Sheep Guarding Llama

Dominica and Oreo were on the road early this morning heading back to Newark.  Dominica is really exhausted because she didn’t really sleep at all last night because of a terrible tooth ache.

I got up at nine this morning and discovered that my Internet access had not managed to fix itself like I had hoped that it would.  Normally when it goes out it eventually self repairs (or the cable company silently realizes what they did wrong and fixes it without notification.)  But not so today.  This is going to make for a really long weekend.

I spent the day cleaning in the apartment to get ready for Dominica’s return.  This included normal cleaning, laundry, dishes, trash, cleaning the floors by hand, dusting, sorting, boxing, shelving, etc.  I also watched more of Full House which I have almost completed.

I had originally planned not to eat solid food today but broke down and decided to get a wrap at Food for Life in the middle of the afternoon.  Dominica isn’t going to be home until late dinner time.

I worked steadily throughout the day and Dominica and Oreo arrived around six thirty.  We ordered in some Chinese from Golden City and watched the remaining Full House Season Five (we have already watched six) episodes.  Dominica’s tooth is really bothering her this evening which is going to be a problem.

More work today.  Nothing exciting to report on that front.

I got home at a very reasonable time for a Friday night but discovered upon my arrival at my apartment in Newark that my Optimum Online from Cablevision was apparently shut off.  I called the customer service to make sure that I hadn’t forgotten to pay the bill or anything but that wasn’t the problem.  I spent an hour on the line with the Optimum customer support system but all that was was a lengthy process asking you to unplug your cable modem and to plug it back in again over and over and over.  There was no troubleshooting done at all.  It was a complete waste of time.  And after pouring all kinds of time into that waste all they did was schedule someone to come out and look at the problem on Tuesday afternoon!  So I have no Internet now for almost a week!

At nine thirty I decided that sitting in my apartment with no Internet access was a waste of time so I walked over to the Key Club which has live music on Friday night and I hung out there for a while.

I found out tonight that one of the guys who works at my apartment building had just put in his notice so that he could take a job in a different part of the country.  So I called him just as he was about to get off of his shift and asked if he wanted to come out to the Key Club and hang out as well.  So he met me there around eleven thirty and we hung out there until the club closed down a little before two.  Sharpe James even made an appearance before the evening was over.

After the club my friend and I made an attempt to walk to a diner for some dinner but got caught in a torrential rain storm and had to give up on that attempt.  So we caught a cab and went out to Irvington to find some all night diners.

The first diner that we tried had been torn down but we finally found Don’s Diner and got ourselves some dinner there.  There were a lot of people out getting food for some reason at this very late hour and it took hours for us to get our food.  It was nuts.

It was four in the morning by the time that we finally returned to 1180.  I was exhausted but we had a really good time.

I am back to work in New Jersey today.  I was in to work at my usual seven in the morning.  Today is my first day actually working from my “new office” in the building up on the hill.  My desk wasn’t really set up yet and I don’t know the layout of the office building yet so a lot of the day was dedicated to just getting myself into a position where I was able to work.

For once I was actually able to leave work at a reasonable time and get home to relax for a little bit.  I relaxed, watching Full House for a couple of hours and did some little things around the apartment, before going down to the media center in the basement to meet up with Ramona and Winnie to watch a movie.

We watched The Labyrinth of the Faun (aka Pan’s Labyrinth in the USA even though there is no faun named Pan in the movie) which is a very sad story about the Spanish civil war in 1944.  It was extremely heavy but very well done.

I can’t believe that we have moved into the second half of the year already. Time really does move faster and faster as you get older.

I was pretty sleepy when I woke up this morning and did not want to get out of bed but it is a busy day and I have no choice. Today is my last day working from dad’s house and I have to work a full day and then drive the five to six hour trip back down to Newark before going straight to bed and then getting up early and driving into the office tomorrow 🙁 But it has been nice to get away from Newark for a few days and I am especially glad to not have been just sitting down there all by my lonesome for the past four days. I am not a stay at home alone kind of guy.

I worked all day and wore myself out. Dad and I had Davis’ Pizza for lunch from down in Pavilion. I had been hoping that we would be able to get Davis’ at some point. You just can’t get good Western New York pizza down in New Jersey. No one does it like home. Jersey only does NYC style pizza.

I did a really good job of getting everything wrapped up by the end of the day and was able to hit the road back to Newark at five thirty! I was very happy with myself for being able to get out so early.

The drive went well. I did my usual stop at the Pilot Truck Stop in Kanona and picked up my Rockstar beverages to keep me “truckin'” on down to Newark. I made really good time until I was halfway across NJ on I80 when I hit a lot of construction which cost me maybe an entire hour. So it was around eleven thirty when I pulled up to 1180.

I was quite tired when I pulled myself out of bed this morning. I got almost eight hours of sleep but was exhausted when I finally got up to start work.

Today was rather uneventful. I worked on my computer and dad worked on his. It was a quiet day. For lunch dad drove down to Cook’s in Greigsville and picked up subs and brought them back so that I could keep working at the house. Getting subs in Newark or anywhere away from “back home” seems to be nearly impossible as nobody makes real subs like the Rochester area does, I guess. I never knew that until I had moved away to several different places and now realize that it is impossible to get a decent sub anywhere. No wonder places like Subway and those other big sub chains do so well while tasting so bland and being nothing like subs back home – the whole country apparently eats sub differently than we do here.

I spent the afternoon working and then at a quarter to six dad and I drove over to Geneseo to meet up with the Richardson clan including Jeremy and Rachel but not Sara for dinner at the Shanghai Buffet in the old Ames Plaza (which will shortly become known as the old Central Tractor Plaza as Ames has been gone for so long that Central Tractor moving to the old Walmart Plaza is the only thing in many peoples’ memories!)

After dinner dad and I came back to Peoria and I immediately got in the Mazda and drove up to Henrietta to meet Andy at the Tim Horton’s on the corner of Jefferson and Marketplace. I don’t believe that I have seen Andy since last September at Bob and Lisa’s wedding! Although I talk to him all of the time so it doesn’t really seem like it has been that long. It was a quarter after eight when I pulled into the Tim Horton’s parking lot.

Andy headed for home around eleven or so and I headed over to Brighton as well to see my cousin Sara’s new apartment. Funny enough Andy is moving into the same complex as Sara in just a week or so. But Sara has a studio and Andy is moving into a townhouse. I hung out with Sara and Toast for about an hour and then drove back down to dad’s so that I could go to bed at a quarter till one in the morning and get six hours of sleep before starting work tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will be working a normal day starting at seven in the morning and then at five when my day wraps up I will be hitting the road as quickly as possible to get back down to Newark so that I can get some sleep before having to drive into the office in the morning.