Sheep Guarding Llama

The SGL Mega Media Monster is out of control. We skyrocketed to #66 on podOmatic’s daily list for yesterday. That is really exciting. Our listenership is way up from what it was. Hopefully we can keep these kind of numbers up. I am really enjoying making the podcasts.

Seven days and counting until Disney World!

I was awake at 4:30 this morning. Way too early for this ‘sleeper inner’. I didn’t have a whole lot to do that early in the morning so I got dressed and went out into the brisk morning air for a walk. I haven’t had much of a chance of late to get in a nice walk so it was nice to get one in even if it was very cold and it wasn’t for very long. I did just enough to qualify as a walk and then went back to the Comfort Inn and continued to get shower and get ready for the day. I have a long day of driving ahead of me. Or so it seems.

Dominica was up by 5:30 when the wake up call came. Then she started to get ready. Unlike our usual attempts to get out of a hotel early, today’s attempt went very smoothly. Min went down to breakfast at 6:50 and I was only a minute behind her. The car all ready packed and both of us totally ready to go. Jeremy was just coming out of his hotel room as I went down that hallway. We had decided to let dad stay longer in Ohio (by a few hours) by riding home with the Richardsons and Jeremy would ride home with us. So dad got a chance to sleep in while Jeremy will get a chance to spend some time online. Which he has all ready gotten to do a bit this weekend as he spent several hours online playing the MUD from our cousins’ Mike and Cheryl’s house on Friday. But we had to get back plenty early to be sure that Dominica was able to make it to work after picking Oreo up from Art and Danielle’s where he has been staying the weekend.

We were on the road by around 7:20. When we got out to the car we had to let it warm up for a few minutes because the windshield was covered in a thin sheet of ice. I didn’t think that it had been that cold and was not expecting ice at all.

I decided to try my own route out of Ohio to see if I could shave some time from dad’s way. I took US77 north out of North Canton up to Akron to OH8 and on up to US271 in Cayahoga that takes you right up to US90 which, of course, brings us all of the way back home. We gave that route a try and found ourselves shooting right out of Ohio without any problem at all. The way that dad likes to take is similar to taking local roads all of the way across New Jersey. Now that both of those states have turned into never-ending suburban sprawl those local roads are overly congested and you are not able to get anywhere on them. So we found ourselves in Erie, PA almost exactly two hours after having pulled out of North Canton near Beldon Village. That was way better than the time that we made coming down OH11 out of Ashtabula on Friday. We were extremely happy with our progress.

In Erie, Dominica decided that she had to find a rest stop because she had had coffee for breakfast at the hotel. Jeremy was getting hungry so we decided to make a pitstop at Burger King. On such a short trip we really should have been able to drive straight through without a stop. It really only becomes a long trip if you stop a few times. Normally on a trip of this length I wouldn’t stop on my own.

From Eric we just continued on on US90 all of the way to Batavia where we took 63 over to dad’s house. We were at the house before noon. That is a total of 4 hours and a little less than twenty minutes not including the pitstop to go the entire distance. Not too shabby. Compare that to about six hours of drive time that it took to go out to Canton.

At dad’s house we swamped his car for mine which had been in the garage and then went right down to Art and Danielle’s so that we could pick up our Oreo. Oreo was VERY glad to see us. This was the first time that he had stayed with anyone other than dad since we got him so it was a little stressful for him. Although he apparently had a really good time playing with Obie most of the time. We were very glad to get to finally see him. It is rough for new “parents” to be without their dog for three days. This is the longest that we have been without him. He was definitely very glad to see us.

When we first got home Oreo was really worked up and was going crazy running around the house. He spent quite a while playing with his big blue ball before he wore himself out and decided to take a serious nap. Min also lay down to take a nap before she had to scoot off to work the double shift. Jeremy spent the afternoon on the MUD since he only gets a fast connection to play on from time to time.

I decided to hop onto the mud a little since I hadn’t played in forever. It has been weeks since I have even logged on. There was hardly anyone playing, though, so I didn’t stay on for long.

I have a lot of work that I need to do today to get ready for the class that I am going to be teaching on Tuesday. I am teaching a history of UNIX and Linux along with a bit of technical architectural information about those products. My big project that I have to do to get ready is to prepare a number of UNIX images for Virtual PC that I can run on my laptop. That way I will have live demo systems that I can show off. I plan to hour four or five systems installed and ready to show off. I think that the class will like that. Give them a chance to see Linux, BSD and Solaris in action. It is so much easier when you actually have something to look at and not just some ethereal technical name to talk about. It should be a lot of fun. I get to talk for almost two hours. I am looking forward to it.

For all of my podcast fans out there who want to be able to call into the show and leave a message that will be put onto the show: you can now call into my show directly and leave a message at (206) 984-4582. Go for it. Join the revolution.

Jeremy and I decided to get some dinner so we ordered a pizza from Mama Mia’s. It was just a lot easier than going out somewhere. Oreo is so glad that we are home that I really don’t want to disrupt him any more than absolutely necessary. He hasn’t left my side since Min left for work. He even lets me get down on the floor to snuggle with him which he almost never does.

So I forgot to mention this the other day but I received a package in the mail from doing some survey or other and it turned out to be an old fashioned “transistor” radio. AM/FM mono. Nothing special at all. Dumbest thing ever. They must be giving them away to empty inventories or something. The thing that makes this so funny is not that this is a five cent radio that you get at Walmart. No, this was a nice unit once upon a time. Totally ridiculous today. I can’t believe that this thing got delivered to my house. It can’t possibly be worth the postage that they paid let alone the effort to put it into an envelope. I don’t have any inkling what they are expecting me to want to do with this radio. I mean I supposed that I can find some use for it as Dominica and I have no radio in the house really. There is a clock radio in our bedroom I think. And there is a boombox in the basement. Both of those are awfully cumbersome to use and neither one runs on batteries. So having this one for when the power goes out is better than nothing I suppose. But still it is a pretty weird thing to have sent to you. Since I had it sitting out so that I could talk about it I decided that I might as well grab some batteries and pop them in and see how she works. I tuned my cool new radio to WXXI-FM at 91.5 and heard the sweet sounds of a church organ coming in over NPR. Just think, fifty years ago this was how people were listening to “rock’n’roll”!

While working on some UNIX installs I decided to move to the living room and watch some Are You Being Served? with Oreo. He enjoyed the chance to just hang out together. He keeps making me move his pillow into whatever room I am working in so that he can lay beside me.

I had to clean the hamster’s cage again all ready. He really knows how to make a mess. I have a hard time figuring out his logic a bit of the time. I have no idea what he thinks that he is doing.

I finally got around to ordering some new BBC shows from Amazon today. I ordered the final two seasons of As Time Goes By as well as the first season of Butterflies from 1978 that has the same male lead as As Time Goes By. I also ordered Grace and Favour which is more popularly known here by its American title: Are You Being Served, Again?. Grace and Favour picks up many years after the original BBC series left off with the original cast heading off to the British countryside for retirement. The show only ran for a single season but it was a very good show and strangely quite different than the original show. It was a really nice way to wrap up the show that had been so popular once upon a time. The original show and been a pioneering sitcom but had been based around the theory that the episodes were almost totally stand-alone and you never had to worry about seeing them out of order. The inter-character interactions never built complex relationships and storylines. But G&F fixed that to some degree and took the show in a slight different direction that allowed them to end the long running show on a more emotional note. Dominica has only seen the pilot episode and doesn’t know what happens in the series so she is very anxious to see it and won’t know that it is coming unless she is reading the updates like all of you.

I did manage to record another episode of the SGL Podcast this evening. I was incredibly tired and fighting not to fall asleep while recording so bear with me. There has been so much traffic to the pod site that I felt it was important to get another episode put together and made available today. It is 11:30 and dad is picking me up at 7:15 in the morning to meet Min over at the Omega so I have to get to bed so that I can snuggle with Oreo. He hasn’t had snuggles in days and he can’t be happy about that.

Day Two in Ohio. So far so good with the out of town updates. Both SGL and SGL2 were updated yesterday so that is a good start.

Min and I were both in bed pretty early last night. She managed to get to bed around 10:30! I wasn’t able to hit the hay until closer to a quarter after eleven. One thing I hate about being in hotels is that I constantly have to hook up and unhook my CPAP machine. It isn’t the end of the world but it makes for an extra chore at the end of a long day out of town and one more item to always have to worry about even for relatively minor trips.

We had to be up and moving early this morning. No Saturday sleeping in for the two of us. I was awake by 7:10. We got up and got ready to face the day and then went down and met the family at the hotel’s continental breakfast. We met at 9:00 and had our breakfast. Then we went back to our rooms to take care of any last minute preparations before meeting again at 10:00 to head out to the cemetary.

The service at the cemetary was at 11:00. The rain started just a little while before we arrived. It was a slow drizzle that was very appropriate to the service at hand. The family sang at the service. Min, Sara, Jeremy and I all read. Dad gave the service. There were a lot more people at the service than any of us had been expecting. Probably more than forty.

After the service everyone continued over to the Firehouse in Louisville, Ohio for lunch. Just about everyone that was at the interment made it to dinner. The food and service was great. It was really awesome to have so much time to visit with so much family that I almost never get to see. We all had a really good time.

Dad, Min and I and the Richardsons all went from the luncheon over to the nursing facility where Uncle Bill is living. Min and I came out to visit him almost a year ago but he wasn’t in good enough health at the time for us to visit with him. Today he was in really good shape and was actually sitting in the lobby of the nursing home looking out the front door right as we walked in. That is really amazing since he didn’t know that we were in town and had no idea that anyone was coming to see him today. I haven’t had the opportunity to visit with him in years and Min has never been able to even meet him. So it was very special that we got to see him today. There is a good chance that we won’t get the chance to see him again. He is 88 and fading fast. He is by far the oldest of the siblings left. We managed to spend two hours or more with him.

From the nursing home Dad, Min and I went over to my grandparents’ in East Canton to visit with that side of the family. Just about everyone was able to come over and hang out tonight. Today is the first time that I have seen Monica since Min and my wedding over two years ago. Grandma knew I was coming so she made elderberry pie:) That is, of course, my favourite. Maybe it wouldn’t be my favourite if I was able to get it all of the time but I am lucky if I can get it once a year so I really appreciate it.

On the way back to the hotel we swung into the Louisville Dairy Queen and got a quick dinner. Then it was back to the hotel. We were all really exhausted today and wanted to get some sleep. Dad is staying in Ohio later tomorrow than Min and I are. Min has to work tomorrow evening and overnight. So she has to be into work by 3:00 pm. That means that we have to leave really early in the morning. Very early. 7:00 in the morning we need to be more or less on the road. That is awfully early for a Sunday morning after a long, exhausting weekend. I have to wrap up today’s post so that I can get into bed and hopefully get enough sleep so that I am able to drive tomorrow since I am the only driver that we have available.

Yesterday’s beheamoth daily update clocked in at 22KB not including the image! That is one huge update. Plus audio updates to both podcasts might make yesterday the busiest day ever for me!

Min and I left Geneseo just a little after 9:00 am. Our first stop was to take Oreo over to Art and Danielle’s house for the weekend. This is the first time that we are leaving Oreo with anyone other than dad so we are worried about how he is going to react. In addition to staying with someone other than dad this is also the first time that he is going to be staying with another dog since we have gotten him other than Dexter who is older and smaller than him. Obi is a much larger dog and much, much younger (under a year old) and has tons more energy than little Oreo has.

We got to dad’s at 9:40 and we pretty much just threw our stuff into dad’s car and off we went heading for Ohio.

This is another one of those punishment pictures for people who don’t read the web site often enough. This is a picture of Dominica taken over at Grandma’s apartment sometime in July when we were visiting her. Dominica doesn’t like her picture being taken so she was making faces.

We stopped in Erie, PA and met up with the Richardsons at the TA travel plaza there. Like most TAs in the region, this one has a Buck Horn restaurant. We had lunch there that ended up not being very good. Traditionally I have always liked eating at the Buck Horn but recently their quality has dropped off and I am beginning to not want to eat there anymore. This time there was almost nothing on the menu that I could eat and Dominica was stuck getting oatmeal as the only menu item that she could eat. I got a fish dinner but it wasn’t very good. The fish was over cooked and gross and the tartar sauce was nasty.

I drove most of the trip out to Canton. Dad drove the first bit from his house down to the gas station in Salamanca in the Seneca Nation. Then I drove the rest of the way from there. We arrived at the Comfort Inn in North Canton near the Football Hall of Fame at 4:45. The hotel is very nice. And we managed to get both our room and my dad’s room at the employee price of only $25/night. That is awfully nice. That makes it a lot more reasonable to be staying in hotels so often. I wish that we could have gotten a price like that next week when we are going to be in Florida but beggars can’t be choosers.

We go settled into the hotel and I was able to confirm that our Internet is working. I am really impressed with this hotel. As a vacationing hotel it is nothing special. But for business travellers – and lets face it, no one is ever going to vacation in Canton, Ohio – this room is awesome. The Internet is through Ethernet, not wireless, which is more reliable and easier to use for most business travellers who absolutely cannot live with a sketchy Internet connection. There is a real desk here. An awesome corner desk with really nice wall mounted back lights makes for a really nice work environment. I could be very happy spending many evenings working out of a hotel room like this one. I think that more hotels need to come here and see what they have done to see how business travellers need to be treated.

From the hotel we went with dad over to Red Lobster by Belden Village to get some dinner. Both dad and Min wanted to go to Red Lobster but didn’t want to admit it but when I mentioned it they were both very excited to get to go.

After dinner we drove down to East Canton to visit with my grandparents, my Aunt Cheryl and later on, my cousin Gwen. Gwen said that she got a call from her ex-boyfriend Mike asking if I was in town. Apparently he works at the Red Lobster and had recognized me. I am really surprised that he recognized me. He hasn’t seen me in about three years and to see me in the Red Lobster in North Canton is so far out of any context that would make sense to have seen me in that that alone should have thrown him off significantly.

We visited for several hours but all three of us were really exhausted and needed to get back to the hotel to get some sleep. Min went pretty much straight to bed but I wanted to stay up and get SGL taken care of for the day and to do a little college research for Gwen who is having problems getting out of college because all of the programs that she is interested in have waiting lists that are so long that she will never get any use out of them.

During the drive out this afternoon I finished listening to the book “Six Easy Pieces” by Professor Feynman. It is supposed to be one of the most famous sets of physics lectures ever given. It is a series collected from Feynman’s famous CalTech lectures in the 1960’s. I want to work my way through all of the lectures eventually. We will see how well that ends up working out. After wrapping up that book I finally got the chance to start listening to “Eragon” which I have been wanting to read for a really long time. Min read the book a few years ago and Michael is just starting to read it now since we got him the book for his birthday. Min is about halfway through listening to the recording of the book as a refresher now. So I am finally getting to listen to it myself. I managed to listen to about three chapters today while I was driving. So far it sounds interesting. I will try to keep you informed as to how it is.