Tag: Reviews

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Supermeh

Summer had a race first thing this morning, so I went with her to the junior high for that. Muad’Dib and I rode around with the Onewheel, making laps around the building while we waited, and then he got some attention from others as we milled around waiting for results. There was another guy there with a small heeler that wanted to run and play so badly, but he didn’t want to let her off the leash, which was probably a good thing.

Summer got her second place medal just as it started to get really gross and humid, and we headed home for a snack and to clean up before our trip to Fayetteville. Eaddie was in bed until we left, and stayed home with Muad’Dib. We made it to Alma for a charge and pit stop, then continued straight to the Arkadia Retrocade.

We talked to Shea briefly after paying him twice the admission fee, just to show support for the work he’s done, and to share our excitement about the place. I think I actually enjoy it more as a walkthrough museum experience than someplace I enjoy going to sit down and play. I’m always a little disappointed in the condition of some of the machines, which I know are hard to service, but the place was also crawling with mostly unsupervised kids. It’s still a blast, and I would recommend it for anyone. It really seems like a passion project, and I love that he’s been successful with it.

After about an hour there, we decided we were hungry enough to eat a little bit, so we drove toward the Malco. I would have preferred to go somewhere uniquely NWA, but we stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings and sat at the bar for a couple drinks and some buffalo chicken dip. Then we headed to the surprisingly empty, but well-maintained theater for our IMAX experience.

Right off the bat, the audio was just too loud. It distorted dialog especially, and made a few scenes completely unintelligible. I enjoy Jason Momoa, but Lobo’s existence added nothing to the film. All of the characters were short-lived and mostly forgettable, and all of the action was depicted too close up and cloudy/dusty/blurry to be entertaining. The animation and physics felt fake, which could have been forgiven for the sake of a better story, but it just wasn’t good. There were certainly emotional bits, but overall we were super disappointed.

After the show, I found a place called House of Taste, which seemed fairly authentic Korean. At least the old lady running the place felt somehow relatable. The food was good, but seemed unnecessarily expensive. There were several signs about a long wait, but we were only bookended by two other tables during our visit. The food was served impressively hot in near-molten bowls that retained the heat well. My soup was scaldingly hot to nearly the last bite.

The drive home was much more relaxed, with a stop in Ozark to charge again. I hate that the trip is long enough to really require charging twice, since there’s not a Supercharger right in Fayetteville. We’d have to drive further north for that, so we just charge twice inbetween instead.

Eaddie had just finished mowing our lawn when we got home. I took Muad’Dib for a run to my parents’ house, but then waited by the pool for them to get home from Kroger. I helped unload groceries, then headed back home to find Eaddie practicing loudly in the bathroom while Summer was passed out in bed two doors down. I wrapped up quickly and joined her.

Who expected Seth Rogen to be the best part???

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Not Nothing

It started storming last night, and there was actually enough water on the road that I couldn’t reliably get over 50mph for a couple miles. It wasn’t a torrential downpour, but I guess the water wasn’t moving fast enough, or I may just have gone through a bunch of my tire tread since the last heavy rain. We made it to work though, and only encountered one vehicle stuck in the middle of the median.

Several were out today, so it was super quiet in the office. It was dry outside by lunch time, and it felt great out in the shade, so we went to Sonic for a red, white, and blue Creamslush with our lunch deal. Then I fought some unreliable and inconsistent policy changes in Intune, but never really felt good about a fix.

The drive home was pretty uneventful, and I decided to stop by Superfast to fill up on washer fluid. When I got home, I finally broke out the robot mower to see what it would do in our little half-moon of a lawn by the curb. It was frustrating at first because I didn’t RTFM, but once I figured out what I was doing, it actually worked surprisingly well. It still got stuck every few minutes, so I had to go rescue it a dozen times, but it did cut the majority of the grass. It was super patchy, but the grass was also quite a bit longer than it was rated to cut, so I was actually pretty happy with the results. It never once lemming-ed itself off of the curb, and basically only got stuck in the tight corners where it would try to back up and turn repeatedly until it lost traction in the long grass, or it would get stuck in the water meter hole.

Summer and I ate some leftovers and then I ran Muad’Dib to see my parents super quickly before making it back home. I ended up getting a stomach ache that kind of ruined the rest of my night, but I got some other things done and got to bed early.

Barely.

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Just Eat It

I didn’t sleep very well or very long. I didn’t let myself sleep in because I knew I wanted to get some meals in, so I took Muad’Dib outside and then brought some breakfast back upstairs with us. I was really proud of him when he did a great job of sitting by a table alone while I went into the other room to get food. Summer was slow to get out of bed, but then I slowed down a bit as we were trying to get out of the room. We ended up checking out right on time, and made our way down the road to Southern Tail for brunch.

Summer walked up to the front and learned that they were only seating people with reservations, which would have been nice to know before we planned an entire weekend around the event. They didn’t take any of her information, and instead told us to come back around 12:30. We sat in the car until then, but when I walked back in to ask about seating, I was told there was a wait list, and we wouldn’t get a seat until around one. That they the girl got my number and called us back in at 12:35.

We got seated outside as the heat intensified. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t fresh feeling. There was a pretty good band playing live, and the food was good though. Service was slow, so we didn’t have much for drinks, but it was an okay time. It might have been worth the price at a better season with some good company.

We headed straight home after that, and had a little bit of time to lounge before heading to my parents’ house to swim. The pool was surprisingly cold, and by then most of it was in the shade. Julie and Kevin eventually showed up with some Popeye’s chicken and we picked at a little bit of food.

I was completely beat by the time we got home, so I shut down quickly and got ready for bed.

What did you expect?

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Under the Wire

I had a bit of a rough morning, but we managed to get to work a little early for our staff meeting first thing. That took up a good portion of the morning, so the rest of the day kind of flew by. I had enough coffee in me to propel me through my normal lunch hour, but we went to Taco Bell a little later and Muad’Dib was so well behaved. For some reason he’s always much better there than at Sonic. That may be due to the number of carhops walking by constantly.

The rest of the afternoon flew by as I tried to fix a couple quirks, not really getting deep into any projects. Traffic was dumb when we first hit the Interstate, but we got ahead of the mess pretty quickly and made it home. Summer was already there after starting work super early. She was having a bath, so I got back to reviewing, trying to get over 90% before the end of the day.

A little later, Dad said they had spaghetti. Summer wasn’t hungry, so Muad’Dib and I rode over there to eat, and then headed home just before dark. He wasn’t running very much and wanted to skip several blocks. I didn’t argue since I still had more reviews to do, but I finally hit 91% before bed.

★★★★☆
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Runabout Rock

I had my wellness appointment this morning, and I really wanted to push the anxiety issue I’ve been having. I spent way more time talking to Irene, the nurse, than Crystal, who just came in for a couple minutes and basically asked how I was from across the room. She said she could refer me to a neurologist and run some extra labs, so I gave a little bit more blood and then left.

Summer, Muad’Dib, and I loaded up and headed to Little Rock after that. We went straight to Southern Tail for some lunch since we could take Muad’Dib out on the patio. They were pretty quiet and it was pretty hot outside, but they had sunshades up, and we got to sit on an outdoor couch to eat.

From there, we went up to my old office to see if we could catch Randy or any of the other guys. Anita had been moved to Transportation, and everyone I wanted to see was at HSTI, but I went back and saw Charles, Jimmy, and Gary all sitting on their computers scrolling social media.

We got to Gwatney Collision about half an hour early, but I filled out my paperwork and they got out pretty quickly to take pictures. I didn’t hear about my estimate again, but hopefully I’ll get an email soon. We left and went by the new Tesla service center to see what it was like. The showroom was surprisingly barren, but I talked to a guy named Vaughn(?) for a while before going back to the service department where I met Phillip.

I went back up front and got Vaughn to sign me up for a test drive of a Cybertruck. He had to take me first, but then he dropped me off and I took Summer for a spin. She was surprised at how well it drove and handled, so I guess that was a win.

We stopped once more for Muad’Dib and then headed to Conway for a charge. Summer said “ice cream” while I was thinking it, so we stopped at Kassi’s Cookies for a couple scoops and then made it home. Dad need to go to Walgreens, so I dropped Summer off and then picked him up. We got his prescriptions, then went to the Neighborhood Market to get my own before dropping him back off.

I did some cleanup back home when I got a call with lab results. They said I was a little low on iron, but not as bad as last year. I was also low on vitamin D3, so I’m adding both of those to my regimen. Then I took Muad’Dib for an evening run when it actually felt really nice out. We stopped to see my parents and I had some mango soup, and then we ran home in the twilight and raced to bed.

I asked you what I owed, so don’t send me a bill later!

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Lakey Sunday

Summer had plans to rent a boat for her work crew today, so she left pretty early. I got up for some breakfast and then got to work cleaning and sorting and reviewing. I had a decent groove going for the most part, but then Summer texted that she lost her Pixel Watch in the lake. I knew there was no sense trying to convince her to retrieve it, but luckily I had insurance on it. A quick chat with Nicole from Asurion and about $70 later, I had a replacement ordered for her.

I never made it to the shower before I wanted to go meet her at the marina, so Muad’Dib and I loaded up thee Onewheel and headed out to see them as they were coming back to shore. A park ranger asked me to physically leash him, so we had to ride back to the car to get that, but he behaved perfectly the whole time. We couldn’t find Summer until they had already returned the boat, but we talked to her as she left.

We made it back to the car and then went to my parents’ house to swap out a couple things. I brought the tiny robot mower home and left Dad’s new weather station. We got home and I continued my projects while Summer got cleaned up. We ate some leftovers for dinner, and eventually we settled down for another episode of Funny AF before bed.

Sunk Cost

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Import-ant

We had a little bit of rain this morning, but nothing more than a sprinkle. We got there early and went straight upstairs where I thought I was going to easily have an import ready into the sandbox. Boy, was I wrong. I got Tammy to come upstairs to talk to me about it for a while, and I think I finally understood enough to continue on with my test. Muad’Dib didn’t like her there, or anyone else for that matter. He jumped and snipped at her, so he was in trouble for the rest of the day.

We went to Sonic for a small, cheap lunch, but then grabbed some curly fries from Arby’s on the way back. I fought with Traverse, Excel, and everything else the rest of the afternoon. I ended up leaving a little later and walked out with everyone else, but that meant traffic was a little better somehow. For some reason, my car didn’t have a data connection for navigation, even though streaming music and everything else was still working.

We made it home where Eaddie had Eli and Ceci over. Summer was in a bath, but eventually came out to have dinner with me. I was frustrated with Eaddie for still not having my earplugs, and she kept giving both of us attitude when we asked about them. We have a concert next weekend, and there’s no reason I shouldn’t have what’s mine.

I eventually drained the basement again while I took Muad’Dib out for a late run, finishing up in the dark. Then I did some more cleanup and reviews until a late bedtime as my legs continued to swell from being out of my hydrochlorothiazide.

And now we’re out of lisinopril, too.

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Long Day Under Water

I woke up last night with an intense pain in my right foot, which I’m guessing was from the weight of the covers, as light as they were. My feet have been hurting from the Onewheel, and I guess it was just sensitive to the pressure while I was asleep on my back for a while. We managed to get out with another burrito, but this time it was actually a little juicy somehow. It dripped through my fingers and I got a drop on my shirt, but it wasn’t too bad. We made it in for another day on the struggle bus, but I did get assessment mode working on a test machine.

We went to Sonic for lunch, but I didn’t feel great. It was super windy and hot, and I was already tired. It had been kind of a long morning, but the afternoon dragged on even worse. It felt like I was there for three days. Near the end of it, Joel came in to ask me to think about a way to automate some manual data entry stuff that they’re doing, so I went downstairs to talk to Rhonda about it. The whole process was awful, and worse, I had no idea where to start to make it better. I’ve just got to get up and spend some time downstairs with these people to see what they’re doing.

We got home a little late, but Summer had chicken ready for me to throw on the grill, so I got that started. We had a quick barbecue chicken dinner with some potatoes and Brussels sprouts, and then did a quick cleanup. Afterward, I drained the basement and took Muad’Dib on a short, modified run. We briefly stopped to see my parents, but tried to get back home early.

Eaddie was gone helping Autumn move all evening, but had to come by for a bunch of boxes. She was upset that after all of the behavior issues and nonsense everyone has had to deal with, Autumn continues to just get whatever she wants all of the time. She’s got a nice house that everyone keeps filling with things she wants instead of making her tough it out with some cheaper starter stuff. She said she wasn’t going to have nearly as much stuff when she finally moved out, and I told her she would, because she would also have the respect of everyone around her for doing it on her own.

I cleaned up a bunch more, and finally ran to bed, fretful that it would only be Thursday.

Come on, brain. Do the thing!

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Reviews R Us

We managed to get out a couple minutes early today, so it would have been a good day to pick up breakfast, but I brought a frozen grilled cheese and banana instead. Eventually I’ll run out of sandwiches, but until then, I’m still living off of Two Rivers.

I had a couple phone calls, but nothing too pressing. I just kept tinkering with my new test VMs and Intune, with a Wendy’s break in the middle.

Summer was home a little before us, and she and Eaddie had gone through a bunch of stuff Eaddie “shopped” from Autumn’s hoard before she moves into some place she’s paying her father to rent for her(???). Summer and I ate our leftover Pasta Grill, and then we sat down to do a ton of reviews on the clothes and things I’ve gotten her on Vine.

As it started to get a little darker, I took Muad’Dib on a run. I ran the hose out from the basement but completely forgot to turn on the sump, so after we visited my parents and made it back home, I had to kick it off. I did at least figure out the garage door remote situation, so that was a win. I stayed up a little late cleaning up and finishing the basement, and then it was off to bed.

Make something up if you have to.

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In Memoriam

I decided to stop the iron supplements today so I could level out before my eventual annual checkup. We had brunch planned at IHOP for Autumn’s birthday, and we barely got around for that. Eaddie slept late while Summer had to go to Atkins to pick up Noah. Things immediately started going wrong.

The restaurant was pretty busy, and they were not prepared. A table behind us had some kind of drama going on, so a manager demanded that they leave. When they refused, he walked away saying the cops would remove them. Things settled down pretty immediately after that, and we eventually got our order in. Of course, it was a full hour before we saw a morsel of food, so we sipped ice waters until then.

Afterward, I ended up taking Muad’Dib home while Summer dropped Noah off. Eaddie wanted to go ride bikes, so I was tasked with getting out the bike rack in the heat of midday. I immediately started pouring sweat in the humidity, but we eventually got everything loaded, aired up, and ready to go.

We had a false start when my watch incorrectly alerted me that I had left my phone. We turned back before I realized it actually was in my pocket. We got to the lake and unloaded the bikes, but I realized I didn’t have Muad’Dib’s collar remote, so I left Summer with him on a leash and ran back home.

I couldn’t find the remote at first, and in the process, I dumped a full tumbler of water all over the kitchen floor. I mopped that up, dried my socks, and eventually loaded up again. The kids had gotten their bikes and started riding around the marina, and Summer was walking around with Muad’Dib. I brought my Onewheel since I wasn’t sure what the mood would be like after I had been gone so long.

Summer got Muad’Dib into the water and splashed around with him a bit. I was still hot and burned out, so I mostly sat from that point on, but I did take Muad’Dib for a couple short runs. Eaddie, Eli, and Ceci eventually came back around and hung out with us before we loaded up to go back home.

We unloaded and the kids went for more biking while I took Muad’Dib to my parents’ house for a brief visit. Summer started a bath for him when we got back, but I made it in there to take over, which upset her for some reason. She always refuses any time I mention that maybe she could bathe him, so I just didn’t get it.

I got him bathed and she helped dry him. Then I vacuumed a ton of hair off of him before finally getting to wind down for bed. Eaddie got home and took a shower, but then started to leave again. Summer was in bed, so I had to play bad cop again and tell her she needed to give their family a break and stay home to finish cleaning her bathroom and bedrooms, which have been complete wrecks all week.

Finally, I made a mad dash to finish up for bed, exhausted from the break.

And not one “thank you” was heard.