New Year's Day Update

My little corner of the interweb's been in dry dock for a few days. I've been poking around, doing other stuff. I've noodled around on Facebook and even Classmates here and there.

And I've done a few things around the house.

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But happy new year, everyone. 2008, wow. I didn't think I'd live this long.

Nah, just joking.

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The holidays have been fine. We were geographically spread out all over the place due to a nefarious combination of MOBB's zero time off, Wolfboy's daycare closure, my time off, and, uh, sunspots.

So MOBB worked, Wolfboy stayed with his grandparents in Corsicana, and THEGIRL and I headed to Brazoria County to see family. And she was a little trooper, traveling for hours and hours with no complaints. She got along well with her cousins, slept in a new environment, and gave some love to her Angleton grandparents.

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All that driving made my butt sore though. Really.

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Random gift mention #1:

I got a couple cool Asian-themed necklaces. One has this pendant.

A definition I found somewhere of this symbol, the Buddhist eternity knot: This intriguing symbol - one of the eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism - symbolizes the intertwining of wisdom and compassion, the perfection of knowledge.

Sis asked me about it, and I paraphrased that as best I could.

Her response: "What do you want on your hot dog?"

Biggest belly laugh I've had in quite some time.

The other is the Kanji symbols that mean "yes." I've been wearing them both quite a bit.

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Random gift mention #2:

THEGIRL got this princess lamp.

The view from her bed. She'll be talking about this particular gift in therapy 30 years from now, I'm sure of it...

I admit, we got it at Dave and Buster's. Hey, we won a bunch of tickets and cashed them in for toys and stuff. I'm told that getting one's kids some Christmas gifts at Dave and Buster's is sorta ghetto.

Excellent.

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I spent yesterday working on the van, which has had a rough idle yesterday. I went to put in new spark plugs, as I figured this was the cheapest potential fix for that problem.

Tools and other implements of destruction I used to change them: 5/8" socket, socket extender, pliers, vice grips, screwdriver, shoe string, and salad tongs. I'm not kidding.

And I only got three changed, as the other three were just insanely impossible to reach. I mean, one of them is only accessible through a little hole that's about one by two inches... and it's probably ten inches below that. And the van's still idling kinda rough, so I guess the three plugs I DID change weren't enough.

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We had a fine, low-key new year's celebration. On a whim at the last moment we asked some neighbors over. We watched a Harry Potter movie, had a fine conversation, at sweets, ate jalapeno artichoke dip, drank bubbly, drank coffee, and were in bed by 1am.

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Anyway, it's a new day. I'm in a better mood than lately, the kids are sort of behaving, MOBB is up, and I've got some important sitting around to do. Take care.