Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!

Summer took Eaddie to school this morning while I went home to clean up. Then I picked her and Autumn up to go back to Children’s so we could commit to a surgery date. Talking to the doctor and the train of other staff didn’t seem to take that long since we kept moving from one place to another. I don’t think I’ve ever waited as long there as I do at my own doctor’s office. Autumn got some new crutches and got to practice going up and down stairs.

With a surgery date planned, we made our way across town in the rain to get some food. I picked Chuy’s at first, but then changed my mind as we passed Genghis Grill. I’d always wanted to try that place, so we pulled around the block and found our way in. It was pretty quiet but cramped inside, without a lot of room between tables. Autumn had an absolute fit about not liking Chinese food, which was half the fun for me. We picked out our daddy, mommy, and baby-sized bowls and made our way through the selection of raw ingredients and seasoning. Even my large bowl seemed really small to me, especially since I know how much the vegetables cook down in size. I wanted way more vegetables, but just couldn’t fit any more into the bowl.

Even Autumn really liked her end result of rice, ham, and smoked sausage. We’ve got to get her on some vegetables somehow, and I want so badly to play mean. Teaching kids the food pyramid doesn’t do a damned thing if you don’t enforce it.

We made our way home pretty quickly, stopping briefly for some drinks. I got some Mango Wheat Blue Moon that I’m anxious to try, along with something else that came in what was designed to look like a bottle of lighter fluid. We had to stop by my house so Autumn could change, and then we went straight to the high school for her marching competition. After all these years, I finally got to see her spin her flag around, so I can say first hand that she doesn’t always just walk around with it by her side.

We ended up spending more time waiting for her back at the junior high than it took for us to see the junior high compete. Then we went to the Neighborhood Market for some additions to dinner at home. Autumn neglected to bring her uniform bag out of my house, so we had to run and get it on the way back to their house. I cooked up some chicken for sandwiches, and then Summer and I watched a couple more episodes of Battlestar Galactica before bed.

They needed a home, so they set out in the void of deep space with nothing but their ships and their guts.

Battlestar Bingetactica

Summer got up this morning and made a trip to town for breakfast food. She came back and made some awesome sausage, bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits. Then she started the kids on chores and we basically just binge watched the rest of season 3 of Battlestar Galactica.

We made it through the first few episodes of the last season before everyone had to settle in for bed. It stormed quite a bit in the afternoon and early evening, so we never left the house to ride the Grom like she originally planned. It was nice to have a down day after yesterday though.

No reason to get excited.

Rice Nazi

Waking up was just awful this morning. It was so bad that I sacrificed most of my routine and went back to sleep for another 30 minutes. Most of my morning was pretty sluggish after that, but I kept at it.

Allen and I went to Wind Taste for lunch since we got coupons yesterday. It took them over half an hour to get our food out to us, and they told us they were out of eggrolls after the fact, but that we could “tell her next time and we would get free eggrolls on our next visit.” Moments later I heard her turn around and ask a customer standing at the counter, “you need something?!” I’m fairly used to dealing with people that don’t speak English natively, and have trouble with the nuances of tone and phrasing. This bitch just doesn’t try. When we finally got up to pay, she took one look at my coupon, scolded me for trying to use an expired one, and then charged me full price. When we got to the car, I took Allen’s coupon in and threw it on the counter and told her once more that these coupons had just been delivered the day before. She shifted tone, fussed that the advertisers were wasting her money, and apologized. I didn’t get any money back, or the eggrolls that I had already bought, but I suppose that was the best I could have hoped to get from her.

The afternoon was mostly more of the same, except with interns in my office. I had to call the sign company about our broken display because evidently it had become a “hot button item” with the superintendent. Hilariously and almost predictably, they told me the company that made it was going out of business, and that rolling a truck to work on it would be a complete waste of money. I guess the poor children will have to go without for a bit longer. My initial thought was to wonder whether having a monochrome sign by the road benefited as many children as having an esports team would have. The cynicism cut deeply today.

After work, I brought the Grom home and took the R1 out for a wash. It had rolled right over 16,000 miles coming back home this weekend, so it’s time for another service from the worst dealership I’ve ever known. I guess I could forego the stealership and take it to a third party instead. Hubbard has always been good to me with tires. I miss the hell out of Valley Powersports though.

After washing the bike I picked up some cheap mozzarella sticks at Sonic, traded vehicles and went to Walmart for some salad, then went to Summer’s for some leftover pizza. Then we jumped right into a couple episodes of Battlestar Galactica until bed.

A kick in the butt is worth a thousand words.

Retire S’more

Today didn’t start with an overabundance of direction, but somehow I found my way pretty quickly. I got a bunch of stuff closed out, and moving around a bunch made the day go by a lot faster. It also helped that I left for an early break for Becky’s retirement shindig. I had to get some gas first, but then I ran to Walmart and grabbed a huge bag of knockoff Golden Grahams, two bags of mini marshmallows, and four bags of chocolate chips. I thought I was being clever making s’mores trail mix, but a quick search on the internet showed I was far from the first person to come up with that idea. I did think about adding a twist with pretzel sticks sprinkled with liquid smoke, but I didn’t have the time to experiment with that properly.

I brought a couple laptops with me so I could get some work done, and just sat in the lounge with Becky for quite a while. It was nice to visit with everyone again while wishing her well, and we just had a rotation of people coming in to eat lunch with us. Brice came by a couple times, but I’m not sure where he had holed himself up to work. I didn’t get to spend as much time just socializing as I would’ve liked, but it was a great change of scenery working outside of my office for a while.

After lunch I went and got the interns from the library and let them dig into some of the computers I’ve had sitting in my office. Nathan seemed openly knowledgeable and excited to show that he could do things, while Spencer just quietly got to work and started fixing laptops. I was really happy with how well they jumped right into it with such limited direction, and throughout the afternoon I got a better idea of how to utilize them better.

When I finally left work, I ran by Oakland to get my bowl before going home to change. Then I went by the shop to get the girls so Summer could go to the gym, and we went to my parents’ house to clean up some leftovers. We got back to Summer’s just a little before she did, I tinkered a bit, and then we went to bed with some Battlestar. Eaddie came in and watched just a few minutes with us too, which was nice because she’s usually reluctant to hang around for very long.

Space sure does have the best glassware.

Sink the Ship

Today was a fair day for getting things done. It was quite a bit cooler and rainy all day, so I just hunkered down and started closing work orders. It helped that I had multiple requests for the same couple printer issues, but I still got quite a bit accomplished. I picked Allen up and we went to Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads for lunch. Then I ran by the junior high for a couple things before going back to the high school.

After work, I did some water changes at home, then went to get the girls from karate. My parents made spaghetti for dinner, so we went there while Summer went to the high school for some career path dinner meeting. Eventually I got the girls home and we settled in pretty quickly. Eaddie lost another tooth for my collection, and we kicked back for an episode of Battlestar Galactica.

You’ll start losing your adult teeth, but they’ll keep growing back instantly and then falling out, and you won’t be able to stop vomiting teeth.

So Berry Glad to See You

It was rainy most of today. We had a meeting to sign testing paperwork for the year, so Ben brought sausage biscuits and donuts. Then Jason had us all go out and clean up the graveyard. It wasn’t an awful amount of work, so we finished up pretty quickly and then I spent the rest of the morning trying to get my student data migrated from yesterday. I was talked into driving half the crew to Fat Daddy’s out of town in the rain, but at least I didn’t have to park in the mud like I usually do. I felt a little rude after asking so many questions about the burrito, but it really annoyed me last time to be charged extra for getting the burrito made like it was described on the menu.

After lunch I got my last stubborn kid’s stuff to start migrating, and eventually I made it to the high school to get the girls. Autumn had a quiz bowl meeting, so they got out a bit late, then we stopped by my house before taking them home. I watched some MKBHD videos after messing with the speakers for a bit, and then we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Summer met us there after the gym because Dad had grilled burgers and dogs. The girls and I had some rice with it since my parents didn’t think of any other sides to go with the burgers.

Autumn wanted to stay at my house where she’d be closer to the high school for her tournament in the morning, so Summer took them home to get clothes, and I went home to start cleaning up a bit. I discovered one of my cherry shrimp was berried with eggs, which got me really excited after spending the past few days so worried. I think they’ll be just fine in that little tank, and I can split the colony up into other tanks as they grow.

The girls eventually showed up and we watched an episode of Battlestar when Summer got out of the shower. Then she went to bed and Eaddie and I started an episode of Luke Cage. She didn’t last very long before wanting to go to sleep herself, which was fine by me.

It’s way too early to be this exhausted…

Puttin ’em Off

I had to kind of recalibrate myself this morning and prioritize my work orders as I whittled them down into the teens. I got a few easy help desk tasks done before lunch, but they were all hotspots. One of the students whose account I deleted yesterday came into the library while I was there, and I ended up trying to help him out for a while. As I expected, he claimed a loss of some data and nobody could tell me anything useful, which made me out to be the bad guy.

Allen and I went to Wendy’s again, because he can’t get enough of that jalapeño burger. Afterward I went by the new Arvest to see what was going on there. Evidently we could have had a free lunch for their grand opening, but instead I went inside and got a new debit card made with some cows on it.

After lunch I had to dig into those student accounts some more, and learned that the Gmail didn’t transfer when I deleted the old accounts, so I had to restore them and try to perform a data migration instead. Unfortunately I couldn’t ever get that to work either, so I figured I’d leave it overnight and check again tomorrow. I wrapped up the day spending about an hour on a phone replacement I thought I could finish in about half that time.

When I finally got home I stopped by Bác Vân’s for some eggrolls she made, then messed with the tanks for a bit. Once Summer got home, I headed out to hook up the first set of speakers, and realized I didn’t have the right cable to get the subwoofer going. Then we started season 3 of Battlestar and stressed her out until bed.

Yes, fear is a key article of faith as I understand it, so perhaps it’s time to instill a little more fear into the people’s hearts and minds.

IMPOSSIBRU!!!

The high school had a tornado drill this morning, so I started at the shop just to avoid it. When I finally did get to the high school, most of my day was taken up with interruptions and being dragged out of my office to look at something. I spent way too long messing with a touch panel and dock situation, and not enough time doing other older work orders.

Nobody had said anything by the time lunch rolled around, so I just kind of left campus and tried to wing it. I stopped by the taco truck I’ve seen up the road, but they were closed on Mondays. Then I started toward Taco Bell before switching gears to try the Impossible Whopper at Burger King. The app experience was absolutely horrible, and it didn’t matter whether I wanted to place the order online or use a coupon in the restaurant. It took me about 15 minutes just  to get the order in.

Once I finally got my order, I headed to see if I could commandeer Summer for a few minutes. We split a shitty taco, some nuggets, onion rings, and the two burgers. I’m not sure what I expected with the taco, but it was an absolute abomination, and whoever thought it was a good idea should be fired, re-hired, and then fired again. The nuggets and rings were bomb. The burgers were more or less indistinguishable, but I think the takeaway is not so much that we can make fake beef taste good. The lesson here is that Whoppers are terrible. Sure, they managed to make a vegetable patty that tasted like a Whopper, but why would anyone want that?

After lunch was literally more of the same, getting pulled back to the same room for hours, fighting with the same touch panel and display issues. I really just hope the next time she comes around, I’m legitimately in the middle of something so she doesn’t think she can just come and fetch me any time she wants. I ended the day playing with the IVR a bit more, and finally switched the career center over to their automated menu.

When I got home, I pretty much immediately got to checking water quality in the aquariums. Much to my surprise, everything was great! The 10 gallon shrimp tank was within acceptable ranges of everything, but the Imagitarium had perfect numbers. No ammonia, nitrites, or nitrates at all. The carbonate hardness was up a bit, and it had even turned a bit alkaline, which is great for the shrimp. The Tums really worked some magic in both of the tanks.

Eventually I headed up to Summer’s for the evening, and made us salads for dinner before settling down with an episode of Battlestar for bed.

Frakking toaster thinks it’s human!

Eggs Mark the Spot

When I got out of bed this morning, I knew I had to do something for breakfast. I’d been craving a Casey’s breakfast pizza for a while, and we had a whole leftover cheese pizza in the fridge. I figured I only had a few eggs to lose if it didn’t turn out well, so I cracked them onto the bacon pizza first and threw them into the oven. That turned out pretty well, but I forgot to add extra cheese to the top. With the bacon gone, I was truly down to just the cheese pizza left, so I cut up some summer sausage to throw on top, followed by egg and cheese, and then some chopped up green onions. That time I broiled them and the egg whites didn’t quite cook all the way, so I had to finish them without the broiler. Another success.

Summer decided to tackle the lawn while Noah played video games and I kept digging through my old photos to eliminate duplicates that were taking up space. I finally got down below the 19GB limit I’ll have next month, but I still don’t have a lot of headroom. Hopefully I can score some more promo space somehow in the near future.

I ended up taking a long bath with some Stardew Valley for a while, and I’m not sure I can get into it on mobile. I really just wanted a bigger screen and controller. The girls came home around that time, and it wasn’t long before we had to head out for dinner with my parents. Summer took Autumn to Walmart for some things first, while Eaddie and I went back to my house to take care of the shrimp.

Mom made chow mein, which is one of our favorites. Autumn made some mini burritos out of some leftovers. After dinner, the girls went home to get ready for bed while I cleaned up after the cat. I got done early enough that I could go back to Summer’s for an episode of Battlestar Galactica before bed.

This bath sheet is heavy and ridiculous, and I love it.

Catching Death

Dead relatives seem to be going around at Summer’s shop. She got a call sometime in the night that lead to her having to work today, which meant that none of the many plans we had to choose from would come to fruition. I slept super late and got up to play with the shrimp some more. I managed to catch the ninth cherry and get it moved over, so now it’s just a waiting game to see if any others come out of the woodwork. They all seem to be getting along fine in the smaller tank though, and they’re much easier to find and count now.

I spent all afternoon sifting through my Google Drive and Photos to try and save some space, because evidently my 100GB HTC promotion runs out next month and I’ll either have to cut down what I’m storing online or pony up some cash for a storage plan. At least I still get free full-resolution uploads for having a Pixel.

Eventually I got cleaned up and went to Summer’s where she and Noah were settling in for some television. I made a couple salads, and we watched some Battlestar before bed.

If I could tuuuurrrn back time!