Sheep Guarding Llama

DuoLingo Streak: 21 Days

It was after noon when I woke up.  Only four hours of sleep, too.  It took me a bit to get moving.  I got some journaling done and then Liesl was the next one up.  Liesl had slept more than anyone else last night, having gone to bed and slept before coming to the airport to get me, then being asleep again instantly once we had returned home.

Liesl got up and fired up the Steam machine so that we could play XCOM today.  She has been so excited all week that I promised a lot of XCOM this weekend.

So we played all afternoon in the living room.  We made it through several campaigns and advanced the storyline a bit.  It was a generally good XCOM day.

Luciana slept in very late.  She did not get up until probably four in the afternoon.

After XCOM, Liesl played her hidden object Christmas Candy Cane video game, all the way through on her own.  She really loves that game.

I took a little time to be in my office, just a couple hours.  Luciana wanted to play Minecraft with me today, so we gave that a shot but as is the case more often than not, the Minecraft multiplayer system did not work and we could not play together.  It almost never works, it’s not well made at all.  So many problems.

Instead we decided to watch some shows together.  So we watched FailArmy and then watched a whole bunch of SciShow Kids.  Dominica went out to do some grocery shopping and tried to pick up Panda Express for the family, but they were out of Chow Mein and all shrimp items.  What?  How does Panda fail to have that much of their main items?

While Luciana and I were watching shows, Liesl decided to play her hidden object game through a second time.  She likes it that much.  So in all, I believe that she beat it once at her grandparents’ house, once when we first got it, once today and is now playing it again.

Instead, Dominica came home and cooked dinner here.  Once food was ready, everyone moved into our room and we put on Netflix’ newly released (as of like yesterday) Fuller House season three.  We watched for about half of the available episodes.  We will probably watch the rest tomorrow.

After that, it was time for bed for everyone.  Dominica had fallen asleep while we had been watching the show.  Luciana was ready for me to tuck her in right away.  Liesl wanted to finish her second run through her video game, so I let her and she was actually done before everyone else was ready for bed anyway.  So I got her off to bed as well.

I did just a tiny bit of work, mostly building a test Fedora 26 with Cinnamon system for some work that needs to be done, then was off to bed myself.  It was not that late and everyone else was already asleep by the time that I turned in!

DuoLingo Streak: 20 Days

Another morning of getting up early, setting up my Chromebook and working like crazy from the condo dealing with phone problems for people.  Exhausting, especially on top of everything else that is going on.

I also did the dishes this morning.  I’m very industrious.

Sujit & I started the morning going across the street to a place called The Early Baker which does a really good breakfast.  I got a Georgian dinner modified as an American breakfast, which was really good.  And very filling.

Once in the office, it was solid meetings until two when we all rushed out to drive to The Curry Bowl for their Friday buffet, way across town.  The buffet was, indeed, extra good today.  One of the best Indian buffets I’ve ever had.  Really extensive and really great quality.  Even fish on the buffet.

One more meeting after lunch.  Then at four we had an interview call with a candidate that sounds promising.  And straight back to the condo from that call.

We had a little while to relax at the condo.  I got all packed up for my flight and did some calls, emails and such while I had some time.  Then at eight we went to the Star of India for dinner.   Dinner was amazing, again.  Star of India really does a great job.  Dominica is going to love being able to walk across the street to get that.

After dinner we stoped at Fry’s for groceries and then returned to the condo, I freshened up and then caught my Uber ride to the airport.  I arrived at Terminal 2 at right around ten.  My flight was scheduled for twelve fifty in the morning, but was listed as being delayed for just over twenty minutes.  So loads of time for me.

There was nothing to do at the airport, everything was closed.  So once my bag was checked and I was through security I just sat at the gate.  I even laid down on the floor and tried to semi-nap.  I was extremely tired.

The flight ended up leaving on time and we even had a strong tail wind getting us to Dallas ahead of schedule!  The flight itself was fine.

I got to Dallas and Dominica was there very quickly.  There was some issues with the luggage and we had to wait about forty minutes for that, though.  So we did not manage to leave the airport as quickly as we had hoped that we would.

Nearly six when we got home.  The girls were in bed and asleep in minutes.  They didn’t even ask to sleep in our room or anything.  They were so tired.  Ciana barely even knew that I was home, Liesl had stayed awake the whole time, though.  Dominica told me that Luciana stayed up all night and had come to get her to go to the airport to get me.  But she fell asleep in the car on the way.  Luciana later said that she was so excited that I was coming home tonight that she could not sleep.

It took until nearly eight for me to actually fall asleep.  But nothing planned for the weekend.  Going to just be resting up and hanging out with the kids.

DuoLingo Streak: 19 Days

Thursday.  I got up at five thirty this morning and got to work on NTG projects that needed my attention all morning.  I had been hoping that I would be able to fall back asleep but I found myself unable to do so.  It was a long morning for me.

On the way into the office, we grabbed McDonald’s  There is a McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Panda Express, and Firehouse Subs right on the corner in front of the office.

I was very happy to get to take my morning shower today, however, because this was my first morning with hot water at the condo.  I was getting quite tired of the cold showers.

Sujit and I went to the office around nine thirty. Early this morning the HVAC guys were in and got our AC working.  By early afternoon it was actually a little chilly in my office.

I had Panda Express for lunch today.  Liesl would be very jealous.  I just got it to go and ate in the office.

After lunch I came back and moved into my own office, since I have a private office, and took some time to Telegram with and then Facetime Liesl and Luciana.  Liesl has figured out audio messages on Telegram and so sends those to me all of the time which is so adorable.  I can’t wait to get home and see the girls late tomorrow night.

So this afternoon turned into a significant bombshell of news at work.  Loads of changes and some really dramatic stuff that I had proposed and now everything that I had been thinking was happening yesterday and even this morning, is not happening and so much has changed and my head is pretty much spinning as I adjust to all of the new things.  Wow, what a day.

The office was super quiet all afternoon.  At five we went back to the condo for a while and I spent a lot of time catching people up with all that was going on and making plans and trying to remotely interview people via proxy and try to wrap my head around everything that was going on today.

Went to dinner at Star of India tonight.  Had tandoori fish, very good.  And tried some really amazing eggplant.  So good.  Dominica is going to love that place.

Back to the condo and at eight thirty we were both feeling so tired that it was time to get some sleep.  I did a little extra DuoLingo, talked to Liesl for a bit on Telegram, wrapped up some SGL journalling and by ten was ready to get to bed myself.

Tomorrow is going to be a huge day.  I’m not even sure where I am going to start.

DuoLingo Streak: 18 Days

Wednesday.  This morning was super busy in the office.  We had a system hacked and that ate up much of the day figuring out what needed to be done about that and how it would be tackled.  That led to several other design meetings that, in the end, were unrelated and I ended up having an incredibly busy day of just an incredible number of meetings.  But it was all good stuff.

For lunch today it was just Sateesh and me.  We ran over to Firehouse Subs.  I have not had a Firehouse Sub since Dominica and I had first moved to Irving.  It is possible that I have not had one since before Luciana was born!  I forgot how amazing their veggie sub with mushrooms is.  I have to get these all of the time now.  So delicious.

A busy afternoon, then back to the apartment.  We took a few hours to digest the thoughts of the day and had a call with Jeremy today to officially work out his offer.  So he is coming to join us on October 2nd.  He’ll be coming in and out of Phoenix every couple weeks.  That’s going to be exhausting.

It was one heck of a busy night.  We ordered in Indian for dinner, but ended up running across the street to Star of India to pick it up then brought it back.  I had some really awesome okra!

I was feeling really tired tonight and so got off to bed well before midnight.

DuoLingo Streak: 17 Days

Tuesday.  First day in Phoenix on my second trip here.  It is not nearly as hot as it was a few weeks ago.  It’s actually quite nice.  Still warm, but not bad at all.

We were up on the early side.  I was awake before six and got ready quite early.  There is no hot water in the apartment so that made for an unhappy shower situation this morning.

Off to the office by eight and it was meetings all day.  No real breaks at all.  We worked like crazy.  We did break for lunch and drive way across town, again, to get really good Indian food.

The office is much more set up now than it was a few weeks ago when I was here.  Now there are two private offices set up (one is mine, of course) and about six cubicles are set up.  It’s like a real office now!  And there is a big television in the conference room as well.

After work we went back to the condo and the team came over and met us there after a few hours.  We ordered in Indian for dinner and made a night of it.  Not so much work tonight, mostly a chance to relax.