then when I unwrapped my burger, it had no tomatoes or pickles instead of extra, so a different carhop brought me a cup full of them. That actually made the burger way better, so no complaints there.

The afternoon was more focus, and then we got home a little late. I installed a different phone mount in my car, then warmed up some leftovers for dinner. I also made some fresh rice, so the girls could eat when they came home. I was glad that they finished up the rest of the stuff Summer made a week or more ago. I cleaned up the kitchen, then took Muad’Dib for a run. It got dark fast, so we only popped in to see my parents for a moment.

When we got home, I cleaned up some more and took out the trash. Then I gave Muad’Dib a long-overdue bath while the girls lounged. Summer went to bed, and I was up late catching up on a few reviews and then prepping my stuff for work the next day.

Believe it or not, jail!

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Hi Bixby

I could barely sleep all night, between the uncomfortable bed, differences in my travel CPAP, the hot room, and the bright lights coming through the windows. I laid in bed for a long while, unable to go to sleep, so I think I only got a couple hours of actual sleep. I got up and showered, then went downstairs with Summer to let Muad’Dib relieve himself. Then we took him back up to the kids before going down for breakfast. I was really pleased with their selection, but frustrated that the kids just wanted to sleep instead of coming down to eat, and then just complained about hunger later.

We checked out and headed to 181 Ranch in Bixby for the Conquer the Gauntlet. It was pretty overcast, but I couldn’t tell if it was actually going to rain or not. Summer wanted me to pay to be a spectator, so after waiting for them to finally start, Muad’Dib and I wandered into the field between obstacles and waited for them to come around. I took a few pictures, but there wasn’t just a whole lot of interest. It wasn’t terribly hot, but it was humid and gross feeling. We waited for a while, then went back to the car for a bit while they went out farther than I cared to go.

Muad’Dib did great, and got lots of attention from strangers. We eventually went back out and found our crew as they finished up the last few obstacles. I actually thought they had another loop, but they were actually on the home stretch, so we didn’t get to see them finish. It actually started to rain pretty hard, so we ran back to the car and just waited for them to get back.

The kids wanted nothing but Red Lobster after that, which I hated, because there were so many more exotic things we could have tried. There wasn’t really much around us either, so I drove us through Muskogee on the way home to find the Red Lobster there. We missed a turn out in the farmlands, but got headed back in the right direction. We charged just as we got into town, then made our way to Red Lobster. As we got close, it looked completely dark and there were zero cars around the place, so I continued on toward home. The kids had been chanting “Red Lobster” repeatedly, intentionally annoyingly, and I didn’t have self-driving and had to actually pay attention to what we were doing, so I shut them down and continued driving toward home.

After some back and forth, I agreed to drive them way out of the way to get to the Red Lobster in Fort Smith. Our server was incredible, so at least I had a full plate of shrimp in front of me at all times. We ate, then stopped in Ozark for one last charge before making it home.

I had been communicating with a lady about a Onewheel Pint X she had on Facebook Marketplace, and agreed to meet her once we got back into town to buy it. Then Summer informed me that her debit card had been compromised, and she hadn’t gone to get a new one yet. I started worrying about figuring out my own ATM situation since I no longer do any local banking, but the lady said Cash App would be fine.

As soon as we got home, the others unloaded and I took Muad’Dib to meet the family at Kroger. I had previously offered $700 out of the $750 she asked for, but after I paid her, I learned that her son was trying to save up for a dirt bike. With a heart full of approval and knowing what it’s like to want a motorcycle, I sent her $20 more for the cause. I let their son ride my GT-S around the parking lot to see how it felt, then loaded up and headed back home with our new Pint X in “Honda Grom Blue.”

Muad’Dib had been telling me the entire time that he really wanted to go for a run, so we did a short loop to my parents’ house, then back home before dark. Summer had wound down for bed while Eaddie was out and back, presumably fetching cars with Eli or something. I had a bunch of inefficiently packaged Vine products to unbox, but I also finally got my new Pixel 11 Pro. I got the screen protector installed, but didn’t bother going any further than that before bed.

Don’t fight it!

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Game Daze

I had an anxiety attack in the middle of the night, which was the first one I’ve been aware of in a couple weeks. I went back to sleep until it was time to get up, and had a fair start after that. We actually got to work a hair early, but then chatted with Teisha until people came in. I stayed fairly focused on my tablet project, and eventually found by complete chance that it was failing because it wanted a GUID instead of a tenant name. It all just feels terribly documented.

We took a late lunch to grab some quick Taco Bell, and then I think the salt made me dizzy immediately afterward. Evidently two burritos are more than your daily suggested intake, and I drowned them in fire sauce to boot. That feels like it shouldn’t be legal.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly and without much success after that. We left pretty close to quitting time since we had to get home for Eaddie’s first game. Summer was already home and ready to go, and left early to find herself a spot. She planned to stay through halftime, and I didn’t want to pay for a ticket, so Muad’Dib and I drove later.

We ended up getting stuck by a fire truck, and then a train, so we didn’t get there until most of the way through the pregame performance on the lawn. We didn’t even catch up with Summer, because she didn’t see my text and just went on in. Instead, we headed back home and I took Muad’Dib for an early run to my parents’ house to find some dinner.

My parents were outside watering plants, so I warmed up the curry and eventually had a bowl by myself. It was dark by the time I finished, and that was all before they finished, so I left just as they came inside. Summer stayed a bit later than either of us expected, but eventually made it home and straight to bed. I wasn’t long behind.

Buddahcup!