Sheep Guarding Llama

This has been one crazy busy month for us.  We went directly from Brian being down to dad visiting to learning for Houston today.  The Grice family is staying with us next week as well and just one day after they head back to Houston we will be closing on the new house and within a day or two of that Brian and Tara will be back for three months!

I did my usual work from home this morning for my Friday conference call.  Dominica and Liesl were exhausted and sletp through me working all morning.  Normally at least Liesl would wake up by now.  Liesl is loving having her room back to herself.  She really appreciates having her own space.

Work was mostly uneventful.  For lunch Pierce and I went over to Five Guys.  That place is going to be hopping for a while as they are the only burger place and the only fast food place within easy reach of a lot of businesses in this area.  I got the double sandwich meal that I had figured out last night and that was pretty good.  I got take out for Dominica and Liesl and dropped that off for them.

It was a long afternoon and quite busy.  It was around seven or eight when we managed to hit the road to head on down to Houston.  The trip was uneventful.  We hit some traffic in Dallas but overall the drive wasn’t bad.

As we left the apartment we stopped to get gas at the new RaceTrac that just opened, maybe today, across the street.  This is, apparently, the week of new stuff opening at the place that we are leaving.  That is rather annoying.  It would have been awfully nice to have had these things all this time while we were living here.  This is pretty much what happened to us in Newark as well – everything opened just before or after we left but not for the two years that we actually lived there.  Speaking of Newark, I really miss eating at Food for Life!  Someone needs to deliver me some of their food.

The new RaceTrac gas station is really nice and has a great selection of hot food items.  We got enough food there to get us through for dinner and got onto the road.

We arrived in Houston just a little after midnight.  Not too bad and in line with Liesl’s normal schedule.  She was awake for most of the drive and it took a little while for her to calm down enough to get off to bed.

Dad came over this morning and visited for a while before he had to go to the airport to return to New York.  I had to work so I had gotten up and was logged in and working, having just gotten out of the shower and gotten dressed, when he arrived at the apartment.

For breakfast dad and I walked over to La Madeleine’s and picked up food for everyone and brought it back to the apartment to eat it there.  We ate and I worked from the bedroom.  I can’t wait until we have the house and I can start to set up a real office.  Working from the bedroom doesn’t work at all.  I have no space and no way to really be productive and no way to set up everything, like me internal disk drives.  There just isn’t enough space.

I’ve been testing BackBlaze online backup software and so far it is going pretty decently well.  We have the world’s slowest Internet access (AT&T DSL) and it is going to take weeks to actually do the backup but we have so much important stuff that we store on the desktops like photos, home videos, Amazon MP3s, etc. that it would be a huge problem if we were to lose them.  So doing a major backup before we move house is an important project.  I really like that BackBlaze does an unlimited backup, though.  That is a big deal.  So I can just let it run forever and get everything.  It is pretty cheap too.

Dad needed to be at the airport around ten forty so we left the house at ten thirty and they all dropped me at the office on the way to the airport.  Time to get actual work done.

It was a pretty short morning before coming home for lunch.  I had stuff that needed to be done over lunch today so I couldn’t blow it off but I didn’t want to not go into the office this morning either after having been “out” for the last two days.  This week has enough disruption as it is, I didn’t want to create anything additional.

Back to work this afternoon.  Nothing too exciting to report there.

We noticed today that Five Guys Burgers and Fries located directly in front of our apartment had opened.  We need a change of pace so we decided to try it out.

Dominica has never been to a Five Guys before but I had and I was not impressed the last time that I was there.  They don’t have a veggie burger and so the only real vegetarian item on the menu is grilled cheese or a “burger without the burger”.  The grilled cheese was nothing special and I don’t like their fries.  At least they aren’t expensive.  Tonight we tried the “no burger” option which was actually quite delicious.  They have enough toppings that it turns into a pretty decent sandwich and they do have special pricing on that so they are not gouging the vegetarians when they don’t get half of the sandwich.  So I’ve figured out that skipping the fries and getting two of these sandwiches is cheaper and healthier and while not something that I would want to do everyday it is a pretty good option.

Liesl is definitely sad that her paw-paw is gone.  She loved having him here.  They have so much fun together.  She really likes having family around and constant interaction (I wonder where she gets that from?)

I woke up this morning at six forty five, fifteen minutes before my wake up call was scheduled, and so I decided to just get up and get moving.  No use laying in bed for fifteen minutes – always work that could be done.  So I got up and called down to turn off my wake up call, but the wake up call system said that no wake up call was scheduled for me!  That would have been very annoying.  I could easily have slept in until eight or nine as my body is off by an hour.  Close call on that one.  That would have made for a rough morning.

I got up, showered, worked a little and then packed up the hotel room and got down to breakfast.  I just did fruit and yoghurt again today.  I’m being very healthy on this trip.  Everyone else had neglected to pack up their rooms and to bring all of their stuff down with them so I was way ahead on being ready today.  Not a usual situation for me.

We were running a little late getting over to the class today.  There is not that much to cover, though, and we are looking at a rather relaxed day – both in the class and for me back at the office where things are not as crazy today as they were yesterday.

Today’s class went well too.  It was both fun and educational.  I do wish that I had the option not to work during the class but that can’t really be helped and it does help to keep me very busy.  Otherwise it might be too slow and I might begin to drift off or something.

Class wrapped up early but there was really nowhere else to go so Curtis and I just headed back to the airport.  We had to drop off the rental car anyway, but that only takes a few minutes.  We got that dropped off, took the shuttle to the airport and went our separate ways – him to Southwest and me to American.

I was very, very early getting to the airport for my flight.  Well over two hours to kill.  I got through security quite quickly.  This was the first time that I got to see the new TSA “naked” scanners in place.  RDU has the 1mm wave scanner – the one that uses microwave instead of x-ray to look through your clothing.  I offered to get in it for them but they were not inclined to subject anyone to me being naked.

One of the TSA agents complained about the lack of security going on around the new scanners that TSA management is now pressuring the agents to separate people from their luggage and belongings – a security precaution considered pretty basic up until now.  So the scanning situation is dramatically reducing security and providing a system for smuggling things through TSA’s screening process that did not exist previously.  So now it takes longer, violates basic decency and puts us at more danger than before.  Thanks TSA, no safety for Americans nor convenience.

I found a brew pub in the airport and had a few beers and a fish and chips, the crappy frozen kind, while I waited.  I met an MD from Sydney, Australia who now lived in Atlanta and makes EMR software for small doctors’ offices.  We chatted for a while having many things to discuss.  It is amazing how many people you meet in airports.

I went to the gate a bit early.  It turned out to be quite early as the flight ended up being delayed a few times and I just got stuck waiting for about an hour before we got the chance to board the flight.

The flight itself was pretty smooth.  Nothing really to report.  The flight was not completely packed and I got to sit in my usual isle seat (I prefer having a window but will watch out the window the whole time and have a crook in my neck by the time that we land so I opt for the more pedestrian isle seat) and the middle seat next to me was empty.  The window in my row was taken by a guy from south of Tyler, Texas who had just been in Buffalo recently so we talked for probably about an hour.

I worked on my laptop for a bit on the plane and rested for a while listening to my book “The Essential Lewis and Clark.”

We arrived in Dallas just a little late.  Dominica, dad and Liesl picked me up.  Liesl was very excited and pointed to me out of the window when she saw me come up alongside of the BMW.

We went home and still had quite a while to visit as it was only around eight or nine when I landed at DFW.  Go westward is so convenient.

Tomorrow morning dad is flying back to New York mid-morning.  So I am going to work from home for just a little bit until it is time to take him to the airport.

The wake up call came in a six forty fix, eastern standard.  I was pretty sleepy and it took me a minute to remember where I was which is not at all normal for me.  I do not sleep that way generally and almost always awaken completely alert and aware of where I am and what time it is and what is going on in general.  Maybe it was waking to a phone call from a pretty deep sleep.

I had given myself plenty of time to get moving this morning and get down to breakfast.  I was down to meet with everyone at seven forty five.  We had about forty five minutes to eat our breakfast.  I decided to go healthy today and just do a plate full of fruit and a little yogurt along with my usual coffee.

We car pooled over to the Mi-Co offices for training, which is a good thing since I don’t have a car of my own up here. We got in around nine and got a start on the day.

I am all set up in the training room to be online all day.  I have a super busy day at the office so I am going to be going nuts trying to keep up and pay attention in class whenever possible.  Fortunately there is very little, if anything, that is actually meant for me in the class today.  I am just here for general informational stuff.

The day actually went pretty smoothly.  Insanely busy, but smoothly.  It was actually pretty decently easy to get a lot of work done today as lunch was catered (Pizza Hut) at the training session so I didn’t even have to deal with going anywhere for food which was very efficient.  Being on eastern time is nice for matching up with the office too.  Normally we live on central but work on eastern.

After training was over we headed back to the DoubleTree and hung out in the lounge for a few hours.  I had my laptop the whole time so I was able to work all evening.  It was an extremely productive evening.  Having so many people in one place worked out really well.  Lots of time to get discussions in and to get to know people.

I got back to the hotel room pretty early.  Sometime between seven and eight.  It seemed like a late night out but really was not at all.  I must be just really tired from the flight and time shift.  That always throws me off a bit.  It doesn’t make me exhausted, just disorients me a tad.

I worked from the hotel all evening.  The DoubleTree, at least this one, is an excellent place for hotel work.  The setup of the suite is excellent and very comfortable.  Having a full office area, lounge area and sleeping quarters is very nice.

I ended up working around around one in the morning, which is only midnight back home.  Just hard to get myself to go to sleep much earlier than that, especially when there is so much needing to be done.