Sheep Guarding Llama

Happy Memorial Day!

I slept in this morning and then headed into Washington Hospital Center to work with one of our managers there on the Waste Watcher. With all of the new managers, there is lots to be done. Mostly, little bits at a time so that no one is getting overwhelmed. I was in the office for a couple of hours before hitting the road to head out east to John’s place in Arnold for a relaxing Memorial Day party.

I got out to John’s house around 2:30. Tommy, Cookie and Cookie’s sister Karen arrived around 3:30. We hung out on the front porch for a while and then John went out to the grill and made a ton of hamburgers, veggie burgers and hot dogs. It was a very low key afternoon. It was warm and overcast making for a very sleepy day. Everyone left around 8:00 or so.

John, Michelle and I started to watch Almost Famous but gave up on the idea because the phone kept ringing and we just weren’t able to pay attention to it.

I made it back to the hotel room around 11:00 and immediately ended up having to fix a server again. I can’t believe how many problems we have. I spent some time on the phone with Andy and we think that we might have a decent idea of what could be the problem so I am going to look into potential solutions. Wish me luck. We got it fixed for now and are able to get work done again. It would just be nice to have the actual long term solution figured out so that we don’t have to constantly go through this on the same issue. I tried to relax and get some work done in the hotel.

I am going to be in Washington tomorrow and Wednesday and then head back to Geneseo Wednesday night. I am playing golf with Josh on Thursday. We are celebrating my dad’s birthday on Friday. Then it is Nate’s bachelour party on Saturday. Sunday, Min has to be in Ithaca and I will be returning to Washington. Just so everyone knows.

Sunday, the day to relax. I slept in late since I had worked late last night. I didn’t get up until 11:00. John had to get up around 5:00 and head out to northern Delaware to pick up a truck that Dave was dropping off. So he had a really busy day and didn’t get back to the house until afternoon. Michelle and I just hung out for a while until John got there and then I headed over to the hotel in Bowie to get checked in and to get everything settled there. I needed to get a little bit of work done and needed the hotel’s network to do it. I got to the hotel at 4:00. I have a king room this time instead of the two double beds which is so much nicer. I have a much better desk and chair arrangement here which makes working from the hotel a million times better. In the last room that I had, the desk was so high and the chair sank so low that it was really uncomfortable. And with only one bed, this room has a lot more open space in it. Plus it has a coffee table and a couch. Of course, they didn’t make them face the television which is weird, but I haven’t even turned the television on in so many trips here that I think that it is unlikely that I will be starting now. If the televisions had DVD players built in, I might take advantage of them. Or even if I could just plug a DVD player into the television. But since you never can, I never even think about them.

John and Michelle ordered some pizza and had me run out to Walmart to find something random to watch. So I went shopping and found the original movie Battlestar Galactica which was one of my favorite television shows when I was very young. I hope to get the original series on DVD as well. There is also a mini-series that came out recently and talk of a regular television show. Cross your fingers.

I got home late and pretty much went to bed. I was pretty tired.

Min decided to head out to Frankfort because her sister and the girls are coming early and she is able to schedule a couple of days out there. So she won’t be back to Geneseo until Tuesday night, I believe.

Today is another driving day. I left town around 7:00 this morning and headed south. I don’t mind these long drive days. The thing that gets me is the packing. I hate preparing for long trips. There is just so much to forget.

I arrived perfectly on time. I left Geneseo needing to be in Annapolis at 3:00 and I pulled in right at 2:57. Not bad timing for a whole day of driving. The rest of the guys were late to the meeting but we got things rolling around 3:45.

We did the manager’s meeting out in John’s boat. He got it last year and only yesterday did he finally manage to get it out of Deep Creek. So he has really been itching to take it out. We went way out into the Chesapeake Bay and had the meeting about a mile or two out from the Bay Bridge. The water was nice and calm. It was a perfect day to be out in the boat. We had a really good time. Had lunch out there and did some fishing. No one caught anything. I didn’t fish but everyone else did. I was too afraid that I might actually catch something and then have to do something with the fish.

After the meeting we went down with those of us with free schedules and we had dinner at Deep Creek. I had the Mahi Mahi with chipotle sauce. It was the best fish that I have had in years.

After dinner, Omar and I had to go into the hospital to get some work done. We ended up working there until about 3:00am. We got some good work done, though. I think that things are going well.

Once work was done, I drove back to Annapolis to crash at John’s house. They don’t have the girls this weekend and the hotel in Bowie is full. So I slept in John’s office. There wasn’t room to pull out the futon so I slept on the floor. I didn’t even notice so it was probably less hassle in the long run anyway.

My last day home and my last chance to see Min for a week. Min only slept a have day today so that we could spend the majority of the day together.

Min and I went to bed early because we both have to be up early in the morning.

I worked in the basement to get it ready to use today. It took a bit of cleaning but it is done. It is amazing how little we actually have stored in the basement once it is stacked neatly. There is a ton of just garbage cardboard down there that needs to go but that is an easy matter. I got the carpet rolled out (just half of the floor is covered) and got the speakers put into place. We moved the projector down and got the sound system set up. We are projecting about a 110″ image right now while we are testing out the room. It is really cool. We are just using the drywall for a screen for now but we are really looking forward to having a real screen in there. The image should be amazing.