Made it in to class this morning, bright and early at 8am…and went into the wrong building. I wasn’t the only one though, the entire class including the instructor did. It had to do with the way we were given the address and how the buildings are actually set up inside with the suites. Long complicated explanation short, I found the class. Interesting enough the instructor was one of the last people to arrive (on time I want to add, as I was just really early), and he (Jon Presti) seems really damn cool and I think he is going to be a great instructor. We have decided collectively to begin class at 8:30 instead of 8:00, which for me means another half hour to study before class because, lets face it, I will be up well in advanced. Anyway, the first day was really good. There are 8 guys in the class counting me and according to Jon, this is the first time he has had a class completely comprised of guys from enterprise level storage environments. Based on some of the conversations we had today in class I am thinking the conversations about storage are going to be very interesting and informative. I found out today that of the two exams I need to take to get my NCDA certification, one will be on Wednesday morning and the other will be on Saturday morning. The one on Saturday is supposed to be the more difficult of the two, so I am certain I will be spending all of my “free time” studying. Well, one day down, time to hit the books!
Texas, I Am In You
Flew in to Texas this afternoon (plane landed about 2:30pm Central / 3:30pm EST) and after finding may way out of the terminal I made my way to the bus for the rental car where I ended up getting a Dodge Caliber with a GPS system as my rental. First impression is that it is a decent car but not something I would want to own as I feel very cramped in it. I found my way to the hotel, TownePlace Suites, without to much of an issue. I say without much of an issue because it took me a little while to understand what the GPS (a Garmin Nuvi) was saying, mainly because every time I had to use an on or off ramp from a major highway (by the way Dallas and Las Colinas seems to be nothing but concrete and asphalt!) it sounded like it was saying to take the “sledge road” and that confused me, but luckily I could tell by the map what it wanted. After finding the hotel and getting checked in I decided I had better find my way to the class location so I would at least have an idea of how to get there in the morning. Turns out it’s not very difficult to get there but the main road is closed due to construction, of course, so I have to take a detour that puts me back out on the main road (Walnut Hill) about 15 yards from the driveway to the class location. Thankfully I have the GPS though because it was able to re-route and find a way back to the class location, and seeing as it is pretty straight forward I won’t need to use the GPS in the morning. After finding the class I then decided to go have dinner at a Sushi restaurant that Chuck recommended from when he was down here called The Blue Fish (this location), and I have to say it was very good! After dinner I came back to the hotel to relax and prepare for class, I have a feeling this is going to be a long week.
Daddy, the Easter Bunny was here
Happy Easter!
Kylie woke me up this morning at about 7am, she came in to my room and quietly called me while standing next to my bed. When I stirred and moved over she climbed up and said “Daddy, the Easter Bunny was here. 
Can we go and look?” So we got up and went and had a look, and she was right the Easter Bunny had come. On her little table were two baskets of goodies, and not just limited to candy, though she had plenty of that too. She also got two books: Harry the Dirty Dog (which was one of Daddy’s favorites when he was a kid) and The Giving Tree, which is a classic. Additionally Kylie also got some new socks and 3 garden stone painting kits. All in all it was a good morning. Sadly though our day was cut short because Daddy had to leave to fly to Texas for a week of training. 🙁
Meeting with an Otolaryngologist
Today we (Mommy, Daddy, and Kylie) had a meeting with an ENT (otolaryngologist) about taking Kylie’s tonsils out. Based on what the ENT saw (both from examining Kylie and looking at her records) and what he heard from us, he thinks that she is a candidate to have her tonsils taken out. A good portion of this decision is based on the number of times Kylie has had strep throat in the past year, and he said that based on that alone Kylie is a candidate as she is at the threshold based on that number. While Mommy thinks it would be best for Kylie to have them out now, Daddy is a little less certain. The idea of surgery, and Daddy’s memories of being in the hospital for three days when he had his out, has Daddy wanting to wait a little. Mommy, on the other hand, remembers how much better she felt as a kid after having hers out, and how less often she got sick. After talking together outside of the office we decide if Kylie has strep one more time by her birthday then we will have them taken out, as this would put her over the bare minimum of times required for the surgery. Now we will have to wait and see.
Second Kindergarten Parent-Teacher Conference
Mommy had Kylie’s second parent teacher conference today (like with the first meeting, Mommy and Daddy decided it would be silly for Daddy to make the 2 hour round trip drive for a 10 minute meeting) and she filled me in on all the good news. At this point in the school year Kylie has already surpassed all of the end of year criteria for promotion to the first grade! That criteria includes reading at a level 2, and counting by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100 without issue. The teacher did say that Kylie has begun to be a little more disruptive. Well, maybe not disruptive, but when it is time to stop talking for instance she now finds that she sometimes has to remind Kylie that it is time to settle down. Mommy and I are wondering if this might be because Kylie has already mastered what they are currently learning, and the teacher seems to think so too because after telling us about this she said she thinks this will change shortly because next week they are going to begin their science course and will be learning about new things, which she thinks will re-engage Kylie and help pull her back to her normal behaviour. Either way we are very proud of how well Kylie is doing and are certain she will continue to excel and be a great student.
She Wants to Conduct
Got a phone call from Kylie today and she told me that when she grows up she does not want to play violin, instead she wants to be a conductor. I told her that would be a lot of fun, but she would have to practice real hard to learn all the different hand signals and how to properly tell each player when and what to play. She said she understood that, and she was going to see what she needed to learn. I don’t know what made her decide she wanted to be a conductor, but if that is what she wants she knows I will support her and help her in any way that I can.
My Kindle’s Here
My Kindle arrived today, so when I got home from work i spent a few minutes opening and preparing it. The case I bought with it (M-Edge) also arrived, so I immediately placed the Kindle in it. I have to say I really like the way the kindle fits in this case and am happy I got it. After reading through the welcome letter that is preloaded on the device I configured it to connect to my wireless router so it can get a wireless network connection and then I ran a manual sync to pull down all the books I had been previously reading on my Blackberry. Once the sync was done I pulled up the book I am currently reading, The Count of Monte Cristo (free for the Kindle), and was delighted to see it sync to the farthest page I had already read to. I found the default text size to be good for me and so I didn’t need to make any changes to begin reading. The text is clear and crisp, and the controls for turning the page are at the perfect position for easily pressing with my thumb. When the page is turned the new text flashes on to the screen promptly and is just as quick as physically turning a page on a real book. All in all I think I am going to enjoy having this. Now I just need to work on replacing my physical books and then getting rid of those. While I like having the books I would much rather have less stuff around the house. I think this was a good purchase after all, and with any luck I will start finding time to read more again now that I can quickly and easily get new books.
A Mommy – Daughter Day
Today Kylie and Mommy spent some time together and went and had a much needed Mommy-Daughter day. They went and got manicures, and pedicures, they had their hair done (Kylie just got a cut while Mommy got a cut and color) and they even did some shopping! Everything a girl needs to have a nice relaxing day.
Gettin’ a Kindle
I finally broke down and bought a Kindle today. After wanting one for over a year and spending the last week talking myself out of it on a daily basis, I finally bought one. On one hand I am happy that I have it coming and on the other I already feel bad for spending the money on myself. However, I have been doing very well with paying down debt and I rarely ever buy anything for myself, so I feel it is justified. I am really looking forward to it getting here and hope that this will also motivate me to find more time to relax and read as well. I know I am looking forward to reading the books that I have been reading via the Kindle App on my Blackberry on a larger screen when I am at home and not having to be in front of my computer to do that. The only other thing I need to do now is resist the urge to immediately go purchase all the books that are out that I want to read.
Ear Infection and Violin Recital
Today was a very busy day, mainly for Kylie and partially due to last night. Tiffany called me this morning to tell me that she is fairly certain that Kylie has an ear infection. Last night Kylie had a very hard time sleeping because every time she laid down she started to cry because her head was hurting. Unfortunately due to a lot of past experience for both Mommy and Daddy, we both recognize this as a tell tale sign of an ear infection. So they were heading off to urgent care to have it verified and get some medicine to help her feel better. Fast forward an hour later and we have a confirmed ear infection and apparently what would have been another case of strep in a few days had she not had the ear infection. They prescribed her some amoxicillin which will treat both the ear infection and the onset of strep, so she should be good in a few days, and hopefully tonight she will sleep a lot better.
After all of that we still had something very exciting to new today; Kylie’s first violin recital! She was the third to perform and she did wonderful! At the time when I was sitting in the audience watching her on stage all by herself playing Twinkle Twinkle as Pepperoni Pizza I was so proud and happy! But as I sat watching the rest of the recital I noticed something, when many of the other kids were up performing their recitals their teachers were with them, but when Kylie was up there she was alone. Afterwords I found out that Kylie’s teacher (Aerial) had asked Kylie if she wanted her to go up and perform with her and Kylie said “No, I want to go by myself” and so she did! When all the students were done performing their recitals we all went to Roma’s to have some pizza and celebrate. Here is a video of Kylie’s performance that Mommy was able to get with her camera.