Sheep Guarding Llama

Way behind again. Oh well. What can I say. I am super busy these days – not much that I can do about it for the time being.

I was super tired last night when I went to bed and was really looking forward to sleeping in this morning. But that didn’t work out so well. Min’s car’s interior light was left on last Thursday and when she went to drive it this morning it was dead. So I had to jump out of bed first thing this morning and drive her down to Castile so that she could get to school. Dad had been planning on picking me up at 8:30 this morning to get breakfast at the Omega Grill but obviously that would be a pain since I will be in Castile. We had a hard time getting a hold of him, though, because he no longer has high speed Internet access and is currently using dial up. So his phone was in use. But we eventually got a hold of him.

So dad met me down at the Castile school and we went over to Lorraine’s in Castile for some breakfast. Neither of us has been there in forever. We ran into Pastor Tom of Castile Baptist Church having breakfast there as well.

After breakfast I went back to the school and worked for about half an hour getting the wireless workstation in Min’s classroom working. Now that I have figured out the process of setting up those machines, I have it working like a charm. I think that wireless workstations are totally the way to go. They are so easy to deal with and so easy to move around to wherever you need them.

I had a short day at home today. I didn’t arrive home until almost noon and had to leave again to pick Min up in Castile at 2:30 so I didn’t have much chance to get anythng done and definitely no chance to get caught up on SGL at all. I have been falling way behind on all of my blogs. I will try to do what I can to catch up a little bit over the next week or so. Things are crazy, though, tons of work to do during the day and working the overnights with Wegmans adds a lot too. This coming Saturday is Josh’s bachelour party and next weekend is his wedding. So that will make things a bit more busy as well. And don’t forget that Star Wars III is releasing on this coming Thursday! Finally, the end of an age. The last Star Wars movie. We have only been waiting for 28 years! I ordered our tickets for opening day today. I have seen every Star Wars movie on opening day since 1983! In 1983 I saw Return of the Jedi on the Cineplex Oberon in Toronto with my parents. I was seven years old. I still remember all of the high schoolers from around the city that were on school field trips to see the movie and they would cheer when one of the heroes appeared on the screen for the first time and would boo when the villians appeared. Dad and I still reminise about that.

When Episode I released in 1999 (I believe), I hadn’t planned on going to see it because everyone was under the impression that it would be impossible to get into the theatres on opening day and that it wouldn’t be worth it at all. But in the late afternoon, Emily called me and said that she had managed to just buy some tickets for the opening show at midnight. So we decided to go. Andy had to work that night so he called Esther who was working the shift before his and he offerred to pay her $50 to stay for a couple of hours into his shift so that he could come in late. He had to work hard to convince her even with the $50 which had to be more than a shift of income for her at the time. Tanner was able to go and at the last minute Dana decided to tag along too.

Andy went with me down to Castile to pick Min up. I dropped off a computer and we drove to Lorraine’s for some dinner. Yup, that is twice in one day.

After dinner we got back home and I had just a little while before I had to head out to work in Rochester. Working in the city this week, the real city. All of the dumpy stores. Tonight is the store on Brooks by the airport. Tomorrow is Driving Park. I hear that that one is REALLY bad.

Min and I made it to Sunday School. Seems like every other week is about the best that we can hope for these days. We are thinking about going to the Avon Wesleyan Church with Eric and Amanda next Sunday because they are having a big special thing for the ending of the Purpose Driven Life groups that we have been participating in.

Min drove my car to church this morning. She is relearning how to drive a stick. She never learned how to transistion smoothly between gears or how to downshift during regular driving so we are working on all of that. So far, things are going pretty well.

After church it was off to Perry and the Silver Lake Family Restaurant for lunch. We have become very predictable these days.

We got home and had to run over to Walmart to get some gardening supplies. Then Min spent the afternoon in the “garden” along the front sidewalk putting in new plants and flowers that we had picked up yesterday.

Min and I headed up to the city around 6:00 to do some quick shopping at Best Buy and to get dinner.

After eating, we went over to RIT for the concert. I managed to not tell Min what we were doing tonight. Even as we were approaching the concert she had no idea what we were doing.

It wasn’t until we were actually into Gordon Field House at RIT and walked by a table full of Allison Kraus and Union Station merchandise that she realized what we were doing. She thought that it was cool but was only so excited about it. But then the concert started and it blew her away. She thought that it was totally amazing. Union Station is so incredible live. They are just such outstanding musicians. Min said that it was the best concert that she had ever been to. I think that I probably would have to agree. Of course, it isn’t quite fair since Union Station is like my all time favourite band already. But boy were they good. Totally worth the $100+ that it took to get seats. If they are ever around, I totally suggest going to see them. Even if you aren’t a big bluegrass or country fan, their musicianship is just so amazing. And for those of you who liked O Brother, Where Art Thou, that was them as well. If you are thinking of buying your first AK&US album, I suggest getting their Live album on SACD. It is a double CD set in Hybrid. You will just die. It is so awesome.

One of the musicians talked about going to shop at Stutzman’s in Rochester. Stutzman’s has been my guitar shop since I was about ten! They are the best. It was cool to hear them talking about Dave Stutzman. I have used him to work on my instruments for as long as I can remember.

Jeremy was here until 11:00 when his mom came to pick him up. I was actually up and moving before she got here which is unusual for me on a Saturday morning. Min got up a little after me. Today we are doing some shopping for garden supplies like flowers and mulch.

Min is also taking today as a chance to learn how to drive stick. So she drove to Warsaw. Not all the way into town. She started driving from the Boyd-Parker Memorial Park in Cuylerville and went to the top of the hill in Warsaw and had me drive in Geneseo and Warsaw so that she wouldn’t be driving in town. Jen Warriner, for whom Min is teaching until the end of the year, owns and operates a garden shop in Rock Glen just south of Warsaw so we went down there to get the stuff that we needed. We were probably there for an hour or so. We got about $70 worth of plants. Nothing big, just lots of little stuff to put around the sidewalk. I am trying to get Min to switch to perennials from annuals so that the garden is sustainable. This “buy it and stick in the ground” philosphy doesn’t work for me. I expect gardens to take some maintainance every year but I don’t expect to have to replace the plants. I have never understood the point of annuals. You almost might as well use plastic plants, I say.

After shopping we went to Glen Falls and got an early dinner at Susan’s on Rt. 19A. That is a really interesting place. The owner is apparrently the previous chef of the Glen Iris. Susan’s is a strange combination of family restaurant and fancy restaurant. (You know that you grew up in Wyoming County when you refer to something as “fancy restaurant”!) The food was really good. They have a smoked trout appetizer that is really awesome. We really enjoyed our dinner.

Up and moving first thing and off to Burger King with Min for our regular Friday morning breakfast. Today is my next to last day of teaching at Castile. Next Friday is my wrap up day. Just doing some typing classes and then doing the final day of my six week lecture series on XHTML and Web Design.

I had some computer problems this morning and wasn’t able to get all of the kids in. We had to push off the first classes because there were so many problems. But it didn’t take me too long to get things fixed and back to working the way that they should be. Boy it would be nice if we were able to use machines that weren’t quite so flaky. That would make my life a LOT better. Actually, the problems this morning were mainly caused by me doing some configuration changes. I added one of our Netgear firewall units to the network and it ended up killing the main server for a while which caused just all kinds of problems. I had to lug one of the monitors up into the hall closet ceiling where we keep the server and work from a ladder for a while while I got the server running correctly again. So it was partly my fault. But only barely. It shouldn’t have reacted that way. There was even an “oops” error on the server waiting for me. But the cool new feature that we have now is that there is a VPN connection between my office here in Geneseo and the school so it is TONS easier to administer the school now and it is possible for those of us who are teaching at the school to be able to connect back to the house network so that I can work just like I am at home but more slowly. That is really important for me since I tend to loose an entire day each week because I am down at the school. Now I am able to work when I am in Castile. I also added the wireless network today so that I can add in the wireless workstation into Min’s classroom. That is a really cool new feature. And my laptop works wirelessly now too when I am there. Very cool.

I had to spend a considerable amount of the day today working on getting ready for my lecture this afternoon. I just get no time at all during the week to be able to work on these projects. It makes for really frustrating Fridays. But it keeps me busy and the days pass at an incredible pace.

Tonight’s lecture went pretty well. We did so much hands on examples that we didn’t even manage to make it through all of the actual material that I had prepared for the class. But that makes it a little bit easier for me next week since I have some of this week’s class to cover so I don’t need to produce as much material for next time. But it only helps a little bit.

After the lecture, Min, Dad and I went to the Silver Lake Family Restaurant in Perry for some quick dinner. The SLFR and the Omega have really become our two places to eat. It really shows how important having good, cheap food can be.

Tonight is the next to last night of our Purpose Driven Life Bible Study with Eric and Amanda’s church in Caledonia. That was from 7:00 till 10:30. After that we went back to the house where Andy and Jeremy were already embroiled in a warm up AoE2 match. They wrapped up and Min and I joined and we played three 2-on-2 matches. We played until about 2:00 in the morning.

I got up with Min this morning and Mary came over to pick me up around 7:30, just as Min was heading out the door to go to school. Mary and I went to the Omega Grill and got some breakfast. We hung out there until almost 10:00. That is so crazy that I finally found her again. Mary is always an enigma. It is unbelievable how easy it is to lose contact with her and then to always find her in the most random of places.

Updates Pending my Memory functioning again.