Sheep Guarding Llama

Sunday. The weather was much, much nicer today. Yesterday was so cold and windy. But the wind died down and things warmed up. It really felt like a great spring day today.

I got up and worked for a while this morning. There was a lot to do.

This afternoon, in the great weather, Dominica and I went out for a two mile walk. The weather was perfect. Really nice for a walk, a lot of other people out walking, too.

For dinner we had salmon tacos. Tasty. We watched some Star Trek: Voyager while we ate. Made it through two episodes.

I spent the afternoon and early evening doing a lot more coding. A very productive day. I have new code tested and being deployed to production tonight. And I built a new staging server. I’m getting into writing code again, this is fun. Especially as I am making good progress.

Dominica and I watched a bit of Brooklyn Nine Nine. After a while Liesl came to join us. Then after a few episodes we switched to Once Upon a Time and watched that until it was time for bed.

Saturday. Super busy morning. Got up around nine and went into the office. Worked for a little bit, then decided to go out for about a one hour walk to get some exercise. I went by myself as Dominica did not feel like it. I’ve not walked since Sunday and I don’t want to lose momentum, so I went alone. She was glad that she did not go, it was way too cold and windy.

I got back to the house and worked on the phone for about two hours. Doing tickets and general support. I was tied up until almost three in the afternoon!

Our job offer for the candidate that we interviewed yesterday was finally accepted late this afternoon, so we have a new employee starting with us on Monday. That’s very exciting. This is our second employee in Bolivia, and our first in Cochabamba.

We had grilled salmon for dinner tonight. And watched some Star Trek: Voyager.

This evening was an all coding evening for me. It has been a long time since I have been tasked with working with production code, so this was a pretty big change of pace. I also got a chance to chat with our new intern for a while as well. We had a good time to talk.

I got a lot of really important coding work done tonight and feel really good about it. I was worried that it would be really frustrating and unproductive. So this is a big victory. I am not done with what I needed to do this weekend, but I have done enough that I know that I can completed what is needed. I have some good processes set up now.

Liesl came out this evening and, as expected, wanted to watch Once Upon a Time and we watched until two in the morning. Still maintaining a pretty engaging story line.

Friday. Today was quite an adventure. Rodrigo started the day by getting hit while driving home from dropping off his daughter at work. So his entire morning was spent dealing with that. He is fine, just a fender bender. But the guy who hit him was not insured so what should have been a trivial matter turned into something huge. Apparently the insurance company picked up the uninsured guy and actually drove him to his bank so that he could withdraw the necessary cash to cover the damage. They are pretty hard core down there.

So the morning was very busy as I was actively covering for Rodrigo being out and lots of other people being busy. It wasn’t until the middle of the afternoon that we were able to start really getting down to business.

Our big task today is running interviews as we are attempting to hire someone today in Bolivia, again. We managed to get started with the first interview around three and had four to do, so it went until around eight in the evening. Very late for interviews, especially as Bolivia is ahead of us. It was a great evening of interviews, really the best that I have ever had. Four for four, we wish that we could hire all of them. It is very hard when you have so many people that you have to turn down, but only because they weren’t as “ideal” as someone else. Typically when we turn people down it is because they don’t have what we need, but this is very different. We really want all of these people.

It was a late night. Tonight Liesl and I watched more of Once Upon a Time.

Friday. A nice morning and not too crazy. But I got a cup of coffee that was left over from last night, microwaved it and drank that from the Fox “World’s Best Daddy” mug that Liesl made for me. Then when Dominica went to make her coffee for the morning, our coffee maker died. This was our Cuisinart grind and brew that we received as a wedding present fifteen years ago. Can’t complain about it, it has definitely lived a very long, very useful life. Sadly its last many years have been in storage and we only just started using it again. Would have been a little handier if it had died before going into storage rather than just afterwards.

It was a busy morning. We did a few hours of interviews, then of negotiations, and we ended up hiring someone new today. That took a good portion of the day, but we are excited. He will be starting on Monday.

This afternoon Isabella and Juancho came over until evening. So the kids were very busy all day. Work was busy for me. It felt like a really long day at the office.

This evening, after everyone went home, I cooked for a while. Hamburgers for Liesl and me (she is still addicted to them) and pasta with my famous butter, garlic, and sage for Luciana. I’ve totally become their favourite cook and they only want me making their food most of the time.

I watched more of the second season of Friends for a while. Then Liesl came out because she wanted to watch Once Upon a Time with me. She had started watching it back in Italy, which was early 2017. I have never seen the show at all, so we went back and started at the very beginning of the show so that we could watch it together. Liesl has gone so long without seeing it that she was up for watching it fresh to remember what happens.

We watched four episodes before it was time for bed. I am liking the show, it is interesting and different. Liesl seems to be liking it. It prompted a lot of discussion about some classic Grimm Fairy Tales as well.

Thursday. Work today at home. In the early afternoon I found out that SpiceCorps DFW is taking place this evening at PinStack in Irving. So my day got a bit hectic as I worked on getting things done so that I could arrange things so that I could make it to the meeting. The day was pretty busy. Managed to finally get an application for the job opening that we have later in the day.

Today we had a new intern from Panama City start working with us. So much of the day was spent getting her as much up to speed as possible. So much to be done.

I had to shower at five and run out the door at six. I got to Irving just in time for the evening. StorageCraft sponsored this evening. I had a cheese and spinach quesadilla and some delicious potato salad. Not a big vegetarian selection, but it was tasty.

It was a nice meeting tonight, a good turn out. Rush came out, too. I had one Lakewood Temptress while I was there. PinStack has good food and beer.

Got home and pretty much went right to bed. It was kind of late by the time that I got in.