Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

Category: Holidays

  • Independence Weekend

    So what does July 4th even mean to people any more? A day off from work? Shelling out the bucks to buy enough fireworks to blow up your house? I have to admit, I’ve caught myself thinking along those lines and forgetting why we have the day off and what the fireworks represent. But the way the world is screwed up these days, who knows?

    Anyway. Busy weekend. We took the kids to the Pet Parade, and the festival in the park, and my parents came over for steaks, cake, and fireworks. Beautiful weather, all weekend. The rest of the weekend was spent on yardwork; trees got pruned, some edging got done, bark dust laid down, garden got weeded. The lawn hasn’t recovered much from the dethatching, but no matter.

    Oh, and I finished up Ender’s Shadow and plowed through Shadow of the Hegemon this weekend, too. It’s been awhile since I’ve gone through 2 books in a single week. Dunno if I’ll keep up with it.

  • Get Father’s Day

    What a neat Father’s Day it was. I got to lay around the house, drink some beer, played some Dukes of Hazzard: Racing for Home (you haven’t lived until you’ve jumped the General Lee over anything with the horn playing. The reviews at Amazon aren’t so hot for this game, though. Go figure). Also I picked up a couple of books for myself, Groovitude: A Get Fuzzy Treasury, by Darby Conley, and How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker, with a Barnes & Noble gift card from my in-laws.

    Get Fuzzy is one of the funniest strips to come along in awhile (for me, anyway). Reminds me a lot of Bloom County (one of my all time favorite strips) with liberal doses of Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side thrown in.

    So for the past 2 days I’ve been reading Groovitude and chuckling. Interestingly, the early versions of Rob is visually very, very similar to Steve Dallas from Bloom County.

    Ooo! The freshmaker!

  • The Holiday Season, Round One

    Thus the season of celebrating and eating lots of fattening food commences. The “big three” holidays of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years (I always lump Christmas and New Years together, because it’s like a week-long holiday to me) are always more action-packed for my family, because of the way birthdays in my family fall around this time of year.

    Start with Halloween. We always end up with lots of candy left over. Two days later, my daughter’s birthday. Big one-two punch there. She just had her third birthday two days ago, and it was lots of fun. I swear, my kids get more presents than anybody.

    Short breather through the first half of November, then my Dad’s birthday falls on the third week, soon to be followed by Thanksgiving. Eat far too much, and enjoy pie afterwards.

    Another short breather, though it’s not enough to fully recover from Thanksgiving. Then my Mom’s birthday the first week in December. You’d think that would be it. Wrong.

    My birthday. Two days before Christmas.

    Then Christmas Eve. Big family dinner.

    Christmas Day. Eating rivalling (some years, surpassing) that of Thanksgiving. Again, my kids get more presents than I’ve ever seen. We then coast along on Christmas food and goodies until New Years Eve, which basically consists of a buffet-style meal of Christmas leftovers, alcohol, and noisemakers. We don’t usually stay up very late anymore, with young kids and all.

    Finally, it’s all over. Everyone breathes a big sigh of relief, then hunkers down for the winter.

    Don’t get me wrong. I love this time of year, I love the holidays and all the birthdays and the good food and family and giving gifts and warm fires and decorations and snow. It’s my favorite time of year.

    And we’re already done with a third of it.

  • Procrastination; Father’s Day; Summer Reading

    Ack. I’ve been letting my mutant ability for procrastination take over on this site, and I haven’t even finished getting the relatively simple stuff done that I had intended— like, making the “Check it Out” area handle more than one item, or putting up more background material. Or perhaps I shouldn’t chalk it all up to procrastination; my interest level in various projects ebbs and flows like the tide. Probably just got caught up in an eddy before getting back on track…

    And of course, today was Father’s Day. It was a good day; I got several books and got to spend my day playing with the kids and relaxing. And got to drink some Pike Kilt Lifter (though it was flat).

    My summer reading list:
    • Content Management Bible by Bob Boiko
    • Programming Jabber by DJ Adams
    • Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King
    • Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

    And more to come…