Sheep Guarding Llama

I realized today that I left my house keys in the ash tray of my rental car from Enterprise. Oops. Hopefully they will be able to find them for me. There is nothing too valuable on there so it isn’t too big of a deal but it would be nice to have them back.

Dad came over and picked up Min and I to go up to Avon to get lunch at Peppermints. Normally we just eat here in Geneseo but with the college kids coming back to town this weekend, it isn’t worth the effort. Better to just get out of town.

Dad delivered our latest package of stuff and in it was Min’s new USB sound system for her laptop and my new Pocket PC. I got the HP hx2400 iPaq. It is really cool. I have really been looking forward to having a unit like this. I really feel that I need one with the way that I work. I have had some Pocket PC

This afternoon, Min decided that she really wanted to test drive the Kia after we had done some math and realized that we didn’t actually owe as much on her car as we had thought that we did. So we drove up to Henrietta and she took the car out for a drive. She was really impressed and really liked that the car felt just like her car but that it got 4 mpg better fuel efficiency which, with today’s gas prices, adds up pretty quickly. So we were up there for a while and talked about financing options. But, in the end, it was just too expensive to justify getting the Kia right now. But it could be a really good car for us in just a few months or maybe by first thing next year.

We got back home and had Art and Danielle order a pizza from Wegmans while we were driving back so that I could pick it up as soon as we were back in Geneseo. So I dopped Min off at the house and went and got the pizza.

Art and Danielle had already arrived when I returned with the pizza. They hung out at the house until almost 3:00 am. We played a couple rounds of Cranium – Min was very excited.

Today begins the seven day countdown to Andy moving out. Can you believe that he will be gone is just a week?!? Andy and I have lived together since 1998! Weird. He is moving to Clintwood Apartments in Brighton just two miles from his office downtown.

I went up to the city today and did some work at the UofR for Eric and then he drove me over to East Rochester so that I could drop off my rental car. Like an idiot, I left my house keys in the rental car’s ash tray. So now I have no house keys nor do I have the leather Johnstone family crest that I kept on my keychain ever since Min and I were in Nova Scotia for our honeymoon. There was nothing of any real value on there but it still sucks a bunch. I talked to Enterprise later and they hadn’t found the keys but they have a note in their system to check the ash tray of that car as soon as it is returned. Not much chance of getting them back, however.

After dropping off the car, Eric and I went down to Aja Noodle in Brighton to get some lunch. I don’t get to eat there often enough so I am always excited to get to go. I really get a craving for their Pad Thai in between trips.

After lunch we had to get up to East Rochester again to pick up my Mazda 6 that has been in the shop for two full weeks. There was some pump or something that was having a problem and needed to be replaced but they were having a problem getting a hold of the part. But it is finally done and thank goodness for warranties. Only 3,000 miles left before I am out of warranty. Ugh.

Most of the day was already blown so Eric and I decided to go down to Dorschel in Henrietta and test drive one of the new Kia Spectra 5’s that Min and I have been thinking about getting. Her car is already at 60,000 miles and she might be commuting to the city soon and she is definitely commuting to Canandaigua starting next week so a new car might be in order. I drove the Kia and was very impressed. It is practically an exact replica of the 2003 Protege 5 from Mazda. I mean everything is the same. Except that it is dramatically less expensive and comes with a longer warranty which is of great interest to me.

I got home around 5:30 and Min was out with her friend Rebecca from the Quality Inn having their nails done at the nail place next to Wegmans. So I got to work catching up on a few things while she was out. It was 7:30 before she got home and we were already supposed to be in Castile. So we went running out the door and had to first run back over to the nail place and pick up Rebecca and take her home before we could get out of town.

It was after 8:00 when we finally arrived down in Castile at the school. We were there for the Open House to show off the new High School Wing that had just been (or was just about to be) completed. We were really impressed, they totally doubled the size of the school with a seemingly simple addition. It is amazing how much more classroom space they have now. We also found out that the school has a more than 50% increase in enrollment this year which is very exciting. We ended up staying there until after 10:00 which made for a very long evening and we were hungry having skipped dinner.

After the Open House, Min and I and one of the senior girls and one recent grad went out to the Charcoal Corral to get some pizza before heading home. We had a good time hanging out and didn’t get home until around midnight.

Boy is it nice to be home. I left Erie at 11:00 this morning and arrived home around 3:30. But I had lunch at Wegmans in Jamestown and swung by Home Depot to pay off the line of credit that I have there. So that took some time out of the trip. Quite a while, in fact.

Dad is down at grandma’s all day today taking care of her to give my aunt Sharon the day off. So Min and I grabbed a pizza from Mia’s and took it down there and had dinner with them. I am lucky if I get to see grandma every other week so I try to make it down there when I can.

While we were visiting, a Re/Max hot air balloon came down in the field just behind the house. It was so close that I just saw the advertising pass in front of the window. Jeremy and I walked out into the field to say “Hi” and to see if they needed anything but they fired up the balloon and took off again before we managed to get out there.

Second day in the hotel. My first day is always a loss, more or less. But normally by the second day I am settled in a bit and am able to actually get work done. Today has been very productive. I also got a chance today to finally order my own birthday present (only half a year later.) I am getting an HP hx2400 handheld Pocket PC. I have wanted one for a really long time and finally feel confident that I have found one that is right for me. It isn’t a top of the line model but it seems to be the actually practical model that makes the most sense for me. The most important thing is that it has built in 802.11b wireless and bluetooth. That will make, I anticipate, the Pocket PC a really useful tool for me so that I am able to communicate with people without having to constantly be sitting at a desktop or laptop. So often, I find myself having to stay tied to computers just to keep in contact with people instead of being able to enjoy the living room, deck or yard (or coffee shop) because it is too much of a pain to bring my laptop to those locations.

Leanne corrected me today (proving that she keeps up with the site) and said that the Wegmans in Canadaigua sits on Rt. 20.

I decided to eat in the hotel today. The pizza I got yesterday was nothing to write home about so I decided to splurge on a healthy hotel dinner.

Dinner was excellent, I am very glad that I decided to try out the hotel fare. After dinner, I decided to take a walk out to Presque Isle and check out the views of the lake. I ended up not having nearly as much time as I had hoped so I only barely managed to make it to the isle but I still had a very enjoyable walk. I did find some incredible views and a condominium complex that I really want to get a condo in called the Presque Isle Shores.

After my walk I had to skedaddle off to work. This is my final night in Erie and tomorrow I am heading for home. It is just under three hours to home so I am hoping to be back around 2:00 in the afternoon.

I am posting this as I hit the road at just past 11:00 on Thursday morning.

Today is a hotel day. (Or as thr British would say, an hotel day.) Luckily I am in a nice, comfortable hotel. There is a restaurant in the hotel. I plan to treat myself tomorrow to some room service. If I stay here again, I want to stay in one of the even rooms 344-352 or 244-252 because they have interal balconies looking into the swimming and restaurant areas. It would be really nice to sit in the air conditioned “out doors” and work on my laptop instead of just being alone in my dark room writing in my diary. I am in the Clarion Bel Air hotel on 8th Street in Erie. I don’t know why I would ever have to come back to Erie but just in case I ever do, I will be prepared. I am planning on doing some sales trips this fall. Maybe I will be able to bring Dominica along with me and we could crash here. I got a room at the last minute this time and ended up with a smoking handicapped room. It is fine but not what I normally look for in a hotel room.

I tried to order some Dominos Pizza for lunch but discovered that the Dominos just up the road had gone out of business. So the front desk directed me to a local place that they recommended.

The pizza was good. Nothing special. I never did think of Erie as a big place for getting awesome pizza. It was cheap, however. But, of course, they forgot my blue cheese and they only had Coke, no Pepsi.

Luckily for me, the Wegmans that I am going to tonight is right down the road on Rt. 20, only a few minutes away. That makes things SO much easier. It is funny that there is a Wegmans here on Rt. 20 and there isn’t one anywhere on Rt. 20 in New York.

Today I am starting to listen to “The Basque History of the World” which is a pretty long book (read: good value) from Audible that I got a month or two ago and haven’t had a chance to start listening to yet. Luckily, most of the books that I have gotten manage to last me more than a week and often two or more which means that we are getting our books from Audible at a sustainable rate. Although it also means that I am not walking nearly enough as I should go through a book a week just while I am out exercising.

Besides going into Wegmans, my main project today is working on a commercial website project. There is always something that needs my attention and this week is particularly busy. I have two commercial web sites that need my attention, several internal sites that desperately need my attention that I have not gotten to yet and a big contract project for the UofR that I need to squeeze in. And somewhere in there I should drive home. Hmmm…

After work, I went for a short walk up to the peninsula that is not far away. Unfortunately, after making it all of the way to the peninsula, I discovered that it is a park that closes at dark and won’t be open again until morning. How annoying is that? So I turned around and came back to the hotel.