Sheep Guarding Llama

Dominica and I got up, accidentally, very early this morning. I actually woke up on my own at 4:30 am. That might be an okay time for Eric but it sure isn’t for me. I was up and dressed and showered and everything long before the in-room breakfast was delivered. The hotel was really nice; we stayed at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa which is now a Fairmost Property but used to be part of the old Canadian railway hotels that exists all along the old trans-Canadian train routes.

Yesterday, Min and I went to the Museum of Civilization across the river in Hull Gatineau, Quebec. That was a really neat museum; it is no wonder that it is the most popular museum in all of Canada. We spent most of the afternoon there. The drive up to Ottawa only took us four hours. We were surprised how little driving it took to get there. That included stopping at the border. The weather was awesome – you could see Ottawa across the river with Parliment and the federal buildings sitting right on the waterfront shrouded in fog. It was amazing.

After leaving the museum, we headed over and checked into the hotel and then we stopped by the lounge for tea. Unfortunely, they were out of tea so we just grabbed some appetizers and then we headed out to explore the ByWard Market. We ate dinner at this really cool litte Italian place in the market where we ordered way too much food and couldn’t possibly have eaten it all.

Today we went shopping for some shoes first thing in the morning because Min broke hers yesterday while we were walking around town. Her sole just split so we needed to get her something that she could walk in. We tried the Hudson Bay Company but they didn’t open till late so we did some book shopping. While Dominica got shoes I got books. She got two new pairs of shoes and I got books on World Wine tours, a history of the Celts, the Huns and the Goths and the Art of War abridged. Five books in all. Some really good stuff.

After shopping we went to the Ottawa Science and Technology Museum which, as it turns out, is a not very good museum that my parents took me to when I was very young. I remember having gone there after we were part way through it. Very little has changed since I was first there many, many years ago. The exhibits were not very exciting and many had totally inaccurate information and were completely out of date.

Dominica and I are hiding in Ottawa today. No updates for you! I will be back to work on Monday. Look for weekend updates then.

I finished building out new SAMBA server replacing our old Windows NT Server Gordon today. Gordon should be totally phased out of service sometime on Monday.

Actor Richard Harris dies today leaving five Harry Potter movies unfinished. It will be interesting to see who they get to replace him. The story goes that he turned down the role originally but he decided to take it because his granddaughter contacted him and told him she wouldn’t love him anymore if he didn’t take the part. So he did.

Last night, Min, Loop and I watched In Like Flint but it was pretty awful. The story line made no sense and the whole thing was pretty roughly put together. I wouldn’t suggest it to any but the most die hard Austin Powers fans.

Min and Loop finally succeeded in beating me in Age of Empires 2 tonight. We have played a number of 2 on 1 games and this is the first time that I have been defeated by two people. Eric is still the only person to have beaten me in a one on one match. Age of Mythology (AoE3) is due in stores on November 1. We have high hopes but low expectations. Microsoft has a pretty good track record with keeping careful watch over video games that bear their name but the premiss and some of the ideas in AoM seem pretty cheesy. But the screen shots look pretty amazing. We will see.

Min and I will be traveling to Ottawa over the weekend so don’t look for updates or to get a hold of us. I will also be working overnight Monday night in Syracuse so I will be pretty hard to track down on Monday as well. Tuesday I have a meeting with Eric.

Our reigning Llama of the Month contacted me today to tell me that she had been unaware of her appointment to such an esteemed position because she is currently without a computer and hasn’t been able to get online.

I have fallen a bit behind in getting the updates posted but they are all up now. Finally. I am working at home today trying to get a SAMBA server running on Linux so that we don’t need to have a Windows NT server in the house. I am making good progress and hopefully quite soon we will be using it full time. Then I am going to be selling off the old Windows NT server because it just isn’t enough for us anymore. We have become more demanding and the Linux machine just makes a lot more sense.

Loopy is still hard at work on the secret new project that he has been working on. He has been working on it for two weeks or more now. This is one of the longest stretches that he has ever put into a single project of this nature.

Miranda is due to arrive here in just over a week. We don’t know how long she will be staying but at least a week, I am sure.

I have new software for my Zaurus that allows me to use it to play Ogg Vorbis files and now to listen to streaming Internet radio. I am hoping that I get a chance to try out this new software today, I have had then for almost a week now and haven’t had a chance to try them out yet.

Dominica wants a rematch on Age of Empires tonight. I think that I am up to it. She came home from work and started playing Tropico. I think that she has played more of that game than I have by now.

Sara came over after work today and she, Min, Loopy and I went to A1 in Dryden for dinner. I haven’t been there for quite a while but it is a really nice place. They are always busy. They are definetly a popular place for such a small town.

Dominica and I are going to be heading up to Ottawa, Ontario on Saturday morning to get away for the weekend. She has never been to Ottawa and I haven’t been there for a long time. Ottawa is a really awesome city and we are going to be there very close to the peak season for the leaves but out of the normal tourist season so it shouldn’t be too busy. Ottawa is a great town and hopefully they will still have the Cows Ice Cream store. It is the nearest one to Ithaca and I am looking forward to getting some Cows Ice Cream. I have added a new link to the links page that takes you to the official website of Cows of PEI so that you can see their really cool merchandise. I have a couple of Cows T-Shirts. One or two from PEI from back in 1992 and a newer one that my mom got me from the Ottawa location a lot more recently.

Nate’s girlfriend and her daughter are coming out to Ithaca to visit this weekend. This will be Tammy’s first time out to the Llama house and her first time being exposed to all of the weirdness here (Tammy knows me but no one else in the house.)