Sheep Guarding Llama

No sleeping in for us this morning. We had to be up nice and early this morning so that we could get up to Lebanon to go to church. Fortunately we went to bed at a pretty reasonable time last night so we weren’t too bad this morning. Our plan had been to pick up dad at 8:30 but we weren’t able to get over there until 8:40 but we had built in plenty of buffer time so it worked out fine.

We drove out to Lebanon and went back past the entrance to the condominium and took the scenic drive around Round Valley State Park so that dad could see the area where we hope to be living in a few months and went to the small, rural church via the local backroads where were very much “back roads” here in New Jersey. Dad was really impressed with how nice the area is. The drive from Lebanon to the church is really pretty and a lot of the drive is preserved historical farmland – sort of like an agricultural museum.

We were very early for church which is unusual for us. It was a very small church and we got a chance to meet just about everyone before the service actually started. We enjoyed the church although the service was very long which ended up being a problem with the dog out in the car. I had to leave the service early to go sit with him and turn on the air conditioning as the sun had come out while we were in the service. He was fine but it was going to be getting hot.

After church we went back to Lebanon so that dad could see the condominium development. I had to drop off another check for the house anyway so it was a good use of the trip. We went up to our unit and gave dad a tour so that he could get a feel for what it will be like. Then we went down to Main Street and got lunch at the Fox and Hound Tavern. It was a really good lunch but one thing that is going to be a problem living in Lebanon is that eating is very, very expensive. It is a very good thing that there is the luncheonette and a Stewart’s there too.

After lunch we drove back down to North Brunswick and decided that we all needed naps. So we took dad back to the hotel and Dominica, Oreo and I returned to the apartment and crashed. Dad only slept for thirty or fourty-five minutes but I slept for about three hours and Dominica for even longer. I really needed that and felt much better after I got up.

In the evening we took dad over to Tanjore so that he could see what we really eat out here in New Jersey. We got a lot of food. Dad tried the soup (mulligatawny) that we warned him about – it is very spicy. He doesn’t normally eat spicy but he tried to eat it but had to give up about halfway through. We got cashew pakoda and bel purhi as appetizers so dad had a sampling of food. Then he got the rava dosai with cheese, cashews and potato masala. He even got dessert. We think that he liked it although it was all very adventurous for him.

We came back to the apartment after dinner and just visited for a little while before having some cheesecake to celebrate Dominica’s birthday which is tomorrow.

I wrapped up last night’s post before I managed to leave the office. I got home to North Brunswick later, close to eight o’clock, and picked up Dominica (her car is still in the shop for the door handle – it was completed today but we couldn’t coordinate any way to get the car until tomorrow.) We swung in to the Ramada and picked up dad and the three of us went to the Omega Diner for some dinner. Dad got the amazing crab cakes over mac and cheese that I talk about on here all of the time. He was very impressed.

After dinner we took dad back to the hotel and we came home and everyone went to bed early. I worked a thirteen hour day at the office and was up for three and a half hours before going to the office so I was dead tired by the time that we got to bed. I really needed some serious sleep.

We got up this morning and picked up dad and returned to the Omega for some breakfast – this is a lot like what we do when we are in Geneseo for the weekend. After breakfast we all drove down to Princeton to pick up Dominica’s car from the dealer there. That killed a good piece of the morning. It really does take quite a while to drive all of the way down to Princeton, deal with picking up the car and then drive all of the way back.

We came back to North Brunswick and dad got to see our apartment for the first time. It was just after noon by the time we got back there and dad and Dominica wanted to go to see a movie that was showing at two thirty so we decided to just hang out at the apartment until it was time to go to the showing. Dad and I had some work that needed our attention so we managed to get a big chunk of that out of the way while we were there.

I am working on installing Microsoft’s Shared Computer Toolkit onto a new desktop that dad had brought down with him so that is keeping me busy today as well. It isn’t a hard product to learn to use but my window for getting it right is very small. Good thing that I enjoy learning new technologies.

We went to the movie theatre near Tanjore and watched Step Up which we all liked. It is one of the few movies that has come out recently that I even know about.

After the movie it was dinner time. We tried to take dad to Tanjore but they were not open. Their website said that they opened at five but the sign on the door said that they expected to be back at six fifteen and even that was taking a chance as they don’t always come back promptly. So we decided to just do Bertucci’s which is in the same little plaza. Dad had never been to a Bertucci’s before so that worked out well anyway. He was nervous about getting Indian so he was relieved, I think.

After dinner we got some ice cream at the ice cream place in the same plaza and then went back to the apartment. It was well into evening by this point. I spent the rest of the evening working on the workstation and we all watched the DVD of Robin Williams in RV that Dominica had seen with her family and had really liked. It was good. I had no idea what the movie was about and had never heard of it except for her going to see it a month or two ago so I didn’t know what to expect. But it was a good movie. Cute and contrived but entertaining and fun.

After the movie we took dad back to the hotel and then returned to the apartment. Dominica and I stayed up a little longer and watched Sideways on DVD with Paul Giamatti. Sideways is one of dad’s DVDs that we were borrowing and we figured that it would be the perfect time to watch it so that he could take it home with him on Monday. Giamatti is really good but the movie was pretty weak. It was okay and some parts were entertaining but for the most part it was blah.

My plan was to sleep until 4:30 but Oreo had other plans. He got me up at 3:00 to take him outside and by that point I was awake enough that it really didn’t make any sense for me to be going back to sleep so I went ahead and got out of bed. I showered and got ready for work and had enough time to do some much needed web site work that has been evading getting onto my schedule for a very long time.

I left for the office a little before 6:00. Hard to believe that I was up for three hours by that time! It is going to be a long day.

Today the TSA finally made the bold move to ban gel filled bras from carry on luggage. No more falsies fooling American passengers! I suppose that this will help keep terrorists from distracting security workers with oversized breasts (distracting them with not distracting guards with – oh you get the point.) Now terrorists wanted that extra “oomph” will have to either settle for toilet paper or go all out for surgery. We will show them!

Speaking of terrorists, a federal judge finally stepped in and said that President Bush’s wiretapping without a warrant was unconstitutional. It is about time. That provision was put into the constitution (or wherever it is) specifically to keep renegade government figures from spreading TERROR inside of the United States. I wonder if Bush’s acting as a terrorist is ironic or coincidental (this is not a question of my understanding of the English language but a humorous question of ethics that will only be funny to those of you who actually understand the difference between irony and coincidence.)

I am on a role today. And since I am feeling so esoteric I have decided to provide you with some interesting reading material: The Romance of Proctology. No, really.

For lunch I went with a coworker over to an Indian restaurant just around the corner from the office. I had no idea that there was an Indian restaurant there. The food was really good and the place was really busy. We actually had to wait for about ten minutes to be seated.

After lunch I was dead tired. I had been up for almost twelve hours and finally getting solid food into my stomach was a bit much for my system and I just wanted to fall asleep. It was all that I could do to stay awake.

Dad arrived in North Brunswick at a quarter after four in the afternoon. Pretty much right on schedule as far as I can tell. He checked in to the hotel and took a nap. I wish that I could take a nap.

Dominica got an interview set up for Monday afternoon. This only about her third interview since she has been job hunting down here in New Jersey. It is a contract position just going through the end of the year which would be really nice so we are really hopeful.

My evening deployment officially started at 5:00 but I wasn’t scheduled to be doing anything in particular for an hour at the very least so I had some time to myself to relax and build my energy back up. I put in some serious reading time pounding on Joel Spolsky’s “The Best Software Writing I” which is a collection of some of the best articles written on software from around 2003 – 2004, more or less. It is a really good collection. Well worth the time to read.

The plan is that I will get to leave work around seven or so. Probably really close to that time. Then I will drive to North Brunswick and meet dad and Dominica for dinner at the Omega Diner. I don’t know if there are any plans beyond that or not. My plan is to post the update before I leave the office since I know that there will be no chance of me doing that later tonight and probably not this weekend.

If you are interested in learning HTML, XHTML and CSS for web design I have long recommended the classic Peachpit Press book by Elizabeth Castro. While she and I part ways on our belief as to the importance of strictly using full XML compliant, true XHTML for all web design (she leans towards sloppy HTML and I am a strict XHTML adherent with a mean metal ruler looking for the fingers of unwary web designers) I find that her text is a great introduction to the technical aspects of web design using its core, non-programatic technologies. I was first introduced to her with the fourth edition of her book and was very impressed with the fifth edition which I have recommended to many would-be web designers over the years and now after four more years the sixth edition of her book has released. I don’t have a copy of the sixth edition yet myself but I definitely plan on getting one for my library.

I woke up at a decent time this morning. I managed to get into work nice and early without even needing to rush. That was a nice start to the day.

Work was busy but not too busy. I got some time catch up on some magazine reading as well. InfoWorld, Baseline and Windows IT Pro today.

Overall the day was pretty uneventful. It was decided that I would be covering the early morning shift tomorrow – starting at 6:30 in the morning so I decided to not stay very late tonight. My plan is to be in to the office nice and early tomorrow and then get out between 3:30 and 4:00, drive down to the apartment and then log back in as we are doing an evening deployment. Oh the joy. It will be a long day. If I am lucky I can get the evening deployment done before dad is ready to go out to dinner. We are taking him to the Omega Diner which is right next door – okay, okay TWO doors down – from his hotel.

As many of you are aware, in 1994 there was a massive salt mine collapse directly underneath York Central School where I was just finishing my senior year at the time. Today I happen to stumble upon the United States Geological Survey’s white paper on the collapse. For those of us that lived through the quakes, the lost homes, roads, bridges, creeks and jobs this was a very major event. It completely transformed the Genesee Valley region for many years and will continue to have serious ecological effects for hundreds of years.

I came home a little early because I wanted a chance to get some rest before having to return to work very early tomorrow morning. I got home just after six and almost immediately Dominica and I had to drive down to Princeton to drop off her car at the BMW dealer there so that they can look at her passenger side door handle and window that stopped working last week. That killed most of the evening as the traffic is often terrible on Route 1 and it took forever to drive all of the way down there, get the car turned in to the dealer and to drive all of the way back.

We came home and Dominica cooked dinner – faux salmon from Veat. We had Veat chicken substitute the other day and that was pretty good but the fish fillet was weird. We watched the final episode of the second season of Ballykissangel and then it was time for bed. It is going to be a really short night for me tonight.

We tried going to bed around 9:45 but didn’t manage to actually get to bed until after 11:00! Ugh. I have to be up by 4:30 at the latest.

It is a beautiful today to be working from home. The sun is shining and the breeze is cool. For the first time in a long time we decided to pull open the living room drapes and enjoy some natural light. That only lasted so long though because a gang of local kids all came and pressed their faces up to the glass and watched us. No I am not kidding. Yes it is unbelievable. But four kids ranging from five to thirteen years old just stood on our porch with their faces literally touching the sliding glass doors just looking in to our house. They wouldn’t even stop when I gave them a dirty look. They didn’t even leave while I was pulling the drapes back. They kept staring right up until I couldn’t see them anymore and heaven only knows how long they kept trying after that. I can’t believe the kind of people who live around us. It is awful.

I took my laptop out and Dominica and I were able to spend a nice leaisurely hour or two at the Omega Diner having breakfast and coffee while I worked. Boy is it nice to be able to work from the diner sometimes.

It was a more or less relaxing day. Dominica got a call about an interesting sounding help desk position over in Nutley, New Jersey for a pharmaceutical. That would be a good fit for her background, I think.

This evening we watched several episodes of Ballykissangel before going to bed at midnight. We have to make it through the second season this week so that dad can take the DVD back with him. Dad is coming down to visit for the weekend and to celebrate Dominica’s twenty-eighth birthday on Monday. He is coming down on Friday night and leaving in the early afternoon on Monday. He is staying at the Ramada right across from the apartment.

I spent the evening piecing together a low cost, low power consumption PC to try out for the school in Castile. I am interested in seeing how the AMD Geode processor will perform at the school. The reason that I am interested in the Geode processor, even though it is only 32-bit, is that it uses only fourteen watts of power under a normal load and far less at idle. That means far lower power costs for the school as well as less heat and noise being generated in the computer lab. I would really like to use the slower and less powerful Geode NX 1500@6W processor that is so power efficient that it does not need a cooling fan. But, that processor appears to simply not be available on the market. Hewlett-Packard is using it in one of their thin client machines but I can’t find anyone selling just the processors or the processors combined with a motherboard here in the States. The somewhat slower processor really seems like it would be the perfect chip for us at the school where even it would be significantly faster than most of the CPU’s that we are currently using. Our fastest machines are currently Intel Pentium III 1GHz boxes. The AMD Geode that we are putting in is a 1.4GHz unit that will use 333MHz memory instead of the PIII’s 133MHz.