Simple Party

Muad’Dib had to wear his ugly sweater again all morning today since we had our Christmas lunch and Dirty Santa. He ended up sleeping for a lot of the day just because of how uneventful it was until the food got there. We had Colton’s, which could have been better just for being kind of cold by the time we got it, but it wasn’t bad. Afterward we just went around the table playing Dirty Santa. David was sat next to me, and Teisha had him start. Then it went all the way around and I was last. Shane actually got the toilet golf set that I brought, and he seemed tickled, which was the best possible outcome, I think. When it got around to me, I stole a returning “boss voodoo doll” from Scott, which had been re-gifted a couple times in previous years, along with a small handful of lottery tickets. It happened to be David who regifted that one.

The afternoon dragged on pretty awfully after not leaving for lunch. I sort of dreaded coming back home, but I guess it was water under the bridge by then. Summer and Eaddie were watching TV. I took Muad’Dib for a good run, and then I warmed up leftover pizza for everyone when we got back. The girls decorated the tree and I watched a little bit of YouTube as they finished up and went to bed. I started dozing on the couch, so I had to get up from there to go to bed myself.

…to shreds you say?

Gumball

We finally had our staff meeting this morning, and I did my best to represent well. Afterward, we had a pretty boring call with more of the same from Aptean. It always feels like a sales call, promising more from their future plans. I bounced around a lot after that.

We took a really late lunch and I had my McRib. Then the afternoon was a bit slow and quiet. Summer had her company Christmas party, so we got back into town and I picked up some Taco John’s to eat before going.

I dressed Muad’Dib up in his ugly sweater and antler headpiece, and we went to attend at the lube. Summer was like a nervouos teen, hoping all of her friends would show up, and I just felt bad. Muad’Dib got a decent amount of attention, and then Summer made me play Dirty Santa with them, so I stole a gag gift to give out at my own Christmas party.

I was feeling pretty melancholy afterward, so I decided to take Muad’Dib to PetSmart again. They would be closing within minutes, so instead we stopped in the parking lot so he could go to the bathroom. Then we kind of cruised aimlessly toward home. I set the car to “chill” and let it go, without a destination. As we approached our side of town, a cop pulled behind me and lit me up. We pulled into the hospital parking lot where he informed me that my tags had expired. That didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but sure enough, they were. He let me go with a verbal warning, and I headed toward the house.

I didn’t notice, but after I walked in, Summer stopped to warn me that Autumn was there with Eaddie. It wasn’t until afterward that I noticed her text asking what I was doing and why I was avoiding coming home. It was completely loaded, because she could have sent a warning first. I immediately put my shoes back on and walked out with Muad’Dib, but she stopped me in the garage to express her own frustration at me as I trembled.

I let Muad’Dib take me for a walk through almost our entire route in reverse. We stopped at the basin and sat on a bench for a while to knock on the sky and listen to the sound. A stiff breeze came in as we eventually made our way back to the house and found our way to bed.

Unexpected, in the middle of a walking path.

Miss Wednesday

All night and all this morning, I kept thinking we had a staff meeting today. We grabbed a biscuit and hashbrowns to share on the drive in, and I got everything ready to go back downstairs only to have Teisha tell me it was only Wednesday, and the meeting wasn’t until Thursday.

After that, I actually had a fairly busy day. I was feeling Subway for lunch, but Sonic had $1.50 mozzarella sticks, so we had to go there first. For some reason my phone completely dropped cellular service until I restarted it. We got our cheese sticks and then got stuck in Subway’s drive-through waiting for someone else’s sandwich to be made before we could get back to the office. We ate downstairs with Janice and Elizabeth, went back upstairs for a little while, and then came back down for cake for Charles’s birthday.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly after that. David gifted me one of the hams that was sent to the office, so I grabbed that on the way out. I was surprised to see a drizzle when we got outside, so we weren’t going to be able to run. We went to the house so I could change and grab some PetSmart coupons, and then we went to the lube to see Summer before going to the store.

Muad’Dib did fairly well in the store, and I ended up getting him one of the most expensive bags of dry dog food they had. Never in my life had I ever imagined that I might be the kind of person to pay $100 for a bag of kibble, but I spend nearly twenty four hours out of nearly every single day next to this kid. He is rarely ever out of my line of sight, except for when we have to go somewhere that he’s not allowed in, or when Summer calls him to bed, or when someone else has food, the little rat.

On the way home, I had the thought to patronize my favorite neighborhood barbecue brothers on a cold and drizzly day. I got Summer a burger, some brisket to add to my leftover Subway sandwich, and some pulled pork for Muad’Dib. I got to visit with Grant in the smoke house, and then we got back to the house just before Summer. We ate, and then she went to bed. I cleaned up a little bit, laid with her for a moment watching YouTube on my phone while she stared at two screens, and then I wrapped things up before going to sleep.

Royal indeed.

Peppers, Partners, and Puppers

Summer texted me a picture of a rat we caught while I was on my way to work this morning, and fortunately she didn’t fuss about having to take it out to the park for release. We got to work and I was tossed into a few different things throughout the day, so of course I felt just as scattered as ever. Hopefully I can represent well at the staff meeting tomorrow.

On her way back from Little Rock, I met Summer at Ortega’s for an all-you-can-eat lunch, which was the extent of our recognizing eight years together. I think it’s the longest either of us have been in a relationship, and maybe it shows.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly, and then we made it home for a run as the sun set. Summer got back to the house just before us, and then we laid down on the couch together for the first time in months since the ceiling collapsed, and watched a MKBHD video, followed by a Babish video. Then she went to bed while I cleaned up and finished some Vine reviews.

You’re welcome.

Quiet Mundane

We were mostly upstairs by ourselves today. Scott and Charles were periodically there, but otherwise it was just Muad’Dib and me with our thoughts, and he was probably doing the majority of the thinking. I did try to stay focused on NetBox again, but then I got a call to import products into HubSpot. That has never been fun, but I got it done.

Without any better ideas, I tried to get a McRib for lunch. While we were on the way, I got an alert that my order was cancelled for some unknown reason. I fought with it for a little while, and nearly gave up to go somewhere else to eat, but got a BigMac instead. They accidentally gave me large fries and a drink instead of mediums, so I guess that was my karma.

The afternoon went by relatively quickly as I tried to learn a little more about processes. Then it was a frustrating drive home through some slow traffic. Muad’Dib and I went on a quick run to see my parents, and then the girls were there when we got back to the house.

Summer was in a mood, and Eaddie had a concert to attend. I ate some leftovers standing in the kitchen, and then got to marvel at my limited edition Windows XP Crocs. I hate the shoes, but man do I love an inconsistent variety of nerdy pop culture. Clippy has never looked better. I still can’t believe they didn’t bring him back as their new AI assistant. I would have paid a subscription for that.

It was a short night, packed with some finishing reviews. I should make my deadline to continue this madness.

What can I say except, “you’re welcome.”

Chillin’ Out Max

I had the hardest time staying focused today. I was completely worthless.

Everyone from upstairs was out doing something else for most of the afternoon, so it was super quiet. I picked up Arby’s and ate it in my office, which probably made the afternoon drag even worse.

The drive home was awful and slow, too. Someone was cruising along below 50, which caused a massive stretch of cars to slow down as people had to slowly get around them. That lasted for about a third of the entire distance of the drive.

My parents weren’t home, so Muad’Dib and I just did a quick run around the block before Summer got home. Then we loaded up and went downtown to see what the festivities were about.

The depot area was completely packed with people, and Muad’Dib got a ton of attention with his little Max reindeer antler on, but he also quickly got overstimulated by how many people were around. He did fantastically off-leash, but I eventually hooked him up when we tried to go further into the crowd. Eaddie came by with some friends and sang us one carol before that, and then we ended up leaving just to get out of the crowd.

While we were there, I ran into Brandon, Kara, and Sheri, and talked to each of them for a little while. Then we went to Zaxby’s for some dinner and went back to the house.

We ate, heard some fireworks in the distance, and then went to bed. I found Spider-Man: Homecoming on the Roku Channel and watched that while Muad’Dib and Summer both fell asleep, snoring in my arms. I must have been burned out, because I just felt dead.

No brakes.

Croc-a-doodle Doo

We had a decent day today. I bounced between a couple things, but didn’t get really deep into anything until the afternoon. Muad’Dib has been consistently using his bed, which made me happy. We went to Arby’s to try their steak nuggets, and they were absolute garbage. I got one nugget that was on the small side of acceptable, and then two that were too small, plus some crumbs to make up the last two. They tasted like cheap, air-fried beef, and I expected more from them.

I had gotten in to some Traverse mail settings before lunch, and continued that into the afternoon. I had an anxiety attack sometime, I think after lunch, as well. Then we rode home and went on a quick run. Summer had some baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli for dinner that turned out really good, and then the girls wrapped some presents before splitting up for bed.

I was a bit scattered, but notably I accidentally hopped into a Discord voice channel with Clint and Josh for a moment and talked to them without a microphone. Then I discovered that the limited edition Microsoft Windows XP Crocs were available to the public, so I ordered a couple of those. Ebay had some that sold recently for a pretty good profit, but I won’t mind having a pair to wear and a pair to keep if the price tanks.

What a throwback between Windows XP and Command and Conquer.

Easy Now

There wasn’t really anything going on today. I had a Soylent and some black coffee in the morning, then a banana before lunch time, so we ended up going out to eat even later. I couldn’t decide what I wanted, so we just went to the car. Muad’Dib wouldn’t listen when he got into the car, and I accidentally popped him harder than I meant to, so I felt really bad after that.

We went to Walmart to see if they had any decent looking salads or sandwiches, but they really don’t have a good deli area. I even looked around at frozen or instant meals, but gave up. I walked the store looking for a pretty sparse clearance aisle, and then I got a bag of chips and we ended up going to Subway to pick up a sandwich.

I ate in my office and shared some chips with Muad’Dib. Afterward he started to fall asleep on my foot, so I got his bed out for him. He had never really spent any time in it before, but I gave him his nylon bone and he actually stayed there for a while. At one point he actually fell asleep on it, which made me happy.

After work, we went for a quick run in the dark, and then just cleaned up and did some reviews before bed.

Closing in.

Salad Means Healthy

We got out the door slightly late today, but had plenty of time with a Soylent for breakfast. I dove right back into NetBox again, and struggled with Linux, but it was the workplace equivalent of fun. I had an anxiety attack just before lunch, and it seemed like it could be tied to some extra energy or blood pressure relating to trying to space out my bathroom breaks. It’s been a struggle to keep extra-hydrated just as a habit.

We went to Ortega’s for their Tuesday all-you-can-eat special, and the taco salad and chili relleno combo was just what I had dreamed of. The tamale wasn’t on their approved list, but I had the same server that gave one to me last time, and he said it was no problem. I was in and out of there quicker than McDonald’s, and at a similar cost without an app deal.

The afternoon went by fairly quickly as I made some progress with my test VM. It may become my live environment after all, since I’m not sure how excited I am to do that all over again, but at least now I have it documented.

We made it home quickly to run, then had to go to Walgreens for some prescriptions and the old house to find my old slow cooker for Summer. Muad’Dib and i hung out there for a little while trying to dig through some stuff, but then came back to the house when Summer left work.

Summer had come home during the day for another round of carpet shampooing, and it looked like he didn’t quite cover all the space I thought he would. I would have liked him to cover more of the area where the coffee table goes, and that’s what I expected, but I guess Summer wasn’t watching him. At least he mostly covered the area where the sectional pieces were covering before.

I ended the night with a bunch of reviews, but it’s getting harder now as the easier items to review have already been done. It’s crunch week.

Compress

Box Out of the Container

I forgot to refrigerate some more Soylents, so we stopped for Burger King this morning. Muad’Dib loves his little bites of hashrounds. It was pretty quiet upstairs, but I already started a little differently by going downstairs to try out my milk frother with some nondairy creamer. It foamed up nicely, but just didn’t last long before melting back down.

I spent the entire day building another VM with NetBox, but this time without a Docker container, just to see what I was missing out on. As fortune would have it, I probably wasted a couple days trying to do it through Docker when it would have been much easier to update and maintain without. By the end of the day, I had a new instance up and running, and that was after picking up a Pizza Hut Melt and visiting with Teisha and Elizabeth for lunch.

At the end of the day, we quickly left so we could get our run in just as it got dark. Muad’Dib did really well, and we passed another couple walking their dog, who were tickled by his headlamp. When we got back to the house, Summer had a slow cooker full of chili ready for us, so we sat down to eat. Then we reset the sectional in the living room again in preparation for one more pass with a carpet shampooer. Hopefully this will be the end of it.

Summer went to bed, and I wrote a few more reviews, but I wasn’t as focused as I should have been. That’s the story of my life.

Let’s do it again.