Sheep Guarding Llama

Only real thing on the agenda today is to return the Nissan Quest back up to the Rochester Airport.  We are just so tired.  But glad to have our kids back with us.  SGL is woefully behind and is going to be.  I have just no time to even think about trying to keep this on track.

Today the big project was to drive down to Pennsylvania with the Ralstons and retrieve the Chevy Spark that has been down there all of this time.  It has been so long that we practically forgot that we even owned a car!  What a whirlwind two weeks it has been.

Very long drive down and back and we are all just so tired.  At least we got many hours in the car to decompress and talk through how things had gone with the conference and do some planning for next year while things were still fresh.

This evening Dominica and I ran up to Avon to look at minivans at the Chrysler dealer there.  I had heard that they were one of those typical “car salesman” places where they just play games non-stop and that’s exactly what they did.  They were so busy playing games with all of their other customers that even though we were there for about an hour, looked at everything on the lot and even went searching for a sales associated to help there was none to be found and their showroom was just full of other people not being helped just sitting at tables getting the run around.  It was exactly how I pictured the car buying experience to be and I was happy to just leave.  I wanted nothing more to do with that place after it lived up to the nasty description that I had heard of it.  I don’t take the scams of car buying well.  If the sales person isn’t actually authorized to make a sale, why are they there?  Just to piss me off?  Just to waste money?

I’ll buy a car somewhere that actually wants to sell cars.

Dominica basically got no sleep last night.  She got home more or less just in time for us to get up and head off up to the city to hang out with Jason who was still lingering from MangoCon.  We picked him up at the hotel and drove up to Lake Ontario and hung out up there on the beach.  We got Abbott’s Frozen Custard then went down to the Tilted Kilt to get drinks while we waited for his friends that he was having lunch with to get to the BBQ place across the street.  We dropped him of for his lunch then Dominica and I got on the road to drive, still in the rented Nissan Quest, east to Frankfort to pick up the kids that we have not seen all week!

It was late afternoon when we got to Frankfort and got our Liesl and Luciana.  It was pretty late in the evening when we finally got back to dad’s place and it was late at night when I got the note from Maggie that she had safely arrived back in Panama City.  She is probably the last person from MangoCon 2016 to make it back home.  If not, she’s is nearly at the end of the list.  Nearly everyone is home.  Now it is time for sleep.

I did what I could to play some catch up this evening, but I was pretty tired.

The conference is now over and today is our day after fun trip to Letchworth State Park.  Danielle and I had to be up early and go to the Rochester Airport so that we could rent two minivans to drive everyone down to the park.  We were so exhausted while trying to do that today.  That was rough.

We finally got back to the hotel and rounded people up for the trip.  We had a few that had planned to go but were just in too rough of shape to be able to make it.

The drive down was over an hour and we all got lost looking for the pavilion that we were supposed to be in.  I should note that Dominica was riding with me in a Nissan Quest that we rented from Hertz (this will matter later on) and we really liked how it drove and how nice it was.  Better than Chrysler minivans that we have dealt with.  We have always been happy any time that we have had Nissan cars in the past.

We finally got to the pavilion and got set up.  It was an outdoor BBQ and the weather was pretty nice.  Some people went for walks, some just hung out at the pavilion.  It was fun, but I am pretty sure that we will not do something like this next year.  Too much work and coordination to make it all come together.  Would have been better to just hang out up at the convention area and do something much more casual.

We only stayed at the park for a few hours, then it was time to drive everyone back up to the city.

Lots of people decided to go out tonight, but I needed to get sleep.  We are going to come back up tomorrow morning and hang out with some people who are remaining.  But tonight we are getting back down to the farm and getting some rest.  Tomorrow afternoon we are getting the kids from Utica.  We are exhausted and don’t want to get sick.  Staying awake is barely possible.

Dominica went with Danielle out to Niagara Falls to watch Art and The Fallen play as the headliners in a festival out there.  They did not go on until after midnight, I don’t think, and it was really late, like around five when she got back to dad’s farm.

The third and final day of MangoCon 2016.  We were all dragging pretty hard this morning.  Very tired and I have to speak twice today.  Breakfast today was much better than yesterday.

The conference went well today.  I spoke on Storage 101 and then later in the day on Architectural Patterns for the SMB.  It was another super busy day.  I had no time to do anything extra.

After the happy hour today, The Fallen played the wrap up concert.  I got to play Cards Against Humanity for the first time.

After the band was done, it was back to Victoire’s to wrap up the evening.  The conference was a success and tomorrow we will be taking a trip to Letchworth with the people who remain behind.

Thursday and the first “real” day of the very first MangoCon in Rochester, New York at the Holiday Inn Rochester Downtown.  This is going to be one very busy day.

I got up, showered and got down to the conference.  Staying in the same hotel as the event is the best thing ever.  We used to do this in Austin years ago at the AT&T Conference Center, it was great.  So glad that we are able to do that here.

At breakfast we had actual mango lassis for people.

After the light breakfast, Max from Starwind was the first person up to speak at MangoCon so he kind of got the special pole position for the event and will now historically be the first person to ever present at the conference.  A pretty neat thing to have.  In the same vein, I was the first actual IT presenter for SpiceWorld myself.  But not at MangoCon.

The day went pretty well.  So busy.  I was just running from one thing to another all day.  My presentation today was on the “Brave New LANless Future.”

After the conference today, there was some time in the hotel bar but then people filed out to Victoire on East Ave and we took over the place for the whole evening.  We had a really good time and hung out outside with a fire in the fireplace.

Late at night a group of us went to Mark’s for late night garbage plates, which were excellent.  It was about four in the morning when we finally got back to the Holiday Inn.