Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 239, Down ~72lbs

I started reading Amy Stewart’s “Wicked Plants” on Audible.  I am really working my way through my Audible library this holiday season!

I worked from home today so that I could spend the day with Oreo and take him to the vet’s office this afternoon.  His left eye has been really bad for days.  It appears that his eye is bleeding.  He has been having severe eye problems for a long time with that one so we are really concerned.  He is completely blind so that is not the concern.  We are just worried about pain and infections.  We want him happy.  Being blind is very hard for him as it is.

Work remains insanely slow so today I managed to start playing BioWare’s classic Mass Effect for the XBOX 360 which originally released in 2008.  This is one of those video game classics that I have owned for a long time and have just never managed to get around to playing.  I have heard people rave about it but I do not get a lot of time to play video games so it has sat on the shelf waiting for me to have free time.

Oreo’s vet appointment ended up going pretty well.  His vet was very glad that we rushed him in as he is indeed bleeding into his eye but she thinks that she can help him.  So he had a long visit and a substantial change to his medicine regimen.  Overall, though, just being home rather than in Houston appears to have him feeling better.  Dominica was commenting on his odd behaviour while he was down there and thought that he was in a lot of pain but I am pretty confident, and his vet agreed, that the issues came from him being uncomfortable with the situation and not from physical pain.  Now that he is at home with me and all is quiet is appears to be incredible happy and relaxed.

I did a lot of carpet cleaning today.  I’ve started a new process where I put a large pot on the stove and boil the water and oxygenating bleach mixture so that it can really attack the dirt and whatever in the carpets.  I’m not sure how much of a different the boiling makes, outside of dissolving the bleach better and keeping me from leaving dry bits of bleach grit behind, but hitting the carpet with so much water and bleach at once allows me to move from spot cleaning to seriously attacking large swaths of the floor all at once.

I cleaned the carpets at the same time as playing my video game.  The water takes a good ten minutes to prepare and has to soak in the floor for about ten minutes.  So there is a lot of time in between treatments.  So I start the water on the stove, play for a bit, dump the water on the floor, play for a bit, clean up the water and repeat.  Each pot of water fills a minimum of two water tanks on the hand floor cleaner that I am using to suck the water back out.  I am getting tons of dirt out of the carpet and as I am cleaning “clean” carpet and not a spot that has had an accident or specific dirt problem it really highlights just how dirty carpets are.  I am very glad that I am bleaching them.

I had an hour and a half conference call this afternoon but other than that nearly no work all day.  I fed myself at home today, just steam in bag veggies and veggie patties from the freezer.  I’m working hard to use the food that is in the house and to keep eating as healthily as possible.  Today is my diet recovery day to help to get my body back on track.

I managed to play nearly twelve hours of Mass Effect today and am really in to it now.  That game is awesome.  It is no wonder that people are so passionate about it.  The storyline is really excellent and the game in general is a real departure both from most games available as well as from the games that I normally play.  It is a science fiction game, and normally I play fantasy, and it is an action adventure rather than more traditional RPG.  It is often listed as RPG but it really is only minimally that, at best, but the social interactions in the game are very much RPG so it is a bit of a genre buster.

The real strengths in Mass Effect come from its story telling and unique plot.  I have been drawn in and am enjoying the game immensely.  I am quite glad that I saved it until I was in a position to really get into it and enjoy it.  The sequel is actually supposed to be quite a bit better.  It is Mass Effect 2, not Mass Effect, with so many industry accolades.

Medifast Status: Day 238, Down ~72lbs

I got up this morning and worked from Joe and Britt’s house all day.  Dominica and the girls went to the Grices’ and went shopping.  Oreo needed a quiet day and I needed to work a little today.  There was extremely little going on at the office but we figured that there would be no real way for me to get work done so we just stayed there.  It was mostly a lonely day.

Around four I packed up the Mazda with everything that I would need to have for the week and drove Oreo over to the Grices’ where we had dinner and Dominica’s mother’s birthday cake.  It was fairly late when Oreo and I were able to get on to the road to drive north.

Having finished my last book yesterday, today I selected and read “The Book of General Ignorance“, also on Audible, on my long, lonely drive up to Carrollton.  The drive went fine.  Nothing to report there.

Because I have to take Oreo to the office tomorrow I will be working from home and getting some time in at the house.

Medifast Status: Day 237, Down ~72lbs

Today is Monday and because of when the holiday fell I get today off of work so I am able to stick around in Houston for a while before going back up to Dallas.  Really I could stay down all week but there is stuff to be done at home and Oreo really needs his quiet time.  He thrives when he is able to be alone and sleep all day without anyone interrupting him. His one eye is really looking bad and he needs to make a trip to the vet as soon as we can get him in.

This evening we all went out to dinner at Saltgrass for Dominica’s mom’s birthday which is actually tomorrow but not everyone could make it tomorrow.  Dinner was quite good.  I got coconut shrimp which was quite tasty.  This was Dominica and my first time going to a Saltgrass.  The food was good, nothing amazing but not bad, but I must say that the customer service was excellent.  Good enough that even though I am writing this blog post weeks later it stands out in my mind how impressed that I was with their customer service while we were there.  I would go back there just because of that.

Tomorrow I will be working from Joe and Britt’s house with Oreo during the day and will be driving back to Dallas in the evening.

Tonight I finished reading “The Great Age of Discovery” which I have been reading for some time.  This is book number two that I have completed during the holidays.  I learned a lot of South American and Central American recent history from this book.  Not areas that I know very well.

Medifast Status: Day 236, Down ~72lbs

We were up decently early this morning, like around eight, and headed over to the Grices’ with the girls.  Oreo stayed behind in his kennel at Joe and Britt’s house so that he could sleep.   The mayhem of opening presents would be way too much for him and there is no reason for him to be there then.

We ate the coffee cake that John and Michelle sent to us this morning which has become a bit of a Christmas tradition for us.  They had sent it to me while I was still up in Dallas and I delivered it down so that we could eat it here.  It was awesome.  Everyone really liked it.

We got started on the late side for the opening of presents.  This year is really crazy as there are so many kids.  Liesl was only somewhat involved in the present opening process last year and Clara was not involved at all.  But this year we have five kids opening presents with only Luciana being too young to take part.

Liesl, of course, made out like a bandit and has all kinds of cool, new stuff.  She had a great time and is very excited about her new toys, art stuff, school stuff, clothes, etc.

The big gift for Dominica and I is money for a Rug Doctor.  We will be buying that next week.  This year was the first year that we had figured out what we wanted to Christmas way ahead of time and have known what we wanted for about eleven months.  Normally we wait until the last second and then struggle to come up with the right thing to ask for.  This year we were prepared but spent the entire year looking forward to it.  It may seem like a mundane present but when you put as much work into cleaning carpets as we do it becomes one of the most exciting things that you can imagine.  We are really looking forward to deep cleaning our carpets on a regular basis.  They really need it.

Liesl’s big gift was Kinect for the XBOX 360.  Garrett got one as well.  We are hoping that because the Kinect works by watching the kids and does not require any remote that it will work better for them being so young than does the Wii.  Liesl has a really hard time taking the abstract concept of the Wiimote and figuring out how to translate her hand motions into video game interactions.  That every controller today is different makes this much harder.  She is good with touch screens and has some concept of keyboards and a mouse.  But Wiis and XBOXs, for example, have extremely different controllers that look much alike and the Kinect is completely different yet.  So there will be some learning curve, but we are hopeful.

The Kinect came with three games and Liesl got a Sesame Street game for Christmas too.  Dominica also got a Kinect game for Christmas based on a game show that she really enjoys but whose name escapes me at the time that I am writing this.

One of the coolest things that I’ve gotten for Christmas in a long time are whiskey stones.  These are square chunks of soap stone that you put into the freezer and then use instead of ice in a whiskey (or any drink.)  They keep the drink cold but do not water down the drink so they are way better than normal ice.  I have wanted whiskey stones for years and now I have some.

This evening I put in some time working on Francesca’s second computer – the one that recently got a really bad virus infection.  It has not been working for a while and they were unable to find any installation media for it (it was purchased used) so we decided to install Ubuntu Linux for her to see if that would work out.  I got it installed pretty quickly and she tried it out and was really happy with it. It has everything that she needs, looks way better than Vista, which is what was on there before, and should not have any need for anti-virus software making it was less cumbersome for her.

Madeline and Emily’s big presents were Apple iPod Touchs which are pretty awesome presents.  They are basically full-blown handheld computers with Internet access.  So now they have new ways to have handheld video games, music, movies, television shows, books, chat, email, etc.  I spent much of the evening getting the iPods set up and working.  It is amazing how much work it takes to get those ready for use.

Medifast Status: Day 235, Down ~72lbs

Christmas is one of those rare holidays where everything at the office completely stops and I really do not need to worry about checking in at all.  I can just disconnect and disappear.  Ah, I love it.

Mostly today was a very relaxing day.  Just hanging out with the family.  Lots of food.

We went to mass this evening at the church near to Joe and Britt’s house.  This is our first time going to this particular church.  We got there early but it was already standing room only.

After church we did dinner at the Tocco’s and then Dominica went back over to the Grices’ with her parents to help with the setup for Christmas morning.  I stayed with Oreo who is very nervous and anxious with so many people and dogs around and so much space that he does not know his way around.  He has been having a really hard time being down in Houston so I am trying my best to keep him calm and relaxed.

Dominica was gone for several hours.  Oreo and I went to bed very early and put in some time listening to books on Audible.  Audible has become a Christmas tradition for me.  We are always out of town for the holidays and both traveling as well as being out of town make me want to use Audible to listen to books.  I have been doing this for several years now and I am beginning to associate the holidays with book reading.

It was probably one in the morning when Dominica got back to Joe and Britt’s house.  I’m not sure exactly when it was as Oreo and I were already fast asleep.