The holiday fun continues!

I hope everyone is having a good Boxing Day, 1st day of Kwanzaa, 7th day of Hanukkah, and beginning of Nebulous Week! We are expecting out of town guests arrive today, so our Christmas isn't over quite yet. But I did want to share this link with a wonderful Christmas story from R. Neal. Have a great Monday, one and all!

Busy, busy, busy!

Well, we just had our third Christmas this evening. The first was on Feats of Strength Day -- the day after G-Dog and I bought a new elliptical machine as our big gift this year. Emmie and I got the parts inside and I assembled the thing on the 15th. It's a larger machine than the last one, so it called for some rearranging of furniture and equipment -- hence, between that and the lugging of parts and assembly, you get the Feats of Strength.

Our second Christmas was in Ohio, on the traditional day, with the family, and it was wonderful. There was snow on the ground, a magical Christmas Eve buffet, a fun Christmas morning with lots of gifts and a classic afternoon dinner with roast beast and yorkshire pudding. Wow. Who could ask for more?

But there was still more waiting at home, with a few more gifts and a celebration for the dog, who didn't get to go to Ohio, but was not forgotten by Santa.

We've also been enjoying some cable TV again after being without since the middle of the summer. The EBP hooked us up to their fiber network on Monday. I didn't miss TV in general much, but going without MSNBC was tough at times, and I'm happy to see that they've got some new talent since the last time I tuned in -- Ed Schultz is part of the lineup now and I'm loving his show based on what I've seen so far!

I've also been enjoying Nebulous Week. I've been cleaning and cooking and working on projects. My major effort this year is to get all the photos from the last decade organized. I got a digital camera in 2004 and never did properly archive all the pictures I've taken, so I'm working now to get them in order -- and thinking of moving them all to Picasa, not only for the independent archive, but also for the captions and labels, which I would think might aid in searching for images as I move forward. Does anyone have any experience with Picasa to share?

That's about all I have time for at the moment, though, as the evening is not done! I found a recipe for dog treats, and Nonnie and I are planning on trying it out this evening... the fun never stops here at Chez 10K! :-)

Back!

I'm back in Chattanooga, as of late yesterday afternoon. It's been a warm day here, but it's about to get wintry cold for the next week or so (at least). So far, this has winter has found me in a strange mood. For the first time in years, I've been yearning to be up where the snow is flying.

And further, I want to be in a place where heating systems make some sense. Now that it's getting cold here, I am suffering through my annual annoyance with the way Southerners heat their homes. The beauty of warm, still, radiant heat is eschewed in these parts. We instead favor the much cheaper forced-air systems, which blow cool, drafty, allergen-filled air through our homes, drying our skin and chilling our bones. It's just not possible to get warm when there's a breeze blowing through the house.

The good news, though, is that we spent a very warm, cozy Christmas in Ohio, in a house full of family and associated animals. And there was snow on the ground when we arrived, which lasted for a bit, so I got to enjoy some lovely winter scenery. G-Dog and I got out for a run in it for a couple of miles on both the Eve and on Christmas Day and it was lovely to pass snowmen and frozen ponds along our route. I didn't quite get the snow lust out of my system, but it was a satisfying dose of winter!

If you're in a similar mood, you might enjoy these winter scenes from Boston.com's Big Picture! And Happy Nebulous Week, everyone! It's the happiest week of the year!! :-D

Friday Creature

I can't believe how time flies. A week from today, we'll already be past the Silly Season and into my favorite week of the year. I call it Nebulous Week, because it's stuck between Christmas and New Year's and is a sneaky little bonus week that you forgot you were going to get -- it's like finding money in the laundry, only this is even better because it's time.

The last week of the year, when you get to be cozy and work on projects and read and play with your new loot and hopefully get to hide from the world, all while enjoying the closeness of family. My household has always existed on an academic calendar, so the week traditionally falls during a break of sorts, but even if you're doing time in the corporate world, it has to be the least productive week of the year. People, if they show up for work at all, goof around at their desks, playing with their new executive toys or surfing the net, knowing that all the big projects won't come due until after the new year...

Of course, if you're in retail, this is probably the worst week of the year, because you're having to deal with the post-xmas sales and the returns all at the same time. Sorry about that.

Anyway, I'm just reminding you that even once Chrismahanakwanzaka is past, there's still lots of goodness left in the year! Have a great weekend and a wonderful holiday! Oh, and there's a creature, too (and then some!). Does anyone know why the goose crossed the road? ;-)

Happy Boxing Day

I hope whatever you're celebrating is proving to be fun and relaxing. I have, predictably, been having my ups and downs this Christmas. The ups have included a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with G-Dog, Emmie and SB [the Stupid Boy -- that's Emmie's boyfriend (he's not really stupid but he was kinda clueless early on and then the knickname just sorta stuck)]. G-Dog made hands-down his best yorkshire pudding ever for that meal. Highlights also included a fun Christmas Day dinner with SB's family (the dog got out of the fence while we were gone, enjoying her first opportunity to tour the new neighborhood).

No matter how good it all is, though, it's still the first Christmas without my mom and that's been harder than I expected. I did bake her signature Christmas cookie recipe, but then I didn't really have the stomach to eat them. They're really good though, and if you pop in for a visit, you can plan on taking some home with you!

The other real bummer was when I spazzed out and dumped a beer into my laptop computer on Christmas Eve. It seems like I just got it back after shelling out for a new logic board right before Halloween, but I think it might be a total loss this time. I'm going to take it down to Atlanta tomorrow to see if I can find out for sure. I had hoped to get it examined by someone local, but all the mac geeks in town are taking long winter naps, or something...

While I'm not a big fan of Christmas, even in the best of circumstances (I'm more of a Thanksgiving kinda person), yesterday was the first day of my favorite week of the year. I call it Nebulous Week, because it's smashed between two holidays and nobody really gets anything productive done until after the New Year. The kids and teachers are all out of school, all the hard work, shopping, cooking and decorating are done, and there's a feeling of leisure and laziness to it all. It's usually a week of eating leftovers and napping and puttering around the house... even if you do have to go to work, there's often a suspended atmosphere there... I'm going to do my best to take the year out on a positive note. I was planning on getting some work done and maybe even going into the office a bit, but with my computer problems, I'm in a bit of limbo as far as job stuff is concerned (sorry about that, VU&PB [Very Understanding and Patient Boss]). So, I'm going to have to come up with some quick feel-good project I can knock out in these last days of 2006 (besides learning to juggle, which I started on yesterday) -- I'll see if I can't hatch up a plan in the long drive down to Atlanta and back tomorrow...

Take it easy!

Happy Boxing Day/Kwanzaa/St. Stephen's Day/Hanukkah!

Today is Boxing Day, the first day of Kwanzaa, St. Stephen's Day, and (this year) the first day of Hanukkah -- plus it's a postal/bank holiday (it's Chrismas observed)! Whew! And you thought it was just a day for returning all the crap you got that you don't like!

It's also been a year since the devastating tsunami/earthquake in the Indian Ocean. A lot of areas are still struggling to recover.

And in this part of the country (along I-75 anyway), the day after Christmas is also known as a big travel day -- there will be tons of cars streaming down to Florida from all points north (but especially from Ohio and Ontario, or at least it always seems that way) as the last big wave of the snowbirds' great annual southern migration takes place.

Whether you're traveling, braving the crowds at the stores, strugging back to the office, observing a holiday, or (like me) hiding out at home for one more day of holiday bliss, I hope you're still in the zone and enjoying it all...

If you're at work and lingering over your coffee, or at home and lazing over the computer as you enjoy one last day of vacation, here's a bit of distraction for you:

Someone sent me this link in the past few days and it just cracks me up: Jean Luc On the Go! It got me thinking about all those different creatures and objects that go on travel photo binges, and did a quick search, and sure enough, there are directories that list them. You can even get your own travel gnome and do some vicarious touring...

Nebulous week begins

Well, today was a semi-monday. I did a bit of work, but not much (my computer's been giving me a hard time lately, so I keep getting sidetracked). Emmie had friends over again, which is always nice, and I took the dog to the vet (she has a staph infection and we had to get meds). That's enough for now. I'm not quite ready to deal with the real world yet (I would much prefer this one -- see below), so I'm glad it'll be a slow week. I'm going to go to an HRC meetup tomorrow night and to a friend's wedding on Thursday, but other than that, it'll pretty quiet until 2005...

2004: The Year in Review (from South Knox Bubba)

It's that time of year when we take a look back at the events that shaped our lives during 2004...

• President Al Gore's "Brooklyn Project" to achieve American energy independence bears fruit as the first solar/hydrogen hybrid car, the Ford Sunburst, rolled off the assembly line. The car runs primarily on power generated by its super efficient-solar panels with supplemental power from light-weight hydrogen fuel cells. The fuel cells run on hydrogen produced at the Pacific Solar Farm, a facility which extracts storable hydrogen fuel from seawater using power generated by a mammoth array of solar panels floating on the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

• In other Brooklyn Project related news, the experimental 100 megawatt Fusion One mini-reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory marked its first anniversary of safe, sustained fusion reaction since startup. In a joint project with ORNL, TVA plans to replace its eleven coal-fired power plants with a network of F1 mini-reactors over the next ten years.

• The third tier of the Brooklyn Project entered its second year of successful operation. More than one hundred thousand homes in Arizona have been outfitted with the new Solaris Residential Power systems. The SRP system, which was developed at the new JFK National Energy Research Laboratory facility at Los Alamos, is comprised of roof mounted super efficient solar panels and light-weight heavy-duty storage batteries. The system provides from thirty up to fifty percent of the average home's energy needs. Nationwide rollout is expected to begin next year. Financing for installation is provided by the Federal Power Utility Trust, a non-profit cooperative of U.S. utility companies which also manufactures the Solaris system units. The system pays for itself in the first two years of operation.

• National Health Services Secretary Hillary Clinton announced yet another reduction in AmeriCare premiums. With this latest reduction, premiums are on the average 50% lower than traditional private insurance premiums. AmeriCare premiums are paid primarily through payroll deductions or Schedule HS-1 payments for self-employed individuals. The unemployed, families making less than the Department of Labor's new Living Wage standard, children, and seniors pay no premiums. The AmeriCare program, which replaced Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance programs, now covers 100% of the U.S. population.

• NHS Secretary Clinton also announced that medical research programs funded by new federal taxes on alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis products and reinvestment of savings from AmeriCare are starting to pay off. A new class of pancreas medications has virtually cured diabetes. New gene therapy treatments developed at the state and federally funded Reagan National Health Laboratory in California are showing promise in fighting malignant cancer cells and HIV. The RNHL stem-cell research program is also very close to achieving a cure for spinal cord injuries and Alzheimer's Disease.

• Secretary of State Bill Clinton addressed the Iraqi National Congress in recognition of the third anniversary of its formation following Saddam Hussein's removal from power by the U.N. backed Iraqi Revolutionary Council.

• The State Department also announced that negotiations on United Korea are nearing completion. The historic merger of North and South Korea is expected to occur early next year once the U.N. Security Council certifies North Korea's compliance with the International Non-Proliferation Treaty initiated by President Gore and ratified by 190 U.N. member nations in 2001. Secretary Clinton also praised Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Wesley Clark for his role in the negotiations and for his role in sponsoring Russia's membership in NATO.

• Osama bin-Laden, leader of the now defunct al-Qaeda terrorist network, was executed at an undisclosed Federal prison. The execution followed a lengthy trial and conviction for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and for conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack in the fall of 2001, which was thwarted when alert FBI agents in Phoenix questioned why Saudi nationals were training to fly commercial jetliners. Testimony of the thirty-four potential hijackers, who were arrested as they attempted to board flights in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston in September 2001, eventually led to the capture and arrest of bin-Laden by U.S. led multi-national forces in Pakistan.

• President Gore announced that the Teachers and Public Education Trust initiative will expand its National Scholarship Program and provide an additional $10 billion in funding for state and local education. Under the Teachers/PET program, ACT and SAT test scores have risen 10% on the average and college enrollment is at an all time high. The Parental Responsibility Act is credited with reducing high school dropout rates by more than 50%. Increased teacher salaries and benefits prompted record enrollment in education degree programs, which are producing an abundance of highly qualified teachers nationwide.

• In economic news, eighty-three Fortune 100 companies have now adopted voluntary compliance with President Gore's America First jobs and economic development initiative, with Wal*Mart leading the way as their board of directors voted unanimously to participate. America First provides tax and other incentives for companies that "buy American" and adopt improved standard wage and benefit programs.

• America First "insourcing" provisions, which offer incentives for companies who buy and sell "made in the U.S.A." products and services, resulted in record low unemployment and record high family income this year. America First and AmeriCare are credited with reducing the number of families living in poverty by another 30% in 2004. America First tariffs on imports from countries that have not adopted the U.S. and E.U. sponsored International Worker's Rights Treaty have spurred investment in the U.S. economy and improved working conditions for millions of workers world wide.

• The Dow Jones Industrials Average broke 20,000 for the first time. Wall Street analysts credited President Gore's America First program and massive federal investments in energy, biotech, and education which continue to transform the US. economy and attract record foreign investment.

• President Gore won reelection in a landslide victory, receiving 81% of the popular vote and a record 534 electoral votes, winning every state except Idaho. The GOP offered only token opposition. Republican presidential candidate Sen. Bill Frist admitted that even he voted for Gore, a fellow Tennessean.