April 24, 2009: Last Day with the Ralstons

After going to bed at four this morning I was woken up at seven thirty and felt that it would be best if I just got to work.  So I did.  Right up and down to the basement and off to work.  Only two to three hours of sleep at most.

The morning was really, really busy and I ended up working solidly until around eleven or so.  And then I worked heavily, but was able to at least see people, until a little after noon.  Then it was time for lunch and as this is our final chance to see Art and Danielle before they leave for a month I just left for a while.

We decided that this would be a good time to finally try out Grandma’s, a restaurant in Yorktown Heights on Crompond that we have been seeing for a while that looks really good.  They say that they are famous for their pies.  We will see.

The menu at Grandma’s is really impressive.  It reminds me of all of the German, Dutch and Scandavian food that I often see when I am in Ohio.  Much like Cracker Barrel in many ways.  Breakfast all day.  Very “down home” with friendly folks meeting you at the door, lots of traditional family baked goods (not the fancy French or Italian pastries – just pies and cakes) and a menu made almost entirely of breakfast and comfort foods.  My family will love eating here when they come to visit.

Dominica and I both went for the “famous” quiche.  Art got a quesadilla and Danielle got a spicy chicken sandwich.  Everyone really liked their good.  The main course was great as was the bread and the salad.  We all tried to save room for dessert which is for what the restaurant is really well known.

We eat got a slice of pie for dessert no matter how full we were.  Probably no the best idea but boy was it every good.  Really impressive home-style baked goods.  Yummy.  We will definitely be coming back here.  Not the cheapest place to eat around Peekskill, though.

We said our goodbyes in the parking lot.  Then Art and Danielle got on the road to Painted Post while Dominica and I went back home so that I could get back to work for the rest of the evening.

I was quite busy for the rest of the day and ended up working quite late.  Another exhausting day.

We did not get a chance to go out for our daily walk today so at around ten thirty this evening, when Dominica was getting close to deciding to go to bed, I decided to head out for a walk on my own.  I went for a really long walk since this was my chance to really get some exercise.

I went down Maple Avenue until it turned into South Division Street to the heart of Peekskill which really is not a bad walk at all.  One and a half miles down to the downtown intersection.

I walked around downtown a little.  I discovered that there are two coffee shops within an easy walk of the house which is awesome.  There are also several restaurants of all types downtown that look really good.  Many more than I had expected to have found.

I then proceeded down South to Washington and over to Hudson.  On Hudson I walked down to the Peekskill Train Station and out to the park.  I sat on a picnic table and watched the trains rumble by along the Hudson River.  I was quite surprised to see a New Haven train pulling a passenger line north towards Poughkeepsie or Albany.  I thought that only Amtrak and MetroNorth ran this line.

On the opposite side of the river I saw a cargo train heading south into the city.  The view from Peekskill is mostly of Orange County with a little bit of northern Rockland County.  Watching the trains from the river front is really cool.

I was pleased to find that there was a lively crowd down on the river front near the train station.  The bar that is actually inside of the train station has a large outdoor seating area which was quite busy.  The Peekskill Brewery was very busy as well.

From the train station I walked straight up the hill on Hudson and down Maple to go back home.  I used Google Maps to map out the route so that I would have an idea of approximately how far I had walked.  It turned out to be 4.2 miles.  Not as far as I had thought but not too shabby considering how much of that walk – all of it – is on significant incline or decline.  Very good exercise and a good chance to listen to some IT Conversations on my iPod.

My walk lasted for almost two hours.  It was after midnight when I finally got into bed.

April 23, 2009: The “Call” Comes in for the Congo

Not only did we go to bed last night at a decent hour but this morning I was able to really sleep in as well and then, once I finally did get up, I spent a while working from my BlackBerry.  I feel quite a bit better after actually getting some sleep.

I had to spend the day working which was too bad because we will get such limited time to spend with the Ralstons before they leave the country.

Art had come down to the basement and we were talking when Danielle called downstairs to tell him that Global, their missionary agency, was on the phone.  This was the call.  The official “you can book your flights – you leave on May 25th” call.  It was really neat that it happened while they were here.  It was very cool to get to be a part of that moment.

After the years of planning the immensity of the move to the Congo tends to wear off on those of us who have gotten used to the idea.  Seeing the shock and panic as Art and Danielle realized that they have to be on a plan in thirty-two days to central Africa and will not be seeing anyone again after that brought it all home.  They already have a ton of travel plans over the next month too so they are already down to things like “only one more chance to go to church – maybe, and not likely – at their own church!”  That’s weird to think about.

So much of the day was spent getting plans together, making calls, trying to calm down.  You can imagine.  It is finally real.  They have been working towards this for a really long time.  They rented out their house and moved out several weeks ago and Art had just recently left his job so that they would be able to go really soon and they have been saying “maybe the end of May” for a while but it was not official and had a really good chance of not happening until the news came through today.

The call came in around eleven or eleven thirty.  For roughly two hours Art and Danielle were going as fast as they could getting calls made and taking care of communications.  They have important documents that need to be obtained, money to be moved, approvals to be processed, embassy to be contacted and more.  At one thirty we all went down to Pastel’s for lunch.  Art got the Belgian waffle with strawberry preserves which is the same thing that he got the last time that he was here.

Now the reality of “this is the last Belgian waffle” starts to set in.  From this point out there will be few, if any, duplicated meals.  Each meal is likely to be their last of that particular example of Western fare.

Within a few hours they had their flights booked.  They are flying out of JFK on the 25th of May in the evening.  That is a Monday.  They are coming to our house in a minivan loaded with everything that they yet own, which isn’t very much, that will be going in their luggage on the plane on the 24th and spending their last night in the industrial world at our house.  Then on Sunday evening I will be driving them to the airport alone and will be dealing with the minivan return and that stuff.  No one else is going both because it would be a logistic nightmare but also because it will be so emotional.  This isn’t a vacation or a short term mission trip.  This is moving to the Congo with the intent to possibly not return and definitely not to return, if at all possible, for a minimum of four years.

Everyone was excited and nervous and a bit over-excited so we all, Dominica, Liesl, Art, Danielle, Oreo and I took a two and a half mile walk around Chapel Hill.  We figured that some exercise would help everyone to relax.  As long as we were in the house there were just too many last minute details that needed to be handled.

The walk helped a bit.  It was good because we really needed the exercise as well.  This week has been awful for our diets.

I worked again for a while after the walk.  A few hours.  Then Art and I ran to Best Buy a little after eight to buy another laptop for Danielle.  She has a newish Toshiba but the motherboard is starting to fail and if a computer dies in the Congo, that’s it.  No more computer.  Best case scenario is six months to get one sent from the states and six months is not very likely.  A year is probably more likely.  And any files on it will probably be lost.  They had bought the Toshiba new to go to the Congo; it didn’t survive long enough to even make the journey.  So we went to Best Buy and picked up a Compaq that was on sale.  Just $430 for a really nice unit.  It was quite a good deal.  They are taking three Compaqs with them when they go.  They each have one.

When we returned from Best Buy we all ate dinner together.  Danielle had cooked tilapia in Balsamic vinegar, dill and garlic, mashed potatoes and asparagus.  Probably their last tilapia.  They can only get catfish and Goliath tiger fish (Hydrocynus goliath) in Impfondo and neither of those looks very tasty at all.

We stayed up talking for a little while but everyone went to bed pretty early except for me.  Always more work to do so I headed back down to the basement and ended up working until four in the morning!  It is going to be another night without sleep for me.  I have only had one “full” night’s sleep all week.

The Ralstons are hoping to leave shortly after noon tomorrow so that they can get to their next stop on the travels early in the day.  They are driving from Peekskill to Painted Post, New York.  Probably about four hours on the road.  Not too bad.  We will get lunch before they leave and then they will leave from there.  They are going to be really busy for the next thirty-two days.

April 22, 2009: The Ralstons’ Final Visit to Peekskill

Today the Ralstons are coming from back home down to visit us for the last time before they hope to be going to Impfondo, Republic of the Congo.  They are hoping to leave in late May so the next several seeks entails them running from one state to another trying to visit everyone that they should be seeing before, very likely, leaving the United States forever – or nearly forever.

The Ralstons still need funds to support them while they are in the Congo working at Pioneer Christian Hospital.  If anyone is able to help support them it would be really wonderful.  As it is they are going over there without enough current support to allow them to stay.  So their hope is that they will be able to raise additional support while they are there.  If they do not their will have to leave the hospital to come back to the United States in order to raise additional support.

The plan was to do as much house cleaning this morning as possible.  Work was so busy that I was never able to even think about doing any cleaning around the house.  Dominica did was she could during the day.  There was a lot of the house that we just did not get enough time to clean by the time that the Ralstons arrived.

Art and Danielle arrived in the late afternoon.  Luckily my morning had been really busy but things were not quite so bad in the late afternoon so we did get to visit some.

One of the very first things that happened after they arrived was that Art was eating some Cadbury’s candy coated mini eggs and he broke a tooth.  Split a tooth pretty much in half.  Fortunately it was not painful and he did not have to go see a dentist about it right away.

Once my work was finally done we all drove out to the New City Diner to get our dinner.  It was rather late when we finally got out there.  Almost eight, I believe.  The dinner crowd had already gone and the people were dwindling.  Dominica got her traditional Veggie Cat Burger (veggie burger with a hash brown, fried eggplant and tons of veggies – extremely delicious.)  She gets that every time that we go there because we do not go out to eat often enough for her not to be craving it.  I got the BBQ veggie burger which I often get.  Danielle got an apple walnut salad and Art got the Philly cheesesteak which we are pretty sure that he got the last time that they were down visiting us in Peekskill.

Since we are obviously already cheating on our diets and are going to be for the next few days Dominica and I went ahead and got awesome desserts because their pasteries there are really something.

We didn’t stay up all that late tonight which was good because I was very tired.  I have gotten almost no sleep all week and it is really wearing on me.  I have a really busy work weekend too so I will not have much of a chance to catch up on any sleep over the weekend either.  In addition to working this weekend, Katie is coming over on Saturday afternoon to visit for a little while.

April 21, 2009: Driving to Connecticut

Not much sleep for me last night.  It was four thirty when I finally went up to go to bed and it was definitely after five when I finally got off to sleep.  There were a few interruptions during the night as well and I was up by eight thirty this morning.  So two to three hours or real sleep in my estimation.

Work was incredibly busy today.  My whole morning was just a matter of running from one task to another as quickly as I could.  Very overwhelming.  I was completely exhausted by lunch time.  Of course, I didn’t get to take my lunch because I was so busy.

I worked through lunch and had a rather busy afternoon as well.  So much work coming in that I was really “task thrashing” as I like to call it.  Constantly context switching and never able to get enough time to just focus on a single task that I spent all of the time doing the task switching rather than being productive at all.

I found out today that we have decided to give up my office on Wall Street and that I am getting a physical company phone delivered to my house so that I will be able to work from home without needing to really think about needing to go to the office or dealing with phone problems because people are calling the office when I am home and vice versa.  That is going to make life a lot easier in the long run.

My connection to the office died today right at five.  I spent half an hour attempting to get reconnected but finally abandoned the idea as a complete waste of time.  Dominica wanted to go for a drive in the new car so we just grabbed the children and headed out the door to the new X3.

We decided to drive up to Washington, Connecticut which is famous as being the town that inspired Stars Hollow, CT in the television show The GIlmore Girls. Dominica has been watching that a lot recently and it was pretty close so it seemed like it would be a nice drive to take.  Dominica has never been to Connecticut at all and I only ever have been once way back when Andy and I drove from Rochester, New York to Rye Harbor, New Hampshire to get food one day.  That was probably in 1999 and I would have only seen Connecticut late at night.

The drive really is not far.  Only about an hour.  Dominica spent quite a bit of time playing with the in-dash navigation system trying to determine how it works.  Once we figured it out it really is easy compared to the touch screen of the Garmin.

The drive went well.  Washington is a really cute little down.  We ended up driving around on the outskirts going down some really tiny one lane roads and seeing some amazing houses.  A rather interesting place to be sure.

We had been hoping to have gotten food in Washington but did not stumble on any place to eat except one which was too fancy for how we were dressed.  So we drove out of town and ended up eating at a Denny’s in Danbury because it was all that we could find easily.

We tried their new pancake puppies.  Oh wow are those every good!  Those are going to be very dangerous indeed.  Everyone should go try them.

It was around ten, I think, when we got back to Peekskill.  Liesl was asleep for the entire trip.  She slept around eighteen hours today!  We are sure that today is one of her big growth spurts.  She will be an inch taller tomorrow.  It is so funny how she just sleeps and sleeps while she is busy growing.

Andy called just after we got home and he and I ended up talking until around one thirty in the morning!  Then I had to get to the work that I needed to do all day anyway.  So I started working and ended up not finishing up until five in the morning!  I am going to be so exhausted tomorrow.  There just is not enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done.

The Ralstons are coming down to Peekskill tomorrow.  They are leaving sometime in the morning and I believe that they are coming by motorcycle.  Not sure exactly when they are leaving.

April 20, 2009: New Car

I slept in a bit too much this morning.  I was really exhausted from staying up so late last night.  I woke up to the phone ringing.  It was our salesperson from Orange County BMW calling to schedule our pickup of the new car.  We decided to try to do it over lunch so that it would have minimal impact on our day.  This did not turn out to be the case but that was the plan.  So we arranged to pick it up at one this afternoon.

The weather really turned on us.  It is much colder today.  We had temperatures around eighty two days ago and sixty yesterday and today we are around forty degrees!  Ugh.

I got to work and ended up having a crazy morning.  I worked as quickly as I could trying to get everything that I could possibly get done completed before we needed to leave to deal with the car.  It was all that I could do just to keep up.  What a busy morning.

Our insurance company called to walk me through the insurance changes today because of the new car.  Because of the changes to our insurance (changing our commuting parameters, switching from a sport convertible to the SUV, etc.) our insurance is dropping a bit.  I love my insurance company (BMW/Liberty Mutual.)  They really treat us great.  Our prices are amazing and the service is wonderful.  They are very friendly and easy to deal with for everything.  We are saving around $30/month because of the changes.  Every little bit helps.

I didn’t get a chance to even attempt a shower until a quarter after noon – just barely before we were supposed to be running out of the door.  What a busy day.

We got on the road just in time.  It was raining by the time that we left and very cold.  By the time that we got to Harriman, New York we were getting hail!  Talk about a change in the weather.

The process at OC BMW took a bit longer than we had expected but they were able to switch our plates and take care of some stuff for us that they had originally thought that they would not be able to do so it ended up working out well.

Our financing did not go as well as we had planned.  We ended up owing more money on the 330 than we had thought that we owed which made things difficult.  So we had to do some fancy financing tricks to make the X3 a reality today.  It worked out okay, though.  We had to put more money down than we had planned but nothing crazy and we had to do some maneuvering with the dealership between the price and finance rate (we ended up taking a cut on the price while paying more in interest) but in the end I think that it worked out well and may actually be advantageous to us in the long run if we manage the finances on the car well for the next two years.  At the end of the day I was pretty happy with how the financial turned out.  Since we are doing our car financing through BMW Financial we also qualified for BMW Visa cards which will give us credits towards our next BMW purchase so we are totally going to take advantage of that!

Speaking of financials, while we were waiting at the car dealer I saw the news that Oracle had agreed to purchased Sun Microsystems.  Overall I am not completely sure how to take the news but I think, most likely, that it is pretty good news.  Far better than IBM buying Sun.  Oracle and Sun seem to be more in tune with one another and it doesn’t eliminate one of the big server players.  Having only three seemed like a bad idea.  I can live with four.  But Sun plays an important role in market diversification.  The only concerns now are the long term plans that Oracle may have for some of Sun’s software intellectual property like MySQL, Java and Solaris.  It will be important to watch that space to see what Oracle decides to do in the years to come.

After completing everything with the car we were really starving so we drove down to Cosimo’s and got lunch.  Their gorgonzola cheese melted over waffle fries is one of the best things ever.  We just love it.

The drive home was our first long drive with the new X3.  It did pretty well.  I can see that it will be pretty comfortable for long family trips.  We are kicking around the idea of going to Annapolis and/or Bar Harbor pretty soon and we would need the X3 for a trip of a length like that.

Highlights of the new X3 include much lower car payments (almost $200 less per month!), heated seats front and back, tons of storage space, built-in navigation system, Bluetooth integration so that we can just talk to the car and it communicates through our mobile phones, front to rear moonroof so the entire sky is visible, etc.  So far we are pretty happy with the purchase.  Something had to be done and this really seemed to be the economical, utilitarian solution that met our needs and saved us money while remaining safe and convenient.  Dominica has wanted an X3 for a while so she is definitely thrilled.

Once we got back home it was back to work for me.  Way too much work that needs catching up.  Today turned out to be a pretty rough day to be physically out of the office for most of the day.  But dealing with the car was not something that should wait and now it is all set.  All we have to do yet is to have the insurance photos taken and that can be down right downtown so it is no big deal at all.  Will probably have Dominica run out and do that tomorrow.

I worked for the office until quite late and then it was time to get down to some writing that I have been getting behind on and desperately need to get caught up.  Liesl fell asleep really early, around six thirty, and because we had such a big and unhealthy lunch I skipped dinner completely.  So my entire evening was dedicated to getting work done as much as possible.

I got my first article for the day completed around a quarter after ten this evening.  You can check out my article on Microblogging for Business on SMBITJournal.

It really rained today.  Hours of pouring rain.  We got some pretty good thunder in there as well.  I had been hoping to be able to take a nice, long walk tonight since I didn’t get to take one earlier today but the rain really put a damper on that idea.  The rain was far too heavy to allow for walking outside.

I ended up working late.  Very late.  It was four thirty by the time that I finally managed to get off to bed.  It was good that I stayed up, though, because I was able to get a lot of work done and I feel that it was very valuable.  Tomorrow is going to be a rough day.