Sheep Guarding Llama

Monday. More packing. Now we are getting into the smaller stuff. One of the things that I worked on this morning was going through my childhood bedroom closet to see what was in there and what I should clean out. I got most of the books, for example. One thing that I got out of the closet that was pretty weird was a 1994 Woodstock Anniversary unopened Pepsi can that for some reason my 18 year old self thought would be some kind of collector’s item. The things that teenagers think will be cool, am I right? Anyway, I felt the can, which had not moved in decades, and realized that it was far too light to still be full. I don’t know how it happened, but somehow most of the contents had leaked out or evaporated over the last few decades. I opened the can and poured out the disgusting remains and threw it out. Saved it all of those years for no reason at all. I will always wonder how that much fluid left through the sealed aluminum, though!

We are leaving to return to Texas in two days. A lot to be done between now and then. Tomorrow is Liesl’s birthday and her birthday party.

I found out today that my Aunt Sharon has moved from Apple only to using a Google Chromebook (yes, on Linux) because I had switched and then her son Jeremy had switched and somehow he talked her into trying it!

Paul went out to Niagara Falls today to the casino in Canada, so he was gone most of the day.

Tonight dad took the family out to John and Sarah’s in Perry which both girls had made him promise that we would go to because they loved the mac and cheese there so much the last time that we were in New York. So we all drove down to Perry and had dinner. Unfortunately they made a completely different mac and cheese tonight that was nothing at all like what the girls were wanting or expecting. So that didn’t have the desired effect.

I did some NodeBB consulting for a client tonight. Nothing like needing to do consulting work while up in New York trying to get the truck all packed.

Sunday. Another long day of packing up the truck. We did a lot yesterday, but there is still so much to be done. So we got up and got to it today.

I had to do some actual office work today, too. Which was kind of nice, a bit of a break from lifting so many heavy boxes.

Yesterday Dustin came to visit and help out, he just drove down from Rochester. Today Travis drove in from around Canton, Ohio to visit and help with some packing.

We went out to a late lunch with Travis to a mac and cheese restaurant up in LeRoy that my dad had told us about. The food ended up being completely amazing, I want to go there and try more different kinds of mac and cheese in the future. We had a really nice time having lunch there.

Travis was not able to stay long, he had a lot of driving to do to get back to Ohio.

We packed until about nine at night. Then early bed time. We are just all so tired from all of the packing.

Tonight I helped dad check out Fedora Linux with Cinnamon. He is thinking about making the plunge and moving over from Windows. But only a demo now. If he is going to try it out for real, it will likely not be until next month.

Saturday. Today begins our big day of loading up the truck. It is so cold, too. It was sixteen below when Paul picked up the truck this morning. We have a twenty four foot box truck to fill with stuff to take to Texas.

Jeremy was supposed to come down to help with the moving today as there is so much heavy stuff to move onto the truck from the barn storage unit. But he ended up not making it, so we were short someone to help me lift the big stuff onto the truck. Making this an extra hard day for me.

We were really thankful that Dustin came down from Rochester and helped with a lot of the truck loading. We would have been in terrible shape without his help today. He also loaded up his car with servers that we were “donating” and that helped to clear a lot of heavy stuff out of the barn. He brought his significant other and baby with him, so we got to meet them for the first time. They also gave Liesl a birthday present while there!

We worked on loaded the truck all day. The big furniture was done with Dustin there, but there is so much to do to load a truck of that size and we need every inch of it. Today went really well and we are anticipating being able to finish it all up tomorrow. It was a very long day of moving. The storage unit is really getting thin, though. We are in good shape.

Dinner was grilled cheese and tomato soup.

One project that I worked on today as well was finding and identifying working VoIP phones that we can use. I have been setting up and testing phone after phone today. We have been needing some phones for a while, now we have a surplus of them. Bins of them!

It is exciting to find so much stuff. The DVDs and the CDs and the Laserdiscs are all loaded up. The bit white couch, the super heavy black couch. Much of our wedding furniture. It is mind boggling how much stuff we have had stored up here for so long. How is it possible that we even own so much stuff?

Friday. Paul and I have to work down in Big Flats for the entire day, so Dominica and the girls are hanging out with dad today. We have a long day ahead of us, so we had to be up really early and drive all morning, again.

We made good time down, so stopped in Bath to get breakfast. We decided to go to Dunkin Donuts, we got coffees, donuts, and breakfast sandwiches. We ate there as we were pretty early. It was a cold, but bright and sunny morning.

We got to the factory in Big Flats and got right to work. It was a long day of running all over the factory. It was a very busy day for us. So much to do.

For a late lunch Paul ran out and picked up Burger King sandwiches. We worked until late, but we got everything that we needed to do done. Very productive and they are happy with our work. An exhausting day, though. Especially after so much work being done.

So it was very late evening when we finally got back to dad’s house.

Thursday. Happy Thanksgiving. This morning we started the day at thirteen degrees below zero! This is pretty surprising for us Texans, we are not used to this.

For the holiday meal we went to Aunt Sharon’s and Uncle Leo’s. Got to see Jeremy and his family, Sara and her family and had a lot of fun. Paul joined us. The girls had a lot of fun playing with their cousin Olivia, and with the Richardsons’ cats.

We went back to dad’s after the meal and spent the evening there. Then tonight, for the first time in many years, I actually got a chance to go to the annual (twenty third annual, in fact) Thanksgiving Night dinner at Nick Tahou’s in Rochester!

I used to go every year, long ago. Our Nick Tahou’s Thanksgiving Tradition even predates SGL, and that is really something! We have been going ever since Joe and I were in college together at Robert’s Wesleyan back in the 1990s.

All five of us went since the kids have never managed to make it to Nick Tahou’s for this. This is especially cool to get to bring them and have them meet everyone. Paul drove and Dominica came along as well. We had called Nate ahead of time to make sure that no one would be showing up that should not be there given things that have been found out this past year. But we were safe, they would not be there.

Nearly all the old guard was there. Jeff, Joe, Nate and his family. We spent the whole time catching up, it has been forever since we were all together. And this past year has given us a lot to be catching up on.