Sheep Guarding Llama

I got up early this morning with Liesl while Dominica stayed in bed with a migraine.  Liesl played for a while and then I gave her a shower to help with her sinus congestion.  She has been horrible congested for more than a month now but she loves getting to take a hot shower and it really helps her to be able to breath so we try to do it regularly.

I set Liesl up with her Little People DVD (Volume #11) and walked over to Jamba Juice to pick up breakfast for Dominica and the office.  It is $1 oatmeal Wednesdays.  I tried to get a dozen oatmeals but they ran out after nine.  I walked back home with my large bag of oatmeal, put the DVD on again for Liesl as Dominica was still asleep, walked Oreo and then walked in to the office.  It is so warm today that I did not even need to wear a jacket on my walk in.  I did bring one along in case I needed it later, though.

Work was even busier today than it has been yet since I got down here to Texas.  I ended up working so much today that I had to work straight through lunch!  I was on the phone doing conference calls for at least five hours of the day too.  I hate doing conference calls.

By five o’clock I was worthless and completely exhausted.  I called Dominica and she decided that we could go out to eat so she came and picked me up and we went to Rockfish on MacArthur Boulevard for dinner.  I really needed the break from work.

Dinner was really good and Dominica is really sorry that we did not try eating at Rockfish sooner.  They have a great selection there and she is going to be able to find tons of stuff that she is interested in eating.

After dinner we came home and the moment that we were home I looked at my office BlackBerry and noticed that there were urgent messages for me already.  This day will never end.

I ended up working another two hours before being able to finish up for the night.  I was so tired that I could barely look at the screen while I worked.

Finally I got done with work and we all decided to go to bed.  I am pooped.

After having gone to bed on the early side last night I got to sleep in late this morning.  Oh was it wonderful.  I really needed that extra sleep.  It wasn’t a lot but it really made a big difference.  I have just been so sick and I really feel like I just need some opportunity to catch up on sleep and give my body a chance to fight back a little.

Work was crazy busy again today.  Very little time to relax in any way.

For lunch today John and I went to Jason’s Deli which is a very popular option around here.  Everyone goes there all of the time but, thus far, not with me.  So it was nice to get to check it out.

I was impressed with Jason’s Deli – it is a very large place with quite a large menu.  Lots of food that I would like to eat there so I see myself going back often.  I got a huge tuna melt today with some vegetable soup.  Pretty healthy and a good amount of food.

I stopped back at the house, walked Oreo and walked back to the office.  The afternoon was very busy and I was in the office until quite late.  Then I walked home in the dark and Dominica made me a frozen pizza for dinner.

Dominica’s big project tonight is looking at our health insurance.  We got really screwed when we moved to Texas that her old employer forced us to move from a $1,000 per month plan to an over $1,200 per month plan and told us that no other plan was available.  (We have more recently learned that under federal law former employers offering Cobra are allowed to charge a 20% premium on top of their health plans meaning that they earn a substantial amount of money by scamming their former employees into extra expensive health insurance plans.)  Dominica did some research and discovered that they had a plan, that was actually better for us, for just about $750.  That was a savings of almost $500 per month!  Not only does it save us that much every month but is also reduces our cost for each of Liesl’s doctor visits by about $15 for every single visit!  And the plan has a doctor located right across the street no more than fifty yards from our door.

We relaxed some tonight by watching a few episodes from the second season of Torchwood via Netflix on demand.  We really wanted to wait to get them on BluRay but Dominica is not good at waiting patiently so we ended up watching them on demand instead.  Dominica is a perfect user for someone like Netflix since she cannot wait for Amazon to two-day deliver stuff to us.

I am definitely feeling some better today.  I am far from completely health but I have real improvement today.

Liesl had a really rough, restless night.  We barely got any sleep.  By four in the morning I decided that there was no getting back to sleep and any attempt to do so would be a complete waste of time so I just got myself up and got busy getting ready to face the day.  I showered, made my coffee, took out the recycling, walked Oreo and walked into the office.  It was a nice drizzle when I left the house but halfway to the office it turned into a downpour and my windbreaker was unable to hold off the water.  I was soaked by the time that I got to the bottom of the hill.

The fact that my shoes are old and the bottoms are split open did little to help the situation.  I wasn’t even across the street before they had wicked the muddy street water straight up to the bottoms of my feet and my socks were drenched.  I ran across the lawn at work and, being that it was dark, I hadn’t realize that the grass was actually concealing standing water until it was way too late.

It was six when I got into the office.  I thought about kicking off my shoes to let my socks dry out but decided against it.  I put in an hour or two before anyone else arrived in the office.  The guys did breakfast down at the cafeteria – breakfast burrito for me.  John keeps datil pepper sauce at his desk so I had some of that.  Yummy.

Work has been really, really busy.  It was quite bad timing that I was out sick so much last week.  Not that I stopped working but it definitely slowed me down a lot.  So getting caught back up is really hard.

For lunch today John and I went to Rockfish on MacArthur which turned out to be really good.  They have an awesome fish menu with tons of different fish prepared numerous ways.  I think that Dominica and I will be frequenting this place to be sure.  We really need a place like this with all of the fish that we eat.

The afternoon was insanely busy at work.  I was physically in the office for thirteen hours today.  Ugh.  I drove home after work having picked up the car on my way back from lunch.  Too much rain to be walking, I learned a little too late.

This evening was super short.  After work I met Brian at Mike’s Jersey Subs right next to our apartment and we picked up sandwiches there.  Then we went to the apartment to eat.  Jersey Mike’s makes some really good subs and they really cater to vegetarians which is nice.  They go way out of their way to make sure that no meat comes anywhere close to their veggie subs.

Brian didn’t hang out for too long.  Very hard to hang out at our house when I have just gotten home from work.  Oreo needs to be walked, food needs to be eaten and Liesl needs her daddy.  Liesl does not like me going to the office all day at all.  And these days I never get to work from home just because there is so much to do that really demands my presence in the offfice.

After Brian left I watched Liesl and Oreo while Dominica ran out to Kroger’s to do some emergency grocery shopping.  She was gone for about two hours.  Liesl and I had a nice time hanging out together.

It was off to bed early for me tonight.  As soon as Liesl fell asleep, which was around ten, I was off to bed myself.  Dominica stayed up for several more hours playing Dragon Age: Origins.  Oreo, of course, came and snuggled with his daddy.  Dominica is way ahead of me now in the game and I have no idea what is going on in it – which is good because when I go to play it myself I won’t know every little thing that might happen.

We decided tonight that there is just no way for me to be able to go down to Houston this weekend for Madeline’s tenth birthday party.  Originally I was planning to go but work has been so crazy and I have been so sick that I am quite desperate to get the time at home this weekend and really having Dominica and Liesl leave me for a few days works out pretty well. I can do a lot of catch up with just Oreo to hang out with me.

Dominica was actually up before me this morning and was already deep into Dragon Age: Origins before I came out into the living room.  Liesl was up before either of us running around terrorizing the house.  She had gone to bed many hours before we had last night.

My day was spent working for the office, which was pretty good today, and working on migrating a Subversion repository from one Linux server to another.  Migrating Subversion is really easy but I had the added complication of doing so while also migrating the Active Directory system, and version, against which the repository would authenticate.

Dominica played DAO all day.  She is really into this game.  I am not sure that I have ever seen her get into any video game this much.  Not that she plays that many video games but from time to time she does and this is the most involvement I have ever noticed.

Liesl and I got a lot of time to play today while Dominica played her game.  We are loving having the furniture.  Dominica and Oreo are able to sit on the couch while I sit in the armchair with my laptop.  Makes a great change from sitting at the desk every moment that I am at the house.

Watching DAO was very entertaining.  It is definitely well written and can be watched much like watching a very long and slow movie.  There appears to be a ton of character development and good plot.  I only get to pay occasional attention but when I do it appears to be pretty deep.  I am looking forward to getting to play it although I have no idea when I will get that chance between all of the work that I have to do and Dominica attempting to hog the game.

Liesl took a late nap this afternoon.  When she woke up we got dressed and I wrapped up work and we hit the road to drive up to Allen, Texas to go visit the Kimberlins for an alternative party (as opposed to a Super Bowl Party.)  If we hadn’t mentioned that this was an alternative to the Super Bowl we would not have even known that it was on this weekend.

We had a really nice time just hanging out and visiting for several hours.  Oreo slept in the car – he just can’t be trusted to be on anyone’s carpeting these days – and Liesl had a great time being the center of attention.  We managed to completely avoid any talk of football.  Since I have no idea when the Super Bowl is played it is easier since I have no idea if it is even on or not.

At nine-ish we were all hungry so tried going out to eat.  We went to Mimi’s but they were closed.  I guess it is rather late for a Sunday evening.  So we hunted around and found an upscale Cajun place that was still open.  Actually they weren’t open but they let us in before the waiter realized that we were closed so we were allowed to eat there anyway.

Dinner was quite nice.  It is not often that we get upscale Cajun cuisine so it made for a change of pace.  My father would be very jealous of crawfish bisque.  We all decided to get the Tilapia Supreme for dinner as well.

After dinner we came back to the apartment and I got back to work on my Subversion / Active Directory issues and Dominica played a few more hours of Dragon Age: Origins.  I stayed up as late as I could for her but once eleven o’clock came around I was worthless and decided that I just had to head off to bed.  Dominica decided that she was really tired too and came to bed just minutes after me.  Liesl had fallen asleep on the drive home and was completely passed out.

Dominica and I slept in until Liesl made us get up this morning.  It was great to get some real rest and we did not have to stay up late changing the bed linens either.

We sat around this morning trying to figure out what we were going to do for breakfast when I realized that today was the day that Tuscan Villas was having breakfast catered by the Flat Iron Grill down in the coffee shop.  So we got ready as quickly as we could and got down there at twenty till eleven.  We ended up being the next to last people to make it through the omelette service before they were done for the day.  So our timing was perfect.

Breakfast was delicious and a nice change of pace.  We did end up meeting someone from the complex (which is the idea of the breakfast thing) that is about our age and has a daughter several months younger than Liesl.

After breakfast we came back up to the apartment and I got to work on my homework for RIT that is due today.  I did not have a chance to do any of it early since I was working on my paper yesterday and this entire week has been just entirely crazy with work or projects or meetings.

By the time we had finished breakfast it was noon and by the time that my homework was done it was about two thirty.  By that time Liesl fell asleep.  So Dominica and I got a little while to relax without anything pressing while we waiting for Liesl to wake up before loading up the car and driving down to Arlington to visit with Dominica’s family for the evening.

It was around four when Liesl finally woke up and we were able to get moving.  We stopped by at La Madeleine and picked up some dessert.  While Dominica and Liesl got dessert I stopped by at Jamba Juice and got fruit smoothies.  I have been focused on getting a lot of fruit lately given how sick I have been feeling.

After getting our food supplies we were on the road and down to Arlington by five-ish.  Dominica’s cousin is in town from Shreeveport, Louisiana and we have not seen her in over a year.  She has not gotten to meet Liesl yet.

Oreo and Sneakers, a two year old 32lbs Boston Terrier got to play all evening and Oreo just loved it.  In no time Oreo was acting like a little puppy again.  He needs more dog interaction with dogs more like himself.

We had a really nice time this evening.  Liesl especially had fun playing with Andrew and we got some hilarious videos of her playing with him.  He would pick her up by her feet and hold her so that she could walk on her hands.  She would then work herself backwards on her hands and knees (like moon walking but crawling) back to him and then stick a foot up in the air indicating that she wanted him to pick her back up by her ankles again.  She did this again and again.  It was so cute and funny.

We got back to the apartment around ten.  I really wanted to work on some projects tonight but just could not bring myself to do it.  I did not even have the energy to really play a game either.  Liesl was asleep almost the moment that we got back.  After Liesl went to sleep I plopped down in the new chair with my laptop and got to work updated SGL as I am several days behind and Dominica put in Dragon Age: Origins on the PS3 (that Joe and Britt got for me for Christmas) and started playing.  She is playing a dwarven noble.

So far Dragon Age: Origins is looking really good.  I am going to play it myself soon as well, maybe even tomorrow.  I will play a completely different character, though, so that it will be a minor deal that we are both playing the same game.  So far the game is pretty impressive.  I am not sure that I would put it on par with Oblivion or not, it is too early to tell, but it definitely does not feel like it is on par with Fable II.  The graphics are great except that they are not tuned well enough for the PS3 so the PS3 has to run the game turned down to a measly  720p which does not look good on 1080p displays and even so the framerate is a disaster with the game constantly jittering and sometimes stopping for a second or more.  It gets hard to watch at times.  I’m not sure if it is a matter of the software not being up to snuff or if the game is just too much for the PS3 hardware.  I can see why people say that the non-console version is so much better.  The computer version will run at the full resolution of the TV with a much faster framerate if you have decent hardware.  These days it is pretty cheap and easy to best a PS3 in rendering power.  Even my business desktop is more powerful for games and it isn’t designed for that at all.

The strong point of DAO is in its storytelling which, thus far, is pretty good.  So far the game feels pretty linear but we are just getting started so we will see.  The game is supposed to be very replayable and should take fifty to one hundred hours to play through so we have a lot of game to explore in different ways.

Dominica played DAO for about five hours tonight which got her pretty far into the game.  Five hours is a drop in the bucket of a one hundred hour adventure but it tends to get you past the initial story setup bits and into the early meat of the game, generally speaking.

At two thirty I decided that it was late enough and that it was time to wrap up for the night, walk Oreo one last time (we can’t afford to wait for him to tell us when he is ready to go out) and hit the sack.  I am working as usual tomorrow and we are planning on going up to Allen to hang out with some friends in the late afternoon / early evening.