Sheep Guarding Llama

I woke up on my own at 4:45 this morning and was wide awake and so decided to just get out of bed and get started on the day.

I had a lot done this morning, including two bowls of cereal, before Min’s alarm even went off for the first time – which is pretty unusual for me.

Tomorrow I have to teach Min’s computer classes for her so that she is able to teach her regular seventh and eighth grade classes. So today I have to get all of my lecture materials ready for class tomorrow so that I will have the time to teach during the day. That ate up a lot of my day.

We ordered some new equipment for the school today that will give me some projects to work on next week. I have to install a new firewall at the school as well as attempt to fix their laser printer. They have a large Konica Minolta MagiColor 2200 printer that needs a new drum installed. We haven’t seen the printer work yet but we are very hopeful that it will be really awesome. It is even a networked printer.

Eric and Amanda were supposed to come over tonight for our “Love Is A Decision” video series but I decided that I was far too swamped with work to do anything extra tonight.

Dad came over and took Min and I out to Denny’s for an early dinner. He had to get down to visit with grandma so he couldn’t hang out.

I was actually home and in bed by a few minutes after one this morning. Boy was that ever nice. I managed to get a full night’s rest too. I didn’t have to get up until close to ten. I needed the chance to catch up a little bit. I am not as young as I was when I used to work crazy hours. I don’t adapt nearly as quickly anymore.

I did some cleaning around the house today and collected all of the trash to take out since today is trash day. I managed to finally get caught up with all of the cardboard that has been collecting in the garage and get that out. Boy it is nice to have that space back in the garage. I have really been needing to do that.

I headed up to Rochester just a little after noon. I had a busy morning and had to swing by Dunkin Donuts at the Hess in Avon to get some lunch. I went up to Rochester and stopped by the hospital to help Eric out with his new desktop that he installed there this morning. It is a PIII-1Ghz machines which is a massive upgrade from his PIII-450 that he has been using. One big drawback, though, is that this new machine only has 128MB of memory and it is almost unbearable to use.

Craig, or the Evil Monkey Man as he likes to be called, called me at 1:45 to ask if we were still on for 2:00. He had forgotten about us getting together today until his alarm went off while he was at home just fifteen minutes before we were supposed to meet. So we rescheduled for 3:00. Eric and I ran out because I had a couple of things that I needed to do and he needed to go to 84 Lumber to look for metal studs – which, of course, they don’t have because they are a lumber house not a metal studs dealer. We swung by Hollywood Video and looked to see what they had used because their prices are down to just $8 for a used movie now which is pretty good. I got one French film and one Mexican film and on English film but I don’t have the movies in front of me and I don’t remember what it was. Then we ran over to the Chili Super Walmart and shopped really quickly because I was looking for a specific headset for my Mac Mini but they didn’t have the one that they advertise online so we took off without getting anything.

I met up with Craig at The Spot on East Ave. at 3:00 and we hung out there until about 4:30. Then we walked up the street to Havanna Joe’s and met up with some of Craig’s friends. We had a few drinks there and then walked up to Salinger’s to meet up with other friends. I called Min on the way over and she decided to come up to the city to have dinner with me. So we arranged to meet at Borders. Craig or “The Evil Monkey Man” called his fiancee (they are leaving to go to Mexico on Monday for their wedding) and she decided that she wanted to get together for dinner. So I went down to Borders and met Min down there and we did some quick shopping. They didn’t have what I was looking for so we were only there for a few minutes. Then we went over to the King and I and met up with Craig and his fiancee and had dinner. We had a really nice time and ended up hanging out until the restuarant was closing.

Min and I got home close to 11:00 and decided to go straight to bed. She has to get up at 6:30 in the morning so she needs to get to sleep fairly early.

Bear with me for the next six months. Doing updates while working the overnight out of town is really tough. I have a lot of work that needs to be taken care of during the day and at night I have no Internet access so even when I write the updates they are very difficult for me to post. I am writing today’s post from the back office of the Wegmans grocery store in Webster just East of Rochester. This is the store that is located in the parking lot with the restaurant that Josh used to manage many moons ago. We have gotten the migration process down to a science at this point and there is very, very little free time for me so I will do my best to write as much as I can while I am here. I am already way ahead of things and waiting on the computers so things are going well. I am able to leave as soon as I am finished so I am trying my darndest to get the process smooth.

Min was up and gone this morning and I didn’t even realize it. I was dead to the world. I took one or two phone calls during the morning but don’t remember them very well. I got up around 9:30 which gave me about six and a half hours of sleep which is really good. It is just difficult because my schedule feels all shifted. Although, if we manage to really get this process down, it won’t affect my schedule all that much since I am home consistently only an hour or two after I would normally be going to bed if I wasn’t out working. So really, this is really good for me.

I didn’t go anywhere today. I did the laptop on the kitchen table thing again since that worked so well yesterday. I wasn’t nearly as productive today, though. I had a headache most of the day and that kept me from doing anything very mentally strenuous. That leaves me with a little bit of work that I have to do first thing in the morning tomorrow before going up to the city in the afternoon to get coffee with Craig and then probably hang out with Eric.

I did manage to read at least three chapters of the Purpose Driven Life today. I am three chapters behind Min and pretty well on track for being caught up in time for Friday’s Bible study. That is a lot of reading to be catching up on and the book is very slow moving so it is very tough to stick with it and to be able to retain anything.

Min got home late from school today: lots of paper that needed to be graded. Today was easier than yesterday. She got in around 4:15 and realized that National Treasure released today. So we called the Millen’s to see if they wanted to come over and watch it with us. They have Rachel tonight so their time was more flexible. Eric came straight over from work and Amanda came over with the girls as soon as the kids that she babysits were picked up. Min and I ran out to Wegmans and ordered some pizza and ran over to Walmart and got the movie while the pizza was being made. We also noticed that the new version of the Phantom of the Opera was out with Emmy Rossum so we picked that up as well. Emmy is the girl from Passionada which was really good.

We watched the movie just in time for me to run out the door and get to work. Luckily I am still in the Rochester area this week. I don’t think that I have the energy to be out of town quite yet. I am hoping that next week is local too. Next week I have to start working three nights instead of two but I can’t complain since I am on a flat rate and got two weeks of two days each in right at the beginning. That really worked out in my favour.

As you may have noticed, I did get a chance to do some serious update work while at the office tonight. The updates for two weeks ago are very short and I will fill in details if I think of anything else but I think that, at this point, that that is rather unlikely. My memory gets fuzzier and fuzzier more and more quickly these days.

We had to be up very early this morning because we were meeting dad for breakfast at 7:00 at the Omega Grill so that Min could get down to Castile to teach by 8:30. Today is her first full day teaching.

Min took off to go down to the school and dad took me home. I walked up the driveway, put my key in the door, pushed forward and the door didn’t open. Instantly my mind clicked: Deadbolt! We don’t have a key for our deadbolt. I don’t have the garage door opener that Min used to get us out of the house this morning. Oh no! I took off running like a madman trying to catch dad before he was out of the driveway. It was all that I could do to catch up with him. I knew that he didn’t have his cell phone on so if I didn’t catch him on foot that I would be out of luck. I chased him all the way to the end of the “street.” Boy did I run like crazy. I really didn’t think that I was going to catch him! Right at the end of the driveway he saw me in the rearview mirror and pulled over and waited for me to catch up. He ended up having to drive me down to Castile to get the garage door opener from Min. So we left the house at 6:55 for breakfast and it was around 10:15 when I managed to finally get back into the house. That made for a different morning than I had been expecting.

My laptop was already in the kitchen and being the lazy computer guy that I am, I just worked from the kitchen for the rest of the day. I managed to be quite productive today at home by myself. I even managed to get some cleaning down around the house as well. I tend to be very productive when I am at home all by myself. And being upstairs makes it that much easier for me to clean up around the house since I can see the mess and can just take a minute out of whatever I was doing to do something about it. The carpeting in the living room had some scrubbing that needed to be done and I took care of that. Min was very happy.

Min got in from teaching around 3:30. She sat in the living room with me while I worked at the kitchen table and she studied for her A+ exam in the living room. She was exhausted tonight so we just went out to Wegmans for a quick and easy dinner. Our Federal tax return came in the mail today and so did Andy’s. I am not sure as to the benefit of telefiling if we were able to telefile two days before Andy did his taxes and he didn’t telefile and his came the same day as ours. That means that the telefiling added two days or so to the process instead of removing some days. That isn’t very good. That is a service that you have to pay extra for!

I am working at the Marketplace Wegmans tonight. This is the second closest Wegmans to home for me. Working the overnights in small offices full of computers reminds me of the old days of the Waste Watcher when I used to work long hours into the night at Washington Hospital Center – often not leaving until the sun was rising in the morning. Then driving back to a hotel and getting some sleep. That is exactly what I will be doing when I am working at Wegmans outside of the Rochester area in the very near future.

Wow am I behind here. This past week has been so hectic that I just can’t get to everything. I have only barely even been able to set up my laptop more than once or twice to even think about doing any updates. I did a couple of audio posts over at SGL2 this week to keep people up to date that at least I am still alive. Everyone will just have to hang tight over the next few days as I catch back up – hopefully. I am working in Rochester again tomorrow night so I have a short day in which to write and I have to pack up the laptop as well so that makes it extra tough. At least I am not going to be out of town quite yet.

Min was awfully tired this morning but we still managed to get out of bed and get out to Perry to go to Sunday School at 10:00. She shouldn’t be complaining about being tired because she kept telling people at church that she would prefer an earlier church service to the one that they do. I don’t think that we would ever make an earlier service.

After church we did our weekly run to the Silver Lake Family Restaurant in Perry with dad. It is nice to not have to rush out of church and then rush to eat lunch because Min has to get off to work. Now we get the opportunity to spend our Sundays together as well. Of course, losing her income isn’t fun. But at least we get to see each other a ton more often then we did before.

From lunch we drove up to the city and did some banking and paid a bill at Home Depot that we needed to get taken care of. Then Min went over to JoAnn Fabrics and I went to Borders. I found a really inexpensive copy of the New Revised Standard Bible that I picked up as well as a cool duo-tone copy of The Message which is a modern paraphrase that I have been looking for. Min stopped by after she was done looking at yarn because she was looking for a Bible that she would feel comfortable writing in to use for notes during Sunday School. It took her a while to find one that she really liked but eventually found one.

Andy took off some time while we were out at church or lunch. He is gone for five days up to North Bay in Canada. So, Min and I have the house to ourselves for the week. It is always weird having him gone because he doesn’t leave very often I get used to the house never being empty. I am pretty sure that he is in the house significantly more than I am.

We got home just in time to order some pizza and head out to pick it up and take it down to my grandma’s in Leicester. The family tries to eat together on Sunday afternoon’s but we rarely get to participate because Min has had to go to work so often. Grandma has been really sick recently. She got broncitus and is barely able to get oxygen. She has been in pretty rough shape for the last several days. We got Pizza Hut in Geneseo and headed on down there.

We had a good time hanging out with the family. We were there until almost 9:00. We came home and I had some work that had to be done over the weekend to get to and Min had plenty of studying for her A+ exam that she needed to do so she got to work on that. She is trying to force her way through that material but is having a really hard time.

Okay, a short update for today but at least it is better than nothing. I will be doing my best to get the last several days filled back in so that people can catch back up with my crazy life. Thanks for hanging in there. Remember that I do have other blogs that I am maintaining as well and you can feel free to check those out and on those you can even leave comments.