Sheep Guarding Llama

I had to be up quite early this morning so that I could get on the road and get the Spark into the dealership. It desperately needed an oil change and it was time to get the New York State inspection so that we can register it in New York now that that is its home. Thankfully registration in NY is actually a cost savings for us because of the vastly lower insurance costs outside of Texas.

Last night I finished reading “Eleven on Top” and today I started reading “Twelve Sharp”, the twelfth Stephanie Plum novel. Ten and Eleven were better than several of the preceding novels. Some of the boring tropes have been dropped and the writing quality is improving.

I needed to have the car worked on while I waited, that meant that I needed to be there first thing in the morning. The shop opens at eight but they allow the cars in at seven thirty so I had to be there by then. I actually did really well this morning at was at the dealership in Mt. Kisco by ten after seven! A bit earlier than I had intended but it was good that I was so early because I was only the first car of the day by a few minutes. Five to ten minutes tops before another car was there and by the time that the doors opened there were four cars in the queue.

I got the car in and had a minimum of an hour and a half to kill. So I took my backpack and set off for a .9 mile walk, slightly uphill, to The Bedford Diner, which is the only dinner in the area, up in Bedford Hills. It was a nice walk and good exercise.

The dinner was very nice. I got Eggs Benedict but with smoked salmon instead of back bacon which was delicious. I had some coffee and hung out there for a while. I had thought ahead to bring my Kindle with me and was able to sit and relax and read a bit of “A House Like a Lots” while I was there.

I walked back to the dealership but the car was not ready yet. So I sat on the bench out of Route 117 and enjoyed the nice weather while catching up on emails and postings.

The car was completed around ten thirty. A long morning but desperately needed. The oil is now changed (this has to be done at a dealer because no one stocks or can get the oil filter for my odd car) and I have a New York State Inspection completed. The windshield washer fluid is working again now too, turns out that that was only a fuse. Had the other dealership that I used in the winter not been so lazy, they could have just replaced that months ago. The car has a semi-recall for an air conditioner thing but the dealership did not have the parts so I am to call them on Monday or Tuesday to see if they have come in and then take the car in for service.

It was just after eleven when I finally got into the office.

I got to head home at a good time tonight. Sadly, there is no one at home to get home to, though. Another lonely night for me. The car is driving great, very happy that it got its oil changed.

For the first time since the family left, I decided to not just camp out in the bedroom and went down to the basement instead. Five days of being alone now. The house gets so dark and quiet at night, really catches me by surprise.

Today is Tuesday, starting to get lonely.  I got in earlish this morning.  With no one in the house it is so easy to get up, get ready and get out of the door.  It’s amazing how much easier that stuff is when you are home alone.  No tip toeing around, no waking people up.  Just up and out.

Work was good today.  Nothing special to report.  I didn’t stay late tonight, left at a good time.  Can’t stay up late tonight, have to be up early in the morning to take the car into the shop before going to work.

I just came home and went straight up to my room and used the computer there all night.  I’ve started to just camp out in there.  No need to even have the rest of the house now.

Got to bed at a good time.  I finished reading “Eleven On Top” just as I was heading off to bed tonight.

сео оптимизацияDrove the Acadia in this morning since there is no reason not to put a few miles on it while Dominica doesn’t need it and the Spark is awaiting its oil change on Wednesday.  I got in a little early and had a pretty slow day.

The day went well.  Since there is no family waiting at home, I stayed late until nearly eight.  Had pizza for dinner and got some stuff done and headed home in the nearly dark.

I finished watching the entirety of “Bit and Bytes” from 1983.  That show was awesome.  I am sure that ninety percent of it is nostalgia, this was the show that I watched in the years before having a computer of my own in my youth.  This show was very influential for me.  Now that I go back and watch it, it was more influential than I had remembered.  I learned a lot about computer concepts from that show.

Tonight I finished reading “Ten Big Ones” and started “Eleven On Top.”  I am getting a lot of reading done while I am here alone.

I Facetime’d with Liesl and Luciana tonight.  Liesl says that she is having a good time but misses me. Luciana says that she doesn’t like being away and wishes that she was home with me.   I didn’t get to talk with them for very long.  It was late and they needed to get to bed.

Very lonely and I have a long way to go before the family is home.  I hate these long stretches of being home alone.

Today is my first day completely alone.  No office time, no family at all.  I hunkered down in the bedroom which I have set up as my office and effectively did not leave it all day.  I rarely get the chance to do absolutely nothing and that is pretty much the plan today.

I did some desktop maintenance on my bedroom office computer today.  I needed to run the Windows 8.1 update as this machine has been offline for months.  That took many hours.

I watched several episodes of Michael Palin’s “New Europe” which was a BBC production of the same book that I read a year or two ago.  Dominica was not enjoying the show so I only got to watch it because she was not here.

I got back to reading “Ten Big Ones” that I was originally reading, but didn’t finish, back in October.  I’m making good progress on working my way through my Audible library that I have backlogged.

I did some work on Jira today.  Not a lot, maybe an hour between Jira, Confluence and Stash.

I ate leftovers today and nothing else.  Still plenty for tomorrow and maybe a little for Monday.

I read a bit of  “A House Like a Lotus” which I have on the Kindle.  Lots of reading of one sort or another today.

I got caught up on SGL which was very much needed.  Now to keep it up to date.  Hopefully with the family away that will not be that challenging.

Liesl wanted to Facetime with me today but we did not manage to pull that off.  My phone was not charged and by the time that it was they were doing things down there and it will just have to wait until tomorrow.

Went to bed early tonight.  Need to get some sleep.

I was not horribly tired when the alarm went off at a quarter after three this morning. Dominica was up and ready in a few minutes then I showered while she got the girls ready to go.

We got everyone loaded up and were out the door at four, as planned. The drive to get to the Taconic Parkway that we took today is actually the first time, ever, that Dominica has seen how I go to work in the morning, at least the first several miles of the trip. It was very dark, though, so she really did not get to see it at all.

The drive down to JFK went fine. I got them dropped off at five. The girls were both very sad that I was leaving them. Even Luciana was sad and said “I’m going to miss you!” Liesl was very melancholy, of course, and clung to me and kept blowing me sad kisses as I drove away. It’s going to be a long two weeks.

I got to the office just after six. It is the same distance to the office from JFK as it is from home to the office. But the roads are faster so I did pretty well, only about forty five minutes of driving. My first few hours were very uneventful and quiet.

This morning I finished reading “Dragons of Spring Dawning”, the last book in the Dragonlance Chronicles.  This is the last of the books that I read when I was young.  I’m going to tackle other books for a while but this was to prepare me to be able to go and read the now, since I was young and last read these, expanded Dragonlance universe books as it had been so long since I last read the Chronicles, easily a quarter of a century, that I needed a refresher before going back to them.

Work was, as expected, very slow today.  I got to the office at just last six in the morning and was nearly the only person there.  Even once people started to arrive between eight and nine, there were very few people.

I worked in the office physically until one in the afternoon.  Then I switched to the house and worked from there solidly until seven in the evening and kept an eye on things until about nine thirty.  I have the bedroom office at home finally set up now and am using the giant, pink yoga ball as an office chair which really puts a load on your leg muscles but is generally quite convenient.

I did some work this evening, got some things done.  Got caught up on SGL a bit.  It was such a very long day of driving and working that I mostly did nothing this evening.  I chatted with a bunch of people and got caught up on some little things.  But mostly relaxed.  It is going to be a long week or two without my girls though.