Sheep Guarding Llama

I had to get up at a normal time this morning because dad was meeting me for breakfast and then taking me up to the city (East Rochester) to pick up my car from Vincent Mazda. My computer, in the car, apparently died or something and had to be replaced. So now I have to drive the car for a few days (my trip to Allentown should do the trick) so that it will allow the New York State inspection computer to talk to it. What a stupid way to design a car. So, supposedly, I have a ten day extension on my inspection so that I can continue to drive the car during this time to get it able to be inspected. But the sticker on my car didn’t change any and I didn’t get any paperwork to hand to a cop if and when they pull me over. So I am not too confident with how this process works.

We had breakfast at the Omega, imagine that. I really do eat there four or five times a week on an average week. Then we went up to the city and picked up my car. I hit the bank on the way back to the house and deposited my paycheck. I really wish that I had direct deposit. But not many places are too keen to do that for short term contractors. Then I got back to the house and helped dad get Oreo ready to go home with him. Dad is watching Oreo the next two days while neither Min nor I are at home.

I had to take a shower and get packed so that I could get down to Bethlehem in time for work this evening. It is about a four or five hour trip down to the Allentown area. It is an easy drive: i390 south to i86 east to i81 south to PA Turnpike 476 south and there you are. Very direct from here, for the most part. No cities to drive through the entire way unless you include Scranton which you can bypass if you take 476 out of Clark Summit but I prefer not to because they have all of those annoying automated toll stops along that route. I feel that it is better and faster to just take i81 right through town and pick up the pike on the south side of Scranton and only get the regular ticket tolls down there. Min did most of my packing for me. She is much better at remembering everything that I need than I am.

I managed to get on the road just a little after 2:00. Min had to go to work at 3:00. She is doing her regular Monday/Tuesday double double again. I was excited to get onto the road because I am part way into Bill Bryson’s book “A Walk in the Woods” and I want to finish it. I am also excited that Audible has a bunch of Bryson’s books available. I am always on the lookout for good stuff to read. He has a number of books that sound good.

I finished my book just a little before arriving in Allentown. I got to the hotel a little before 7:00 but it turned out that there wasn’t any Internet access there and they hadn’t called me or put information on their website. I wonder why they take my phone number when I make a reservation if they aren’t going to call when the services that I booked for have changed. It isn’t like I booked the room a long time ago either, I booked the room early this morning. So I cancelled my room and drove on to Wegmans so that I could get some Internet access and try to find a hotel. Luckily, Wegmans was just around the corner. I tried a few hotels and finally found a Comfort Inn in Easton. I ran over there before starting my shift and got checked in.

Jeremy ended up hanging out late today. Sara was working until 4:00 at McDonald’s so he hung out late enough for her to pick him up and take him home. Min, Jeremy and I went over to the Omega Grill for some lunch before Sara picked him up.

The latest season (season three) of Monarch of the Glen arrived from Amazon today. Min and I have been patiently waiting for this season to come out. It is one of our favourite television shows. We ended up going down to the theatre and watching half of the season in a single go. The BBC doesn’t normally do really long seasons but it was still a lot of television.

This afternoon, Min and I went over to the Ralston’s with Oreo to hang out for the evening. Art had some computer work for me to do and then we played some SongBurst and Trivial Pursuit. Oreo had a good time playing with Michael. He is very happy as long as he gets to travel with us. While we were there, Min discovered that Art and Danielle were selling a laptop for a friend of theirs. The laptop’s modem was dead so the person who had owned it wasn’t able to use it anymore and was selling it. Min’s birthday is coming up in two weeks so I bought her the laptop. It is the same laptop that I have except it is one model newer so it is a little faster. It is handy that we are able to swap batteries and power supplies.

Around 11:15, we swung through Leicester and picked up Jeremy so he could come over and play on the MUD. I didn’t manage to stay awake for any length of time and ended up going to sleep very early. For some reason, I was really exhausted.

Today ended up being a disaster. I left the hotel at noon in Scranton and headed up to Ithaca before going up to work in Syracuse. I took care of a few things around town. Then I went over to Steve and Pat’s and hung out for a while before heading up to work.

The real disaster happened when I got up to the store in Cicero. There was a mistake and I was supposed to be in Woodbridge, NJ tonight. I didn’t even know that they had a store in that town. I was so confused. I was sure that the mistake had to be mine but I couldn’t figure out how it could have happened. I had even called the day before to verify that I had all of the right information. I couldn’t believe that I had gotten it wrong. It was five hours travel time from Cicero to Woodbridge so we decided that it couldn’t be done and would have to be rescheduled. It wasn’t until after I had had my phone conference with everyone that I finally took the time to go through my paperwork and discovered that I had not been told about the store at all. I had no way to know to go to that store. It completely wasn’t my fault. Boy was that a relief. I had really felt like an idiot trying to figure out how I hadn’t known to go to Woodbridge.

The good thing was that I got to go home early and got to spend some time with Min before I had to go to bed.

I didn’t bring my CPAP with me on this trip so we will see how I manage to sleep without it. I forgot it when I left the house but had remembered it just outside of Geneseo but the way that i390 works around Geneseo it is a huge effort if you ever have to go back for something. So I thought about it and decided that I would give it a try without. It is only two nights and there is no one here with me to hear my snoring so I figure that I might be okay. Last night proved that that wasn’t the case, however, as I never slept more that two hours at a shot without being awake enough to get up and look at my cell phone to see what time it was. I got up at noon after only five hours of “sleep” without getting what felt like any rest at all. And, of course, once I sleep like that I start getting heart burn as well. I am not dreadfully tired today but we will see how I feel after working tonight.

I had a conference call scheduled for 1:00 this afternoon so I played on the MUD to pass the time. I am so glad that I am able to play that from here. That is really nice. I did notice one of Jeremy’s friends playing when I first logged on today too.

Around 2:00, a couple more of Jeremy’s friends got online. It is cool that people are getting into the game. It will be tons more fun if we get a few people playing all of the time.

At 3:00 I ordered myself some Domino’s Pizza. I haven’t had that in a long time. Domino’s has long been my travelling hotel room food of choice. Ever since Nicklin introduced me to their thin crust pizza like five years ago, I have been living on the stuff when I am away from home even though it tends to give me terrible heart burn.

I played the MUD a bit today. What can I say, I am addicted again after all of these years. I have so many found memories of playing on the MUDs that it makes me happy to play again after so long. It has been about eleven years since I first played a CircleMUD based game. Back in the summer of 1994 when I was attending school at Kettering University then called GMI Engineering and Management Institute. Then I set up out own game at Josh and my house in Greece, NY in 1998. And now, seven years after that, we are playing again. I can’t believe that this last break has been so long!

I went into work at 8:00. It ended up being a long night and I got back to the hotel right at 4:00am. Boy am I tired. A long night tonight and almost no sleep last night. And I have to be out of the hotel by noon. Ugh. I will be going to bed right after I call Min. She has three hours left to go before she is done for the week. Unless she works extra on Thursday. I don’t know her whole schedule yet. The one really nice thing tonight at work was that I discovered that I am able to play the MUD from work all night. There is a ton of time that I have that I have nothing to do and just sit in the back room waiting for the computers. The MUD is a perfect way to pass the time as long as it doesn’t end up tempting me to play instead of going out for a walk to get some excercise. But it didn’t tonight. I went out for my walk. Not as long as last night’s walk of almost an hour, but I get twenty minutes or more in tonight. I didn’t want to risk holding anything up considering how late we were already. But I did get a chance to MUD significantly while I was there and I am way ahead of Andy now.