Sheep Guarding Llama

Dominca had to go to work today and I had to get over to Perry early this morning for work as well. Early to me these days means 10:00! It was pretty nice when I left Geneseo but over in Perry there was all kinds of snow. There was so much that they weren’t even plowing the roads and in some places it was blowing so hard that it was approaching white out conditions. I didn’t have my cell phone with me because Dominica had needed the battery so I was stuck without anyway to make phone calls. I started worrying about getting stuck somewhere because Oreo was with me and we were in the middle of nowhere. I could easily stay warm and walk somewhere but he might not be able to. He has short fur and he isn’t used to the cold and he doesn’t have as much fur as he should because of his allergies so he would get really cold really quickly. And to top it off I drew a complete blank on how to find the road that I needed to get to so I was just having a dandy of a time.

I didn’t get back home until after noon. I had plenty to work on once I was home. I did take a little time off and play a little bit of video games. I don’t do that very often these days so the brake was nice.

When Dominica got home tonight we went down to the basement and watched some of That 70’s Show Season Three. We have been waiting for a long time for this series to come out so we are very happy to get to watch it. I am really looking forward to this spring when season Four comes out because that is the first season to have episodes that I haven’t seen yet, as far as I know. It must be because I didn’t have regular television access by that time and I feel like by season five or so I may not have seen a single episode. I looked online at the episode synopsis and I pretty much don’t even know the show anymore it is so different. There are some cast changes that I wasn’t even aware of so I am really out of touch. Of note, the first season of Growing Pains is expected out in February. That is one show that I have really been waiting for. Unlike people with cable I have not seen it once since it went off of the air. It was one of my favourite shows when I was younger and I really grew up with it and with Who’s the Boss which I am also really waiting for more seasons of to release.

We were up SO early this morning. I can’t believe that we managed to pull ourselves out of bed. It was all that either of us could do to get out the door but thanks to the wonders of self discipline we somehow managed to pull off this miraculous feat. We were out of the door at 5:22 and on our way to Henrietta for the morning shopping rush. The roads were pretty good this morning and we made really good time getting up to Jefferson. We pulled into the Staples parking lot just in time to run to the end of the line as the line was working its way into the store. Our timing could not have been better. It was only 15F out and way too cold to be standing in line for even a few minutes, as far as we were concerned. Dominica’s coworker, Dan, was at the front of the line and was the second person into the store. Just about everyone going into the store was after the exact same thing: the Samsung 914v 19″ LCD monitors. They were an amazing deal. And we were after them as well. We went as fast as we could and Dominica did an amazing job of snaking through the store and she managed to get the very last two of them. Of course, she didn’t manage to get them before some jerk bashed her in the face with one of his own monitors in an attempt to get her away from the pile. He was there trying to get all of them, apparently, with a shopping cart that he was filling as quickly as possible and a team of people helping him collect them. Dominica was pretty shocked at getting hit in the face AND not getting even an apology or an acknowledgement but she managed to stay in there and get the two monitors. She was a shopping champ. We had been hoping to have been able to get three of them but we were not really expecting to be able to get even a single one so we were really happy with what we got. One of them is for us to put into the upstairs office and the other is for dad. He has been working on a 15″ Samsung LCD for the past several years and that replaced his old HP Pavilion 15″ CRT. He has never had an SXGA (1280×1024) display before and he is really in for a treat. This monitor is 67% larger than his current monitor. That is a huge difference. While we were standing in line to check out Dominica did some scavaging and managed to come up with a really cheap pack of writeable DVDs and her second big score for the day: a Creative MuVo MP3 player that can play Audible Audio (AA) files from Audible.com. Since we use so many Audible books as it is having a player that is supposed to work directly with them is a step in the right direction. It was really cheap. Only $37 and it came with two free books of her choice that she can get from Audible and that is a $22 value right there that we will actually use. So, as far as we are concerned, the unit was only $15. And that is just awesome. Dominica is going to give her iRiver MP3 player to dad. That iRiver has really been around. It started as Andy’s and then it became mine then Min’s and now dad’s. It really is only useful if you are going to be recording with it or if you are only listening to short MP3 files because it can’t handle MP3 files of any length, doesn’t handle most Ogg Vorbis files and can’t play Audible files. So overall it just wasn’t all that useful. I do appreciate, though, that it got us all hooked on having MP3 players. I can’t imagine not having one now!

After we got out of Staples we ran over to Target to see how things were over there but the place was a total madhouse and we decided that it would be best to completely skip any attempt at shopping there and to just head back down to Geneseo. We called dad and he met us at the house and we all went over to the Omega for some breakfast. Boy we eat there a lot. Dad was pretty excited to be getting his new monitor. So was I. I hooked up the new one to test it out before dad made it over for breakfast. It really is a bit larger than what I have been using and the screen quality is really good too. It isn’t an amazing monitor but it sure is amazing for the price. Only $200!! It is a 19″ LCD, thin black frame, 1280×1024 at 75Hz, 600:1 contrast ratio and a 12ms response time. Way better than what I am used to. And the whole thing is absolutely sharp. I am really pleased.

After breakfast Dominica had to drive back to Rochester to go to work for the day. She has a full, normal ten hour day today just like any Friday. I am working today too and had to run over to Perry this morning. Oreo tagged along. That was a bad idea because the weather was really had over there and we are really lucky that we didn’t get stuck somewhere because they were not plowing the roads that the snow was getting pretty deep in places.

I was home a little after noon and managed to spend the whole afternoon just doing little odd things around the house. It is a really slow day for me, no calls, because no one is working today. Very little to go wrong. I love days like today. It is so easy to get so much done. And much easier to relax than on normal days that I just need to take off. That never works. The moment I make an attempt at relaxing I get tons of panicky calls about things going wrong everywhere. It is very stressful.

Dad IM’d me and asked if I wanted to do a fish fry for dinner. I think that dad and I are some of the most faithful Friday Fish Fry people anywhere. We are also some of the most faithful Omega Grill eaters. We aren’t the top though. There are a few groups of people that I am pretty sure eat there everyday. But we have to be really close. Min and I eat there sometimes without dad and he eats there at least once or twice a week without us. And once in a while I have a business meeting there. And once in a great while Eric and I will go there. And once in an even greater while Jeremy and I might go there. Even my “aunt and uncle”, Shirley and Jim, who are really Jeremy’s aunt and uncle go there several times a week. Enough that we normally run into each other there more than once a week. So between us ourselves and our immediate clan we are there for almost every meal. It is kind of scary.

Dad and I hit Walmart on the way back to my house since the rush seemed to have subsided and there weren’t really all that many people there. There weren’t too many great deals left but we had some more mundane shopping to do anyway. I had to get some batteries. We are going through them like mad now between our digital camera and two MP3 players that we both use all of the time. I found Pleasantville on DVD for only $3.44 which was such a good deal that I couldn’t pass it up. I also grabbed That 70’s Show Season Three. It was not on sale but getting it on sale at Target was way too scary for me and I was sure that I would be happier just paying the extra money and not having to fight through mad mobs of people just to find out that all of the copies had been sold all ready anyway.

I recorded my podcasts and played with the hamster before Dominica got home. I also snuck in a game of AoE2 against the computer. Sometimes I just need to play for an hour to really relax. I think that we need to get the FNG up and running again because the games are so intense that they really lower my stress levels. Watching DVDs or television doesn’t have the same effect.

After Dominica got home we popped in some That 70’s Show and watched three or four episodes. What a great show. We managed to get to bed just a little after midnight. Dominica has a full day of work tomorrow so she needs her sleep.

Happy Tofurkey Day? Or is that Happy Faux Turkey Day!? Good questions. Happy Thanksgiving.

Everyone was tired here this morning and had a really hard time pulling ourselves out of bed. We didn’t get moving nearly as early as we had hoped. We were not on the road until almost 11:00. We had a hard time decided whether or not we were going to drive out to Frankfort which is almost three hours away because the weather was kind of ify and it could easily turn into bad snow. We looked at a bunch of web sites and talked to dad and finally decided that it seemed to be safe enough considering that I had just put my winter tires on the car last night so we would have pretty good traction. I have Nokian snow tires and they are just amazing.

Most of the drive was pretty good. Before we got to Syracuse we started hitting some serious snow and that made the drive a lot slower. The roads were not bad until we got to Utica. Then it started getting really slippery and a lot of people were having problems keeping their vehicles on the road. So the last bit of the drive was bad but not terrible. With my Nokians it wasn’t any problem at all.

It was just after 1:30 when we arrived in Frankfort. We ended up making much better time than we had thought that we would have been able to make. We ended up making it in enough time to be able to put our Tofurkey into the oven and to get it cooked before we went over to Dominica’s grandfather’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. We hadn’t thought that we were going to have made it out so quickly so that was a pleasant surprise.

While we were at Min’s parent’s house we took the opportunity to look through all of the Black Friday specials in the newspaper just in case we wanted to go shopping tomorrow for anything really awesome. There is always a lot of stuff that we would like in the big sales but normally nothing that we want so badly to make fighting through those crowds worth it at all. But saw a number of items that we were interested in but didn’t think too much of it.

It was just a little after 3:00 when we went over to grandpa Tocco’s house for dinner. We ate around 4:00. The Tofurkey Feast was awesome. Much better than real turkey because real turkey gets dry and tough but this was really tender and delicious and a whole bunch less work than the actual bird. The feast came with all of the fixings. It was just like a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Dominica and I will definitely be getting that again. We were really happy with it and there was a lot left over as well so we will get some mileage out of it. Thanksgiving at Dominica’s family is now one third vegetarian! It always seemed to me that we were a pretty small minority but in reality we are a pretty big sub-section of the family. Only need to convert two more people and we have a majority! Ha ha, the plot thickens. Resistance is futile.

After dinner but before dessert we were all standing around and Dominica’s brother Joe accidentally bumped the small kitchen television with his elbow and it turned on and we saw the Weather Channel doing their coverage of the snowy conditions along i90. We looked outside and the weather wasn’t looking like it was going to be all that cooperative so we deicded that it would just be safer if we hit the road right away instead of waiting for it to get really bad and then getting stuck out in Frankfort. Both Dominica and I have to work in the morning so we need to get back. Dominica definitely can’t miss her job tomorrow. She hasn’t even been there for three weeks yet.

The drive back to Geneseo wasn’t too bad. There was a lot of high speed winds and some snow. None of the roads were horrible but I am very glad that we came back when we did because it could have gotten pretty bad. As it was the drive took an extra hour.

We got to Geneseo at 8:00 or a little after. Dominica decided to stay home and not to go to the ninth annual Sonic Brass Thanksgiving Dinner at Nick Tahou’s. She has a really long day tomorrow and needs to get some sleep so that she will be able to work. So she stayed home and went to bed early. I left at 9:30 to go up to the city for some Tahou’s. Nate and Tammy forgot to call to see if I was home or we would have carpooled since they were coming from Perry.

Like every year, the Tahou’s dinner was at 10:00. We started this tradition in 1997 and we are still going strong. This year we had a pretty weak turn out but that happens from time to time. Last year we had seventeen people show up, I think. This year there was only seven. Nate, Joe and I have made it every year so far. Next year is ten. We had better have tons of people show up next year. The big news from tonight is that Jeff Simpson, who hasn’t made it to the Thanksgiving Dinner in several years, returned unexpectedly. He and his wife Danielle have recently moved back to the Rochester area from Madison, Wisconsin and have yet to hook back up with everyone out here. This is the first time that I have seen Jeff in probably four years. It is really cool that he is back in town. Hopefully we will be able to get together sometime soon to hang out.

Joe Howlett took the old Sonic Brass music today. I have been storing it for as long as I can remember. Some of it since 1993. There have been two good sized bins in the basement that have been being used for that and it is actually pretty nice to have them out of here. We need the space more than we need to store brass ensemble music. It isn’t very likely that Sonic is going to be getting together anytime in the near future. Joe and Josh still play a bit and I am pretty sure that Crissman is playing all of the time. But other than that. I have played since Waltermeirer’s wedding and Nate and Jeff haven’t picked up their instruments since the ensemble broke up in the mid 1990’s. It is hard to believe that it has been that long. We were still playing in 1997, I think, but things were winding down at that point. Joe and I should get together and put together a little history and an informational web page. It would be great to play again but it is tough living in a townhouse with neighbours that actually share a wall.

We all left Tahou’s around 11:15. It was getting late and we are all getting old. I drove home and pretty much went straight to bed. Dominica had been asleep for a while by the time that I got in. We had decided that there appeared to be a number of sales tomorrow that we wanted to take advantage of so I have to get up really early in the morning for that. Black Friday shopping should be an experience for me.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is Tofurkey day! Yummy delicious Tofurkey!

I was up at 5:30 this morning. Boy did I not want to have to get out of bed. To make it even harder to get out of bed Oreo was sleeping right next to me sharing my pillow and laying across my arm. He is SO snuggly! But I had to drag myself out of bed since it is a busy day.

I was out the door just after 6:00 and discovered that there was actually a real covering of snow on the ground. I wasn’t expecting that when I got up this morning. This is the first that I have gone out and really had snow. The ground was totally white. I remembered to take out the trash too. So far so good this morning. On time and remembering things.

The drive up to the city was tough. My summer tires on my Mazda are totally shot. Bald as can be and scalloped really badly so I was sliding all over the road from the little bit of snow that we had. That slowed me down a lot this morning. I finally got up to the University of Rochester and discovered that neither was there any space anywhere where you are allowed to park if you are not a student (not even employees apparently get a place to park) but there also was no one working in the visitor or parking information boothes so that there was nothing that you could do about parking should you be like me and need to be able to park.

I worked at the UofR from 7:00 am until 11:00 am. I had been planning on being there all day but it ended up being only a half day project and the second half is expected to be happening in late December or early January. That was good because I was tired and there is just a lot going on today and I didn’t feel like burning the whole day up in the city.

Dominica took Oreo over to dad’s house before she went to work so he was only over there for about an hour before I called to say that I could come to get him. Dad had to run some errands today so he decided to bring the pooch over to Geneseo with him and meet me for lunch at the Omega Grill. That saved me a bit of driving today and I am relieved.

Oreo and I were back home a little after 1:00. Eric popped over to use the computer for a little bit. He has gotten a bunch of new computer stuff at his “office” except for one key piece of equipment: a computer. Yup, another week has gone by with no sign of any type of machine on which for Eric to do any type of work at all. It is going to take him a month to catch up on all of the company email that has been backing up in the account that he has never seen. He has had a corporate email account for months and has never even seen it. Isn’t that a statement about corporate America. Its amazing how little this company cares about doing anything at all.

I spent the afternoon working in the office at the house. I managed to get a new proxy server built for the Castile Christian Academy. That is going to be useful down there. Everyone has really been looking forward to getting that into place. At lunch today dad actually volunteered to help out teaching computers down at the school.