Sheep Guarding Llama

Little to report, normal work day for me.  This is going to be a busy work week, I can tell.

For lunch today, Dominica, Liesl and I went to La Cima.  We were invited over as two new members are expected to be joining today who are being sponsored by us.  This is the couple where she and I had met on the flight from BWI to DFW several months ago.  Amazing that after all this time that they actually did decide to come check out the club and, it appears, have decided to join.

Liesl was so sweet today: at one point we needed to put Oreo into his kennel and I had said that Oreo needed his blanket.  So Liesl ran across the room and grabbed her own baby blanket that she always keeps for herself and ran over to give it to Oreo!  She loves her dog.

After work this evening we met up with the Ledigs and went to La Cima for dinner.  Dominica and I had not used our meals for the month yet and this was a perfect opportunity to squeeze them in.  We had a really nice time hanging out.  Going to the club worked well because it is quiet and gave us time to actually talk and catch up.

It is Monday and time to get back to the usual schedule, as best as I can.  Back to work at the office.  It was nice getting several days away. Almost like a mini-vacation even though I worked the entire time – and I mean the entire time.  I get less time off when I am away than when I am here.  I need to get into the office just so that I can get some downtime.

For lunch several of us went to La Cima and met up with a web designer.

Very little to report today.  Work.  Then, after work, we all went to The Ranch in Las Colinas to secretly celebrate Dave’s birthday.  He doesn’t know that we know that today is his birthday.  His girlfriend emailed Souder last night while we were at Rockfish to alert us that we need to take him out partying tonight.

So as soon as I was able to get out of the office I walked home and got Dominica and Liesl and we went over to The Ranch to hang out with everyone.  Most everyone was already there, Souder, Dave, Donnie, Watson, etc.  We were a little late to the party.

After not too long Kevin and Pam showed up to hang out with us.  Tonight is when we had been planning on getting together with them all along.

Everyone had a really good time.  Liesl had a ton of fun playing with the staff, looking at the animal heads on the bar and throwing coins into the waterfall there.  One of the waitresses even asked to get her picture taken with Liesl!  She is famous.

After The Ranch, pretty much everyone came back to the apartment and hung out for a while.

We were a bunch of worn out people trying to get up this morning.  This week really wore us all out.

Once we got everyone up we headed as a group out to IHOP for breakfast.  They are pretty close, pretty cheap and easy for a large group to gather at while still being able to see and hear each other.

We all did very little today.  It was our chance to relax. Jenn headed back to Houston in the mid-afternoon.

For dinner this evening, Souder, Dave and I went to Rockfish to meet up with the other Jenn to talk about some plans over dinner.

After Rockfish we swung into the Chaat Cafe to pick up Dominica’s dinner order.  Only Dominica had forgotten to put in the order so we ordered her dinner just minutes before the kitchen closed and hung out at the bar while we waited for the food to get cooked.  While we were there we took the opportunity to have Dave try the pani puri shots that they do there.

With so many people staying at the house it is hard to get to sleep early.  It was probably after midnight by the time that everyone actually got off to bed.

Originally I was supposed to be in the office in Las Colinas all day today starting at six in the morning but since my tire blew on the car last night I am stuck in Austin today so I am working from the hotel all day.

I slept on the floor last night and just set up and worked from there this morning.  Not exactly comfortable, especially as there was actually a bit of work going on that I needed to do so I was propped up on my elbows trying to work for a few hours.

Watson woke up around seven thirty but Jen was still asleep so I stayed working from the floor till probably nine or so.  By that time everyone was mostly up and the crew decided to go out for breakfast.  I had to work so was unable to leave.  The SpicePioneer breakfast that had been planned for this morning turned into an NTG breakfast as NTG pretty much supplied all the people and only two or three SpicePioneers were in attendance.

The crew brought me breakfast which was still pretty good even though it was mostly cold.  Once breakfast was done, Watson drove me to the local Walmart Supercenter where we dropped off the Mazda to get the tires replaced.  The one is completely shredded and the other rear tire is pretty thin.  So I had both rear tires replaced, balanced and warrantied.  Only $283 total which really isn’t too bad.  I had the new tires put on the front and the old front tires rotated to the rear.  It was going to take a while so we drove back to the hotel to wait for them.

I worked from the hotel all day which is a bit of a pain.  Throughout the day people had to leave to catch their flights back home from the conference.

Once they kicked us out of the hotel we moved into the lobby where what appeared to be the Miss America pageant was coming through.

I worked from the lobby until the last shuttle out, Grey heading back to Denver, left the hotel.  That was the end of my work for the office and my car was done so we loaded up Watson’s truck and went and got my car.  From there the three vehicles heading north to Dallas left.

Souder rode with me for the three hour drive north to Dallas.  We took a little time to grab Long John Silver’s and then Round Rock Donuts before really getting out onto the road.  So we were a little behind everyone else but at least we had donuts.

It was close to seven when we finally got back to Dallas.  Good to be home.  I’ve really missed Liesl.  I hate being away for so long.

Pretty much nothing happened tonight.  We did as little as possible.  Everyone was exhausted and this was our chance to just crash.

We were all dragging this morning when we got up in Austin for SpiceWorld’s second full day.  Today is the day when I am speaking and I have very little voice left after two nights of shouting at the bar all evening.

We were not as early this morning over to the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar where the conference is being held.  Yesterday was way too early.

I drove in to the conference today to make things easier since I have to leave at the end of the day anyway – no drinking for me today.  It is a lot more convenient to drive than to have to deal with the cabs all day.

My talk on Open Storage seemed to go over very well this morning.  It was a mostly packed house as I talked about the “history” of storage technologies and looked at the big picture of how storage applies to small and medium businesses today.  I think that it went well.  I was the one session to work without using PowerPoint slides.  I used cardboard boxes and duct tape for my presentation.  I got a lot of good response after the talk was done.

Work was very, very busy today which was rough as I was at the conference and had to miss all kinds of things while I attempting desperately to keep up.  I had to set up my laptop in the hallway and work from there much like I did last year.  I did receive some notifications and a special “only two people have them” t-shirts to honour my awesomeness.

After the conference was over I actually got stuck working for an hour or two, alone, in the lobby of the Alamo Drafthouse after everyone had left while I waiting for the evening deployments to complete and then for my Windows machine to complete its updated and shut down.

Once I was finally free I went over to the Highball and joined everyone who was there having dinner.  This was the serious conference crew who knew enough to schedule time to get together after the main event was over.  So we had a good time with the people who really knew each other hanging out for several more hours.

Kevin and Pam (yes, from Newark) showed up at the Highball with their friend and we hung out and had dinner too.  That was a bit of a surprise.  Kevin got to meet a bunch of people that he talks to on a regular basis but has never met previously.  It worked out pretty well.

With all of the people hanging at the Highball I ended up staying in Austin far too late.  It was around nine when I finally pulled out and headed north.

No sooner than I came through Round Rock on I35 going north than I blew the right rear tire right off of the Mazda.  Ugh.  So I had to get that changed to the spare and because it was so late at night I could not drive up to Dallas to get the tire fixed tonight.  So back to the hotel for me.

The crew had migrated to the hotel and was out on the patio when I got there.  So I joined them and got to hang out all evening which actually worked out really, really well in the long run.  We had a really good time hanging out.

I crashed on Watson’s hotel floor tonight.  Tomorrow I have to be up and working at six in the morning which is going to suck.  Then I have to deal with the tires as well.  Then drive to Dallas.  That is a lot for the day after the conference.