Merry Christmas!

It's been a whirlwind couple of days, and it's not letting up just yet! Yesterday I took Ashley to work, as mall employees are not allowed to park at the mall during the couple of days before or after Christmas. A few hours later I drove over to her cousin Robin's house for the Coleman Christmas party. It was very fun, and I got to see a lot of Ashley's family that I'd not seen in a while. The kids were especially cute, Skyler, Jaden, Derek, Chloe and Mackenzie. And the food Robin served was delicious! Uncle Greg is looking much better after a bout of appendicitis that was complicated and left him in the hospital for two weeks. Jenny and Kim were up from New Mexico, so that was a pleasant surprise. Ashley called a few hours into the party to be picked up, and I raced out the door. Of course, the roads are still awful. In the process of trying to get on the road, I almost rocked Ashley's minivan into a passing pickup, and then very nearly crunched into Aunt Kim's Jeep that was parked across the street. By pure chance, the entire family was watching out the window. So by the time I got back to the party with Ashley, I had earned a new family nickname: "Crash." I didn't actually hit anything, but everyone found it hilarious that I had come so close. On the ride back to the party I gave Ashley her present early, so she could show it off to the few people that were left. I got her a pair of diamond solitaire earrings, 1/4 carat total in white gold screw-on mounts, from Zales. She was thrilled.

This morning I went to mass with Ashley's family, and spent the morning opening packages at their house. After a quick breakfast, we drove up to Greeley to visit the Campbells, Ashley's father's side of the family. Her aunt Sharron had cooked a wonderful Christmas dinner for everyone, and I got a chance to catch up with everyone on that side. Ashley's Grandpa Bob and Grandma Betty seem very pleased that I'm still dating Ashley. We stepped out rather quickly after the gift-giving, and went to visit my Grandma Doris and Aunt Nancy. We stayed there for a bit, and I tried to help Nancy with her computer, but even after getting her camera working with her computer, I'm afraid I just caused more questions. We raced back to Ashley's to visit with Jenny and Kim while they were still in town, and I came back home.

So far this Christmas, I've made out pretty well. The prevailing themes for my gifts were food, SmartWool socks, and Norman Rockwell artwork. Ashley's family, for lack of knowing me, gave food and cash, which makes me happy. Ashley had all sorts of good ideas, and got me three pairs of SmartWool socks (which are really warm and yummy to wear), a Norman Rockwell calendar, a pair of leather dress gloves to match my jacket, and a USA Zippo lighter with an engraved monogram. Yay! And Kristen got me a Norman Rockwell coffee table book with some of my favorite works of his, like Willie Gillis at the USO, The Marriage License, and The Runaway. This has really been a great Christmas! I hope all of you had a great one as well!

Semester Ends Early

Last night, my physics final went better than I had expected, so that was good. This morning I woke up to heavy snow. This isn't that unusual for Colorado, we usually have one or two good snow storms every winter. I drove to work, a little more slowly than normal, and tried to press on with today's project, jumpstarting two vans and taking them through emissions. After an hour I had very little progress to show, and the roads were getting much worse, so I decided to cut out early and come home. Now I'm really glad that I did so. The news is saying this is a fairly major blizzard, at least 2 feet of snow with drifts up to 4 feet.

The blizzard has shut everything down, and I've just received an e-mail saying that my Arabic written portion has been cancelled! And that, my friends, means I am done for the semester! [Does the happy dance] I'm stuck at home for a day or so, but I can handle that!

Dead Week

Last week was the end of classes, and we had some good reviews for all of my classes. Friday morning was my Arabic oral exam, and that didn't go as well as it should have. I thought about all of the things I knew how to say all week, but when I got to the room, I just froze. I stopped thinking and had to listen to every line a few times before I could decipher the meaning, and half of the questions I didn't even remember how to respond. Oustad suggested that I really needed to get a speaking partner to actually practice with someone and get used to listening to an accent. He pity passed me with a C-. I've got another chance to bring my grade up in that class, Thursday is the written final.

Saturday was Jackie's graduation from CSU (yay!) so Ashley, Kristen and her family, and I all drove up to Ft. Collins. There we met up with Jackie's family and Kelly. The ceremony was relatively short and sweet, and Jackie must have made the speed record for getting across the stage. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree with a double major in Biological Sciences and Psychology. Jackie's parents offered to take everyone to lunch afterward, but I had to leave for my Algorithms final. The test went pretty well, but there were a couple of fairly difficult questions. I'm optimistic.

Sunday and Monday were fairly relaxed, with some sparse cleaning of the house. Monday evening Jackie and her father came to unload Jackie's life at Alcott, and then headed on their way. Jackie's family is now on vacation in Hawaii, so aloha! I've got my Physics final in a little over an hour and it's going to kick my ass, so wish me luck!

A Very Green Christmas

So this past weekend was my December drill for the Army Reserve. It was a fairly laid-back weekend, spent at the drill hall. On Saturday I found out that SGT Lant had been replaced as the S-6 section sergeant, replaced by SFC Zimmerman (or Sgt Z). It should be a good change, I think Sgt. Z has more experience being a section sergeant, and SGT Lant and SGT Nieto will still be around to supervise. I missed out on a PT test that nobody told me I was supposed to take. I sort of knew a few days before when they posted the training schedule, but no one told me I was supposed to take part. I wasn't really prepared anyway. So instead, I spent my time helping revamp the drill hall's commo systems. The big deal was fixing some of the phone problems. We mapped out the phone jacks, toned lines to find the other end in the closet, and tried to get the correct extension on the correct phone line. We were pretty successful, but there's a lot more work to be done.

Sunday morning was our Class A inspection. Of course, I looked sharp and received no negative comments. It was Family Readiness day, so afterwards I met up with Ashley and introduced her to some of the people in the company. We sat through a very dry briefing on insurance, and went to lunch. Everyone came back to see Santa (who was really MSG Kanan) give some gifts to the children, and after that Top let us go for the day.

I've been nursing a cold since Sunday morning, but I think I'm over the worst. Dayquil and peppermint herbal tea are getting me through.

My Christmas Stocking

Christmas Stocking

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Vision of the Future

I think I just saw a lot of people's social lives cry out in agony, and then... silence. The PC Gamer Podcast just hinted at a rumored product in development. I haven't listened to the podcast yet, but here's a blurb from the article summary:

"... CPL to require drug testing, and a Firefly MMO in the works! Will we find Serenity? Tune in for our nerdgasm."

Could this be true? I don't know, I'll have to give the audio file a listen.

Not My Night

This night was just really crappy for about 2 hours. I get on the bus from campus to Broomfield, and we're not even out of Boulder before the bus gets in an accident. A biker appeared in front of a car, which stopped, and the bus didn't stop as quickly. Luckily, no injuries. Alright, that isn't great, but I get off, grab some coffee across the street, and board the next bus to Broomfield. When I get back to the park-n-ride, I find that I've left my lights on all day. Again. So I go for my handy-dandy jumpstarter battery pak. No dice in the cold. Called the insurance's roadside assistance club. Handy, but the wait is 40 minutes. So I broke down and walked around the parking lot with jumper cables in hand, looking dejected. Eventually I found a kind soul who got me squared away. Guess I should take this as a sign that I should have stayed for Arabic study group tonight.

Crafty Weekend

Good end to the week. We didn't get much more snow Thursday and Friday, but it stayed cold as all get out. Our Arabic teacher went out of town, so I was able to sleep in a bit, and that was nice. Saturday we got a little more snow, and Ashley and Kristen had another craft fair to run. I helped them set up, and ran off to buy a very important Christmas gift. I spent a lot of the day relaxing on my own, and in the evening Ashley, Holly and I tried to entertain ourselves at the mall. We ended up back at Alcott, watching the first DVD of the Dune miniseries. Sunday Ashley and I shopped around at the craft fair for a bit, then tried to find an open photographer's studio. This close to Christmas, of course, there were no studios with open appointments. In the evening, we all hung out at Kristen's house watching TV. It was also supposed to be in celebration of Kristen's 23rd birthday, but we didn't really do anything special for it.

Just two weeks of classes left, then finals. And only 1500 more days in the Active Reserve. Those countdown gadgets on my Google Homepage are so handy!

Wish I were an artist

Ok, webcomic fandom rant. If Rich is going to keep putting his female characters from The Order of the Stick in sexy outfits, then someone out there with some art skills is going to have to draw some fan art of them. I know I can't draw worth a damn and would not do these sketches justice. Three instances come immediately to mind: Celia in the New Year's dress, Sabine in the schoolgirl costume, and now Haley in the black Nale dress. And to a lesser extent, Julia. Alright, maybe I'm being a tad sexist, so perhaps the artist should do some sketches of Roy in his fancy getup, just to be fair and unbiased. Mmm... Sabine...