- December 30, 2007 -

It was a busy week; mostly I worked on getting the new computers out... that's pretty much all I've done. Towards the end of the week I stayed at Matt & Judy's house with Teresa and we played GameCube on his big TV- now that's a nice TV.

- December 24, 2007 -

Christmas Eve, but today we had Christmas since Carrie is going to Jason's parent's house for Christmas Day. I got a new digital photo frame, GameStop gift card, a shirt, and some cash. I like my new frame a bit more than my old one, it's a Kodak frame, and the other was rather generic... the picture on this one is very good, aside from the dead pixel. With LCD screens a single pixel can often go bad- I don't think it annoys me enough to return it though. It's an 800 by 480 pixel screen, my first one is a 640 by 480, actual photos from a camera are 720 by 480 shaped, so I have to crop them to be more square for the old frame, and now to more of a narrow rectangle for the new one... why they do not make them all the shape of a real photograph I do not know.

- December 23, 2007 -

Mom & Dad put up the Christmas tree a couple days ago, so this morning I put the lights on it, and then Carrie put the ornaments on, it all looked well and good until I came down later and the tree had fallen over. It showed no signs of listing, but with most of the ornaments on one side it seemed to at some point lose its balance.

I watched the last two Lord of the Rings movies today, I watched the first one last weekend.

- December 22, 2007 -

We had Christmas at Grandma's today- It was sad in many respects; Carrie & Jason were stuck in Topeka because of the snow storm, and Uncle Robbie, Aunt Patty, and Holly & Mark were stuck in Perry, so it was a pretty small gathering- just Grandma, Mom & Dad, Brad & Ashley, and Eric, Kelly & Olivia. They couldn't stay long because the weather was getting worse, and when they left Grandma started to cry. She had been hanging on to staying in her house so she could have this last Christmas there.

- December 15, 2007 -

I got a haircut this morning; it snowed all night so the roads were very slick. It was the first time I've really driven around town- it all seems like our neighborhood. After that I cleaned out my fish aquarium, and did the same to the refrigerator. It was fairly empty so I took all the bins and shelves out and scrubbed it out.

- December 14, 2007 -

I took today off to do some Christmas shopping, though I fear I got very little done, and then in the evening MaryLou, Bob, Teresa & I got some KFC and played Nintendo. After that I came home.

- December 12, 2007 -

Oiy, why didn't I charge my laptop????? An ice storm hit last night; we lost power around 9:30pm and it is still out. Limbs are down everywhere, though the streets really aren't that bad, aside from being blocked by the limbs. One of our trees was split in half to the ground so I don't think there's much hope for it- the others might live, but they're certainly not going to be the same. When you look down the street it's pretty much the same in all directions,. and all you hear is the cracking and impact as more limbs break off and hit the ground. Not having electricity is the part that sucks the most though. I called Teresa a couple times and she's warm, watching TV and all around content. Work was canceled today due to the inclement weather, which I'm glad for cause I don't think Topeka was nearly as bad off.

The photo above is of our Green Ash which split from the V down nine feet to the the ground. We're going to take it out and plant something new in its place. Below is the Hackberry, it's pretty beat up as well, but this is the state of most the trees in town.

Mom and Dad are troopers though, they got up at 6am to go over and check on Grandma, and then they went over to feed and let out all the dogs at the shelter. Now Mom is fixing lunch and they debate what type of tree they'll plant on the corner... the consensus seems to be one that isn't any that we had, or has a V in the branches.

- December 9, 2007 -

BBC News can be interesting... For the last six months Belgium has not had a national government and it may soon break up into two separate countries.

- December 8, 2007 -

Saturday, and this weekend I'm staying inside and catching up on stuff, mostly laundry and cleaning. Tonight, through into Monday we're supposed to have an ice storm, so it was a very good weekend for planning to stay in.