Tuesday, December 21, 2004

I love winter. To commemmorate the first official day of this season, I bring you this little video.

Monday, December 20, 2004

Hated it.

That is all.

A few things caught my blogging eye this morning. Most of ya’ll read these blogs already, but I wanted to highlight them for you anyway.

Dean has a very interesting post about the origins of a very recognizable symbol. It just goes to show that you can’t always assume that a symbol was designed for good or ill.

Rob posts on the profundity of a classic Christmas cartoon moment.

Bill posts on the imponderables of Joseph and Mary at the birth of their son, Jesus.

1. It’s wicked cold out there today. Wind chill around -10F. Shiver.

We had a short snow squall yesterday that didn’t amount to much - a patchy dusting in places. Nothing on the roads. And yet…

2. Schools are closed in Prince William County today. ECD had to be in early this morning, so I was going to take care of getting Nee ready for school. After walking Annie, I went up to get coffee and she told me that schools were closed.

ME: You’ve got to be kidding me.

ECD: Nope. (She then gave me instructions for getting Nee to the sitter next door, which was much easier than getting her ready for school, but still...)

ME: As a taxpayer with no kids, this drives me crazy.

And there ensued a mini-debate about the merits of school cancellations and the responsibility of the school board. The main responsibility of the schools is to educate, not to accommodate parents’ hardships with childcare if they work (we were discussing the merits of the 2-hour delay, which might have made more sense, but was equally unnecessary). It’s the responsibility of parents’ to deal with childcare. And how is getting to work late better than not going to work at all for a lot of parents who don’t have regular daytime childcare lined up?

So later, while I was driving in, ECD called to see how it went.

ME: Fine. Nee was happy.

ECD: Maybe they closed schools because of the cold.

ME: If that was a valid reason for closing schools, then no one in the northern tier would go to school at all in the winter.

ARGH!

Sunday, December 19, 2004

We turned into my parent’s subdivision and I gave directions to the cul-de-sac we wanted.

“Turn right here,” I told ECD. She started to make the turn and almost immediately burst out laughing. And then I caught my first glimpse of what I’ve dubbed The Inflatable Farm.

“You thought I had exaggerated this didn’t you?” I asked between chuckles.

“I did,” she gasped.

She parked on the other side of the cul-de-sac and we both took pictures of the display. Other cars were pulling to look as well. Nee wanted to do a video (her own take on a live news shot), so we pulled right up to the yard. She was in the middle of her “live shot” when a car pulled into the driveway! The owner then walked down the driveway as I was dealing with a fallen plant in the back of our SUV. He pulled a lit train thingy across his driveway and went back into the house.

What’s amazing is that all of the neighbors have understated white lights and decorations. I think he’s added more from the last time I saw it - used to be you could actually see grass patches, but not this year. Amazing.

Saturday, December 18, 2004

We had a day of major cleaning around the house. I’ve been clearing out empty boxes that have piled up and consolidating things that will go into storage into fuller boxes. I’ve also been cleaning stuff off of the old computer and copying it to this one. That’s slow going because the old computer is slow to begin with and I have to copy/move the stuff using my external zip drive.

ECD is trying to get her house in order before her trip to her hometown for Christmas. I think we’ve come to the decision to split the expense of hiring a cleaning service to come in every other week or so to do the deep cleaning that we just can’t manage. Between our commute/work hours and her attention to Nee in the evenings, it just ain’t happening.

We’re taking the pooches to get groomed this afternoon and from there we’ll go to my parents’ for a quick visit and to see the house with the inflatable character farm on their front lawn. I will post pictures later.

Can you believe that Christmas is in just a week?

Friday, December 17, 2004

Rule #1 for bloggers that is never, never, never to be disobeyed and yet is frequently to my everloving horror:

Do not have music playing on your blog. EVER.

If you feel you must have that perfect song, never set it to automatically play upon loading of the page.

If you just can’t obey this simple rule, then please put the control box at the top of the page - do not make us hunt for it to make it stop.

Sheesh. My ears are bleeding and I have my volume set very low. I can’t imagine what the outgoing volume was set to at that page I surfed into at Blog Explosion.

Yeah, I love that he has his own website.

I wonder if Miss Beazley will get one of her own as well?

I’m on the mend, but not 100% yet. Still have to be careful about what I eat, as I found out this morning. So I’m home and self-treating with BRAT - bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. For some reason this combination of foods always works for me. I should have stuck with it yesterday, but I couldn’t resist the Christmas party food.

Jonathan & Victoria. Read the entry for Dec 16 (no permalink). Excuses are presented of which I am highly skeptical, but who knows?

Thanks Christopher via comment on the earlier TAR6 post from Tuesday.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

If you don’t understand the sport of cricket, then this lead will be very confusing.

PERTH, Dec. 16. — Justin Langer survived Shoaib Akhtar’s incisive opening pace barrage and retorted with his 21st Test ton, as Australia recovered from 78 for five to 357 for eight at stumps today on the first day of the series-opener against Pakistan here at WACA Ground.

Hurling. Now that is a fun sport to try to understand when you casually happen upon it on TV. My dad and I had a good laugh when we did just that a few years ago. We spent about an hour watching this odd game, trying to figure out the rules of play since the announcers weren’t going to give that kind of assist. They were Irish/Scottish, it was a championship match, and it was on an international station.

Yes, we call it a Christmas party. How un-PC of us, being a gov’mint agency and all that.

We do a pot luck lunch party and I can smell the sterno from my office. We have a rather large spread of delectible food that I’m terrified to eat because of my problems from yesterday. I’m still not feeling 100% and it totally sucks because that food looks and smells heavenly.

meatballs
wings
cocktail weenies
pasta
burritos
queso/chips
homemade salsa/chips
spinach dip
and so on…

*sigh*

ADDED LATER: tamales, ham, Filipino noodles, deli platter, chicken Divan.

I didn’t mention the desserts earlier either: cookies, eggnog cheesecake, pumpkin/gingerbread trifle, cake…

*double sigh*

I did eat a small portion of the chicken Divan (heavy on the broccoli), pasta, a potato roll, and some Triscuits with spinach dip. I’ll see how that settles before attempting the trifle, which looks amazing.

Via Rob, who may owe me something for the gratuitous linking the past couple of days. (Kidding)

Go read his amusing list. I can only dream of being that clever or witty.

Three names you go by:
Jen
Freakin’ Jen
Jen Speaks

Three screennames you have:
Jen
Freakin’ Jen
Jen Speaks

Three things you like about yourself:
I’ve got good hair, even on bad days (or so I’m told)
I’ve got good skin, even on bad days (or so I’m told)
I’ve got good teeth, even on bad days (or so I’m told)

Three things you hate/dislike about yourself:
I get cranky a lot
I’m a complainer
My booty

Three parts of your heritage:
Scotch
English
Native American

Three things that scare you:
Our prisoners (mostly the gang members)
Public speaking
Clowns...wait! Puppets...wait! I can’t think of a 3rd thing.

Three of your everyday essentials:
Prayer
Lunch
TV

Three things you are wearing right now:
Band-aid on right middle finger
USMS logo denim shirt
My favorite khakis

Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment):
Nickel Creek
Third Day
Chris Tomlin

Three of your favorite songs at present:
Star Spangled Banner (at all times)
You Are Mine - Third Day
Wonderful Maker - Chris Tomlin

Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months:
Shooting a gun
Finish reading The Chronicles of Narnia
Re-reading The Lord of the Rings

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):
Honesty
Loyalty
Fidelity

Two truths and a lie:
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
There is a God and He loves you.
Walt Disney was a genius.

Three physical things about the opposite sex (or same) that appeal to you:
Able to do heavy lifting
The scratchiness of beard stubble
Deep, rumbling laughter

Three things you just can’t do:
Basic algebra
Rock climbing
See without glasses

Three of your favorite hobbies:
The blog.
Dream of writing a novel (not the actual writing of the novel, just the dreaming about it)
Music

Three things you want to do really badly right now:
Eat solid food without suffering disastrous consequences.
Quit work.
Finish my Christmas shopping.

Three careers you’re considering:
(I’m content where I am, however I’ll list those I have considered in the past)
Chef
CIA Analyst
Law enforcement officer

Three places you want to go on vacation:
Home
Scotland/England
New Zealand (I want to see The Shire/Hobbiton)

Three kids names:
Courtland Bob (since Jaynee & Denis opted not to use it)
Samantha Jane
Female Brown

Three things you want to do before you die:
Get married
See a game at every ballpark in the US
Hang with the Bush family at Kennebunkport

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Molly found them.

I imagine the interview with Elijah and Dom is hilarious. My favorite thing about the Fellowship extras is the banter between the hobbits. If you haven’t watched Fellowship with the cast commentary on, then you must - very enjoyable.

Tig. Tog.

Cable has been out for most of the afternoon. I called Comcast at about 4pm and there’s a major outage for most of the county. I finally had to resort to unplugging the phone cord from the TiVo (!) to the computer so I could get online for a bit.

I’m skipping the cookie exchange in the neighborhood tonight, as is ECD. I’m not feeling social after my day and ECD isn’t either. She’s not even home yet and the thing is supposed to start at 7pm. She’s going to take our cookies over and make our regrets to the hostess.