Sheep Guarding Llama

Boy am I glad to be working from home today. I need to have a day just here by myself. I have a lot of work that needs to be done today on the phone so I went down to the basement and got my office more or less setup so that I can work from down there. I have my laptop and my desktop computers setup on the desks and I have my new leather executive chair and everything so it is pretty nice to work down there. I have a lot of desk space compared to what I am used to because I have the three big desks that I had in the old house in Ithaca and I also have the desk that Dominica was using in the closet as her desk. So I have tons of space to spread out. Which is nice because I have to set a lot of equipment on my desk for a while until we get all of our racks and things in place down here.

Min went to her first broker’s open house today in Groveland. She ended up being the only real estate agent who showed up. But it was good that she went, gave her a chance to see a broker’s open house without any pressure. After her open house, she worked at home getting letters and stuff ready to go to people.

I spent a lot of the morning on the phone with the DC office trying to get their printer situation under control. They have a single user that can monopolize a laser printer for over an hour at a stretch and they have to print a lot of stuff because they use paper fax to get information to other offices (I know, how archaic!)

After Dominica got her new phone yesterday, we decided that I would get the same phone because it would be really convenient for us both to have the same model so that we would be able to share charges and other peripherals for them. And I really liked her phone (it is still a flip phone but better than the last couple that I have had.) So I ordered an LG VX4400 just like Min’s (it shoudl arrive in 7-10 days.) And I dropped my rate plan from 1600 minutes to 1500 minutes because I just don’t use that many and I might as well save a couple of bucks in the process. Especially now that we will have real phone lines in the house with long distance and everything. I am sure that I won’t be using my cell phone nearly as much as I have been in the past. So, the new phone will be paid for in just three months of the new service plan. My old Motorola Time Port is totally falling apart. It looks like crap and the buttons don’t work very well anymore and the antenna is bent and the phone turns itself off periodically which is really a hassle. I am really looking forward to getting a new phone. It has been two years and I have been saddles with crappy Motorolla phones for at least three years now, ever since Andy and I lived in Pittsburgh.

My real estate agent at Remax in Lakeville sent me a thank you card and a $50 gift certificate to the Villa Carlo here in Geneseo so Dominica, Andy and I went there for dinner last night. Neither Andy nor I have ever been there before; that is a really nice place. The food was great. Andy and I especially enjoyed their cream of mushroom soup.

After dinner, we ran over to Walmart and did a little shopping. Chicago is out so we picked up a copy of that because Min has been dying to see it for forever (well, at least since it was in theatres.) We ran into Nate’s aunt and cousin while we were at Walmart.

Time to get back to work after the weekend. I spent the morning working on the big Compaq Proliant 6500 that is sitting in the living room. I want to get it taken care of sooner than later because it takes up a ton of space in the middle of the floor. Min went into the office early this morning because she had a meeting to get to. But, after her meeting there weren’t any available computers at the office so she came home and we drove up to Rochester. I worked with Eric at the UofR for a while and Min went to the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors training class today for their new software. So she was there all afternoon and Eric and I spent the whole afternoon trying to put out fires at work. We ended up being quite busy.

After work, Min and I did some shopping in the city. I hit Borders and picked up the Exam Cram for the Security+ book so that I can prep for the test that I want to take this week. We also went to the mall and Min got a new cell phone because her old one was in pretty rough shape. She got a new LG flip phone – she is pretty excited about it.

We got back from shopping and picked up dinner at KFC/Taco Bell and took it down to my grandmother’s house in Leicester because my aunt and uncle and my cousins are on vacation this week. So grandma is home all alone this week with Peter, the cat.

Just a reminder: Nate’s Party at the Pond is August 30th in Trumansburg. Dominica’s Bridal Shower is also August 30th in Letchworth State Park.

Also! Dominica’s Birthday is THIS THURSDAY, August 21st!! Everyone is invited to come by the new house on Thursday evening around 6:30 to have some cake and ice cream. It is not a surprise party, Min knows people are coming. No presents necessary.

Don’t forget everyone, Min turns the big 25 this week! A whole quarter of a century. And don’t forget that Eric and Amanda are getting married this Saturday.

Min and I actually got up early this morning and it out to church at LaGrange. After church we headed up to the city to do a little shopping. We stopped and got some lunch at the Omega Grill in Geneseo. The Omega is Min’s favorite restaurant ever. We went to Walmart and we got a bunch of four and five shelf shelving units that hold between 720 and 900 pounds. We are putting at least one of them in the garage and at least two of them in the basement. We also picked up a lot of other miscellaneous stuff that we needed around the house like light bulbs and plastic bins. We are trying out some of those florescent light bulbs that go into regular light bulb sockets. They are much brighter than regular incadescent bulbs at a much lower wattage. So we are giving one of them a try in the basement.

After setting up some shelves and cleaning around the house, Andy, Min and I drove up to Avon and got some subs at Pizza Land. Their subs are really awesome. After dinner we went back home to Geneseo and watched Our Man Flint which is a really funny movie. Its sequal, In Like Flint is really bad. Austin Power’s draws a ton of material from the original Flint movies. Both Andy and Min fell asleep during the movie.

I have been working on taking my Security+ exam from CompTIA. I read the Passport book on it and finished that this week. I took my first practice exam this evening and got a 90%. On my second exam, I scored a 93%. I am going to try to schedule the test for some time this week so that I can get it out of the way. It should prove to be a good use of my time since I am still unable to get online this week. It will be good to manage to get it out of the way instead of waiting until I was actually able to be productive again.

This week I will be staying in New York. Eric and I have a lot of remote work to do for DC so I will probably spend a bit of time up at the hospital in Rochester so that I can be online. Thursday is Min’s birthday. I don’t know if she took it off of work or not. She doesn’t like to work on her birthday. Wednesday I have to be home and around the house all day because Frontier is coming at some point to install our new phone line and someone has to be here to make sure that everything gets taken care of okay. So that job falls to me. There is plenty of work to be done around the house that it shouldn’t be a problem. I have been working hard in the basement trying to get that situation under a little bit of control. I finally set up my main computer today. I have four desks set up in the basement now, power and lights.

Min brought us all breakfast this morning from Dunkin Donuts. Bob is now officially our first house guest to crash here. He got to try out the futon in the living room. Unfortunately, we all had to be up pretty early this morning. Andy was planning on going into work in Buffalo today but no one was answering the phone there so he ended up not being able to go in. Bob had to take off early to get to Cortland. Min went straight to bed as she was incredibly exausted.

Andy and I called Frontier to order Lightning Link today. We decided that we couldn’t manage to go any longer without some form of high speed Internet access so we but the bullet and ordered the fastest ADSL that we could get. John has been really impressed with the speed of his ADSL compared to Road Runner and the price was good and the connection will be in quickly so it seemed to be the right choice. We ordered the Max line so we will be getting 128Kb/s up and 3Mb/s down. That is way faster than RR gets you, they have 64Kb/s up and 1Mb/s down. And ADSL isn’t a shared connection like cable is either. It is much safer. We are still getting the big SDSL line but it is taking too long so we are going to get both. We figured that it would be nice to have two lines anyway since sometimes one goes down (plus we have a dial up line soon too.) The SDSL line is 768K up AND down. So we will have an absolute ton of bandwidth everywhere.

USAir called, they actually found Andy’s bag. They delivered the bag in the afternoon much to Andy’s delight. Andy and I also worked some in the basement getting the office together down there. We are a long way from getting it done but it is moving along. I need to get all of the wiring taken care of before the ADSL line gets in so that we will be able to work as much as possible as soon as possible.

Min and I had a bit of wedding stuff to take care of today so we drove out to Wyoming to meet with our wedding “planner” at the Hillside Inn. After that we headed over to my parent’s where I checked my email and picked up my mail and Min had some dinner.

Andy and I went to Mama Mia’s in Geneseo for some dinner. They have the most amazing pizza. They have a really greasy thin New York style pizza that is really awesome. We got the pizza and we watched Mickey Blue Eyes with Hugh Grant. That is a really funny movie.

Andy decided that he really wanted to see Bringing Down the House so we started watching that when Min went to bed. She had seen almost all of it the other night and finished just as we were getting in with the pizza so she didn’t feel like watching it again. It is a cute movie, Steve Martin does a really good job in it. It is noticable that he is really aging now, though. He has held on for a long time being youthful but the years are starting to catch up with him. Eugene Levy is really funny. One of his funniest performances.

Well, I am starting to do a good job of writing the updates but since I am unable to upload them no one can tell.

I drove up to Rochester and worked at the University of Rochester today. It is really nice to be able to see all of the messages that people are sending to me. Eric and I worked around the hospital for a while and then we headed out to look for some racks for the house. I need a bit of shelving for the garage and basement. It is really hard to find metal racking that can handle all of the weight that the servers will put on it. But we didn’t manage to find anything that I really needed.

Andy got home from Puerto Rico today. I actually drove past him as he was heading south down i390. So I honked and rolled down the window and we yelled to each other.

Andy said that Puerto Rico was fun but the trip was unproductive and really stressful. On his way home, USAir allowed a Puerto Rican family to bring a yard sale worth of junk onto the plane as carry-on. So, of course, there was no room for Andy’s only luggage, his small carry-on bag. The airline came and took his bag just minutes before take off and wouldn’t give him and chance to check or declare it. So, he knew that that would be the last that he would see of that bag. He didn’t even have any way to put his name on the bag. When the airline brough him his claim check ticket, they attempted to give it to another passenger because they weren’t paying any attention. Andy had to ask them for it or he would never have gotten it at all. Everything that he had worked on during the past week was in that bag along with all of his new clothes and toilettries. The bag was even new.

Bob drove up from Ithaca to hang out for the evening. He is the first person who has come to actually spend some time at the house. We all went out to Walmart to do some shopping and then we drove up to Avon to get some food at Tom Wahl’s. Bob has never eaten there before so he had to try the Wahl burger. After dinner, Min headed off to work and Bob, Andy and I watched MASH. I am a big fan of the original MASH movie.

Dominica managed to get the patio bar furniture put together tonight. We actually have some way to sit around on the deck now.