Tag: Reviews

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The “Ga” is Silent

I woke up at 6:30 so we could make it to a nine o’clock movie in Conway. The girls got up after I was out of the shower, and then we were off. Summer drove so I could try and order snacks on my phone, but we ended up ordering there instead because I couldn’t redeem Movie Club credits for online orders.

Summer drove stubbornly and reacted poorly when I scolded her for not letting the car move out of the passing lane. Then when we got to the theater, she tried giving up after one horrible attempt at parking. I got out in a huff and waited in line to order snacks, then had to yell at them from across the lobby to come help me carry stuff.

We watched Wicked, which evidently was a Part 1, in a smaller auditorium in 3D. I think we were there with only one other person. I accidentally spilled a bunch of buttery popcorn and had to deal with a slippery floor for the whole movie. I also got super tired and struggled to keep my eyes open for part of it. Otherwise I thought it was pretty good. I think I liked the live show better though.

After the movie, we went to Brick & Forge for lunch. Our server was super weird and kept wanting to hover while we were reading the menu. Then he brought our food out before our appetizer. In fact, that didn’t come out until Summer had eaten all she could stand of her pasta entrée. Eaddie liked her burger, and my brunch quesadilla wasn’t bad. The pulled pork bread roll appetizer was pretty good, but simply came out too late. I nearly asked for it to be removed from the ticket.

Once we finished eating, we headed to Kohl’s and Shoe Carnival to do some shopping. Summer wasn’t feeling well, and Eaddie needed to get back to practice before her rehearsal, so we headed home after just those two stores. I drove this time, and stopped at Walmart once we got back into town so Eaddie could get some body wash. Summer waited in the car, so we were in and out fairly quickly.

I took the dogs out for a run as soon as we got home, and they did fairly well. They got treats and food, and then I tried to clean up in the kitchen a bit. I cleaned up some leftovers, then had Eaddie pick up some dollar McNuggets before the coupon reset. She ended up going to get Eli first, so there was a bit of a to-do. I probably spent $10 in gas for her to get those $1 nuggets.

Summer went to bed, Eaddie eventually made it home and did the same, and I wrapped up late, unslept and aggravated from more general negligence around the house.

Some things I cannot change, but ’til I try I’ll never know.

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It’s Not Wireless

I stopped for breakfast in Morrilton, and McDonald’s had me in and out so fast that I got to pass someone on the interstate twice. I was still the first one to the office by quite a bit, and I immediately dug into my Adobe licensing issue before Randy started sending me things to do. Maggie said she had to go to the transportation office to check out a pile of old junk, so she didn’t show up for a little while.

When lunch time came around, she and I went to a place called Sweet Poppas and had their fried chicken lunch special. I also got a drink and some cheddar peppers, which incredibly brought my lunch total to over $22. I couldn’t believe it. The food was good, but the portions were small, and the cheddar peppers came out with cold centers the first time around. Maggie’s chicken took forever to come out, so mine wasn’t exactly piping hot by the time we started eating.

The afternoon got wild when Kyle asked me to go to the high school to investigate an issue in the rack. Apparently the guys we paid to install the new VxRail forgot to plug in one of the iDRAC cables, so they couldn’t manage it remotely. It took me a while, but I finally found the right piece of equipment and the right port. There were a couple other cables that seemed poorly connected as well, so I don’t know what they were doing in there. Hopefully we can bring a lot of that stuff in-house.

I left straight from the high school and got home to run the dogs. We did our usual route through my parents’ yard to talk to Dad, then took a dip in the creek before making it home. Then I made a burrito for a quick dinner before spending some time cleaning up the kitchen and taking out the recycling. Eaddie and Eli did homework until pretty late, and Summer went to bed pretty early. I tried to take care of as much stuff as I could before I finally got to bed.

But I still forgot to clean the vacuum.

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I’ve Got No Strings

Eaddie left early this morning for her orchestra rehearsal and concert. Summer and I got up pretty early as well, and headed to Conway early for a movie, shopping, and food before the concert. We ended up barely getting there in time for Venom: The Last Dance, so I missed a few previews waiting in line for popcorn. I thought the plot was pretty contrived, and they tried to pack a lot into it, but overall it was fun. It was definitely the weakest of the three. We ran to the lube to drop off someone’s jacket, then came back to Bargain Hunt to see what they had. It wasn’t much, so all I got were some dog treats.

We made it across town and ended up at Skinny J’s for lunch. I thought Randy said they were closing down the Conway location, but maybe I was confused. Or maybe I wasn’t, because we were basically the only people in the restaurant. It was a late lunch though. We ate quickly and then made it to the Conway High School to see Eaddie’s concert.

The kids did great, but then Eaddie wanted to race over to UCA to see Eli play in a low brass concert. Summer had to check her out with the teacher though, so I ran Eaddie a few blocks away and then came back for Summer. We eventually got back over to UCA for a charge, and watched the tail end of that concert, which was much less formal anyway.

After all the concerts were over, Eli came with us and we went to Old Navy for some more shopping. The kids wanted ice cream after that, so I took everyone to MarketPlace Grill. They said it would be a 20 minute wait, but it didn’t take nearly that long to get a seat. Our server was super talkative and kept asking the kids questions about stuff, and then talking about her family life.

The food was probably more miss than hit, with super stale chips and cold food. I remembered having the same problem with the chips last time, so it’s probably time for a review. We ate and then headed home in the rain, stopping first in Morrilton for some beer and to plant a promo sign in front of that carwash. Then we dropped the kids off at Eaddie’s car at the high school and headed home. The girls were super pooped and crashed immediately while I played with the dogs a bit and then tried to minimize distractions before bed.

All run and no stop.

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Forced Drive

I got out a little earlier today and had a more relaxed ride in to work until around Mayflower. Conway traffic was thick and fast, so I was in a mob of cars that were flying down the road at 88 miles an hour. This is both the speed at which you travel through time, as well as the speed at which Autopilot will no longer autopilot. I had to take over, and with such heavy traffic, didn’t feel like pulling over to park and re-engage. Stress was much higher the rest of the way in, which was also the most busy part of the drive.

The morning wasn’t too bad though. Maggie split her biscuits and gravy with me, and I puttered a bit before really sinking my teeth into anything. The morning went by quickly though, and then I had to text Randy to see what they were doing for lunch. He, Jim, and Kyle were at Cary’s Grill and Bar, which was closed the last time we tried to visit. Maggie wasn’t going to lunch, but changed her mind when I told her the place, so we drove over to meet them.

I had a pretty decent chicken fried steak, but the hashbrown casserole was pretty awful. All of the food could have been a bit more fresh and hot, but wasn’t bad. I also had okra for the first time in the day. Maggie was too nervous to let the car drive us back, so I drove to the office by myself, and I finished the day trying to wrangle our KMS server.

Julie called on the drive home to say she wanted to have Kevin’s celebratory dinner tonight, so I called Eaddie to queue her up before I got home. I didn’t have time to run the dogs, but I got cleaned up before picking up my parents, and then had the car drive us to Brangus to meet Eaddie, Julie, and Kevin. Summer came along after we got inside, but then had to deal with an accident at work.

Dinner was pretty good, as Brangus usually is. We lingered a bit longer than I really wanted, since I still had to run the dogs before bed. Summer took Eaddie home while I took my parents home, and then I took the dogs out for an short, alternate run in the dark. They did alright though, and then I had another speed run to bed.

Sure it works, but is it better?

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Elon, Take the Wheel

I let the car take the onramp all the way to the offramp this morning, and only had to intervene once when it stupidly tried to pass in the right lane a block before it would have had to turn into the office parking lot. I just don’t get why it does obviously stupid things when it does so well at other times.

Randy wasn’t feeling well and ended up leaving after lunch. Nobody else came around, so I just went to Arby’s by myself and hung out there for the hour. I didn’t get into anything super complicated, and actually spent most of the morning waiting for Randy to show me a couple things, so I’m still feeling a little bit lost a lot of the time.

The morning happened to go by super quickly, so of course the afternoon dragged on. I decided to take the next two days off for recovery, so I headed home and then immediately took the dogs out for a walk. We went backwards this time, and went to the pond first to get a bit muddy. Then we stopped by my parents’ house before going up the hill and through Pinewood before making it home, where we took one more lap around the block before stopping.

Eaddie and Eli ate salad crap that Summer brought home, and I left out of frustration when I found an empty condiment shelf in the refrigerator. I ended up going to KFC to pick up a Famous Bowl, and then I went to the city park to eat at a picnic table. I sat there and enjoyed the weather for a while before going to the old house to check things out. There weren’t any toilets, so I ended up leaving sooner than I expected.

I didn’t want to go home though, so I immediately started Full Self Driving without a destination, just to see where the car would take me. I wondered if it would choose turns, or if it would just keep trying to drive straight as long as it could. It ended up taking a right at the stop sign, which made me think it was going to default to taking me home. It made it all the way across town, but then took the first exit out of the roundabout, which put me back on 12th Street all the way to Glenwood. There, it took its only left turn the entire night, and took me up to 2nd Street. There, it took another right and got through the stops all the way to the traffic light. It tried to proceed through green, but then hit the brakes hard right in the middle of the intersection because it couldn’t see the street. There just happened to be another car coming from the other direction, so the headlights probably didn’t help the matter. I pressed the accelerator to carefully nudge it through the intersection, and it continued on as if nothing had happened.

It ended up at sort of a dead-end, so it took a right and went nearly all the way to Oakland Heights before it took a sudden right to get back over to Detroit. Then we headed north, all the way over the tracks, and then took the first right out of the traffic circle on that side of town. It took me around the Parker Road bend, then all the way up the steep hill to get to Highway 124. We drove by the girls’ old house and ended up on the intersection of 124 and Weir Road. It took me back toward town all the way to Main Street before taking a right and going all the way over the bridge. After we made it through downtown, I finally told it to take me home, and it did. We made it just over 15 miles over the course of 35 minutes with absolutely no interventions, and I really only stopped because the battery was low and still hadn’t recovered from my drive back from work.

Summer was already in bed. Eaddie saw Eli out, I took out the trash. Eventually sleep.

Adventures with Machines

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Second Lunch; Worse Than the First

I let FSD drive me to work today, and I basically didn’t touch the wheel after Atkins. I kept waiting for there to be a steering wheel nag, but it just didn’t happen. I got the typical “pay attention” warnings if it looked like I wasn’t staring straight ahead for too long, but otherwise my hands were in my lap for the entire drive. I intervened once when I was nearly all the way to work, in order to prevent it looking stupid in heavy traffic. Then I had to whip into the office parking lot quickly because it couldn’t find the entrance with an oncoming truck. Otherwise it performed reasonably well on the highway as long as I was dictating lane changes. That’s still an issue that makes it look like a first-time driver.

Randy was back, and full of piss and vinegar, which was more funny than scary. He gets on rants and just lets it fly, which is only different from my usual accompaniment in that he’s much louder. I don’t mind, and I at least feel like we have the same struggles. He sort of helped me with access to stuff I had been missing since he left, and then he hung around the main office area complaining about all the email he’d gotten.

There was a non-union organization representative that brought us pizza from American Pie Pizza for lunch, and it reminded me of Brick Oven. I liked it, but after I’d eaten my first slice and a bite of the second, Jim called Randy and wanted to go out to eat. Randy said we were going to second-lunch, and at this point I’m still mostly in it for the camaraderie, so I summoned the Model Y and we took it across town. Maggie said she was too nervous to ride with FSD, so she drove separately.

The place Jim wanted to go was closed when we got there, so we rerouted to Señor Tequila, which I thought was fine, but not good. I figured it might be authentic with such little English being spoken, but it was just like any other middling Mexican restaurant. The beans were runny and the chips lacked salt. Otherwise the food could have used a bit more kick. I tried the tamale, and it was fine. The restaurant was also awkwardly quiet. I just wished I had stayed with the pizza instead.

We finished up the afternoon and I tried to close out some stale tickets, and then I headed home. I had to stop at Kohl’s to pick up an order on the way, and then I had to take a break before taking the dogs out on their run. It was already getting dark quickly, so we stopped briefly to see Dad and then continued up the hill and around the block a couple times. They did alright, but not great. I was also aggravated to see pots scattered in the yard and the edge of Stilgar’s pool all chewed up when I got home. They got some chews since I haven’t gotten any more hot dogs, and then I came in to clean up and wrap up before bed.

Cornel West, he’s our guy! If he can’t win, then why’d we try?

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I Am the Director Now

I had another chicken biscuit this morning on my way to work. Conference food made me pretty queasy all night, but fortunately today went okay. I was surprised to see Maggie in the office when I got there, and further still that she was still there when I left. I felt the pressure of more people needing me today, plus I had a couple of conference calls scheduled. I only went to one of those because the teacher was unable to reproduce an issue for a vendor.

I had placed an order for a Reuben at Arby’s the night before, since I had a discount code. Randy and Jim really wanted to go to a place called North Bar, so I picked up my food and then met them there. It was a more expensive place with a variety of burgers, wraps, and such. Jim’s chicken sandwich looked pretty good because the chicken was more than twice the size of the bun. Randy’s order was put in wrong, so his got comped and we split my burger, and then his when it eventually came out. I liked his bologna burger better than my blueberry one, but both were pretty good. Overall I thought the flavors were great, but it just wasn’t worth the price for the portion size. Everything being à la carte didn’t help, because I had to pay extra for fries with the burger.

I stopped by Target on the way back to the office to get an online order of Tide that I had placed a few days ago. Randy left in the afternoon, and said he was leaving me as the de facto director. I laughed that I was the newest hire, but he responded that I was the one with the most experience in his role. After that, Maggie had me sign a bunch of data privacy agreements. I told her it felt like he was leaving so they could use me as a fall-guy on some sketchy paperwork.

I was a bit hungry after lunch, so I actually ended up eating my Reuben before I left work. Then it was a dull ride home to find Summer in the kitchen and Eaddie and Eli watching TV. I took the dogs out for a run to my parents’ house and then spent some time with them when we got back. I skipped the chicken Alfredo because of the dairy, and drank some dinner instead. I had to rearrange the dishwasher after the girls poorly cleaned up the leftovers, and I kind of stewed a bit until bedtime.

unappoint

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Geek Squad Vs. Volt Typhoon

I was a little later today, but I would have made it to the conference on time if it hadn’t been for a major slowdown after Conway. Randy was sitting in the back, so I joined him with my blueberry scone and listened to more, mostly irrelevant chatter. Kyle came in behind me, and evidently Ben was there on the opposite side of the room, because at one point he stood up and asked a question.

The four of us had lunch together a couple blocks away at Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken. My first piece was a little dry, and it all looked a bit overcooked, but they were all actually super good. My last piece was particularly juicy, and I completely missed the heading of the menu that pointed out the “Louisiana hot” seasoning. It really made me miss the hot and spicy chicken from KFC.

They had some really good cookies after lunch as we rode out the rest of the conference in the main auditorium. I was surprised when one of the last guys actually got up and started talking about some more technical stuff, but by then everyone was ready to go home. The conference had shrunk more and more after the very first couple of hours of the first day, so hardly anyone was left at the end.

I didn’t feel great when I got home, so I took a break before taking the dogs out for a run. It was super nice out once we did get outside, and the dogs were great. We visited my parents and then came back home for hot dogs. I sat outside and pet them a while before coming in to open a whole bunch more Amazon packages. Our delivery people must think I’m insane. I know Summer does.

Eaddie was in Conway late for orchestra tryouts, and she was surprised to have made first chair again. Nobody else expected any different. I tried to get to bed early, but my stomach didn’t let me. Hopefully tomorrow gets me back into a less-bad rhythm.

Hey Gemini, imagine a comic book cover for a lightning wielding supervillain named “Volt Typhoon” fighting a nerdy hero named “Computer Guy.”

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Dirt Doggers

I took it a little easier in to work today since I got out of the house on time. I was the first one in, and then Gary came through cursing Maggie because of some other miscommunication outside of our office. She actually walked in right after that, and they went to resolve that nonsense for the time being. After that, it was just the two of us in the office for most of the day, and I think that’s just how it’s going to be.

She really wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse for lunch since they had a special lunch menu, and they’re only open for lunch on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I would have preferred to go to Skinny J’s again for their $10 melt, but she wasn’t excited by that idea. I was disappointed in my chicken fried steak, which had white gravy that tasted super sweet for some reason. I was surprised at the size of the steak, but it was mostly breading. The chili was okay, but could have been warmer. Overall, I think I just don’t like their food as a company.

It was really tough to hang on the rest of the afternoon with Randy gone. I finished building a new virtual machine for our HVAC, but had to stop in the middle of the SQL server installation since I didn’t know what they’d actually need. Quitting time eventually rolled around, and I didn’t waste any time getting out of there.

I thought I’d stop by the old house first, but then I saw Kevin’s car at AT&T, and an otherwise empty parking lot, so I decided to stop in and chat. Nicole stopped me first for a hug, and I talked to Brandon for a bit as well. Kevin was consumed by a solitaire game on his iPad because business was so slow. This may be the beginning of the end for wireless retail.

We chatted for a while, and then Brandon offered some possum pie from Stoby’s. I had a slice of that, then walked with Kevin while he took out the trash before leaving. When I finally made it home, the Model Y was down to 5%, which I think was the lowest either of us had ever drained it.

I changed right away and then took the dogs out for a really good run. We stopped to visit with Mom, and then went around the basin. There was another lady walking ahead of us, so we diverted and went to the back side by the remaining pond. I let the dogs trudge through the mud there, and Muad’Dib was surprisingly excited by it. Stilgar sunk down like an alligator, and when I pulled them out, Muad’Dib got the zoomies. Not just the zoomies, but the jumpies and rollies too. He would take off running and then dive into the ground and roll. He was like that for basically the rest of the run. As we got up to the last straight stretch home, they both took off in a sprint, and we made it up the hill.

Once I had things cleaned up, I gave them a hot dog and fed them some food. I was pretty exhausted just from the week of little sleep, so I jumped straight on the computer to hammer out a blog entry, and then it was off to bed.

Christmas in the Amazon

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Cafeteria Dumplings

I actually made it to work about a minute early today, which meant I was the first one in the building. I continued rearranging devices in PRTG, and helped Randy with anything that he had going on. After a little while, he took me to the annex to hunt down some old cameras to try and repurpose them for a classroom. I grabbed a few things from scrap there, and then we headed back to the office.

I was super excited that we had ice and water back again, so I stayed hydrated today. I ate an old, giant cheesecake that had been in the fridge a while, and then we had to get on a conference call with Acer to hear about their Chromebooks. Afterward, Maggie and I went to Cracker Barrel for lunch, where the food was good, but the service was awful. I don’t know if she was overwhelmed, or just bad at her job, but we had actually finished our food before we even got our appetizer.

The afternoon was super relaxed as well. Randy left a little early, and then Maggie left, and even I left a few minutes early so I could be home in time for the dinner that Summer was making. It was some kind of shredded chicken, spinach, and mushroom cooked in canned soup or something, which we ate over rice. It tasted a little bit like the dumplings I had, but mostly reminded me of cafeteria food.

After we ate, I took the dogs out for a longer run to my parents’ house, and then through the basin. They were really good again, so once we got back to the house, I broke up a hot dog for them, which they absolutely loved. Summer also made cake, so we ate some of that before getting cleaned up for the night. Eli was there for dinner and helped Eaddie finish her musical instrument project. Once everyone else was wound down, I made my way to bed earlier than usual.

Biscuits and cornbread!