I know I have been uncharacteristically quite as of late. Not really sure why. I don't even have a good excuse. I had a great set of Holidays. I got some fun toys to play with and bought myself the ones I didn't get.
Christmas was good to me. I ended up with a small, but adequate indoor/outdoor grill. It's fine for myself, but I was thinking about having everyone over for a barbecue and decided that it wouldn't be adequate. It's a Big George grill. The fire codes at my apartment say that I can't have a gas or charcoal grill on my patio, but they don't have a problem with an electronic grill. That's exactly what this is. I also got some walkie talkies. They are tiny little things, but they have a 2 mile range. My brother and I used them to talk back and forth on the way back from Abilene to Dallas. Definitely some handy little gadgets. I wanted them for camping and road trips. One of the other cool things I got from my Christmas list is a book called Masters of Doom. It's about John Carmack and John Romero the founders of id software and the brains behind Doom. It's a great book. I have been reading for the last couple of days and I can barely put it down. I saw it on Thinkgeek.com, but I never expected it to be well written and interesting as it is. I highly recommend it. I got several things for my apartment, but no wall art. I'm going to have to make an effort to put stuff on my bare walls. It's past time that my apartment looked like I lived there rather than just stayed there. Well... we won't count the mess that I leave after a couple of days of dropping stuff off and picking things up before running out the door.
Dezi got me a coupon book with fun date ideas. I have yet to put one in play, but I'm looking. I thought long and hard and finally decided on what I thought would be the perfect gift. We had talked about learning how to ballroom dance, but never seriously. I know it's something she would really like to do and it's something we could do together. I purchased a gift certificate for a private lesson at Arthur Murray Dance Studio so we could figure out what we wanted to learn and go from there. I think she was pleased.
I spent and awful lot of time reading/listening to audio books (usually while driving) over the Holidays. I managed to get almost everyone in my immediate family hooked on my audio book of the Davinci Code by Dan Brown. Very good book, even to listen too. I finished Wizard's First Rule by Terry Brooks. Not for the squeamish. I thought I could figure everything out, but there were some twists that I wasn't expecting. I also listened to Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card. In my opinion, not as good as Ender's Game, but it set it up for a great sequel. I'll have to find that one too.
I spent Christmas Eve with Dezi and her family and then drove to Abilene on Christmas Day. I had been looking for my cell phone that morning and couldn't find it. I even called and woke Dezi up asking her to keep an eye out for it. As I was leaving Frisco, I heard my phone going off from behind me. Apparently it had fallen out of my pocket and was in the back seat. I pulled off at a gas station in Lewisville and began filling up as the phone went off again. It was my mother asking me if I was on my way to go pick up Jeff. Apparently their car wouldn't start and they wanted me to come pick them up. I headed up to Denton were we pack up and the three of us headed out of town. After we got to Abilene we went straight to my Aunt Sheila's house. Rachel, my 1.5 year old cousin, was put down for a nap that was obviously past due. We had lunch and started to watch Pirates of the Caribbean (I still haven't seen the whole thing since I bought the movie). We interrupted the movie to open presents as soon as the start arrived. Rachel was having a great time. I managed to be the one to remove the toys from their cardboard prison after they were opened. Rachel definitely had no patience for the intricacies of removing the wire and trying to get it out of the back of those toys. She would stand over me and hop up and down until I ripped open the package and gave her the toy. I only did that a couple of times, but that's usually after trying to finesse it and failing miserably. We had a good time and Rachel was fun to watch. The big present she received the night before was a self powered car that she enjoyed getting in and out of more than she did moving it around.
Friday Jeff, Sam, mom, and I drove to Quanah for Christmas with my mom's side of the family. When we got there we discovered that my grandmother had been taken to the ER for evaluation. I'm sure there are several reasons, one is that there were a whole bunch of people in their house. (I think we counted 26.) The other is they are in their 80s and have failing health. When they were taking her blood pressure something happened and they were getting a reading saying that the diastolic number was above the systolic. (I don't know if I have those reversed, but it's the one where that's not supposed to happen.) She ended up being fine and was brought home about noon. By that time the we had pretty much finished getting everything prepared for lunch. The daughters had brought items for a Mexican feast. I put myself in charge of cooking the already prepared enchiladas. Everything turned out fabulous. The four of us headed back that night.
When we got back I called my friend Braden. He and I discussed getting together and he told me that his uncle was in a band that was playing in a bar that night. His whole family was going to go and wanted to know if I would like to join them. After agreeing to meet at 8:00, I ran off to eat dinner with my parentals. I showed up at the bar at 8:05. I looked around and decided they weren't there, so I pulled up a bar stool and ordered a drink. The band was already going. They were very good. It's hard to describe their sound. They were more of a Texas Rock band. Elements of blues and country in their music. I enjoyed it, but I sat there for an hour waiting and decided I had spotted them and hour and it was time to leave. Of course as fate would have it, Braden said they showed up right after I left. That's the way it always happens.
After I got back to Dallas I had a few days of bachelorhood before Dezi and her family got back from Colorado. I bought a GMAT book and went to visit with Matt and Christi. Matt had a really cool painting that I liked. He had it commissioned from "Elwood" outside of the Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Dallas. It used paint on top of plaster and canvas to give it a textured look. Elwood also said that Matt looked like Gomer Pile which I think is particularly funny b/c Matt looks nothing like Gomer Pile.
