Christmas Snapshots

		ABOVE: My brother. Or maybe a character from Chicken Run. We're not sure. LEFT:Mom hard at work...
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Another year, another catchup post

Once again I find myself having skipped weeks at a time in this blog. So I will once again follow my time honored tradition of using a bulleted list rather than actual descriptive writing. (Thank God for <ul>!)

• Drove 12 hours home for Christmas, barely making it in time for my Mom's Christmas Eve service. (Wouldn't want to know the consequences of missing that one.)

• Hung out with family.

• Spent a full two days working on the office computer network at the church. Got the new front office machine and the fax/printer working. But my Mom's laptop crashed 6 times in the first two hours, including one crash requiring a fresh ghosting from the recovery CD. Sent that sucker back to Toshiba, which means that I'm probably going to have to fly up again to finish this project. Someone from work mentioned that a friend's daughter works as a techie in DC but has to fix her Mom's computer whenvever she comes home to Tennessee for the holidays. Meanwhile I live in Nashville and have to fix my Mom's computer whenever I'm home in DC. Maybe what we need is a nationwide cooperative of techies who agree to work on other people's parents' machines in return for "credits" that could be used to buy tech support for their own parents. Hmm....

• After valiant attempts to lure various northern friends to Nashville, I again copped out and went to Boston for New Years. Actually, I convinced my brother to go with me, which was fun. Except for the fact that, due to his non-existent finances, we drove, and it took 12 hours in each direction. On the way there, we ate at a nifty little diner north of Baltimore. On the way back, we met up with my friend Brian in New Jersey. Yes, that Brian.

• In Boston, I visited a bunch of friends, helped unload a u-haul (after we spent over an hour trying to dislodge the stuck door), watched a New Years Parade and some fireworks, ate Indian food, and watched football.

• Drove back to DC. Arrived much later than expected, so scrapped plans to continue to Nashville. Instead met up with other brother, made grocery run, and made fajitas. (Parents had just hosted a lobster dinner for a friend, but us kids weren't invited. Oh, well.)

• Finally got out of the house around 11 AM the next day. Drove all day and arrived back in Nashville around 11 PM. The total for the trip was around 2,500 miles, which I believe is more than I drove in the first 11.5 months of 2004.

• Went to work on Tuesday. As day wore on, my disturbing cough became worse, and tiredness and disorientation set in. Despite this, stayed until late at night trying to get caught up.

• Woke up Wednesday and could barely move. Called in sick and spent day sleeping and/or wishing for death. The worst was the high fever stage around 8 P.M., when I called my Dad from under a pile of blankets and pillows, figuring that I should relate the contents of my last will and testament.

• Thursday was a lot better, although I stayed home from work again to be safe. I actually felt up to some simple cooking, so made some of my new favorite oatmeal that my Hibernophile parents hooked me on over the holidays.

• Back to work on Friday. Ugh.

• Saturday slept in, then did some things around the house. Filled a few photo orders from the reunion I shot back in October. Went to see A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was visually stunning but didn't really grab me. Went grocery shopping for a few things. Read Fist Stick Knife Gun, a fascinating book about urban violence given to me by my brother.

• Sunday, the cable guy came and fixed my fuzzy reception. Pondered the looming pile of grad school applications, but didn't really do nearly enough work on them.

• This week has been work punctuated with various other things. More on the other things in the next post.