Off to Lord's Valley, PA to hang out with college friends for New Years. My friend is looking for fun things for us to do -- so far the options include a cement museum and a fishing lure museum.

Merry Christmas!

Urgh. Somehow it has fallen to me (again!) to go pick up the $#@*!%$ Honeybaked Ham. For those not familiar, this is a cherished holiday tradition that involves standing in a long outdoor line in a suburban Maryland strip mall to retrieve a hunk of meat. I'm just bubbling over with holiday cheer about this, if you can't tell.

Stayed at work until 4:30 AM on Saturday finishing up odds and ends, then slept for a while, packed, and left town Saturday evening. Drove as far as Bristol, stayed at a hotel, then drove the rest of the 675 miles today. (Of course I had to stop at my Mom's favorite barbeque place on the way out of Nashville and load up a cooler for her!)

The sky was absolutely beautiful driving up the Shenendoah valley on I-81 -- there was bright golden sunlight coming from the west with highlighting fluffy white clouds. But to the east of the mountains you could see a solid wall of black clouds. Every once in a while the ridgeline would dip and you could see brightly colored clouds underneath it all.

I'm in DC for the next few days, then heading up to a friend's place in the boonies in Pennsylvania for New Years, then back here for a dentist appointment (fun!) and back to Nashville sometime roundabout the 6th.