We had a nice, quiet Christmas; both kids were here, my mom, and our friend Gina. I made everyone breakfast, and then we did our gift exchange. Rather than buy presents for specific people, we each buy two gifts to bring to the table. Then we roll dice, and depending on the number, pass them left, right, across the table, etc. The randomness is fun, and some hilarity is bound to happen. For example, my mom ended up with the Cuss word coloring book my daughter brought. Mom said she was going to get markers, color the pages and stick them to her door.

Pre-Covid, I would typically go to Gina's house (Gail dislikes NYE, so she opts to stay home). Covid put a stop to that, and this year we ended going out to sushi with some friends. I don't like fish as a general rule (but I love tuna fish on crackers. Go figure), so I got the cashew chicken the place offered. The wife had something called a Steeler roll, which I tried. And liked. A lot. And then my buddy offered another couple of pieces of his.

Lemme tell you what... I might not like fish, but I think I'm changing that to "cooked" fish. Sushi is awesome. I can't wait to go back.

Otherwise, it's back to normal. Work has me figuring out some Salesforce stuff (yuck). We've been having some house work done, and are planning a re-plumb ($$$), and we're looking to head to AZ for the wife's and her dad's birthday.

Happy New Year!

Yeah, it's been awhile. But I have a good reason. A couple actually.

Back in March, my stepdad passed away. He and my mom had been married for 35 years, so he'd been in my life more than out of it. After he died, once a month I would travel the 6 hours to my mom's house and stay with her for a week. It helped her from being too lonely and as I can work remotely, I didn't need to burn vacation. And then my mom decided she wanted to be closer to us.

Happy New Year everyone! 🍾 Here’s to hoping 2022 doesn’t look at 2021 and say “Hold my beer”.

I'm going to ignore the state of the world here at the end of 2021 (or maybe it's just 2020, Part 2), and instead focus on my own personal wrap up of the year, akin to what Spotify does with their 2021 Wrapped. It's a fun, more positive way to reflect on the past 12 months, rather than rehashing the news of the past year. So if you're of mind, please feel free to read on and see what I consumed most this year.

It’s Memorial Day weekend here in the States, and though it may have been one of the coldest, dreariest Memorial Day weekends ever, it was significant in that it was the first time in forever since we’d hosted people for a BBQ and game night at our house, mask free.

It was a small-ish gathering, with ten vaccinated friends in total, and we had a marvelous time. It was amazing just being able to see everyone’s smiles, welcome people to our house with hugs instead of elbow-bumps, and just being able to feel relaxed about being around people in general. We had the grill going, and given the chill in the air, the chiminea as well. Eventually the chill and damp motivated us to move inside, but our spirits weren’t dampened in the least. We ate, played games, drank, ate some more, and laughed our asses off.

It just felt very, very welcome.