Tag: Reviews

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Sitting in an Office and Doing Stuff

It was way cooler outside today after all the rain, so I decided to take the bike in to work. They didn’t really need me for group work, so I stayed at the shop and worked on things in my office. It was really quiet all day, and I only took a break to pick up lunch with the guys.

We had Tacos 4 Ever again, and this time I tried the nachos. At first I was worried that they looked small, but they really packed a lot into that foil dish. The chips got soggy too, so there wasn’t a lot of air taking up space where the precious food could go. It was packed densely with lots of meat and flavor.

I spent most of the afternoon tinkering with the wiki again, and I think I’ve been fighting incompatible versions with the VisualEditor extension. I stayed late again just because I felt like I was making a little bit of progress, and then Ben ran me off again.

The ride home was nice and I wished I could have just ridden off somewhere, but I had to get home and out of work clothes. Then I just didn’t feel like getting back out, so I played some Overwatch and sold some turnips on someone else’s island.

Eventually I made it up to Summer’s for the evening, and the girls were back home from their father’s. Summer was already in bed though, so I just laid around with her until my own bedtime.

Make sure your output correlates with the input.

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2:1

Today was really quiet because Ben was upstairs again for more of whatever they were doing. It wasn’t quite as noisy this time, but we could tell they were doing something. I spent most of the day learning about Microsoft’s licensing structure, and trying to figure out how to wipe the 1,300ish laptops I have for resale.

Zach said the district is trying to go 1:1 everywhere, and I think the buyback price on the old high school lease is perfect for a trickle-down of older technology. The laptops are still working great, and were generally underutilized anyway. Lower grades would have lower requirements, so keeping the old Windows devices would save just over $100,000 over the cost of new, less capable Chromebooks. Nobody seems to really care what I think though.

Greg wanted Mexican for lunch, and I suggested we try the new food truck by the railroad tracks. It was rainy, but light enough that we didn’t mind running out to place our orders, and the guy even brought it all out to us pretty quickly. It took less time than even ordering at a brick and mortar restaurant. My torta Cubana was both huge and delicious, but messy. I should have used a fork and knife. The burritos looked pretty good too.

After work, I went home and tried cleaning out the washing machine with some vinegar, and then later some baking soda. I just let it chug along while I played some Overwatch. Eventually I made it up to Summer’s for the evening, just in time for bed.

Never tell me the ratio.

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Slow Start; Quick Finish

I slept so well last night that I really didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. It took me a while to get going, and Eaddie basically slept until the last minute. I eventually got around to making an “everything” Italian loaf egg sandwich to take to Summer for what was supposed to be brunch but ended up being a late lunch. It felt super hot outside in the sun, and traffic was awful again. I miss the early days of the pandemic.

After lunch, we went by Julie’s to help take her TV off the wall so Suddenlink could check out why her internet keeps dropping out throughout the day. While we were there, we heat-pressed half of the flags I made, to cure the ink. The other half I wanted to experiment with water to get the paint to flow to both sides of the flag. Hopefully that will keep me from having to come up with a way to screen print the reverse side as well.

With that done, Eaddie and I headed back home and watched some more Daredevil until Summer got off work and came to get her. They went home to clean up while I did the same, and then they picked up Slim Chickens for dinner on the way back here.

The chicken was pretty decent, but I think for my money, Zaxby’s has better sauces. I put on the 2003 Daredevil movie for us to watch, and Eaddie just kept groaning through the entire thing, which really made it all worthwhile. She did find a lot of parallels though, and insisted we watch the first episode of the Netflix series when the movie was over.

After that, Summer went to bed and we watched a few more episodes, ending with a really horrible one with a pointless flashback to an already established-well-enough character. Being this close to the end, it really aggravated me that they wasted a whole episode to that.

Gravy. Gravy would make it all better.

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Ache Rolls

My body felt completely battered this morning. We took our time getting out of bed, then Summer woke Eaddie up and we had some leftovers for lunch. Julie wanted to uncover the pool, so the girls sat around watching The Voice and I did laundry while we waited for her to be ready. Eventually we did get out of the house and across town, and we uncovered the pool pretty quickly and easily by shifting the whole cover, then fan folding it from the middle.

My parents had egg rolls ready to fry when we finished with the pool, so I stood out and fried them before we went inside to eat. They stayed busy cleaning up outside, and the girls and I ate inside once the rice was done. Summer eventually had to get home to do her own chores around the house, so I went home to clean up. Jack showed up online and I spent some time catching up with him before Johnny got on. Then I joined them in a really terrible game of PUBG where the game seemed to run pretty smoothly, but my mouse lagged nearly a full second behind for some reason. One game was enough, and then I was off to Summer’s.

Eaddie was still up and bored, and I was super hungry, so I snacked a little bit. Eaddie shared some of her apples and Tajín with me, and we watched an episode of Luke Cage until I was ready to pass out.

Overripe Banana: 3/5
With Tajín: 2/5
With Cheddar: 4/5

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Off Trail

Summer and I got up late today and went to Walmart for the last few things we needed for lunch. They had a bunch of “everything” bread marked down, so we got all of it to freeze, and I took one loaf to make a sandwich. Since it was already late and a bit warm outside, we decided to eat at home rather than take it all to the bike trail. It was a quick lunch in the back yard, and then we loaded up the bikes and headed to Old Post.

When we got there and unloaded, I climbed onto my bike only to find the front tire was completely flat. I loaded it back up and went home for air, and decided that a portable pump is probably a must-have. While I was gone, Summer and Eaddie checked out the trails but couldn’t leave Autumn behind, so they all rode downhill to the main park area. I made it back and met up with them, and we rode all over the flat park area.

We stopped for snacks on the amphitheater stage, then made a couple more loops around the drive before packing up to head back home. The girls left pretty quickly after we got back to my house, and I spent a few minutes doing a major trim in my shrimp tank. Then I loaded up and headed up to their house for the evening.

Summer made sloppy joes with mashed potatoes and corn for dinner, and then I planted all of my trimmings in Autumn’s aquarium. Summer, Autumn, and I played a game of Sorry, and then they went to bed while Eaddie and I started the second season of Luke Cage. We both got bored with how slow the first episode was, and decided to quit there for the night.

Back to the grind.

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It Slices! It Dices!

We had another conference call this morning with a company we’ve never dealt with before. By way of chance, the guy actually got through to Ben on the phone, and we actually happened to be reviewing classroom management software, so Ben scheduled the meeting today after the two prior days of the same. I liked this one guy a lot more than the four we talked to yesterday, and though he didn’t demo the Windows functionality for us, he at least acted like he knew that it existed.

After the call, Ben and I went to Dairy Queen to pick up lunch. I decided to try the chicken and biscuits basket they had, and spent over twice what Ben did on his meal. I ended up getting plenty that I could split it with Summer on the way back to the shop. Ben was talking about phone shopping anyway, and wanted to compare the size of his old Nexus with Summer’s Pixel 3.

The afternoon went by really quickly with a few more work orders, and then I went to get Autumn for her physical therapy. I killed a little time in Animal Crossing until it was time to drop her off, and then I ran home for a bit. When she called for me to pick her back up, I stopped by Casey’s for a free water and ran into Keith and chatted to him for a minute in the rain.

Once I got Autumn, we ran back by my house to get my package from UPS that didn’t arrive until after I left. Then we ordered some Papa John’s for dinner and picked it up on the way back up the hill.

I mostly waited for Summer to eat, and decided I didn’t much care for their rendition of the Philly cheesesteak pizza. The girls liked their buffalo pizza enough. I brought in the toaster oven/air fryer/dehydrator/roaster/whatever-elser and set it up in the kitchen, and then Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones while Summer watched some of her show. When we finished that episode, we all got together for an episode of Glee before Summer went to sleep. Eaddie and I caught one more episode of Jessica Jones, then went to bed ourselves.

Sometimes it’s 10 minutes. Sometimes it’s an hour.
It depends what inspiration hits, and what deals are found.

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The Villa My Dreams

I really didn’t want to get out of bed today, and when I finally did, I got up with some pretty bad neck pain. It worked itself out pretty quickly though as I got to work. The girls got up and ate, and I set them up with the pressure washer again.

Autumn had physical therapy, so I took her in and then went home to shower. When I picked her up, we decided we would be staying at my house for real tonight, and we’d get Taco Villa for dinner. We went to get Eaddie and packed up a few things to take to my house, and met Summer there when she got off of work.

It took me a little while to get my call into Taco Villa, but when I finally did, the girl said it would only be about five or ten minutes, so I headed out. They had the lobby wide open with a posted limit of six customers at a time. I almost didn’t recognize Chelsea in the back corner waiting for her food. I think I’d seen her maybe twice since graduation. After just a little wait, I boxed up my food and headed home.

The girls kept arguing about what to watch, so I put on an episode of New Girl while we ate. They had never had Taco Villa before, and it seemed to really fill them up. Reviews were about like I expected them to be. It’s not amazing. It’s pretty good. Sometimes you just get a craving.

After we ate, I tried putting on Brightburn, but couldn’t get it to play well. I bounced between a few things and settled on Batman v Superman just in time for everyone to feel sleepy. I put Summer to bed, and Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones before I started feeling pretty sleepy and called it a night.

Wrinkles in time, indeed.

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Gotta Get Down on Fryday

I’ve been a little worried about my coughing the past couple evenings, but it seems to just come and go throughout the day. I felt pretty good this morning though, aside from not wanting to get out of bed. Zach wanted to clean up the graveyard, so I went upstairs and helped him until lunch time.

I took my little deep fryer to work so we could make fries for the smoked pork Ben brought. Zach didn’t see my message that I was bringing baked beans, so he brought a couple cans of his own, along with a frozen strawberry pie. We all sat together in the break room and chatted a while. It’s actually been really nice at work this week, and I wish it could always be this way.

After lunch, I spent all afternoon even working a couple hours late trying to set up a wiki. I decided to use BlueSpice just sort of on a whim because it seemed to have good reviews and features. The first part of the setup was annoying just because of restrictions on the server, but after I learned some tricks it turned into step after step after step of installing different components. In the end I felt like it would have just been easier to install all the prerequisites for a MediaWiki, but in the end I would have probably missed some features.

I stopped by Casey’s on the way home for a free rewards Kickstart, then got changed so I could take my Sun Joe pressure washer out for a spin. I spent a little while trying out different arrangements of my garden hose quick disconnects, and then got started washing all the things. With only 2,000 max PSI, it wasn’t going to blow anything away, and at first I was even a little bit disappointed. The sprayer was too large and annoying to hold, and I just generally did’t have a great time with it. The more I used it, the more satisfied I felt. It’s not as strong as the car wash down the road, but it’ll be perfect for little jobs around the house.

As the evening came to an end, I headed up to Summer’s and picked at some leftover Popeye’s she had brought home. Then I tried fixing a little oscillating fan she brought home from work. When she went to bed, Eaddie and I watched one episode of The Defenders that actually started to get really exciting. It was too late to continue on though, so we’ll have to pick up again tomorrow.

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Good Documentation Takes Time

I picked up another breakfast pizza this morning, this time with gravy instead of the cheese sauce base. I really couldn’t taste much in the gravy, but the lack of cheese sauce was noticeable. I can’t say whether I like one over the other though.

Most of my day was spent documenting a process for purging Help Desk accounts so I’m not the only one doing it. It’s really only two steps, can be stretched out into three numbered steps, and then was further fluffed up into a six page knowledge base document.

In the middle of all that, Ben got a call that the secondary learning center needed a laptop charger for someone that took home a laptop. In the past couple weeks, they’ve been stripping chargers out of laptop carts we built after we ran out of loose charging bricks in the warehouse. It’s going to be a bit of a nightmare recovering from all of this, and it’s a new lease year for me on top of that.

Zach took us to Chick-fil-A for lunch, and I had a super sad looking salad from there. I was already upset that they had gotten smaller, but this one was pathetic today. I just want some more cheap greens in my eight dollar salad, and that doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

After work, I picked up the girls and took them to my house so they could ride bikes. Summer came over after work and went on a run while Eaddie rode alongside her. Autumn didn’t want to get outside at all, but at least she spent most of the time reading up for her driving exam. I’m being super strict with my expectations, because I refuse to be one of those people I used to laugh at with kids that failed the test multiple times.

While Summer and Eaddie were out, I finally unboxed my electric pressure washer and got it assembled. I didn’t get it done in time to actually use it before they got home though, and then Summer took Autumn home. Eaddie and I followed shortly thereafter, and I snacked on some leftovers for dinner.

It wasn’t long before Summer went to bed, and Eaddie and I started watching The Defenders. The first episode was super slow to get started, but I get they’re trying to bring a lot of characters together. The second episode wasn’t much better, and left me wishing I could recall some of the details from prior shows. I think it’ll get good though.

Entertaining documentation takes an irresponsible amount of time.

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I Don’t Care About the Cats

Today was just one more day of work from home. I didn’t really get anything good accomplished, but maybe I helped someone else get something done. Most of my morning was babysitting, getting the kids up and active with their own obligations.

Summer queued me up to take Autumn to a physical therapy appointment, so I dropped her off and went home to shower. When I picked her back up, we went by Walmart for a couple things for dinner. Then I stopped by Lowe’s to pick up an online order. That ended up being a little bit of an ordeal, and they were visibly frustrated with how busy they were.

When we got back to Summer’s, I started the ham bone soup for dinner and waited for her to get home from work. She came home saying she was being peer pressured into watching Tiger King on Netflix, so she made me sit down with her to watch the first episode.

I could not have been any less interested. Either the rest of the world just wasn’t already aware that big-cat people are weird, or the quarantine business has gotten them so down and bored that they’ll watch anything. I ended up playing Alto’s Adventure on my phone until even Summer couldn’t take it any more. It just wasn’t interesting, and was completely and predictably stupid. Maybe I was just aware of that particular subculture because Dad was into magic, and I remembered that Siegfried & Roy had a stage show.

Autumn started making chocolate chip cookies, and the rest of us watched an episode of Glee until Summer went to bed. Then Eaddie and I started on a surprisingly addictive first season of Iron Fist. I didn’t think I would like it based on the first episode, but each episode after that kept me hooked on that auto-play feature of Netflix.

The cookies were perfect, but we’ve gotta get off of snacks.