Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is Zach and Susan’s wedding. Min and I got up this morning around 9:00 which was not late enough at all for me. I have been fighting all week to be able to catch up on my sleep and it just isn’t happening. We had to get up and get everything that we needed packed and ready to go this morning so that we can be out of town for two days.

At somepoint around 1:00 we drove over to my dad’s house and dropped off Oreo. Dad is his favourite babysitter and they have a good time hanging out together. Oreo gets so incredibly nervous if we leave him home alone but is pretty much fine if he is over at dad’s house. We have been thinking that it was a good thing that Oreo lived over there for a month so that he feels very much at home there and less like a “visitor”.

We decided to take the “back” roads from dad’s house instead of going the traditional route down to Dansville on 390 then 36 to Hornell and US 86 west. Instead we went down through southern Wyoming County on NY 39 through Perry, Castile, Pike, Bliss and Arcade. Min wasn’t familiar with anything in the area past the church in Castile that is associated with the school so she got to see an entirely new area. While we were traveling she saw the sign for Covenant Acres which is a campground down around Pike or Eagle where he sorority used to go for special events. She has always talked about it and new that it was down in that direction but had no idea where it was really located. So she was pretty excited to have finally figured that out. It has been many years since she has been there.

The back roads were really beautiful with the leaves just beginning to change. Most of the route I was decently familiar with but once we left Wyoming County and headed south on route 16 in Yorkshire I was into areas that I have only occasionally been through at points in my childhood. We went through Lime Lake and a lot of nice areas and popped up in Salamanca and caught the expressway there. Then it was a quick jaunt over to Jamestown where we have a hotel reservation at the Comfort Inn at Exit 12.

We got to the hotel at just after 3:00 and checked in. Dominica has never been to Jamestown before but we don’t have any time this trip to do any sight seeing in the area. We changed at the hotel into our wedding attire and then left a little after 3:30 to continue on to Erie, Pennsylvania.

Min and I arrived in Erie at a little after 4:30 and had no problem driving right to the church. It was fortunate that I had been working in Erie just a few weeks ago and already had a decent idea of the lay of the land. We got to the church and sat with Eric who is a teacher at Boynton with Nate and Bob.

The wedding was very nice. We had a good time. There isn’t much to say about wedding services. At least not when you are male. The church was very attractive. Min and I loved the tree branch that the church used as a chandelier. It was really cool. They put white Christmas lights on the branch and suspended it from ceiling.

The reception was just a few blocks away in Millcreek and followed right after the wedding. It was nice to not have to wait hardly at all. So often receptions are dramatically after a wedding and everyone is left wondering what to do in the mean time.

We had a good time hanging out with everyone at the reception. There are so many people from Ithaca that we almost never get to see and we rely on events like this to get to see everyone again.

Min and I left a little after 11:00 and drove the forty minutes back out to Jamestown to our hotel. When we got there we realized that I had forgotten to pack my CPAP. It is really hard for me to sleep without it. I have been packing and unpacking it up so many times this week that I didn’t even remember whether or not I had packed it today. So here goes another night of bad sleep.

I had to be up super early this morning. Super early not meaning that it was so early compared to when the rest of the world gets up but super early for me who has been working overnight all week and didn’t get to bed until after 2:00 in the morning this morning. Eric called at 6:00 am to get me up and moving. I had already been awake since just after 5:00 but was fighting getting out of bed because I was so exhausted. I have no idea how I had managed to wake up on my own without an alarm at 5:00 in the morning with only three hours of sleep but I did it. Ugh.

I was dressed (black suit, white heavily starched shirt and tie) and our the door before 7:00. That is way too early for this lazy, like-to-sleep-in kinda guy. I met Eric at Borders in Henrietta and we car pooled in my car up to Casa Larga on Turk Hill Road on the East side of the city for our 8:00 breakfast thing. It was some event put on by the Rochester Area Employment Network and it was a total joke and a complete waste of our time. The food was good and the setting was nice but the whole even dragged on for hours and it was totally unbearable. We had a terrible time and we will definitely not be going back to an event held by RAEN again. We were insulted by the way we were treated and there was little useful in the entire thing. It lasted until after 11:00 and we were ready to hang ourselves with our ties by the time that it was all done.

I found some literature today from the Asperger Community Advisory Panel. But, Danielle and I did some searching online and didn’t manage to find a single mention of them at all. No web site, no phone number. If anyone has any information about how to find this organization, I would appreciate a lead. Thanks.

We drove back to Borders and got some coffee before he headed back to the office and I headed back to Geneseo.

I finally got contacted about that job that everyone has been praying about. The good news is that they took an extra three days to make their final decision between me and the other final candidate because they liked both of us so much but the bad news is that they decided to go with the other candidate as they had more management experience than I did. That is too bad but I knew that that was going to be my weak point going in and they said that they were really happy with everything else. The reality was that one of the major draws of this job (beyond a steady paycheck, paying the bills, eating, etc.) was that it would give me a really good opportunity to get some really good management experience. That meant that I didn’t have that experience going in and I was likely to be beaten out by someone who wasn’t looking for a job to let them grow as much as I am looking for. It is also extremely unlikely that anyone is looking for the same rates as I am either. That makes me that much harder to hire. So I am happy even though we didn’t get the result that we had been hoping for. Thank you, everyone, who was praying for me. I really do appreciate it. We were very hopeful for this job but at the same time we were very concerned that this may not have been the best time for me to have gotten a traditional office job when the company has so much going on so we are looking at this decision as having answered that question for us.

Art and Danielle stopped by this evening to pick up some furniture. They took the dresser that Min has been using for the past year or so that we got from dad. It was the spare bedroom dresser that my parents had all through my childhood. They also took the nightstand for Michael. It is the nightstand that I had all through growing up. It is cool that Michael will end up using it.

Tammy and Lisa stopped by to drop off Tammy’s laptop when they were on their way through heading to Erie for the wedding.

What a day today turned out to be. It really started yesterday after I posted and left the hotel. I got up early yesterday and drove over to John’s around 8:30. He ended up having one disaster after another and we didn’t manage to leave to go to breakfast until 10:30. We had a quick breakfast at the Double T Diner and then drove up to the airport to pick up someone for work. John doesn’t have his Chrysler anymore – only his two seaters the Camaro and the Corvette. So we took his H1 Hummer. He hasn’t been driving it very much and wasn’t sure how it was going to work. We got to the airport just fine. We left BWI around noon to head into DC to work for the day. I didn’t really have to work but I was along for the ride. Unfortunately the Hummer broke down long before we got into DC and we had to drop it off at the Hummer dealer and wait for Curtis to drive up to pick us up in his car.

So by this point the day was already heading for disaster. We did manage to get some work done before we had to rush back to Annapolis so that I could get ready to go to work. We got to Annapolis at 5:00 – cutting it a little bit close. I had to be in Manalapan, New Jersey by 8:30. I got everything together and was out the door by 5:15.

Before I even crossed the Bay Bridge to get over to the Eastern Shore I got called from work. They were having problems in New Jersey and weren’t sure if I needed to go out or not. So I stopped by the McDonalds near the bridge and hung out for a while waiting for the go ahead. But my phone started running out of juice so I decided that it would be better if I was at least well on my way rather than sitting around in Maryland. So I headed out up MD 301 up the Eastern Shore and across Delaware and into New Jersey. I managed to get in by 9:00 but a couple of other guys had to go in and work ahead of me. I ended up not being able to start work until 1:00 am. I had been hoping that I could have been on the road back towards New York before midnight. So this was putting a major crimp in my style. I wrapped up just a little before 4:00 am and hit the road as quickly as possible. Boy was I itchin’ to get out of there! I didn’t manage to find a hotel anyplace convenient short of Ithaca so I decided to drive straight through. Luckily I was able to make it out of New Jersey before rush hour hit or I would have been really, really sorry.

It was a really long drive and I was totally exhausted the whole way. Around 7:00 I called Eric and had him talk to me to keep me awake for the last hour of the trip. They just found out that Amanda’s mom had a mild heart attack yesterday. They don’t know any details yet.

I rolled into Ithaca at 9:00 in the morning having been up and running for twenty six hours. I had called ahead to the Comfort Inn on South Elmira Street and knew that they had available rooms. Good thing that I did. I checked in and got a room for the day. I got to sleep around 9:30 or so. I was pretty delirious and I don’t remember much else at that point.

I was up at 2:00 and out of the hotel by 2:30. Nothing like four hours of sleep to make everything better. Actually, I was still totally exhausted.

I drove right up to Trumansburg and spent the afternoon up there with the Lucentes. I had been scheduled to be there much closer to noon but that wasn’t about to happen at all. I didn’t manage to get over to Varna to do some work over there which is the main reason that I was in Ithaca today.

Steve’s friend Brian had a heart attack this morning. It is going to be one of those days as well.

I left Ithaca and headed back to Geneseo. I was going to be back in time to meet Min as she got out of work but there was an accident out on 96 just south of Geneva and the road was closed for a large distance. So that caused me to be a lot later than I had intended to be. So Min got out of work and drove over to dad’s house and picked up Oreo so that we could get him home as early as possible. I beat them back to the house but they weren’t far behind.

Today’s update is going to be short and sweet. I am expecting to not have a chance to be on a computer for the rest of the day so I am doing the update first thing in the morning. It is currently 7:40 am. I am in the hotel on Old Mill Bottom Road in Arnold, Maryland. I am planning on checking out shortly. Then I am heading up to John and Michelle’s house for breakfast. John and I are going to “hang out” today until around 5:00 this afternoon when I need to leave to get up to Manalapan, New Jersey where I am working tonight on the final night of the Wegmans project. By the time that many of you read this, I will already be done with that project. It will be extremely nice to have a little time at home to relax without having to leave to go out of town every few days. And I can finally get caught up on a number of things. I am really looking forward to that.

I don’t know yet where I am going to stay tonight. I might play it by ear. I am going to be working in Ithaca tomorrow and need to arrive there as early as possible. I might opt to drive straight through to Ithaca tonight but we will have to see how long it takes me in Jersey and how tired I am after getting up at 7:00 this morning. I expect to be home around 9:30 or 10:00 tomorrow night.

Remember that I am still asking for prayer about this job in Rochester with Fujifilm. Tomorrow is the decision day – or so I am told. It is possible that the decision will be to do a sixth round of interviews eliminating one person and only having two of us (or them.) But hopefully we will know definitively sometime tomorrow. It will be a relief to know one was or the other but Min and I are getting very hopeful that I get it. It really sounds like it would be an amazing opportunity.

Ok, I am signing off for the day. I will post, probably, when I get back to Geneseo tomorrow. I will probably post any updates that happen tomorrow from the road at SGL2 since they give me a way to post from the road.

Happy Anniversary to Dominica and I!! Two years today!

Unfortunately, for our second wedding anniversary Dominica and I don’t get to see each other at all. I called her from Wegmans in Virginia at 12:15 this morning and caught her just starting her shift at the hotel in Geneseo and wished her a happy anniversary. We won’t get a chance to see each other until Friday.

I got up at 11:00 this morning. Six hours of sleep. Not bad for a project day out of town. More would have been nice but I needed to get moving and get connected with the world again. Min is at class this morning. She took dad’s car and hers went into M&R in Geneseo to get the brakes fixed. She and dad had breakfast this morning and he is staying at our house with Oreo while she is at class. And hopefully she will be able to pick up her car before he has to leave.

I wasn’t able to get a hold of John Nicklin early this afternoon so I just hung out in the hotel. I am generally pretty amiable to just hanging in the hotel. It is nice and quite and no one bothers you and I am able to catch up on SGL easily enough. I emailed and called John Stagno too to see if he was around. I haven’t talked to him in months (since January!) but the last time we had talked we said that we should get together when I came through town with Wegmans. I didn’t even remember that conversation but I found a copy of the email just a few minutes after I had called him to get together. How coincidental is that?

Oh, Andy picked up his new car today. He bought a 1998 Buick Regal from John Holtz. Almost identical to my dad’s car. Or so I imagine. I haven’t seen it yet. Obviously.

As I often am… I was tempted by some television and a Domino’s pizza. Annapolis has been my traditional Domino’s location for many, many years. I turned on the telly and there was As Time Goes By, Season Four, I think.

I got to see Ed McMahon doing horribly cheesy local Ford dealership commercials. To think, Ed used to be the idiot sidekick on the Tonight show. Now he isn’t good enough to spit shine Andy Richter’s boots and Andy can’t even get any good work. It wasn’t just a local Ford dealership but one of those used cars with credit for anyone places. They even had weird fake callers calling in to ask credit questions while they video of the caller sitting in a dark room with low backlighting so you can only see a silouhette. The infomercial inspired used car ad. The lowest of the low. And we all thought that there was nothing lower than Publisher’s Clearing House.

Are You Being Served? came on too. It is just like being home! Nicklin called at 3:00. He has meetings until 6:00.

John called just before 4:00 and I drove up to the southern edge of Baltimore to meet him up there between meetings. We managed to hang out for about half an hour before he had to go off to his last meeting for the day. I stayed at the bar while he was at his meeting until a little after 6:00.

While I was waiting for John, I got a chance to talk to someone about the interview that I had last week. We don’t have any update yet but everyone that is going to be interviewed has been interviewed and we are told that we will get results on Thursday. So only two more days of prayers:)

We went over to John and Michelle’s and hung out for a little while. I haven’t been over there in forever. John has a new Hummer that I haven’t seen yet. I knew that it was there but haven’t been down to Maryland yet to see it. They also have a new dog that I didn’t know about. He is a ten month old, very large weimaraner. We watched Constantine with Keanu Reeves. It was okay. Weird and cheesy but watchable.

I got back from the Nicklin’s and watched some more telly. It isn’t often that I get a chance to watch anything so it is a nice change from time to time. I managed to catch a hilariously funny Iranian/British comic. His name is Omid Djalili and he has been in movies like Notting Hill and The Mummy. He is one of the funniest stand up comedians that I have ever seen. You can check him out at Omid-Djalili.com.