Author Archives: stumpy0166

Jury Duty

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I’d dared to hope that, after 50 years without having ever been summoned for jury duty, I’d make it through life as a jury virgin.

Three weeks ago, I – for lack of a better g-rated phrase – got laid by the Superior Court of Gwinnett County.

To say that I was not pleased by the county’s new interest in me would be a bit of an understatement. Sure, it’s my civic duty. Yes, it’s an honor and a privilege (I’m required to say that). And I even get $30 for participating in this incredibly boring endeavor. But the simple facts are these: I don’t want to do this, I’ve never wanted to do this, I have virtually no trust or respect for any aspect of our legal system, and I’ve done what I thought was necessary to avoid being in the jury pool – namely, giving up my right to vote.

Turns out that Gwinnett County started using DMV records to fill the pool…

To clarify one of the above statements, I should say that I think the idea of American jurisprudence is a fine one, and it might have been great at some point. Unfortunately, it’s turned into just another business, in my opinion.

The police are a revenue arm of the local government, not a force driven to “serve and protect.”

Lawyers have very little interest in “justice” out “finding the truth,” but are deeply concerned about their win/loss record, about how far they can climb politically, and about cashing in.

Judges used to be lawyers – enough said.

Prisons are more private concerns, with a financial stake in staying filled to capacity (or beyond it), cutting costs wherever possible, and using prisoners for what amounts to slave labor – road crews, for example.

In short, I think our legal system is a joke and a shadow of what it was meant to be.

Yet here I am…. Sitting in a big, hot, room, on an unbelievably uncomfortable chair, waiting for my little pod to be called. And I’ve been doing so for the last two hours.

Call me a cynic. Call me a bad American. Call me unpatriotic. Call me all the bad names you can think of.

But please – don’t call me for jury duty again.

TGIF

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You know it’s not a good afternoon when you find yourself googling “how to stay awake at your desk.”

I actually have a playlist that I set up years ago for just such afternoons.  I believe it was the logical extension of the cassette mix tape that I made in the 80s and called “Late Night Driving Stuff.”  Being much older and wiser when I moved into the digital age, my stay-awake-at-the-office playlist is entitled “Good Working Shiznit.” *

Unfortunately, even this vital stand-by isn’t working for me today.  My eyes just don’t want to stay open.  Probably because I didn’t get to bed until close to 11 last night (was running a trivia game on the other side of town).  I never have been a morning person.  Don’t know why I thought it’d be a good idea to teach the cats to get me up at 5:30.

Yeah, I do.  Because, as obnoxious as they are, they’re still light years ahead of an alarm clock.

12 more spams since my last post .  I can see those getting to be annoying.  Might be time to just disable comments.

Anyway, life in the great white-hot south continues.  It is brutal today.  Went outside to go to lunch and thought I’d have a heat stroke before I got to me car.  If it were possible, I’d be heading for the mountains tonight, but Jenny and her brother are coming to the house to see the cats tomorrow AND I’ve got jury duty next week, so I have to call my juror decoder-ring number sometime this weekend.

I did text my friend Brett a few days ago and suggest that we give it a shot next weekend.  During the wet trip that I mentioned in my last post, I showed him my “RavPower” charger and mentioned that I’d managed to charge my phone with it for a full week before it needed charging.  That was all Brett needed to hear.  He got home and bought one…and a USB lantern and a USB headlamp and a new USB speaker and on and on and on.  I said, “Cool.  Let’s hit the woods.  And you do realize that charging everything you own from one power source is going to kill the power source in 24 hours, right?”

Smart guy.  Really smart.  Just dumb sometimes.

NorthCountryTrail

A part of the trail between the Au Sable Light Station and the Log Slide at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

I got my RavPower last year in anticipation of making a long hike on the AT sometime this year.  Have pretty much decided that that won’t happen, but I think I will go back to Michigan for a week or two in the fall and get some trail miles in.  I’ve found myself almost craving the hypnotic solitude of the North Country Trail in Michigan.

How to describe how gorgeous that trail can be….I really can’t do it.  I mean, just look at the photo and them imagine that the only sounds you hear are birds, the breeze through the tops of the trees, Lake Superior crashing about 300 yards to the left, and the sound of your boots on grass and/or packed trail.  Imagine that the temperature is in the mid-60s.   You feel – literally – like this area has looked exactly like this for the last 5,000 years, and you’re walking along game trails that mound builders used.  And you see a bear off to the right.  And you poop yourself and the bear walks away.  And then you walk the 5 miles back to your car in what seems like 5 minutes because it’s just so freaking perfect.

So yeah, I’m thinking about doing that again this year and maybe doing some back-country camping instead of staying at a campground as I did last year.  Though, to be honest, it was one of the nicest campgrounds I’ve visited in quite a while.  I could live with doing that again, too.

But I should probably do some work first.

* Lots of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, some  ABBA, up-tempo BST and Billy Joel.  You know.  Good working shiznit.

Oh yea! Spammers!

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You know how I said that this weird URL might help keep spammers out?

Yeah, that didn’t happen – although it’s fairly obvious that the 11 spams so far were all robotic.  Guess I can’t do anything about that, and some of the “comments” are sort of amusing in their complete idiocy.

Taking a short break from fixing software issues while listening to the soundtrack from Hamilton this afternoon.  Not really paying attention to the words, but the music isn’t bad.  Considering its success on Broadway, I’m sort of surprised that it hasn’t been made into a movie yet.

Andi Sprague had surgery on her leg yesterday.  Jenny tells me it went well.  Now the fun part – recovery – begins.

The picture for today is one that I took of the river, Little Santeetlah Creek, on the banks of which a buddy and I set up camp a couple of weekends ago.  It rained the whole time – pretty miserable, really – but the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is so damned gorgeous that we had a good time anyway.  JK is definitely in my top 5 places to throw up a tent and spend a few days (camping is allowed just outside the national forest part).  Great hiking, a beautiful river, very few people, no cell coverage.

Anyway, Brett and I spent a few days shooting at cans with my pellet pistol (purchased for its remarkable resemblance to a real gun and hopefully a deterrent to anyone who wants to mess with me when I’m camping.  If it’s not, I guess I’ll get a real gun one of these days), getting soaked under a leaky tarp, taking one short hike, and taking cheesy pictures of the river.  I rarely bring my DSLR with me anymore, and decided to see how much I could mess with the aperture and shutter settings on my phone’s camera.  I thought it did okay.

I need to empty out the band’s folders tonight, but I really don’t want to.  Would much rather go play trivia.

So maybe I’ll do the folders tomorrow.

Snuffles

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Had a fairly boring weekend.  Mowed the lawn and did some shopping on Saturday before going to a watering hole to play some trivia (came within 18 points of a perfect score – good for #2 in North America); and did absolutely nothing on Sunday other than taking a long walk in the morning.  Spent most of the day watching the new implementation of Roots and doing laundry.

Also took a walk on Saturday morning.  Both walks featured tiny bits of rain which did not mitigate the ungodly heat and humidity.  You’d think that it’d be comfortable at 5:30 in the morning.  Not at all.  This is going to be a long, hot, summer.

I’ve been sneezing my head off for the past several weeks and it’s really getting annoying.  Picked up some Claritin and Flonase last week to see if either of those will help.  Just started a regimen of the latter yesterday.  I’m not sure exactly what I’m allergic to at this point.  Thought it was the cats, but I’m ruling that out for now.  Also thought it might be a new detergent that I started using about a month ago, but switching back to the old one hasn’t yielded any improvements.

The Puff’s company is pleased, anyway.  Can’t buy enough of the stuff.  Here’s hoping that a couple of weeks in Canada will clear things up at least temporarily.

In my spare time, I’ve been amusing myself for a couple of months by playing two computer games in a series called Medal of Honor.  Both are first-person shooters (in that the action involves a scene as it would be seen if you were in it, and you’re shooting at things) set in WWII.  The first one, Medal of Honor, Pacific Assault, puts the gamer in the marines at Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and a few other Pacific islands.   The second, MoH, Allied Assault, has the player landing at Normandy and fighting through the French and Belgian countryside.

Both are graphically excellent, and seem to be fairly historically accurate, too.  Both have inspired me to look up details of several of the battles that “I” have been involved in (Tarawa is fascinating.  I wouldn’t mind visiting).

I found it somewhat amusing that, when I watched Saving Private Ryan last Monday (Memorial Day), it became apparent that a number of the scenes depicted in MoH, Allied Assault were taken directly from the movie.  Not just close or similar, mind you.  Exactly.  From the scenery and “battle plan” for D-Day to the towns, weather, and sniper towers throughout the movie.

Anyway, they’re fun games that kill time and make me curious enough to look up WWII history, something that previously hasn’t interested me in the least.  I’m currently watching an HBO series, Pacific – you can probably figure out what it’s about.  Quite well done.

Explanations

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Might as well kick this thing kjiayunbqgpm7onkmoikig5re6xs8pqfn7x5ube8jk1xoytyw95ooff with a few explanations.  Why am I doing this again?  What is Graceful Chaos?  What is that weird green logo?  What’s with the photo of a photo on a wall?  And where did that stupid URL originate?

Have no fear.  I shall endeavor to provide satisfactory answers for each of those questions.  If I can’t, then sue me.  It’s my website, and I can do what I want.  I’m an American.  I have the right to be an idiot if I so choose.  Says so right there in The Constitution or The Bible or The Catcher in the Rye or one of those books that starts with the word “The”.

So why am I doing this again?  Why not?  I told Dad I was thinking about firing up a blog (or revisiting one of the old ones) to entertain him and myself.  And I’ve had a spare domain just sitting out there on a server in Arizona doing nothing for the last year, so I thought I could kill a couple of birds with one sniper-like shotgun blast.  Anyway, I started playing around with the unused domain a while ago – and recently renewed it for a few years as a kind of catch-all for my stuff – so I installed WordPress on it.

And then I reached my limit for reading political garbage on Facebook and nuked my account there.  Sorry.  It was just making me angry all the time and I saw no need for that.  Maybe I’ll sign up again after the election.  In any case, I’ve got a blog again.  And I’m not wasting time on Facebook, so maybe I’ll keep it updated.

Graceful Chaos.  Believe it or not, I put some thought into that, and I’m still not satisfied with it.  It might change if I can come up with a one-word description for something which I can’t believe doesn’t already have one.  See, my favorite style of music, by far, has no name.  It’s a combination of styles, really.  Paul Lovatt Cooper writes a lot of it (I’ve considered both Lovattetto and Cooperando) as did Paul Hindemith (maybe it’s a Paul thing??).  Basically, a simple theme is stated somewhere, gets lost for a while, and then comes back as the central flowing theme layered over the top (or underneath) a riot of technical, usually presto, counterpoints.   This type of thing happens a lot in brass band music, which may explain why I love it.

Example (indulge me):  Philip Sparke’s Tallis Variations is based, not surprisingly, on a very simple theme by Thomas Tallis.  Yes, I know that Ralph Vaugham Williams used the same thing for his Fantasy on a Theme by Tallis.  Focus, people.  I’m talking about brass bands, not orchestras.  Moving on.  It’s an extremely simple theme (it is, in fact, Tallis’ Third Mode Melody, which you can see here if you’d like: Third Mode Melody).

Sparke takes this hymn, states it early, and then goes about doing what Sparke does, which is blowing up brass players’ faces for 10 minutes.  “Cornets, play lots of 16th notes.  Horns, go fox hunting or something.  Euphs, play etudes.  Snare – I need shock accents!  Tubas, oompah your guts out. Flugel..are you drunk again?  Play like you’re drunk.  Now, everybody do all of that together.  Oh yeah – bones, take the melody and make it pretty.”

The result winds up being something like this (courtesy of the Yorkshire Building Society Band):

https://youtu.be/svI-wYQ6lpY?t=770

You see how that works?  Simple melody.  Played strongly.  On a bed of spaghetti.

I love that shit!  And there isn’t a term for it!  It is, therefore, my duty to come up with one.  Also, since it is widely known at my workplace that I am able to remain calm when everything is falling apart, Graceful Chaos seems like a decent interim name for my blog.

Understand that the reason I remain calm is because I really don’t care about the things that are falling apart.  It’s just a job, after all.

The green logo thing (an original TWD, entitled Rawr!) also fits the theme.  It is a monster.  It’s lifting weights.  It’s on a fluorescent green background.  It’s got pointy teeth.  It’s wearing a sort of argyle/plaid sweater.  It’s chaotic.  But I drew it during an outage meeting at three o’clock in the morning a few years ago and the act of doing so kept me calm.

It was at around the same time that I superimposed the glamour shot of myself into an art gallery.  Why did I include that picture in this post?  No idea.  I wanted a picture to break up the text and that’s the first one I found on my laptop.

Lastly, what’s up with the funky address for this page?  Migration?  What’s that all about?

Long story as short as possible.  I got TheUFFP and wrote stuff for it.  It was on a Windows server.  Then I wanted to upgrade lots of the stuff and put everything on Linux, so I got UFFP2.  I’d planned to move everything back under TheUFFP name at some point, but as more and more went into UFFP2, that became a bit of a hassle.  Logically, I should have dumped TheUFFP.  Except that I’ve had @theuffp email addresses for nearly 20 years and doing away with the domain name would have been amazingly painful.  So I kept it with nothing on it.  Until I was informed that the hosting account tied to the TheUFFP domain was moving to a different server and I had to move everything.

Well, there WASN’T anything in the hosting account.  It had all been moved the UFFP2 or deleted.  But, since it was such a huge hassle for other domains on the same server – the ones that had websites attached to them – I got a free hosting account for a year, and all I had to do to make it work was name it something other than TheUFFP.com.  So I named it Migration.TheUFFP.com.

Because it was, you know, migrating.

Since this is just an experimental site – a place where I can test code, store databases, post photos, etc. – I don’t really want people to just stumble into it.  Sure, some robots will find it eventually; but, realistically, if I don’t give out the domain name, normal people won’t find it.

And if they do, I’ll just delete all of their comments and lock things down.  I have the power.

I like that.

Anyway, welcome aboard.  I guess this thing’s live now.

TWD

Amy

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I mentioned “a delightful trumpet-playing lady” in the Frowsy Noise blog, and I suppose I should say a bit more about her.

Amy is a 40-year-old solo cornet player who first caught my eye about two years ago during the NABBA competition in Michigan.  Not saying I was flabbergasted or anything like that – she was just a very attractive woman and I’m a guy and I notice things like that.  I’d forgotten all about her by the time this year’s contest rolled around.  Interestingly enough, though, when I was taking pictures of conductors during the Friday night band sessions, I shifted my camera a little bit; and this extremely comely girl once again caught my eye.  She couldn’t really help it, because her head was filling my entire viewfinder.
So I took a bunch of shots of her (hey – she’s still attractive, I’m still a guy, and it was my job to take pictures of the competition, right?) and then went on about filming other members of her band and the rest of the bands that followed.
The next evening, I was tasked with shooting the championship bands’ second night of performances and the awards ceremony that followed them.  Amy’s band was the last one to perform before the awards, and I was shooting the bands from the balcony – shooting towards the cornet sections, so I once again couldn’t help noticing her.  After her band finished, I grabbed my gear and headed to the closest exit, intent on making it down to stage level in time for the awards.  I rushed down the stairs and turned a corner just as Amy’s band was coming around the same corner from the opposite direction (to stow their horns prior to returning for the awards).  As luck would have it, Amy and I locked eyes in a somewhat surreal moment, and she smiled at me – which nearly caused me to drop all of the aforementioned gear. 
I’m not sure exactly how, but I did manage to make it to the stage in time for awards pictures – and one of the first people to win an award was Amy – First Place in the high-brass technical solo contest.  So I learned her name…and I also got to stand 10 feet away from her and take her picture yet again…and she smiled at me yet again.
Which was nice.
Nicer still was a few days later when I got a “Friend Request” from her on Facebook, along with a nice note saying, basically, “Sorry we didn’t meet at NABBA, but I like your photos.”  I responded in my suave way that, “I think we might have nodded at each other.  Great performance.”
And that was that until a couple of weeks later, when she selected one of my shots of her (my favorite, in fact) to use as her profile picture on Facebook.  She left my watermark on the photo – which nobody ever does (a fact that generally pisses me off) – so I wrote to her to tell her thank you and to give her permission to remove the watermark if she wanted to.  She replied that she sort of liked it.  
And over the next few weeks, we began sending increasingly lengthy and less brass-related messages to each other on Facebook – not something I normally do with anyone as I’m not all that thrilled with the idea of using Facebook as an email client.  That being the case, I was thrilled when she asked for my email address, explaining that she wasn’t a big fan of using Facebook as an email client.
So the messages moved to email and continued to get longer and longer.
At one point during the FB messages, she’d given me her phone number, so – after I’d written about 48 pages to her in one email – I sent her a text message informing her that she was going to freak out about the email she was about to get.  I sort of thought that she’d freak out MORE about the fact that I’d remembered her phone number, but she didn’t flinch at all.   Said she was disappointed that I hadn’t called her when she first gave me the number. 
So, the next day, we had our first voice conversation.  I was, to put it mildly, quite nervous.
Since then, we’ve had a number of very long talks and it’s apparent to both of us that we’ve got a lot in common – including the fact that we’re both sort of crazy about each other.  She’s currently trying to make some plans to come visit Atlanta (she’s in Chicago) during the first week of June; and I’m trying to figure out how I can fly to Chicago at some point later this year.  
Yeah.  I said I’m planning to fly to see her. Like, on a plane.  
I’m also toying with the idea of driving up to Gettysburg in mid-June to surprise her at a gig that she’ll be playing there.
Long story short….I think I’ve completely fallen for this gal; and I think the feeling might be mutual.
Gorgeous. Smart. Funny. A champion musician.  And her middle name is Elizabeth.  Be still my heart.
TWD

Not Quite Yet

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I’d planned to update this mostly private blog tonight, but have decided to wait a few days to do so.  I’m in sort of a funky mood and I need to collect myself before I try to write.

twd

Lazy Day With Positives

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The sun emerged from hiding today and temps soared into the low 50s.  As I understand it, tomorrow could come close to hitting 60 (the perfect temperature), though the rain may also return.

While I didn’t have any grand plans today, I thought about getting a haircut and doing some more work on the GBB library page.  Neither of those things happened, of course.  I did get a small measure of grocery shopping done this morning.  Basic stuff – cheese, milk, bread, apple juice, cat litter, and some more cheese for the outdoor cats.

During the cold and wind yesterday, Buddy and Fleck
kept each other warm by setting up a cat stack.

I discovered last night that Fleck, Buddy, and Brooks all love cheese; and, by using my last slice prudently, I was able to convince Fleck (at least) that the cathouse that I built for them is not a death trap.  When I went out this morning to put out their dry food rations, Fleck casually strolled out of the house as if he owned it.  After returning from shopping, I stepped out to the deck to parcel out some cheese and he was back in the house.  He and Buddy had a nice time begging for (and receiving) their treats for about 10 minutes and then he went back into his house for a nap.  I’m not sure, but I think Buddy may be sharing the new quarters with him, which is precisely what I’d hoped.  The two of them can surely keep the inside of it warm no matter how cold it gets outside.

I don’t know if there are gay cats, but Fleck and Buddy are extremely close to each other.  I have a suspicion that Fleck may be Buddy’s sire.  Those two sentences, taken together, are kind of sick, no?  Anyway, they’re cute together and I’m glad that they have an obvious bond.  It’s got to be tough to be an outdoor cat.  Hopefully, having a friend makes things easier.

After I played with the deck kitties for a while, I came back inside and made some seriously kick-ass Shepherds Pie for lunch (and dinner, as it turned out).  Not sure what made it so good.  It may have had something to do with the fact that I haven’t made it in several months – or maybe I just got lucky with my selection of spices.  Whatever the reason, it was superb.

After eating, I settled onto the couch to watch a movie and ended up sleeping for about 2 hours.  Woke up later, watched the movie again (Netflix is awesome that way) and then had some more of the Shepherds Pie.

Practiced the tuba for another 30 minutes tonight (Bordogni etudes, mostly, but finished with scales).  Fingers were quite sore after that, but not as much as last night.  In fact, I was able to mess around on the piano for another 30 minutes after the stint on tuba.

And tonight?  I’ll probably watch another movie and hit the sack early.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll get that haircut.

TWD

Winter Blahs

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It has been cold and dreary outside for the last few days.  Rained again last night (three days in a row), but today is just overcast and very windy.  Temperature has been hanging around 40 for the last several hours, and my space heaters are blazing without interruption.  I’m still toying with the idea of getting a kerosene heater at some point this winter.  I think it’d be a real help in the living room.

Christmas itself was a rather quiet day for me – and no, I’m not complaining at all.  I did some more cleaning for much of the day and then started building a cathouse for my deck cats.  With the rain and cold, I think they can probably use a warm, dry place; and the litter-box cover that one or two of them had been sleeping under was letting a lot of water in.

The newest cathouse in Duluth.

Late on the afternoon of the 25th, I went over to Jenny’s place and had a lasagna dinner with her and her folks.  Picked up several bottles of beer (Christmas and birthday presents) while there, and then came home and went to bed.

Yesterday, I finished up the cathouse and got it set up on the deck.  As of this afternoon, a number of the kitties have shown interest in it, but none have actually made it a home yet.  Ungrateful little bastards.

Should you be wondering, the cathouse was also a way for me to begin cleaning out the garage.  I’ve got a bunch of scrap wood and other various junk lying around in there, and was able to use a lot of it to put the house together.  Along with about 1/3 of the wood, I cleared out a number of garden kneeling pads – which I’ve never used – some rags, and some nylon tenting material that I’ve been hanging on to for God knows what reasons.

While building the thing, I started taking a close look at the layout of the garage and am slowly formulating an idea to put in a big workbench area along the back wall.  Currently, that space is taken up by an old desk that Dad built, 4 or 5 wire shelves, and about 8 milk boxes.  I’m quite certain that there’s plenty of room for me to put in a full-length bench, under either cabinets or shelves, and have a decent place to play around building things while still allowing two cars to park there.

Today has been devoted mainly to coding the GBB library page, doing some laundry, thinking about doing dishes, and wondering if I’m going to go out to play some trivia tonight.  Oh yeah – I paid some bills, too.

No wonder I’ve been depressed all day.

TWD

Closing Out the Year

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I’ve had a fairly uneventful week, which is nice.  Did a little (very little) work between Monday and Thursday before shutting down the work laptop for good on Friday.  Not planning to bring it back up until January 3rd.

Dropped Scott off at MARTA on Wednesday morning, and he’ll be gone until at least the 4th.  Once I had the house to myself again, I sort of got into the cleaning mode.  Cleared out the music room, which had become a dumping ground for … well… for stuff over the last year or two.  It has now been reassigned to its former role of a place for horns, music, books, a piano, etc.  It also has the Day family dining room table in it, although I don’t have any chairs yet.  Maybe I’ll cruise up to TR this week and pick those up.  If they’ll fit in my car.

I also got serious about rebuilding my “Kramer” laptop (so named because of the faux wood finish on the case) and got it up and running again.  I’m using it now, in fact.  Set up its docking station on Mom’s old sewing machine table – a nearly perfect fit – and there’s now a fairly nice little office setup downstairs (also in the music/dining room).

I also straightened up the living room and let the Roomba loose for a few spins around the entirety of the downstairs area.  Great little machine, that Roomba.  I don’t endorse a lot of things, but I’ll give that thing 5 stars.

Upstairs, I did a half-hearted job of cleaning my bedroom, but more needs to be done.  Really want to get some wireless set-top boxes for the televisions so that I can rearrange the bedroom the way I’d really like for it to be, but that will have to wait.  At least all of my clothes have been laundered at put into drawers – and I’ve got a festive holiday quilt on my bed now.  Hoping to clean out the bedroom closet this week also.

Last night I played the final GBB caroling gig at Lenox Mall (for the Salvation Army thing).  Much to the relief of my aching elbows, I did so on a tenor horn instead of the tuba.  Started out pretty out of tune, but after the horn warmed up and I messed around with the slides enough, I acquitted myself fairly well.

This morning, I finished watching Jane Austen’s Emma on Masterpiece Theater (PBS).  I tried to read it earlier this year, but lost interest about 3/4 of the way through and felt sort of guilty about it.  Now that I know the story (I assume that the movie was fairly true to the book – it was 4 hours long), I might give reading the book another shot next year.

I’m also going to finish Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying this week. It’s quite likely that I’ll have to start over on that, as I’ve forgotten much of the plot and most of the characters, but it’s a pretty short book.  I stopped reading it because I found that just reading it was impossible for me – Faulkner is just too much work – but that reading it aloud made it much more interesting and opened my eyes to just how good a writer Faulkner was.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring myself to read aloud when Scott was in the house; and, since he lost his job in November, he’s been in the house pretty much non-stop since then.  Now that I’ll have a week alone, maybe I can knock the thing out in an afternoon.  Shoot, maybe I’ll tape myself and give away personalized audio books for family birthday presents this year.

Spent much of today asleep.  That wasn’t my intention when I got up at 6:45, but I crashed on the couch at somewhere around noon and didn’t wake up until nearly 6:00 this evening.

Tomorrow (Christmas day), I’m going over to Jenny’s place to have dinner with her and her parents.  I realized today that I don’t have gifts for any of them.  Maybe I’ll stop at Kroger’s and get them each a pop-tart or something.

TWD