Tag: Reviews

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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.

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Reedy or Not

I slept in pretty well today, and hoped that would help my recent concerns. Summer and I ate some leftovers and Eaddie left to get ready for Jenny’s recital in the afternoon. The whole day went by pretty quickly, but I tried to stay useful and productive. Summer took some time to get out her old laptop and play Torchlight II, which seemed like a good mental health break.

I got showered and we barely made it out of the house in time to drop Muad’Dib off with Dad before making it to the recital. Eaddie was only playing in one of the songs, but it was a nice, quiet show with just a bunch of the band kids and families. The kids did great, and then afterwards I saw Russ and talked to him for a moment before heading out.

Summer really wanted ice cream, so we went to Las Delicias where she got a cone and I got a mangonada. I didn’t think it was as good as Bocadillos, and I didn’t much care for the atmosphere being dark and loud, so we left and headed back to my parents’ house to get Muad’Dib. We visited there for a while before I really wanted to find dinner.

I wanted to try and find something with a bit more nutrition than the leftover Ridgewood nachos that were in the refrigerator, so we drove across town looking. We turned around at the old Valley Park Center where they had a whole lot of construction finishing up. Then we stopped at Aldi’s to see what aldi fuss was about. It was surprisingly cold and quiet in there, with a pretty limited selection. It didn’t seem worth the drive to me.

I got a box of salad, and we headed home to eat the last of the spaghetti squash casserole that Summer made. Then she cleaned the kitchen while I picked up around the house. She eventually went back to Torchlight and I took Muad’Dib on a run to take some old shirts to Dad before his surgery in the morning.

We wound down a bit more, then I did my best to get to bed on time.

DRINK MORE!

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Apps on Apps

The latest version of Autopilot hasn’t been maintaining speed, which has made my rides a little more annoying. We got in today with an acceptance that modern Outlook simply could not support collaborative contacts. It was difficult to get much traction anywhere else, which made the day drag on a bit. It was cool outside around lunch time, so I decided to let Muad’Dib sit in the car while I got some Wendy’s.

Eaddie and I had been trying to come up with a plan for Mother’s Day, and since she was done with school, I wanted to at least take them to dinner somewhere with Muad’Dib. Summer would actually be home early, so we had a plan.

I left work and actually passed Eaddie on the way home. We arrived together and found Summer just out of the shower, and then we all loaded up to go to Buffalo Wild Wings. They had endless appetizers which, to my surprise, you could mix and match for one price. We went through a few rounds of those and stuffed ourselves on chicken. It was probably the best experience we’ve ever had at Buffalo Wild Wings, ever. Muad’Dib did great, and got some snacks from a table of Eaddie’s friends next to us.

I took Muad’Dib for a chilly run when we got back to the house. We briefly saw my parents, and then Eaddie was gone when we made it back to the house. Summer was in bed, so I wound down quickly for some good sleep to round out the week.

Old school; new school; no school!

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Frog Lick Mornings

We had to get up around my usual worktime alarm so we could get to Conway for Summer’s Toadsuck 10k. I actually felt pretty decent, and we got out of the house just in time. She already had her race packet, so we found a nearby parking space and dropped her off at the starting line, and then Muad’Dib and I rode around on the Onewheel for a little over an hour.

I was hungry enough to find some food, so we rolled a few blocks away to a Chick-fil-A. We were basically able to stay on campus streets for almost all of it, so there was no fear of traffic. I placed a curbside delivery to my black Lamborghini golf cart, and then sat at the tables on the patio to eat, once one of the employees unchained the chairs.

We had just a little bit of time to roll around the nearby trail before making it back to the finish line. Summer couldn’t find the showers because we didn’t read the description well enough, but she got changed and then we headed to the original Stoby’s to meet Randy and Russ for breakfast.

The restaurant was packed, but they had space on the patio to seat us almost immediately. The kitchen was backed up though, so it took us forever to get food. Our waitress gave us a 50% discount for waiting, which was awesome since we were just enjoying our time anyway.

After that, Summer and I went a few blocks away to Toadsuck downtown. She decided she wanted to donate blood, so Muad’Dib and I rolled into the crowd to find Ben and his family. Muad’Dib was a little bit excitable, but overall did great. Something caught his attention hard at one point though, and he took off away from me without turning back. I ended up having to zap him, and then he came right back. We got lots of compliments, so it was a good time. Ben’s family caught up to him and they wondered on while I went back to fetch Summer. We went into the mob, but quickly decided it was too much for Muad’Dib, so we made it back to the car and made one last pass through Sam’s Club before heading home.

Dad was having trouble with the lights at the old house, so Muad’Dib and I left Summer to go check things out. Mom was on another push for me to get everything out of the house, so I looked over some stuff. I think the garage will be the worst of it, because I had so much room to store things without parking two cars inside.

I was exhausted and probably dehydrated, so we made it back home for a bit. I started to get really hungry, and then Eaddie came home from her trip to Little Rock to check out the National Guard band. The three of us decided to go to La Huerta for dinner, but their patio was full. We ended up walking next door to the Gogi BBQ House food truck. I had seen a huge mob of people there earlier, so I figured it must be good.

Eaddie got some tacos and Summer and I had different bowls with chicken, pork, rice, and a couple of fresh sides. The kale I had tasted nutty and was delicious. We really liked everything. Afterward, we went to Las Delicias for some ice cream. It looked like they were training a bunch of employees, but they let us bring Muad’Dib inside and we had some pretty good ice cream before heading back home.

The three of us enjoyed some time on the couch together doing some tone deafness tests. Then Summer went to bed and Eaddie wanted me to watch the first episode of Invincible with her. I knew it looked interesting, but was afraid to start something new with such a big backlog on my watch list, especially leading up to Doomsday. It was a pretty good episode though, and it’ll be nice if she wants to watch more with me.

Puperfect!

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Orange is the Now Back

We grabbed a biscuit from Burger King on the way out of town, and ran a slalom of cops on the way to work. I was hoping to hear some news on our Traverse trouble ticket, but that wasn’t resolved all day long. I even tried scrubbing through our data, but was never quite sure what I was looking for. I took a little break and finally figured out the style color for hyperlinks on my own website, so I was happy to get that back.

I was going to take a late lunch until I realized we had a call in the afternoon. I was the only one on that since Joel was out and Tammy said she was busy, so I sat there for fifteen minutes to watch what could have been an email with a slide deck.

The afternoon was sort of short after that. I had an anxiety attack, and finished the day out trying to get a remote desktop solution working for some computers I’ll have in the plant.

Summer was in Conway for an employee’s graduation, so I met her there for lunch. She picked a place called Kyojin Phở, so wee made our way through half a dozen roundabouts and finally found her. Ben called me on the drive to see if we were coming to Toadsuck, so I talked to him for the last bit of the drive. Kyojin Phở just happened to have a patio, so Muad’Dib got to come sit with us. I got a combination phở, and Summer got a combination dry noodle dish, so he got most of our tripe and tendon. The food tasted good, but my soup was surprisingly cold.

I let the car drive 100% of the way home, and only pressed the accelerator a couple times to push the speed. Otherwise it took me from parked to parked, and it did a pretty great job. Summer actually beat us home though, because it took us around a block of Tech for some reason. I might have stopped it if I had noticed, but I didn’t catch it in time.

Summer went in to get ready for her run in the morning, and I took Muad’Dib for a run. He did pretty great most of the way to my parents’ house, but then slowed down a bit. It was quite a bit cooler though. When we got back, I fixed Summer’s gross earbud that got clogged, then got ready for bed.

It’s like work, but less rewarding!

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Fuster Cluck

This morning dragged on forever, but then around lunch time I had to go downstairs to take a look at some laptops that were on site for the day. That led to some discovery, which I assumed led to more work due to our slow internet. I ended up skipping lunch and eating a couple leftover cupcakes to tide me over. I spent most of the afternoon downstairs working on a new laptop for Eric until quitting time.

We stopped by Superfast to check on Summer, but she was feeling really puny. She wanted KFC, so we went by there to pick up some food. It was hazy inside, so I had to guess that was just the new normal. The register still blinked strange hieroglyphics, and there was a line of people inside and out. It felt like I was standing there forever in spite of how many employees seemed to be legitimately working.

We finally made it home to eat, and I was just exhausted. I took Muad’Dib for a bit of a run at first, but then it turned into a walk until we saw my parents and eventually got back to the house. Summer was in bed, so I wrapped things up and went to sleep early.

What’s it take to get some decent fried chicken around here?

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In the Drink

Work was uneventful today. It seemed pretty quiet, and there was still some cleanup inside from the picnic over the weekend. I just quietly hummed along, trying to clean up a bunch of old reading I had saved while learning my way around Intune.

We went to lunch just a shade early because we were already downstairs to help Amanda with the check scanner. We just went to Taco Bell since they had a $2 discount on select combos. I was pretty disappointed in my Cantina Chicken Burrito, so we ended up stopping by Sonic for a 99-cent corn dog before going back to work.

The afternoon was more of the same as I tuned into some music for a bit to wrap up the day. Summer would be home around the same time I’d get back to town, and Eaddie was there when we got there, so I was hoping I could take them both out to dinner. We never see Eaddie any more, but she had another sorority meeting in the evening.

Summer didn’t feel great, but I got her dressed and she decided on Burger King for dinner. As we drove by the new one, we noticed they didn’t have outdoor seating, so we continued on to Freddy’s. The food was surprisingly good, but as always I was disappointed in the amount of fries and the overall value for the price. We finished up with a custard, then went to my parents’ house to drop off the pool cleaner I got them.

Mom and Dad were preparing to shop, so we didn’t stay long. Muad’Dib chased after what was presumably a possum after hearing some walkers comment on it earlier. It was just seconds before we heard the splash of him jumping into the creek, so he had to run home next to the car and then have a bath.

Summer went to bed, and I gave Muad’Dib a good bath. It was hot and humid, but I spent some time cleaning up the dining area and put away the things that still hadn’t been stowed from the picnic, and then it was off to bed.

Ick Season.

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Amerykahn Graffiti

I made us some egg and Petit Jean summer sausage pitas for breakfast this morning. Eaddie left early for sound check and such before her afternoon concert. Summer went to the gym while I cleaned up a bit, and we had just enough time to cool down before heading to Witherspoon. Dad wasn’t feeling well and wanted to sit out, so we left Muad’Dib with him for those few hours.

The first half of the concert was typical stuff, but with a good amount of end-of-year fluff. I didn’t realize it, but the second half was a doctoral dissertation symphony by Katahj Copley, and every minute of it was an absolute banger. It was a great show.

The kids carried on with their lives, so I took Summer to New China for dinner. The food was pretty good, but our server was pretty awful. I begrudgingly tipped at all for the one time she meaningfully visited our table, and then we headed home.

Muad’Dib was wound up pretty tight when we got there, so I let him run home alongside the car. Then Summer had to do some work on her laptop, so I started a load of laundry and sat on the couch with her until bedtime.

Halcyon later!