Coming Back to the Ground.

Life's been a little crazy around here lately. At work I've been in the homestretch of a three year migration of all equipment from one location to another. This was the heavy lifting, anything that can go wrong will go wrong part. It was a bit stressful. There were many long nights I thought would never end. Fortunately, I had the help of two wonderful guys I've known for years and who are far more technically adept than I am.

Once the new equipment was moved, we had to empty the old location of retired and dead equipment. Old servers, old UPSs, old steel server racks and miscellaneous cables and wires. Again, I had the help of two shining stars in my life - Ken and Tolido. At one point, Ken and I locked ourselves out of the office. Tolido was standing at the top of the stairs above the office entry where he could see out the glass doors on the other side of which we stood... without keys. Being the confident and savvy little soul that he is, he tackled the stairs and came on down to the door to fetch his parents. When he got to the door, we asked him to push *really* hard on the release lever... and YAY!! Tolido rescued Mommy and Daddy! Amazing kid.

And so all the old equipment was hauled home to the garage. On the way we stopped at Lowes and stopped again to meet my brother and sister-in-law for dinner hoping that someone would come along and steal something off the trailer... no such luck. A few days later, after I'd sorted the salvageable from the crap, I headed out again with the truck to the computer Goodwill. I warned the guys there that the stuff was crazy heavy and helped offload a few pieces before a strapping young gentleman came along. Giving us a look like we were rather pathetic, he went to hoist a battery pack for a UPS out of the truck and very nearly dropped it on his foot. I sweetly asked him if he needed any help. :)

After the moving project was finished I turned my attention to getting the house ready to host a two-day work meeting with ten out-of-town guests. Before I even got to the cleaning the house bit, I decided to upend my office - removing the old bookcase and desk and carting off the cabinets to the garage to be painted white. I decided to turn one of the old server racks into a desk which involved painting it and figuring out how to add shelves to it. I also would need a plank for the top for a writing surface. Oh, and that plank would need to be stained.



And then I decided to paint the white bathroom brown one night about midnight. It's taken us two and a half years to decide on the perfect color. At one point it was going to be fuchsia...

The bathroom cabinet had a wood top with a marine varnish that had begun to flake. It was starting to look pretty bad and I didn't want the wood to start warping. So we decided to add an aluminum surround to top of the cabinet over the wood. I got the aluminum, Ken cut it, and my dad found a place to get it polished so it absolutely gleamed.



I told my mom the house was a wreck before she got here. She had no idea! It was really more on par with the results of a tornado's direct hit. She stepped right into the middle of the mess and started on one little cleanup project after another. And she got out the camera to document what sleepless parents look like... ;)



Oh, and then there was the yard. Ken had spread a dump truck load of dairy fertilizer on the lawn and the volleyball court just before it started raining for four days. Typically one rakes the fertilizer into the grass immediately after spreading it. After days of rain, it was a couple days of tough work from Dad and Ken getting it to settle into the grass with a rake.

So we cleaned and painted and vacuumed and dusted and raked and did laundry and cleaned counter tops and figured menus and sent the guys to the store for groceries (a story in itself) and rearranged and mowed and prepped beds for guests and I can't remember what else for a week. I know the lot of us were up most nights until 2am.

And then it was time for the meeting. Rave reviews all around. Late nights with many margaritas and really good food. It was a fantastic time. By the time we got everyone off to the airport, we were dead on our feet. And then a neighbor showed up with a freaking huge backhoe to dig ten holes in the backyard for fruit trees - apricots, peach, plum, tangerine, almond, cherry, apple, avocado and something else. We all fell asleep to the clanking of a backhoe... not sure I should be awake yet.