Tag: tabletop

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Hangin with the Big Earners

We had a bunch of projects for today. I was sent off to Sequoyah with Brice and Allen. Allen was in a mood and didn’t want to go with us though, so he tried to break off and go with Zach and Jason. Then he was basically a jerk all day when that didn’t work. When we got there to hang a touch panel, it looked like they already had a newer projector and I wondered if it was actually still under warranty. Without much of a plan or direction, we ended up cutting and removing some cables to pull a new HDMI cable, but it ended up not working. We needed nearly 70 feet of cable for the room though, so Brice will just have to go back later to swap it out again. We left with a shorter cable across the floor for temporary use. We also had to run an extra audio cable to replace a group of four-plus extensions that were feeding some nicer speakers. It all seemed a little silly, and I wasn’t too excited to be the only one up on the ladder all morning.

I had called out Old Post BBQ for lunch when we were still in our meeting, and though everyone seemed happy with that, nobody else met us there. We did run a bit late, but nobody else even said anything about going anywhere else. Allen refused to sit in a booth with Brice and me, and he weirdly sat at a group of tables with a couple other ladies. I saw Nicole working there, and she helped me identify and order something I saw in a picture frame called The Dagwood. She said if I finished it in under 30 minutes I could get my picture on the wall. It only took me 20, but I declined the photo and we went along our way.

After lunch, I resolved an issue with my HSA for payroll, so hopefully I’m not out anything there. Then I helped Allen run an HDMI cable to resolve a video issue at Center Valley. That likely could have been fixed with software and drivers as well, but he and Jason couldn’t figure it out, so we ran the cable. Then I was on my own, so I finished up a rash of work orders I had gotten from Oakland.

When I finally got home, I was so exhausted but had to clean up the living room a bit. I managed to finish before the girls got here, and even set up Catan because Autumn wanted to play. Eaddie was rowdy and completely uncontrollable all night, and I ended up sending her to bed before we finished the game. I think I got my new network storage box reset, but I’m still having trouble completing the setup, and I’m too exhausted to continue messing with it.

Kids these days don’t even know who Dagwood was.

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End of Break Blues

Summer got up this morning and left for the gym and to do a bit of shopping before the girls got back from their father’s. I got cleaned up and had to stop by Walmart to pick up the asparagus and Brussels sprouts that Summer forgot.

The girls were eating food they brought home when I got there, so it was just the two of us eating the ribs, mashed potatoes, and veggies she whipped together. It was super good, so I wasn’t too upset about it. After we ate, we played a relatively quick game of Monopoly before moving to the Switch for Mario Kart.

We’ve all had trouble getting to sleep early, but I’m hoping to turn my clock back by about four hours tonight. Sadly, returning to work is starting to look like reality.

Where else can I find a job that lets me work this little but pays better?

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PixElated

I didn’t manage to get to sleep until about 5, and I woke up around 8 to check the status of Summer’s phone. We really didn’t have any more time to waste because Google Fi was threatening to cancel her “service” and bill her for the phone if she didn’t activate it, even though it was completely on FedEx for losing her first phone shipment nearly a month ago. When she finally woke up around 10, I had her get dressed to wait for FedEx and I went back to sleep for a little while. It was right around lunch time that they finally made the delivery. I still woke up from the knock on the door though, so I went ahead and got up to help her set things up.

We got her screen protector and case on, but she forgot her Slickwraps skin at home, so we’ll have to try that out later. The port from Verizon to Google Fi was painless though, and after some initial, vaguely unintuitive setup, she was up and running on her new phone. I think after seeing hers, I’m less upset about not having a new one this year. I can definitely hold out for a better price point than the one I got when I switched last year.

After we got her going, I dominated Noah and Eaddie at some Mario Kart that I picked up on sale last night before bed. Summer and Autumn made a run to Burger King and Popeye’s for a late lunch since it’s impossible to please everyone, and we’re raising a bunch of “librul snowflakes” as they say at work. Summer even made the executive decision to order bone-in chicken over Eaddie’s preferred strips, but then ended up bringing strips back anyway because the wait was significantly shorter.

We ate, Summer took Noah home, and then the four of us played a ridiculously long game of Catan because none of us are comfortable enough to play with any real strategy yet. When that was finally over, I was completely beat from being awake for so long after such little sleep. Summer took the girls home and I tried doing my rounds on some of the pets before falling over.

It looked like the betta dropped a few more eggs, but they floated this time. She also has some pretty significant fuzz that looks like stuffing coming out of a hole in a stuffed animal. It’s been there for a while and she can’t seem to shake it, but at least she seems more active. I think she’s been eating some of the freeze dried bloodworms I’ve added to her water, but I can’t tell for sure. She’s definitely still not anywhere near back to normal.

After that, I got side tracked a bit and ended up breaking the tape measure I’ve had on my desk for years. It had been slightly messed up for ages, and I broke it the rest of the way trying to correct it. I guess for a dollar store purchase, it served well. Harbor Freight will fill the void nicely in the near future.

Too many rabbits.

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Full Price Is for the Birds

I woke up super stiff this morning with a tremendous ache in my shoulders. Somehow I’ve been sleeping poorly on my side with my arm up under my head, but I can’t ever seem to stay put sleeping on my back. When Summer got up, she stirred the kids and got ready for the gym. I headed home and messed with my one sleepy snail and finally got it to come out and eat some food after being sealed up for several days. That was a pretty good relief.

After my shower, I picked up Bác Vân and met Summer and the kids at CiCi’s for a BOGO lunch. They said something about national buffet day, but they had me at “free.” When Bác Vân finished, she decided she had to take Eaddie next door to Shoe Carnival, and ended up bringing her back with a new purse. When we all finished, we walked to Bath & Body Works for some significantly overpriced soaps. I had a coupon though, which knocked us down about 20%. Then Summer walked the kids to PetSmart while I gave Bác Vân a ride home.

I met them back at PetSmart to browse for a bit, but they were done by the time I got there. I picked up some baby crickets for the frogs at Oakland, took the others to their car, then took the crickets to Oakland to feed the frogs. Mollie had taken them home, so I had to just leave the crickets on her desk to pick up tomorrow. From there, I had forgotten to fill up on gas and had to drive back to the Shell. Evidently I had a pretty significant discount available, so while I trickled gas into the tank, I called Summer and had her meet me there to grab the last few gallons up to 20 that I couldn’t fit in my own car.

Finally, we all landed back at my house and played a game of Settlers of Catan. I thought I had the Seafarers expansion that would allow for all five of us to play, but it turns out it was only an expansion to the original game for 3-4 players, and I’ll have to buy two more expansions in order to make that work for 5-6 players. It was really tough getting everyone to listen to the rules, but once we got started they all seemed to really enjoy it. Even Eaddie got really into it, and ended up winning the game with an assist. We made one slight mistake with the spacing of settlements, so by the time we finished we were fed up continuing to play by our broken rules, but we’ll know better next time.

With the game finally done, the five of us settled in and watched Bird Box on Netflix. It was really good, really suspenseful, and perhaps a little too terrifying for the littlest. About two thirds of the way through, she gave up and went to the other room to play on her phone. The rest of us really enjoyed it though, and it’ll be interesting to hear in the morning if anyone has nightmares over it tonight. I think they likely pushed all of that out of their heads with their Mario Party as Summer and I went to bed.

Yes. It is exactly like tic-tac-toe.

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Too Many Pandacorns

I slept in too late today to take Summer some lunch while she was working at the shop, so I spent the day cleaning up after the cats and fish. I moved more snails over to the 55-gallon tank too, but I’ll need to bring the PH up so the acidity doesn’t eat away at their shells. I let myself get sucked down the rabbit hole for a while on that one.

After a while, I loaded up Breath of the Wild on the TV and played until I had to get ready for dinner. Summer came over after a workout and a shower, we picked the girls up, and we went to my parents’ house for some leftovers. Zach invited us up to play a card game they got called Unstable Unicorns, so we picked Gary up as well and headed to Doverland.

The seven of us played for nearly four hours before Eaddie finally won. We were pretty severely gimped because Zach and Sara insisted that you couldn’t play an upgrade card unless you had a basic unicorn card in your stable, and then all of my unicorns were turned into pandas for the entire game. I very nearly won though, and I feel like I did win in spirit even if it was only because I had a proper understanding of the rules.

Past midnight, we headed back to town in the pouring rain, dropped Gary off, then made it back to my house to go to sleep. All the girls passed right out, and I joined them after a couple more hours.

You think the hard way is your ally, but you merely adopted the challenge!

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Easy Overtime

I spent all day working at the high school handout today. It was probably the best day I’ve had at work in a long time. Even when it was busy, things went smoothly and correctly. They’ve done a really good job of making the whole process pretty efficient.

Summer brought Noah in to get his laptop in the afternoon, and we were all done by 3:30. Central Office dismissed us at three, but I still had work to do at the junior high, so I stayed until nearly five.

After that, I went home to get some things and then went to Summer’s for the evening. She made sloppy joes with mashed potatoes and some asparagus that all turned out pretty awesome. Eaddie made cupcakes for dessert, and we played a game of Uno before the kids started watching The Fellowship of the Ring. I played a bit of Limbo before settling down for bed.

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The Great Dying

Everything seemed perfectly normal up until bedtime.

It was a pretty slow day again. I ended up driving through McDonald’s for a late lunch Happy Meal. Nobody else has really been around all week. I guess it’s been alright to recalibrate my eating habits.

After work, I came home for just a little while before heading to Summer’s for dinner. Some of the tadpoles were hitching a ride on a piece of celery that was bobbing up and down in the water, so I made a funny video of it.

Summer made chicken and bowtie alfredo, then we all played a super long game of Uno before the girls went to bed. The rest of us watched an episode of The Office, and then I came home.

I checked on the tadpoles just before going to bed, and much to my dread, over half of them looked to have perished. There were just mounds of them on the floor of the fish bowl. I spent a couple hours trying to sort out the living from the dead, but they preferred to mingle. I rigged up a bigger container for confirmed live ones, then sank a smaller container with the rest of the mix so the live ones could swim out overnight, leaving the dead behind. We’ll see how it goes in the morning, I guess.

Everything was great until it wasn’t.

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What can I say except, “you’re welcome!”

I slept in again today, but made time to clean the aquarium and living room before going out. The girls went shopping and wanted CiCi’s, so I met them there for that. Afterward we stopped in to Shoe Carnival so I could look for some sandals. I don’t really understand it, but the sandals I wear are at least a size larger than my shoe size.

When we left there, Summer asked what the plan was, and I told her that I was going to go play video games by myself and she could do whatever she wanted. Eaddie said she was with me, so I took her, which I think was a surprise to everyone. It looked like Summer and Autumn went toward their house, and Eaddie and I went to my house, but then made a detour to get half a sandwich out of the office refrigerator. On the way back, we passed a bird sitting in the gutter of the road that didn’t move, so I circled around and we walked over to look at it. I managed to poke it before it wobely flew across the street. We followed it, but I never got to touch it again. I did get a sweet picture of it when it landed just outside arm’s reach in a tree.

Giving up on the bird, we came back to my house and met the others and played some Blokus before settling in to watch Moana. I loved the movie, and the 3D was spot-on.

If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me…

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First and Last

This morning was productive for me. Gary babysat me while I played around in some of our network switches, and I think most of what I was doing stuck with me. At least I should have log files if I get lost in the future.

After work, I went to my parents’ house for lunch. Dad had taken Mom some food for her lunch break and got back home just after I finished my taco salad. I got my Walkera Runner 250 spinning, but it was too cold to be outside flying. I managed to call a cat from across the yard while I was inside the dining room, impressive to the point that I felt like maybe I’ve missed a personal calling somewhere. Nowhere useful, but a calling nonetheless.

From there, I went to Summer’s and crushed them in a flip-floppy game of Monopoly. We picked up some Whatta-Burger for dinner, then I finished the evening dead last in a game of Sorry. Bác Vân called and offered eggrolls, so I took some to share with Becky, then came home for some PUBG with Josh, Clint, and Aaron. I even contributed.

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Soul Crusher

I woke up early this afternoon super hungry, so I went to my parents’ house to find some leftovers. I had forgotten they had to go back to work today, but Julie and Andy were there with a surprise replacement of the garage overhead lights. I stuffed a couple rolls with ham and turkey down my gullet, then came back home to play some Overwatch and shower.

Once my parents got home from work, I went and had dinner, then went to Summer’s to play a game of Monopoly. Nothing makes me happier than extinguishing that tiny glimmering light of hope in someone’s eyes as they make their way around the gauntlet. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as maniacally as Summer though, as she left us all cold and desperate in the wake of her Trumpian victory.

Now the trick is to fall asleep as quickly as possible so I can go to work in the morning.