Sheep Guarding Llama

I had to get up at seven this morning so that I could work for several hours before the family hit the road to drive from Lake LBJ up to the metroplex.  I managed to do a bit of work for the office and also to catch up a bit on SGL while we were there.

Originally I had thought that Dominica needed me to get up and be ready to be on the road as quickly as possible.  I had the impression that with me having to work in the morning that everyone would be waiting on me.  That ended up not being the case and while I was ready to leave by just after nine we actually left at more like ten thirty.

It wasn’t all that hot when loading the cars this morning but it heated up quickly and was another hot Texan summer day.  The drive went well.  We all (except Bennie who drove back to Houston earlier in the day) stopped at McDonald’s in Killeen for lunch.  Then, on the highway north, we stopped in West for gas and kolaches at the Czech Stop.  Yum.

We drove up to Arlington where there was a surprise, early 60th birthday party for Dominica’s dad.  There was quite a turnout too.  The house was packed.  Liesl had a great time playing with the kids in the back yard.  She loves being able to go outside.

The party went pretty late.  It was probably nine thirty or so before we managed to get back to the house in Las Colinas.  Madeline and Emily went with Megan for the evening for a girls’ party night.  Francesca, Garrett and Clara came to our place for the night.

Dominica, Francesca and I were up till after midnight talking.  Boy was I ready for bed when I finally fell asleep!  I was exhausted.

Tomorrow Oreo will be coming home as well.  I am planning on sleeping in a bit tomorrow.  I am way behind on sleep.  Dominica had to drive a bit of the way today as I just could not keep myself awake on as little sleep as I have been getting.

Today is a day of logistics.  Brian was up and cleaning the house around three I think.  I slept in until nearly four when I rolled out of bed, got dressed and was ready to be out the door in about five minutes.  Oreo got up and moved into the living room on the “new” couch that we just brought down from New York.  He missed that couch, I think, as he used to always lay on it when it was in the basement of the Peekskill house so that he could be near to me while I worked in the basement office.

We were on the road pretty quickly over to the airport.  Without a doubt, DFW is the worst airport ever. Having used it twice in the past couple weeks it still remains an incredible challenge just to get to your terminal even with GPS, Toll Tag and all the other tools necessary to make it is as easy as possible.  The roads are horribly labeled and confusing, tons of information that you need is not available, there is a toll (without any warning) just to drive through the airport (they call it a parking toll but we never parked – this is twice now) and there appears to be no way to get to the actual places that we need to go and “near enough” is as good as you can do.  It is absolutely terrible.  I travel a lot and never have I had to deal with an airport like this in the US, Canada, England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Holland, etc.  I will actively avoid trying to use this airport even though I live right next to it.  The whole thing needs to be razed and a professional needs to design a working airport in its place.

I got home from the airport at around five.  It takes way too long to go to an airport that is almost walking distance from our home.  I had originally thought that I would try to go back to sleep, but I was wide awake and decided to just start working as there is so much that needs to be done.  Oreo had gotten out of bed so there were not puppy snuggles waiting for me.

It turned out to be a productive morning.  I signed right in to the office and got to work.  It was a good morning to be on extra early as today was the announcement of the unemployment numbers by the federal government so it was convenient to already be awake rather than waking up just to handle that call.  The US has lost another 131,000 jobs this month.  But mostly those were from the public sector and the private sector actually added jobs.  So the economy appears to be recovering with the government being unable to find a firm footing.

Dominica emailed to tell me that Liesl used the potty for the first time yesterday!  I can’t believe how quickly she is growing up.  Potty training already.  She is only just over twenty months old.  Ahead of schedule for that as far as I can tell.  Even before this happened, about a week ago, Dominica had said that we would be beginning potty training as soon as Liesl returned from Lake LBJ.  Liesl has been giving many of the signs that she is ready to potty train.

I ended up working from home this morning.  I was already signed in and getting stuff done and there was just too much to do, both at the office and around the house, to be able to go in this morning.  I was very productive.  I had several phone calls that I had to do today so that worked out really well.  I had been planning on spending much of the morning cleaning the house but ended up being so busy that I never really managed to do that at all.

When I left the house I looked around for Oreo and discovered him in his kennel.  This is the very first time that I have ever seen him voluntarily use the kennel as a place to sleep.  I found it surprising that he used it since he loves the couch and it is only he and I in the house so he has no reason to be escaping anything.

I finally got a chance to take the Wii that Dominica boxed up for the Ralstons to the UPS Store during working hours and to get it shipped off to New York for them.  Surprisingly, even with insurance of $300 on that massive box, it still cost less than $40 to ship the box to New York.  Not bad at all.  So next week they will have a Nintendo Wii and tons of boring games to play.

I also ran to Target to get emergency cleaning supplies that we needed to get before Francesca and the kids come to visit us tomorrow afternoon.  Since I was over there and had not managed to eat all day and as it was one hundred and eight I decided that I needed to get some ice cream from Marble Slab Creamery.  From there I ran into the office so that I could work from there this afternoon.

Work went a little late but pretty good for a Friday evening.  As soon as it was clear that the work was done for the evening I ran back to the house.  Oreo was still in his kennel.  I didn’t close the door on him, he just felt that he should be in there I guess.  He is such a good, sweet little dog.  I had to pull open the flap for him and tell him that he could get out before he would.

Jeff had some work for me to do so I spent an hour and a half getting work done for him.  Then I was able to pack the car and get Oreo’s stuff together so that he could go on his vacation weekend to visit Maggie.

It was roughly eight forty when I was finally able to pull out of Las Colinas.  My first stop is Fort Worth to drop Oreo off with Maggie.  I stopped in just long enough to drop off my little boy.  We will see him again on Sunday afternoon.

The drive south went okay.  There was some rain for the first two hours of the drive which slowed my progress considerably as I had to drop my speed by almost fifteen miles per hour to avoid hydroplaning.

I stopped in at Taco Bell for a quick dinner.  I discovered that they now have delicious “crispy potato soft tacos” on the $.89 menu which is awesome.  Finally another vegetarian option.  Taco Bell is always veggie friendly but this is a great addition to their veggie lineup.  That will definitely make me more likely to stop in at TB as it is very delicious.

I stopped near Temple to get fuel and found myself swarmed by flying cockroaches and crickets. It was amazingly disgusting.  I’ve never had any insects get all over me like this before let alone cockroaches and their noisy kin.  I was kicking them away but still they were getting all over my legs, shirt and head – and I was in shorts so it was that much worse.  At one point one flew into my hand and got stuck in between my fingers!  All I can say is… EEEWWWWWW!

I pulled into the lake house on Lake LBJ at one twenty in the morning.  Better than expected.  I shaved forty minutes off of the GPS’ original estimate of my arrival.  I have to be up before seven in the morning.  I am going to be quite tired tomorrow after a very tired day today.

Once my office work is completed in the morning we will be on our way back up to the metroplex.

It is another very, very hot day in Texas.  For the most part the heat doesn’t bother me too much but it starts getting incredibly inconvenient when it is this hot and it disrupts so many things.  It wouldn’t be nearly so bad if we had a different living situation that did not involve a five minute walk outside to get to a garage that is twenty or thirty degrees above the air temperature with zero air movement.  No matter how cool you are before you start, no matter how cool it is outside, the moment that you set foot into the garage here at our apartment it simply takes your breath away and your car is as hot or hotter than if it had been sitting out in the sun all day.  It is completely ridiculous.

Today is Brian’s last day with us down in Texas.  He has spent almost two entire months here so far this year and we know that he is coming down to Houston and Austin in October at the very least.  It is becoming like a second home for him at this point.  He is flying out of DFW early tomorrow morning to head back home to Philadelphia.  Then tomorrow evening, after work, I will be driving down to Lake LBJ to get the girls and bring them home on Saturday where, I truly hope, I get to stay for a little while before needing to go anyplace else.

Pretty much a normal work day.  Nothing really to report.  I’ve been doing lunch at home all week because of Oreo.  He is such a good dog.  He has never handled being left home alone very well and he has been doing great this week.

Work was pretty much normal, nothing to report there.  I’ve been driving to and from work since returning from New York as it is just so hot here now.

After work I went back to the apartment and found Brian playing Oblivion on the PS3 – his favourite pastime.  We packed the Ralstons’ “Wii Care Package” into the BMW and drove over to the UPS store to ship it out and discovered that the UPS Store closes at six thirty – it was now ten ’till seven!  Argh.  I seldom get out of work before six thirty.  That is really annoying that they are only open during prime working hours.  I can get out early to go there but I should not have to.

We needed to meet some people at The Ranch just up the street so we drove up there.  We had a few Shiners and Watson came down to join us and we had dinner there as it was just too convenient not to.

After dinner we went back to the apartment and hung out for a little while.  We worked on making nLite packages which I had never done before.  That was relatively interesting.

It was quite late when we finally managed to get to bed.  Tomorrow is going to be a really long day.  Brian’s flight out of DFW is at six so we need to be up around three to get ready and get out the door to get him to the airport!

Today is definitely a hot one.  The raw temperature was one an even one hundred in Las Colinas but the heat index was a full one hundred and fourteen degrees!  It was both hot and sticky.  Even in the “cool” of the morning you walk out to a wall of humidity.  Not pleasant at all.

The worst part of the Texas heat is the lack of cloud cover.  It is nearly always bright sunshine, as the state’s name would suggest, and that sunshine takes quite the toll on you and your vehicle should you be so unfortunate as to be out in it for more than a minute.  The cars get so incredibly hot.  It really has to be experienced to understand.

As Jeff said today after getting me coffee from Starbucks: “It’s bad when you set down the burning hot coffee and then touch the roof of your car and realize that the coffee feels cool in comparison.”

I am very excited that I am beginning to, if only slowly, get caught back up on SGL.  There is a lot to be done.  I hope that I do not get stuck traveling again anytime soon.  I need some time just “at home” to get life back to normal.

After work I ran home, shaved and changed quickly, then Brian and I drove over to La Cima to meet up with Maggie and Judi for pasta night.  We had seven o’clock reservations but arrived a little early so we hung out in the lounge and had cocktails before going in to dinner.

Dinner was very good.  Tonight’s special sauce was a lobster cream sauce which almost everyone got.  It was very good.  We hung out after dinner for a while and didn’t get back home until quite late – probably around eleven.  I fed Oreo then Brian, Maggie and I had a late call to Arizona but that was pretty quick.

I ended up being up until three in the morning having a conversation with Melbourne, Australia.  I am going to be dragging tomorrow!

I got up at eight and got in to the office.  I was up pretty late last night and was dragging this morning pretty seriously.  I am home alone today – Oreo is still visiting with Maggie and Brian is still down in Houston.  So I have the house to myself.

Work was fine this morning.  I went home at lunch to take care of some errands and whatnot.  On the way back to the office I swung into Jersey Mike’s to get a sub to take back to the office.  I just ate at my desk.

My allergies are really bad today – at least I am assuming that it is my allergies.  I am sneezing something horrible but that is about it.  No other symptoms.  So it seems like allergies to me.

Maggie was originally going to bring Oreo over this afternoon but she had to work late and with traffic at that time of day it just didn’t make any sense.  So she is going to bring him over later on this evening after dinner.

I worked fairly late, since there is no one to go home to, and then went home to figure out what to do for the evening.  I caught up on emails and thought about heading over to The Ranch to join Brian for a beer – he had gone straight there from the drive from Houston.

The timing did not work out, though, as Maggie was party way to our place by that point so I decided that I just needed to stay in for the evening.  Once Oreo was home I knew that I could not go out anywhere because we would need to spend time together.  He can’t come home to an empty house this evening after having been away for days – he would be most unhappy.  So my plan is doggy snuggles all evening.

When Maggie and Oreo arrived I met them out in the hall.  Oreo was so excited to hear my voice that his whole body was wagging.  He definitely had a really good time on his little vacation but he is glad to be home too.

Maggie only hung around for ten minutes or so before heading back home.  Then Oreo and I went for a walk and settled down on the couch to spend some quality time together.  He is having a hard time remembering where all of the furniture is located in the house since we had just rearranged everything on him just before he went away for several days so he isn’t sure where he is going to run into something and where he can jump up onto the couch or whatever.

Brian Watson ended up meeting Brian Souder at The Ranch and they said that they would bring me dinner later.  So I made myself a bacon buttie to hold myself over as I was starving and then Oreo and I settled in to watch Hannah Montana: The Movie on BluRay which we have had for a very long time and that Dominica had watched without me at some point.  It was the only movie in the house that I had not already seen.

About halfway through the movie “The Brians” arrived with my ancho Caesar salad and fried catfish dinner from The Ranch, which is just around the corner.  They had thought that I had been kidding when I had Twittered that I was watching Hannah Montana, but I wasn’t.  They mocked me but they both decided to sit down and watch it as well and seemed to really enjoy it.  It is a cute movie.  Not bad at all and you really don’t have to have watched the show to understand it.  There are some references that only make sense if you know the show but for the most part it is so disconnected from the show that it doesn’t matter at all.

It was still early at that point and Brian Sounder wanted to watch Transformers so we watched that too.  I have only seen that once before.  It is a good movie.  Not great, but good.  Sometimes you need a pointless action movie and it fits the bill well and it shows off the BluRay as well.  I want to get the sequel too but have not been buying movies recently so have not gotten around to it.

We made a big dent in the two boxes of wine that Brian and I had picked up from Target last week.  I am hoping to have them finished off before Dominica gets back on Saturday as we will need all of the counter and fridge space that we can muster as her family is coming to visit for the weekend and we are very space limited.

Everyone fell asleep or pretty much fell asleep during the last movie.  Apparently Transformers was not as engaging as Hannah Montana: The Movie. Oreo was very happy to snuggle next to me.  I had my arm around him all evening.  He has definitely missed his daddy.

Oreo is staying with me until Friday evening when I will be driving down to Lake LBJ.  I am going to drop him off at Maggie’s again on the way out of town so that he can enjoy a mini-vacation again rather than having to ride in the car in the heat all of that way just to turn around and drive right back.  And it will get him out of the way while the Grices are staying with us as we will not have much space at all and Oreo will just be in the way and unhappy.  So we will pick him back up on Sunday afternoon when everyone heads back down to Houston.

Pretty much just a normal day planned for tomorrow.  Work and then Pasta Night at La Cima.  Nothing else planned, for a change.  I need to get busy on house cleaning too!