Sunday. Our final day in Phoenix, Jeremy and I both fly out just after midnight.
We managed to get up this morning and get breakfast before getting a ride into the office. Then it was a couple hours of work from there before everyone arrived for an afternoon of meetings. Finally, we’ve been anxiously awaiting these.
We had a really good, but incredibly busy, afternoon. We managed to get a lot of our questions and concerns ironed out. Not all, but mostly. More meetings needed over the next few days.
We had a team lunch today at a really awesome pastry and chaat restaurant. Jeremy got to try a lot more new Indian cuisine. He is definitely getting hooked.
In the early evening we went back to our hotel so that we could shower, pack, and relax before our flights this evening. We moved from two of us flying, to four of us flying tonight, all about the same time. Jeremy and I got to watch a few more episodes of La Hipocondriaca before shutting down to leave the hotel.
It has been a long ten days here in Phoenix. We are ready to get home to our families.
We got a ride around ten over to the condo. Met one new person while there for twenty minutes, had drinks, and were off to Skyharbor for our flights back home.
The Uber dropped Jeremy off first as he is flying the earlier American flight back to Rochester through Charlotte. Anup, Sujit, and I are flying on the same Spirit flight from Phoenix to Dallas.
We would have been to our gate much earlier, but Anup forgot his laptop and Vijay had to run it up from the office. But our flight was delayed an hour so we had loads of time, anyway.
Through check in and security in no time and off to the gate. There is one bar still open there so we went there to eat. We got veggie burgers and beers.
The flight home went well. I had an aisle seat and managed to kind of zone and and rest for the flight.
Dominica and the girls picked all three of us up and I drove everyone to their apartment before going home and getting to bed. It was around seven in the morning when we finally got to bed.
Saturday. I was up this morning around four, but managed to stay in bed until four thirty. But after that, I was awake. Jeremy got up around six thirty. We were expecting things to start early this morning. So we got up, showered and got all ready, had breakfast, coffee, and waiting for news of the plan to get into the office for the day.
We sat outside for a few hours pool side and worked from there until it got brighter and warmer, then came back up to the hotel room. We had gone out when they started doing the room cleaning.
It was a long morning of just waiting around wondering what was going on and when our critical meetings are going to happen. Our stress levels just get worse and worse as we sit around wondering what is going on.
We got into the office at about one. It ended up being a very quiet day in the office with no additional info. We worked until mid-evening and then went back to the hotel, worked there for just a tiny bit, but then decided to call it a day and I introduced Jeremy to the telenovela La Hipocondriaca to which he is now addicted. We watched that until we fell asleep.
Friday. I can’t believe that I have been out here in Arizona for an entire week already! I am really missing the family. Only the weekend left until I head for home in the wee hours of Monday morning. I only get a very short time at home with the family, but at least I will see them a little.
I slept for nine hours last night, Jeremy slept for more than ten! Apparently we have been getting worn out. So I was up by six thirty and he was up around seven thirty.
At a quarter to eight we got breakfast in the hotel. Our normal ride to the office was going to be late today, so we decided to work from the hotel for a bit this morning, as well. Just made sense. So we got a nice, slow start to the day.
At ten thirty Jeremy decided that he wanted to use the big, new monitor in the office so we packed up and walked in. It is nearly two miles of walking in the Arizona heat. It wasn’t too bad yet but an hour later it was going to be really hot, so we got moving right away.
We stopped at the gas station, got waters, and headed out. About halfway to the office I twisted by foot on the side of the sidewalk and fell, which really sucked. Cut my knee and hand a little. Nothing bad, mostly just embarrassing.
Just two minutes later, I nearly fell again when a lizard shot out from the side of the sidewalk and went directly under my foot as I was about to put it down. I had to do some fancy footwork to keep from stepping on it.
It was eleven thirty when we got into the office. We cleaned up as it had been a decently hot walk. We found the office totally empty. So we at least have the place to ourselves. So the air conditioning got cranked up and we got to work.
Dominica has been promising the girls that they would go to see the new My Little Pony movie in the movie theater today. So they went this afternoon and Dominica splurged on the collector’s edition popcorn container and cups. They got there early and managed to get the best seats in the house, front row in the center of the balcony. So even Luciana has an unobstructed view.
Luciana, Liesl, and Dominica Watching My Little Pony at Lewisville Mall
Surprisingly, we got the office to ourselves for quite some time. We had been sure that at least one or two people would have been in the office when we got there. But getting a lot of time to ourselves was pretty surprising.
For lunch this afternoon, we walked over to Firehouse Subs and got food to go to take back to the office so that we could continue working. The office remained empty until around two when one person made a ten minute showing, popping in and then leaving again. So by just after two, the office was once again empty. Good for being productive, at least. Absolutely no interruptions.
Between working late on Wednesday and pulling a full day in the office today with no one else here, we figure that we are almost exactly double the total office time that anyone else has put in while we are here.
I’ve gotten SGL caught up a bit more, today. I now have all of June, 2017 completed and have begun working on July. The less that I am behind, the better that I feel. Still two and a half months left to go, early July to the first week of September. But there are a few weeks of that stretch that are already done. I am getting there. I’ve got a process now.
Everyone finally came to the office around six thirty tonight. So Jeremy and I put in a full day in the office after working from the hotel, before anyone arrived. It was a long day, with way too much waiting and wondering what was going on.
We had some short meetings at the office, then we went to the condo for drinks. We tried taking an Uber but the Uber driver never came to the office. We saw her drive up and down the street but she never pulled in. I tried to catch up with her, but she went too quickly and even though we were clearly visible and waiting, she never pulled in. So that didn’t work.
We can back to the hotel, quickly changed, and then went to the condo. We had drinks there for probably two hours. Then we hit Star of India for some quick take out and back to the hotel where we ate and watched telenovelas before going to bed on the early side.
The plan is that there will be meetings in the office all weekend. So we have a busy schedule until we leave for the airport.
I got up at six this morning, side effect of going to bed just after midnight. How do I manage to sleep so little?
I got up, showered, did some work, and prepped for an eight o’clock presentation that Jeremy and I were scheduled to give this morning. I got Jeremy up at a quarter till eight so that we could run down and get breakfast and coffee before the presentation.
The presentation ended up getting pushed back till a little after nine, so we got picked up and went into the office and did things from the board room instead.
We had a very good morning. Lots of good presentation, meeting, and decisions. We are very excited about where things are going.
For lunch, Sujit, Jeremy, and I went to Woodlands so that Jeremy could experience masala dosa. He loved it.
Jeremy’s First Masala Dosa. At the Woodlands in Phoenix.
I went for a spicier, more southern style dosa myself. It, too, was delicious.
“Spicy” Dosa
Our new monitors for the office came today. So we now have twenty seven inch Dell monitors on our desks in the office, this is so much better than it was before. We got a great deal on these from Costco, too. So Jeremy decided that he wanted to stay late in the office so that he could work from the big monitor for as long as he could.
So we got a quiet evening in the office, our first time using it alone for a long period of time. We worked quietly in the office till around seven thirty.
Sujit picked us up tonight and we went to a bar for a couple of beers and dinner. Jeremy got a mushroom burger that he said was the best that he has had in a long time. I got a grilled salmon wrap which was quite good. I should have gotten it with a salad but I got tater tots instead.
We got back to the hotel at nine thirty and actually decided to go straight to bed. So off to sleep super early tonight. We are both feeling just a bit worn out.
Wednesday. Today is Dominica and my fourteenth wedding anniversary. Jeremy and I started the day having breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express. Then Vijay picked us up and we got a ride into the office.
A busy morning in our office and then we did a lunch out with Vijay at the Curry Bowl; Jeremy’s second time getting Indian cuisine and his first Indian buffet. He enjoyed it very much.
Just heads down work all afternoon and back to the hotel on the early side, around four, to work from there. We put in maybe an hour at the hotel and then decided to do an early dinner and walked over to the Waffle House and had dinner there. It was nearly empty.
After dinner, straight back to the hotel and we worked until around one in the morning. We have a big presentation at eight in the morning so need to get a little sleep before it is time for that.
