Sheep Guarding Llama

Monday. After having worked until three thirty last night, I slept in until after eight this morning. I did not manage to go swimming today. Just too tired to do it. But I was very productive last night and happy with the work that I got done.

Today was mostly a normal, but solidly busy, day in the office. Nothing super special, a lot of time on the phone managing humans.

Allen and I put in a few hours on the phone tonight making plans for Nicaragua. We managed to get our hotels booked for the trip. In San Juan del Sur we are staying at Barrio Cafe San Juan which looks amazing, especially the food. That’s where we will be most of the time. Then for just a little bit we are staying at the Hotel El Almirante in Granada, right down the street from where I used to live. I had just found out this week that my old house had sold there, too! A bit sad that we can’t rent it again. That was a lot of work getting all of the details finalized. We are skipping Ometepe, it just doesn’t work to try to fit it into this trip.

Luciana tried playing Doodle Kingdom tonight on Steam and likes it. We’ve had a good run of new games this week.

For dinner tonight Dominica made some cheesy broccoli and rice casserole that was really amazing. I made her notate the recipe and put it on Pinterest so that we have a hope of getting that again sometime.

I watched some Taxi tonight while working. I miss this show. I’ve not seen it since I was little. It was a popular show when I was very young, but not one that I ever really noticed going into reruns. It is a bit surreal seeing it now. I remember it well, and yet don’t remember any specifics from it. So it feels super familiar, and yet every episode is fresh to me.

Tonight I found my old videos from when I taught Technical Web Design with HTML down in Castile from around, I think, 2005. I can’t believe that they have never been posted on YouTube before. So I got them all uploaded tonight. Super low quality, but they work. I have all twelve of them available in this thread on Republic of IT. At least good for nostalgic reasons.

Sunday. Today ended up being a busy day for me. I started doing some light work this morning and then by the afternoon I had come up with a new business idea and just had to get started with it right away. So my day went from “not sure what I am working on” to “major project stuff” really quickly.

My new business is oneNica, a business helping to promote and develop local businesses around Nicaragua. First by providing free web site creation and hosting, in partnership with Hostadillo of course, and free email. Then building local guides around Nicaragua to help both locals and tourists to find resources in different areas. And a lot of cool ideas to come from that. But that is where we are starting. A good chance to help out small businesses and give them a way to get online that they have not had before. Getting business email is extremely hard down there.

I went swimming this afternoon. I did not have much time so just did one thousand yards and called it a day. Then on the way home I stopped at Taco Cabana hoping to get breakfast tacos. Only to find out that they discontinued doing breakfast tacos after breakfast time on Monday. That really sucks because that’s what I like to eat there and now they don’t sell them. And I only just learned about them like a month ago.

Luciana discovered Doodle God Alchemy Jam on Steam today and started playing that. She really likes it.

This evening I built the new website, and built a new MailCow email server! So quite a busy day. I ended up working until three thirty in the morning to get everything done.

Saturday. Today was my mostly lazy day. I didn’t have any scheduled work and Dominica is mostly confined to the living room couch. So I went out and spent most of the day with her watching Netflix and Hulu.

I managed to go swimming today. I got in a mile. Kat went with me, but swam about half an hour less than I did. I grabbed Taco Bell breakfast on the way there.

On the way home from swimming we stopped at Long John Silvers and got food for the kids.

We have been watching a bit of Designing Women which, in reality, is a pretty bad show. It’s a struggle to get through it. The writing was bad, it was all super boring and the characters aren’t likeable. But it is a classic from our childhoods, so we watch it some.

We watched quite a bit of Brooklyn Nine Nine later on, which is one of the best shows, ever. We made it through probably half of a season!

I had hoped for another family video game night tonight, but Dominica was not interested and the girls got involved in doing their own thing.

Friday. The weather has finally broken and it is nice and cool here in Dallas. Forty degrees today! And it rained all night, which is great. We have really been needing the rain. It hasn’t been a drought, but it has been extremely dry.

I spent most of my day on the phone working today. I really appreciate having a nice headset, it makes a huge difference.

This evening, Liesl, Luciana, and I played Nancy Drew and the Trail of the Twister. We started it and got maybe one and a half to two hours in, I would guess. So far it is looking like a pretty interesting one. We had tried another title that we were in the middle of but it had audio issues so we started this one instead.

So far, I think that Trail of the Twister is looking like it is going to be a lot of fun.

Thursday. Very busy day today, we have a new project manager with our team in Bolivia who starts this morning. He was supposed to start around nine thirty, but came in at seven and was already active since we had set up his new accounts last night! Impressive.

So my day was extremely busy. Any free moments were spent working with the new hire. And I did get some time, but very little. It’s been a busy week.

This afternoon it was finally time for Allen and I to book our flights down to Nicaragua. We spent a couple of hours ironing out all fo the details. There is a lot to manage. But at this point, he is flying down to Dallas with his wife in the morning on November 1st. Then we are all flying out that evening to get to Managua in the middle of the night. We will either rent a car or take a taxi from Managua to San Juan del Sur where we will be most of the week. Then at some point we will transfer up to Granada, spend some time there. Then on the morning of November 9th we will fly back from Managua to Dallas. And he will fly back from Dallas to Salt Lake City that afternoon. It is going to be one crazy week down in Central America. I am so looking forward to getting back down there.