Sheep Guarding Llama

We got up this morning and went down to Mt. Morris for a rushed breakfast at Brian’s USA Diner.  The wait was very long which made it a bit of a problem to get our food quickly enough since I need to work this morning.  Breakfast was awesome though.  Well worth the wait.

Liesl rode with her grandfather in his convertible with the top down to the restaurant.  She has her new safety vest that replaces her safety seat so she is able to do that now.  She did not like how the wind messed with her hair though.

On the way back to the house we swung through Mt. Morris really quickly just to drive up and down Main St. to see what the current state of town is like as we have barely seen it after all of the renovations.

We got back to the house with plenty of time for me to get set up and get to work.  I worked for several hours and then we took off to get to Lakeville to go to me twentieth class reunion!  I can’t believe that it has been twenty years.

We got to the Northshore Grill in Lakeville a few minutes after the reunion was supposed to begin. The restaurant knew nothing about it but Art and Danielle were already there, and no one else.  It was probably fifteen minutes before the next person arrived.

Over a few hours about a dozen class members ended up showing up.  It was a small showing but we only had a class of sixty-four and there were several in that sixty-four that none of us knew.  Looking through our yearbook (annual) there are close to ten that none of the rest of us can identify and we are pretty sure that they were in other programs and didn’t actually attend school with us.  So the actual class size was probably around fifty-five.  And we’ve had only one death, that anyone knows about, since graduation in our class.  Probably pretty good for that number of people over twenty years.

We had a really good time, we all hung out at the bar.  It was great seeing the people who were there again.  Only Kim and I traveled from any real distance away.  Everyone else was quite local.

We all decided that we would meet back up at the Wadsworth Grill, the usual class hangout, across from the school later that evening.  So Dominica and I stayed until the last of everyone left and then we went back to the house to make sure that dad and the girls were doing well, got them off to bed and then went down the hill to the grill and stayed until around one in the morning.  It was fun there too and there were more people than we had seen out at the actual reunion.

We stayed out until about one in the morning when Dominica was so tired that she just couldn’t handle staying out any longer.  It was a really great day.

Finally by long stretch at home alone is over. I packed up the car this morning and went into the office fully prepared to not have to return to the house before heading north. Work was fine, nothing special today. I was able to wrap up well and was able to leave on the early side. I was pretty excited because I haven’t seen the family all week and am excited to not have to work this weekend. The reunion should be fun.

I made amazing time leaving Norwalk down on the Connecticut coast. There was a little traffic on the north bound trek up to Danbury but once I got on Interstate 84 I was moving quickly and getting on to the Taconic Parkway north up through the Taconic Mountains allowed me to really make amazing time.

I have started reading “The Darkest Summer” which talks about the summer of 1950, the Marines and the Korean War. It is a part of American history that I really know nothing about, despite having grown up watching M*A*S*H all through my childhood. So the book is incredibly interesting as I learn about that portion of history and a war that I know so little about.

I made great time over the entire trip. I was doing so well getting to Frankfort that when I made a stop to grab a bathroom break and a sandwich en route I called Dominica to tell her to start packing because we had time for me to get there, get everyone loaded up, get on the road and go on to dad’s house rather than spending the night in Frankfort and going on to dad’s in the morning which would be a huge hastle because I have to work tomorrow and don’t want to spend the morning racing to get there before it is time to work.

It was just after nine when I got to Dominica’s parents’ house. Four hours flat from Norwalk to Frankfort in the slow, little Spark! That’s a record.

We packed up in a few minutes, transferred everything from the Spark to the Acadia and got right on the road west. The trip was uneventful and we made good time getting out to dad’s house. It was around midnight when we arrived there.

We stayed up for probably an hour. The girls are, of course, all excited to be at grandpa’s house. Liesl remembers it well and knows what toys and there and what she wants to play with right away. Luciana has a hard time remembering the house. So we were off to bed around one in the morning. Dominica and I got the television room and Liesl and Luciana slept in the guest bedroom.

For a nightlight the girls used my mom’s fiber optic swirling light lamp. Liesl thought that it was “so cool” to use it both because it is a neat light and because it belonged to her grandmother.

Tomorrow is my class reunion. Twenty years. Pretty hard to believe.

Thursday. The last day that I am completely alone. At least that is the plan. Dominica and the girls will be home next week. What a difference that will make. I can’t wait to have them back home.

I finished reading “Second Fountation” today. I have now reread “Foundation”, “Foundation and Empire” and “Second Foundation” one after another. Once I get my Audible subscription re-uped I will be getting more of the series, ones that I have not read previously.

I did nothing tonight. Really nothing. Thought about using the Wii U as it is new and novel and even turned it on but couldn’t bring myself to watch anything or play anything. Just did a little minor setup on it and called it a night.

Wednesday. On the home stretch now. Only today and tomorrow alone yet and then after work on Friday I head north for the weekend. The little green Spark has been giving me some intermittent problems for a little while now. It is losing power and the oil light comes on on tight turns which is very odd. I can’t put my finger on what is wrong. Mostly it is working, but not quite. Something is definitely wrong. I’m considering renting a car for this weekend. That is a lot of driving with this car having issues.

This evening I got the Wii U set up in the living room. I think that Liesl is going to love it. I played Wind Waker for maybe ten minutes just to see how it looks. Definitely does not knock your socks off or anything.

Tuesday. Working my way through the week. I have been getting worried about the amount of noise coming from the ceiling and walls in our master bedroom. For a week or so I have been hearing something or somethings moving around there. I am hoping that it is just squirrels. At first I thought that it was squirrels on the roof but now that I can hear it in the walls I know that whatever it is is actually inside the house. I don’t want to go into the attic alone in case it is something bigger and more worrisome than squirrels. Stumbling on raccoons in an enclosed space is never a good thing. If I am going to do that I want to do it when someone is around to call an ambulance after I fall down the attic ladder trying to get away from pissed raccoons. I have a feeling that whatever is up there is going to require some actual “dealing with” which I am not looking forward to.

On my way home tonight I picked up a Wii U as a surprise for the girls. I managed to get the Wind Waker collector edition from GameStop in Yorktown Heights on the way home. Dominica likes the Legend of Zelda games and I knew that she would like this one. Wind Waker HD, which comes with the system, is ranked as the best Zelda game ever so hopefully it will be at least mildly fun.

Tonight at home our new Ubiquiti router and Netgear switch have arrived. I did not take the time to hook up the switch tonight but I did spend the evening getting the router set up which took a bit of work as it needed an initial firmware update and some setup. But it looks like it is going to be a really nice unit. Under the hood it is a Brocade Vyatta device but with a handy web interface.