Song: “Walk Don’t Run” by The Ventures
Mood: 7
Nightmares: 0
Ghosts: Pack
Dad got here around 11AM. I got a strange text from my mom saying that he’d had a crappy morning so I called her and asked what was going on. Turns out his computer died while he was using it this morning and he was pretty upset about it – just the other day his phone gave up the ghost too. He pulled into the driveway while I was still on the phone with Mom so I told her he had arrived safe and sound.
He looked pretty agitated when he first came in and asked if I wouldn’t mind looking at his computer, as he has stuff on it that he really doesn’t want to lose. We had originally planned to walk to the grocery store and pick up stuff for sandwiches but we were already on a bit of a schedule and considering the computer stuff, I suggested that I could whip up an amazing culinary delight – beans and wieners. He jumped at the idea so I put on some water to boil the wieners while we looked at his computer.
Now, if you know my dad, you know he spent time as a test subject in a secret military facility that coated his skeleton with an indestructible metal alloy. The good thing about this alloy is that he is very good at picking up radio signals from far away. The bad thing is that almost any piece of electronic equipment he touches begins to immediately fail inexplicably. I don’t know how many computers he has had over the years, but he’s had some pretty terrible luck, and they always, ALWAYS fail when he’s trying to do something important.
So we put it on the table, pressed the button, and… it started right up. Dad had that very strange combination of delighted and EXTREMELY PISSED OFF on his face. We checked the logs and looked for his data and everything looked fine. His laptop is pretty old though (pushing 9 years) and doesn’t owe him anything so I suggested he pick up a USB flash drive and copy his important stuff to it, then look into a new computer.
We left it running on the table while I finished cooking and we sat down to eat and have a really good talk, and it continued on after we’d finished eating and had made our way back to the couches in the living room. We talked about everything from philosophy to religion to family to batteries to physics to cars to health to politics to good times we’ve had…. we covered pretty much everything. It felt great to sit there and gab – like I said in an earlier post, Dad likes coming over and doing stuff, and when you’re concentrating on cutting boards or screwing in stuff over your head, there’s often not a lot of time to catch up on stuff. We did do some looking around at projects shortly after he arrived, but we just meant to check things out and not actually build anything. So we had a lot of time for conversation and we used every last minute of it. It was fabulous!
Unfortunately, the time went by far too quickly again and it was 4PM. Dad started to gather up his stuff (I gave him his toiler paper stand and he was very pleased with it) and we went downstairs to get an over-the-door hook for him that had just finished printing (he was pretty tickled with how the printer worked). I was really quite sad when he left, but the day had turned out better than I had imagined. I was a little nervous before he got here but I knew we would have a good time. And we did!
Dad called after he got home to say he was back and in one piece and we both said again how much of a good time the day was.
J got home later on and was feeling a lot better than yesterday. I was really pleased about that – I felt really sorry for her yesterday. We talked for a while and then watched a couple of episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which I just heard was renewed for a seventh season!
Oh, and speaking of things I’ve heard about – have you ever hear of the Transfermium Wars? I somehow stumbled across it today. Based on the name, I fully expected there to be large robots, ray guns, space battles… that sort of thing. But was it? Nooooo. The Transfermium Wars were an American/Soviet physics/chemistry argument over what some newly discovered elements should be called. What a letdown.
So, I hung out with J’s aunt yesterday and with Dad today, and both days were fantastic. I gotta admit – even though it’s tiring, I’m really digging this socializing stuff! I hope that I can get together with Dad or J’s aunt again soon!
There were two other things I wanted to talk about but I didn’t write them down and now (like usual) they’re gone. Hmm…
Stay safe.