Burnerblog

…was on April 26th. My mom came over for an early Mother’s Day for Sherry and brought a bunch of plants, soil, mulch, and other stuff for planting. She forgot the significance of the date. As we were sitting at the table eating lunch, I said, “And at about this time exactly five years ago today, you forgot the orange tort.” She just blinked a few times and started laughing. “Ahh, it’s your anniversary! Happy anniversary!” It was pretty funny as we recounted the fact that on our wedding day, my mom forgot to bring the orange tort that was to be the groom’s cake. They recovered quickly by getting some chocolate cake to stand-in, allowing us to gorge ourselves on the orange tort the next day.

Anyway, I bought Sherry a 500GB external HD for all the pictures we have since she does scrapbooking and needs the images to be local to her machine so that she doesn’t have to wait too long pulling images from my computer over the network (many of which are very large due to the high resolution). Well, on Thursday, I had had enough of my computer turning itself off, rebooting, and losing network connectivity. I had tried just about everything to solve the problems, but nothing seemed to work. Since I work on my computer from home, this was a dire situation. She told me to go ahead and get a new computer. SWEET! So, what did I get? I got a Gateway from Best Buy (’cause I’m too old and impatient to build my own systems anymore) which is a quad-core 2.5GHz Intel with 4GB RAM, and Nvidia 8800GT with 512MB RAM, a 640GB HD, and a bunch of other goodies (DVD burner, etc). Then, as luck (or misfortune) would have it, on Friday night one of my monitors died. I used dual monitors because of the writing work I do; it just makes my life so much easier. I looked at getting another 20″ monitor, but decided to just get a new 24″ widescreen instead to replace both monitors with one. That would allow me to replace the last CRT in use in the house (upstairs) and would give me a nice new huge desktop space to work with.

So… I now have a new, fast computer with a honking huge HD-capable 1080p 24″ monitor with 1920×1400 resolution (or some number like that). It’s very fast on the refresh rate, and was on sale when I got it.

On New Year’s Eve, Sherry and I had a great early lunch at Wunschie Brothers (probably the best hamburgers we’ve ever had there, too!) and then decided to head on over to the VW dealer before going to Lawrence’s New Year’s Party to take a look at and to possibly test drive a Passat. We didn’t think that we’d end up buying one, but buy one we did. The deals were too good, and the car was too dang cool for me to leave there. Bonus for me: this has been the only Passat sold at the dealer with the high definition body kit.

I took this photo a little while ago; I’ll try to get a better set later today in the sunlight.

As for the party, we had a great time with old friends and some new faces that came along with Kenny and Elaine! All in all, it was a good time, great food, and great fun!

I love the time between the holidays. While Sherry uses it to get things done around the house, typically things that she hasn’t had time for in previous months, I use it to hang out with the kids and play games. Brendon got a new X-Box 360, so we’ve been playing a lot of Forza Motorsports 2. Gelli got a new camera, and she’s been taking photos of just about everything (yay!). She’s even been using the time off from school to write new songs and to play guitar.

I don’t have much else planned for this break… considering it’s almost over. We are going to head over to Manz’s house for the “group’s” annual New Year’s Eve party, and then afterwards is the requisite recovery day and then it’s back to work.

I am looking forward to having a reason to wake up in the mornings, as I’ve been predominantly a night owl for the past two weeks or so. It’s been nice, and it’s been fun, but I need to have a sense of purpose every now and then, to feel like I’m doing something really productive.

So… vacation is good, and vacation has been fun, but it’s time to head back to reality and to get back to the daily grind. I kind of like my coffee/Webb Alert time… I’ve been missing that.

Merry Christmas to everyone. Our family has celebrated Christmas this year with my Mom and her husband as well as with my wife’s mother and brother. Later tonight, we will celebrate with Stevie and his family.

Of course, I’m kind of sick right now, but that’s just par. Sherry was sick all last week; I guess this week it’s my turn.

It’s always funny to me, seeing all the “Put the Christ back in Christmas” signs. I see them in emails, on envelopes, even on Christmas cards. What’s funniest to me is that Christmas as we know it was invented by Charles Dickens and became popular in Victorian England only about 150 years ago. Before that, Christmas was a pagan holiday, not widely celebrated, and certainly not celebrated in the way we do today (Christmas trees, dinners, gift exchanges, etc).

It turns out Jesus is not the reason for the season. He’s just the modern-day excuse for it. I’m sure someone (or many people) will refute this and/or comment to the contrary (or not… lol). I’m not attacking anyone’s religion or beliefs, but as a historian, facts are facts, and no religious dogma is going to sway me on this one.

This is not to say, however, that putting Christ into Christmas is a bad thing. It’s good to link them, in my opinion, but I am just pointing out the fallacy of the aforementioned statements. Christmas trees are pagan symbols from Germany, St. Nick is from Greece, and the list goes on. The religious linkage came after these traditions and myths were already firmly entrenched. Interesting that they were linked at all.

I’ve been remiss in keeping this place up-to-date over the past six days because of the flurry of activity that had befallen our household. To sum things up:

• Saturday morning we took my car in for its 90k service and then went to Spec’s to pick up some goodies to take to my grandparents in Florida. Sherry and I had a wonderful crepe breakfast at Coco in mid-town. Most of the day was spent doing this or that.
• Saturday night, Gelli was asked to come on stage by the band playing. She sang her songs and received great feedback from the audience.
• Sunday during the day we went out to Sealy to visit with my mom after which I watched the last NASCAR race of the season. I also had to deal with Sprint in replacing my phone (it went tits-up earlier in the day).
• Sunday night I met with a new band and will be playing bass for them on a regular basis.
• Monday night Gelli performed her songs again on stage. It was unscheduled and unanticipated, but it was a lot of fun.
• Tuesday was spent working and then the evening was spent packing up the car and getting ready to depart on our trip to Florida. After packing was complete, we dropped our dog Cookie off at Steve and Anita’s and then took off.
• 3:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, we stopped at a Red Roof Inn outside of Mobile Alabama for some rest. We then woke up at around 9:00 a.m., filled up the tank, and continued on towards West Palm Beach.
• Wednesday evening, I dodged no fewer than three accidents. Two of these were very close calls, all due to people braking incredibly hard in front of me. We saw two accidents, one minor and one major. The major accident had bodies and body parts strewn all over the place. It was sobering.
• Wednesday night we arrived at my grandparents’ place where a wonderful Hungarian dinner was waiting for us.
• Thursday was spent on the beach and around the dinner table with my grandmother. My grandfather sleeps a lot, but he’s allowed; he’s 93 and in great health otherwise. He’s sort of forgetful (early Alzheimers), but he’s clear as a bell every once in a while. I can see in his eyes when he’s “there.”
• Today has been a day of helping out and doing little things here and there for the grandparents. We’re about to head out to Best Buy to pick up a satellite radio for my grandmother so that she can listen to all the classical radio she wants to. She’s really excited about the prospect of choices in classical radio.

So, that’s where we are. It’s afternoon, and I have to get going so that I can maintain the pace of the day. I will try to update more tonight if I get a chance. I love the broadband I get using my phone! PDANet rocks!!!

I think I’ve figured out why I’ve been so grumpy these past five Christmases. Aside from the grumpiness of having lost my dad and it being his favorite holiday (which put a sort of gray cloud on the holiday for me as I missed him), I think the lack of egg nog made me crabby. This year, I decided to be happy and enjoy the holiday regardless of the grief issues I face during the holidays (my great-aunt, one of my favorite people in the world, also died close to Christmas), and in so doing, I bought a pint of Southern Comfort’s non-alcoholic Vanilla Spice Egg Nog. OH MY GAWD. This is what I’ve needed. Nothing else tastes to me like liquid Christmas than egg nog.

Now, I know there are lots of people out there who dis egg nog, or simply don’t “get” it. But I do. I love egg nog, and as a matter of fact, I’m drinking it right now. Literally (I just took a sip). This is some good stuff, and since I’m also a big fan of vanilla, the two together make me giddy.

DECK THOSE HALLS, BIATCHES! LET’S GET THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON ROLLING!!!