Sheep Guarding Llama

Okay, busy day today. Two clients in Ithaca who need to see me today and another that I need to stop by if time allows (when does time ever allow?)

I did a bit of work yesterday so as to have as much ready for today as possible. We have so many people coming on to our Desktop Assurance program that I have had to do a lot of work getting ready for all of them. It is very exciting though, we are really happy for the business.

I didn’t get a chance to actually get on the road until almost noon. There are always a million things going on around the house / office and I can never get to everything. I swung by McDonald’s and got some lunch on the way out of town. It was foggy and rainy and it ended up taking longer than usual to get down to Ithaca. The fog was actually pretty bad today, especially just north of Ithaca on the east side of Cayuga.

I worked all over Ithaca today and ended up having so much to do that I didn’t manage to get to the Lucente’s home until around 8:30 at night and didn’t manage to leave there until 10:00 or so. I decided to run up to Henrietta and visit Min at work for a little bit before heading home to get some sleep. I have to be up fairly early tomorrow, though, because I am going to the Microsoft show in Buffalo first thing in the morning.

While driving today, I have been listening to the book “Lies My Teacher Told Me” which is very interesting. It addresses the common myths, lies, omitions and falsifications perpetuated by the American high school establishment in the teaching of American history. It is a really long book and I am only a short way through it so I will let you know how it is when I manage to make it through a bit more of it.

For all of you instant messaging freaks out there who haven’t tried Trillian yet, it is time that you downloaded it and gave it a try. The new version is out, it is free, and it is worlds better than it has been in the past. The older versions were really slow in getting new features and weren’t always as nice as their individual component conterparts. But this new Trillian, IMHO, is way better than anyone else’s IM clients. My only real complaint is that they are not supporting the Jabber protocols yet so it isn’t all that useful to me and a lot of people that I know because that is what we use. So, just because you get Trillian, don’t expect to see me on there because I am almost never on anything but the corporate Jabber server. But, anytime I AM on regular public IM, I am definitely using Trillian for all of my chatting!

I have been working hard to get as many machines as I can out of the house one way or another. We have had a number of them leave recently to go out to lease. That is the ideal situation. Nate finally, last Wednesday, took his computer home that has been sitting here in my office for over a year! And Bob took one yesterday to borrow until he is able to buy Min’s Shuttle PC (we have decided that we are going to do what we can to eliminate all machines that we own that won’t qualify to eventually go out to lease.) Six monitors left last Wednesday and I expect a number of printers and other stuff is going to leave sometime this week. My office is really starting to open up a bit. There have been so many computers, monitors, printers, etc. sitting around here idle that it has really been tough to keep it clean and neat in here. So I am glad to see everything leaving so suddenly. My desk is practically clean now and I am able to sweep the floor again. By mid-January, before I go back to Wegmans, I hope to have a ton more stuff out of here including that huge floor standing server that we have in the server room. It would be nice to have some more space available in there as well.

For anyone waiting to install the latest version, 9.2, of SUSE Linux, Novell has stated that they plan to release the latest version for download on approximately January 15th. SUSE Linux is especially nice for anyone running on AMD’s AMD64 architecture (Athlon 64, Athlon FX and Opteron processors) because it completely supports the advanced features of the 64-bit environment instead of running old 32-bit Windows on such a powerful machine (hint, hint, Nate!) If you want to get the latest SUSE software, you can check for availability by going to SUSE FTP. Just click on the architecture that applies to you.

I was supposed to have an appointment with my foot doctor this week to have my plantar’s wart hyfercated on Thursday because we haven’t seen any progress with it for over a year. In fact, over last Christmas holiday, I had it hyfercated and by the time we took off the bandages, it was worse than it had been before. I ended up spending most of this year on Cimetidine (or Tagament for those of you who only know brand names) in hopes of that helping it and that did nothing. We have tried every trick in the book to get this wart to go away for the past three years and nothing has had any affect. But in just the last few weeks, the wart has really started to go away at an incredible pace. It coincided very noticeably with my switching to Protonics for my acid reflux. I had hypothesised that the Protonics might have an affect on it months ago. My theory is that the highly effective acid reducing properties of Protonics alter my body chemistry enough – by changing the way that I digest foods – that it changes the nutrient levels in my blood stream and it must cut out a forth of nutrient that is very good for the wart. Warts are a parasitic virus that feeds directly off of the blood stream so that is very possible. I believe that that is why Cimetidine works for so many people because, for most people, it really reduces stomach acid. I happen to be allergic to it so it doesn’t work for me for the acid or for the warts. I bet that studies would also find that people with acid reflux have a highly than usual tendency to have warts. So anyway, I am planning on cancelling my surgery this week because everything is going so well with my foot!

Min and I slept in pretty late today. We didn’t get up until almost 11:00, so we missed church. Min played The Sims 2 until about 2:00 in the morning. Then she started playing again as soon as she got up today. She is addicted already. She has to get all of her game play in before this afternoon because she has to go to work and there is no way that she could play that on my laptop.

I can’t believe how warm it is, we are in January already, typically the coldest month of the year and it is raining today. Raining and warm! I can’t really remember a January that was as warm as what we are seeing now. I kind of get the feeling that we aren’t even going to get a winter this year. December was nothing. I am sure that we will have some major blizzard in a month or so, but it won’t last.

Min decided to get right back into The Sims 2 as soon as she got up this morning to get maximum gaming time in before having to go to work. She is really addicted to the game. It is pretty cool though. Just before Min had to go to work, she and I ran out and got some McDonald’s for lunch.

I spent the day working down in the basement. I pretty much didn’t leave the basement all day. I did talk to Bob quite a bit though 🙂 Andy and Miranda went up to Red Lobster for dinner. Miranda is heading back to North Bay tomorrow. And Andy has to go to work again tomorrow. I will be working in Ithaca all day tomorrow.

I took a break from being in the basement long enough to run out to Wegmans and pick up some food for dinner. I got a microwave pizza but it had bleu cheese on it and it ended up being really gross.

The latest death toll from the Indonesian Tsunomi reached 155K.

Okay, I hope to be going to bed pretty soon so I am signing off and posting. Have a good night.

Wow, it is 2005. Of course, everyone is always amazed as every year passes. In reality, it isn’t all that amazing. We are careening out of control towards 2006 already, so don’t be surprised when that rolls around. I’m warning you now, it is right around the bend.

Bob & Lisa and Joe & Brittany camped out here last night and we all went over to Denny’s for breakfast this morning. We had a good time and hung out at the restaurant for a while but everyone needed to get home so we couldn’t loiter for too long.

We came back to the house and Bob picked up one of our computers to borrow for a little while. He has a stack of video games that he has gotten recently that he hasn’t been able to play because his computer has been too old to be able to handle them. So he is borrowing one of our lease machines that isn’t needed right at the moment.

After everyone took off, Min and I did some house cleaning but really the place wasn’t bad post party at all. I got The Sims 2 installed on Min’s computer and she spent the rest of the day playing that. She really loved the original and the new one seems to be quite a bit nicer. For one thing, it comes on DVD which is a huge bonus since the old one took SO many CD’s to completely install, it was really annoying. And the new one is rendered in 3D as well which is a lot nicer. The game seems like it is a bit bigger and more expansive. Min had only played it for a little while when she determined that this one was quite a bit more complex that the old one. Maxis really has a good strategy with these Sims games since they work so well for releasing expansion packs. In fact, the first expansion pack for The Sims 2 is due out in just a few months. In March, I believe.

A boyscout stopped by today collecting cans and bottles for a fund raiser that they are doing. He was very surprised when we turned out not only to have the bottles that were all over the kitchen but also a 55-gallon garbage bag completely full of bottles ready for him. We had over-filled our returnables container and were planning on making a run to turn them in today but they stopped by just in time. So it worked out really well for them, they probably made as much off of us as they did in half of the village!

I have taken most of this week off from work so today I am doing some to catch back up again. It works out well since Min is playing her video game while I work. She did take a break to cook dinner. Andy took a few hours out of his schedule and assembled the air hockey table that we received from Min’s family for Christmas. It is a really nice one. Right now, we have it up and running in the “basement” room, the one right at the bottom of the stairs between the theatre and the server room. I think that eventually we will get castors for it and will wheel it in and out of the sump area when we want to use it. That way it takes up as little space as possible but is still readily accessible. Andy and I played for about half an hour or so. Miranda is still here and spent the day playing the Simpsons video game that Andy has on his computer.

I am putting in a real effort to have the web site up to date in 2005. That is my New Year’s resolution. That and maybe keep the house a little bit cleaner than we have been. That is always a struggle. We attempt to use way too much of the house as living space and we end up not having any space that is ligitimate storage space and so everything spills into the living space.

My schedule this week includes: Monday working all day in Ithaca. Tuesday I will be in Buffalo at the Microsoft show. On Thursday I will be at the Rochester Microsoft show. I have to work in Perry at some point along the way. Whatever day I work in Perry, I will probably work in Castile as well. Dad and Min are going to the Microsoft show on Thursday with me. I think that Andy is going. And John Stephens is supposed to be going. So it should be quite the party. So it should be a relatively busy week.

I moved all of the December dailies out to the archives today (I left some dupes in here just so people could go back a few days in case they missed anything.) I have to apologize again, the last TWO seasons have been the two slowest seasons of SGL since the first quarter of 2002! I will definitely be doing a much better job of keeping up this season. I guarantee. In fact, I think that I may have already written more today than I did in the last quarter of 2004.

Andy and Miranda went down to the theatre tonight to watch some of the third and final season of the original Star Trek. Andy has finally completed his collection and has been working through them at a rate of about two episodes a night. He is really dedicated. I can’t really stay awake even through a single episode. They really are SO much more boring than I remember them being. I think that it might be better for me to just remember them fondly and not to watch them ever again because the more I see of them, the more that it gets ruined for me. I haven’t really seen the original series, more than one of two episodes, since I was very young.

I worked until pretty late. Min was so into her video game that she didn’t even notice so I figured that it was a good chance to get some work done.

Today is the fourteenth annual Scott New Year’s Eve party. That’s right 1990-1991 was the very first party at Arti’s place on Limrick. Bob and Lisa came up last night and so they are here today helping to get the place ready. I had a bit of cleaning to do before everyone starting arriving. Min left Frankfort early this morning to come back home for the party. She actually got home early enought that we were all able to go out to lunch together. We went out to the Omega Grill and Eric and Amanda came out to Geneseo to meet us. We had a really nice lunch and Eric and Amanda decided that they would come out to the party tonight after all.

After lunch we went over to Walmart and Wegmans and did some last minute shopping for the party. We needed some karaoke CDs because we have almost none from before. We decided that this year we were tired of doing the semi-formal thing that we have been doing the last several years so we decided to do a pajama party instead. We figured that that would be significantly different. But it helps to make everything less formal. It is easier to hang out if everyone is in their pjs.

We got home and the girls went to work getting food ready for the party. There is a lot to get done. The guys mostly worked on getting the place clean and set up. We didn’t manage to get ready until the very last minute, but what else would you expect?

Everyone started arriving around 7:00 – 7:30. We had a pretty decent turn out this year. The weather was good so that really helped. We really didn’t announce the party at all. This year has been so hectic that it was really our last priority to do anything big. The party was pretty mellow. It didn’t really get out of control at all. I guess the majority of us are starting to get to that age where we just don’t party like we used to. Its tough getting older.

For the most part the party was winding down around 1:30. I went to bed right around 2:00. I have no idea how long people decided to hang around after that.

Not only have I been keeping up with the site for the last few days, but I also remembered to finally take an entire quarter of the year and move it out to the archives. That should help make the page load a little faster, don’t you think?

Min left yesterday morning to go out to Frankfort so I have had the run of the house most of the week. Andy has been going to work and Miranda has been sleeping really late so I really have been pretty much alone all week. That is nice for a change. I have been so busy recently!

I had a bit of work that needed to be done today so I worked around the house all day long. Mostly I worked in the office but I also did some cleaning and laundry. Nothing exciting today, but I was pretty productive.

Bob and Lisa came up this evening to hang out before the party. We had been hoping that Nate was going to come over and hang out but that didn’t pan out. We ended up just hanging around the house all evening and relaxing. Bob and I made a run out to Mamma Mia’s at 2:30 in the morning and bought them out of pizza just before closing time.