Sheep Guarding Llama

ComputerWorld has a good article this morning on the top ten dead or dying computer skills.

Today I get to work from home but because yet another fire drill was scheduled for today at the very last minute we did not have time to change our schedules and so Oreo has to go to daycare and I have to work at home alone without my dog. It turned out to be very good that we sent him to daycare because we had heard that the alarms would only be tested for about half an hour which means that I could have taken Oreo for a long walk while they did the testing but it turned out that the testing was for more like two hours and it would have been a major issue. As it was I worked through twenty minutes or so of alarms because I had no choice but it was extremely painful. So then I went to Food for Life and got lunch and then went to StarBucks and read “Questioning Extreme Programming” for a while. Earlier this week I wrapped up reading “Pragmatic Project Automation” which is the third and final title in the Pragmatic Programming Starter Kit.

I learned that yesterday was the day when the earth’s population officially (whatever that means) shifted from being primarily rural to being primarily urban for the first time in recorded history. The United States made this particular demographic shift sometime between 1910 and 1919.

Today is furniture day. Our new loveseat is schedule to be delivered this afternoon. I put in a lot of time cleaning today and moving furniture so that everything is ready for it to be delivered. We are taking the one leather seat that we have back up to dad’s so that the loveseat and the futon will both fit in the apartment. We don’t have spare space anywhere.

The furniture arrived late around the time that Dominica had left from work. We got it moved up to the apartment pretty quickly and nothing got destroyed. The first thing that I discovered is that the loveseat is much smaller than we had thought that it would be and is, in fact, a large recliner and not a true loveseat. Time will tell how well this is going to meet our needs but at least it was not expensive.

Dominica came home and we finished watching the final season of Arrested Development and then went off to bed.  We watched the show while squeezed onto our new recliner.  We fit but it is tight.  Oreo cannot possibly sit on it with us.  The recliner is called the “Cuddler” for a reason.

Weight Lost So Far: 12lbs

Quote of the Day from Raymond Chen: “There’s a lot of stupid people out there. Stupid people who are going to lose all their money one way or another. They may as well lose some of it to us.”

I got up this morning and actually managed to put in over an hour on the elliptical machine in the gym! It felt great. My body is getting used to the routine and I am not really stressing it at all now. Sixty-five minutes is quite a leap from the forty-five minutes that I have been doing. And I only had to stop because I needed to get to work and not because I was exhausted!

Dominica learned today that most people when they think that they feel hunger pains are actually just thirsty. We have long wondered why everyone that we know gets hungry so long before I do. But I am an extremely well hydrated person – I drink water all day long and lots of it. And I almost never feel actually hungry – even when I miss several meals in a row. This answers a lot of questions about me. So here is a tip: if you feel hungry try a glass of water first.

Our loveseat is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. We are very excited. Tomorrow is my normal work from home day anyway so that will make it that much easier. We are very happy that it is coming this week so that we know for sure that we can ship our leather “moon” chair back to dad’s house when we drive back up. So tonight we need to get the house ready for the loveseat.

For you vegetarians out there, you may not know that only some cheese is vegetarian. Most cheese is made from animal parts – often from young lambs! Trader Joe’s has a guide to the source of rennet in popular cheeses to help you find truly vegetarian cheese.

The RX7 is running today!  It still needs more work before it will be road ready but at least the powertrain appears to be all set for the moment.  Someone even stopped by the shop and offered to buy it from me.  He is going to test drive the car, maybe tomorrow, so we will see.  Maybe the RX7 will be coming down to New Jersey and maybe it will just be sold.  I hate to give up the car but keeping it is not very practical.  I don’t have much time for enjoying a classic sports car that takes a lot of TLC to keep working.  As much as I love it, I probably need to let it go.

Today was a good one at work.  The day just flew by.  Hewlett-Packard was in the office today and we had a meeting with them that took the whole middle of the day and, as always, they catered lunch which is awesome.  So I broke down and had one slice of cheese pizza but didn’t eat the crust.  Now I can’t eat any dinner.

Total Weight Lost So Far: 10lbs

No sleeping in for me today.  I got up at seven and headed on down to the health club to get in my morning workout.  I did forty-five minutes and felt really good.  I would have done more but I don’t have enough time this morning because I need to get into Manhattan.  I got back and showered and got ready for work.  I said good-bye to Josh as he is flying back to Rochester this afternoon and then I walked out to hit the road.

 

Getting to work in Manhattan is so easy.  I had a nice walk down to Penn Station and was able to hop right onto the PATH.  I got into the WTC and met a friend who had flown in from Belfast for the week on his holiday.  He works with me almost every day and is in New York on his holiday and he wanted to see the New York office so I changed my schedule and came into Manhattan today.

 

We got some good exercise walking from the WTC up Greenwich to the office.  It takes probably twenty minutes to cover that distance.  It was a little warm this morning.  But it was good additional exercise.  That is one thing that I really enjoy about coming into Manhattan is that I get a chance to walk in Newark and then a chance to walk in New York and often chances to walk throughout the day.  It is much healthier doing things in cities than it is doing things in the country.  It is so much easier to get exercise.

 

Today was a slow “work” day but there was a lot of stuff going on that kept taking my time.  Because I was in Manhattan a lot of people wanted me to go to meetings and to meet people that I never get to see.  But it makes for some real variety in my day.

 

Weight Lost So Far: 11lbs

I got up and did some cleaning before hitting the gym this morning. I did over forty-five minutes today which was my target number for today. It felt really good.

I learned over the weekend that it is a common myth in the United States that burritos are from Mexico. In fact, burritos are an all-American food that the Mexicans are just now beginning to eat as they begin to flow south over the border. In Mexico, going out for burritos is going out for American.

While we are at it, French Fries are from Belgium, not France.

Dominica started her South Beach diet again over the weekend and is down over five pounds already. She has decided to go with me to the health club at night too which will make it easier for me to go everyday. Working out twice a day is a massive commitment!

 

I got home and Dominica, Josh and I all went out to Food for Life for dinner.  I did my best to stay close to my diet while eating delicious FFL.  After dinner we came back to the apartment and tried to figure out what to do for the evening.  Francesca ended up calling Dominica to talk about the new dog that they “got” – it wandered into their garage and just stayed.  So while Dominica was on the phone Josh and I decided to go out for a drink.

 

Our plan had been to walk over to the Theater Square Grill at NJPAC but the Key Club at 58 Park Place caught our eye and we decided to stop in there instead.  We stopped in there for about an hour and a half and enjoyed some very tasty martinis in a very nice setting.  I am excited to have a nice supper club right around the corner from the apartment.  Josh and I also ordered some catfish nuggets to try out their appetizer menu.

 

Weight Lost So Far: 9.5lbs

Today was mostly a relaxing day for me. Dominica had a bit of homework that she had to do so she did not get the opportunity to relax as much as I did. Today is my day off from the gym. I am only working out six days a week and giving my body Sunday to rest although we ended up doing some walking today that is a lot more than we would do on a normal day.

We decided today that we really need to get a love seat for the apartment. We don’t have much space but as it is we have almost no where to sit and there is no way for Dominica and I to use the living room at the same time without someone laying on the futon or something else awkward that becomes very uncomfortable after a very short time.

So we looked around and could not find anywhere to buy furniture in the area. Raymour and Flannigan do not deliver to Newark even though they have a store nearby so that did us no good. We couldn’t find anyone else in the region that was a major chain. We finally decided just to walk down to Market Street where there are a number of independent furniture stores and try our luck down there even though the area is scary.

We ended up at Newark Furniture which seemed very nice once we stepped inside.  It seemed quite strange stepping into a nice, pleasant furniture store after standing on Market Street which is totally out of control.  We had a nice shopping experience and got a not very expensive reclining love seat with microfiber cover that should be delivered later this week.  It ended up being just $499 which is a lot less than we had been planning on spending anywhere else.  It is an interesting design where it is a double seat love seat like normal but it is a single reclining mechanism where both sides are connected so you both recline or neither.  Kind of weird but it means that there is no separation in the middle which is nice.  Our sales person was born in Paris but his parents were from Cape Verde.  Very interesting guy.

We came home and relaxed for a while.  Then Dominica had to spend the evening working on her homework.  I went down and hung out in the lobby for a few hours just visiting with people.

We finished watching the second season of Arrested Development today.  We really like that show.  Then it was time for bed.

Josh is coming tomorrow and staying until Tuesday.  I am working in Manhattan on Tuesday so that I can meet with a coworker from Belfast who is in for the week.  Sometime later in the week I have to stay home to take delivery of the love seat – we hope.  And then either Friday night or Saturday morning Dominica and I are driving up to dad’s house where we will be spending the long Memorial Day weekend.  We will be returning to Newark on Monday night.

Weight Lost So Far: 11lbs