Sheep Guarding Llama

John at the office turned me on to the latest Internet video sensation, the double rainbow video.  Now, what makes this awesome is not that the video is good, at all, but that the guy is so insanely stoned and yet still manages to make the video and then, when conscious sometime later I imagine, posts it to YouTube.  Now why would he do this?  I have no idea.  But if he hadn’t decided to expose his rainbow fetish to the world we would not have had the chance to then be blessed with the instant classic Double Rainbow Autotune Remix.  All I can say is, “whoa, so intense.”

The plan was to have the alarm go off at three o’clock this morning.  Yup, that indeed was the plan.  What actually happened was that I woke up to Liesl crying.  I said to myself, “That’s funny, Liesl doesn’t normally wake up before thee in the….. OH NO!!!!”  Yes, it was four thirty when Liesl normally wakes up and I had slept through the alarm by an hour and a half.  Craptastic.

Dominica and I were up and out of bed in a heartbeat.  It was four thirty, on the nose. She ran and grabbed Liesl and got her ready to go out the door while I started brushing my teeth and getting my last minute items packed.  It took only five minutes from waking up to being out the door and on our way to DFW.  Impressive.

We figured out a little bit more today about how to get in and out of DFW.  We were able to drop me off at the actual terminal for a change.  That really worked out well as I was able to run right in, print my boarding pass and get out to the gate.  I actually had time to watch CNN for a good fifteen minutes before boarding the early morning flight.

The flight itself went well and uneventful.  I read the latest issue of Visual Studio magazine on the flight and even fired up my laptop and ran through the entire life of the battery doing some software installation of stuff that I had downloaded and prepped while still at the house before I went to bed last night.  I am very glad that I had done that as having that stuff ready to go now worked out perfectly.  I really was able to make great use of the time that I had on the plane.

We landed in Baltimore at nine thirty in the morning.  I emailed John as I landed and he headed out to find me.  I had no checked baggage so was able to get out of the airport pretty quickly.  It was awesome to step out into the cool, sub eighty degree temperatures in Maryland.  I have not felt air this cool in a very long time.  The last few times that I have been in either Maryland or New York it has been very warm – Texas-like temperatures.

John picked me up in the yellow Corvette.  Even though he has owned it for four to six years I have never actually ridden in it.  I don’t fit very well with the firm, sport seats designed for people much smaller than myself.  It was a tight fit.

We headed right over to Old Country Buffet for breakfast.  I had not eaten a bite all morning.  John and I ate breakfast and then Michelle, her mother and the girls arrived – right as they switched over to lunch rather than breakfast.  We got a bigger table and had lunch all together.  That worked out pretty well getting two meals all in one fell swoop.

After lunch we went to the house and spent the afternoon working.  It was quite productive.  I did manage to take a shower and freshen up as well.  I had had to skip my morning shower in our panic to go from being asleep to being in the car in five minutes today.

For dinner, John and I hit the grocery store and got salmon pinwheels that looked quite tasty.  We picked up veggies and fruit and headed back to the house.

I watched Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen with the girls while John slow cooked dinner.  It ended up being more like smoked pinwheels than grilled which was awesome – it just took about two hours.  We ended up having them on hamburger buns with dijon mustard.  They were very delicious.

After Transformers 2 John and I watched the last half hour of Jennifer’s Body starring Megan Fox from the previous movie.  We were very glad that we only caught the end of the it because that movie was really awful.

We weren’t tired yet so we found that Pineapple Express was just coming on and neither of us had seen it nor knew what it was so we watched that.  Had we realized that it was a Seth Rogan movie before we selected it we probably would have just gone to bed.  But since we were already invested we watched it.  Not that it, or most of Seth’s movies, are actually “bad”, they just fail to be “good.”  The movie was boring and pointless.  It had a few funny moments but mostly was just insanely boring.

Off to bed after that.  It was getting close to midnight.  Not really that late but definitely time for some sleep.  It has been a very long day.  But fortunately I did get that extra hour of sleep this morning 😉

Today is Dominica’s thirty second birthday!

I woke up at six this morning but went back to bed and got up at seven just in time to work.  I signed in and got everything done for the day then showered and got dressed before anyone but Liesl was awake.

Our task for the morning was to pack up the car and drive Madeline and Emily down to Buffalo, Texas to meet up with their parents and siblings so that they could head back home to Houston so that they can start school on Monday.  It has been fun having them up here in Irving for the week.  This is, by far, the longest that we have ever gotten to keep them and the longest that they have been away from their mother.

The drive down went pretty well.  We stopped at Jack in the Box for breakfast on the road.  Liesl was awake for almost the entire trip.

It was around three or four when we got back to the house.  Liesl went right to bed right away and slept for several hours.

Dominica worked on learning some administration tasks for OpenVPN and Vyatta routers this afternoon.

Once Liesl woke up we went out to Boston’s, again, for dinner.  Then we hit the YogurtZone, again, for some dessert.  Then a quick trip to Kroger’s to do some grocery shopping and back home.

The evening was spent packing and getting me ready for my flight tomorrow.  I leave very early in the morning and arrive in Maryland before ten eastern.  It is going to be a very, very early morning for me.  I am not looking forward to that at all.  I have been tired all week as it is.

I will be getting back home to Irving on Monday evening at almost midnight.

I overslept this morning.  Has anyone ever noticed that every post starts off with info on how I slept?  Why do I continue to do that?  Does anyone care?  I’m imagining not.  It is just such a convenient kick off to the blog post.

This week has been pretty light on the posts.  I’ve been tired and busy and my evenings are pretty packed with activity so I don’t have much time to write.  Nothing much has been happening though so you are not missing anything.

For lunch today the girls met up with John, Nicki and I from the office at Boston’s.  That was a nice change of pace.  It took forever, though, because we had so many people.  It probably took half an hour just to get seated!

I got stuck late at the office tonight not getting to head home until after seven.  What a long day.

After work, we had dinner at the house and then, at my suggestion, Dominica and I took the girls out to YogurtZone for frozen yogurt.  They thought that that was a great idea.  YZ has make your own frozen yogurt desserts much like a froyo buffet.  It is very good.  We had a good time doing that.  We will definitely try to take the girls there again sometime.  It makes a great family outing and is pretty decently healthy.  Way better than going out for ice cream and it is more of an “event” as well.

I did get to play maybe thirty minutes of Oblivion tonight.  Not much but I did complete one quest and made good progress on another.  Madeline tried watching me play but thought that it was pretty incredibly boring.  Emily, on the other hand, thinks that Oblivion is about the most exciting game ever to watch and prefers hanging out with me watching me play the game than watching television in the other room.

The evening was pretty busy with packing and cleaning.  Then it was off to bed as early as we could muster, which was not all that early.  I was very tired by the time that we actually turned in.  It is going to be a short night as I need to be up to work at seven tomorrow morning.  I can’t complain, though, as Jeff is scheduled to work for seventeen hours tomorrow (Saturday) which is pretty rough on top of the fact that he has been sick all week!

My flight to Maryland is all set.  I am leaving Sunday morning at five forty from DFW and flying direct to BWI.  A direct flight, I can’t remember the last time that I had one of those.  That is going to be awesome.  This is one of the least hectic trips that I will be having in a very long time.  Two days, no driving, direct flights – who could ask for more?

I got very little sleep last night and woke up at five this morning.  I tried to go back to sleep but did not manage to so I just got up around five thirty and went into the office.

I didn’t bother to bring in coffee today and instead just drank the cold leftover Panera coffee from yesterday.  It  was in a sealed bag so other than being cold, it was just fine.  No creamer, though.

The girls drove down to Mansfield this morning to spend the day with family.  That left me on my own for lunch.  John and I took advantage of the day and we went to Rockfish for lunch.

I got home a little on the early side and we had dinner at home.  Then, after dinner, Madeline, Emily and I walked over to La Madeiline to pick up patisseries for dessert.

I’m heading off to Maryland on Sunday morning to see John for two days.  I am flying out first thing on Sunday morning and returning Monday night.  We thought about having Dominica and Liesl come along but it is a short trip so they are staying behind.

Spent the evening otherwise just hanging out with the family.  Went to bed around eleven.

I have been getting in to work quite early all week.  That works out very well.  Leaving the house once Liesl is awake is so stressful for everyone.

It is much, much cooler today than it has been.  Our hot streak is finally “broken”, not that it is not hot but today we did not manage to hit triple digits by the thermometer at DFW Airport.

This morning, John and I made a run over to Panera Bread to pick up coffee for the team.  It was a nice eighty eight degrees while we were out which was awesome.  Haven’t had that in a long time.

Just as we were heading back into the office it started to rain pretty heavily.  We were completely soaked by the time that we got in.

I came home for lunch today and everyone was just getting back to the apartment after having swam all morning when I got there.  I could hear them on the stairs heading to the apartment.  They pretty much all fell asleep immediately and napped all afternoon.

This evening is both pasta night and the Young Execs club at La Cima.  So I got out of work on the early side, before six, and drove right over there on my own.  We were only able to get dinner reservations for the family at eight this evening so I am guessing that they are very busy tonight.

The Young Execs group was good.  I only hung out with them during the Happy Hour portion of the evening in the lounge.  They moved into the dining room for dinner at almost exactly the same time that Dominica, Madeline, Emily and Liesl arrived for dinner.

Brian Watson joined us for pasta night.  We had a good time and remembered to talk to La Cima about changing the pace of our dinner as Liesl doesn’t hold up well for the relaxed pace that they usual have.  The pace is appropriate for the atmosphere and they manage it carefully and well but for a twenty one month old little girl the food just doesn’t come out fast enough.

Changing the pace worked very well tonight and Liesl was quite happy all through dinner.  If we can just remember to always do this, we should be good.

The girls headed home and Brian and I stayed behind with a few people from the Young Execs group for another hour or so.

I got home and it was pretty much straight off to bed for me.