Sheep Guarding Llama

I was up and off to work quite early this morning.  Today starts my early morning coverage on a regular basis.  This will also work out well for walking to work in the brutal Texas summer as it is only so bad if you can get over to the office before the sun really comes out and starts cooking everything.

It was a busy day and I ended up working through lunch and not having any time to go home today.  I did manage to get out a little bit early though which helped as we did not have much time after work to get ready to go to La Cima for dinner tonight.

We tried to meet up with Brian at six thirty but it was almost seven by the time that we arrived at La Cima.  We got there and sat down for drinks in the lounge before going in for dinner.  There was only one other couple in the lounge while we were there so when they went in to the dining room Liesl was able to walk around with Dominica and burn off some of her excess energy while Brian and I enjoyed our drinks.  Wednesday nights are a perfect time for Liesl to go to La Cima as it is very slow there and she doesn’t interfere with other people’s dinners.

It was probably seven thirty when we went into the dining room.  Just early enough that there was sunlight and Dominica got to see the view before the sun went down and then she got to see the lights of the metroplex come on which is pretty cool from the top of the Williams Tower.

Liesl had a great time playing with the staff.  She really liked it at La Cima.  We decided to join tonight so that we can use La Cima all of the time.  It is perfectly situated for me to be able to get there easily from work during the day so I hope to be able to take advantage of the lunch buffet on a regular basis.  There are several people from the office who are considering joining as well which could equate to regular car pools going over there from the office.  It is very close.

After dinner we went home and went right to bed.  Liesl was tired and we want to get moving on the early side tomorrow.  I took tomorrow off from work so no need to travel before or after the workday.

My schedule is really crazy this week and today is the closest thing that I will have to a normal day at all.  I went into work at my usual time today instead of going in really early.  We talked about this today, though, and there is a lack of early morning coverage so starting tomorrow I am just going to be working earlier than I have been – attempting to get into the office around seven.  This actually works pretty well because I can get up and out of the house before Liesl and Dominica are awake and that cuts my time to get ready roughly in half.

Liesl is doing much better with her sleeping schedule now.  While she was in Houston this past week she finally learned how to go to bed when we tell her “Night Night” and she doesn’t get upset but happily goes and lays down to get some sleep.  It doesn’t work perfectly yet but she is getting better and better at it and we are on the road to a better sleep schedule.  She takes her blankie and her Cheer Bear and a pacifier and snuggles up and just goes to sleep.

Liesl has been obsessed with her blankie ever since she started watching Elmo in Grouchland over and over again.  She is addicted to that movie.  She gets up in the mornings and starts the day by saying “Elmo?”  It has been her favourite thing to watch for the last two weeks and she watches it five or six times per day.  She suddenly loves all things Elmo.

I came home for lunch today and then back for a normal evening.  Tonight was another night just hanging out with the family.  Tomorrow is our last day in Irving before we all go back down to Houston for several more days.  Tomorrow evening Dominica and Liesl are coming along to La Cima for pasta night to see how they like it there.

I’m in the office very early this morning.  Oreo did not like that one bit.  I had to come in early to help out with all of the expected issues that are likely to arise from this weekend’s COB testing.  So I was up at six this morning, showered, dressed, walked Oreo and into the office by seven.  I had to dress a bit nicer than usual today because I have that lunch scheduled with La Cima to talk about membership for the office.  Originally Brian was going to be going with me today but we figured out that that was pretty silly so John from work is going with me instead.

It was a pretty busy morning.  I do like going in at seven or earlier, though, as it does give me a chance to get a jump on things and there is very little going on in the office at that time so it is a lot more relaxed and quiet.  If I go in at nine or later then there are people waiting to pounce on me the moment that I walk through the door and it is much better to have time to get caught up on emails, see what has been going on all night, get oriented and prepped for the day, etc.  I hate walking in in the middle of things.

At a quarter till noon John and I ran out to drive over to Williams’ Square for lunch with La Cima.  John had never been there before and hadn’t thought that it was something that he would be interested in at all until he went and got a look at the place.  We got a tour of the facility and then La Cima treated us to an amazing lunch.  I had the mango iced tea, corn chowder, fish tacos and the Jack Daniels chocolate ice cream.  Very impressive.

It turns out that La Cima has some really amazing member dining privileges during the day as well.  When we were there with Brian last week we had gotten the impression that they were only open in the evening but it turns out that they are extremely busy during the day and less so in the evenings.  They have free breakfast and a very low cost lunch buffet for members which is really awesome.

After lunch John dropped me at home so that I could walk Oreo and then walk back to the office while he took off to go buy a new car.

I worked for several more hours then around five Dominica and Liesl swung in to pick me up from work on their way home from Houston.  I haven’t seen them in eight days!

This evening was just spent hanging out at home with the family.

Today is my last day at home without my family and the only day that I am absolutely, completely alone – except for Oreo, of course.  Brian and Tara made it to Knoxville last night and are attempting to make it up to Philadelphia by late afternoon today.  Dominica and Liesl are planning to leave in the morning to come back to Irving from League City.  And today I am not going into the office but am just working from home so that I can be with Oreo all day.

This morning I decided that Oreo needed some real quality time so I took him out for a very long walk, for about an hour, down Las Colinas Boulevard which has zero traffic on weekends and has a wide “park” running down the middle of it with walking paths on either side.  Oreo thought that that was wonderful.  He had so much fun exploring.  Because the path is so wide it is pretty easy for him to handle even being blind.  The only real danger is fire ants which are pretty much everywhere on that walk.

I’ve gotten very good at digging up fire ant hills the past two weeks.  I can spot them like nobody’s business and grab a nearby stick and get them all dug up which exposes them to predators and makes their hills more obvious to others.

After his very long walk Oreo got a much needed bath.  He is now all clean and soft and ready to see his family again when they get home tomorrow afternoon.

I spent the morning working and cleaning and trying to get as much done as possible before Maggie came over around one in the afternoon to visit.  We hung out for a few hours working on some stuff until her husband got out of work and came over to hang out as well.  We all visited for a while and then went over to Blu Ginger for some late lunch or early dinner.

I really wanted to relax and play Oblivion this evening but even with all of the cleaning that I did I still am unable to located my Oblivion disc for the PS3.  Brian and I are both pretty sure that I had grabbed it before leaving Peekskill but neither of us has any idea where I might have put it.  So very likely it got packed u pinto some box without a label and is now deep, deep into the storage unit.  I have located all of my other video games but not that one.  Pretty crappy.  The one game that I am really interested in playing and it is the only one that I cannot find.  At least it forces me to work instead.

The house is looking pretty good at this point.  Dominica will be happy when she gets home tomorrow.  Even the dishes are done.

Today is our big continuity of business (COB) testing day at the office.  I was scheduled to be in the office at eight this morning so my alarm was set but I got called out a quarter after six anyway.  So I was up and logged in quite early.  I discovered that there was a major issue already and email and other things were not working.  So no way I was going to get to go back to sleep.

I noticed that Brian and Tara were already up and getting ready to depart shortly.  They are going to attempt to get out first thing this morning and on to the road back home hoping to make it as far as Knoxville, Tennessee by this evening which will let them get back up to Philadelphia by a pretty decent time on Sunday evening.

I showered, walked Oreo, made my morning coffee and walked over to the office.  It is cool and humid this morning as we had a pretty big thunderstorm during the night.  I was in the office by seven.  Quite an early day.  Good chance to get things done, though, like possibly catching up on SGL which has fallen horribly behind for which I must apologize.  These last several weeks have been ridiculously busy.

Brian and Tara were on the road shortly after I left the apartment.  Now it is just Oreo and I until Monday when Dominica and Liesl return from Houston.

Today really was the perfect day for me to have to go into the office for the COB test with Dominica and Liesl being out of town.  It might as well be a work day for me other than the fact that Oreo is home alone.

I did some house cleaning yesterday, especially in the kitchen, and got the dishes done so that Dominica will be coming home to a mostly clean house.  Being home alone will give me a lot of opportunity tomorrow to get the house into much better shape.  I would like to have taken some boxes to storage while Brian was still around with the truck because I have no vehicle at all now but there wasn’t any time for that.  So I will just have to make a pile of stuff to be returned to storage and we will have to figure out how to get them back over there in the BMW once it gets back.

My “big project” today was to work on getting SGL caught back up.  Working on a Saturday at my desk gives me extra time to sit down and write stuff.  I’ve been very remiss recently on the site and I am really trying to get that back under control.

Today was the first time that I got to really try out the Claros chat functionality from the office.  It worked this morning and was actually important in allowing me to communicate to the other offices that were part of the COB test since the internal instant messaging system at work doesn’t work (no surprise there) and we have to have complicated work-arounds in order to support basic communication functionality.

Lunch today was pizza from Boston’s.  They have the best pizza that I have found in Texas yet although I hear that Coal Vines in Southlake is really good.  Need to get up there and try it out.

I ran home over lunch and walked Oreo.  It is a bright and sunny day today – quite warm.  Being a Saturday and one of the first really warm ones this year the pool at our apartment building was very busy.  You can hear the people swimming from the street.

I didn’t have much time to spend with Oreo, though.  It was home, walk and straight back to the office where I spent the rest of the day until around seven in the evening when I ran home to walk Oreo again.  Then it was back to the office for another two hours.  It was about nine thirty when I finally got home for the night.  I ended up signing back in from home and working until almost midnight.  Sixteen hours I booked today!  What a long day.  I was very worn out by the end of it.

I am going t obe pretty busy as well tomorrow as we are going to be continuing to have issues from the testing for the next several days.  Poor Oreo is getting very little family time, I’m afraid.  He is quite lonely.  What a long week this has been for him.