Sheep Guarding Llama

I got up and had to get right to work this morning.  I was working and got called by a head hunter who was really insistent on talking to me so I did not even get a chance to shower, shave or change before Brian and Tara arrived.  They had gotten up extremely early and had left the Poconos around four thirty in the morning or so!

I got ready to actually face the world and spent a little time with everyone but had to work this morning until lunch time so I was stuck in dad’s office for most of the morning.  Then for lunch we all drove over to the Omega Grill in Geneseo.  It has been quite a while since Dominica, Liesl and I have had a chance to eat there.  It was a very early lunch.  I only had about two hours of work that I had to cover so it wasn’t a big deal.

After lunch we stopped by at Tim Horton’s to pick up coffee and donuts.  Brian and I had a conference call at eleven thirty that we had to take while there.  Then dad, Dominica and Liesl drove back to the house while I went down to Mt. Morris with Brian and Tara to get them settled in to the Country Inn and Suites that is there at the north end of Letchworth State Park.

We decided that since Tara had work to do and since I had the afternoon off already, having thought that I would be driving this afternoon instead of already being up here, that Brian and I would tour the area so that I could give him an overview of the region.  So we left Tara at the hotel and drove from Mt. Morris up to Leicester and then over to Perry.  From Perry it was over to Mt. Morris to pick up Tara at the hotel then just down the street to Brian’s USA Diner for dinner.  Dad, Dominica and Liesl met us there.

It was back home from there.  I had plenty of work to do at dad’s house so was up rather late as usual even though we were back early.  Tomorrow is a busy day with me working and running all over the place.  It will be rather chaotic.

Work started off normally this morning.  Nothing really to report.  The big IT news today is that Rackspace has re-released Jungle Disk products under their own branding umbrella and has some newly updated enterprise cloud storage options now available.  For those readers who think that I might be using the term cloud storage loosely, this is a real cloud offering and not a misuse of the term to mean Software-as-a-Service while attempting to sound new and hip.  I got an account right away and started trying it out.  So far it is quite impressive.

The original plan was that Dominica, Liesl, Oreo and I were going to drive up to dad’s house in Pavilion tomorrow afternoon.  I worked Veteran’s Day and have a comp day to take tomorrow so it was going to work out well.  Brian and Tara were planning to go up there tomorrow and were going to meet us for dinner or something.  Brian called at eleven and said that they were heading up to the Poconos at lunch today and were going to travel up from there tomorrow morning, though, which would put them way, way ahead of us.  So Dominica decided to see if she could get everything packed and ready so that we could actually do the drive after work today instead of waiting until tomorrow to go.  Of course,  I had taken the time off tomorrow so that we could drive in the daylight and not interrupt our sleeping schedules so much and going tonight puts us back into late night driving but, oh well.

The packing went well and we were on the road by around seven.  In a way it was nice to get going early because it forced us to just jump start our trip and get the ball rolling.  So all afternoon was spent packing and preparing for the trip in a panic.  No time to spare at all now.

The drive up to dad’s went pretty well.  Dinner was at McDonald’s like it normally is when we are traveling.

It was late, like one or two in the morning, when we pulled into dad’s place.  We were all pretty tired so it was right off to sleep for us.

Looking Back: Nine months from now I will hook up my Playstation 3 in our apartment in Las Colinas, Texas and discover that November 17th was the last time that I was able to play Oblivion for nine months.  This was the last day of really “relaxing” to any degree that we would have for a very, very long time.

We didn’t know it until later but today was our last day at home before our crazy travel schedule kicked in.  Busy day at work for me and time spent relaxing at home.  Nothing really to report.  Dominica spent the day packing so that we are pretty much all ready to go as soon as time permits.  We were assuming that we would be leaving on Wednesday.

We know that this coming week begins a marathon of activity so we are trying our best to get in some time just relaxing at home before we have to hit the road for more than two weeks away!  Ugh.  It is stressful just thinking about it.

I had to work today but work was not too bad.  I was able to get chances throughout the day to sneak away and spend tie with the family.  Dominica and I are still addicted to Oblivion so we have been playing that still.  Pretty soon we are going to have to go for two weeks without it so we are getting our time in now.

Sorry for the short updates, my schedule has just been crazy and we are trying to use what little free time that we have to just hang out as a family.  Haven’t had the time necessary to get SGL updated.  Not too much to report, though.  Mostly we are just relaxing a little in our home stretch before the travel, packing and moving kicks in which will leave us no time to relax whatsoever.

I didn’t get to bed until two this morning.  I have been very, very short on sleep for a few weeks now.  I have no yet really recovered from the trip to Texas.  Those following SGL can see that I have not been keeping up here at all.  I have just been so busy.  It has been awful.  The Texas trip kicked it off and then Liesl being sick the moment that we arrived how, then this trip to NY in a few days then off to Orlando just in time to get back and attempt to sell the house in under three weeks so that we can move down to Texas by mid to late December before Christmas!  Whoa.  I’m getting exhausted just thinking about everything that needs to be done.

Fortunately for me, today proved to be slower at work that it often is and I got a bit more time to relax than normal.  I decided that doing a little relaxing was more important than doing a ton of work.  So today, when time allowed, Dominica and I played quite a bit of Oblivion.  It was really nice. Lots of time spent with the family and just having a good time.

We have made a ton of progress in Oblivion today.  Well past completing the Knights of the Nine quest and I have no finished the entire Fighter’s Guild as well.  I am starting the Mage’s Guild quests while cleaning up some side stories that have been hanging for a long time as well as slowly working my way through the main storyline.

We did our best today to avoid really thinking about all of the work that has to be done before we are able to leave on Wednesday.  There is so much to do before the end of December that it all feels very overwhelming.