Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is the big company Christmas party in Annapolis. Eric, Amanda and Min drove down from New York this morning to meet up with everyone in DC for the party. As soon as they arrived, we hit the road to do some last minute shopping for the party and then headed to the hotel (we all stayed at the hotel to be sure to be able to get some sleep) to get ready for the party. I was hoping to be able to fit into my tuxedo that I used to wear back when I was much younger but I just didn’t fit into it anymore, so I had to wear my suit.

The party went really well. About thirty people showed up, mostly from DC. We played greed and handed out presents and there was even a door prize of a DVD player. There was a lot of food and everyone had a really good time. It was nice to see such a good turn out.

For Christmas, I got John a D-Link Wireless Ethernet Router for the house. He has been talking about getting one and it will make my life a lot easier because I always need to use a wireless laptop and Zaurus and Eric needs to use one too so it seemed perfect. We will have to see how well it works.

I REALLY wanted to sleep in today but we have a meeting at the hospital first thing this morning so I had to get up at 5:30 to be able to get in on time. I had to stop by the grocery store and pick up some soy milk and vitamins because I was starting to get run down. It is really hard for me to find enough protein when I am in Maryland. I ended up getting stuck in a huge traffic jam and being late to get to the meeting. But we got done what we needed to get done and the day was a but success. We have been putting in a lot of work down in DC to get some new systems up and running and it looks like they are finally working. Eric and I won’t be returning until the New Year so we hope everything runs smoothly until then.

I got up around 6:00 and headed into the office to get some work done that was needed there. We are implementing the new signature pad at the hospital that everyone has been working on and I need to be there during the day to get it all done. After work, Phil, Wilfort and I went to Island Jim’s to visit JJ and the gang. We were there (talking about work, or course) until 9:00 or so. Then I headed back to the office and worked until 11:00 and then drove back to Annapolis.

John woke me up at 1:00 am this morning (after only four hours of sleep after only 2 hours last night) and we quickly showered and jumped in the car to drive to Anderson, South Carolina. The trip is approximately nine hours one way. We grabbed some quick food at a Wawa. John drove about two hours and then I drove the next seven, all the way into Anderson. John had a meeting that he had to get to and I had some work to do at the hospital. We stayed about three hours before we hit the road again to head back to Annapolis (yup, down and back in one day.) I drove about six hours on the way back and made John drive the last three hours because I was just too tired to drive any farther. We got back in around 1:00 and went straight to bed. What a long day.

I ended up not being able to leave Ithaca until 10:00 pm last night so I didn’t arrive in Annapolis until 3:15 am. That really sucked because I had to be at work in DC at 7:45 am. I managed to get into bed and fall asleep at 3:30 am. I brought an alarm clock with me to make sure that I would be able to get up when I need to (after just 2 hours of sleep) but the alarm clock is old and apparently died during the trip down to Annapolis because it didn’t go off (I checked it thoroughly, there is only one on/off switch for the alarm and really nothing else, the clock is dead.) I was really lucky that I happened to wake up at 5:29 and was watching as the clock flipped to 5:30 and didn’t go off. So, disaster was averted (I could easily have slept until 10 or later.) I showered and hit the road by 6:15 and arrived at the Anti-Defamation Leagure by 7:30. We ended up not having our whole crew there until noon (I was the team lead) so we ended up working a twelve hour day to make sure that everything got done. I like the overtime but the day was LONG. I ended up working with someone who went to school with Zach in Buffalo and was the best friend of his Junior Prom date whom she called from work to tell that she was working with Zach’s roomate. We all had a big laugh over that, very small world. Another girl who was working there had gone to high school at Honeyeo-Falls Lima which was a bordering school to Avon where Loopy went and was my high school swim teams arch rivals in the county.

I made it back to the house around 8:00pm after a very long day and went straight to bed because I have to get up early tomorrow because John and I are driving to South Carolina.