…but that’s only because today is my last day of work until January 3. Thank you Uncle Rocky! Not that my week-and-a-half off will be slow… but it’ll be different. Christmas break is wonderful.

That being said, there should be a rule against reporting bad issues at work on the last day before break. But there’s not. So this morning I get a call telling me that my project’s software is crashing under a certain condition. Grrrr… It’s just gonna have to wait until after Christmas.

…but that’s only because today is my last day of work until January 3. Thank you Uncle Rocky! Not that my week-and-a-half off will be slow… but it’ll be different. Christmas break is wonderful.

That being said, there should be a rule against reporting bad issues at work on the last day before break. But there’s not. So this morning I get a call telling me that my project’s software is crashing under a certain condition. Grrrr… It’s just gonna have to wait until after Christmas.

So Becky was sick on Friday… my turn came on Sunday. Nasty stomach bug. I hated to have to call the pastor and tell him that I couldn’t be there, but I didn’t have much choice. I didn’t think we had anybody in town that could fill in on the piano.

What I found out later was that we had a visitor (OK, she’d visited several times) who happened to be there that morning who is an accomplished vocalist and pianist. She volunteered on the spot to play the piano and even stuck around to play for the second service! Praise God for providing.

I was feeling enough better last night to go to the church Christmas program and play/sing my part. I was/am still really tired, though. I slept about 3 hours during the day yesterday, then was asleep by 8:30 or so. I was feeling pretty good when I woke up this morning, but am starting to wear down now…

Well, I’ll stop complaining. Only three days of work this week, then begins the wonderful Christmas break! No work until 3 January 2006. Woohoo!

Truly devoted readers of mine will check out my guest post on Finally Getting Somewhere 2.0. Thanks to Dan for the opportunity to share!

My today didn’t go as planned. But that’s OK – it’s turned out just fine anyhow. Becky showed up on IM at 7:30 this morning (waaaay early for her) and said she was feeling poorly. It ends up she’s got this one-day stomach bug that a bunch of folks around here have had; throwing up and the whole works. So I left work about 8 to come home and take care of Laura.

Laura and I played and stuff in the morning, then she took a nap. This afternoon, we went down to Coral Ridge Mall to get out of the house and so I could start finish my Christmas shopping. I managed to pick up stuff for everybody except Becky. Laura was very good, enjoyed walking at the mall, didn’t fuss much.

Now it’s evening, and instead of going to the coffeehouse as we had planned, we’re sitting here at home watching Northern Iowa play for the D I-AA football championship. Actually, to be fair, Becky told me to go ahead and go to the coffeehouse if I wanted to, but I decided I felt like staying home instead. And now, I think I’m the only one watching the football game… I’m pretty sure she’s fallen asleep here on the couch.

Such is the exciting Friday night of this old married guy…

If you’re visiting my site and still see the orange-ish pier-looking thing for a header graphic, do yourself a favor and do a re-load… I’ve switched things around just a bit for the winter season, with a nice wintry header. Enjoy!

…the new snowblower kicks butt.

I probably looked like an idiot using a 5.5 hp 2-stage snowblower to remove an inch of light snow from my driveway yesterday, but it was great.

These two get grouped together since I read them both on the plane on my way to/from Wichita this week. Again, good entertainment. Extreme Denial and Assumed Identity are just two of the multitude of titles by author David Morrell. Probably best known for writing Rambo: First Blood, his later novels all centered around the idea of a secret agent-type (usually ex-Delta Force or ex-CIA) who effortlessly changes identities at will, and is either in the personal protection business or ends up operating that way.

I read one on the way down to Wichita, one on the way back. Good entertainment, fairly well written, but I couldn’t read too many of them in a row… too similar, they’d start getting boring. So, I’ll have to space them out over a while.

Consent to Kill is the latest book in the Mitch Rapp series by author Vince Flynn. It follows the pattern set up in the previous books in the series, heck isn’t this the pattern with all the books of this genre? Hero is a secret agent of some sort. Hero is wronged, wants to kill the bad guys. Gutless political leaders try but fail to prevent him from exacting vengance. End of story.

Saying that it follows a pattern isn’t to say that it’s a bad book; I enjoyed reading it. It’s just not very original. I guess it’s hard to be original these days.

I read voraciously. Sometimes really good books, sometimes just so-so books that I read for the escapism and entertainment. Talking with Richard the other day, I got the idea that I should keep a journal of all the books I read. The only rule is that I can’t write about ‘em until I finish them, which should maybe help motivate me to finish the few half-read books sitting next to my bed. At least that’s the idea. I have a feeling I’ll be troubled by how many so-so books I read, but, we’ll see.