Sheep Guarding Llama

More work around the house today. Tons of work needs to be done to get the company up and running in its new capacity. Danielle, Arti and Michael came over this afternoon to get some work done here. After they went home, Min and I drove up to Henrietta and went to the Gem Lab to look for engagement rings. We were there for a while and finally, finally found a ring that we both really liked. We ended up buying the ring and it is supposed to be ready for us on Friday afternoon. Min has had a ring for a while but it was just a temp ring waiting for us to get the house all taken care of so that we could go and get a real ring.

This morning I had to get up at a reasonable hour and drive up to Rochester to meet with the Volunteers of America in Charlotte. I have been asked to help them with their technology needs. I had volunteered to help them out some time ago, a year or more, back when Phil and Kate were still working there. After the meeting, I met with Eric and Min for lunch. After lunch, Min and I went around and looked for engagement rings. We still don’t have a real one. Min looked at a couple of places while I was at the meeting with the VOA but didn’t really find anything that she was interested in.

I had some work that we needed to do so we drove back down to Geneseo. I worked through the afternoon and then Min and I headed back up to the city to look at rings again. We found some that we liked but there was no financing at The Source even though we went there because they advertised that in the yellow pages. So no luck there. It was late by the time that we were done so we headed for home.

Back to the working week. Its just another manic Monday. This morning Min and I got up and headed down to Ithaca for the day. She has errands that she has to run down there and I had work to do with one of my clients. So I spent the middle of the day working down there and then the afternoon running errands around town. It was a very busy day. In the evening, Min and I drove down to Binghamton to meet up with my old boss from CTG/IBM days. Her family and us went out to the Olive Garden for some dinner.

I actually managed to get up early this morning, around 7:30. Only five hours of sleep. Min got in from Amanda’s party at Patti’s in Warsaw around 12:30 and went straight to bed. But it is almost 9:00 as I write this and she is still asleep as is Andy. Pete and Eric had to be down to Warsaw to set up chairs for the ceremony today at 8:00 this morning. That seems awfully early. Drew had to be at work at 6:00 am so he got basically no sleep at all, but he is young, no big deal for him.

Eric said that Access-4-Free’s Windows Dialing program is no good anymore and it can damage your computer. As far as I can tell from the web site, they still allow direct dialing without having to use that program. If so, they are still fine to use, just don’t download the program. If not, though, you will have to avoid them just like everyone else. Why can’t anyone make a good service and just leave well enough alone?

I was looking around at some of our websites today and it looks like NYSED.net has disappeared. Tim must have decided that it just wasn’t worth maintaining that site any longer. It hadn’t been updated in forever. None of us have heard from Tim in a while. Maybe he will email us soon as let us know how things are going.

By midday, Andy, Min and I were running around like mad trying to get everything taken care of for the wedding. It wouldn’t have been nearly so hectic if this wasn’t the first weekend of the students being back at Geneseo. The streets were packed with traffic going in every direction. We had to drive way out of the way to go anywhere.

We made it to the wedding just in time. It was everything that we could do just to be able to be there. We were really lucky that we didn’t miss it altogether.

The wedding was really nice. They did it outside by the village park in Warsaw. The weather was perfect – cool and bright.

They did an informal reception at the fireman’s pavilion by the park. They had a ton of food. It was nice to have a less formal reception because it really gave you the chance to walk around and talk to everyone.

THE AUGUST LLAMA OF THE MONTH IS ERIC MILLEN IN CELEBRATION OF HIS WEDDING TOMORROW!!

Just one more day to go until Eric and Amanda’s Wedding! Tomorrow at 3:00 PM for those of you who don’t know when it is. I know I am terrible at remembering these things.

Arti, Danielle and Michael came by this morning with bagels from Dunkin’ Donuts. Michael had a blast last night playing video games on Andy’s Nintendo Game Cube while the adults all hung out. Danielle and I had some work to do this morning because she is coming to work for Niagara Telecom as an Account Manager in the western Livingston County area. While we were working, Eric showed up with a computer that I needed to work on. So Eric, Min and Arti hung out for a little while and then we decided that we should all go to lunch at Tom Wahl’s together. So we drove up to Avon (Arti took the opportunity to drive my Mazda 6) and got some lunch. Min and I were the only ones who got to go home afterwards because everyone else had to go up to the city. Eric had wedding stuff to do and Art and Danielle were getting Michael a telescope so that we could look at Mars (Mars is currently the closest that it is ever likely to be to the Earth.) I have always wanted to get a telescope, a nice one with computer tracking, but have never really had a good place to put one. They take up a lot of space and heaven knows I have too much stuff that takes up too much space.

Min, Eric and Amanda went over to Warsaw this afternoon to work on decorations for the wedding. Min was working on Amanda’s wedding sneakers (apparently this is a normal wedding thing that I have never heard of before) this afternoon. Tonight, Min is going over to hang out with Amanda while Eric and his brother Peter are coming over here. We might go out to some bars or we might just hang out here. We are too old to do too much exciting stuff.

It didn’t take very long before the phone was ringing trying to get me to come down to Warsaw to help out with the setting up and everything. So I wrapped up some work and drove on down to Warsaw. They had barely gotten started by the time I got there (just running a little bit late, the original schedule was to start working at 3:00 and it was now 7:00.) I got there and worked for about half an hour but Min and I hadn’t had dinner yet and there was no vegetarian there so we drove over to the Silver Lake Family Restaurant in Warsaw, just up the street, and had dinner there. I got the EggPlant Rollettes and it was really good. I was really impressed. I haven’t been to the SLFR in Warsaw for ten years or more, I am sure. After dinner we returned and worked until 9:20. Then, Eric, Pete, Drew and I took off to hit the liquor store (the one in Warsaw by Allen St. is open until 10:00 on the weekends!!) and then drove back to my place in Geneseo. Andy was already home so we all sat around and talked until almost 2:00. Almost everyone had to be up really early in the morning so we didn’t go to late.