Thursday. Today was mostly a social media day. Lots of MangoLassi time. Spiceworks would have gotten a bit of time, but the site was down for much, maybe most, of the day. They have been having so many technical difficulties now, it’s very evident they no longer have the funding for a real operations team.
So I was online working most of the day. The girls set up their pop up cafe in the living room and were running their cafe business all day.
This evening the girls and I went on a Pokewalk so that they could play their game in the park near the house.
It wasn’t a super long walk today, but the girls had a great time as they hve not had a chance to do this in a while. They really like our walks, the greenway by us is so nice.
So that was our big thing this evening. Several hours of walking and hanging out in the park while Dominica was cooking dinner.
The bigger news, or what would become bigger news, is that there was a hurricane getting closer to Houston tonight. It wasn’t there yet, and the weather up our way was great. But there was concern enough that we had told the Grices and Toccos to come up to Dallas to stay with us, but they were told that things were okay and that they should stay in Houston and not evacuate.
Wednesday. Today is meetings day. Since I was away this whole week in Missouri I have a lot of catching up to do. Had to be up early this morning, after my long day of driving yesterday, so that I can get to them.
Today’s meetings went well and I am now the COO of RedLogik from Qatar and I will be heading out to Phoenix, Arizona very soon to interview and get a feel for the crew, see what they have been working on , evaluate the staff and condition of things. So this is relatively exciting. A new startup, I’ve been away from startups for a couple of years. Now I’m heading up both IT (CIO) and development (CTO) in a combined role where I’m overseeing every aspect of the company. So it’s a COO role, eventually I will hopefully have a CTO and CIO under me.
So today was an interesting day. We will see what all of this brings in the future. This is my second serious COO position of the year. The other one I turned down several weeks ago on ethical and professional grounds. This one is pretty risky, very much a start up without solid funding, but seems to have real potential. We will see after my time in Arizona.
This evening, Liesl did not want to go out, but Luciana did. So Luciana and I went out for a long walk just the two of us.
Tuesday. The day after the eclipse. Now that we are done celebrating Dominica’s birthday, we need to get back to Dallas as I have a job that wants me to get started immediately as their new COO and they had to wait for me to go to Missouri for Dominica’s birthday and eclipse party.
So we were up quite early and on the road right away so that we could make the drive and be home in the late afternoon. It’s not a terrible drive, but it is a long single day. It’s the same as one of the typical days of our Texas to New York drive.
The house was super warm when we arrived. The AC was on and struggling to get it cold enough so that we would be able to go to sleep tonight.
Monday. And today Dominica turns thirty nine! Her last birthday of her thirties. Today is also the big solar eclipse that is going right across the middle of the United States, something that has not happened for nearly forty years. This is a really special treat for all of us.
We had some time this morning to relax as the eclipse is not until this afternoon. Paul had to work this morning, but his office is mostly geared up as a viewing location for the eclipse. They are having a party there with pizza and stuff and everyone is camping out in the lawn. So that is our plan to just go there.
It was really cool being right in the center of the path of totality because we got partial eclipse for so much of the day. It wasn’t something minor that happened for a few minutes, but hours of really interesting effects.
The light started to change early on as the moon approached the sun and before long you could see the quality of light changing and the shape of shadows changing. Really weird, things you never see outside of an eclipse.target unicorn ice cream
We got to Paul’s office about an hour before the full eclipse. We had pizza and set up on blankets in the lawn. It was the perfect viewing spot. Dozens of people were out with us, and free food, and loads of space. Really could not have worked out better.
The eclipse itself was insanely cool. The light was so neat as we got close to the eclipse. The shadows got so pronounced and the light was so interesting. It maintained that noon-like quality, but got really dim. So not like twilight at all, harsh shadows remained, but so dark. Completely unique. For a bit, you could not even tell that it was happening because it got darker without the usual changes that happen at sunset, but pretty quickly you could tell that your eyes were no longer straining and it was easier to see in a way you never get. It wasn’t like clouds because the light was still direct. Not like twilight because it was still thin atmosphere and overhead light. It was awesome to get to experience it at mid-day like this on a cloudless day. Truly, it could not have been more perfect.
Once the totality hit we were able to take off our glasses for several minutes and experience the full eclipse with naked eyes. Seeing the corona was so totally intense and cool. As crazy as driving twenty hours to do this was, it was completely worth it. Such a unique thing.
After the eclipse we went back to Paul’s house. We noticed that light filtering through the trees left eclipse shadows on the ground, sharp images of the half obscured sun. Just amazing to see.
After the eclipse we went for a late lunch or early dinner and drinks across the street from Paul’s at a Mexican restaurant there. The food was quite good. This was Dominica’s birthday dinner.
It was a super fun day. And very educational.
We celebrated Dominica’s birthday this evening at Paul’s with a cake.
Sunday. Today’s activity is going to Onandaga State Park nearby here in Missouri to go into the Onondaga Cave. This area of the Ozarks is known for all of its natural caves and this is one of the better ones.
It was a warm day, but nice and chilly down in the cave. We got a guided tour that was pretty educational and I think that the girls had a really good time.
Between the river rafting yesterday, cave tour at a state park today, and the solar eclipse activities tomorrow, this is one really educational school trip for the girls.
The cave was really cool and we learned a lot of the history of the area and about the plight of the bats in the area, which isn’t good.
We had Planet Sub again today, the girls are loving the subs there. It’s not far from Paul’s house.
