Sheep Guarding Llama

Dominica and I stayed up a little late last night reading. She stayed up until she had finished “Homeland” and I went to bed as soon as she was done. I am almost done with “Sojourn”, though, now after spending the evening reading.

Today a kid who got caught smoking pot lost his copy of Guitar Hero III but his dad made $9,000 when he sold it on eBay. And the post office delivers Christmas card after 93 years. Apparently George W. Bush has been coaching the Japanese government spokespeople on how to appear well informed. A Japanese man attempting to drive to avoid senility fails – both at driving and at avoiding senility but apparently not at avoiding much else. Study from Duke University shows that monkeys can do math as well as college students. However, it can also read: Duke University students only able to do math at the level of monkeys. If I ran Duke I think that I would have kept this out of the news. In Italy it is illegal to give ridiculous or shameful first names to children. I wish that the US would do this. With a significant portion of the population now playing a game of finding the most embarrassing and hurtful names for children to grow up with it is easy to see here why laws like this are an important part of child protection. In Italy where parents probably care more about their children on average the law may seem extreme. But it can go a long way towards protecting children who can’t protect themselves.

Cute giant rat five times the size of city rats has been discovered in Indonesia. This is one cute rate.

Today I discovered Vimeo which is a web video hosting service (a la YouTube or Google Video.) What sets Vimeo apart is that they offer full Vimeo HD. This is full 720P HDTV stuff here. Pretty amazing. I took a look at a few videos and they were pretty impressive.

Today was incredibly slow at the office. Dominica had to go in really early this morning before Doggie Paradise was open so she couldn’t take Oreo to daycare. I would have taken him in later but I do not have a car anymore so that wasn’t a possibility. So I was the dog sitter again today. This worked out well because work was so slow today and Oreo was still exhausted from the weekend and slept almost all day. He isn’t a youthful puppy anymore and he values his sleep. There was a lot of sunlight today so he got to roam around the house looking for the optimal sunning locations. The new chair that sits near my desk gets the early morning exposure, then late morning he moves to the recliner then in the afternoon to the bedroom. He has his day all planned out long before hand.

Dominica got home at a quarter to six. We have a party in our building this evening and we are planning on attending that and getting dinner there. But I got called out from the office at six and had to work for a while before being able to go anywhere. This seems to happen every time that they have an event in the building. The events are so early that I have to work through most or all of them. It is the lot of the system administrator.

I finally got off of the line with the office at seven so that we could run down to what was left of the party. It was one of the “fancy” parties and I think that this is only the second one that we have had so far. It was in the lounge on the second floor and it was catered and had servers and everything. Although it also had a lot of people who didn’t seem to live in the building which makes it a bit awkward.

We hung out with Ryan, Kevin and Pam. There was a lot of food coming around on trays and it took a while to eat but the food was very good. The fried “grilled cheese” sandwiches were amazing and the fried risotto balls were really good too. The seared tuna was tasty and there were a lot of other items. And drinks, of course.

Dominica and I got back around ten thirty. Oreo was fine with us being gone for three and a half hours at the party. He is mellowing a lot as he gets older and gets used to us.

Today is the most exciting day of the year for those of us who work in the New York financial markets. Today is the winter “freeze”. It isn’t a very exciting event to those outside of IT but for us it is the “vacation” period at the end of the year. For almost a month we go into a “no changes” made mode to the infrastructure which means we do only a small amount of normal support work and no “project” work which massively reduces the workload.

It is cold and windy today but the weather isn’t bad. Oreo was so exhausted last night that we decided that I should stay home with him today so that he could get some rest. The long weekend at daycare was just too much for him. He was out like a light as soon as we got him home last night and today he slept pretty solidly until around four this afternoon when he finally asked me to take him out for his first walk of the day.

There was a lot of cleaning to do around the apartment today. We had lots of packing from all of the stuff that has been shipped here recently. And the dishes were out of control.

Oreo is liking the new armchair. It sits very close to where I sit while I work at my desk and that means that he can sleep very close to me and I can just lean over and say hello whenever he wakes up and looks to see if I am still around.

Dominica got home early since she did not have to make the trip up to pick up Oreo from daycare. We got dinner from Market City downstairs in our building and had a quiet evening in spent mostly reading. Min is trapped in R. A. Salvatore’s “Homeland” now and will be doing little else until the book is done, I imagine.

Andy got back to Rochester this evening after having been in North Bay, Ontario, Canada over the weekend. Not the best of days to be doing lots of driving.

Things were very, very quiet tonight. I didn’t receive any work emails between six and nine and so I decided to just shut down and let people find me in the morning.

I did a little equipment hunting on eBay tonight. I am looking for bargains on HP Compaq D325 workstations. They were a great workhorse machine not long ago but were not all that popular with businesses who were gunshy of the 32bit AMD AthlonXP processor that they came with having not seen it in the business world in any serious machine until that particular model even though it was well proven in the consumer space. The AthlonXP ran hot but had amazing 32bit performance and ran circles around any similarly priced 32bit Intel processor. So now I look for the D325 because it is one of the best values in recently used commercial equipment deals.

I took the time to join the alumni association for my undergraduate university this evening. While doing so I noticed the rather offensive “what race are you” question that had about thirty possible answers which included: African American, Native African, Indian, East Indian, American Indian, Mexican and about twenty different Asian nationalities and… white. Now seriously, how prejudice is this list?

First of all, there is no black. Just African American and Native African as slaps in the face to blacks from anywhere else who don’t make the list (other than the ubiquitous “other”.) For those who claim that there are no other blacks first of all, tsk tsk tsk, and secondly, what about Australia?

Then, secondly, what does “Indian” mean when you have American Indian & East Indian in the list? Is there some Indian that I don’t know about?

Thirdly, why do all of the Asian countries get listed as nationalities when all of Europe and the Middle East and lots and lots of other places get listed as “white”? We don’t deserve national identities like everyone else does?

Part of the list is racial. Part of the list is national. And part of it is indeterminate or continental. What about a white South African who grows up in Hong Kong and is a citizen of China? You would fall under Native African (obviously they thought all Africans are black but forgot about the dozen or so countries that are mostly white there), white (because you gotta sneak a race in there somewhere) and Chinese. So you have specified a race, country and continent. But which to choose when you only get one? And, conversely, if you are a Native Australian you are left being “other”.

Why are whites singled out as the only group explicitly mentioned by race anyway? I can’t tell who is being slighted here (other than a few completely unmentioned groups – they can take the time to mention Singaporean within “Asian” but can’t mention black? That seems a pretty obvious slight to those who are black and not from Africa or are black and just don’t want to make claims to a continent of ancestral assumption.) But “racial equality” was definitely the farthest thing from the mind of whoever was writing this!

Speaking of college. We did some research and there is a very real possibility that Dominica might be able to qualify for a two year Associate of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Empire State College with just one more four credit class. We don’t know for sure but we think that it looks likely. We are trying to get a definitive answer as quickly as possible. We had determined that her second BS degree was going to take a really long time and it was daunting for someone who is almost thirty and already has one four year degree to be looking four years out to hopefully be completing her second one after already doing two years towards it! And until she has the BS she would have mostly nothing to show for all of the work (and the expense!) But with an Associates under her belt she will have something to show for her work thus far and something to put on her resume instead of having to wait several more years for it to help in the least. So we are hopeful that that will work out.

Speaking of college expenses – I just noticed that Dominica’s original college loans are still costing us over $1,000 in interest payments alone!  The interest rate on her college loan is about the same as you would get on a used car!  (In fact, it is the same as what we got on our last used car.)

92%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I was up at four this morning and could hear the party still going on down below. But I didn’t stay up for long before going back to bed to get some more rest. I got up for real around eight or so – just two hours after the party officially wrapped up. Dominica stayed in bed for another two hours or so. It was close to eleven when we finally made our way down to the first floor because we had heard Michelle on the phone so we knew that someone was awake at that point.

We visited for the morning and at one in the afternoon we set out for the drive back up to New Jersey. Neither of us was in much of a mood to drive today. We continued listening to “T is for Trespass” on CD as we drove. It is unabridged and quite long so I am not sure when I will get a chance to finish listening to it.

The drive home went pretty well. In central Jersey we switched and Min took over driving the rest of the way home. It was six when we got to Doggie Paradise to pick up Oreo. He was so excited to see us! This is the most excited we have ever seen him at daycare.

We got home and had to deal with the mail and packages that had arrived on Friday night just as we were walking out of the door. The first order or business was assembling our new living room armchair. It is the matching unit to the loveseat that we got several days ago. The chair was actually purchased first but things arrived out of order. Dominica put the chair together so that by the end of the evening our living room is now all but complete. We just need a television. However, we decided to go ahead and buy the television tonight as our credit card has rolled over and we are purchasing on our January expenses now. But when we went to order it it had shot up about $300. So our careful planning was ruined and now we will wait until the new year and most likely February to re-evaluate the living room LCD television situation. 🙁

Our new Dungeons and Dragons dice sets arrived on Friday as well. We were very short of dice and it was a problem when we tried to have a game night so we bought four sets so that we wouldn’t have to deal with that in the future. Also in the post was “Pirates of the Fallen Stars” which I have wanted for years and I finally got for about $4. I also got the hardcover book “The Quest for the Lost Roman Legions” by Tony Clunn. Tony Clunn was the British soldier stationed in Germany in the 1980s who spent his free time searching for the lost battlefield of Teutoberg Forest. He is famous today as the site’s discoverer.

From the “greed” game on Saturday night Dominica won a chocolate fondue fountain which is pretty cool. Not quite something that we would have bought for ourselves but definitely something cool that we are glad that we got (if only we can figure out where the heck to store the thing… maybe at dad’s house?)

We went to bed early and Dominica started ready “Homeland” that I finished last week and I wrapped up reading “Exile” and am about to begin “Sojourn” tomorrow.

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Dominica and I slept in a bit this morning. It was mid-morning when we finally rolled out of bed but we got a good night’s sleep and are ready for the day. We were not really prepared for how little work was going to be needed for the party tonight. For the past several years the day of the party has been a big day of prep work with lots of errands to be run but today was nothing like that at all.

We met John out at the Double T Diner for a late breakfast slash early lunch. We have eaten at the Double T every time that we have ever come to Maryland if I remember correctly.

After breakfast we went back to the house and just relaxed for much of the afternoon. In the evening Dominica and Michelle did some work at the house to get ready and John and I ran out to do some minor errands but nothing stressful like we normally do.

The party started at seven as usual. Black tie as always. Dominica went to bed around one. I crashed at two. The last dwindlings of the party lasted until about six in the morning!

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Tomorrow is the famous Nicklin Christmas Party so tonight Dominica and I are traveling down to Maryland in preparation for the event. This morning Dominica took Oreo to daycare to drop him off for the weekend.

The weather was actually quite warm today.  So warm that when walked down Wall Street I had to carry my jacket and I was still very, very warm.

For lunch today one of my clients took me out for pasta at a really cool pasta place near the office.  It was a really good lunch.  I generally just eat at my desk when I am on Wall so that was a nice change.

The day was busy but wrapped up on the early side and I was able to run out of the office at a quarter after five to catch the train back to Newark.  That was quite the break.  I got home and Dominica was already there and just about packed.

We were on the road just a little after seven.  It takes just under four hours in good weather and with low traffic to go from our apartment in Newark, New Jersey to the Nicklin house in Arnold, Maryland.  We have definitely learned that the fastest path is to take interstate 95 south to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and then to catch MD301 south from the first exit in Delaware and that takes us right across the Bay Bridge and into Annapolis allowing us to bypass all of the worst traffic areas.

So we rolled into Arnold just after eleven having stopped to eat on the road.  We stayed up for about two hours visiting.  We haven’t been to Maryland in an entire year – since the last Christmas party.  This is the first time that we have gone this long without making a trip down.  It has been a crazy year for all of us.  There are so many people that we basically haven’t spoken to at all this year.  Madness.

Normally there is already a small party in progress when we arrive in Maryland but this year it was just us and John and Michelle.  Tomorrow is going to be far easier on all of us because for the first time the party is being professionally catered which is very exciting.