Tag: Reviews

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Wharf, or Art Thou?

“Lakeview Property”

I ran home to get things ready for my conference. We didn’t get out of town quite as early as I wanted, but I probably would have been too tired to do much else anyway. Once I got everything packed up and the pets all fed, I went to get Summer and we went to the high school to pick up a laptop. Dale came by his office just as we were finishing up, so we chatted with him for just a second before leaving.

We hit the road in the middle of the afternoon, stopping for some snacks in Ola before making the rest of the trip. It didn’t seem like a long drive, and I didn’t have any traffic in front of me for most of the trip. When we got to the Staybridge, the a guy from maintenance was in the room trying to fix the garbage disposal. I told him it wasn’t a big deal, but he wanted to fuss at the front desk anyway. We took all our stuff back downstairs and then stowed it away in one of the conference rooms while we went out to eat.

I had heard about Fisherman’s Wharf in my past travels, and it was just across the bridge from the hotel. It seemed really tiny from outside, but once we got inside and chose to eat outside on the desk, we realized just how big it really is. They had a pretty impressive outdoor seating area, and the food was pretty amazing. Summer kept getting up to take pictures of the geese and turtles. I was most impressed with how many roll up doors they had. I counted 19, and we can’t get even one for our warehouse. We sure can renovate an auditorium for the super’s singing club, though.

After we ate, we went back to the hotel and got moved into our room, then went downstairs to check out the social. We found the theater room and decided to tuck away in there for a movie. They had 13 Going on 30 on the counter, so I stuck it in and philandered with the remotes a while until I finally got it to play. Amazingly, Summer had never seen it before, and I thought it was right up her alley.

Once the movie was over, Summer went up to bed while I tried to make sense of my schedule over the next couple days. I guess tomorrow night I’ll have some time to try and put my thoughts together on how to present for my breakout session.

I do my best work when I’m rushed at the last minute, because I never complete any work until then!

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Go Go Gojira!

I wanted to get up early to help get my sleep schedule back in order and so we could spend more time in Conway, but I slept pretty poorly, and then woke up really early to the sound of a cat barfing, so I ended up sleeping in a while. It didn’t help though, because I still felt so drained all day long. Maybe it was the weird dream I had about going to a conference, seeing Egon Spengler, and then losing Summer in some kind of psychotic, murderous, space-bending maze while trying to find our room in the casino.

When we finally got ready to leave the house, I noticed the house was really warm and discovered my air conditioner had blown the fuse outside again. I wasn’t going to let that hold us back though, so I called Dad and then we skipped town while my house heated up.

Our first stop was Hog Pen BBQ for lunch, and boy was it a treat. I told our waitress that it was our first time, and she brought us each a sample rib and some pork skins. It was some of the best barbecue I had ever had in my life. I got the sampler with ribs, chicken, and sausage, and it was some of the smokiest, most tender meat I’ve ever had. It was a good cut of rib meat without too much bone. The sauce didn’t seem like anything special, but it was really only there to wet the meat a little bit anyway. It definitely wasn’t lacking in flavor. The sausage wasn’t my favorite and had some gristle to it, and the sides left something to be desired mainly in portion size, but you could tell the focus was on the meats, and there was no shortage of that.

Neither of us could finish our plates, so I packed up another meal worth of meats and we headed out to the strip mall. We had never been to a Kohl’s before, so we stopped there first. They had a fair amount of clearance stuff to skim through, and Summer picked out a shirt for me. I’ll have to slim down a bit to fit it properly, but at least I have until winter. Then we went to Shoe Carnival so I could spend my $10 reward coupon. Finally we stopped by Target for a Frappuccino and to kill the last bit of time before the movie. We ran into Courtney and Eston there and chatted for just a second before we went on our way.

We made our way to the Cinemark early for Godzilla: King of the Monsters. I thought the story lacking quite a bit, and I found the characters unrelatable at best. I never felt any kind of emotional investment in any of them, and I didn’t get the feeling that it was because I didn’t see the first movie. The action was larger than life though, and it was a relatively fun, mindless action flick. I still can’t get over Godzilla’s tiny head on his massively fat body though.

On the way home, we stopped in Morrilton for some drinks and I picked up a couple bottles of cocoa cayenne Bird Dog that ended up being super delicious. Amanda invited us over to hang out with some of her furry friends, and we got to hear some interesting stories while Summer tried her first Jell-O shots. Nick took the girls to the house, so we didn’t stay out too late. We did have to stop at Taco Bell for a midnight snack, and we finally crashed at her house for the night.

History shows again and again, how nature points out the folly of man.

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Gordita My Dreams

I woke up early several times as the morning light poured in through the windows, and eventually hopped out of bed and ran home to get ready for lunch with Brandie. She had to push it back an hour due to some stuff at work, but that just gave me a little more time to relax at the house. We met at Stoby’s, where I tried the Philly cheesesteak. Nothing else really jumped out at me, and the sandwich seemed messier than it should have been, but it did the job. We chatted for a while, mostly about her work and how things have changed over the years.

After lunch, I went back up to Summer’s and killed some time while she and Autumn went to the doctor. I ended up watching the Netflix special about a guy that memorized the prizes from The Price is Right while Eaddie hid in her room. Once that was over, we went to my parents’ house and met up with the others to uncover the pool. It went pretty smoothly aside from having to teach adolescents how to use brooms. It’s reached a point where I feel like the sucker because I do the work when they pretend to be terrible at everything.

Their father decided to take them for the night, so I volunteered to drive them all the way to Clarksville so Summer and I could visit the taco truck. Nick pointed us toward a different place called Rico’s Tacos that he claimed was better. Though it was delicious, I’m not convinced it was superior. Blue taco truck still has my heart. They did have gorditas though, which are probably my favorite dish, possibly because of how hard it is to find a place that makes them.

On the way home, we stopped at Walmart to scout for deals. I picked up a few super cheap things, most of which I had no real use for, but the savings were just too legit to quit.

Back home, I wanted to get some housework done but failed again. Being in the sun and the heat today really made me sleepy.

If only running out of time counted toward my daily step count.

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Avengers: Girl Power

We got up this morning and headed to Little Rock for lunch and an IMAX showing of Endgame. Our first stop was at Sam’s to pick up a bag of rice for Summer’s mom, and then we went to Chuy’s to eat. The food was amazing as usual, but looking back it was probably too expensive to be taking all of those youngsters. They end up ordering cheaply made food and not enjoying the value of the more expensive dishes, but everything there is a bit higher anyway. I’d love to go to happy hour at some point without them though.

After we ate, we went to The Promenade At Chenal to walk the food off a bit. We never even made it to any of the stores, and just did one loop around the area. We did make a couple stops at some benches to rest, kill some time, and take a few pictures. I made Summer mad because I wouldn’t pose with her in front of a concrete LOVE sculpture, but I didn’t like having to get someone out in the street for a proper angle. I did take a couple from behind that could be mirrored, but by that time nobody would really cooperate anyway.

The kids walked on ahead to the theater, so Summer and I went on in even though we were over half an hour early. The entire process was ticketless, which was kind of a bummer for me because I like keeping them as a sort of souvenir. My glasses were dirty too, but they washed well in the sink. The kids got some small popcorns and drinks, and we made our way to our seats. All of my bladder training paid off, and I made it through to at least the start of the regular credits.

Endgame was an amazing movie. It was constantly full of emotion. I thought there were some moments that could have been shortened a bit to shave some precious seconds off of the total film length, but I was pretty happy with the screen time that the characters got. I wasn’t a fan of Captain Flythroughyourships, and I was surprised to see her get a lesbian haircut in the middle of the movie. I also didn’t really care for the girl-power moment. I’m all for powerful female characters, but we already had some that we killed off. What happened here was too forced. In the end, I thought they did a fantastic job of bringing the story to a close. I’m interested to see where Spider-Man goes from here.

We weren’t really hungry after the movie, so we headed home to drop Noah off, and then we watched some Parks and Rec until bedtime.

I am Iron Man.

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The Existential Review: Year 3

I had my yearly review scheduled for this afternoon, so I spent the morning doing what I could around my buildings. I took a break for lunch and met Dale, Brice, and Summer at Taco John’s for Taco Tuesday. We ended up getting way too much food because of a coupon, but somehow I managed. Getting over being sick again has me regularly hungry, but I was hoping it would help me cut back.

My review went well after lunch. I sat down with Ben ahead of schedule just to get things started, and we chatted for quite a while. It’s looking hopeful for an esports stipend, and everyone seems to be on board with what I’ve presented. I’m just hoping I can keep it from feeling as life-sucking as last week when the kids were super rowdy for no reason. I think that will get better as the teams get more serious though. Dale’s retirement is set, so it’s looking like I’ll be moved to the high school now, which leaves me to clean up and move offices. I’ll lose a window, gain a ton of room and storage, and be left with the best-documented procedures on campus. Hopefully I’ll be able to retain enough free time to keep learning things I want to learn, and also have time out for esports in the afternoons. Time will tell. I’ll miss my friends the most.

Nearing the end of the school day, I dropped by Oakland to move their copy machines for kindergarten registration, then made my way to the junior high for esports. We had several new faces today, which meant spreading to the second lab for the first time. We were really only short by one computer, but several of my quieter players chose to move over immediately when I offered the space, which made it a bit easier to manage everyone else. Unfortunately that lab hadn’t been updated automatically, so we wasted several minutes doing that before anyone could play. It was nice to get to talk to a few of them in that time though, since normally I’m just having to sit back and watch over the entire lab of everyone at once.

After work, I ran home and messed with the aquariums a bit, and experimented with some alternative CO2 dosing by filling some glass bottles with carbonated water and floating them upside down in the tanks. I’ll probably have to try again some morning rather than so late at night, but again I’m hopeful that it will provide noticeable growth improvement. That put me a little behind getting the girls from karate, but they seemed to have other things going on anyway. From there we went to their house for leftover chicken in the form of nachos. They were pretty good, but felt like they missed a binding agent like cheese dip. They just kind of fell apart too much, and missed the flavor of the dip.

My head cold cocktail seems to have worked fairly well the past couple days, so I went for a third night to combat the snottiness.

Welcome to your life. There’s no turning back.

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I Have Reservations About This

It was more bike weather today. I started off at the shop and got to spend some time in a room with Gary, and I felt smarter for it. I hope I’ll have some time to hang out with him over summer projects, because there’s still so much I want to learn. The trick is to be around for his projects and not the busy work that I normally get assigned to because I’m actually willing to work.

When I finally left the shop, I spent some time at Oakland taking care of a few things before heading back to go to Chick-fil-A for lunch. It tasted better than average, but it was still expensive. I’ll take a deal at Wendy’s over full price at Chick-fil-A every day of the week.

I spent the afternoon at the junior high trying to clean up a bit, but I didn’t get a whole lot accomplished. I did get to flex my math skills a bit by using known component measurements to find the unknown angle of a TV that Jessica wanted to mount outside the library. After that, I got to use Google Assistant with Duplex to make a dinner reservation at Pasta Grill for Mom’s birthday. The assistant asked everything from how many people were coming, to what name and contact number she should give the restaurant. Ronda said it seemed like it would have been faster just to call myself, but she missed the whole point of not having to talk to people myself. A robot did all the work for me. The only thing it lacked was a transcript or recording of the call. I would have loved to hear the transaction. About 15 minutes later, I got the notification and an email that my reservation was confirmed!

I finished up at the shop, enrolling the Chromebits Jessica got for her TVs. Then I ran home to clean up for dinner. Summer and the kids beat me there since I stopped for gas, and then we headed to Pasta Grill.

Julie beat us there and confirmed that the reservation was made. I couldn’t find anyone that knew anything about the call, so I guess I’ll have to try again when Erica is working. I’m glad it worked, but I want to experience the other end of it so badly. I’m such a nerd.

After dinner, I came home and started some laundry while I messed with the fish a bit. I don’t want to move Blue since she’s built a bubble nest and is actually floating her eggs, but I did get some snails moved to the kitchen. I want to clean up the 55-gallon, but I’ve got too many other things I need to do this weekend. I’ve felt exhausted for a few weeks now though, and summer is only going to make it worse with the heat. I just have anxiety about feeling behind all the time now.

Too many things!

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Shazam!

Summer got up early this morning to pick Autumn up at 8 from her lock-in, and took her to the gym while they were out. I felt a little sorry for her at first, but later found out she went to sleep after midnight, so she gets less sympathy now. That’s just a normal amount of sleep for any regular human.

When they got home, I left to clean up and pick up Noah while Summer made lunch here. Summer had Autumn take a shower before she passed out, and we let her sleep until just a bit before we had to leave for the movie. It rained a bit on the way to Conway, but it was never really too bad. I tried to set a leisurely pace.

We got to town a bit early, so we stopped by Harbor Freight for a minute to see if they had something on sale. Evidently I had mistaken the date on the flyer I had at home, so we left with nothing and made our way to the theater to see Shazam!

The movie was pretty great, and in fact was probably the best recent DC movie I’ve seen. Noah didn’t like that reviewers said it was a “fun” movie because he didn’t understand what that meant, but I thought it was a perfect way to describe it. It was lighthearted in all the right places, but still told a story with some feeling.

On the way home, Autumn’s cup lid split and she got soda in her lap. Then when we got home and dropped Noah off, I did the same in the 10Box parking lot. We ran to my house to clean up before going to Walmart to pick up some extras for dinner. They didn’t have the asparagus Summer wanted, so we ended up having chicken alfredo instead, with dinosaur-shaped pasta. I spotted some french bread on clearance that turned out great too. Summer had a really successful week of meal planning and cooking at home.

After dinner, Autumn wanted to watch Coco again, and this time Summer and I stuck around to finish it. I still would have preferred to see it in 3D at home, but I guess I’m glad to have at least seen it by now. Autumn fell asleep in the middle of it and went to bed, and then the rest of us went to bed after it was over.

You’re going to burn in a very special level of hell. A level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

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Subway++

I didn’t think I had much going on this morning, but we eventually discovered that I wasn’t getting work order emails properly again. I bounced between campuses in the morning to take care of some older things, including discarding a cart full of netbooks so I could repurpose the cart in the library. Then I met Allen for lunch at the Subway in the old Darrell’s building. He had suggested Subway, and I was curious about their other offerings. I got boneless wings and made it a combo with two bread sticks and a drink. The food tasted cheap, but I paid $9 for the meal. They did have a mini Coca-Cola Freestyle machine, but it had a weird lever that had a really poor tactile response. The inside of the restaurant was actually really nice though. I haven’t tried their pasta, but so far I can’t recommend anything but the Subway for their corporate-y goodness. What I had tasted like frozen gas station food.

The afternoon was partly spent catching up on newer work orders that flooded in after the Web Help Desk reset. Ben came by at the end of the school day and tested out LanSchool for Chromebooks in my APUSH class. To make a long story short, it was absolutely terrible. The limitation of features and the ease of a student making it annoying for a teacher trying to keep tabs on them were just too much. Another hard “no” from me.

I went home after work and spent a little time with the fish before heading to Summer’s for dinner. She had a roast in the slow cooker all day, and the girls ate in front of the TV while we sat at the table. Summer spent some time doing school work while I read up on the Travel on Fi comment thread on SlickDeals. Wednesday will be the 90th day since her phone activation, so I’m getting really antsy about getting the $799 travel gift card. I’m really doubting she gets it automatically, and I kind of dread having to contact Fi about it. They’ve always been pretty decent, but it’s just annoying.

And I still have to do my taxes…

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Here in my Garage

Today was the last day of spring break, and therefore it was a day of cleaning up. Summer gathered her things so we could pick up the girls, and on the way out I spotted a mail carrier driving toward my neighborhood. I was expecting my plants that were delayed from yesterday, so we came around the block to wait for it. Summer couldn’t find her keys, so we took the time to unpack her bag and look for them. The mail carrier never came though. I eventually had to give up, and we went to get the girls and take them on home. Just as we pulled in to Summer’s parents’ house, I saw that my package had been delivered, so I dropped the girls off and headed straight back home.

To my surprise and some disappointment, I didn’t receive my aquarium plants. It was actually my Momentum Smart Garage Door Opener that was delivered. I started cleaning up, took a shower, and then ran next door to borrow the extension ladder so I could get into the attic. It was a painfully easy installation, even considering I had to run power above the ceiling. I got the camera set up and hooked up the opener cables so I could open the garage door from my phone. By that time, Summer had dinner about ready, so I headed to her house.

She grilled some chicken to go with some mashed potatoes and cheesy squash and zucchinis that turned out really great. The cheese was probably a bit much, but it was so good broiled and browned the way she made it. Eaddie wanted to watch an episode of Parks and Rec, so after dinner we watched one episode before I headed home to complete some laundry before bed.

While the laundry was going, I got dishes done, and then started messing around with my TeamSpeak server some more. I think all that’s left is to test it with multiple outside connections. Everything looks great so far though.

Vi sitter här i Venten

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Sweet Home Alabama

We got up early this morning for breakfast in the lobby, and then Summer was off to The Great Inflatable Race. I went back up to the room to shower and get things packed up before she got back. Her race ran a little behind, but she still made it back in time to get showered and primped before our late checkout time. I even tucked my shirt in and wore a tie for a few minutes.

Our first stop was at Shoe Carnival in the shopping center by the hotel. She wanted some new shoes for her dress, and I walked around holding some shoes for a while that I ultimately returned before checking out. Then she wanted to go to the McCain Mall right up the block. We made a loop through the whole place, really only stopping at Dillard’s, GameStop, Victoria’s Secret, and finally Spencer’s where I picked up some Rap Snacks for Dale. We were out just long enough to work up a bit of an appetite, so we made our way back over to Red Lobster.

There was only a really short wait for our Lobsterfest to start. Summer got a lighthouse glass without having to steal it, and I begrudgingly ate a sirloin because it was smothered in lobstery things. The lobster pizza appetizer was good, and Summer had a margarita that was unexpectedly the size of her head. I helped her on it just a bit as we took turns getting brain freezes. Then it was off to the Verizon Arena.

We paid for pretty decent parking, though in hindsight I think the block further for half the price may have been a better deal, and ultimately gotten us out of traffic faster. We got to the arena just in time to walk right on in and find our seats, which were also right by the entrance. Summer had a really great time while I fought with my Eargasm High Fidelity Earplugs. I think my ear canals turn up sharply, which causes the earplugs to seal shut. At least I got to learn that now before going to a concert that interests me personally. I kept them in to save my hearing, but the audio was clearly muffled unless I used my fingers to tweak them slightly in my ear canals.

Nice screensaver!I only recognized one song all night, which was by the opening Charlie Daniels Band. The Devil Went Down to Georgia was a staple for my Diamond Rio MP3 player in high school. Summer only knew it and maybe one more of their songs. The real treat for her was when Alabama came onto the stage. She got excited at several of their songs, none of which I could recall ever hearing in my lifetime. I was surprised to hear them go on and on about how many awards they had won and how many chart topping singles they had, partly because I’m only used to hearing rappers do that, and partly because I had never even heard of them. I spent the rest of the evening more in a state of discomfort than anything else. It was hot and cramped, and the band kept doing what I can only describe as a pop quiz after nearly every song, where they had the band start playing the song they just finished and tried to coax the crowd into singing the chorus a couple more times. Of course a country concert wouldn’t be complete without a pickup truck brand roll call, which was just a huge circle jerk of more things that I hate. Even the encore was lazy and uncoerced, as the band had barely left the stage long enough to take another shot of that Tennessee whiskey before coming back out. It just felt like they were pandering to the meme of assumed encores.

Fortunately we got out more quickly than we had come in, until we got into the traffic. It started to sprinkle as we walked to the car, but it wasn’t too bad. There was a questionable guy outside selling shirts at a significant discount from their inside asking price, so we grabbed one of those on our way out. I should have planned the escape route more before taking off, but I was so concerned about beating traffic that I ended up looping through a few more blocks of it than necessary. There was quite a bit of traffic on the interstate as well, almost all the way to Conway. The rain cleared up enough that it didn’t feel so dangerous to be cruising down the highway though, and we made it home just after midnight. Summer crashed pretty much right away, still high on her birthday vibes. I’d say today was a success.

I done told you once, you REDACTED