Tag: Reviews

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So Much for

Today was kind of rough. I got up and made some rice to go with some of the leftovers we had. Summer came in from her porch coffee and just had a look about her. I broke down a ton of old boxes I had been keeping to help with moving from the other house since I seem to be out of control of everything now.

I did some more reviews, cleaned up some stuff, and hoped to maybe take the girls out for a nice dinner. The day went by pretty quickly and we never got our heads together to rearrange the living room. Summer helped Eaddie with some homework and I had an anxiety attack before I eventually convinced them to go for dinner. Of course I wouldn’t learn until after we got our food at Sam’s that neither of them were very hungry.

I decided to try their surf and turf at the recommendation of our waitress, and it came out quite a bit later than the girls’ food. It looked really good, but the aside from the color of the inside, the steak itself was bland and tough. It was served on a massive pile of soggy, grilled onions. My hushpuppies were practically burned, and were like chewing a mouthful of dry cornmeal. All the while, the girls spent the entire time complaining about Eaddie’s friend and how she shares more than a name with her sister.

We got back to the house and I took Muad’Dib for a run. I forgot his treat pouch, so we had to run back for that. We passed by a house where a couple were working outside, and the girl asked if I was a professional dog trainer. I shared our story, because apparently I love to do that. Then we made it over to see Dad before rushing home as it got dark.

Summer had to go in for a work meeting and didn’t get back until a little bit later. I gave Muad’Dib a bath since he splashed in some water in the street gutter. Then I discovered our garbage disposal had a small leak under the sink, so that will be a problem for another day. Eli came over to visit with Eaddie for quite a while, and I went to bed.

anything

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Frog Went a-Jumpin’ and He Did Ride Onewheel

We skipped breakfast this morning but had some coffee at the office. I felt busier, but it was still quiet, and that may just be the nature of the place for me. That would be swell. I did have an anxiety attack pretty early in the day that rattled me pretty hard, but as usual it was gone within seconds. I had to go downstairs a couple of times, and I was helpful both times, which was great.

I forgot Muad’Dib’s lunch, but we went to Taco Bell and I shared some of my burrito. While we were there, an older couple came up with three small, well-groomed dogs to eat at the other table. I chatted with the lady while the gentleman went in for food. I was super proud of Muad’Dib for his behavior – especially when I asked if I could leave him outside while I went in for a refill and to throw away our trash. I had him sit and stay, and he didn’t move a muscle the entire time I was inside. I almost couldn’t believe it.

Summer was going to be working until one in the morning, so we were on our own all evening. Diana wanted to chat, so I called her on our way home. Then we stopped to see Summer at the wash. I took the opportunity to vacuum my car, and then took it to the quarter wash for a 75-cent job. We got to the house and I got a call from Kyle from Hydro Carpet Solutions. He quoted $150 to clean the carpets and the sofa, which was significantly less than I expected. His first availability wasn’t until Friday evening, and I was surprised to hear that he worked that late, but he got us on the schedule.

Eaddie was gone, so I took Muad’Dib to pick up some Popeye’s to take to Summer. It took over half an hour to get our food from the time I played the order, but after a surprisingly bad experience with everyone I spoke to, the guy that bagged my order actually hooked us up with a little bit of extra food. We made it to the wash and saw the crew that was there to help with the deep clean. They were all excited to see Muad’Dib, and upon learning his name, one of the guys said he had that tattoo. He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of his black and white, realistic style mouse.

We ate, Summer gave away what was left before I finished eating, and then Muad’Dib and I went back to the house for a quick run in the dark. When we got to the basin, a frog jumped at my path on the Onewheel. I swerved to try and miss it, but wasn’t sure of its fate until I felt it jump off of my foot a moment later. I was glad it survived. We stopped to see my parents just briefly, then got to the house to find Eaddie locked away in her room. Finally, bed.

Does this make me Shai-Hulud?

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“Chinese”

I tried to go to bed early last night, but woke up after a couple hours with wide eyes and couldn’t fall asleep again for a couple hours. Fortunately that didn’t ruin my morning, and I stuck with a Soylent for breakfast because Summer said she could meet me for lunch on her way back from Little Rock. I took Muad’Dib inside on a leash to keep him from jumping on people, and he didn’t like that a bit. I got in to some stuff in the morning, but still no real resolutions.

When Summer got there, we went to Chopsticks, which I vaguely remembered trying several years ago when I was in town for AT&T. We left Muad’Dib in her car and went in for what wasn’t necessarily the worst Chinese I’ve ever had. The fried fish was pretty good, which I remembered from before. We didn’t take long, and the lunch price felt pretty fair. Summer took Muad’Dib home with her, so I went back to the office alone.

My heart started racing a bit when I got back, so I tried to take it easy. I didn’t feel as bad as yesterday, and I failed to take my blood pressure, but it still didn’t feel great. The afternoon dragged on forever, too. When I finally got out of there, I went straight to the house and took Muad’Dib out for a run.

It wasn’t too hot out, and we had an okay walk. When we got to my parents’ house, Dad and I tried to rehang the gate that fell over, but his drill didn’t have the juice we needed to get the holes drilled. When we got back to the house, we had caught another rat. It was our third one of the year, and may have been one of a couple noisy, squeaky ones. Muad’Dib and I took it out to Washburn Park, where I had released the other two. Then I spent the rest of the night trying to clean up a bit before bed.

Sounds like sailing away to me.

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f⁻¹(g)

I ended up elevating my legs last night because the swelling in my feet hadn’t been getting any better. It had done wonders by the time I got up. Summer went to the gym and Eaddie went to church. I did Vine reviews all day.

I warmed up some spaghetti for lunch just before Summer got home, and then we went out back to try and find the pendant for the living room fan. I went back in and kept doing reviews while she cleaned up.

Mom was supposed to make bún bò Huế for dinner, but when I checked in the evening, they weren’t ready. Summer and I ended up going to Buffalo Wild Wings instead, and sat outside with Muad’Dib. I think the noise got to him, because he was rowdy for a while when we first got there.

Service was inexperienced, and the food wasn’t great. The chicken seemed to be cut in half or thirds from what they used to serve. Overall it just wasn’t worth the visit.

I took Muad’Dib for a run in the cool air when we got home, and he ran well. We visited with Dad, and then made it back to the house for the night.

y

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Gramblin Man

I left Muad’Dib at home today to babysit Dad while he babysat the guys working on the ceiling. It worked out well since we had a staff meeting first thing in the morning anyway. I didn’t really come prepared to say anything, but took up enough time with what updates I had anyway. After that, I spent all day messing with the newer Dell server they picked up last year, but hadn’t actually been doing anything since then.

I went out for a really late lunch, and decided to go to Blue Diamond Cafe for some table service since I didn’t have to worry about time with the dog. I made the mistake of asking my young server for a suggestion, and ended up getting a super basic hamburger because of it. It was good, but lacked dimension. Next time I’ll just have to go in and know what I want.

The afternoon was short after that, and I stopped by the wash to see Summer just as she was about to leave. My car has been filthy for quite a while, so I stopped for a quarter wash on the way to the house, and then washed the inside and outside of my windows once I got there.

Our ceiling had been completely removed, and they hung plastic up to cover the hole, and tarped the whole area, though air could still freely pass through. Luckily it’s been slightly cooler, so the air wasn’t struggling quite as much to keep up. It wasn’t long before I took Muad’Dib out for a run.

We picked up a small dog along the way, who has been roaming farther and farther every day, looking for things to hump. I ended up picking up my pellet pistol from my parents’ house to take along with us, in case he follows us again.

We got back to the house just as it got really dark, and I gave Muad’Dib a bath. Then it was a relatively early night to bed.

Drive

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Downed

I was up late moving some more stuff, and I finally got a call early this morning from Adam, who asked for our address because he had put my parents’ address on our quote. He and two younger guys showed up, I handed over $3,500, and then Adam left the other two to it. They had to drop off a trailer and then go get supplies, so I took Muad’Dib for a quick run around the block. Then they came back to move some furniture and hang plastic around the room.

I tried to get some work done, but I still had so much other stuff to clean and move around that I actually couldn’t concentrate on anything. Coupled with a stomach ache for much of the morning, I just wasn’t productive. Eaddie came home from her first day of college, I scolded her for the state of her bathroom and had her clean it up so the guys could use it, and they eventually finished up pretty early in the afternoon.

The whole house was hot and dusty – moreso after more of the ceiling was missing. The plastic sheet slowly fell throughout the evening. I felt gross, and a shower didn’t help a great deal. Summer had to work late, so when I asked what she wanted for dinner, she immediately responded with Brangus. I mistook the message and drove to Check-H, then realized my mistake and drove the extra few blocks.

Summer enjoyed her meal, but just about ever aspect of our visit was middling-to-poor for me. It started with stale peanuts and a burned tumbleweed, then followed through with an old, dried up baked potato, and rounded out with a cold steak.

We got back to the house and I took Muad’Dib out for a run because the quick spurt of rain we had just before dinner had dried up on the ground. It felt quite a bit nicer, but got dark quick. I had more cleaning to do before bed.

out

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All Symptoms Nominal

I decided to fast before my afternoon appointment, just in case they failed to ask me to do so. I made it with a single cup of black coffee, barely over half full. As the afternoon approached, we had a conference call with the folks working on the new website, so I got in the car and hopped on the Google Meet. It lasted for almost exactly the entire length of my commute home, where I changed clothes and left Muad’Dib at the house for Summer, who had left work and made it through the gym early.

The clinic must have been overbooked, because my total visit was about two hours. I waited several minutes to get called back, had my blood pressure taken, waited forever and had it taken again because it was so high the first time, and then waited some more until Crystal came back to chat with me. I got renewed on my meds, which was the primary goal, and then she had the nurse come back in to do an EKG as a part of troubleshooting the ongoing anxiety/panic/spaceout attacks.

Summer hadn’t really eaten either, so I picked them up and we went to Ridgewood Brothers to see Grant for his birthday and to get some dinner. We got a full order of nachos, which were a full tray of chips, some grainy cheese dip, and an ultimately disappointing amount of brisket. They tasted great, but the ratios just seemed way off and I couldn’t tell if they were made incorrectly, or if the recipe just needed some work. For the size of the gray we got, I wouldn’t mind paying more to get more meat on them. They were just so chip-heavy. Muad’Dib got a bone out of a pork butt, but we had to take it away from him as he started to tear it up.

We started watching Bee Movie to cool down when we got back to the house, but I got up in the middle of it to take Muad’Dib on a run to Walgreens to pick up my prescription. I should have brought his water, because the heat was unrelenting, and it got him just barely walking. I thought he might have to stop to cool down for a while, but he powered through. We got to the house and cooled down, and finished our movie before bed.

We are go for lunch.

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Southern Tails

I’m having trouble finishing up some tasks at work because of the randomness of it all, and from simply not knowing what I’m doing every time I receive a new one. Rhonda came up first thing and said her internet wasn’t working. I checked the switch and everything seemed fine there, so Muad’Dib and I went down to have a look. Peyton was having trouble as well, and while Muad’Dib and Bear were playing, Bear peed on the ground. Peyton cleaned that up, and as soon as he walked out, Muad’Dib peed on the trash can, so I had to clean that up. Fortunately it didn’t take terribly long for me to find that their DNS settings were manually set to the old domain controller, which I had inadvertently turned off, but shouldn’t have been used for DNS any longer anyway.

I took Muad’Dib outside for some impressive and unexpected zoomies around the parking lot. He had wild eyes, and his tongue flew back in the wind as he sprinted in a figure-eight. We eventually made it back upstairs and started poking at the old server and the old virtual domain controller. The server had been running out of space, and it looked to be from backups of its own database, so that’s something for me to clean up.

We eventually took a break and went to Taco Bell for lunch since they had a couple tables outside. I wasn’t expecting it to be so hot in the sun, but it was blazing with only a few clouds in the sky. He did well while I ate, but then snuck through the door the second time I went back inside to throw my trash away. One of the employees shooed him out behind my back, so I took him out and put him in the car.

I spent some time in the afternoon looking at our security cameras, trying to figure out why the IPs appeared to match our existing scheme, but also may have been duplicating IPs. Confusingly, I think it’s on a completely different physical network and they just happened to use some of the same range.

At the end of the day, I changed into some shorts and we headed to Southern Tail in Little Rock to meet Mitch, Blake, and their friend Aaron. We got a table outside and pretty quickly got into some food. We expected at least one other person who never showed. I was super disappointed in the portions with my chicken sandwich, and I didn’t love the fried green tomatoes. It seemed like the fish and chips have been the only really impressive thing I’ve had there, and that was mostly because it was salmon. Muad’Dib did great though, and we had a good time chatting, though it was a bit more scattered in conversation than the last couple times we visited. It was an enjoyable evening though, and then we eventually made it back home and straight to bed.

What’s eating you‽

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Play Sassafras Chicken in D, and Make It Extra Lumpy!

I didn’t really sleep in, but had a slow start this morning. Summer went outside for a bit, and I cleaned up some leftovers to make breakfast. We had one small baked potato that I sliced and fried with some leftover onion, and then i scrambled some eggs in with some dried up flour tortilla crumbs. It actually turned out pretty good.

Jon said Alex would be here at noon, but he was over half an hour late to come look at our ceiling. He seemed to think they could just replace a couple panels of drywall and then scrape the rest of the ceiling. Hopefully we get a quote back soon, and it’d be even better if it came in under five grand.

Summer and I had a couple of “arguments” throughout the morning that just left us both feeling defeated. She went to the gym and I tried to start some laundry, but had to clean up a mess that they had left first. Eaddie left to hang out with friends, and Summer and I decided to go to the movies for a late matinée to see The Naked Gun.

I didn’t really enjoy the movie at all. It just seemed really dumb with a couple cheap giggles, but absolutely no rolling, laugh-outloud moments for me. I was hungry when we got home, so we took Muad’Dib to Chipotle for a late dinner. They had a little outdoor seating area, and it felt great outside.

After dinner, we went for a quick run in the dark to see my parents before winding down for bed.

Weird Al is waiting for us!

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Fantastic Fourth Try

I wanted to take Muad’Dib out for another early run since we’d be gone all day, and Summer wanted to clean up the yard a bit more after Eaddie’s mowing yesterday. Then we got ready to take my parents to Little Rock for some KPOT and a movie.

Mom drove us all in her car, so it was a little wild. Eaddie was stuck in the very back and got carsick, but she made it to the restaurant. This was only my second time at KPOT, and it was pretty frustrating. We were sat relatively quickly, but it took nearly ten minutes for anyone to acknowledge our existence after that. A girl eventually came over and asked if our server had talked to us yet, and it really seemed like tables weren’t assigned to servers, and she had just decided to take care of us.

The soup base came out slowly, long after we received our first order of meats and veggies. It took a while for us to get our soups boiling, so I had a plate of some fried rice and chicken nuggets while I waited. The rest of the food was fairly good, but it really made me rethink the value of the experience. I had a much better time on my first visit.

By the time we finished, we had just enough time to get across Little Rock to the IMAX for our movie. We were sat in our usual spots, but Mom couldn’t handle the giant screen, so she and Dad went back up several rows. We thought the movie was pretty good, but found it to be really predictable with very little rewatchability. I might sit through it if I caught it on television in a hotel, but otherwise I don’t know that I would ever seek it out to watch it again on my own.

The trip back home was just as scary, but we bumped Eaddie up a row. Muad’Dib was super excited to see us, so we took a quick run to see Dad before making it back home for a good bath and brushout before bed.

He does not want. He feeds.