Tag: Reviews

Uncategorised

The Gift Card Investment Plan

Summer and Autumn slept in this morning, but luckily Summer jumped out of bed in time to get her up and out to the school for their quiz bowl trip. I tried not to sleep too late, but Eaddie still beat me to the living room. She wanted cereal for breakfast, but we didn’t have any milk, so I took the opportunity to try and pick up some Nintendo eShop gift cards that were on sale at the Dollar General right up the road. I must have looked like some kind of fool getting $200 worth of Nintendo gift cards, but I only paid $170, so the joke was on them. I did make a mistake though, and tried to scratch the first card with a metal file, and it chewed right through the ink on the paper. Luckily I called Nintendo, and after speaking with a couple guys, they were able to confirm the validity of the card and applied it to my account for me.

After Eaddie and I had some cereal, I messed around on the Switch some more while she watched Legends of Tomorrow. Eventually I had to find a way to convince her that she probably didn’t take a shower last night, and that she definitely needed to take one today. It took some effort, but I eventually got her ready to leave the house, and we headed back to my house so I could clean up. On the way, we stopped at another Dollar general and I picked up another $180 worth of gift cards. We should be set for some games now.

Summer was already heading back from Greenwood by the time we got to my house, so I warmed up some food for Eaddie and then jumped into the shower. Once I was ready, we took the bike to Walmart to look for a Super Mario Party and Joy-Con bundle. We ran into Ana with her grandparents there, but Ana acted all shy, and I’m pretty sure her grandparents didn’t really recognize me. We continued on to the electronics, and luckily there were still three copies of the game, so I limited myself to just the one and we headed on to Summer’s house so the girls could pack bags for their stay with their father.

Hannah and Dylan wanted to meet us at Chili’s for dinner, so Summer took a shower and we both drove to meet up with them. My food was pretty good, but cold. Summer said she liked hers, but the other two both wanted to send their sirloins back to the grill. We had a good time though, and I got Dylan’s Steam info so we can hopefully join up for some Rocket League or other games at some point in the future.

When we finished dessert, Summer and I headed back to my house for the evening. We thought momentarily about visiting the remaining three Dollar Generals in town to clean the rest of them out on gift cards, but she was sleepy and I figured $380 should last until next holiday season when hopefully they’ll have another sale.

Motorcycle weather in December, but you look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.

Uncategorised

Birthday Blunders

I woke up with another headache this morning, but fortunately I shook it off after a shower. There wasn’t much going on at Oakland, so I stopped by the shop to pick up some things on my way to the junior high. It was Ronda’s birthday, so I went with her to Stoby’s to pick up a bunch of lunch orders for those of us that were eating together for the occasion.

When we got back to the library, we discovered Janie’s order was missing, and I didn’t get my cheese dip. I let them eat and went back to Stoby’s by myself to pick up the rest, and the girl found Janie’s order immediately, but then told me the people in the back were “100% certain” they gave us a large cheese dip. I confirmed that they did, in fact, give us one out of the two that we paid for. She said she would check my order to make sure I was charged for it properly, but after driving back once already for what we clearly didn’t receive, I felt like she should have at least just given me the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t until after I got back to my cold taco salad that I realized they also didn’t give me any chips for it.

Nearing the end of my meal, a guy from the home theater place that mounted our cafeteria media rack found me and wanted me to look at it with him. He didn’t seem to understand why we weren’t satisfied with their install, and insisted that there was no way the weight of the equipment could be held up properly in a wall rack. I told him we work with wall racks all the time, and that if the rack was overloaded, then they should have purchased a heavier-duty rack. I flat out had to tell him I wouldn’t allow an installation like that to pass in my home. I guess he works with a different set of standards.

A few work orders later, we reached the end of the day, and I ran home to pack up my NVIDIA RTX 2080 TI Founders Edition cards that I paid way too much for, and took them to UPS for return shipping. It was just a little over $40, which kind of surprised me. I guess that’s a fine lesson. I’m still not certain I made the right choice, and it sucks that my plan didn’t pay off better. There’ll probably be a shortage of cards closer to Christmas, and I’ll regret returning them.

From there, I went to Summer’s and scraped up some leftover dinner while she watched TV and the girls fiddled around. I had to head home for more laundry though, so I didn’t stay very long. Then I just surfed Cyber Monday deals into the evening long after I finished laundry. With any luck, I won’t go completely broke before I can find a new job.

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.

Uncategorised

Tip Squad

Summer got up a little early today to pick up Autumn. They brought breakfast back, and the girls all watched Criminal Minds while I started cleaning up the kitchen. Eventually they had to go home to get ready to visit with their father, and I continued cleaning and started some laundry.

When Summer finally came back in the evening, I ordered dinner from the food truck Spices via Bite Squad using a discount code I had. The service was pretty polished, and the fees showed it. Each restaurant had a fee that seemed to be based on how far away it was, but then they also suggested a percentage-based tip of 18% of your order total. I remember being happy about $2 tips back when I delivered pizza for a living, so the $6 tip they suggested during my ordering process really rubbed me wrong after being charged a $2.99 “booking fee.” Comments online seem to indicate that drivers only actually get 50% of the tip if you put it on your card too, which is downright evil. It was cool being able to track the whole process though, and I guess under $10 to have food delivered from a non-delivery restaurant isn’t grossly unfair to the customer.

The delivery guy passed my house and tried to deliver our food two doors away, but I yelled down the street to get his attention, then gave him a $5 cash tip since I opted out of the default 18% on my card. Overall the Bite Squad experience was good, but had a poor value, so I couldn’t recommend it without a promotional discount, or being too drunk to get out and buy your own food. Summer really enjoyed her noodles from Spices though. My rice and skewered meat dish wasn’t very good and seemed way overpriced for the amount of meat it had, but it did the job.

After we ate, we ran to her house to pick up my car and some things for her, then stopped to rummage through Kmart on the way back to my house for the night. I picked up a corkscrew for future conference shenanigans.

They’re off to find the hero of the day!

Uncategorised

Sew Much to Pack

I slept really well last night, and stayed that way until almost noon today. When I finally got out of bed, I packed things up and headed home to clean up a bit before Josh came over to check out his laptop I had repaired for him. Both hungry, we went to Denny’s for a late lunch and chatted for quite a while. The food was really good, but also really slow to come out, so it was fortunate we were just killing time being social.

When he dropped me back off at home, I took a shower and then played some Rocket League with him once he got home. We did pretty well until we didn’t, and I still don’t have a placement in ranked duos yet. Once we lost a couple games, he was ready to call it quits for the day, so I decided to sew up the mismade velcro patch on my new backpack. I felt like I did a pretty good job on it, but as I was trying to tie a knot to finish the whole project, the thread got caught up in something, and I ended up having to just cut off all of the excess without knotting it properly. I don’t think it’ll be a problem though, since the whole thing just gets tied up in the hooks of the velcro.

I spent quite a while unpacking all of my old daily cary stuff and sort through the new swag to decide what I wanted to put in the pack. I’m still not completely sold on how I have it arranged, but it’ll do for now. I’ll probably make some changes once I’ve had a chance to use it at work for a while. I was mostly surprised to see there wasn’t any organization for pens, or any small, vertical pouches.

Summer finally got back into town after her quiz bowl tournament, picked Eaddie up, then came over for a bit before having to run home to get Eaddie showered and changed into some new clothes. Summer passed out as soon as they got back and had a bite to eat, and Eaddie started watching Arrow while I cleaned up from all of my packing.

So I guess I collect koozies now.

Uncategorised

We Are Venom

We slept in for quite awhile today because I kept waking up with a headache all night. I think it was my neck, but I still couldn’t be sure. Eventually I got an ice pack and stuck it in my pillowcase and finished the night on it.

Summer and Eaddie went home to clean up, then came back to get me to go to Conway to see Venom. We ate at the China Town buffet right in the strip mall, and then barely made it to the show on time, but I had gotten perfect seats when I pre-ordered our tickets. It was an entertaining movie. Eaddie loved it. Definitely not as good as any of the MCU movies, but still better than Venom’s last appearance with Spider-Man. I hope they follow through with another movie with Carnage.

When we got back into town, I dropped Summer off at home so she could get Autumn, and Eaddie and I went back to my house so I could get what I needed for work the next day. Then Summer and I watched a couple episodes of The Office before bed. She had a bad enough headache that she took some special migraine medication, and hopefully we’ll both be back to 100% in the morning.

Going down the street, like a turd in the wind.

Uncategorised

This is Hallowhat?

Team day was easy this Friday. I spent all morning updating Chromebooks with Amanda, which was mostly us sitting and watching progress bars. We went to Western Sizzlin for lunch where I had a relatively bad country fried steak, then spent the afternoon hunting down a network line at the middle school because Allen terminated the wrong one and left the correct one in the ceiling in a different room. We got to leave work 45 minutes early though because there was a homecoming parade after school. I headed home and started parsing through a mixed bag of files on my media server because qBittorrent is terrible and doesn’t seem to be made to seed things long term.

Summer came over after the girls went out to eat with their father, and we ended up going to Wendy’s for a quick dinner. We ran into Josue there, who had been out messing around on the Birds with some friends. When we finished there, we headed back to my house to receive the girls, and we started watching The Nightmare Before Christmas. I had never seen it, but everyone was too tired to really enjoy it properly, so I switched over to Black Panther for a little while before everyone started falling asleep. I stayed up and played a few rounds of Overwatch with the guys before heading to bed myself.

Wakanda movie is this?

Uncategorised

Little Sleazers

I got a whole dozen 23 inch monitors in for the junior high today. They’ve been asking for a status update since school started, but now that I have them, I don’t have all the necessary cables, and the cables they did order were just thrown into the surplus/junk pile. I wish they’d ask me about stuff like that so we could reduce waste. Now I’ll have to go back again to finish the setup, and the stands they got are probably too big for their desks. The whole thing is laughable.

Ben called me in the middle of it and said I needed to check Chromebooks at Oakland to make sure testing tomorrow will be successful, but then texted later and said it should be fine, so that was a bit of a relief. I still didn’t get as much done as I wanted though, since I spent all morning on monitor stands. I went from nearly 40 work orders back down to 30 again. I even stayed late to wrap up a couple things. So much of what I have open is just time consuming, and I’m nearing the deadline for my time sensitive stuff for the audit.

After work, I ordered some Little Caesars through their updated app, which provided an above-average experience. Walking into the restaurant was another story though. It seemed there were a bunch of grouchy people there complaining about how long they had been there. It took me a bit to get to the head of the line, but once I did, my pizzas were fresh and ready when they were supposed to be. The app wins again.

I headed up to Summer’s and the girls and I ate while it was fresh, and Summer arrived from the gym about halfway through my plate. We ate and watched Criminal Minds until the girls had to shower, then I came home to set up my hospital tank for the betta. He’s still breathing, but that’s about it. I’ve got to get him to eat somehow.

I pay my personal property taxes late so I can collect interest and then use that interest to pay part of the credit card processing fee that I pay so that I don’t have to go to the stupid courthouse because organized society is stupid.

Uncategorised

Dogs are basically just really smart babies.

We slept in pretty late today, and I was worried it would keep me from falling asleep tonight, but after feeling sleepy all afternoon, I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem.

Summer went home to start some laundry and clean up the house while I got showered. Then I went to pick her up to go to Denny’s for an afternoon breakfast/lunch. We both ate way too much, but aside from receiving the completely wrong burger, the food was delicious. Our server was super weird, but cool. I highly recommend the Loaded Nacho Tots, and it’s basically a meal by itself.

Next we ran to my parents’ house to help Dad cover the pool. We didn’t stick around too long though, partly because I started getting really sleepy, but mostly because Summer needed to go to Walmart to pick up a baby shower gift for Isabelle. I told her I wanted to get something cow related that would last and not just get thrown away after a year or two, and suggested it should be a dog toy for its durability and cleanability. She glared at me with judging eyes, but she would soon see the way. She picked out a few limited-use things, and then we headed to Tractor Supply Company for the good stuff.

As soon as we walked in, she spotted a plush cow that she said looked perfect. It had multiple squeakers and was filled with noisy, crinkly filling in its extremities – all things a baby would love. That’s when she noticed the tough rope lining the edges. She had picked out a dog tug toy. Adorable and durable, and perfect in every way. Nevermind the K9 TUFF-GUARD badge sewn into it. The kid’s gonna love it, and I will maintain my reputation for being terrible with children.

A quick stop at Dollar General later, and we were back at her house to receive the girls. Once they got home, I headed home to start some laundry myself. I started digging around for supplies to better care for my ailing betta, but the water will need some time to stabilize anyway. I’m not sure how much good it will do, but I guess I should keep trying.

Shit, I really am the new phone guy. And sign guy. And SCCM package guy. Let’s kick this on-the-job learning into overdrive.

Uncategorised

Always Be Closing

I finally got Oakland’s sign completely functional this morning. It probably took me better than a full day’s worth of time to get it going, but it felt good to figure it out by myself, and I learned stuff in the process.

Dale and I met for a Taco Tuesday lunch, and then I ran home to get my new Sticker Mule custom stickers. They didn’t quite live up to the quality that I was expecting because the edges were clearly cut on a vinyl printer/cutter, but I assumed they weren’t truly die-cut from the beginning anyway. They were cheap, and it was neat to see the process. It really makes me want to tool up and buy an industrial plotter myself, but I know it would end up just being a bunch of dickbutts in the end, and I’d be out the money without any real desire to be an Etsy entrepreneur.

I rode back to the junior high and spent the afternoon closing miscellaneous work orders, finally trying to make some headway on the 30 I’ve been floating all year. I’ve got more bigger projects that I need to complete as well without work orders, but I’ll just have to figure out how to juggle it all.

After work, I went home for a while until it was time to pick the girls up from karate, and then we went to their house for the evening. Summer grilled some awesome pork chops along with a fresh cucumber avocado salad that we ate with chips.

It’s hard trying to become a sticker person.

Uncategorised

Sous Apprécié

We slept in a bit this morning, but not too much considering when I went to bed. Summer made a few pancakes for breakfast before we headed to Walmart to pick up the things for my first attempt at some sous-vide ribeyes. Autumn wanted to go to her grandparents’ house, so Summer dropped her off while I got the potatoes baking.

Once I had that started, we packed everything up and headed to my parents’ house to re-learn how to cook a steak. Mom started fussing over cooking things differently, so I left a couple steaks out for her to grill traditionally. The rest were salt and peppered, then vacuum sealed with some shallots, garlic, rosemary, and thyme. I had never used my vacuum sealer before either, so that was a little bit of a learning process. Overall everything went pretty well, though. As soon as I finished sealing everything and dropping it into the water, it was time to go home and get the baked potatoes.

I brought the potatoes back to my parents’ house and gutted them for twice-baked potatoes. They turned out really great, but the steaks were the real belle of the ball. After two hours at 138ºF, I pulled the steaks out and finished two of them on a hot cast-iron griddle in the kitchen. The high heat and butter smoked up the whole house almost instantly, so I moved that step outside to the charcoal grill instead. It didn’t finish them quite as perfectly, but it worked and I didn’t have to worry about airing out the house or burning my lungs with all the smoke. Next time I think I’ll cook the steaks at a slightly lower temperature, but these turned out pretty great. I definitely need to season them earlier, and probably with more seasoning next time, but overall I think it was an excellent first try. I can’t wait to try it again to see how I can improve.

After dinner, I took the girls home to pack some things, then met them back to my place for the evening.

Now if I could just figure out where the rest of my weekend went, I’d be in good shape.