Sheep Guarding Llama

I slept in a little this morning getting an actual eight hours of sleep. That is something that I don’t manage to do very often. Boy did I need it though. I have been pretty tired all week. It is going to be a long haul getting through until Dominica can come down with my CPAP on for Monday night.

Dominica is on her home stretch at work. Just three days left to go including today. At the end of the day today she will be halfway through her final week. I am sure that she is starting to get that “winding down” feeling at work. No more stress. The final days are never too bad.

Dominica also found out this morning that she is getting scheduled for an interview with the company that I am working for down here in New Jersey. The position that she will be looking at is a position that is based in Manhattan. It is a really exciting opportunity and it is a direct, not contract, position which would mean full benefits and the works.

Dad managed to get over to Wegmans in Geneseo today while he was picking up Oreo and pick up my pictures that have been there for about two months or more. That is one less thing that I have to worry about now. I can’t remember at all what those pictures would be. I think that they are all recent but I have no idea. Now I can stop carrying around the claim tickets as well. My wallet gets awfully full awfully quickly these days. Junk papers collect very quickly if you don’t keep a close eye on them.

I was able to leave the office at 5:45 because I have been scheduled to work the super early shift tomorrow. I am supporting London clients super early in the morning at 4:00 am our time so I have to be up at 3:30. I figured I would take off a little on the early side so that I could get a little bit of an evening in prior to having to go to bed.

On the way home I stopped by Barned & Nobles on Route 1. I picked up a Spanish dictionary to keep in the car with me because I listen to Spanish radio all of the time. I also got a travel guide to New York City. I wanted to get one to Philadelphia but they didn’t have a single one. How weird is that?

I stopped by at Walmart in the adjacent plaza and looked to see what new DVD releases they had. They really didn’t have anything interesting. I was hoping that they would have at least had the recent release of season four of That 70’s Show but no luck. I was tempted to get a few things but I managed to resist. I am doing much better these days doing some more serious shopping on Amazon and getting movies that we really want and not just whatever is available when we go to the store. I grabbed dinner at the McDonald’s inside of the Walmart and went to the apartment to eat.

I took it easy this evening working on installing software on my “new” Windows XP desktop and watching some movies. I watched Fletch Lives with Chevy Chase. I don’t think that I have seen that one since it was in theatres. I am not positive but I think that I saw it at the Silver Lake Drive In many a moon ago. I also watched the first half of the 1962 remake of State Fair with Pat Boone, Bobby Darrin and Ann-Margaret. Dominica and I were wondering why they did a remake of the 1945 original just 17 years later but it is a major rewrite. It isn’t very good but it is very different. It is fine but I would never recommend it over the classis earlier film. The original is definitely a lot more meaningful to today’s audience than the quirky 1960’s remake. And the acting and music were a lot better in the older film too. I think that over time we will see more and more often that remakes of films fade away and the originals are most often the ones that remain classics. Growing up I never even knew that there was a 60’s version of this film it had all ready faded away.

I only made it through half of the film because I needed to get to bed. It is a heavy rainstorm here so I opened up the windows before bedding down for the night. The rain turned into a massive thunderstorm that lasted for hours. I never really slept all night. I got a good rest in but I was awake almost the entire night. But just laying listening to the rain is awfully relaxing. I dozed off now and again but never for very long. The downside of not having my CPAP. With the CPAP once I am out, I am out. I sleep quite deeply. But without it sleep is just a form of resting with my eyes closed. Weird that I did this for so long and was able to still function. Surprisingly I don’t feel much more tired now than I would if I had been sleeping with the CPAP all week. I wonder what makes that work that way. My sleep patterns are so bizarre compared to anyone else.

I was up at 3:30 to get my computer set up and ready to work. I ended up putting in over an hour and a half on the international conference call. I had figured that I would only have been working for a few minutes but if I would have really thought about it I would have realized that that was not going to be the case. Had I really thought about it I would have gotten up a little earlier and gone into the office to work and just started my day at 4:00 instead of breaking it up doing a few hours now and then the rest of the day later on. In case you are wondering, I am writing the update while I am on the call.

Well my morning call ended up going much later than I had expected. I finished watching State Fair and it is now just after 6:30 and I am still on the line. I can’t believe that it could go too much longer than it all ready has but who knows. I haven’t done one of these before. So I am going to post and move on to “tomorrow”.

I worked last night until 4:00 in the morning so today I slept in until I felt like getting up. I woke up around 8:00 but went back to sleep until 9:00 or so. Dominica got me up this morning. She is working at TMobile in Pittsford and needed to talk to me about some things. So I decided that it was as good a time as any to get myself out of bed.

I took the morning leisurely getting ready. I left the apartment a little after 10:30. I stopped by at Panera Bread on Route 1 and got myself two cinnamon crunch bagles with light cream cheese. Those are so awesome.

It was just a little before noon when I arrived at the office in Warren. I had a throbbing headache which is a result of being up way too late and then sleeping without my CPAP. I can tell that it is going to be a long day.

Tomorrow my Linux 301 class from Hewlett-Packard starts. It is a free class that is done a lot like a class from Empire State College. It is totally online and has a forum system for the students to interact with each other and the professor. I have been interested in seeing how the HP education system works and so decided to take this class to get a feel for it. The classes are free so I think that it is a really awesome service that HP provides to people. Anyone is eligible to take classes as long as they are not yet filled.

I logged into the class today and did the “welcome to the class” activities that typically take place before the classes start. All of the students introduced themselves and there were a few online conversations in the forums that I responded to.

Dominica found out today that she has an interview set up for Tuesday, May 16th down here in New Jersey with the company that she is currently with. Currently she is a contractor and the position down here is an additional contracting position but doing basically the same job that she is doing in Rochester. And the site where she would be working is very close to the apartment that we have right now. It is really encouraging that they called her about the interview. We were sure that they were not going to because that site had a large round of layoffs this past Friday!

I didn’t stay at work for too long today. I took off a little after 5:15. I was exhausted and it wound up being a really slow day. Of course leaving work at that time results in driving in incredibly crazy rush hour traffic the whole way home which is a pain. But it was nice to be home early.

I was super lazy tonight and I had skipped lunch so I ordered pizza from Dominos. I really need to stop doing that. I popped in Remington Steele and started working on the phones that have not been working. I also worked on the new Windows desktop that I got on Sunday. I finally managed to get its network adapter working and got it started on its updates. It took several hours for all of the updates to download. But at least that is done now. Now I can spend the evening tomorrow getting all of the software that I use installed and set up. That takes several hours as well. There is so much software that I have to put onto a computer when I first get it going. In addition to my standard software I should get all of my Microsoft software installed on that machine as well but I don’t have any of those disks with me. Things like Microsoft Office, MS Project, Visio, etc. This new machine is going to be my new, dedicated Windows desktop so I should have everything that I need loaded onto it. It has a 160GB hard drive which should be quite adequate for me for quite some time since it is just the Windows desktop. My other machine is going to be turned into a SUSE Linux desktop once I am able to get that downloaded. SUSE Linux 10.1 is due to be released tomorrow but it will take several days to get all of the downloads.

I worked until 11:00 tonight. I wasn’t going to stay up so late but I got down to the final episode of Season Three of Remington Steele and needed to finish it. I couldn’t go to bed knowing that there was just one episode left to be watched. I didn’t manage to get anywhere on the phones. In fact I managed to completely kill the one that I have with me so it doesn’t work at all anymore. I am hoping that tomorrow night I will have time to do a full reset on it and start from scratch. Maybe I will get lucky and it will be fine.

I woke up before my alarm went off this morning. It seems like that must be a good sign. No CPAP and I am still waking up. Actually I think that it is easier to wake up without it because I sleep lighter. I don’t feel as good when I wake up but I that initial waking up is easier.

Jeremy got his new computer last night but did not have a chance to get it put together. Maybe he will have it up and running tonight. I am concerned that he may not have matching components though so it might be a while before he has it all together.

I got out of the apartment in good time this morning and go into the office a little after 8:00. I would have been much earlier but traffic was exceptionally bad today.

I had a crazy day at work today. I was so busy that I had to eat lunch at my desk. That isn’t any fun. And Dominica wasn’t down this weekend so I didn’t get to see her yesterday and today 🙁 Only one more week before she moves down. But she is thinking about flying down to Houston for a week and then driving back up with Francesca and the girls so that will mean another week apart after she is down here for just a week. And since no one will be home during the day Oreo will have to stay with dad instead of with me so I will be very lonely again.

By the end of the day I was absolutely worn out. It was just go, go, go all day long. I was really looking forward to the end of day (EOD) and a chance to just collapse.

Fortunately, for me anyway, Dominica is attempting to do the lingering TMobile project from February that hasn’t been completed yet. It isn’t much work and it is just in Rochester but we haven’t been able to get it completed and they are waiting on it. I hate having projects hanging over my head. I like things cleaned up and neat. Completed projects make me happy. And it will be nice for Dominica to get to do some other typs of tech work. She is broadening her experience.

Eric and Amanda are going over to the county pound in Hampton Corners between Geneseo and Mt. Morris this evening to see about a puppy that they have over there. For those who don’t know, Hampton Corners was a thriving village in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries but, for some reason, it just upped and vanished at some point so long ago that there is no structure left to attest to its existance. Those of us who grew up near by had never heard its name. Eric and I used to bicycle right through it and he has even worked there once or twice. It is the crossroads now of NY Route 408 and NY Route 63 (which I grew up just off of.) In the mid-1990’s the salt mine was relocated from Retsof to Hampton Corners after the collapse of the original mine. This began an era of construction at the corners. The railroad was extended into it. And then the county began placing public services there and the state police relocated there. This location probably became popular with low traffic services because of its prime location in the dead center of the county directly between Mt. Morris and Geneseo with very easy access right into Dansville and also because it is just dirt cheap to build there. So now there are tons of things springing up that you would never guess would go there.

I didn’t leave work until after 8:30 so it was quite late by the time I got back to the apartment. I had some leftover pizza in the fridge and I ate that for dinner while I continued to work from home and watched Remington Steele. It ended up going from a late night at the office to a really late night at home. I worked until almost 4:00 in the morning! I was totally exhausted and delirious by the time I finally managed to get to bed. I am really wishing that I had that CPAP right about now!

It is Monday morning, once again.

It looks like I am not the only one who feels that the Mission Impossible movies are prime examples of internally inconsistent cinema.

Today dragged on and I was really tired when I got back to the apartment a little before 8:00. I plopped down in front of the computer and started trying to fix the telephones that aren’t working properly and turned on my laptop to watch some season three of Remington Steele. I was hungry so I ordered a few days worth of pizza from Dominos. I figured that it would be a lot easier and more cost effective if I had some in the fridge instead of ordering food every night.

I made it through three episodes. I couldn’t bring myself to go to bed. I spent a lot of the evening working on the HP D325 that I got on Saturday. The unit was in pretty rough shape and wasn’t working anymore. It could only run for about five minutes before it would shut itself off. No wonder Jeremy was running it with the case wide open when I saw him using it. I put some serious work into it and it appears to be able to keep itself running now but I am going to have to be really careful with it. Fortunately it is still under warranty for quite a while but the downside is that it has been so abused that HP might not honor the warranty.

Dominica was able to get out to Carousel Mall in Syracuse this evening and wrap up the onsite survey work that we have been doing for TMobile. What a relief it is to have that site completed. Now to get all of the paperwork completed. That is as much work as the project itself. It worked out nicely that Dominica’s parents were able to meet her at the mall and they were able to have dinner together.

I got the desktop running and finally got Windows XP installed but now I need the HP drivers for the box and after trying all kinds of different things from HP I decided that I needed to give up and get off to bed. It was not that far from midnight when I finally got to bed. Now I have to face my second night without my CPAP. Hopefully I won’t become increasingly exhausted as the week wears on but it seems likely.

The weekends are so short when I come back to Geneseo. So much driving with so little time at home. This weekend was the worst yet. To make matter even worse, I was supposed to have worked at TMobile in Pittsford to wrap up an earlier project for them but ended up not being able to do that because of the car being in the shop. Fortunately I didn’t have a chance to really look for the materials for the project until later and I hadn’t scheduled the thing at the store so I didn’t have to cancel on them.

I spent the morning getting ready to leave. Isn’t that depressing. Dad came over after church and the three of us went to the Omega Grill for lunch. I can’t believe how long it has been since I have eaten over there. Weird.

Dad came over to the house to get a load of stuff to take down to Jeremy as well as a load of packing trash that had accumulated at the house from all of the stuff that has been delivered recently. The living room and the dining room have just been packed full of boxes and packing materials. There is still a lot but at least a big chunk of it is gone.

I had to be on the road south by 7:00. Boy was it a short day. Pretty much we spent the entire day getting me ready to drive. Dominica sent me with a load of stuff that we will need at the apartment like some pots and pans and a rack to hang drying laundry onto. I also am bringing down the computer that I just got from Jeremy. It is going to be my slower, older Windows XP machine and I am going to convert my new Athlon 64 machine over to SUSE Linux 10.1 when it releases later this week. I figured that since I am working as a Linux Admin full time that using Linux as my desktop would be the right way to go. And the Linux box doesn’t have a DVD player in it but the Windows one will so the Windows box will be perfect for simple background tasks like playing movies while I do the real work on Linux.

I had to stop in Endicott and Johnson City on my way through to drop off two more IP phones. That took a big chunk out of my evening. I was probably stopped in the Binghamton area for about an hour but I felt better knowing that the two phones were both delivered and hooked up.

I was hungry for dinner but I knew that there was a fairly new Waffle House open in Clark’s Summit, Pennsylvania so I held out until I got down there. I got off of the highway and drove through down and found myself to be the only person eating at Waffle House the entire time that I was there! I have never been anywhere near alone at a Waffle House before. The food was good and I got a chance to chat with the guys who were working. One of the was training and the other was like a Waffle House consultant who travels all over the place working with new stores and stuff. He new the spot that I was talking about in Georgia near Savanah where there were two Waffle Houses that faced each other across the street. He said that he used to work at one of them. Pretty weird that out of the thousands of Waffle Houses out there that we might have crossed paths there.

It was late – close to 1:30 or later – when I finally arrived in North Brunswick. I was really tired but wasn’t able to fall right asleep. I didn’t end up getting to bed until after 2:30! When I did finally get ready to go to bed I came to the horrible realization that I had not remembered to pack my CPAP and it will be more than a week before Dominica returns to New Jersey. This could end up being quite the disaster. We will see. I have never gone this long without my breathing apparatus since I first got it over a year ago. This is going to be really tough. I might have to have Dominica ship it to me or figure out something to get a CPAP here.