Save it for the Blu-ray

I delivered one more frog at Oakland this morning, then stopped by the shop for just a little bit to see if anything was happening. It was pretty quiet, so I went to Crawford to take a look at something Allen was having trouble fixing. It didn’t take me long to realize we were on the completely wrong path, and I left there to go to the junior high and work on it.

The junior high had their Christmas lunch potluck today, and I stuffed myself. There was just so much food. I couldn’t really even eat dinner after all of that. Everyone was pretty much just wandering around aimlessly because most of the kids were gone from having finished their tests. I chatted with Dustin and Haley for a little while, but then school let out an hour early and quickly became a ghost town.

I stopped by the shop again, but everyone was just sitting there waiting to be told to go home. We never really got anything official from central office, but Ben let us go just a few minutes early. Gary was there helping Zach look at something though, so I ended up hanging out until the usual quitting time anyway.

Summer and the kids were getting ready to go to Conway, so I met them at my house right after I left. The kids were hungry when we got there, so we took them to Red Robin for some burgers. Summer and I still weren’t hungry, so we just shared a tower of onion rings. Afterward we went by Sam’s to walk it off, and then made a quick run through Academy to look for paintball canisters, and then to PetCo to see if they had anything cool.

Finally at the theater, I collected my five comped tickets at the box office, loaded up on popcorn, and made our way to the XD auditorium for Aquaman. I wish they would re-cushion that front row of seats, because they’re starting to get pretty rough, and they lean back too easily. Then the theater filled up and we had a clapper/knee-slapper on the left and some guy that thought he was at a sporting event behind us. Neither would shut the hell up. Honestly I would have listened to the whole Pitbull song if these guys would have shut up. It was so annoying. Theaters need ushers again. I’m just glad I didn’t care so much about the movie, because otherwise I would have raged at the distractions.

Seriously dude, you’re going to the special hell.

The Great Wind Down of 2018

I had yet another frog to take to Oakland this morning. I think they’re up to six now, and they’re out of food. Hopefully PetSmart gets some more tiny ones tomorrow. The girls were hungry too after dealing with a bunch of dumb parents, so I ran to Sonic to get them some breakfast before heading to the junior high.

I tried to keep busy with a few different things, but you could tell everyone was really winding down. It was a real zoo trying to leave for lunch because of all the kids leaving early after testing. I met Dale, Zach, and Brice at Wendy’s, then just went back to the junior high to finish the day.

After a quick check on all the animals at home, I headed to Summer’s for dinner. Grilled pork chops, mashed potatoes, peas, and a corn casserole that made a colorful plate worthy of a photo that I forgot to take. When we finished, the kids wanted to play Super Mario Party until I headed home for the night.

Why do we still let Pitbull do anything at all?

I know it’s Friday, but it feels like Ciderday!

We didn’t really have much of a meeting this morning. Dale finally convinced Ben to get the trailer roof vent fixed since it’s been completely shattered and leaking water since last year. Jason was incapable of getting it done, and I thought the 25 minutes it took them to completely repair it was going to make Gary’s eyes roll so far into the back of his head that he’d be knocked unconscious. It wasn’t very much longer until Jason couldn’t tell that his own phone was ringing, and then said he didn’t care enough about answering it to remember what his own unique ringtone sounded like.

I spent most of the morning working on the lunch form I started on yesterday, but ended up just editing the live version instead of creating a new one. That got me to lunch, when most of us went to Fat Daddy’s in London. It was raining quite a bit, so I was annoyed at parking in the muddy gravel on top of having to drive to an inferior restaurant in the first place. When we got back to the shop, I headed to Oakland to take care of a few things before catching up at the junior high.

Matt brought apple cider to the lounges, and I guess they had some other snacks in there as well. I actually didn’t get a whole lot done the rest of the afternoon, but I stayed busy with the lunch form I broke. I think I got it working properly before I left though.

Summer went to work out, then out to eat with Autumn while I went home to take care of the fish. I still felt bloated from the rest of the day, so I mostly read up on the Walstad method of planting an aquarium. When they got home, I went up to meet them and played Breath of the Wild while Autumn watched TV and Summer made deviled eggs for quiz bowl tomorrow.

Must resist urge to Google recipes….

TISTAAFL

I spent most of the morning working on a Google Form for Oakland. Then Ronda messaged me to ask if I could pick their lunch order up because they wouldn’t have a chance to get out today. I ran by Stoby’s for them, then went to Taco Bell for a free lunch myself. I figure I’ve got at least a couple more free meals there before the gift card offer expires.

The afternoon was a bit rough because I didn’t feel super well, but I made it. I went to my parents’ house for some leftover curry for dinner, then went home and messed with the betta for a while. Eventually I loaded up Zelda and finished another temple before bed.

Looks like they’ve been recalled for being too explody!

Greasy Peasy

Today I mostly caught up on things I’ve been needing to do at work. I started at Oakland mostly to check on the frogs, but got an ocular migraine that knocked me out of service for a few minutes. From there it was off to the shop to discuss smart things with Gary and Zach.

Allen, Brice, and I wanted to go to KFC for lunch, but they were doing renovations in their lobby, so we went to Long John Silver’s instead. The food was good, but seemed lacking somehow. I just didn’t feel stuffed the way I normally do there.

After lunch, I went to the junior high and took care of several things. I got a call this morning from the shipping company that was supposed to deliver Summer’s phone for FedEx, and the guy told me they lost it and to call FedEx to file a claim, so I started that process in the afternoon. That became really dumb really fast, so I got Summer to log in for me and I chatted with Google Fi customer service for some help, and got the old “I’ll escalate this for you” answer. Still no new information.

I wrapped up the day with a few things at Oakland before heading home to get some things, and I left for Summer’s. While she was at the gym, I took the kids to Walmart because Autumn wanted to shop for some Christmas presents. I couldn’t really see that she got much of anything, but I got a couple thing I needed, and Noah carried the 35 pound bag of cat food for me, so overall I called it a success.

Summer ordered some Domino’s and met us at the house just shortly after we got there. Then we played some Mario Party until everyone was ready for bed.

You’re killing my, killing my, killing my time.

FailEx

It was a pep rally day at the junior high, so I didn’t start the day with a whole lot of ambition. I stopped by Oakland first to drop off the three frogs I pulled from my tank. Then I spent the rest of the morning in my office until lunch. I went to Wendy’s a bit late for a cheap lunch, but unfortunately the $1 fry deal was over. From there, I stopped by the shop for a bit and called FedEx about Summer’s Pixel 3 before heading back to the junior high until quitting time.

After work, I ran by Summer’s for a while to get Eaddie’s flute for her concert tonight. I stuck around for a bit to see if FedEx would show up, and then spent quite a while on the phone again to see if I could get an update on the trace. So far, we’re two business days behind, but that’s four calendar days without her new phone. While I was on hold, I chatted with a BestBuy rep to pricematch Breath of the Wild so I could use my $10 reward certificate along with two $10 gift cards to score the game for only $15.

When I finally left her house, Summer had already left the gym to get the girls and head to the concert, so I just took the flute to my house and met her there, then spent the rest of the evening smashing my head against the wall trying to understand why the Switch’s wireless is so horrible. Evidently forcing it into sleep mode gives you a huge bump in speed, even from an idle and docked status. That makes about as much sense as downloading faster while the console is powered off.

Nobody likes a smug plummer.

Ne’er Do Anythingers

Everyone but Brice met at the shop for the meeting this morning. We didn’t really have anything to discuss or work on, and instead everyone pretty well broke up and just socialized all day. I almost couldn’t believe we made it all the way to lunch doing that. I did get to school Allen and Jason on SCCM a bit, which felt both nice and aggravating, since they’ve both been doing this for years. I’m glad to have learned it myself though.

We unanimously agreed to Zona K Tracha for lunch since everyone else wanted to try it after Gary, Heather, and I went last week. The service was quite a bit slower, but the food was still excellent. My fajitas had more veggies, but the meat seemed to be seasoned a little differently. It was still excellent though. I hope they can get the consistency and speed down soon so they last a while.

After lunch was more of the same until it was time to go home. I stopped by my house for just a little while before going to Summer’s to wait for FedEx to bring her phone. She found a door tag that didn’t seem to be registered online, but the original tracking number showed the delivery attempt was made Thursday, so I assumed they would try again. After an hour or so of waiting while she was at the gym, the tracking status changed to “pending” and as far as I could tell, no additional delivery attempt was made. I called to complain or trace the package, and we’ll just have to see what happens. I always have this problem with FedEx though. I absolutely hate them.

When she finally got back from the gym, we made some leftovers before heading to my house for the evening. I hooked the Switch up to the TV and, after resolving some super frustrating controller issues, we played Diablo III until bedtime.

Finally, level 10 again!

S’More Scool

I spent some time in the graveyard this morning helping Ben sort through the things we removed from the field house. When I left there, Oakland was having a s’mores cookout, so I managed to mingle around there for the rest of the morning. Surprisingly it didn’t seem to be very popular, and I guess some people were too busy with other things, but I just can’t imagine not taking the time to toast a marshmallow.

My Soylent kept me going through lunch, so I just went straight to the junior high to work through the afternoon. I still didn’t get a whole lot done because what I did do was relatively time consuming. I stayed just a little bit late before heading home to set up the other Switch and clean up after the cats. Wendy’s still had any size fries for a buck, and I still had a coupon code for a $1.99 Dave’s Single, so it was too hard to resist my first solid meal of the day.

When I got home, my betta was still hiding, so I did a bunch of water quality tests between both tanks and ended up doing a water change with the hopes that it would help enough that I won’t have to move her in such a rush. I still have some tadpoles that don’t seem to have any intention of becoming frogs. There is one frog in there now, but he has a retarded leg. I don’t really know what to do with him other than maybe feed him to Autumn’s turtle. There’s no way he’d last very long with that deformity, and to put him in the cold would be near-instant death.

Once the house was in order, I headed to Summer’s house, and we all played a little bit of Super Mario Party. The party mode was going to take too long, so we backed out of that and played some mini games before the girls headed to bed. Then Summer and I played Diablo III until bedtime. I’m not really sure how we both managed to play together since I only redeemed one copy of the game code, but I guess it doesn’t really matter for now.

That almost seemed like genuine excitement!

Switch Things Up

I got in to work a couple minutes late this morning after traffic was backed up a quarter mile up Fairway. I have no idea what was going on, but we actually cleared through the intersection relatively quickly. As I suspected, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of conversation about work going on. When we finally did split up, I volunteered to help Zach and Amanda hang a TV for the resource officers at the high school.

I ended up hurting my leg just barely above my right ankle when I tripped over a rolling chair. Zach caught me and kept me from face planting, and luckily the damage didn’t seem to be on my ankle itself, but it definitely sat me down for a little bit. We finally got the TV hung though, and then went to the field house to help Ben, Allen, and Brice remove a bunch of old equipment before they renovate the place.

Gary, Heather, and I went to a new Latino restaurant called Zona K-Tracha that was super good. Gary had most of a 14-inch burrito that looked amazing. My fajitas were great, and it was probably the first time I’ve eaten at a place that had a noticeably different flavor of seasoning in their meat. I was a little disappointed by the quantity of vegetables in my fajitas, but the flip side was that I had a lot of meat instead. The restaurant had more of a polish than most of the others in town, which made it that much stranger to see so many mistakes or inconsistencies in the nicely made menus. It just made me want to fix it all for them.

After lunch, I went to the junior high to take care of a few things. Summer was out at a meeting all day and didn’t get back until around the time I finished working. When she did finally show up, she took Autumn and I took Eaddie home with me for a couple hours. My Blue Yeti shock mount and my Switch screen protectors came in, so I spent my time setting those up while Eaddie watched her last episode of Arrow.

Eventually we loaded everything up and headed to Summer’s for dinner. She made some chicken breasts encrusted with French onions, along with a mixture of some vegetables and some mashed potatoes. I think Eaddie ate more than all of us, but she just couldn’t behave at the table and kept aggravating everyone. After we ate, Summer frustrated herself even further trying to peel some hard boiled eggs, and I had to make her take a break for a bit.

I tried downloading some games to the Switch, and got a few things going that we could do, but Autumn was so tired that she went to bed early, and Eaddie eventually got dishes done, then played computer games until bedtime. Summer and I finally got the eggs peeled and deviled, and it was off to bed with her. The storm riled her up for a little while, but for the most part it was over pretty quickly.

Of course it’s 70 degrees outside with a thunderstorm and tornado warning. Why wouldn’t it be, on the first day of December?

Would you mind holding for two to three hours while my system updates?

I spent my entire morning trying to create Chromebook recovery drives for five out-of-date devices at Oakland. I didn’t crack it until right before lunch, so I got one device done and two more started.

Allen and I went to KFC for lunch, where we ran into an old coworker of his that we invited to eat with us. Right at the end of lunch I remembered the esports presentation that I wanted to attend with some EAST kids, so I dropped Allen off and headed straight to the junior high to meet up with Summer.

I was lead to believe that at least one of them would be an excellent public speaker, but they were all so nervous they sounded like they wanted to throw up. I remembered being exactly that way in school though, since I didn’t really learn how to communicate with organic humans until my mid-20s. It was probably more disappointing that they didn’t seem to take any of Summer’s advice at all about their presentation. She and I kind of took over for a little bit of it, and I think it really helped to build the picture for Matt. Hopefully this goes well when he brings it up with the athletics director.

After that, I ran around and finished a few things I had at the junior high, and then stayed late to finish up the last two Chromebooks at Oakland before heading home. I didn’t really have anything else going on for the evening since the girls had a late night.

At least I didn’t spend any more money.