Tag: pets

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Predatory Loan Officer, Tom Nook

I got up kind of early this morning and went to check on the bunny. It seemed slightly better, but still wasn’t at 100%. I just let it burrow into my arm while I played Animal Crossing. I bought a ton of turnips and found someone on Reddit that had time traveled so I could turn right around and sell them. Traveling to their island didn’t go as smoothly as my previous visits to other islands, but I managed to sell enough to pay off my final loan in the game.

Summer got up and made some pasta with rib meat that everyone really loved. Then everyone had to jump to cleaning house before the girls had friends over for the night. Eaddie and Noah mowed, and Eaddie plowed right over the flower I planted next to the stairs in the front yard.

I went home for a while to clean up and decompress. Overwatch was holding their anniversary event, so I spent most of my time trying to earn as many loot boxes as I could before heading back up to Summer’s for the evening.

Summer picked Noah up from work and got back shortly after I got there. The girls and their friends were all inside playing. Noah and I warmed up some chicken Alfredo that Summer made for dinner. Then I spent some time with the bunny because it looked like it was on the edge of death. It seemed super dehydrated and skinny, so I kept trying to force it some water and milk. Eventually it did pep back up a bit, but I don’t know why it seemed so much worse seemingly within just a few hours.

Eventually everyone found their way to bed for a pretty late evening.

Multibellionaire.

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Sun Dried and Rain Soaked

Today was our “last” day to collect laptops from high school students. We had over 200 returned, but we have even more than that still out in circulation. They’ll just have to collect them in the office though, because I’m not hunting them all down.

At least it was overcast and breezy in the morning, so it didn’t feel bad. We were busier than we had been all week, but still pretty slow. Lunchtime arrived quicker than any of us expected, and it wasn’t long before some rain arrived as well. I didn’t even really get a chance to eat until we had to pack everything up and move into the entryway at the Center for the Arts. I just stayed inside from that point on, and continued to inspect and scan laptops as they were brought in.

Ben came by near the end of the day to relieve Gary and Zach, and then helped me pack up at the end of the day. I made sure to remove the laptop pickup slide from the sign, and snuck in a quick The Office reference for Memorial Day. I went home for a little while before Autumn called for a ride from physical therapy.

Once I got Autumn, we went up to their house and munched on some leftovers until Summer got home with Noah. Then the kids wanted me to take them to the store for snacks, so we loaded up and went to Walmart. It was pretty busy there, and we ended up shutting the place down.

When we got back to the house, I laid around with the bunny for a bit while Summer watched TV, and one by one, everyone else crashed as well. Poor Eaddie was left as the last one up as always.

All the troops. Both sides.

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Food Delivery

I got up extra early today for laptop pickup at the high school. Gary and Zach met me there, but didn’t seem to want to be much help. Zach was the most fussy. My laptop was dead, so I had to run to the shop to get my charger. I also brought a big Bluetooth speaker from Summer’s so we could have some music. To my surprise, they were doing teacher interviews right inside the PAC, but I didn’t let that stop me from jamming out. I think it was a hit overall.

Ben eventually showed up with some Stoby’s, and then ultimately let Zach and Gary leave for the afternoon while he stayed to help. We never got busy, and took fewer laptops than our senior day. Tomorrow and Friday will be hell. I got a pretty good sunburn, but I think next time we’ll start in the shade.

After work, I went home to lotion up and just rested in the cool air. My Stalk Market crashed, so I went onto an Animal Crossing subreddit and found someone with a store that was buying them for a bit over five times what I paid. I was surprised I got in so quickly with all the activity in the comments. After all that worry, I ended up a bellionaire.

Eventually Summer got home and I headed up to her place for the evening. Just as we sat down to eat, one of the cats showed up with a tiny baby bunny just squeaking away. I ran outside to fetch it, and it seemed unharmed. Autumn quickly took over and held onto it for the evening. She just reminds me of myself the way she always wants to keep all of the animals. In the end, that’s no good for anybody. It was cute though, and too young to release back into the wild for at least a little while.

I thanked the cat for dinner, and we crashed relatively early.

You’re going to get hare all over the place.

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Show Me a Sign

I woke up pretty early this morning and had some time to ease into the day. The girls got up and headed out so Summer and Eaddie could take Noah out on a hike while I went to work.

The high school was grilling burgers and hot dogs for teacher appreciation week, and I had to go there to work on the sign anyway, so I drove out there and set up on one of the picnic tables. It wasn’t quite the drive-through they advertised, but it was nice to see some people out at the pavilion. When everyone left, I headed to the shop to catch up with Ben while I tinkered with the Watchfire sign software.

I ended up accidentally overwriting the sign with a playlist of every single premade animation that was included with the software and had to drive back to the high school to fix it, because there was no password required to upload new content. I got there just in time to see a giant cross on a hill, with the words “ACCEPT CHRIST” across the front of it. Being a public school, I felt a bit of panic as I corrected the display.

Once I got something more appropriate uploaded, I ran by Julie’s to try and help configure her new modem/router/MTA box from Suddenlink. She was told, and the documentation showed, that she could change the SSID and password, but the web interface appeared to be disabled. We ended up calling Suddenlink to threaten cancellation to lower her bill, but the retention department was closed for the day. I stuck around to play with her new GoPro for a little bit and show her how the mounting works.

As dinner time approached, I ran home to take care of a few things and then headed up to Summer’s for the evening. When I got there, I found a couple moles right by the house that one of the stray cats appeared to have messed with. I scooped them up into a little bucket and brought them in for mole jokes and so the girls could see them up close. I ended up releasing them by a tree in the back yard, but I wasn’t sure one of them was going to make it. All it would do is lay there breathing heavily, so I assumed it took some internal damage from one of the cats.

The steaks Summer grilled turned out really good, and we had a nice dinner together. Afterward we played a Harry Potter: Potions Challenge Game that ended up being pretty dreadful. It upset Autumn a bit because she really wanted everyone to love it, but I could tell right away that it wasn’t worth the wooden box it came in.

As we wound down, I convinced everyone to finish the first episode of Game of Thrones, and then everyone went to bed.

They say winter is coming.

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On Free Hosting

Yesterday I showed up at work expecting a meeting and didn’t get one, and instead spent my day being productive with Brice. Today I did not expect much of a meeting, but everyone was at the shop and Jason was in a talking mood. He didn’t have any actual team-related meeting stuff to say though, and he basically talked about things with individual techs while the rest of us sat around staring at one another.

I stuck around the shop all morning, accomplished a few things that needed to be done, and then spent a considerable time trying to make my email signature look better for the Gmail app dark mode that was recently activated for my phone. It’s been a minor annoyance seeing so many emails come in expecting a white background, and I didn’t want mine to be one of those for anyone else sporting dark mode.

Just before lunch, I decided to go to the high school to get some laptops for Jason to take to central office. Zach was headed that way to look at some doors, so we just rode together. I got a couple more things done, and then we met back at the shop. He, Allen, and I convinced Gary to come along with us to Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. The food was really good today, and Gary got a really good looking quesadilla. He seems to eat a whole lot of those. Ronda came strolling in with a crew from the junior high as well.

After lunch, I had a call with Jamf about my iPad Pro again. This was the second or third tier of support, and the guy was super friendly and super helpful, though we still didn’t get the issue completely resolved before we were let off work at 3:30. I got home closer to 4 and trimmed the shrimp tank some more. I wanted to sit down and play some games again, but I just kind of zoned out watching the tank. It really has become my zen place.


When Summer got home, I left to get some gas and met the girls at their house for dinner. The girls went to bed pretty early, and then Summer and I watched two more episodes of Battlestar Galactica. With only two more left to watch, I’ll have to dig into the extra content that was added to that universe over the years. I know there are a bunch of webisodes as well as a couple really long special features.

To end the evening, I sat down to write this blog entry when I found my site had been turned off again for overuse of system resources. That still doesn’t seem possible, but I figured I’d gotten enough out of 000webhost for free. I don’t mind so much upgrading to some paid hosting, even for a do-nothing site that I maintain for my own entertainment. The migration to Hostinger was relatively smooth, and at a buck a month it’s really not bad for a four-year term.

The shape of dreams half-remembered. Slip the surly bonds of Earth and touch the face of perfection.

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Midweek Blitz

It was back to work today after a four day weekend, though it didn’t really feel like I had a day off at all. I jumped right into work and picked apart all the work orders I had gotten while I was away. A few of them had already been looked at by someone, which was a really nice surprise. I ended up spending all morning at the shop to catch up. Most of that time was spent with the iPad Pro after hearing back from Jamf support, but unfortunately we still couldn’t get it enrolled properly.

Zach, Ben, and I went to Arby’s for lunch and all got the Beer Cheese ‘n Double Beef Sandwich with free fries. It was a bit messy, but not any more than a big Beef ‘n Cheddar. I really enjoyed it. Then after lunch I finally made it to the high school to jump into my remaining work orders. I kept really busy right up to the end when Autumn came to the high school. On the way out, we walked across campus to the PAC so I could take a look at their sign again. What a surprise to see it not responding over wireless.

Autumn and I came back to my house for just a little while until it was time to get Eaddie from her after school activities. Then I dropped them off at their house before going to visit with Mom for dinner. She had made some salty sausage and stir fried some kind of squash to go along with it. Then we shared some French bread and sweetened, condensed milk for desert.

To wrap up the evening, I came home and did some more laundry while I took care of all the pets. The teeny baby shrimplets have doubled in size by my estimation, and it’s becoming easier to see how many of them there are. I really may have to just eat the culls, because they’re booming and it’s only going to get worse as more of them mature.

Missin’ out on ACOT has me all sad ‘n stuff.

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Shrimp Daddy

We had a pretty contagious day of not giving a crap about anything. Jason sent every last one of us to the junior high to do a few things, and then vanished as usual. He did stop in a couple times just to make his presence known, but otherwise he was as useless as ever with an attitude to go along with it. I stopped in to talk with Matt about esports again, so I guess that’s still on the table. Then we got a few lines run and found another that already existed. They fed us chili dogs there, and pretty much everyone came out for it.

I spent the afternoon with Brice, first going by Oakland to take care of a couple of his things. We ended up sticking around the office for a while just to enjoy a Friday afternoon. Then we finished up at the high school running a video cable for a troublesome display. I didn’t leave with an overwhelming feeling of confidence, but I guess we’ll see what happens.

Summer had me get the girls from the junior high, so I dropped them off at their house because they didn’t care to have me around. I went home to clean up a bit from all the ceiling dust. That’s when I spotted something new in the Imagitarium!

I finally have baby shrimplets! They were so minuscule that I had to get out the magnifying glass just to see any detail on them. Some of the bigger flatworms rival them in size. I’ll never know exactly how many shrimp I have ever again, because this is just the first of many population explosions. I’ll need to get some other tanks cycled soon for my genetic experimentation.

Mom called me over for dinner, so we sat and had some soup together. Dad had already left on his trip, but left us some fresh banana bread for dessert. Then I headed up to Summer’s where everyone had pretty well split up into their rooms. Summer and I watched an episode and a half of Battlestar before she passed out. I’m super happy about having a long weekend myself.

Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man, with my three wishes clutched in her hand.

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So Berry Glad to See You

It was rainy most of today. We had a meeting to sign testing paperwork for the year, so Ben brought sausage biscuits and donuts. Then Jason had us all go out and clean up the graveyard. It wasn’t an awful amount of work, so we finished up pretty quickly and then I spent the rest of the morning trying to get my student data migrated from yesterday. I was talked into driving half the crew to Fat Daddy’s out of town in the rain, but at least I didn’t have to park in the mud like I usually do. I felt a little rude after asking so many questions about the burrito, but it really annoyed me last time to be charged extra for getting the burrito made like it was described on the menu.

After lunch I got my last stubborn kid’s stuff to start migrating, and eventually I made it to the high school to get the girls. Autumn had a quiz bowl meeting, so they got out a bit late, then we stopped by my house before taking them home. I watched some MKBHD videos after messing with the speakers for a bit, and then we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Summer met us there after the gym because Dad had grilled burgers and dogs. The girls and I had some rice with it since my parents didn’t think of any other sides to go with the burgers.

Autumn wanted to stay at my house where she’d be closer to the high school for her tournament in the morning, so Summer took them home to get clothes, and I went home to start cleaning up a bit. I discovered one of my cherry shrimp was berried with eggs, which got me really excited after spending the past few days so worried. I think they’ll be just fine in that little tank, and I can split the colony up into other tanks as they grow.

The girls eventually showed up and we watched an episode of Battlestar when Summer got out of the shower. Then she went to bed and Eaddie and I started an episode of Luke Cage. She didn’t last very long before wanting to go to sleep herself, which was fine by me.

It’s way too early to be this exhausted…

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Just Shrimpy

I got home this morning and discovered one of my cherry shrimp had died. I’m assuming it was just a bad molt, because they all seemed fine yesterday. Can you imagine being trapped and suffocating inside of your own skin?

Work carried on with more random workie stuff. I do find myself annoyed with basically always having a backlog of work to do. It’s not that I don’t care to work the whole time I’m there, but rather that it’s so much more work than what I was doing before.

Lunch time ran a little late, and I found myself at Hardee’s to try their Monster Roast Beef. From the moment I walked in, I felt a little like I was in some kind of slummy neighborhood. What was confusing to me was that I saw examples of great customer service happening around me, but then I felt like I just got the “thank you, now move along” treatment. It was really kind of a weird experience. I felt like that place used to be a lot better. The sandwich was super tasty but surprisingly wet. I guess the roast beef was kept in juice to keep it moist, almost like a pre-soaked French dip.

I didn’t accomplish a whole lot more in the afternoon, and ended the day with some clerical nonsense that drove me a bit mad. I went by the warehouse to pick up some speakers, then home to change and hang out for a while. I made a frozen shrimp pasta dish of some kind that I got from Zach several months ago, and mixed it with some “grilled potatoes” he gave me as well. The whole meal was old enough to be walking and talking, but it tasted alright for what it was.

To wrap up the evening, I headed up to Summer’s and started setting up the speakers, and then we went to bed with the last episode of the second season of Battlestar.

Battlestar Shrimptactica

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Learning ALL THE THINGS

I tried pretty hard to get things done today, and though I closed a few little things, I felt better about learning and knowing processes and things. I wish I had time to just sit and document some of this stuff, or better yet, organize the documentation that we already have so it’s more accessible. I worked into lunch a bit, but got hungry and bothered enough to leave. I tried to go to CiCi’s with Summer, but she got stuck on the phone while I was waiting for her, and I had to run to Wendy’s really quickly instead.

After lunch, I chatted with Ben for a bit so he could help me better understand some of the things I had been working on. I was on the right track, which made me feel at least a little competent. It’s starting to feel like I’m the everything-guy though, and it’s aggravating being around people that make more for less. I also about had a fight with my phone over how stupid it was being, but then out of the blue it fixed itself as though it could sense that I was preparing to pull the trigger on a full factory reset.

I finished up the day a little late, then headed home to do some more laundry while I waited for Summer to get off work. Then we went to my parents’ house for spring rolls, and the girls brought some homework along as well. They did really well today, but they couldn’t stick around for too long. I had to head home to finish laundry and clean up after the cat too, and then it was a relatively early night to bed.

Shrimp everywhere!