Tag: television

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Show Me a Sign

I woke up pretty early this morning and had some time to ease into the day. The girls got up and headed out so Summer and Eaddie could take Noah out on a hike while I went to work.

The high school was grilling burgers and hot dogs for teacher appreciation week, and I had to go there to work on the sign anyway, so I drove out there and set up on one of the picnic tables. It wasn’t quite the drive-through they advertised, but it was nice to see some people out at the pavilion. When everyone left, I headed to the shop to catch up with Ben while I tinkered with the Watchfire sign software.

I ended up accidentally overwriting the sign with a playlist of every single premade animation that was included with the software and had to drive back to the high school to fix it, because there was no password required to upload new content. I got there just in time to see a giant cross on a hill, with the words “ACCEPT CHRIST” across the front of it. Being a public school, I felt a bit of panic as I corrected the display.

Once I got something more appropriate uploaded, I ran by Julie’s to try and help configure her new modem/router/MTA box from Suddenlink. She was told, and the documentation showed, that she could change the SSID and password, but the web interface appeared to be disabled. We ended up calling Suddenlink to threaten cancellation to lower her bill, but the retention department was closed for the day. I stuck around to play with her new GoPro for a little bit and show her how the mounting works.

As dinner time approached, I ran home to take care of a few things and then headed up to Summer’s for the evening. When I got there, I found a couple moles right by the house that one of the stray cats appeared to have messed with. I scooped them up into a little bucket and brought them in for mole jokes and so the girls could see them up close. I ended up releasing them by a tree in the back yard, but I wasn’t sure one of them was going to make it. All it would do is lay there breathing heavily, so I assumed it took some internal damage from one of the cats.

The steaks Summer grilled turned out really good, and we had a nice dinner together. Afterward we played a Harry Potter: Potions Challenge Game that ended up being pretty dreadful. It upset Autumn a bit because she really wanted everyone to love it, but I could tell right away that it wasn’t worth the wooden box it came in.

As we wound down, I convinced everyone to finish the first episode of Game of Thrones, and then everyone went to bed.

They say winter is coming.

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Uncaged

I couldn’t sleep very well this morning, so I didn’t have any choice but to get up and start the day. Work was mostly housekeeping with stuff from last week between Animal Crossing sessions that were mostly me trying to document my progress in the game somewhere other than the game itself.

I was unsuccessful in getting Eaddie up even close to a reasonable hour, so we just munched on whatever leftovers we could find in the house. Autumn called her, after spending the last couple nights with her grandparents, to decide on a dinner for their father and Zach to bring them. The whiny semi-verbal gymnastics that Autumn muttered when Eaddie suggested Subway as something even remotely healthy were both hilarious and predictable. In the end, I think he brought them food from different places because that’s the kind of catered world they live in.

When Summer got home from her long day at work, she picked at some leftovers as well. I still had to go home to take care of things there, so I took Eaddie with me so we could leave the other two with some time to settle in again. On our way out, Autumn fussed about not wanting to be back, and it got me wondering if we could get her to verbalize why she would rather be with her grandparents than with us. Everyone seems to just accept it without making her identify why it could be a problem.

Back at my house, Eaddie and I finished up the last season of Luke Cage. We were both pretty disappointed in how it ended, and I thought it was odd how the whole season just kind of seemed like it didn’t know what kind of show it wanted to be. No matter, though. It’s on to the next Marvel series.

Gwan den.

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Hunter, Gatherer

I woke up a bit earlier this morning and did a bit of work while the girls were in bed. Eventually I made them get up and start hunting for the TV remote. It started out okay, but they slowly got snippy with each other and it all kind of fell apart.

Autumn had therapy, so I dropped her off before going to Walgreens for a drug refill. I was a little surprised they hadn’t gone completely touchless there, and made me type my phone number into the card reader. At least it was a quick in-and-out. I stopped by to see Summer on my way out, then got gas, and headed home for a quick shower before going back to pick up Autumn.

I made a quick stop at Casey’s for a freebie, got Autumn, and we headed back to their house for the evening. I told the girls they couldn’t eat until they found the remote, and for a moment they actually got their heads together and retraced their day. Autumn found the remote stuck way down in the recliner, and peace was restored.

We all picked at leftovers, then played a couple games of Yahtzee where we learned that Summer had all of the statistics preloaded in her brain. Then Eaddie and I snuggled up for a surprisingly long Luke Cage marathon.

Wha yuh deh pon?

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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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Ride Along

Summer had to stop by the shop this morning, so she picked up some Wendy’s breakfast for us on the way home. Then she took Autumn to pick up the car her parents were planning to give her so she could practice at the high school. The brakes were so bad that they ended up leaving it, and she ended up practicing in Summer’s car anyway.

Eaddie rode her bicycle out to meet them, and I followed along on the Grom so Summer could get some time on it. I rode around the lot for a while, practicing some little wheelies while Eaddie rode down the trail she had found before. I eventually stopped to warm up in the sun on the arbor bench for a little while until Summer was ready for some time on the bike.

Autumn did a pretty good job of driving me around, and I tried to have her focus on parking and spatial awareness. She was pretty bored by the time I got to her, so we weren’t there much longer before we headed back to my house.

We were pretty hungry by that time, so Summer and I rode across town to try and pick up some BBQ from the Ridgewood Brothers. Grant said they had just sold out though, so we sulked back toward home. We stopped by the Neighborhood Market briefly to pick up some groceries first, and then Summer took the girls home to clean up.

When they got back, Nick wanted to come by and eat with the girls, so we all sat out in the backyard together where we could maintain a decent space. He brought us all an assortment of food and stayed to chat for a little while since he hadn’t really seen the girls since the quarantine started.

After he left, the girls came inside and wanted to play Jackbox games. I had just picked up the fifth collection in the series, so we played a round of each of the games in the pack before settling in for bed. Eaddie and I outlasted everyone else as usual, finishing up the second season of Jessica Jones before bed.

Even the littlest bikes can buck the unsuspecting rider.

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Fish and Dogs

Apparently I sat on my key fob last night and I woke up with my car windows halfway down in the rain. I guess I was just lucky that it didn’t rain any harder than it did.

Ben took the day off, so Greg and I were left with Melinda to man the phones. We both had work orders to take care of, so we kept at least a little bit busy all day. Nobody was having lunch there today, so I ended up just hanging out at the shop with a Soylent. The afternoon went by pretty quickly too.

After work, I spent a little time at home getting some bills together and called to see if I really did owe anything from my colonoscopy in November. I didn’t get in touch with anyone, but I left a message and went on about my day. I got a little Overwatch in, and then headed up to Travis’s to pick up an aquarium.

He had evidently neglected it pretty badly and just wanted to get rid of the whole thing, so he handed a bucket of fish and the tank to me through the window. The bristlenose catfish had its barbs stuck in the net, so it took me a little bit to get it out, but we got everyone loaded up and ready to go. I got the catfish and three tetra GloFish, and headed to Summer’s.

Autumn decided she wanted the tank, so I had her do some furniture swapping to get a 20 gallon tank-worthy stand into her room. I cleaned the new tank out the best I could with the water pressure I had, and we got it moved into her room. In the middle of that, Summer came home and I ran to Sonic with Autumn to get 50 cent corn dogs for dinner.

When we finally finished cleaning up the filter and setting up the tank, I dropped the fish in a little prematurely since we didn’t really have anywhere else for them to go. Summer crashed, and Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones before bed. I checked in on the fish and one of them didn’t look so great, so we may already be down one by tomorrow. I’m almost sure of it.

Genetically modified meat on a stick.

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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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Taking it Offline

It was just a little bit cool this morning, but I decided to take the Grom in to work. I got a bit of a slow start, mostly messing with what we collectively agreed were “Michael problems” that are oddly specific, unique and important only to me, and necessarily unimportant. By the end of the day it helped me learn some stuff though, so it was a good day.

Ben drove us to Taco John’s for lunch, where I tried to use the app’s new online ordering feature. I didn’t realize I had to tap a button to “check in,” but that was resolved in short order. The tacos, on the other hand, were terrible. I should have ordered soft tacos, because by the time we got back to the shop, they were soft anyway.

Ben and I had another conference call after lunch, this time with a whole group of people representing Relay. I should have known just by how the meeting started that it was going to be kind of typical office-lingo corporate nonsense. In the end, they just couldn’t demo anything that we really needed, and then couldn’t really properly answer some of the technical questions we had with their four people on the call. Gary stopped by and sat in for a while, and spent most of the time rolling his eyes, but that could just be typical Gary.

That wrapped up the work day, so I stopped by the shop to see Summer on the way home. Once I got settled in a little bit, I started making some decent progress in cleaning some things up a bit. It felt really good to be that productive. Summer came by when she got off, but ended up going home to work out instead of going out for a run.

After giving her some time to work out, I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Eaddie and I watched some Jessica Jones, then I picked at some leftovers for dinner while pan frying some hot dogs and cheese for Summer. Then the three of us ended the evening with an episode of Glee.

We’ll take our Trump Bucks elsewhere.

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Recovery Room

I had to get out right as I was getting into bed so I could cover the fire pit before a storm blew in. Then I slept for a while, but still woke up several times throughout the night. It felt a little like I was too dependent on the higher constant pressure of my CPAP at Summer’s, but my newer one at home shouldn’t have any trouble adjusting as needed. I guess I could bump up my minimum pressure to see if that helps.

I was still incredibly sore when I woke up, but the worst of it worked itself out throughout the day. The girls got up and went home pretty early, so I had some time to clean up around the house.

The oldest male guppy that Brittany brought me yesterday wasn’t doing very well, so I spent quite a bit of time trying to arrange a place for him to go into quarantine. At first I put him into a little container of his own, but then ended up splitting my external breeding tank into three compartments so he could join my two bettas. I could see he had gotten really stiff and would just float in the corner breathing, but nothing else looked really wrong. A few of his fins were a little thin, so I wondered if he was getting harassed in his overcrowded container while I acclimated them overnight. At the end of the day, he finally stopped breathing and I sent him off for a burial at sea.

While I was messing with the fish, I also noticed a bunch more dead leaves floating in my bathroom aquarium, so I cleaned it up a little and added some soda water for a little carbon dioxide kick. I’m hoping they’re still just dying off because of how neglected the tank was, but there could be something else going on too. Only time will tell.

Summer wanted to get Sumo for dinner, but evidently they closed up at the start of the COVID-19 stuff, so I just ate the girls’ leftover Taco Villa before heading up to their place. When I got there, I tried working on Kayla’s laptop with absolutely zero success. Summer went to bed after some TV, then Eaddie and I watched a couple episodes of Jessica Jones before heading to bed ourselves.

But why is work, anyway?

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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.