Breaking Blahs

Eaddie was up pretty early this morning, so I had her come into the bedroom to start watching Breaking Bad. After an episode or two, I made her an avocado toast, and then we continued watching in the living room. Autumn wanted to go out with Adam for a while, so Summer let her go. Eaddie and I never got up to much of anything else. In fact, we were proud that Autumn wanted to go to the gym after she got back from hanging out with Adam.

Summer made it home later in the evening after a long and trying day, so Eaddie and I went to Chick O’ Fish to pick up dinner. The family meal was more food than you could get for the cost of three meals, so that’s what we got from the surly girl in the window. Autumn joined us for some chicken strips, and then Summer and I tried on a few comedy specials on Netflix before everyone went to bed.

What a long day.

Fire Chicken

Eaddie decided she was going to stay home again today to catch up on homework, so I only had to drop Autumn off at the high school. I thought I’d crash the CPPC meeting in the morning, but as the time approached and I didn’t really have a reliable laptop, I chickened out. That pretty well set the tone for the day, though I wanted to get outside to try and clean up the back yard a bit. If I wasn’t going to accomplish anything for work, then I figured I ought to at least accomplish something for home.

Summer was slow at work and could take a lunch break with me, so I picked her and Eaddie up to go to New China. Afterward I dropped them off back at the shop so Summer could take Eaddie home, and I went back to my house for just a bit. Bác Vân was outside, so I talked to her a bit and went inside to power cycle her mesh router. I mentioned wanting to burn the back yard, but then it started to rain a bit.

I hung out at home for a little while, but then Summer said Eaddie wanted me to come help her with her programming homework. I hate programming, and trying to make sense of her code in a language I don’t understand just frustrated the both of us. I ended up spending the evening watching Modern Family with Summer until she went to bed.

Autumn had her final basketball game in Pine Bluff, so I had to wait until late to pick her up from the high school. Then it was straight to bed once we got home.

Fire off the apps!

Fn Keys

I tried to sleep in a bit this morning, but I still couldn’t. I got around to making a burrito for breakfast, and then woke Eaddie up to watch Breaking Bad. She eventually got hungry, so I made her a ham, egg, and cheese bagel. Autumn had an away basketball game, but I couldn’t drop her off until the afternoon.

After I finally got Autumn to the high school, I went home to clean up before taking my keys back to Thomas. Tammy met he at the door with a big hug, and then I sat at her desk super awkwardly while Thomas watched me remove the keys from my KeySmart holder. I took the opportunity that this was a really shitty 40th birthday prank, and then went on my way as he walked me right out the door again. It seemed I wasn’t welcome even to visit.

I saw Zach and Greg pulling back in as I left, but decided not to turn around to chat. I went on to visit with Dad and give him the news. We talked for a while, and then Ben called and we talked on the phone for nearly an hour. It seems I have options, but I just need to make a decision.

Eaddie wanted to make shrimp Alfredo, so I met Summer at Walmart for some groceries. I tracked down Amanda while we were there, but she wasn’t able to chat. Then on the way out we ran into Lenetta and one of her kids, who apparently knew Summer. It was fun to realize those connections for a moment, but frustrating to share my termination after she remembered my last one from Asurion.

When we got home, Eaddie resisted coming out to help, but eventually made minimal effort while I made dinner. I enjoy cooking, but not knowing the recipe by heart and having to scroll up and down between different sections of the site to find volumes and steps was incredibly frustrating. I only loosely followed the recipe anyway, and added mushrooms and broccoli to the mix. It turned out really good, though the garlic bread got burned while I tried to defrost it. I was just doing too much at once, and Eaddie was too busy on her phone.

After dinner, Eaddie and I watched a few more episodes of Breaking Bad until I had to pick up Autumn. I brought her home, and then it was pretty quick to bed since Eaddie had her National History Day project the next day.

I couldn’t even get halfway through the book before they started asking for money.

Dent See That Coming

I didn’t sleep super well last night, but I made it in to work a little early anyway. It felt like there was more traffic than usual, but I couldn’t tell why. I dawdled a little bit, but I didn’t seem to be the only one. Then I made my way to Crawford to close out a ticket there. I only had about an hour to kill until lunch by the time I got back to the shop.

I considered not going, but felt hungrier as the minutes ticked down to 11:30, and we went to La Chiquita. Their lunch fajitas are only seven bucks on Monday, so it’s hard to beat. Then I tried to stay busy for the rest of the afternoon. Right at the end of the day, Ryan started questioning me about our imaging task sequence, and I almost felt embarrassed. I bounce between projects so often, and it’d been quite a while since I’ve actually done anything with it. As soon as the clock hit 4:30, he was ready to run out the door though.

Zach and Greg were outside talking to the maintenance guys when I left, so I pulled over to chat. I bumped up into Zach a little by accident, and in turn he stumbled and sat on my hood, which surprisingly pushed in a little spot right above the emblem. I didn’t even believe them at first when they said it was dented, but eventually I caught the right light and I could see it. It shouldn’t be anything to push back out, but I felt incredibly stupid for it.

Eaddie had left her phone at home, so when I finished chatting with them, I went up to get it for her. I thought I’d be picking her up from robotics to take her to her grandparents’ house, but she changed her mind on account of homework. Instead, Summer brought her home. Then the two of us went to my parents’ house for some grilled pork chops and noodles.

Mom wasn’t feeling great, so she was on the couch for most of the time we were there. We chatted with Dad for a while though. We finally got back to my house to swap cars, and then headed up to the girls for the night. Eaddie was stressing a bit over Valentine’s day, but that didn’t last long.

Once Autumn and Summer went to bed, Eaddie and I watched an episode of Breaking Bad. I’ve been getting hyped up for what comes next, but we haven’t had time to watch very much. At least now I have a lead into the spinoffs.

Just improvise!

Soggy Fries From the Burger Guys

Our meeting was a little unconventional today, with furniture moved and Thomas coming in a bit late with the donuts. Gary left to get some, but I called him back to the shop as soon as Thomas showed up. After our chat, I had questions for Gary about our firewall failure earlier in the week, and Ryan had input. I can tell there’s a lot of opportunity to learn from both of those guys just by sitting in the room.

I closed a bunch of old tickets throughout the day, and it was nice to be rid of them. We left for lunch at CJ’s about half an hour early in three vehicles, and it was a good thing because two busloads of kids showed up right behind us. I was really surprised when the girl at the register remembered that I usually get all of the extra grilled toppings. I skipped them today, because I knew I would already be paying twelve bucks for a burger that was in no way special at all. The fries were pretty awful today, too.

A little while after lunch, I had to run home on the way to Crawford, where I closed out a few more tickets before school let out. Then the remainder of the workday was pretty quiet with Thomas out. Brody stopped by to chat with us, and then I headed on home.

I went straight to Summer’s after I changed, and started cooking some taco meat for burritos. Autumn was at a basketball game, so the three of us enjoyed a quick dinner and then started watching Breaking Bad. We had to call Autumn home after she ended up at her boyfriend’s house after the game. Then I think we finished three episodes before Eaddie decided she was ready for a bath and then bed.

The whole thing’s contaminated!

Out Came the Sun

I got to work this morning, and the maintenance crew had stuff laid out to tear up the ground around the basement. I thought I’d leave and work from the high school again, but since they weren’t actually doing anything in our office and most everything was dry, I ended up sticking around. I kept reasonably busy, and the time just flew by.

I took Gary, Zach, and Thomas to Wendy’s and tried some new chicken sandwich with a fried mozzarella patty and marinara, and wasn’t super impressed. I kind of just wished I had gotten a burger. Then it was back to the shop where I spent most of the afternoon putting together three pages worth of meeting minutes from Monday.

I ended the day at Crawford to try and clean up a few work orders, but only actually closed one before quitting time. I went to see Summer at Superfast, but then she sent me to Walmart to pick up pork chops, broccoli, and cauliflower. I went home briefly, and then met her at her house where we remembered that the girls actually had a quiz bowl night at Zaxby’s.

Dinner was good, but Summer kept getting irritated at anything I said. Easily the most frustrating part about our relationship is that she often seems incapable of accepting any form of constructive feedback. Eaddie eventually showed up, but disappeared into the bathroom after saying that Autumn would be later. She had to take Adam home, after evidently being gross in the Zaxby’s parking lot. Between that and the mysteriously leaky bottle of Fireball, we just want her gone.

Eaddie and I ended the night with two more episodes of Breaking Bad. The drama has gotten so heavy, but there’s still so far to go. I remember there being a lull at some point, but I don’t think it ever got bad.

F is for Frustration!

I Forgot My Floaties

There was a line of cars in front of our shop this morning, but I didn’t quite put it together why they were there. Our office had flooded again, in a bad way. Of course my office got the worst of it. Gary sent me off to the high school instead to work with Jacob, though he never actually showed up until near lunch time.

Just as I was getting ready to go back to the shop for lunch I got a text from another Jacob, evidently the primary Tesla mobile service tech for the state. He was on his way to work on the Model 3 in the rain, so I went to the bus shop to see if I could borrow a bay to keep out of the weather. Dale was just leaving, so he let me pull right in. Just a few minutes later, I spotted the little Tesla service van across the field and called to direct him to me.

They were two really young guys in full Tesla rain gear, and they confirmed my issues and got right to work testing the doors repeatedly. They adjusted the door bumpers, then pulled some trim and checked some wires. It took a little bit to warm up to me, but then we got to talking a bit while they worked. Jacob had a broken shoulder from mountain biking, so TA was there from North Carolina to help. Jacob said he was actually from Heber Springs, which surprised the heck out of me for a Tesla tech that covers the whole state. We had a good chat, and a laugh about how bad Enhanced Autopilot is. Then they were on their way.

I went back to the shop for a minute just as the others got back from lunch. They were still pulling tons of water out of the office, since it had been raining all day. There was no end in sight, as we watched the water line drift right back out away from the wall as it seeped up from the ground. I went to KFC to get a bit of lunch and relax, and then headed back to the high school to finish out the day.

Summer wanted to go to Walmart, so I met her there right after work and we picked up a bunch of random stuff. Then I went home to change before going up to her place. That was when I started having trouble charging my car. I spent quite a while digging out my charger and moving it to different outlets. The two most convenient ones were reporting no ground connection, but inside the house, the mobile charger appeared to be fine. I finally got to my third outlet in the garage, and was able to get charging again.

When I got to Summer’s, Eaddie was baking brownies. Summer finished up her TV show and then went to bed since Eaddie wanted to watch Breaking Bad with me. We watched two episodes, which got me to bed a bit later than I wanted, but it was just getting really good. I should probably take some time off tomorrow anyway, to investigate my rogue outlets.

I wander’d off by myself
In the mystical moist night-air
And from time to time
Look’d up in perfect silence
At the stars

Y Not?

Eaddie left with some friends for a robotics fund raiser super early this morning. It took me a bit to get back to sleep, but I vaguely remembered Autumn leaving a few hours later for a basketball trip. Summer got up and let me sleep in a bit because I was super exhausted. When I finally got up, we priced a Model Y out of curiosity, since the tax credit limits were changed to include the performance model.

She ended up having to go to work for a while, so I went home to clean up and tinker around for a while. When she finally finished, I let her drive the Model 3 to her parents’ house so we could try and get their old Pathfinder’s alarm system disarmed, and the SUV running. I managed to take care of it after a single honk, and then the engine cranked just fine. The tires were dry rotted, but the motor purred just fine, so Summer followed me to PDQ for some air. We couldn’t get the valve stem caps off of the left tires, so I drove it lopsided to Superfast where Alexis helped us change the valve stem.

With that out of the way, we went to Taco Villa for dinner. That place never slowed down, so we ate and then ran back to my house to get the gas burners. I met her at Shell and we filled up, and then continued up to her house for the evening.

Eaddie showed up shortly after we got home. Autumn made it back a little while after that. They ate, and then Eaddie wanted to watch an episode of Breaking Bad before bed. I guess I feel reasonably accomplished, even if we really only did one of the things I had planned.

Juggle Bucks

Third Missed

We had a fairly brief meeting this morning, and then I was assigned the junior high for the day. Gary and I ended up chatting in the shop for a while though, and then I did a bunch of tickets from my office until lunch time. I didn’t really plan to be in there for that long, but the time just flew by.

I took Zach and Gary to Taco John’s, and we all ordered something other than our usual tacos since it wasn’t Taco Tuesday. The parking lot appeared to be really full, but there weren’t that many people there. I guess it was just a lot of staff.

As soon as we got back to the office, I headed to the junior high and was surprised to find Kyle pulling in just ahead of me. I ended up walking him through the whole building to show him where everything was, and then we went back to his new office for a bit. Wight came with some new copiers, so we had to walk back up to the gym to set theirs up with PaperCut, which went fairly smoothly. Then we chatted for a while until quitting time. His view of the new work hierarchy seemed to mirror what I’ve been feeling for a little while, which was a bit of a disappointment.

I headed back to my office to finish up some paperwork, and then went home for the day. Eaddie ended up going to the movies with some friends, so I waited around until she was ready for me to get her. We came back to my house just briefly, and I checked that the Montego’s tire still had air pressure. Then we headed up to their house for the evening.

Autumn had a basketball game, so she came home a little bit later. I helped Eaddie find the name of a song for which she only had a small portion of the sheet music, and then we watched a couple episodes of Breaking Bad until bedtime.

Could it be better?

Iced In

We were told not to report to work today, so I didn’t have to stress about burning a day of leave. Summer had meetings online for most of the day, so Eaddie came into the bedroom and we powered right through the second season of Breaking Bad. I got out long enough to make a couple bacon, egg, and cheese bagels for Eaddie and myself, but otherwise nobody but Summer got up to much.

Autumn went a bit stir crazy and came out long enough to aggravate Summer, but none of us were sympathetic after hearing the yelling through the door. Summer didn’t let her leave to see her boyfriend, so she just holed up in her room all day.

Eaddie did a bit of last-minute homework as everyone else got ready for bed. Surrounding schools were a mix of open and closed, so we all waited with baited breath to see what would happen.

Postcipitation