Sheep Guarding Llama

In the office today for my final week.  So hard to believe that this is it, the very last week of the job that I have been at for almost eight years.  It feels surreal.

Now we have so much to do to get ready that we are in a little bit of a panic.  There is really so much to do.  It is crazy.  We need to pack up the house.  We have to get ready for me to be away for weeks without the family.  I need to find a way back to Texas and a ride between cities.  We have to get a storage unit.  We have to fill that storage unit.  We have to arrange movers.  We need to rent our house in Texas.  We need to figure out what is going on with the house in Peekskill (are we moving into it?)

Morgan came over today to watch the girls and allow Dominica to get packing and house stuff done.

Dan and I went to Redneck for lunch today.  We are planning on hanging out all week since this is the end of my time here in Texas.

After lunch I went home so that I could assist Dominica with house repairs.  She had run out to Home Depot and got stuff that we needed for the house.  I got home just in time to find that she had done the plumbing herself – we have plumbers coming tomorrow to deal with the clog in the kitchen drain and we were hoping not to need them to work on the broken garbage disposal as well.

I may not have mentioned by while I was in California, the garbage disposal broke, but Dominica was not sure what it was.  I was on the plane heading towards Dallas when she discovered water pouring out from under the sink.  She did not have time to look into it so left it for me to look at.  On Sunday I took everything out from under the sink, ran the water and found that the garbage disposal was pouring water straight out of the bottom of it.  Time for a new one.

So Dominica picked one up today and, with Art on the phone, removed the old one and installed the new one!  When I got home she was just wrapping up the final bits of the installation.  So there is a new Insinkerator Badger now.

Dominica also fixed the toilet in our bathroom which has been broken for a week or two.  Nothing major but the flapper and chain have been breaking.  They are old, probably as old as the house, and just needed to be replaced.  So she did.  Now it works great.

I had to run an errand for AJ taking a package over to UPS for delivery down to Austin.  That only took a few minutes.

We did a little more packing tonight but relaxed a bit.  Lots of new television to watch that we wanted to see together.

The big show that we are really excited about is Blacklist which just started on NBC with James Spader.  We’ve been seeing ads for it for a while on Hulu and thought that it looked really good so wanted to check it out and we were not disappointed.  The only problem is that it is too violent to watch while the girls are awake so we started it but had to turn it off to save for later at night.

So we finished the second season of The New Girl and caught up on Family Guy and got the girls off to bed.   We watched the new episodes of The Mindy Project and tried out the new Seth Green show Dads.

Then we watched the rest of Blacklist which was excellent.  James Spader is an amazing actor and this role is really perfect for him.  We are pretty sure that we are really going to like this show.

After that we watched the first two episodes of the new show Sleepy Hollow which is a thriller, mystery, horror show based loosely on the events in the book but set in the modern world – but one that has apparently never heard of the book which doesn’t make much sense.  But other than ignoring the fact that the book is famous and not one person in the story realized that the events of the book are unfolding in Sleepy Hollow, NY it is pretty good.  And the police chief’s name is even Irving and no one points out the coincidence.

The thing that we probably like most about Sleepy Hollow is that a lot of it is actually shot in Westchester just a few miles from our house.  So watching it just before we move back to the area is really cool.

SGL is now at roughly 1,300,000 monthly readers and still climbing!

The girls tried to wake me up way too early this morning.  First Luciana had come and asked to sleep with us last night but she did well. Liesl got up and tried to wake me up around eight but I really needed sleep.  So Dominica got up with them and kept them busy so that I could sleep in.  After getting basically no sleep last night and traveling all day and going out last night I really needed the sleep.

I got paged out and had to go work for the office.  Today is the first “last” day at my job.  As in, today was my last Sunday.  So after today, no more Sunday afternoon support calls.  That part of my job is now over.  No idea who is taking that one over next week, but whoever it is, they will not be happy.

After my call was over we packed up the kids and ran over to IHOP to use a coupon that we had for lunch.  We all got pancakes and then the girls begged to go to Braum’s for ice cream.  Today is my final weekend day living in Texas so we decided to splurge.

We got back home and set to work on packing up the house.  Dominica dug into packing Luciana’s room and I was up to the attic to find boxes and start to assess the attic situation.

We are seriously contemplating just moving back into our house in Peekskill as we already own it, can refinance it while there and could spend some time having it renovated (we need to completely gut and replace the kitchen and the downstairs half bath as starting points and would really like to modernize the basement by removing the wall of mirrors and repaint the whole thing.)  And we have some people seriously interested in our Carrollton house, so we are trying to get them to come out and look at it, possibly today.

After coming down from the attic with lots of new boxes we realized that we did not appear to have any packing tape.  So Dominica ran off to Walmart to get tape so that we can assemble boxes and begin the process of really packing.  I’m hoping to, at a minimum, have my office boxes today.  The office has the most uniform stuff and the heaviest – the books.  I’ve already eliminated a stack of books that I don’t need to take with me that will be going somewhere else.  Tomorrow I need to coordinate getting our storage unit here in Carrollton so that we can move a bunch of our stuff there too.

We think that we found someone interested in taking our massive and awesome platform bed that we used to use in Peekskill.  We’ve not had a place to set it up and use it in years and moving it is taking a toll on it.  We have someone seriously interested in renting the house here in Carrollton and if they took the bed too that would be great.  We could just set it up in the master before we leave and have it out of the way of the packing too.  We hate to leave it but we are basically guaranteed that we cannot possibly set it up for at least the next three years and we haven’t been able to for the last seven.  So knowing that there is so little hope of using it, just giving it to someone who really will use it just seems better.  It sucks because it is such an amazing bed frame that Art made for us.  We hate to not use it but we really just don’t seem to have any way to do so.

We actually opened up the windows today and went off of the air conditioner for the first time since spring.  Very nice to have fresh air in the house again.  I will not miss that about Texas, eight or nine months of needing to have the windows closed and never any fresh air.  In New England we should have fresh air all of the time, or nearly so, except in winter.

We are using our house wiki as a way to track all of the boxes and what is being put into them.  We are hoping that by having an online documentation of all of our packing that we will actually be able to find stuff again – especially if we end up having stuff in long term storage somewhere for a long time which is very much possible.  Much like what happened during the moves of the New Jersey years that we had thought were over when we moved to Texas.

Got a lot of boxes packed and earmarked stacks of additional books for donation.  Probably eliminated one entire box of books from being packed and moved.  So much stuff to pack!

This evening, pretty late, Liesl and I played Ankh 3 again.  She has been asking to play it again for a few days and I had promised her that we would play it today.  We managed to finish it today, she was very excited.  This is our fourth real video game that we have completed together.  I promised her once she is in Connecticut with me that we would start playing “The Whispered World” which she has been excited to get to.

The girls were up way too late tonight.  Luciana was falling asleep on the couch and got off to bed at ten thirty.  Liesl was up till eleven thirty but was good and went to bed on her own when we realized the time.

Dominica and I finished watching the second season of The New Girl tonight.  What a great last three episodes.  Very good show, it has really grown on us.  So we are now completely caught up with it.

I will be in the office tomorrow.  Only five days left until I head off to Connecticut and we have very few plans made so far. Packing has started but is not nearly far enough.  We have someone definitely interested in the house in Carrollton but nothing definite.  We have no idea what is going on with the house in New York.

For all intents and purposes I got no sleep last night.  It was after two when I had gone to bed and my alarm was set for three fifty five.  I woke up two or three times during the night so there was very little chance for me to have actually slept.

Alarm went off and I got up, packed up the room and got in the shower.  Was out the door at a quarter after four.  I drove up to the airport without a map.  That was pretty easily.  It is a little under half an hour to get up there.  At that time of the morning it was incredibly easy to do the drive.

Getting through security at the airport ended up taking way more time that I was used to.  Even though San Jose is a very small airport with only two terminals, not all that dissimilar to Dallas Love Field, the security line was all backed up at five in the morning.  It took at least twenty minutes longer than usual t get through security.

The first flight went fine.  I was on US Air this morning departing San Jose at six twenty and flying into Phoenix where I had a brief layover, during which time I managed to just get a veggie breakfast taco and a restaurant called “Humble Pie”, before boarding the Phoenix to Dallas leg of the trip.

I got my laptop out and put in most of the time in the air from Phoenix to Dallas was spent either catching up on SGL for the past three days or doing some cleanup of my email.  Sometimes it is nice to not have access to WiFi while flying because it forces me to be disconnected which makes catching up on stuff a whole lot easier since nothing can be flowing in at the same time that I am cleaning stuff up.  It was decently productive flight time.

The flight was fine.  The descent into Dallas was pretty exciting due to a high level of turbulence, but it wasn’t bad.  It was raining a little when we touched down.  The girls had requested donuts but it was going to be too late to get donuts from a store as everything closes in Texas so I spent twenty or thirty minutes hunting down a Dunkin Donuts inside of the airport before leaving the secured terminal area.  Not exactly what I wanted to be doing instead of heading home to see the family.  But gotta make my kids happy.

I arrived in Terminal E and had to ride the train to Terminal A parking where the Spark had been sitting.  I found it without any effort and was on the way home.  There was quite a bit of rain and so the trip took more than half an hour instead of the customary fifteen minutes.  So altogether I probably lost an hour in the process of getting home.

Got home and relaxed with the family for a little bit.  Dominica went to the salon at four and I watched the kids.  It was quick and she was home in an hour with some shopping done and dinner from LA Burger – probably my last time to eat their amazing burgers which, of course, didn’t come out quite as I wanted. Argh.

We watched a few episodes of The New Girl while we ate.  We really should have done a bit of packing today but the girls really wanted to hang out with me.  I spent a while just laying on the bed with them jumping on me as they like to do.

We got the kids to bed at a decent time.  Liesl was just heading to bed when the Vielmas arrived to hang out.  The kids babysat and the four of us all went out for dinner and dancing.

It was pretty late before we got to bed and just as we were getting ready for bed we must have woken up Luciana because she came into our room in a haze and asked to sleep with us.  She rarely does this.  So she snuggled with us all night.

Busy day today at Pertino.  I got up around seven, got ready and drove into the office.  Only my second day driving around and I feel like I am getting to know town a bit.

I was one of the later Spiceheads to arrive and I had to jump almost immediately onto a call for Dominica’s office.  We have so much going on there that needs my attention that I’m doing something nearly every day.

The main part of the day was all scheduled events at Pertino.  Whether group meetings, one on one user experience testing, company town hall or being filmed by a video crew (that’s the third time this year that I’ve done film work, I’ve done that for Pertino, Spiceworks and Drobo.)

For lunch today we had pizza like we did the last time that I was out with Pertino.  California certainly seems to have amazing pizza.  It is the only region of the country that I think, in any way, competes with New York for the quality of the pizza but the style is pretty different.

It was a very productive day, lots of good work done at Pertino.  Before we completely wrapped up for the day, Craig took my out for a ride in his new Tesla S P85 – the all electric sports car that we have been looking at for a few weeks.  I’ve wanted an electric car for a while and this one is really amazing.  It is big and luxurious but also a sports car giving the best of a luxury sedan and a hard car sports car in one while having enough seating for five to seven people and lots of trunks space.

The ride was amazing.  I have definitely never been in a car like the Tesla.  Truly amazing.  The acceleration is truly unreal.  And the interior space is so much more than I would have guessed.  Far more practical that I thought.  We could probably do away with having the SUV completely with a Tesla.

After the day was done I ran back to the hotel and freshened up, dropped off my stuff and then drove up to Testarossa Winery where we had the “after work” wind down party.  I drove up on my own since I was coming from a different hotel as everyone else but managed to pull in as the same time as AJ, Jeff and Kris.

We all had a really nice time there.  My first California winery too.  Got a chance to hang out with a bit of the Pertino crew for a few hours.

After the winery the Spiceheads went down to the Willow Street Pizza (the same pizza place that Rich, Mark and I went to before going to Pertino the last time that I was in California) and did beers and pizza.  Some of them were there a bit before Kris and I arrived, since we drove down to the hotel, dropped off the car and walked from there.  It was a brisk evening but as long as we were walking quickly the temperature was great.  But it is too cool to hang out outside without a jacket if you aren’t moving around enough.

The pizza was excellent, just like last time, at Willow Street.  We had a good time just the Spiceheads hanging out.  One of the girls wanted to do kamakazis by the pitcher at the Black Watch because apparently we did that last time that we were here (not a memorable enough drink for me to remember that we had these but Dominica confirmed that we did) so we walked down there, did a quick pitcher (which was really just a big glass) and then went back tot he Tollhouse where everyone else was staying and joined Nick and his wife Jenn out on the patio and had California wine out there until people straggled off to bed one or two at a time.

After midnight on Kris and I were left awake.  He had to walk back to my hotel with me because he left his iPad in my rental car and I needed to get that back to him.  So we went back there and ended up standing out on the street talking till about a quarter till two.

Once back in the hotel I decided that I was going to have so little sleep that I had better pack everything now and be ready.  So I spent twenty odd minutes getting everything possible picked up and packed and only the bare necessities for tomorrow morning left out.  Had all my clothes ready to go and everything.   I got to bed at a quarter after two and my alarm was set for five minutes before four.  A very short night indeed.

I will be driving to San Jose airport first thing in the morning.  Then dropping off the rental. Flight to Phoenix.  Layover (short.)  Flight to DFW and back home around two tomorrow afternoon.

Up at four this morning, a very early morning for me.  I was pretty tired, but not too bad, when the alert went off.  I showered, finished packing and got out the door at a quarter after five.  My flight is scheduled to depart DFW Airport at seven thirty so that is plenty of time to casually get there, check in, get breakfast and relax waiting for my flight.

I got the airport and parked at Terminal A.  Of course, once I was in the airport I discovered that I was flying out of D21.  Argh.  That is a long way from A.  I went through security at A and was stopped and needed to be patted down.  I went through the machine with nothing on me but it flagged me on my right side.  Where they patted me down was exactly where my scar is so I am wondering if my scar (from my appendectomy) is so bad that it shows up on the body scanners.

I got to my terminal to wait.  There was some concern that it was not the correct gate because the DFW flight boards were changing every few seconds claiming that I was flying out of either A10 or D21.  It went back and forth with another flight to the same city on a different airlines about once every ten seconds.  Very concerning.  The airlines said that DFW is aware that the signs don’t work and give wrong information but any reports to them of such are ignored and the airport doesn’t care if they work or not.  Typical.

Terminal D has a great food court and shopping area.  I went there and got myself an Einstein Bros. bagel with smoked salmon cream cheese for breakfast and ate it at the gate.

We boarded the plane on time, no issues there.  I got a row to myself, very nice.  But we had mechanical issues.  So the flight that was supposed to leave at seven thirty did not end up leaving until more like nine thirty.  That was a really long time to be sitting on the tarmac and the air conditioning was one of the things that was broken so it was pretty warm in the cabin.

Once the flight got underway I paid for ninety minutes of Internet access on the flight so that I could log in and work for the office while I was flying.  That worked out perfectly as it kept me connected and able to work right up until noon when it would have been lunch time anyway.  I got a ton done in that stretch including keeping up completely on Spiceworks which is pretty amazing to have done considering that I was on the go continuously from five in the morning!

The flight today was a direct one on American.  DFW to San Jose.  The route took us over the Texas Panhandle and over southern Utah which is gorgeous if you get to watch it out of the window.  I cannot wait until I get to do a cross-country drive with the girls when they are older to go see all of the American west.  So much that I have never really gotten to see.

On the flight they showed Gatsby which I knew was out and had won some awards but knew very little about other than that it had Leonardo Dicaprio starring in it.  I didn’t watch it and didn’t have ear plugs but I did see that there were some actors that we like and especially one of the main stars of Jhoom Barbar Jhoom which we love and the girl who played Sally Sparrow from our favourite Dr. Who episode, Blink, had the female lead!  So we are going to have to watch that movie if only for them.

The flight wasn’t too bad although getting in so late was not fun.  I had been planning on getting to San Jose really early in the morning so that I would have two entire days there.  But it was more the middle of the day when I finally arrived.

I got a rental car at the airport, a Mazda 2.  I have never driven a Mazda 2 before and it proved to be a really good little car.  Very easy to drive, plenty of space and quite comfortable.

I drove from the airport to Los Gatos without needing a map or GPS.  I was really proud of myself since this was my first time driving in California.  The last time that we were in Los Gatos we just took cabs everywhere or Rich drove us around so we didn’t have to worry about knowing where anything was.  I had a little difficulty finding my way around Los Gatos but that didn’t last long.

I found my way to my hotel, the Garden Inn of Los Gatos, which was right on Main Street making it pretty easy to find.  I was lucky that they had cleaned my room early and they allowed me to check in right away.  So I got in, settled in, in packed, got online and made sure that things were okay at work and then freshened up.

The hotel was a quirky California bungalow style hotel that I am guessing was not built with the intention of having been used as a hotel.  It felt a lot more like it was meant to be small apartments.  The hotel had a full kitchen in every room and a little work nook.  It was odd, felt a little bit like the cottages in Bar Harbor that I used to stay in with my parents when I was young, but it was nice and comfortable and easily accessible.

I was pretty hungry so I stopped by Main Street Burger, which is supposed to be pretty famous, for a veggie burger.  It was good but not as good as Mooyah and definitely not as good as LA Burger.

Once I was all settled in I headed out to go to the Pertino offices which I was able to find without map or directions.

I was into Pertino before a lot of the other people were even to their hotels.  I had a good jump on the day.

I set up at Pertino and worked for the office for a bit but with the time difference there was a lot of time to work in California even after work back home was done.

Once the office work was finished I sat down with the Pertino product team and we put in several hours of working on use cases, feature requests, interface and management ideas, etc.  It was really productive time.  That was about two in the afternoon until six.  While I was there all of the other Spiceheads, including AJ, were out at the Computer History Museum, which I went to the last time that I was in Los Gatos.

At six the plan was for everyone to go back to the hotel and regroup for dinner at Palacio, the same restaurant where we kicked things off the last time that I was out with Pertino.  I was the only one coming from the office instead of from the hotel.  I drove down and parked at the restaurant and was one of the first ones there.

We are twice as many Spiceheads as the last time that we did this and this time nearly everyone has a “plus one” with them so it was a ton of people at dinner.  This was my first time meeting most of the Spiceheads attending.  There was Nic (and Jenn) from Las Vegas, Mike (and Adrian) from Lexington, AJ (and Jeff) from Syracuse, Chris from Birmingham and Jeremy (and Jenn) from South Dakota.  Hopefully I got the list right, very hard to remember everyone correctly, especially when I am bad with names in general, and I’ve never seen the “plus ones” names written, so if they are misspelled, oops.

Dinner was excellent.  Palacio is really nice.  From there the group split a bit.  Many people went back to the hotel.  Jeff Pierce came out and joined us.  I drove my car back to the hotel so that I would not have to drive later.  Then I walked back down to meet everyone at the Black Watch.

We were not out very late.  Everyone has a little bit of jet lag and we are starting at eight tomorrow morning so we need some sleep.  Eventually just Jeff and I were left.  We hung out for probably another hour at the Black Watch then we drove around looking for food.  Nothing was open.  We ended up settling for snacks at 7 Eleven being the best thing that we could find.

Jeff drove me back to the hotel and we hung out there for a while talking in the courtyard.  It was probably one thirty, if I was to guess, when I went into the hotel and got to bed.