Sheep Guarding Llama

Saturday.  This is our one “down” weekend here in Kiev as everyone that we know locally is traveling to Italy, Poland, etc. so we have the weekend to ourselves to just stay in the apartment and enjoy some time to ourselves.

Dominica made breakfast.  Oatmeal today.

Our first order of business this morning, once everyone was finally awake and dressed, which meant that we were not going out until the middle of the day, was to head out to the grocery store.  Luciana stalled for a long time so it was close to one when we finally headed out and it had started drizzling.

We had a very successful shopping trip.  Not only did we get the food that we needed, but the girls both behaved well which has never really happened before.  They are normally out of control in grocery stores for some reason.

We tried to buy bread today but found that experience to be a little confusing.  Ukrainian bread is giant in physical size so you tend to buy partial loaves rather than full ones, which requires discussing it with the bakery staff.  But of course, the bakery staff does not speak English at all.  We got lucky and a girl that was bread shopping herself heard us speaking English and helped us by reading some of the descriptions on the bread for us and helping us to order.

We also got lucky that because it was the middle of the day there was a guy that would weigh produce for us and label it which is a major thing for us as we cannot do that ourselves as everything is in Ukrainian and there are no pictures; so when we get to the checkout the cashier has to leave to go weigh things for us which is really annoying for them.

We ate a lot of the bread today.  It was all amazing.  The rumours are true, the Ukraine is one of the best places to be getting bread.

Once we were back home we put on Star Trek: The Next Generation and picked up from where we left off.  We are towards the end of the sixth season and by the end of the night managed to get three episodes into the seventh.  Luciana spent much of the day just hanging out with Dominica and me.  Liesl, as is typical, spent the day hanging out in our room with her iPad.

Liesl and I did a walk to the grocery store for a second trip for supplies, just the two of us, later this evening.

Liesl spent some time playing The Escapist, today.  She loves that game.

We had a nice day.  We got to relax and we managed to get a bit of work done as well.  I did some testing of stuff in the lab today that was pretty valuable, did some writing, etc.

Before bed I did my DuoLingo practice.  I’m on a ten day streak now.  Getting back into the habit.

I talked to Jeremy today and got him moved to openSuse as his desktop now.

Friday.  Today is my last day with the dedicated office all to myself so I wanted to really take advantage of it.  I got up and Dominica made breakfast.  There was only one egg left for me, so I had that.  Dominica had one, too.  We will be heading to the grocery store as a family tomorrow to do what might be our final large grocery shopping trip while we are here in Kiev.  We are already about halfway through our time here!

It was a little warmer today when I set out on my walk into the office. I know the route well now and enjoy the walk.  I’ve figured out to take the central “park” strip in the middle of the boulevard and it feels like I’m walking in a nice park for about a third of the way.

I got into the office probably just after eleven.  Lots to work on today so I stayed in the office until nearly one in the morning!  Time really flies, though, when I’m not interrupted and just being productive.  I didn’t notice that time at all and really felt like it was a pretty short day.

I spent the entire day working on writing, it is incredibly handy to have a quiet office where I can actually focus and get things done.  One of the biggest struggles that I have had over the last four months is that I am never able to be isolated enough that I am not listening to other things happening, which is very distracting for me, around the clock.  One of the things that I am looking forward to very much in getting back to Texas is being able to get back to my own office space that I can set up for effective work.  I am really looking forward to a good chair, solid desk to work on, big monitors, regular keyboard, and so forth.  And Dominica is tired of working from the couch and having to sit with her laptop to do anything.

So it was a good and productive day, but nothing of interest to tell about.  I sat in my quiet office all day until it was very late and then walked back home.  It was around one in the morning when I got to the apartment.  And a little bit yet after that before I got to sleep.

Thursday.  Today I have the time to be in the office all day and am looking forward to the opportunity.  This is my first time getting a full day in the private office.  It’s been over four months since I have had a quiet office to myself all day and practically never that I’ve had one this quiet.

I got up and moving at a good time this morning.  Dominica made eggs with potatoes and carrots for breakfast that I got to eat before going into the office.

Today is the coldest day of our time here in Kiev, we hit -1C last night and it was a chilly walk to the office, but I have the backpack on and that keeps me pretty warm.  So I skipped the jacket.  The walk is quite nice, especially going to the office.

When I got to the office loads of people were standing outside smoking and they commented on how cold I must be without a coat.  These Ukrainians, they just are not used to the cold like we are in New York.  It really was not that cold.

The secretary came to my desk and just dropped off chocolate and coffee for me.

I worked for several hours then this afternoon I got a few hours of technical training which was really useful and I am a lot more solid on some technologies compared to before, so I am thankful for the time spent.  It was a good day.

I then had the office to myself for the rest of the day and stayed in working until about eleven in the evening when I felt that I should head out because I was not sure if there would be issues getting home or whatever.  It was great to have a quiet day to just work and focus.  It has been so long.

The walk home was quite cold, but quiet and nice.  It really is not a bad walk at all now that I am over being so sick and am not struggling to breath like I was. I’m totally back to health now.

Wednesday.  After getting to bed so late last night I slept in rather late this morning, till nearly ten.  The electrician had not arrived yet so there was no need to get up as I could not go to the office yet.  The sun was out and the apartment was quite warm, even though we had gotten to just one degree above freezing last night.  It was warm enough to have the windows open, just a little bit, today.

The electrician came later in the day, so it made for a quiet day at the apartment for me.  Dominica was definitely not staying home alone to deal with the electrician on her own.  I’d have been in really big trouble had I left her there.

Today is the beginning of our research on flights back to the United States, from Kiev.  We will be heading back the USA relatively soon and we need to get all of our ducks in a row.  We will be going back to New York, this time.

Right now, it looks most likely that we will be returning to the States on either May 5th or May 8th.

Had a call today.  But then the Internet had issues, so I was offline for a while.

This is what the electrician found today.  Our breaker had really burned out, bit time.

But that was not our own breaker, but one shared with other tenants in the building, so not something that we could have worked on or replaced ourselves.

My Scale HC3 cluster in the LA Colocation America lab got upgraded to HyperCore 7.2 today so officially we are able to virtualize Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 now.  That’s awesome for our lab work.

The electrician ended up coming early enough that I walked into the office after he was there anyway.  It was cold today, so a long, cold walk back in the dark.  The walk home is uphill, so a lot “longer.”

It is a beautiful sunny morning here in Kiev, but Luciana has developed a couch that is so bad that last night, during the night, she coughed so long and so much that she ended up throwing up!  That is not good at all.  She always seems to get sick when we are out of the country.  (In reality this has only happened a couple of times and is just coincidence.)

Thanks so much to everyone at the Starwind office who went so far out of their way to help out with Luciana today.  They got us a pediatrician who does house calls (they really do this) and had them come to the apartment for us.

While we waited on the doctor, we nursed Luciana, and I got Dominica trained on her new Korora Cinnamon desktop which she is now using.

The pediatrician and assistant came to the apartment, as did the secretary from the office, and they looked at Luciana.  Not a big deal, just a really bad cough.  They are going to run some tests, though.  Everyone was awesome.  We got a prescription and the secretary and the driver went to the pharmacy and got all of the medicine and stuff that Luciana needs.

We would have been in terrible shape if it wasn’t for Anton, Maryna and everyone at Starwind who sprang to action and got us what we needed here in Kiev.

So I was at the apartment all day today, definitely did not go into the office with Luciana so sick.   But with some medicine to help with the cough she is feeling better already.  She never really felt very sick, it was just a horrible cough.

For dinner, Dominica made her own masuman curry, which was quite good.