Sheep Guarding Llama

I had to get up and continue working this morning. Not nearly as much work as I did yesterday but still – I was looking forward to having at least a little downtime this weekend. I worked for a few hours and then we headed over to Dominica’s grandpa’s house for Easter dinner.

We were not able to visit for very long at all. It was starting to snow and we have a lot of errands that have to be run tonight. So we were on the road at a very reasonable time.

We got to Newark and got to the apartment, picked up the BMW and made a run down to Iselin to get the car repaired. It is scheduled for tomorrow and tonight is our only chance to drop it off. We got that taken care of and then drove up to Newark Liberty International Airport where we had managed to get a reservation at National Car Rental for a Chevy Cobalt for me to drive this week while Dominica drives her Mazda PR5.

We were just in time for me to get the car. They closed at ten and we got there at nine forty-five! What a busy evening. Dominica circled the airport while I road the AirTrain to get to the car rental area. Newark Airport is gigantic and one of the most confusing airports ever to drive around. It is totally nuts. (NVTS!)

National gave me a free upgrade to a Pontiac G6 and sent me on my way. I have the car for the whole week and don’t have to return it until Sunday night. We have no idea how long the BMW is going to take so we figured that we needed to be safe. And since we are probably traveling this coming weekend we figured that we might as well take advantage of the rate on the rental and put some miles on it instead of on the Mazda. At least get something for our money.

I was impressed with the Pontiac. It doesn’t handle well which is to be expected from a mushy American car but it is comfortable and stylish inside even if it is an ugly, sad jellybean from the outside. It is decent to drive and quite impressive for an American car. It has a lot of power. That was very surprising. But new cars often do.

I got back to the apartment and picked up Dominica who had gotten back ten or fifteen minutes ahead of me and we drove up to IHOP for a quick dinner. I figured that that would be faster than trying to figure anything else out. We hate and were back home before eleven.

Dominica went to bed but I stayed up for several hours working on my class at RIT. I have my regular weekly work to do and a paper due tonight. To I was up until after three in the morning working on all of that. What a weekend it has been.

We arrived in Frankfort around midnight last night.  The drive really isn’t all that long and now that we live in Newark and know how to escape to the north via US 280 and the Garden State Parkway we are able to make great time to the north.  As always we were wide awake by the time that we arrived and Dominica is addicted to having television to watch so we stayed up until well after three watching whatever was on.

I wanted to sleep in this morning but I didn’t get to.  I had to be up before ten so that I could work on a project at the office.  It was supposed to be a small project but it ended up taking all day.  I didn’t get a chance to do anything all day but work.  Even when everyone went out to Denny’s for dinner I got stuck at home babysitting the process and working on miscellaneous projects since I was already on the clock.  The upside is that I did manage to get a lot done and it was a very productive weekend.  The downside is that I didn’t get to relax at all.

We did manage to squeeze in Casino Royale and Stranger Than Fiction today.  Casino Royale is, in my opinion, one of the best James Bond films ever made and it is really great to see them going back to the original and starting the series over again.  It was really needed.  A fresh approach to the whole Bond story.  Stranger Than Fiction was okay, I guess, but I thought that it was really weak and quite boring.  Once again proving that if they have to stoop to using Dustin Hoffman that it would just be better to avoid the movie altogether.  I don’t think that I have found any actor except for Jack Nicholson that make me so unhappy just to see them on camera.

I ended up working until the wee hours of the morning before getting to go to bed.  There is more work to be done tomorrow so I can’t stay up too late working tonight.  What a weekend.

It’s my day off. Whatever that means. Oreo and I got to sleep in late today. It was cold in the bedroom and so he was very snuggly and wouldn’t let me get up until a quarter to nine. That is the latest that I have slept in on a weekday in a very long time. It was nice.

My goal for the day was to play a lot of Dragon Quest VIII. I got started nice and early after checking my mail and making sure that no one needed me by the time that I had pulled myself out of bed. My allergies flared up horribly today. It was one of the worst allergy days that I have ever had. It was awful.

I managed to play several hours of DQ8 today. Oreo laid by my side or on the futon beside me all day. It was a nice day interrupted only by my allergies. It was really nice to get to relax for once. I really enjoyed my day. I did have to do just a little bit of work today but it wasn’t too much.

Dominica got home and I was pretty much ready to go head out for Frankfort but work needed me to hang around for a while. Min and I were ready to head out the door by minutes after six but we got stuck in Newark for a long time. We got stuck for so long that we popped in Bosom Buddies and Dominica made dinner. So much for leaving early.

It wasn’t until after a quarter after eight that we were finally able to get on the road. Over two hours of just sitting around waiting for the go ahead on five minutes of work. So much for arriving in Frankfort early. We were all set to be there by ten!

Today is my work from home day. And it begins a stretch of four days without having to go into the office. Very nice. Although I am working from home all day today, doing a little tomorrow and even have to do scheduled work on Saturday morning. But at least I don’t have to drive into the office to do any of it.

Today actually ended up being pretty slow as it is the last day of work leading into a really long weekend. A lot of people took the day off and even those who were in the office weren’t seeming to be doing all that much. So I got to lay low and relax a little today. I was at the computer all day but not doing back breaking stuff.

I did get a chance to squeeze in just a tiny bit of Dragon Quest VIII today. Not a lot but just enough. I was playing when Dominica got home and she watched me play for another hour. So maybe I got two hours at most in today.

We ordered in from Food for Life and Min ran over to grab the food. I tried the fajita for the first time. It was quite good. I did lunch there this afternoon too.

We finished watched the first season of Family Ties and then it was off to bed. The second to last episode of the first season is one of the ones that I remember best – where Mallory has to learn what SCUBA stands for to help Alex on the High School Quiz Off. I remember watching that like it was yesterday. I almost completely remembered the entire first season. There wasn’t a single episode that I didn’t know. I am not sure if I ever even watched Family Ties in reruns or if I only watched it when it was still coming out. But I am positive that I haven’t seen the show since 1989 when it went off the air. It amazes me how familiar the show is. I can practically quote it!

It was off to bed early for us tonight. I am really looking forward to my holiday day tomorrow.

Today is the last day of my three day “at work” work week. We are officially off on Friday but I keep getting work assigned to me for that day so it is looking more and more like it will just be a second “work from home” day.

Today was busy as expected but tomorrow should be almost nothing but paperwork which is boring but not busy. I am looking forward to four straight days with Oreo though. We will have a good time hanging out.

Not a lot to report so I am keeping this short and sweet.  Stayed in tonight.  I did get a chance to write several article in my “Do IT” series.  I think that that is coming along very well.