Christmas present

becomes another Christmas past (always liked the double entendre implied in Dickens' A Christmas Carol: Ghost of 'Christmas present'). it was a nice one, as i was / we all were able to spend it with my / our entire family- something remarkably rare.

i finished wrapping Loren's gifts unusually early this year, despite a later-than-average start on my shopping, and got a bit more sleep than i'm used to on Christmas Eve; another welcome change.

as normal (when Loren's here on Christmas), Loren spent the morning opening his gifts from me (and those Santa brought him). usually Santa brings me something as well, which is really very thoughtful of him. Santa gave me a box of Boston baked beans (the candy, one of my favorites) in my stocking, as well as some gummi bears (another fave), and a much needed box of pencils for the cup on my desk, which has been conspicuously bare for weeks now. two things i like and one i needed; i certainly can't complain.

i also took matters into my own hands this year, buying a dart board that can accept either steel or soft-tip darts, and scores electronically. i've been wanting a steel-tip board for a long time, and it should provide us a decent return in amusement for the money.

i also splurged and bought another freestanding lamp for the living room, since it's usually dark when i get home from work, and what i've had in the living room proves insufficient to get the place clean. it's full-on winter shedding season for Chowder, and the dog hair's going to be a constant battle for weeks.

got some nice pictures today, which i'll eventually get to posting somewhere...and sending along to those who've requested them (or will now....), which brings to mind both the nagging USB interface problem which seems to linger on in this computer, and the running back-theme of if i should establish my own domain.....something else to chew on, but not tonight.

i got too many nice presents from my Most Excellent family to name in the time i'm willing to spend posting tonight, including a couple rather unexpected belated birthday presents. many thanks to everyone! Loren enjoyed himself, and it was great watching Ethan and Cole.

i wrapped some books for Cole in a box that was large enough but too deep, so i packed an old bath towel in the box on top of the books to keep it from collapsing while wrapping it. when Cole opened the gift he pulled out that frayed, old, pink towel and exclaimed, "I got a towel!"- which was hilarious. i tried to explain to him that it wasn't his gift but he wanted none of that- he was happy with the towel. Loren tried to help him out by taking the books out of the bottom of the box for him, at the same time as i was trying to direct Cole's attention back to the "real" contents of the box, so of course Cole saw an empty box that everyone was trying to convince him held his real present! totally funny. Jason said he'd be pretty tempted to let him have the towel. have to admit i was tempted to do just that myself; but Nichole had intervened by this point and directed his attention to the books. all in all, i think Ethan and Cole liked the little Superman and Batman action figures the best of what Loren and i gave them.

we give up a lot which has value, growing up, and we don't notice it until it's a moot point. it's really a joy to have children around to remind us of who were were, and how we used to relate to the world.

i took a picture of Loren with my parents before we left this evening, and Loren stood between them, with his arms comfortably around their shoulders. he's in between Mom and Dad in height now. there's not a lot of little left in him, and i'm going to miss him when he's out in the world. sometimes, maybe especially times like Christmas, i miss him already. five years, ten years from now....i can't imagine. i'm going to have to find something to fill in the big hole that'll leave, because right now....there's nothing else there.

Loren decided Chowder would have a better time staying home in the warm house than staying out on the deck or out in my folks' back yard (he'd be much too rambunctious in their house with a crowd like we had), so that's what he did. i slipped him a half dozen dog treats and a big piece of roast beef as we left. this evening, as Loren and i capped off the day with a little Deep Space Nine on DVD, Chowder got some more of my Boston baked beans, and one of Loren's Milk Duds, and he helped himself to a couple pig ears from the open bag in the den. i think he felt like he made out OK today, too.

off to work tomorrow to earn the mortgage payment and the first dent in the Christmas credit card bills. Jason & Melissa are off for the week, and Loren's going to spend the day with them tomorrow. Melissa generously offered to come pick him up tomorrow, which gives me an extra half-hour to an hour of sleep (quite welcome) and Loren and Melissa even more...plus Loren gets to hang out in the house and sort of acquaint himself with some of his new stuff.

so, ol' inf here's for the sack.

Merry Christmas everyone.

done with nights

Benny and i managed to finish the last of the trees the night crews were taking care of on Saturday night. the paychecks for the last few weeks have been more than welcome, but i've been ready to be done with graveyard shift for a while. time to move on to other things.

yesterday i tried to stay awake long enough to get my schedule turned back around. made it until about 2pm, figuring i'd get up and watch the Seahawks / Broncos night game, but i slept right through the alarms and kept right on sleeping until about 4:30 this morning. oh well...there are still a few games left in the regular season, and they're playoff-bound, so i'll get some more Seahawks football in.

today found me putting the finishing touches on my recommended reading page, getting it all up to date with my reading list page, as well as my page of what i've been watching, and putting another chapter in my latest book behind me, eating some food, and generally getting ready to experience this thing called "daylight" again.

i'm presiding over a board meeting for the homeowners association tonight, have to spend a little time getting reaquainted with the issues i've planned on raising. if i'm to be the one who drags this board and community kicking and screaming into the future, i want to be prepared. i'm certain the others involved in the board aren't going to be as prepared as i am, and doubt many of them will even be familiar with the association rules and guidelines, despite having literally months to get acquainted with them. in the end, this gives me an advantage i intend to press. nothing ever gets done around here, and i aim to make sure that changes.

the meeting conflicts with Monday Night Football, but unfortunately MNF didn't seem to be a priority to anyone but me.

i have some other observations to make regarding the board and its members but i'll save those until after the meeting, since i'll likely end up talking about what went on there a little anyway.

besides that, i'm a little behind on the chores, and i'd like to be caught up before i leave the house for the evening. a couple hours ought to do the trick. chore time also translates into time listening to music, which is always welcome. i've really developed some consistent habits over the last few years, and that's one of them.

Loren's mom called me this morning to try to talk Loren out of bed; he didn't want to get up and her first impulse was to call me to attempt to coerce him. i did, since i'd rather not see him be late for school, but he literally put the phone down and refused to talk to me. that was pretty rude, but not altogether surprising. i actually feel like i should have told her she'd have to handle the situation on her own; i have enough instances of "being the bad guy" without being her hammer as well. hindsight....

guess that's it. guess it's a shower, some coffee, some music and chores then.

Happy Birthday to me.

hurray. i made it to 39.

spent the last 2 hrs winding down from another night of hanging Christmas lights in downtown Seattle, specifically by continuing the update of my 'recommended reading' page (link's in the top right section of this page). it's gonna take me a while to finish updating all with reviews of all the books i've read since i initially published that page almost 2 years ago. that's one page that hasn't been getting its fair share of attention. oh well, no one's perfect, and it's not as if editing this stuff takes no time.

time to put something in my stomach and hit the hay, see if i can actually wake up in time to pick Loren up from school this afternoon, and squeeze in a little time with him before heading back to work tonight.

plus ça change. i think that's the right accent....

damn it's cold

Benny and i spent the night hanging Xmas lights outside the historic Mayflower Park Hotel, just northwest of Westlake Center in downtown Seattle. the overnight low was somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-20 degrees- very cold. we got the two trees finished and got the hell out of there. i put hand-warmers in my shoes, which helped considerably even though they were about 5 years old and only got about lukewarm. i was already cold by the time i got to the shop, and my toes were starting to go numb, despite 2 pairs of socks in my sneakers, before we'd spent an hour on the site.

driving conditions aren't all that bad overall, but the ice is 2-4" thick, and the overlying snow drifts were about 12-18", depending, on the road i live on. i got out there with a 6" wide flat-blade shovel and busted up as much ice and shoveled as much snow as i could get out of the way after getting pretty stuck this morning trying to leave to go to the bank. one time getting stuck was plenty.

for about 4 months now (that's a guess) i haven't had a heater core in my truck; makes for cold driving, but even worse is having to scrape the interior windows as well as the exterior ones. there's more moisture in the truck than outside it, and by the time we got back to the shop this morning i had to scrape the interiors again. words fail to capture the annoyance, but i suppose it's my own fault for not saving enough money to put in a heater core before the weather got cold....even though it's usually not this cold until January or February around here.

but all that's recent history now, as i sit here drinking the reheated remainder of what was (still, impressively) lukewarm coffee from my thermos, and trying to soak up the heat in the den.

got my tail stomped in fantasy basketball yet again last night. injuries are killin' me. i have a chance to eek out a W this week, but it's rapidly diminishing.

still have the full 6" of snow on flat ground up here, though it's not so pristine as it was when it was fresh. temperature never got above freezing here yesterday, and i'm hearing we might get some more white stuff today. i don't mind the snow, and honestly, the cold is easier to deal with than the slightly-warmer-but-still-cold temperatures and RAIN.

i found this site with some pics of what we've been hangin' (saves me the trouble of posting my own pics). he must have taken the shot about halfway down the page (5 pictures below the heading "And now a series of Christmas light images from Downtown", the photo's called "downtownE.jpg") about 2 weeks ago.

suppose that's all the news that's fit to type at the moment. i'm soon for the sack; all you faithful readers have a good day. PEACE

up the power outage estimate

to about 35,000 statewide.

i met Loren's 2nd cousin Elijah this morning, seems a nice boy with good manners. all three of the variously-sized young-uns are out soaking up a little more snowshine. since i finished my book, i started on Deception Point by Dan Brown; not that i've finished working my way through ...Tristram Shandy yet, but sometimes you just want to read something you don't have to jump to the appendix every other paragraph in order to understand the references the author's making. don't get me wrong; the effort's worth it, but i'm lazy enough to appreciate entertainment that doesn't require as much effort.

tried to get my clock back on the nights by staying up all night last night; hopefully Loren's mother will get back early enough that i can get at least a solid 4 hrs of sleep before i go in tonight...if i had to guess- and i haven't been out in this yet today- looks like conditions aren't too severe for commuting, at least from the north end. not even sure if my partner Benny's had power or not; he might not be able to make it, and i don't intend to call and risk waking him up before about 5pm to find out.

the boys just returned from their snow jaunt. apparently they got in quite the snowball fight, and their heroics will live on in the annals of neighborhood lore for generations, though they sadly came out on the losing end of the stick. can't help but think the outcome might have been otherwise had they not been kicked out of the neighboring apartment complex's playground as illegal aliens. the managers of that complex are on the board of directors of the homeowners association here, along with me. long history of problems from their residents, and rack my brain as i may, i cannot come up with a single instance of Loren's having caused any problems for them...so i'll be bringing that little matter up personally, while i have them conveniently present at the board meeting i called for Dec. 4th. they're certainly within their rights to kick them out- but it was unnecessary. Loren tells me now: the ladies weren't all that nice about kicking them out, but added that they were told they were trampling a flower bed. Loren's response was that it was a little hard tell what was a flower bed when everything's buried under the snow. good for him! she pointed at a sign and told them there were "signs all over" that said only residents of the apartment complexes were allowed there- but she pointed to a sign that only mentioned unrelated things, and he pointed out that the sign said nothing of the kind. i love this kid. i guess the lady finally pointed out one of the actual ones, so they left. gotta smile....love it when Loren knows he's not doing anything wrong and doesn't let people- even adults- just push him around. not that i've ever had a problem with authority, mind you.

those are the same ladies that used a feeble excuse of the "possible impending collapse" of the roof of the basketball court as an excuse to forbid some children of one of their residents to throw a Halloween party there. i was annoyed about that and told them that while i supported their right to make a decision concerning the use of common facilities by their own residents, i thought their concern of damage to the court was an overreaction, and the argument they gave the parent and kids involved was disingenuous. i'm sure they didn't like that much, but i offered it as a personal opinion, so screw 'em.

live and let live, already. seems to work for many who actually give it a try.