Sheep Guarding Llama

I got up this morning and the Internet was still out!  This is pretty ridiculous that being in Texas, in a major metro area, in a super expensive resort area, on the most expensive high end strip of that area that our Internet access is less reliable than it was in Spain, Panama or Nicaragua and our power is no better than those!  This is the longest that we have been without Internet access for this entire year.

Dominica and Francesca came down to Galveston to pick me up this morning and we went to breakfast at Miss Kitty’s.  There they said that their power and much of the power around was still out and that they were running with all of their appliances having have to have been moved to different outlets and whatnot as only some outlets had power.  Unlike me, they had Internet access, but unlike me they did not have power.  So they were struggling this morning to make the food.

We all got breakfast and coffee.  Excellent food as always.  Not a big crowd today, but we were not alone either.

After breakfast we drove south on the island to an area that I have never been to before.  I have really not taken the time to explore Galveston Island, I probably should before we leave here.

We spent an hour or two shopping at a neat beach store down there.  I shopped for a while then hung out with the owner, Steve, for a long time while Dominica and Francesca continued to shop.  It is a huge store that I would have never guessed was located where it was.  Full of really interesting stuff.

We returned to the Grices’ for the afternoon.  It was the middle of the afternoon by the time that we got there.  I brought the Asus ROG with me and hooked it up in the media room and I set it up to get downloading again.  Other than our Internet access being out, downloads at the Grices’ are no faster than they are at our condo.  Speeds in the Houston area just are not very good.  Even if we were not using shared Internet access at the condo it would still take us a full month to download all of our games!

Garrett got addicted to playing HexCells today.  Liesl tried to help him.  They are adorable gaming together.

For dinner, as it is Saturday night, we went down the street to the Toccos’.  We got Mexican tonight, it was awesome.  I got the most amazing tuna steak fish tacos.

I love this picture of Clara (left) and Liesl (right) sitting at Joe’s Bar in his house cracking nuts.  You can just picture them doing this when they are fifty, too.

We pretty much did dinner and then everyone took off right away.  Francesca and Dominica had wanted to go back to the house early and have me bring the kids later so that they could wrap presents and try to get some of that done.  I offered instead to take all six kids out to the condo for a sleep over.  That way the girls could wrap all night instead of just getting an hour or two.  They thought that this was a great idea.

So after dinner all six kids loaded into the Toyota Sequoia and I drove them all out to Galveston to hang out for the evening.

Once at the condo we set up the Steam machine and Madeline set about playing Back to the Future: The Game with all of the kids watching.  It was a very successful evening.  Everyone loved the game.  I had to make food for half of them even though we had just come from dinner.  But other than that, everyone gathered around and watched the game.  A perfect way to wind down the night.

Emily was the first one down.  She took the guest room and was asleep and Clara went in and joined her very early, almost as soon as we started the game.  Luciana tried to hang on for a while but only got about an hour before falling asleep on my lap in the living room.  I carried her in and put her to bed in her own bed around eleven.

Garrett stayed on the couch with Liesl and Madeline but fell asleep at some point and slept there all night.  Madeline played the game until just after eleven when she went to bed moving Clara out to the couch with Garrett.  Liesl came in and snuggled with me.  She acted like she was wide awake but she passed out immediately upon getting into bed and by a quarter after eleven she was down for the count.

I got ready for bed and played my evening allotment of The Enigma Express on my iPhone before falling asleep.  Dominica texted me just before midnight to see if the kids were asleep.  I was already nearly asleep.  They had not gotten nearly as much done as they had meant to tonight.  It took them hours to get set up and moving on the wrapping.  They have a lot to do tomorrow, too.

Today is Friday.  We got up this morning and put on Christmas music around the house since today was our first day with access to Bluetooth speakers on which to play the music.  The girls barely got to hear any, though, as they slept through most of it.  We played quite a selection before they got up, though.

I made a new analogy this morning that Dominica especially liked: Renaming a Chinese Gooseberry to kiwifruit and having it work is like shutting down American Thanksgiving because we had a political dispute with Turkey.

Once the girls were up and ready they all went up to the Grices’ for the day and to spend the night.  I am going to see them tomorrow.  This gave me much of the day to be productive with the house being quiet.

I got a bit of posting and writing and some miscellaneous stuff done today.  It was not too bad.  I really appreciate my quiet time to myself when I am able to get it, which is pretty rare.

Sadly, this evening, the power went out for a moment and the Internet died with it.  The power came back almost instantly.  The Internet, however, did not.  I had been watching Mamma Mia, too.  I was over halfway when the connection went down.

I gave it about an hour before going to the front desk of the hotel to see what was going on.  They said that they had called the ISP and that someone was coming out to look into it.  But right then they said that their WiFi had come back.  I checked my phone and could see that it was up so was relieved.  I went back to the condo and by the time that I got there the Internet was out again.  Argh.  It never ended up coming back tonight at all.

So much for being productive with my time off.  I walked over to Sonic to pick up dinner.  On my way there I got waylaid by the security guard who talked to me telling me his life story for a minimum of half an hour.  I learned all about his time in the marines, serving in Vietnam, when he was deployed to Nicaragua and Lebanon, his retirement, his new career, what his kids do for work and how their jobs are going, his son’s new truck and on and on.

I got food and came back and played some games on Steam since those were working with the Internet out.

Thursday.  Christmas is coming quickly.  It doesn’t really quite feel like it yet but there is just over a week left.  It sneaks up on you so fast.

I was on the phone quite a bit this morning.  That always drives Dominica crazy because it always happens right when she is trying to do school stuff with the girls and, of course, there isn’t enough space in the house to get away from each other in any meaningful way so we are right on top of each other and it makes the phone calls very much an interruption to everything else.

I did lab work today.  A bit of work on Solaris 11.3.  I’ve not worked on Solaris in a long time.  Nice to see it up and running again.  This is on the new, giant Scale cluster that we are using in the lab.

I spent a bit of time watching the girls today while Dominica was out shopping with Francesca.  The girls and I played a lot of puzzle games like HexCells Plus and Lyne.  Liesl loves Lyne, it is her favourite puzzle game right now.

Dominica bought a nice, small Bluetooth travel stereo speak while she was out an Walgreens.  It is attractive and seems like we will be able to be mobile with it pretty easily.  We played with that a bit this evening getting it set up and working with the gaming system and then getting it working with the Amazon Fire TV system that we have in our master bedroom here.

Got up around seven this morning.  We were covered in fog.  Totally fogged up.  When I sat down at the dining room table to get to writing today the fog was so thick that I could barely make out the cars on the road right in front of the condo (that is the Galveston Seawall.)  Within fifteen minutes the fog had suddenly pushed back and it was dark here, but completely clear but we were encased in a wall of fog not far out to sea.  Totally gorgeous.  By eight the wall of fog had blown so far out that I could just see the oil rigs out on the horizon in the clear area with us and the wall of the clouds behind them.  What a great morning.  It was the perfect temperature to have the door open as well, so fresh air.

Dominica tried gaming this morning before the girls got up.  After a year or more I have finally motivated her to fire up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic or KOTOR as it is known.  She only played the first tiny bit of it and it is clear that we need to figure out our audio issues with our gaming system before she proceeds.  But at least she has a character and the game fires up.  Now maybe she will work her way through it once we are settled in Greece.

Today was a big gaming day for the girls.  Since we got the second Steam Controller last night the girls wanted to try it out today.  Dominica was not up for doing school today so the girls got the day off.  Liesl actually wanted to do school but was happy to play games all day.

The girls started with Lego World.  But they quickly went on to the Lego the Movie which is a two player game.  There was a lot of fighting but they played well for a long time.  Having two controllers is going to be a very good thing.   They were very happy about the games.

After a few hours on that game, Liesl moved to Lego Harry Potter Years 1-3.  Between Liesl, Luciana and Dominica they played for at least five hours today on that game!

Today was my big day for setting things up in the lab.  Got the new Scale Cluster up and running and now I am building a new Linux Mint terminal server to use as a jump box for accessing it.  I did a lot of lab work today, that kept me busy nearly all day.

It was pretty much a family gaming day.  The girls pretty much played video games, mostly together and sometimes apart, until it was time for bed!  They just camped out on the couch and gamed like crazy.  This Steam system was a great investment.  This is going to work out really well.

Today is dad’s last one in Texas.  We will not get to see him again for six months.  We had a slow morning around the condo.  No plans today.  I have so much to do that I am at the laptop much of the morning.

For a late breakfast or early lunch we went to Miss Kitty’s Seaside Cafe, probably around eleven thirty.  It was after breakfast but lunch had not started yet.  We were the only ones there when we arrived but there was no one there to seat or take orders and before anyone could arrive, which probably took fifteen minutes or more, the whole dining room filled up and a few tables even left!  They were having issues today.

Liesl got her shrimp basket, which she is apparently addicted to, and the rest of us got breakfast.  It was very good.

We did not have very long at the house before it was time for me to drive dad up to Hobby International.  We wanted to avoid traffic issues so left around a quarter after two and made very good time.  He was at the airport by three and I was back to the house shortly after three thirty.  Dominica was surprised when I walked in the door.

This evening we knew that the new Steam Controller, our second one, had arrived at Francesca’s and we knew that we needed to make a run to the storage unit up that way so we loaded up the kids and made a run, stopping first at the Grices’ as it was nearly eight when we got up there.  Then we went to the storage unit and making it through the gate and halfway back to our unit when we realized that we had not remembered to bring the keys and had no way to get into it.  So this was a wasted trip.  At least we had managed to pick up the controller for all of our effort!

We turned around and drove back down to Galveston.  We stopped at the CVS and Subway.  Dominica went shopping at CVS, we needed some basic supplies.  Then she waited in the car and the girls went with me to Subway to get dinner.  Liesl really wanted to try a sub loaded up with vegetables because she wanted to “eat something healthy.”  Traditionally she has gotten just cheese, lettuce and mayo on her subs.  But she wanted to add green bell peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers today and she loved the sub.

We got home and put on My Big Fat Greek Wedding from the beginning so that Dominica could watch it as she did not get to see any the other night when we started it.  Liesl kept saying that she did not want to watch the movie but once we were sitting down watching it together and eating our subs together and snuggling on the couch she decided that she liked it and had a good time with a family movie night.  Luciana was not interested and went in the other room.

Dominica is feeling a bit ill this evening and just sat on her own in the chair and skipped dinner.

Dad got into Rochester and was home around midnight.