Tag: television

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You Can Take Rally’s Out of the Hood

I squeaked into work this morning, and I think I’m even more consistent with my arrival time now than when I worked five minutes away. The guys sat on the other side of the partition for a while, and Randy debated his Chromebook strategy with them. I had to be careful not to ruffle too many feathers, but it was the same old story. They didn’t seem super anxious to work any harder. I still think people will grow to meet your demands if you’re consistent in holding them accountable.

Nobody showed up for lunch, so I went to Rally’s by myself. I ordered online and got my food reasonably quickly, but I felt super out of place when I saw the other people that had walked up to the window. The fries looked soggy, but tasted alright. I even tried their mozzarella sticks and found them to be pretty tasty, even without the marinara sauce they failed to give me. Then I found they had mismade my burger, so I went back to the window again to ask for a correction. A guy named Omar came up to the window and gave me some grief about it, and said, “we don’t have onion straws, so you wouldn’t have got ’em anyway.” I offered to let him just squirt some barbecue sauce on my partially eaten burger, but he called for it to be remade anyway.

I tinkered with SCCM and VMware the rest of the afternoon, and fought traffic the entire way home after work. Dad had the trees cut down in the front yard at the old house, so I stopped by to have a look and grab a few things. I didn’t care much for the look of it, but I suppose now there will be fewer tree-related problems.

The car was pretty gross from all the bugs I encounter on my regular commute, so I stopped to wash it on the way home. Summer was getting ready to take a bath when I got there, so I ate my leftover remade burger from Rally’s and discovered that they did have onion straws after all. It was even pretty good reheated. Then I took the dogs for probably the best run I’ve ever had with them. They ran the whole way to my parents’ house and sniffed around there for a while. Then we went through the basin and back up to the house without any fuss. I didn’t even have to scoop any poop!

I fed the dogs, loaded them up on treats, and then settled in to watch a couple episodes of Modern Family with Summer until bedtime. Eaddie made it home a little later, but I only barely caught sight of her as she came in and ducked straight into her room.

…but you can’t take the hood out of Rally’s.

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Ground Beef Week

I was super groggy again this morning after taking nighttime medicine. I knew better, but I just felt so gross last night. I did manage to make it to work on time, since the traffic hasn’t been bad now that school is out. It was another quiet day all to myself, and I spent nearly all of it cleaning the office. I figured out a stupid imaging problem I had, because I had disabled a step in the task sequence that was causing trouble previously. That allowed me to set up a “guest” workstation for new teacher setup and the like.

The cafeteria has been on a hamburger meat kick, with burritos on Monday, tacos on Tuesday, and Frito chili pies today. I doubt we’re having actual hamburgers tomorrow, because I’ll bet that’s too much work for the small number of people they’re feeding.

Ben called at the end of the day to check in and confirm he’d be coming to visit tomorrow. We chatted for a little bit as I packed up to head home. The girls were hungry, so I picked up some Domino’s after I fed the fish. Just as we sat down to eat, someone knocked on the door wanting to sell us a security system. Summer struggled to turn him away, and now I’ll be worried he’ll rob us.

After dinner, Eaddie and I watched an episode of Better Call Saul before bed. She was struggling with a head cold as well, so I guess it’s just going around.

S’all good, man.

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The Hunt Continues

It was pouring down rain this morning, and I really struggled to wake up. I just didn’t get nearly enough sleep, and I rolled into work a bit late. Still, nobody should have cared, and I had my timecard for the week filled up. Denice showed up for a little while, and I left the office to rewire the library cart that was an absolute wreck. I left work around lunch time, and there were only a couple other cars left.

I fed the fish and then stopped by the wash to see Summer. She took her car and I took the Pathfinder home and got Eaddie so we could go to New China for lunch. I got a call from Joel at Bitec letting me know that they went with one of their other candidates, so now I have no prospects for the time being.

After we ate, we came back home and Summer and I both got super sleepy. She napped for a while, and I dozed off watching some YouTube, so I gave up and snoozed a bit on the couch. I slowly felt more and more sick in the throat from either sinus drainage or possibly from snoring, though I don’t remember falling asleep that hard.

Eventually Eaddie got to a point where she wanted to watch Better Call Saul, so we watched one episode before she had to finish packing for her band trip. Summer helped her with that, and then we all went to get Eli and drop them off at the high school.

Once we got home for the night, Summer went to bed. I applied for a remote job that looked pretty good, and was ready to pass out myself.

A sense of humor, you say?

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Donut Be Discouraged

I was a little early out the door, so I decided to stop at the new donut place on the way to work. I ate a bacon, egg, and cheese croissant on the drive, and made some coffee when I got to work. Shortly after I sat down with it, I took a sip that went down the wrong pipe, and coughed into my cup. Coffee went everywhere all over my clothes and keyboard, so I spent a while cleaning that up.

I wasn’t at all interested in cheesy pull-aparts, so I just had a couple donuts for punch. There was an office full of people behind me all day, and Kim spent most of the day on the phone trying to find someone to come out and fix her washing machine. I tinkered with a laptop and eventually pieced one together for the stage that ought to really scream compared to the old piece of crap they’ve had out there.

After work, I tried to wind down quickly. I fed the fish and then came home to Summer making a really good shrimp pesto pasta. Eaddie didn’t have anything going on, so it was just the three of us for dinner. Then I sat on the couch and watched the first episode of Heroes with Summer until she went to bed.

Find something fulfilling!

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How Now Brown’s Cow

Summer went to work for a bit this morning, and I did my best not to sleep all day after not making it to bed until three. After she got back, we went to Brown’s for a late lunch, and had some great catfish at a surprisingly reasonable lunch price. She had a headache for most of the day, so we didn’t do anything else for the rest of the day, but sit in front of the TV.

Eaddie went out at one point to buy a new paint-by-number, but otherwise we all just lounged all day. I caught up on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show episodes, and then Eaddie and I watched about three more episodes of Better Call Saul while she painted, and then everyone went to bed.

How cudly.

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Three Wheelin’

I got up relatively early this morning, but almost immediately gave up and went back to sleep for a couple more hours. The second time I woke up, Eaddie had gotten up and taken a shower. I had some cereal for breakfast and then took a shower myself before texting to request a tow for the old Pathfinder. I asked Eaddie if she wanted to go out on her bike while I rode the Onewheel, and to my delight, she was agreeable.

I aired up her tires, and we took off down the road toward Splash. I had the 16-mile achievement in the back of my mind, but it would take some lollygagging and probably a bit of charging to make it. We got as far as the city park before we stopped for a little break. Eaddie tried riding the Onewheel a time or two, and then we continued to Walgreens. I picked up an online order of some clearanced toothpaste, and then we continued all the way to Splash.

Summer was too busy to entertain us, so we circled around to get some food at Freddy’s until I got a text that David was on his way to pick up the Pathfinder. We went back and got Summer’s car, and met the tow truck at the old house, and then followed him to Orr Nissan. Tim got my information set up for service, and then we went back to drop off the Model Y.

Summer was ready to leave work, but didn’t want to have to do anything with us, so Eaddie and I rode back down the road and ended up stopping at La Huerta for dinner. The food was great, and we had a pretty good time. Afterward, we went back to Freddy’s for dessert before starting back home.

The ride home was pretty long and tiring, and by the end of it, I still needed four more miles to get my achievement. We rested for a little bit, and then Eaddie decided to ride with me to the marina, where Dad had his cameras set up to try and capture a comet. It was super windy and cold, but she got on the Onewheel some more and managed to ride around reasonably well while grasping my arm for dear life. As she got colder, she sat in the car while I rode out my final four miles.

By the time I came back around, Dad had given up on the comet. We headed home and I made us some hot chocolate, and we watched a couple episodes of Better Call Saul. It’s been on our watch list for long enough, and the show started off pretty good, so I think we’re in for an adventure.

I feel so cool!

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Stationary Turkey

I cleaned up the kitchen this morning, and had a burrito to finish up all of that stuff. I had put a turkey breast in the refrigerator last night, but it was still frozen this morning. I pulled it out and eventually got it thawed enough to stick it on the rotisserie I got a while back. Summer went to the gym, and then came back to take Eaddie dress shopping for her upcoming dance. The rotisserie didn’t work quite right, and appeared to be used, which was why I got it at a discount on Amazon. Unfortunately the motor sounded like it was skipping gears, at least in part because of my poor balancing. I ended up stopping it and letting the bird cook breast-side up.

Once the turkey was cooking, I ran to the old house to feed the fish and pick up a few more things, including some more fire wood. When I got back, the turkey was about done and Summer was finishing up some mashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts. The turkey was a bit tough and dry, but tasted good and had a nice, crispy skin. Too much went wrong, so I have lots of ideas on how to make it juicier next time.

I cleaned up the kitchen, and then Noah showed up late and ate a ton of food. An incoming ice storm had us out of school the next day, so I started a fire and we watched two episodes of The Brothers Sun. Then Summer went to bed and the kids put on trash YouTube while they stared at their phones on the couch.

I don’t think they understand how much it infuriates me when they do that on my nice TV. They literally don’t make 3D TVs at all any more, and this is the best one they ever made. I’d really like to preserve it for high quality shows, instead of just letting it burn in slowly while they’re not even watching it.

We had the bedroom ready for Noah, but he slept on the couch again after blowing through like four cans of soda. I don’t think that kid drinks water at all, and I wish he’d quit just helping himself to our stuff whenever he comes over. It frustrated me the last time he came over, when he said I was micromanaging, because he doesn’t understand that we simply want him to respect our home and our things. It’s hard enough teaching the girls how to care about having and maintaining nice things, and then he comes over like some kind of entitled vagrant.

Tomorrow won’t be much fun, but at least there’s no school.

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Crying Over Spilled Beer

It was cold and rainy all day, and I had to go back to work.

It was awful.

Casey’s has free coffee on Mondays right now, so that helped, but then a hard acceleration out of Dardanelle had me spill a little in the car.

At least it was a loaner.

I got to work pretty early, and things were fairly quiet. I spent a lot more time submitting purchase requests than I expected, and way more time trying to fix some broken PowerShell scripts than should have been necessary. One of them will run manually, but not from the Task Scheduler, and I still don’t know why.

Tomorrow, I’ll have to address a needy and incredibly unprepared teacher that is so far out of her depth, she’s only able to survive by clinging to thermal vents on the sea floor. I cannot believe she is paid more than the minimum teacher salary now.

The place was a ghost town by the time I left at four, and I drove home quickly in the rain. I fed the fish, grabbed my air shim, and headed home to try and pull the pulsator out of the washing machine. Summer made it home early after having dinner with both of the girls, and told me stories about all the ways Autumn is using the people around her, and how Gerald continues to enable her.

What a shit show.

I ate her Sumo leftovers mixed with some of our own from home, and then we watched some Young Sheldon until I spilled a little bit of beer on the carpet. I got the shampooer going and pulled some black water out of the carpet, showing just how important it is to regularly vacuum and mop the home.

Eaddie went to bed so early that I hardly realized she had gone. Then Summer went to bed and had to remind me that I have to do this all over again tomorrow.

1981 McGregor 25 ft sailboat – $5,000

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Arm of Coats

I’ve slowly tried to start my mornings a little bit earlier as my three week break comes to an end. It helped that I woke up pretty hungry, so I made a big burrito to start the day. After a shower, I headed on out of the house and loaded up a big load of medium-sized things from the old house. Stuff that was already sort of packed, or at least wouldn’t benefit from being boxed up any further. I also cleaned out the majority of the coat closet, so I had a back seat full of backpacks and a front seat full of coats and jackets.

Eaddie was finally up when I made it back home, and I spent quite a while unloading, and cleaning or dusting some of the things up before I brought them inside. I felt good that just about everything had a home once it came inside, so there won’t be any unpacking for later.

It was cold out, but I wanted to get a little bit of time on the Onewheel. Among the things I brought home was my red vest, so I decided to Marty McFly my way to my parents’ house for a moment. I stopped in to see Dad and then turned right back around to get home just as Summer pulled up to the house from work. She was hungry for a salad, so I chopped up some of what we had left over from burritos and made us a couple with the last of the leftover ham.

Eaddie went out with some friends to an escape room, but wasn’t out too late. After we ate, I organized the house a bit more, and then Summer and I watched a few minutes of Jurassic Bark, which had me rolling with laughter. As funny as it was to start, it wasn’t something I could finish, so we followed that with an episode of The Orville. Afterward, Summer went to bed while I wrapped up my own chores.

That’s downright evil, Marlon Butterpaws!

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Big Brutus

The weather was pretty mild today, so Summer considered taking Eaddie out for a walk when she got out of bed. I thought I’d join them, but we quickly switched gears when my parents decided they were up for going to see Wonka at UEC. Summer went to check which showtimes were in the better theater while I showered, and then we met my parents there. The trailers didn’t do much for any of us, but to our surprise, the movie was an absolute delight. It’s been a little while since we’ve seen a movie that made us feel anything. The original was so beloved, and the Deppificated remake had us nervous. Wonka was, by all accounts, a great movie.

We headed back home where Summer was working before I could even make it in the door. Eaddie jumped up and was ready to move some more stuff, so she and I went to the old house and picked up my bedside chests of drawers. They were really dusty, but we got them cleaned off and rearranged more of the spare bedroom so she could fit things into her room. The desk won’t be easy, but we’ll figure it out.

As we got settled in after that bit of cleaning, we realized that we hadn’t had a meal all day. Eaddie wanted Little Caesars, so I ordered and then spent about 45 minutes in the store listening to a bunch of dimwitted employees as they continually messed up orders, including forgetting to make half of mine. Every time I go into that store and have to either watch a slow-motion train wreck with another customer or deal with some minor catastrophe with my own food, I think to myself how wonderful it might be to open up my own competing pizzeria called Big Brutus. It can’t be that hard.

I made it home and we ate one cold pizza, and one more fresh, along with a free order of Crazy Bread that I got for waiting so patiently while the manager failed to call out that my order was complete. Then we watched two episodes of Loki, which left us with the most thrilling of cliffhangers. Episode four was a perfect lead up to midnight, but we beat the clock by about 12 minutes.

Et tu