Sheep Guarding Llama

It is my first full day back in Texas.  I was really exhausted after traveling all day yesterday and having gotten almost no sleep all week so I slept in very late this morning, till around ten.  I got probably eleven hours of actually sleep last night!  I really needed it.  I was doing fine until yesterday when the exhaustion caught up with me.

This morning we met Francesca and the kids at Waffle House around eleven and it took two hours for us to get through our meals!  It was by far the least competent Waffle House experience ever.  They took more than an hour to get our food and our drinks were not delivered until we had requested them easily three or four times and not until long after our meals.  Someone took our syrup away in the middle of us trying to eat the waffles that we had waited hours to get as well.  And even when water arrived that we had been waiting for forever they took some of it away again without telling us so the kids still didn’t have drinks!  It was ridiculous.  They were lazy, inconsiderate and incompetent all at once.  Two hours to get breakfast and much of the food was wrong, somethings never came, we were never paid attention to and by the time we left there were only four customers in the entire store, which was fewer than there was staff!

Today we did very little.  We went over to the Grices’ on the early side and spent most of the day there.  It was a very light day.

Emily and I made an epic run to Sonic for ice cream and slushies in the afternoon.  Got way too much and had three times as much as we needed for everyone.

We took off on the early side, around six, and called it a night.  We relaxed at the Toccos’ house a little bit and everyone was in bed pretty early.  We were all pretty exhausted.

The alarm went off at eight.  Thirty minutes to get up, packed and down to the waiting bus.  Only two hours of sleep so did not want to cut it any shorter than that.  I would be too exhausted to handle the day otherwise.

It was a scramble to get ready for the bus but I made it in plenty of time.  Today is going to be a very, very long day, though.

The drive from Silver Bay to Albany was about two hours on the mini-bus. Not fun.  That’s a long bus ride normally, even worse when you’ve had zero sleep.  Jeff was on the bus with me so we got to hang out a little bit during the ride.

Once at the airport, Jeff, Jill and I hit Dunkin Donuts for some quick food as at least I had no time to eat anything before leaving Silver Bay.  Then it was through security and off on our separate ways as they were flying Delta and I was flying Southwest from a different gate (thank goodness – so glad I am not on Delta this time!!)

I had two hours to kill before my flight so I went to the one restaurant that was in the terminal and got a grilled cheese sandwich there to kill some time.  Then I just sat in the terminal until my flight, which was delayed by one minute, was ready to go.

The flight from Albany to BWI in Baltimore was super fast.  It has been a long time since I had a really short flight like that.  I forgot that these even happen.  It was well under an hour and I barely noticed that I was even on a flight.

I had a long wait, another two hours plus a little extra from a forty minute delay, in Baltimore.  I decided to get some exercise and walked around the airport on the “cardio trail” a few times putting in a few kilometers of walking with my backpack on.  Then I sat at the gate for a bit and made a friend who talked for half an hour and gave me a free drink voucher for the flight too (which I saved for another flight as I did not need a drink this time.)

Once in the air this was a much longer flight.  BWI to Hobby in Houston. I was exhausted and really, really wanted to sleep on this one.  I really had nothing to do on the flight and was too tired to try to read or anything.  I semi-napped most of the flight.  The week was starting to catch up with me.

No issues at the airport.  We arrived just a tiny bit later than originally scheduled, no big deal.  I only had to wait a little bit for Dominica and the girls to arrive to pick me up.  Liesl was awake waiting for me, Luciana had fallen asleep in the car and did not realize that I was there until we had arrived back at the Grices’ house.

Just a little relaxing this evening and then off to bed as soon as possible.  I was so tired.

Today is the last day of our corporate retreat in Silver Bay, New York on Lake George.  I knew that I was getting low on sleep and so slept in more this morning than I have been.

It was another hot day today, but not as hot as it has been quite.  This week has been brutal with no air conditioning.  The heat is really wearing on me.

I skipped some of the light stuff early this morning and started the day in a security discussion and then a large group discussion on racism in America which went really well.

From there the rest of the day was really just a whirlwind.  It was all wrap up sessions that go rapidly from one to another without any breaks.  We had groups photos and close out events and all kinds of stuff.  No free time at all.

In the evening we took a two hour boat cruise, with three hundred of us, around Lake George which was nice.  There was open cocktails but the boat was too crowded and some food would have been good as it was a long day without much food.

After the cruise was the big formal gala.  It was a really nice, fancy dinner outside and thankfully things had cooled off so it was pretty pleasant.  I spent most of the dinner sitting outside talking, long presentations are not really my thing at all.  It was all very nice, though.  We had a good time.

A bit of facilities drama this evening as the YMCA confiscated all of the alcohol from everyone at the event.  Not very smooth for a professional retreat. I would avoid the YMCA in general. The facilities were interesting given that it was up in the mountains but the actual ability to hold an event for adults was lacking.  It was a bit like being teenagers at summer camp.

Since I was late arriving in Silver Bay on Monday, today is one of my two really big days here.  Tomorrow is mostly wrap up stuff.

This morning I was struggling but was up at seven because my roommate was passed out pretty good and had set an alarm to go off at seven and had no way to shut it off so he left it going off for fifteen minutes which woke me up pretty good.  So I got started right away.

Had a good day today, but not as good as yesterday.  It was far too hot today and a lot, or basically all, of the stuff that we did today was stuff that I already knew really well. It was really a day of hitting core competencies of mine which wasn’t ideally valuable and the heat was so high that later in the afternoon I was unable to stay in the one building for a class because I was getting light headed.

Most of the evening was pretty quiet for me till we had a big sixty person party out at the boat house for much of the evening and then ended up hanging out in a boat until five in the morning.  Wild times.

Today is my first full core day at the retreat having gotten into Silver Bay in the early afternoon yesterday.  I got a decent night’s sleep and am feeling far better today.  It is hot again, though, but not quite as hot as yesterday.

I took advantage of the breakfast period to sleep as long as I could until it was time for the morning session.

The sessions were good today, it was an interesting and enjoyable day.  I had no idea what to expect before coming out to the retreat and overall it seems like it is going to be pretty good.  The only major issue is the lack of air conditioning which means that I am dying because you get hot and never get a chance to cool down as there is never a time that you get into the AC.

This evening was the big talent show.  I was really surprised by just how amazing the whole thing, which was about three hours long, was.  Everyone was crazily good.  I was totally shocked.

After the talent show I just ended up sitting out on the docks hanging out with whoever was awake late.  I was up walking people home till around four thirty in the morning.