Had Red Lobster w/ Eighmee, Ryan, Kitt, and Sean. Played some Halo, etc... g'night.

post-christmas greetings! we had a good one. christmas eve was on wednesday. we slept in a bit, and got over to my grandparents place around noon-ish. we had a good time playing the trivia game Cranium, and eating ribs, raviolies (sp), etc. We started opening presents around 5:30 or so. We didn't get anything too spectacular there, but we had a great time none-the-less. We were home by around 7 pm. Ryan came over a bit later after he was done with Christmas things at his aunt's place. He's been really effin' sick (flu-like shiet). That night he, Eighmee and I had a little gift exchange from which we all got some neat stuff. I got Eighmee a bunch of Lord of the Rings stuff she wanted. A book bag, and a 'spinning' ring. Ryan got my a bad ass Mikasa wine bottle opener. Stuff like that.

Yesterday, Thursday, Christmas, we got up damn early around 7am, and drove up to Eighmee's parents house in Valley Springs. T'was good seeing all the pups as well as her parents. The 'ranch' is looking nice as always. We spent probably around three hours there and did a little gift exchange. I got $50 from her parents, and she got $100. From there, Eighmee and I drove to Mike and Jennifer's place near Lodi. There we spend a bit of Christmas morning with mom, and them. Jennifer made some great lasagna. After a couple hours there, it was back into West Lodi to Eighmee's sister's place for the remainder of the day. We had lots of good eats there. Eighmee made some cookies that we brought. We got Zack Halo for XBox for Christmas, so I spent the later half of the evening engaged in alien killing. :o) Around 8 or so, after a small gift exchange we headed home, and got to relax a bit by the fire before having Ryan, Kitt, and Sean over for a little gift exchange. Kitt got us a gift certificate for Red Lobster (roXXor :o)

Today, Friday, I had to get up and come to work, but it's been a super easy day here. The parking lot is almost empty; Tim, Norman, and I spent the morning at Starbucks, and now I'm blogging. :o) g'day...

allow me to paint a picture. i sit in front of my desk, slouched in my chair, in my apartment in Stockton, Ca. It's three days to Christmas time. Two days to Christmas Eve when my family does all their Chriistmas fun, and when the 'Christmas Chaos' begins. all the presents are bought and wrapped, and under our tree that sits in the corner of the room, near the front window facing the street. it's lit with all it's lights on, and a ring of multi-colored lights line our window. A 5lb Sunny Select wax firelog is in full force in the fireplace behind me. I'm not too hungry, not too full, after having a great lunch with the guys from work at Red Lobster here in town. Eighmee's asleep on the couch, as was our grey, fuzzy cat Keke until a minute ago. He just came over to be petted a minute ago, before wandering off down the hallway into the bathroom for a drink of water. Our bird Tino to my right, content in his own world, periodically pecks his cage making a 'thing...' noise from time to time. For the past two hours I've been logged into work. Not doing anything terribly difficult. I've been tasked to write a replacement for our document storage / retrieval system at work. It's the kind of development I can say I really enjoy doing: No users using it yet, no demands, just pure creativity until I'm ready to release it into the wild. when i'm done typing here, I think I'll go chill out and read some Melville. Overall: Content. :o)

another day past and lots of goings on... today we got up around 10, picked up Ryan, and took him back to the used car dealership in San Rafael, exactly one week from the day we went, and he and Kitt test drove it. Today, with everything in order, he's the proud new owner of a 2000 Subaru Impreza RS. It was a foggy, rainy day in the Bay Area, and his new car did quite well keeping up with me coming back to Stockton.

Oh, yeah, I just checked the Delta College website today: I got an A in Spanish. w00t!

I had a weird night last night. Got home from work yesterday at about 5:30. Had a glass of wine, and talk a bit with Eighmee. By 7 i was asleep on the couch, and didn't budge until about 3am when Eighmee went to bed. We both went to bed and read. She's been reading a Stephen King series of books, and I finally got back into reading Moby Dick. (just past pg. 300 last night) We both killed the lights around 4:30, but I slept so much, I couldn't go back to sleep. So I just got in to work, but I've been up since 3am. ..it just feels weird. It's still dark out. (I'm normally not into work until nearly 9am.) Anyways, just though I'd blog that.

While I'm at it, I'll mention that I had my final in Spanish class on Tuesday. I know I did a piss-poor job on it, but I was doing well in the class, so it shouldn't affect my grade too much. It's nice to just be done with that class. -d

With the holiday season it's been quite hectic. Healthtrio is still on target to go live within the next few days. I had a second dentist appointment yesterday to get two cavities (or 'pits' rather) filled. I had school last night (only Thursday, then the final on next Tuesday left!) This past Sunday Eighmee, Ryan, and I went shopping all day long (12pm to 9pm) for Christmas. I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $700. We went to Cost Plus World Market, Target, Macy's, and various stores in both the Sherwood and Weberstown Malls.

Week before last we had a pretty cool experience. Eighmee, Ryan and I went up to Apple Hill, a christmas tree farm up past Placerville. It took us about 5 hours to find the right tree once we were there, but it was fun driving all the way back with our tree strapped to teh roof of the Pilot. :o)

I did my oral report on Nicaragua for my spanish class last tuesday. I got and A. W00t!

All right back to the grind...