GPS...

We got my 17 year old a GPS for Christmas. It's something that is right up his alley and was a big hit. Then a co-worker asked me if he was going to go geocaching. I had no idea what he was talking about.

Now we have researched this little known sport and I'm jealous. I want a GPS too. I want to sneak around the woods and plunder treasure.
He and I are going to do a few local caches together. There are actually quite a few around us, which was a bit surprising to me. After that we are going to plan our own cache.

I'm actually excited about this on a couple of levels. It just plain sounds fun to me. But I also think it will be a great experience for the two of us. It gets harder to stay connected through shared activities as kids get older. He can go hunting and such with his dad. They can continue to bond. It's harder for a teenaged son and his mom to find those opportunities.

A very MP3 Christmas...

It was a very MP3 Christmas around here. One of my twins wanted a player and he got one with 512MB and expansion slot, FM radio, and voice recorder. We got my daughter-in-law a 5GB Olympus m:robe. I got an 4GB RCA Lyra. Everyone screamed at each other all day because we all had earphones in.

Electronics were abound. Other gifts throughout the house included software, a portable DVD player, a home theater speaker/DVD set. All in all a very geeky Christmas, just like I wished for!

I hope everyone who wanders here had a beautiful Christmas with family and friends.

TV commentary...

Watching the RME awards last night that featured the reality show winners (and some losers) reminded me that I haven't put my two cents worth in on the TV season. So here goes...

Survivor - a perennial favorite. I was not a fan of Danni. She skated through and I think that is a cheap way to play that game. She didn't outwit anyone. She sure didn't outplay anyone. She merely outlasted and that is only one piece of the Survivor mantra. I was rooting for Gary and when he got voted out, I was pulling for Stephanie. The people who were pissed at her were so ridiculous. The alliance of five couldn't all be sitting there at the end. If any one of them were to switch places with her, they would have had to do the same thing to the same people. She just beat them to the punch. Hello - it's the outwit part.

Biggest Loser - I was SO glad Matt won. He wrestled for my hometown. He looks great and so deserved to win. He had the most heart and the most desire and it paid off. Who knew that the show would turn into the Dating Game and that Matt and Suzy would end up together??

Amazing Race - I was disappointed a bit with this year's teams. My favorite team, the Gaghan family, finished sixth. Overall, there weren't as many teams to pull for or to hate, for that matter. There was the dysfunctional Paolo family who started out in the lead as the ones to hate. Then they pulled together and I kind of could tolerate them (although the oldest son was still VERY hatable). It ended up that the Weaver family was the most annoying. I started out feeling sorry for them. They had recently lost their husband/father in a racing accident and seemed lost in the world. Then the very un-Christianlike comments they hurled around one second followed by deep praying for help and guidance in the next exposed them as petty, nasty, pretenders. Little clue here - don't think God cares if you find the road on the map. He's busy. Spewing rude comments from your SUV to bypassers not involved in the race is not going to win you any heavenly rewards. By the end, I was happy with whoever won as long as it wasn't the Weavers.

Apprentice - (Donald's version. Can't stand Martha.) Very happy with Randal winning. He was clearly the leader throughout. I got really tired of Rebecca talking about her damned ankle. It wasn't a hurdle in the competition. In Survivor - yeah, then we'd have something to talk about. In The Apprentice the challenges are mental, not physical. Randal was dealing with the death of his grandmother. That is something that could affect your mental performance. He didn't whine about it. He didn't point it out at every turn. Hell, by the end, Trump seemed to forget about it. During the finale he talked about how brave Rebecca was not to turn tail and run home to mommy. I was surprised, but pleased with Randal's decision to only have one Apprentice. Rebecca was sweet. She's also only 23 and very weak sauce. The best candidate got the job.

Deal or No Deal - I can see where this might get old after a while, but I was drawn into the premiere last night. I'll be watching all week.

Vacation...

I can't remember a year that I looked forward to time off so much. I'm not going anywhere or doing anything - I just need the break.
For the last eight years, I have taken off the week between Christmas and New Year's. This is the first year that the week is in serious jeopardy. There are several end-of-year deadlines that need to be met. I'm not sure they will be done by Friday, which means I'll be back at the office for the last week of the year.
I'm going to really lay into things this week and pray that I can get them done because I can't remember the last time I truly hated to get up and go to work as much I have lately. This short break is needed beyond measure.

Twelve days of Christmas...

On the twelfth day of Christmas my shopping cart was full.

• Twelve lousy fruitcakes


• Eleven pairs of slippers


• Ten o'clock store closings


• Nine miles from my car


• Eight hour sales


• Seven elbows flying


• Six packs of egg nog


• Five credit cards maxed!


• Four shopping malls


• Three drunken Santas


• Only two checkouts open


• And a rebate that won't come 'til next year!

Geek Christmas...

Found this on bbspot.

Top 11 ways Geeks celebrate Christmas

11. Mountain Dew-nog
10. Printing out "One Year of Free Computer Service" certificates to give to the family.
9. Designing elf-killing levels for your favorite FPS.
8. Explaining to children how it would be physically impossible for Santa to deliver all the presents.
7. Wear mistletoe hat and keep fingers crossed.
6. Devise a computer-controlled system to detect and prevent household members from trying to peek into their presents before Christmas.
5. Put a santa hat on your avatar.
4. Change the blue neon lights in the case to flashing red and green.
3. Decorating the tree with SDRAM and CPUs burned out from your last overclocking experiment.
2. Rewriting Christmas carols in Tolkien's Elvish.
1. Programming the christmas lights to flash out "I hate this holiday of unbridled consumerism" in binary.

Yes, I have done some of these. I'm not ashamed.

Management...

Often people I work with forget that I am in management. I think it is because I have a small team and not only manage, but still program. As much as I have tried to get away from it, the work seems to increase to match however many people I hire and I still end up with a portion of the programming - just to get it done. For the people from the other teams, this blurs the line and I am considered "one of them".

This is a good and a bad thing. I regularly get an earful of how management is the bane of the world and if they would just all die and go away, life would be good. Hello???? Another idiot thought it was smart to confide in me that he was using corporate resources to work on this side-line business and was mischarging time while working on his own stuff. (Um...he doesn't work there anymore.) I hear the gossip that other managers don't hear. I'm considered a "cool" manager - kind of like being the "cool" mom.

Then a day like yesterday happens. There was a corporate decision to kill a project. It's not my project directly. My team is a support team for the project. I was part of the management team that went in to tell everyone that they need to look for new jobs. I felt like there was a knife in my gut. There is never a good time for something like this to happen, but the holidays make is that much worse. Hiring falls off this time of year while bills increase.

As we left, a team member came up to me and asked why I had been included in the meeting. When I replied that I was part of the management team she said, "Oh...yeah." Maybe my cover hasn't been blown after all.

Decorating...

I love Christmas decorations. I'm not that keen on the actual decorating, but I love them when they are up. Normally I get our trees (yes, we put up 2) up Thanksgiving weekend, but this year I got a nasty flu-like bug that zapped the life out of me on Friday. Frankly, I just couldn't get my ass off the couch to do it. I'm just to the point that I can start thinking about it again.

I didn't get a flu shot yet this year. They gave them at work, but I missed them. With channels of communication available like email, the intranet, hell - even the phone, the company decided it was the BEST idea to just run off little flyers and place them in the stairwells and on the main building doors on the morning of the shots.

Of all the days for a gentleman to step up and hold open the door for me, that was not a good day. We chatted as he pushed open the door, his hand conveniently covering up the flyer. I went to my first floor office and promptly began my morning, not venturing forth until nearly noon, when I discovered the flyers. They organized the shot giving alphabetically by last name and I should have gone between 8:00 and 8:30.

Here I was - unprotected and vulnerable in a sea of immunized co-workers. I felt naked and alone.

And now? My Christmas decorations are late. The injustices of the world never end.