Sheep Guarding Llama

We slept in as late as we dared but we had to turn in the keys and vacate the house this morning.  All of Dominica’s family had gotten up and left either for the airport or to begin their drive back to Texas before we were awake so we did not see any of them today.

Dominica was up first and mostly ready when she woke me up.  I had very little time to shower and for us to get out the door.  It was a rushed morning and none of us got as much sleep as we really wanted.

Putting our stuff, the stuff that is all coming to Europe with us, into the car proved to be a challenge and for the first time it really has struck Dominica that we may have more stuff than can be put into the little rental car that we have in Spain!  It was all that we could do to fit into the larger Mazda 3.  This could be very, very bad.

It ended up taking over an hour to return the keys from the rental house which really sucked as we were losing our one day in EPCOT as a family driving around running errands.  Not fun at all.

It was late, around eleven, when we got into EPCOT.  The lines were already horrible and the temperature was awful.  I was covered in sweat before we even got started.

We wanted to start with Spaceship Earth but the line was ridiculous so we tabled that.  We started, instead, with the Universe of Energy which is a favourite for all of us and one that I have not gotten to do in quite a while for one reason or another – mostly because Disney does not keep it running reliably and it opens late and closes early making it a hard one to make it to.  So we started there, no wait at all, and everyone loved it.  The routine that they do with Ellen and Bill Nye is terribly dated and lots of the “we know these facts about science and you can’t dispute them” have been disproven and make Bill Nye look kinda foolish – as does his support of the use of fossil fuels for everything.  The opening Jeopardy bit is hilarious and classic and I hope that that stays for a long time  Already, though, much of the Ellen and Bill stuff has been removed – the animatronics are all gone now, for example.  So in some ways, the ride is closer to its original than to the Ellen makeover that they did long ago.

After the Universe of Energy it was off to The Land so that I could do the Living with the Land boat ride.  Luciana had been great on the last ride but had a temper tantrum in line for this one because she did not want to ride the boat. So Dominica sat this one out with her and only Liesl and I rode the ride.  We enjoyed ourselves a lot and I got to see the new aquaponics exhibit that they have added to that one.

We were getting hungry, it was around one, so we walked to the dock for the boat to take us to the World Showcase and got the ferry that goes directly to the Morocco Pavilion which was super handy as that was where we were going for lunch.

Dominica had, months ago, made reservations for us at the new Spice Road Table restaurant that had been added to the Morocco Pavilion.  The reservations were for two and it was just a little after one but they were not busy so we took our chances and they got us right in.

We were very happy that we chose the Spice Road as the food, which is basically a Moroccon influenced tapas fusion, was amazing.  It has been a while since I had a really impressive Disney dining experience and this one really stood out . We loved everything that we had which included spicy hummus fries (truly amazing, a must try), fish croquettes, fried calamari and brie.  Luciana ate a lot of the calamari (and had one scary moment where she was choking on a piece that she could not chew) which she used to like but has, for some reason, avoided for quite some time.  Liesl fell in love with the fish croquettes and made us order a whole ‘nother order just for her.  Everyone loved eating there.

It was so hot that we immediately went to the Italy Pavilion for ice cream.  The selection was pathetic, though, so I passed but Dominica and the girls got some.

Our next attraction was the American Experience which Dominica had made me promise that we would do because her family would not enjoy it but she likes it very much.  We got there early enough to here the Voices of Liberty do a few songs.  They are the real attraction and if you go to see the American Experience be sure to get there plenty early so that you can hear them and spend time enjoying the small museum there.  The musical show is phenomenal and has been a part of the show since it opened in 1982.  Even the girls really enjoyed it and did not want to see the “real” show when it was done.  They wanted more of the musical show.

The American Experience itself is very dated and has some bad references in it, like Lance Armstrong, that Disney has been quite lazy about cleaning up.  It’s still well done, but it is over the top propaganda and a bit hard to take all in.

We went on to Mexico and wanted to do the El Rio del Tiempo but the line, normally very short, was crazy and we were not about to waste what little time that we had waiting for that.  So we left and just headed for Spaceship Earth.

We were not really enjoying ourselves as it was so hot that we were very uncomfortable.  And the park was pretty crowded.  Hot and crowded does not make for a fun Disney experience.  And we are rushed and have to drive so we can’t relax in a food or drink venue or have a beer or cocktail or anything either.

We did manage to get onto Spaceship Earth which I had been wanting to do and we had promised Liesl that she could do with me because she had not gotten to do it when the family was all there.  It would have been bad if we had skipped it.  Thankfully the line was down to twenty five minutes which was doable.  Liesl rode with me and Luciana rode with Dominica, all in the same car.  Liesl and I love doing this ride together. It is so well done and so much fun.

That was it for us in EPCOT this time.  Very rushed but we managed to do my three favourite items (Energy, Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land) and we had an amazing meal.  Good enough.  Dominica finally admits that she is tired of Walt Disney World and ready to sit out at least half a decade before venturing back to it again.  We really need a break.  This was her and the girls’ third time in eighteen months!  We’ve done Disney a lot more than we ever intended to do.  It just kept coming up.  And this one was a very stressful one that helped get the message across that we need a break.  So maybe when Luciana is eight we will look to do another big trip.  But we can’t do it every year or every other year, it is just burning us out.  Luciana was tall enough to do nearly all of the rides this year and Dinosaur, in the Animal Kingdom, was by far her favourite.

We left ourselves a lot of time knowing that there was a lot that could go wrong.  Our flight was scheduled for 9:15PM our of Orlando so we left the park right on schedule at 5:15 thinking that that would give us plenty of buffer.  It turned out that we cut it a little close.

Traffic was bad so it took an hour to get to the airport.  Maybe a little more.  And it took a little bit to return the car, although that ended up being fine.

We had to check out luggage and the line for Aer Lingus ended up taking an hour and a half to get through!  It was insane.  While we were in that line our flight got delayed by forty five minutes, so now not leaving until ten.

Once we finally got checked in, we got pre-cleared at security again because of the girls and were right through security which was awesome.  We settled into the gate where the girls played with some toys for a while.  Dominica went to a coffee shop and got herself some dinner.  Once she had what she wanted I went to South of the Border and ordered a bean burrito for my dinner.  While I waited for it I went to Cold Stone Creamery and got a small dish of ice cream to eat while the burrito was being made.  The burrito ended up being really good. I am glad that I made the effort for it.

Our flight was a large Airbus and we got three seats in the middle and one on an aisle on a side.  Dominica took the lonely seat and the girls sat with me. I sat in the middle with one girl on either side.  That made them very happy.  Luciana was asleep before we even left the runway.  Liesl was asleep within thirty minutes of being in the air.  They both slept with their heads on me so I was pretty much unable to move during the flight.

During the night everyone managed to sleep except for me, as usual.  I did manage to see some movies, though. I watched Cloud Atlas which I had been interested in. It was okay but I am not sure that I would recommend it or watch it again.  Full of imagery and stuff but like The Matrix it felt contrived and not well thought through and ultimately very shallow and pointless.  Then I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith which I have seen before and forgot how dumb it was.  So I reminded myself and hopefully will not forget again.  Then I finished with watching The Great Gatsby which was an excellent telling of the book, a truly excellent performance all around.  Sad, just like the book, but a great work of literature turned into film in a really great way.

When she was awake, Dominica managed to watch Paddington Bear during the flight which she said was good.  I want to see that but will wait to see it with the girls.

This is it, we are officially, completely “in motion.”  Today is the day that my family has been waiting for for three and a half years.  Today begins my travel to join the family and head to Europe.  But first, Florida.  We will be in Spain, having been to Dublin as well, by Monday.  What a weekend it is going to be. This is one weekend that I think none of us will every forget.

I had to be up early this morning, which was anything but ideal, because I had to get Joe and Brittany at Houston’s Hobby airport.  Their plane was scheduled to land at 8:05 this morning.

It turned out that the time for their flight was wrong and even though they got a late start they were on the ground in Houston by 7:26!  So I was scrambling to get to the airport to get them this morning.  But we were back to the house before nine.  They were pretty exhausted after the week away.  The dogs were very glad to see them.

I spent my entire morning packing, cleaning and doing laundry.  There is still so much to be done before we can leave.  I got my iPad all charged up so that it would be ready to travel tonight.

It was a crazy day and I had no time to spare.  I worked on getting the house in order and every ready until the very last second.  No time to spare.

It was five when we left to head to the airport. Traffic was terrible so it took about fifty minutes to get there.  So all of the “extra” time that I had budgeted was used up just in the initial traffic.

I got to the airport about six.  I got put into the pre-screened line and got through security super fast.  I had a nice, long, relaxing wait then for my flight, exactly what I needed.  The last few days have been stressful and hectic trying to get everything ready.

But now that I am in the airport, all of the prep is done.  Nothing more to do, I am here and it is all moving forward.  It is really hard to believe that it is really real, but I am now committed and on my way to our new life in Europe.  So surreal.  Other than getting married and having kids, this is the biggest life change that we have ever made.

I ate at a burger joint in the airport.  Two small beers and some fried shrimp, pickles and jalapeños and it was time to get onto the plane.

The flight was fine tonight.  I had a whole row to myself on Southwest which was pretty awesome.  The flight was not too long.  Just over two hours.  Houston to Orlando isn’t bad at all.

I got into Orlando and rented my car.  We had a rental lined up from National but there was no National rep there to rent it to me, just a sign sending me to Alamo.  They took care of me but then National had no cars of the right size.  So Alamo gave me a free upgrade and I got a Mazda 3 which was great.

It was a long drive, almost an hour, from the airport to the house that the family had rented.  Not a bad drive, but I was tired and just wanted to get there and get to bed.

It was just after midnight by the time that I actually got to the house!  Everyone was asleep already.  I just came in and went straight to bed.  Dominica had a king bed and the girls have been sharing with her.  They had left room for me – Dominica had told them that if they left room I would be able to snuggle them when I arrived from Texas so they had carefully not go onto my part of the bed.

Going to be a very busy day tomorrow.  We are in Disney all day, have logistics to deal with in the morning and in the evening – we are off to Ireland.

This is it, we are down to the wire.  Today is my last full day here in Texas.  I am picking Brittany and Joe up from the airport early tomorrow morning and then working all day and heading to the airport for my flight to Florida tomorrow evening.

The dogs did well last night.  Liza slept beside the bed, Indy slept at my feet and Aurora snuggled under the covers keeping me warm.  They seem to get more calm the more that they realize that I am here and not going anywhere.

There is much to be done today.  Cleaning, paperwork, bills, Amazon deliveries, battery charging, packing, laundry, paying bills, going through mail, and work, of course.  Plus taking care of the dogs which is a rather demanding thing.  I still have some time tomorrow but it is limited and very last minute.

Did a ton of work cleaning and getting stuff ready today.  I can’t believe how much cleaning that there was to do!  I just keep doing it and there just keeps being more.  I did a few loads of laundry too.  So much garbage has been produced.  I’m bringing bag after bag down from the upstairs.  How so much trash got made in the weeks that we were here I cannot understand.

I took care of more details today like getting our Chevy Spark registered again here in Texas.  That requires getting paperwork done from a few places but I think that it is all set now.  And I did some bill paying.  Trying very hard to have all of my ducks in a row.  Once we leave, it is all so final.

I got the new memory cards for the cameras via Amazon today and the additional batteries and charger for the Nikon AW100.  So I got all four batteries charged and ready for that too.

I got most of the house cleaned up today.  Pretty much just the final stuff in Dominica and my bedroom to do, most of which is done, and then the big job of cleaning up the girls’ room which is a huge disaster.

For dinner I just ran out to Taco Bell.  Then hung out with the dogs for a little bit and watched some more of the second season of M*A*S*H while more laundry was running.

I decided that I wanted something sweet so went to Sonic for their milkshakes later on in the evening.

Dominica and the girls took a half day in the parks today.  Today they were back in Universal and they had a rough morning so took the afternoon off.  They need to rest so are taking tomorrow off completely so that they will be rested and ready to go to EPCOT with me on Saturday!

The countdown has begun, much less than twenty four hours until I head for the airport.  I can’t believe that our move, that we have been working on since late in 2011, is finally coming to fruition.

I am really looking forward to seeing my girls.  It’s been a full week without my babies now.

Well, only two days left at this point so my main tasks really center around cleaning the house and getting everything packed up and ready to go.  The dogs did great last night, they all slept in bed with me which makes for a pretty full bed.  Aurora gets under the covers and snuggles much like Oreo used to.  The dogs all stayed in bed, more or less, into the afternoon so I got the morning with some quiet without them being all over me which is good.  Dog sitting the three of them for a week has really made me not want to have a dog again – none of these three is anything like Oreo.  They all are full of the annoying dog straights like barking at everything and constantly jumping on you but have none or very little of the sweet, affectionate traits that you would want in a dog.  They have been driving me crazy and there are so many things that I need to do that I completely am unable to do, like work on podcasts, because of them and everyone can hear them on every conference call that I do.

Today I spent hours cleaning around the house.  The girls really left an incredible mess in every corner of the house. I had to really walk all over trying to figure out where all they had left stuff.  I really mean the entire house is covered in their mess.

I had a few Amazon shipments come today.  Mostly the GoPro equipment including batteries, charger, LCD touch screen, floaty back, hard drives for video backups and more.  It was a really big order.  I had to place one more order today for batteries and charger for the Nikon AW100 as well as we appear to have left the charger for that stored somewhere in New York as we cannot locate it here, anywhere.

This afternoon, once work was really slow, I went down the street to Waffle House down by I45 and had lunch there alone.  I only have a few meals left in Texas before heading out.  I figured that it would be slow at this time of day, it was around four thirty.  But it turned out that I was the only person there for the entire time that I was there!  So very, very slow indeed.

This evening was spent wrapping up work for the office then about a forty five minute phone call with Danielle followed by an hour phone call with Paul and Danielle.  Then I put in another hour or two cleaning around the house.

This evening, in the hallway in front of the laundry room, I uncovered a massive spider that I could not identify that had been underneath a hamper that had been left there.  It was so big, very possibly the largest non-pet spider that I have ever seen in my life and definitely the largest that I have ever seen indoors.  It was really scary.  I had to spray it with Pledge to slow it down and then drop something heavy on it, repeatedly, to bring it to a stop.  So nasty.  I really hope that that is the only one.  It’s going to be hard to sleep tonight after seeing that thing!

I was so busy today that I did not watch a single thing, not at my desk nor on the television in the living room (there is no theatre as the projector has been broken for anyone who has not followed along.)

The family was in EPCOT today but I got no real report on the day.  In the evening I know that they were going to Norway to have a Princess Dinner experience there – that is their favourite place to do it.  I believe that they are only doing that once this entire trip so tonight is the big one for the three little girls.  This will be their only day in EPCOT until the rest of the family leaves.  Then my family will do EPCOT with me on Saturday for my one day in the parks.

Only three days left!  Wow is time running out!  Today I did my inventory of everything that I think that I am going to need before heading away from Texas.  So I did an emergency order via Amazon to get stocked up on a lot of stuff – mostly GoPro supplies.  I placed a pretty huge order that will arrive tomorrow.   Hopefully I have figured out everything that we are going to need.  The one thing that I got but was not able to get all of the parts for was the Steadicam.  Everyone is out of stock of the counterbalance needed for that to really work so I am out of luck there.  I got the Steadicam but without the counterbalance.  Not sure what I am going to do – maybe just save it for the next trip and do without it this time.  It is, after all, just one more thing to have to deal with on a trip that is already extremely busy.  Maybe it is just one thing too many.  It will be ready for me when we get back.

Slow day at work, most days are right now.  Everyone knows not to load me up with stuff because I am going to be traveling all weekend and I just have a lot going on at the moment.  Next week I’ll be getting settled into Spain and dealing with the teams locally in Europe so I will have all new challenges then.

Today my big thing was researching Redis.  I have been doing a lot of that.  Mostly research, teaching myself about it and building a test cluster that I can mess with on CloudatCost.

This evening, after work, I ran to Taco Bell to pick up dinner for myself and watched M*A*S*H in the living room with the dogs while I ate.  I am into the second season now.