Sheep Guarding Llama

Slept well, alarm went off at six thirty Eastern which, to my internal clock, was five thirty.  Too early for me.  But I didn’t get bad sleep, just not as much as I would have liked but I feel pretty good.  Being about two weeks now completely caffeine free has really allowed me to sleep a lot less than before.  Less control of my hour to hour tiredness but much more control of my overall need for sleep.  Mostly a win.  Probably much better for my health, though, which is what is actually important.

I didn’t actually have as much time as I might have to get ready this morning as my morning meeting is at nine and to be safe I really need to be out of the hotel by eight to be ready to make it safely since traffic last night was horrible and I really do not have a good idea of how long it will take to get from one place to another in this area nor am I completely confident where I am heading today (as in the address.)  So a little complication there.

Got all ready and left the hotel just a little after eight.  Had a taxi waiting for me and it ended up only taking fifteen minutes to get to the location so I was very early.  Better early with time to relax than racing, though.  I have to have my luggage with me all day because I don’t have a chance to return to the hotel this afternoon.  My flight is at five out of La Guardia this evening which is pretty early, but thankfully that means that I can get home to my girls in time to see them both before they go to bed tonight.  My flight is scheduled to land at eight (it is a three hour flight from DFW to NYC and four hours in the reverse, which is pretty easy to remember) which means that I should be home at the house before nine.

My day of meetings went very well.  We actually ran over and I was racing to get to the airport after it was all over.  I was originally planned to not leave until two but ended up having an additional meeting at the end of the day and going until after two thirty.  Given that I needed to get from Norwalk, CT to La Guardia in Queens, NY to catch a flight that boards in exactly two hours – there was just a little bit of a panic.  They had a limo waiting for me (a whole week of being limo’d everywhere is pretty nice) and he drove like crazy to get me to the airport.  Traffic was light and it went really well.

Got to La Guardia and through security in no time.  Had enough time to grab a tuna wrap and a slice of real NYC pizza before getting on to the plane.  I had been given a catered lunch today but it was very small as much of it was meat.  I didn’t want to burden anyone with running around to find me other food, which they definitely offered to do.

The flight back to Dallas was completely full.  I was stuck sitting in the bulkhead, which I hate, because it is the tighter seats.  I like the leg room in front but the lack of side to side space makes it very uncomfortable.  I prefer normal seats much better.  The flight was uneventful.  We sat in silence nearly the whole way.  I listened to a few hours of The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond and took a few minutes of naps here and there too.

I got to DFW and had to wait probably half an hour for my luggage. Because the flight was full they were picky about the size of the luggage and my carry-on was too large to go on the plane.  So it had to be stowed and I lost a lot of time there.  After getting my luggage I had to get from terminal A29 where I arrived to E1 where the car was parked.  That took nearly an hour.  DFW airport is a construction mess and they don’t have their shuttles working well to handle it at this point.  It was so bad that people were really concerned that there was no way to get out of the construction zone that we had landed in.  Very poor planning and zero information for people wondering what to do.

Finally got to the car and drove home.  It was after nine when I got there, closer to ten.  My phone had died while on the flight and so I was unable to communicate with Dominica to let her know what was going on that entire time that I was on the ground since they don’t offer charging stations or anything for people waiting for luggage or for shuttles – both places where it would be highly beneficial, maybe even more beneficial than for people waiting on a flight since it is on arrival that your phone is most likely to be dead and where you probably need it most.

Both girls were up and waiting for me and so excited to see me.  It was hours of screaming and running around.  Eventually we all just piled onto the bed and the girls just jumped all over me for a very long time.  Once Luciana went to bed we watched a little Netflix and Liesl curled up on the couch with me snuggling very close.  In no time she fell asleep there and I eventually carried her in and put her to bed.

Tomorrow morning Dominica has to be up early so that she can drive down towards Houston to meet up with Francesca so that they can transfer our nieces, Madeline and Emily, who are coming up to spend the week with us in Dallas as they do every summer.  The round trip takes roughly five hours if all goes well.  Dominica will leave at eight and is hoping to be home around one.  I will be home watching Liesl and Luciana.

I am in Greenwich, Connecticut this morning.  I woke up super early, six thirty local time, which means that I only got three and a half hours of sleep in total which is way too little.  I have no idea why I was awake. I tried hard to fall back asleep, the bed was very comfy, but it just did not work.  So I was up and about but seven thirty or so.  I took my time getting ready and getting the room packed up.

Nick called me and wanted to meet for coffee this morning before my meeting so he came by around nine and picked me up and we went just a little ways up town and got Starbucks and walked around town a little bit.  Maybe half an hour or so of walking.  Nothing major.  It figures that today it is ten degrees warmer in Connecticut than it is in Dallas. Dominica is enjoying amazing weather down there.

Got back to the hotel at ten and got ready and checked out at eleven.  Killed half an hour having tea in the hotel’s library then walked to my meeting just up the street.

It was an incredibly busy day for me from then on out.  I was in a continuous stream of meetings from noon until five in the evening!  What a day but things went quite well.

At five I left and my limo was waiting from me.  From there it was a long drive in traffic over the short distance to the Double Tree in Norwalk, Connecticut where I am spending the night tonight and from where I am writing this update.

Once into the hotel my first order of business was to get some food.  Traffic was bad and nothing looked like an easy walk so I just went downstairs to the restaurant in the hotel and had fish & chips there and a beer.  Another lonely meal.  That seems to be a theme on this trip.  Only one more day anyway, not a big deal.  My flight for tomorrow was arranged this morning and I leave La Guardia at five and arrive in Dallas at nine so I should be home at the very least in enough time to see Liesl before she goes to bed although seeing Ciana is unlikely.

After my meal it was straight back up to the room, set up the laptop and did some catching up on emails, Spiceworks, etc.  I did relatively little tonight although catching up on hundreds of posts and dozens of emails is not exactly trivial.

Went to bed at eleven thirty local time (Eastern).  Feeling a little tired but not really all that much.  Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day, though.  My meeting starts at nine in the morning and I do not know how far away it is so need to be prepared.  So going to be getting up decently early.  Hopefully I can get breakfast in the hotel before needing to leave.

That is about it for today.  Very little news to report.  My day was pretty much nothing but logistics and my meeting.  And that was all that it was supposed to be so that is fine.  Fingers crossed for a good day tomorrow and I am definitely looking forward to getting home to my girls.

I went to the airport, DFW, from the office at four thirty.  Traffic was light and I got there very quickly.  It is only one exit up the highway from the office so that makes things very convenient.  I parked the Spark and was through security in no time.  Leaving over two hours for the process really was not necessary.  I figured with the parking, not having the gate number and having the flight be arranged through a third party might cause some delays but even having to walk all over to find the Delta desk I was at my gate without the slightest hiccup by five o’clock leaving me more than enough time for anything that I might want to do.

I set myself up at the Tequileria where I have eaten while awaiting a flight before, March, 2011 according to Foursquare although I swear that it is far more recent than that and I can’t imagine where I must have been going to have been flying alone two and a half years ago but who knows, I had thought that I had eaten there while waiting for my flight to Chicago but that was much more recent.  I’d look it up on SGL but do not have the energy at the moment.

I ordered a beer and then had a second and got the Mexican style crab cakes. I wanted the salmon quesadillas but they were out of them.  That is what I ate last time, though.

That killed about one hour and gave me a chance to get to know my new Nokia Lumia 925 a bit better as there was nothing else for me to do.  No one looked interested in talking at the bar.

Sat for about an hour waiting for the flight.  We boarded and the flight was nearly empty.  I was seated in the back with Joe, a salesman heading to NYC for LeedCon or something like that and we chatted a little bit and the stewardess talked to us a bit too.  It was a very easy flight and I managed to listed to maybe the first hour of The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond on the flight.

We arrived at La Guardia in Queens in three hours to the minute after departing from Dallas.  That is a very quick flight.

I got off of the plane and my limo was waiting right there for me.  That was easy.  Just got right in and John Mark, my driver, took me the relatively quick trip up into Westchester and over to Greenwich, Connecticut and dropped me off at the luxurious Delamar Greenwich Harbor.  I was the last one to check in for the night arriving around eleven thirty.

I went up to the room for just a little bit and got settled in.  Then I decided to go out for a walk and see the harbor, see where I am going tomorrow and explore town a little bit.  I ended up talking an hour and a half walk or maybe a little more.  It was just slightly chilly but once I started climbing the hill in town that wore off quickly.  I walked up Steamboat and that turned in Greenwich Avenue, known as the “Rodeo Drive of the East Coast” and it definitely was.  The array of shops reminded me of Bern, Switzerland.  Very high end shopping and really interesting restaurant choices.  I walked all the way up to Route 1 at the top of the strip.  The walk was almost exactly two miles.  A nice walk for a quiet evening.

It was a really nice walk.  A very quiet night.  I saw hardly a soul out and about.  It gave me a chance to acclimate to New England a little bit.  It is amazing how the smells brought be back to the Northeast.  So many normal plant smells that I don’t smell in Texas.  And how much the town was unlike anything in Texas.  I have been forgetting what it is like to live up north.  Everything is so different.  Towns laid out so much differently.  It was a very nostalgic walk through this sleeping village reminding me of late night walks through Erie, Williamsport in Pennsylvania or Auburn, New York.  I love walking around these small towns up north.  There is something magical about them once they have shut down.

I had been hoping to find something open somewhere so that I could grab a snack.  I tried up and down Greenwich top to bottom and along several of the side roads but nothing was open.  Only one pub, that was packed with kids dancing, in the whole area and that was down very near the hotel.

Overall Greenwich was a very cool town.  Great history and architecture. Founded in 1640 it is one of the truly ancient colonial towns.  The streets definitely remind you of how old it is.  Nothing makes any sense.  There is a Metro North station right in the middle of town which is extremely handy.

The walk was good and I got myself very well acclimated and oriented so that I am ready for tomorrow.  I know exactly where to go and what to do.  My meeting for the day is only one block from the hotel on the same road so this will be super simple for me.

It was just after two when I returned to the hotel.  I got my CPAP set up, hung up my clothes for tomorrow and got to bed around two thirty.  My meeting is not until noon so I get to sleep in and relax in the morning.

Woke up at six thirty.  This “no caffeine” thing that I have been doing for nearly two weeks now is really making me not sleep very much.  It is amazing how much of my need for sleep is induced by the use of caffeine.

Liesl had a tough morning and got in some trouble and had to go back to bed but it really isn’t fair for her because she and Luciana have completely different sleep patterns and Luciana makes Liesl unable to sleep much of the time.  Luciana has a terrible time going to bed but is bright eyed and bushy tailed the instant she wakes up at seven in the morning.  Liesl goes to bed easily but needs to sleep in and wake up slowly.  Having them share a room is a little challenging.

Left for work at eight.  Very, very slow day.  Was at my desk and my foot was really hurting this morning.  It was driving me crazy (this is the damage from the pallet jack ending up on it last week while we were buying the treadmill) so I was getting concerned that maybe something was broken so I made an appointment and run to CareNow to get X-rays taken of it.

This is my first time doing anything with our new insurance and I had forgotten to have the card with me.  So I ran home first to pick it up since CareNow is not that far from the house and is a bit past it.  So not really out of the way at all.

As I approached the house I noticed that one block over all of the neighbours were out standing on the side street.  I thought that they must be having a barbecue or something.  It was very strange.  It was about ten thirty, so way too early to find everyone out on the street.  This is Texas, people don’t stand out on the street and talk to each other just as a general rule.  I came around the corner and could barely get through, cars just were not moving.  Then I noticed the Denton County Sheriff blocking the street at my corner.  I was able to get to the house but go nowhere else.  Then I saw the street behind him full of police and emergency vehicles and a fire truck sitting on our street.

I pulled up to the house and Dominica met me at the door.  The house directly behind ours, the one that comes onto the alley square on with us and the only one that has windows that can see into our windows, was being raided by the Denton SWAT team!  The SWAT truck, or at least one of them, was parked directly against our back fence so looking out the back door meant looking right at the truck.  Dominica had been hiding with the girls in the front bedroom to keep them away from the windows and the back of the house.  She had been startled by SWAT having sneaked into the alley and suddenly blasting away on the megaphone telling people to come out of the house.  After a bit she heard some explosions, likely smoke bombs or some sort of tear gas to make people exit the house.  There are several dogs that live in there, hopefully they are alright.

We don’t know the neighbours there at all.  They moved in pretty recently replacing the Softlayer Engineer who used to be there for most of the time that we have owned the house (the one with the crazy barbecue wagon setup.)  These new ones have likely been there a year at most and probably a bit less.

Not much news.  So that was happening as I left to go to CareNow and get X-rays.

It took about forty-five minutes at CareNow.  Got X-rays and the doctor agreed that it could be broken and X-rays were needed, so I had done the right thing.  It turned out that there was no breakage.  Likely just a very deep soft-tissue contusion.  So all is well, I just need to take it easy.  No real damage of any sort.  Basically a non-surface bruise.  So that is a relief.  No idea how I would handle this week with a broken foot.

From CareNow I drove down to Irving and stopped quickly at Men’s Warehouse and grabbed two new dress shirts as none of the ones that fit me have been laundered so I needed new ones.  Really need to find a dry cleaners!

Then to Subway for a salad that I ate at my desk back at the office where I worked a very slow afternoon until four thirty.  It is just four thirty now as I am writing this update and I am going to go ahead and post for the day.  I am leaving in a few minutes to head to the airport and off to NYC and then to Connecticut.  I won’t have much time to post so I will do my best to add any trip details to tomorrow’s posting.

I was pretty restless last night and did not get to sleep for a really long time.  Once I finally did I was awoken by Luciana who had snuck over from her room and wanted to climb into bed.  So I made some room and she climbed into bed and snuggled with me sleep on top of my left arm making me rather uncomfortable so I was unable to even think about falling back asleep.  It was pretty warm with Ciana sleeping on one arm and my back against Liesl’s back.  I can’t believe that Liesl never woke up and Ciana just fell right back asleep.  This was around four thirty, so I just lay like that for two hours before attempting to get up.

I needed to be up early this morning as I had paperwork stuff that I needed to deal with today.  So I was up doing that this morning.  Luciana did not want me to get out of bed.  When I got up she said “no” in her groggy little voice and got out of bed and followed me.  I sat on the foot of the bed and she climbed up into my lap and put her head on my shoulder falling back asleep immediately.

Work was extremely slow today.  I took a late lunch and met Dominica and the girls at Rockfish in Irving.  That was a nice change.  Both girls were determined to sit with me while we ate which always makes actually eating pretty hard to do.

Got back to the office but it was a short afternoon.  Got home a little early and then had a phone meeting for an hour and a half.  That kept me busy until six thirty.

After that we watched Into the Woods and finished it up.  Got the girls to bed on the early side.  They are both sleeping in their own room tonight, no one is sleeping with us.  I need sleep before the rest of this week gets started.  I have way too much going on.  And Dominica is going to be pretty overwhelmed too.

I had to try on suits and make sure that I had everything that I needed.  Dominica got me all packed for my trip and we had everything done before we sat back down and watched the two latest episodes of Hot in Cleveland on Hulu+.  Then right off to bed.

Tomorrow morning I head to the office and work all day.  I have to leave at four thirty to run to the airport (DFW) to catch my flight to La Guardia on Delta.  I actually don’t believe that I have ever flown through La Guardia.  JFK I have used for trips to Europe on several occasions and Newark Liberty we have used for years.

I get to Queens around eleven thirty tomorrow night and then up to Greenwich, Connecticut where I have never been before.  I’ve driven through, once, when Andy and I made the coastal drive from NYC to Boston around 1998 but it was just zipping by on the highway.  And I’ve been to other parts of Connecticut before, especially having lived just a few miles off of the border for about a year, but along the Gold Coast will be new to me.

I will be in Greenwich on Thursday and then in Westport on Friday.  Friday night I will be flying back down to Dallas.  Everyone wants to see me while I am in town but, sadly, I don’t have any free time so can’t really do anything at all but hang out in my hotel.  At most I only have a handful of free hours in the entire time that I am up there.

I will be essentially out of contact, completely, Thursday and Friday.  I am using furlough days so I am not on call for the office and my phone will be mostly off during that time.