Tag: television

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Quarantine Away from Home

Eaddie really didn’t want to go to Little Rock with us for Autumn’s appointment, but today she actually behaved really well in spite of her frustration. Summer got up and made eggs and corned beef hash for breakfast, and then we all got ready to leave. My trolling motor came in for the boat, so I stopped by the house to bring it inside, and then we hit the road.

I wasn’t sure what traffic to expect on a Tuesday at lunch time, but it wasn’t awful. There were still lots of cars on the highway, and Waze had my route all kinds of jacked up, but we made it with time to spare. Rather than drag everyone in, I dropped Summer and Autumn off at the entrance, then parked and sat in the car with Eaddie. She spent the whole time on her phone, and I ended up video calling Suzanne to check in. She took me along on her walk around the neighborhood until Autumn was finished.

We didn’t even bother trying to do anything else in Little Rock, and headed back to Conway instead. Eaddie stayed in the car again while the three of us went in to Sam’s for some supplies. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at the types of people that were there, or the change in behavior. There still wasn’t any toilet paper to be had, but at least it was quiet.

When we left, I ordered a couple pizzas from Old Chicago, and we took them home to eat. I wasn’t really impressed with the pizzas, and the restaurant was eerily quiet. It’s always been a treat to dine in there, but for 30 bucks after a BOGO deal, I would have preferred Pizza Hut.

After we ate, Summer had a little workout while I looked up a manual for her Bowflex. I figured out how to get some more features out of it, so she was happier with her improved workout away from the gym. Then we went to my house and rode bikes to the high school so I could water my plant. The doors were physically locked, so rather than continue looking for another way in after the announcement that one of the staff there tested positive for COVID-19, we headed back home where I continued to clean out the garage while Summer went for a run.

When we got back to her house, she made some pico de gallo and I started some refried beans in the Instant Pot. She went to bed before I even got the pot sealed, but when it was done and I got them mashed up, I got Eaddie out of her room to try them. Then I made us a couple little baby bean burritos before we sat down to a couple episodes of Luke Cage.

So long as nobody got the coronavirus, I’d call today a success.

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Homemaker

Summer left for work again this morning, leaving me with a house full of kids. Autumn was the only one up before me, and she was in her room doing schoolwork. I started sauteing a roast to put into the crock pot for dinner, and around the time I really had my hands full, Eaddie got up and tried to ask for help on some of her work. I got frustrated with her when she didn’t want to put any work into learning how to do it, and I basically had to dictate an email to her teacher because she wouldn’t type it herself.

Noah eventually left with a friend, which finally killed the highly-inappropriate Hell’s Kitchen episodes that had been playing all morning. By the time I was ready to leave, Autumn had called Summer to see if she could stay with her grandparents for the evening. I guessed correctly that she just wasn’t happy with what we planned for dinner. I left to take Summer some coffee, then went home to clean up a bit. On the way back up, I stopped by the high school to get my work laptop as well as a couple test units since Ben approved me for some work from home.

Autumn didn’t even get close to finishing her chores before she left, so that’ll be trouble with Mom tomorrow. Noah got into a little trouble himself after leaving town and coming back super late. At least Eaddie and Summer really enjoyed the roast. I could tell I went a bit too heavy on the potatoes. The juice was great with some fresh sliced bread, and it may warm up well with the potatoes for later.

Eaddie joined Summer and me in bed for an episode of Glee before Summer had to crash for work. Then I tinkered on the computer until the kids went to bed.

I can’t tell if it’s coronavirus, or if it’s snot.

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Less Sick and Tired; More Bored and Restless

I slept the best I’ve slept in over a week last night, and didn’t get up until nearly noon. Summer went to work, leaving me with all three kids. They stayed up late watching scary movies, and were up this morning watching Hell’s Kitchen relatively quietly. I milled around the house for a little while before having to take Autumn to the junior high to get her clarinet and music from band. Then we stopped by my house to pick up some mail I got from China before getting lunch for everyone.

We picked up a bag full of food from Burger King at a near-astounding price. To feed a family of five for under 20 bucks is some kind of marvel. We stopped by the shop to deliver Summer’s, and then went back to the house where Noah and Eaddie weren’t super hungry, but ate anyway. It wasn’t but maybe an hour or two later that Autumn wanted to know if their father could take them out to eat for dinner, so they left for Cicis again.

Summer got off work shortly after they left, so I just hung out for a bit until she got home. We showered and ate some food ourselves, then watched some more Master of None until she went to sleep.

fu jian sheng fu zhou shi jian xin zhen taigiang

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Come at Me, BrOVID-19

I tried sleeping in this morning, and though my bed felt pretty luxurious, I couldn’t get back to sleep once I was up. I called Summer and met her at the gym for about a half hour walk on the treadmill. Then I went home to clean up before meeting her, Eaddie, and Noah at the new Cicis to try and catch the novel coronavirus. It was evidently their opening weekend, so the parking lot and insides were completely packed. They managed to keep the bar loaded, but the pizza types were boring, and the bar didn’t seem as big. They put the salad stuff up front, but it didn’t appear to have as much stuff either. Overall I was pretty disappointed. I don’t like having to put in custom orders, but I guess now I have an excuse to ask for one made with every single topping they offer.

After lunch, Summer took Autumn to her play practice, and Noah and I met her back at Walmart to do a little shopping. That place was packed too, presumably from pandemic panic. We even ran into my parents while wandering around. They were out of a ton of stuff, including all paper toiletries, all hamburger meat, and tons of canned or dry goods. As we were checking out, they made an announcement over the intercom that they had a small cart of hand sanitizer located at the front of the store. We turned around to see a cart guarded by employees as they only allowed a couple per household.  You could definitely tell people had gone completely bonkers. It was all over everyone’s faces.

Noah left with some friends while we were there, so Summer and I took our groceries back home and chatted some more until Autumn finished. I went to get her, stopped by my house for a few more things, and then came back up the hill. She went to bed super early, so Summer and I watched Master of None until Eaddie got home from her birthday trip with Maleea. Noah eventually got home as well, we ate some leftovers, and then when Noah went to sleep, Eaddie joined us in the bedroom for a couple episodes of Glee. She was the best snuggle buddy tonight.

A pocket full of posies!

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One Lumens, Coming Up!

We didn’t have any projects again today, so I was left to my own 1:1 devices (heh, heh). I did start off by coming up with a solution for imaging devices without network ports, so that was exciting first thing this morning. Afterward, the only work order I had was to deliver a document camera, and then I killed the rest of the morning at the high school just picking at things I’ve been working on all week/month/year.

Five of us went to Ruby Tuesday for salads, though Greg ordered a comically small pasta instead. I was quite happy with my greens, and even Gary had the salad today.

After lunch was more of the same until quitting time. Then I went home and dispersed some of the new plants I got. I planted a couple, and split floaters between a couple of different tanks. I really hope the red root floater does well, but I’m worried some of those things had been left out of the water for too long. At least she seems willing to fill in the gaps if they don’t all make it.

The girls are spending the weekend with their father, so I went to Summer’s to make burritos for dinner, and then we watched Glee until bed.

I spend a large portion of every day vibrating with a palpable sense of wild, irrational rage.

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Pancakes on Pancakes

Summer took Autumn to Stoby’s this morning so she could prep for their Explorers fundraiser. Then the rest of us got up and headed down for all-you-can-eat pancakes. The food was simple, but filling. We didn’t stay long since Noah had to go to work. We stopped by Amanda’s so I could bring some packages in for her, and then went to my house until Autumn was done.

Summer took him to work while I showered, and then we watched some Glee. The breakfast lasted until around 2, so we went to Walmart to kill some more time until Autumn finished. Then we picked her up and headed home. I kept fussing at her that I was hungry, and that she should make us dinner after having worked for half a day. Unsurprisingly she passed on the opportunity. We watched some more Glee until dinner time, then I grilled some more burritos.

After we ate, Summer wanted to play some Catan, but we quit at 7 points since the kids were fussy and needed to go to bed anyway.

I will trade you one random lumber card for five lumber.

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Lunch With Newbies

I got up a little early this morning to pick up a breakfast pizza for work. The two new guys started today, so they were off with some of the others doing new hire stuff all day. My morning was blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. I barely made it back to the shop by lunch time, though that ended up not mattering much because Zach was at London with Josh and didn’t make it back until about half an hour later.

Greg, Ben, and I met them at Brangus where Ben ended up buying all of our food since we were the only ones that showed up for the traditional new-guy lunch. Hearing them in conversation helped me feel a little better, but I’m still bitter about their starting salaries. I guess there’s just no getting around it now, so I’ll just have to move up by moving out when I have the opportunity.

My afternoon went by pretty quickly too, as the high school had their parent-teacher conferences. I got a few things done, and then Melinda sent word that central office was sending us home an hour early. I went home for a little while until Summer got back home with Eaddie. She stir-fried some leftovers, and then we watched a couple episodes of Glee before bed.

To work, or not to work…

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RoboBowl

Summer and Autumn left for a quiz bowl tournament at the junior high his morning, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I tossed around for a while before giving up and heading home to clean up. I had to wash my new towels before putting them away, so I split that up into two loads before taking a shower. Just as I was getting ready to leave the house, Doug came over from next door and asked me to come hook up his old DVD/VCR combo. He had the cable coming out of an input port, so it was an easy fix.

Summer had just finished at her nail appointment as I headed to the junior high, and we pulled into the parking lot at the same time. I went in with her to see the quiz bowl awards before we walked back to the gym area where Oakland was hosting a robotics tournament. Everyone had already packed up and left, and nobody ended up going to Fat Daddy’s afterward, so we ended up just going back home for the day.

Autumn and I went to Dollar General to pick up some pasta, but got sidetracked by a bunch of tables with miscellaneous clearance stuff. She accidentally threw hot pink powdered chalk all over my light button-up shirt, but luckily it mostly shook out. We picked up a few things and headed back so Summer could make dinner. Eaddie had finished, or at least found a bunch of her missing homework that was keeping her grades low, so we let her join us in watching a bunch of Glee before bed.

When we open the lab each morning, we tell the robot to kill.
It’s our little joke.
But secretly, we’re just afraid to tell it to love.

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Let’s Talk About That

I didn’t get shipped off with anyone this morning, but I didn’t want to just go off to the high school for more of that. Oakland had a few new tickets, so I spent all morning taking care of those. I even got a little breakfast when the girls handed me a slice of pizza as I walked past the kitchen. A handful of the work orders I dealt with today were due to a print issue within Chrome, but I didn’t realize it until Gary mentioned other schools in the area talking about the same thing.

Zach, Gary, Heather, Ben, and I went to Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads and got one of the slower servers. We didn’t make it back in time, but nobody ever really cares anyway. When we got back, Ben let me run to Leonard’s to pick up a KeySmart because I was tired of wearing my keys and badge around my neck. I think after almost four years, I’m ready to graduate and get that jingly chain off of my chest. Then I went to the high school to finish up the day.

I didn’t get a whole lot done, but I did close out all the work orders I had done throughout the day. I stopped into the library for a little while, and Karen told me a story about how our superintendent had discovered a destroyed student laptop while he was out on a run. Evidently he thought enough to send a picture of the library barcode in to one of the principals, but didn’t mention that he didn’t actually pick it up. He left it there because he was in the middle of his run, and then it was gone by the time anyone drove out to pick it up. Classy.

I had forgotten to return the district card, so I ended up having to run back to the shop to return it. Ben was back in the shop working on a sign computer, so I brought up the fact that we are still bringing new hires in at step nine. I told him that really made me not want to work at the high school, and that I really only owed him a level of competence equal to our worst performing tech if he’s not going to re-evaluate us before moving on with these new hiring rules.

Just as I was leaving, I saw my order at J. C. Penney was ready for pickup, so I ran across town to get that. Kevin was at work at AT&T, so I stopped in to chat for a bit while I was in the area. Then I stopped by the shop, but Summer had already left to get the kids, so I went home for a little while before heading up to their house.

They were watching TV, so I ate some leftover pizza before we started watching Glee. Then Eaddie came out talking about having some horrible grades due to missing homework. Evidently teachers just let you turn in assignments whenever you want these days, and there are no repercussions. That’s not how I roll though, and Summer tasked her with finishing up all of her assignments over the next day.

Unable to continue in the living room, we retired to the bedroom to chat for a while. Then I forced one more episode of Glee before having Summer set up her new Nest Mini, and then we crashed.

You can’t expect them to pay you for what you’re worth, so you have to give them what they paid for.

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Meet the Cosmonaut

Summer made pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast for us this morning. Eaddie wanted to go visit her father, so she started doing her chores after breakfast while Summer and I watched some Glee. A little while after she left, Autumn was returned home by her grandparents and made to do chores as well. Eventually we had to make something of the day, so Summer got up to start cleaning. I milled around a bit until she was ready to take Autumn back to her grandparents’ for the Superbowl. Then I headed home to clean up a bit myself.

I bought some marimo balls at Petco, so my first order of business was to get them out of the package and into some water. I decided not to throw them directly into any of my tanks for fear of them being eaten up, so I finally set up a little jar I had bought years and years ago for this very purpose. I filled it with shrimp water to try and help it cycle a bit, and noticed a tiny little baby shrimplet near the top of the tank. He went straight into the jar as well, and I figure I’ll finally take it to work with me. While I was doing all of this, I noticed one of my plants pearling with oxygen for the very first time, so I guess conditions are still pretty great in that tank. I just wish the algae would get under control, and the worms have become a real nuisance.

I ended the evening with a shower and a load of laundry.

Why is my house playing country music???