Sheep Guarding Llama

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.

Back in the office this morning to begin my final week of being alone. This coming weekend I am running up to Frankfort, picking up the family and then running out back home where we will be staying with dad so that I can go to my twentieth class reunion. So just five more days to go.

Not much to report today. Things are very slow for me. Just go to work, come up and hang out by myself until it is time to go to bed.