Tag: television

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Post-Op Slack

The girls were up before me this morning, and Autumn had started on Criminal Minds. Summer left to get us some Burger King for a quick and easy breakfast, and eventually left for the gym. It was a super quiet, super dull day, but Autumn did well without much pain medication. I did a bunch of laundry and cleaned up a bit. Summer brought back some Little Caesar’s for a late lunch, and then took the kids home while I finished my chores.

I still had a bunch of mail-in rebates to send off, so I spent a little while getting those organized before Summer got back. Then when she did, we stopped by the shop for me to make a couple last minute copies, then by my parents’ house to deliver the forgotten Christmas rolls, and finally the post office to mail my rebates before ending the night at her house.

We brought a couple big trash bags to wrap Autumn’s leg, and Summer helped her with a shower before we settled in to watch The Order of the Phoenix. Autumn fell asleep near the end, but Summer was acting like she hadn’t seen all of it, so we finished the movie before heading to bed.

Breezy, temperate evenings, dancing through the chimes like it’s not even December…

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Often Imitated

Winter makes it hard to roll out of bed for work in the morning. I don’t recall it doing any favors for work in the afternoon either though. I took my toaster in to work so I could have a piping hot bagel. I hadn’t been there for very long before UPS showed up with my Macy’s package. It was my toaster oven and electric skillet. I went home for lunch to bring them in, and I’m pretty sure I scared off a tweaker that was trolling through my neighborhood on a bicycle. He seemed to be looking pretty intently at all the doors, and then immediately left when he saw me park the car.

After that, I talked myself into going to Burger King for their Bacon King. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as Wendy’s Baconator, but it wasn’t awful either. It was big though, I have to give them that.

The afternoon went by pretty slowly as well, until I tried to go by the shop and discovered everyone had already gone home due to the Christmas parade. It wasn’t even 4:30 yet, and people were already lining up along the street to see the show, and the traffic just made me angry. I hate parades.

I went home to chill out for a while before heading up to Summer’s, where I emptied the refrigerator of all the remotely relevant leftovers I could find. Summer wanted nachos, and it was my job to figure out how to make that happen out of Thanksgiving leftovers. I think I did pretty well.

We ended the evening with a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation, and then I spent some time browsing for sunglasses with bayonet temples, because I’m eclectic like that. The Chinese counterfeit market is pretty good for those, too.

Is it good that you can’t tell the difference?

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I’ll Never Forget About Larry

Summer had to work this morning, which allowed for me to sleep in a while. With Thanksgiving break nearly over, I let myself get a pretty slow start to the day. I had to get the girls from their friend’s house, but first I stopped by the Ridgewood Brothers to try and snag some brisket. Grant handed me a cube of it out the window as I approached, and it just melted in my mouth. I picked up a couple pounds along with some sides, picked up the girls, and took them home.

Summer got home just a bit after us, we ate, and then left the girls to clean house while we went shopping. My first stop was Bath & Body Works, where I dragged her around the store sniffing soaps. I had a coupon, a need for fancy foaming soaps, and a complete lack of shame for being the one that wanted to go shopping there.

Next we stopped at my house for just a moment before heading to Walmart for groceries and other shopping list things I needed. I ended up grabbing one of those Black Friday pressure washers that Julie was going on about, since they had a pallet of them left over. I wish we could have spent a little more time looking, but we had to get back before Harry got to the house.

When we got there, the girls were inside giggling about how he was driving up and down the road trying to find their house, rather than trying to help direct him to the place. Summer started cooking most of the meal, and I changed the oil for some sweet potato fries. The kids played the Switch a bit before wandering back through the house. Dinner was simple and good, though I was still pretty full from the late BBQ lunch.

We played a couple quick rounds of Stuff Happens and Uno before the girls settled in to watch The Conjuring. Eaddie was probably the most excited to watch a scary movie, but I knew the game. Harry ended up having to leave before the movie was over, so Autumn went to her room for the night while I helped Eaddie finish the movie. Once that was over, she beat me in some Mario Kart before awkwardly snuggling to some Luke Cage. She started to fall asleep in the middle of the second episode, so that was the end of the day.

Just trying to make up for lost time…

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Four Percent Friday

We didn’t have much going on today, but I still didn’t feel the need to go to the high school. I spent all morning at the shop, partially working on a couple things. Pretty soon it was only an hour until lunch, which wasn’t enough time to really get into anything. A group of us went to CJ’s for a long lunch. When we got back, Zach and I rolled a magnet around our parking spaces to pick up the 30ish screws and such that were left behind by the people savages doing the work upstairs.

Allen had a touch panel to install in the afternoon, so I went with him. We got it hung pretty quickly, but then encountered a weird touch issue. He immediately jumped to calling technical support, and then leaving them a voicemail when they didn’t answer – all before actually trying anything to fix it. He was in some kind of stupid and belligerent mood, which is the absolute worst for him.

We wrapped up the day about the same as the rest of it, with a whole lot of keeping chairs on the floor. I think it’s the seasonal rut.

On the way home, I stopped by Superfast to loan Summer a projector, then went home and continued my colony in Oxygen Not Included. I made a fair amount of progress, but am getting to a point where I need to come up with a better way of managing gases. Eventually Summer and Eaddie got home and I went up to meet them. I dug out a bunch of leftovers to clean up, and then we watched a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation before bed.

I’ve got forty hand towels, some energy bars, and a Chinese finger trap. Let’s get gross.

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The Sickly Terminator

I got up this morning feeling pretty well rested, but still warm and clammy. The humidity and rain didn’t help much, but it didn’t rain nearly as much as I thought it would. I made the trek back across the campus to terminate those four lines for Jason’s closet before making it back to the shop for lunch. Allen agreed to go to Mulan’s with me so I could get some soup to soothe my head.

After lunch I came back to the shop for a bit before deciding to take the rest of the day off. There wasn’t much going on, and I knew I wouldn’t be very productive. I went by the shop to check on Summer, then went home and rested a while. Eventually I started up Oxygen Not Included and played until Mom called for dinner. She made shrimp noodle soup, and I figured it might make me feel better even though I still wasn’t very hungry from lunch.

Eventually I ended up at Summer’s waiting for the girls to get home. I laid on the couch and queued up some YouTube videos, and then Eaddie put on the last episode of season six of Parks and Rec once they got settled in.

This is the hardest I’ve ever worked on anything since… Wow, I’ve never worked hard on anything! What a cool life!

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Lunch Is on My Face

Today started out cool, but quickly became pretty temperate. I had to reset the sign again in the morning, and then I ran around the building taking care of a few work orders. It went by pretty quickly, and I headed back to the shop a little early to see if Gary wanted to go to lunch for his birthday.

Gary initially didn’t want to go with us, then my suggestion of Bocadillos seemed to pique his interest, but ultimately he declined and left me with Ben and Allen. The three of us headed to Dardanelle, and all got the two tacos and burrito special. It took me a bit, but after several attempts I got the Clover app to accept my check-in photo, and I got to experience that process. It was pretty cool being able to just tell them I needed to check in, and then let the app automatically pay for me. It didn’t give me an opportunity to tip, which would be a bummer for when you get table service, but I’d use it when I’m just there for ice cream.

After lunch, Ben and I sat at a computer in the shop and poked around the G Suite settings to try and figure out why a few emails to students weren’t being delivered. Then I wrapped up the day back at the high school, setting up some computers in the arena for an event tomorrow morning. Ben and I have to go by there first thing in the morning to help out, but hopefully that will just be to stand by for assistance.

Eaddie came to the high school and I took her home with me. She was in a bit of a mood and just wanted to watch YouTube videos on her phone, which annoyed me a bit. Once I got changed, we headed to Pizza Hut to pick up a free order of wings that I got, compliments of Sprint. Then it was off to her house to wait for dinner. Summer got home after dropping Autumn off at an Explorers meeting and grilled some brats and asparagus. Then she, Eaddie, and I watched a couple episodes of Parks and Recreation before bed.

We’re all just calm and happy people together enjoying ourselves on earth.

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Battlestar Finaléctica

This morning felt warm enough to allow a ride in to work, but it did bite the hands a bit. I forgot my breakfast at home, so I had half a Soylent instead. Unfortunately it didn’t give me as much pep as I expected, and I sort of dallied most of the day. I did get a fair amount accomplished, but my priorities were definitely askew. Having a taste for solid food in the morning left me feeling Wendy’s, so when Allen suggested it himself, I was all in. I ran into Kelsey as I was walking back to the bike, and we chatted for just a second outside. Then I went back to the shop for a bit.

The afternoon brought me back to the high school where I fiddled a bit more between getting things done. Summer left work early with the poison ivy itches, so I had kid duty. I ran home to change, then called Clint to chat on the way to get Autumn. I hadn’t talked to him in quite a while and figured it was time to check in. After Autumn, we had to wait a while for Eaddie. When she did finally come out, she walked right past us and we had to pull back around and yell at her.

Summer grilled some chicken and put together a zucchini, tomato, onion, and mozzarella salad on my suggestion, and it turned out really great. It even felt a bit light, and I really held myself back with only one little chicken thigh. Afterward the girls went to their rooms to hang out while Summer and I watched the last two episodes of Battlestar Galactica. I feel like we missed out on some of the suspense of having to wait between episodes, and I was surprised at how much of it I had forgotten or mis-remembered. It was a great watch though, and I was excited to hear of the show’s reboot next year.

You know it doesn’t like that name.

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On Free Hosting

Yesterday I showed up at work expecting a meeting and didn’t get one, and instead spent my day being productive with Brice. Today I did not expect much of a meeting, but everyone was at the shop and Jason was in a talking mood. He didn’t have any actual team-related meeting stuff to say though, and he basically talked about things with individual techs while the rest of us sat around staring at one another.

I stuck around the shop all morning, accomplished a few things that needed to be done, and then spent a considerable time trying to make my email signature look better for the Gmail app dark mode that was recently activated for my phone. It’s been a minor annoyance seeing so many emails come in expecting a white background, and I didn’t want mine to be one of those for anyone else sporting dark mode.

Just before lunch, I decided to go to the high school to get some laptops for Jason to take to central office. Zach was headed that way to look at some doors, so we just rode together. I got a couple more things done, and then we met back at the shop. He, Allen, and I convinced Gary to come along with us to Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. The food was really good today, and Gary got a really good looking quesadilla. He seems to eat a whole lot of those. Ronda came strolling in with a crew from the junior high as well.

After lunch, I had a call with Jamf about my iPad Pro again. This was the second or third tier of support, and the guy was super friendly and super helpful, though we still didn’t get the issue completely resolved before we were let off work at 3:30. I got home closer to 4 and trimmed the shrimp tank some more. I wanted to sit down and play some games again, but I just kind of zoned out watching the tank. It really has become my zen place.

When Summer got home, I left to get some gas and met the girls at their house for dinner. The girls went to bed pretty early, and then Summer and I watched two more episodes of Battlestar Galactica. With only two more left to watch, I’ll have to dig into the extra content that was added to that universe over the years. I know there are a bunch of webisodes as well as a couple really long special features.

To end the evening, I sat down to write this blog entry when I found my site had been turned off again for overuse of system resources. That still doesn’t seem possible, but I figured I’d gotten enough out of 000webhost for free. I don’t mind so much upgrading to some paid hosting, even for a do-nothing site that I maintain for my own entertainment. The migration to Hostinger was relatively smooth, and at a buck a month it’s really not bad for a four-year term.

The shape of dreams half-remembered. Slip the surly bonds of Earth and touch the face of perfection.

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Crew Crumbs

There were only four of us at work today, so Zach took the role as leader to point us at Jason’s list of duties on the board. He sent Allen to do work orders and Brice to try and update a touch panel’s firmware while he and I stripped and rebuilt a large charging cart. We got about halfway through stripping it when Brice got back and helped us finish. Then when Brice went to get the second cart, we realized that the first cart could have been left as it was with the old chargers, because we needed one of each for old and new chargers.

With that major flub out of the way, Brice and I left for Oakland to swap his faulty touch panel. On a whim, I turned the old one on and we couldn’t get it to fail again, so we ended up not replacing it. We got the new firmware to install by reading the instructions, and then we met Zach and Allen at Brangus for lunch.

After lunch, Brice and I went to the high school to hang a signage TV in the STEM center. It went up without too much trouble, but then I couldn’t get the Airtame to talk to our cloud account for some reason. We spent a while messing with it, but never did get it going. Zach sent us home just a few minutes early, and I went to the junior high to wait for the girls to finish their activities. Once they came out, I dropped them off with Summer and went home to clean up. I’m pretty sure I saw a new shrimp spawn, and the first batch are getting big enough to see them all over the tank.

Mom had been boiling some phở broth all week, so I went over there and the two of us had dinner together before I had to go see Summer get her quiz bowl ring at the football halftime show. As soon as that was over, we headed back up to her house and the girls left with their father. Then Summer and I ended the evening with a couple more episodes of an ever-dramatic Battlestar Galactica.

Yeah, you point finger back far enough and some germ gets blamed for splitting in two.

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Pulled an All-Dayer Today. Pretty Rough.

It’s endlessly frustrating how much work I always have left to do these days. Then I go to the shop and hear someone watching YouTube videos a good hour before lunchtime. I spent a bit of the morning at the high school rushing to get some things done before my call with Jamf support. We never came up with a resolution, but at least I learned a couple things during the call.

Zach, Allen, and I went to Morelos for lunch, and then crossed the street to give Summer some lunch too. Then I made my way back to the high school to get as much other stuff done as I could. I ended the day dragging the ladder around the STEM center so I could set up their new Airtames. I still don’t understand why we’ll buy TVs for them, but not every other department. I file those under “nice to have, but ultimately pointless.”

Summer needed me to take the girls to karate, so I ran home for just a little bit before picking them up. Eaddie forgot her pants again, and fussed at me the whole way to take her home to get them. I told her it wasn’t about time, and that I had other things I wanted to do that didn’t involve driving all the way across town. Then as soon as I got to my parents’ house, Summer called to say that Eaddie had taken her car keys. So here’s me, driving back across town again to return the stupid keys.

Mom and I finished up some leftovers with some more of that weird, flavorless squash. I added a ton of fresh ground black pepper this time, which gave it a nice kick. After that, I started to head home but decided to go up to Summer’s instead.

When Summer and Eaddie got back from the gym, we let the little stray cat in for some cheese, then settled in for some Battlestar before bed.

to be continued