One long post

Well, it's been a while. Lots of stuff to talk about.

First off, another unnecessarily grueling trip to rival the Las Vegas fiasco. I was sitting in the plane on the tarmac, and we backed away from the gate. Then we stopped. We sat there a few minutes, then the pilot tells us the left engine won't start, so we pull back into the gate and deboard. I rebooked through Chicago to Indianapolis, then rented a car and drove the rest of the way home. I got there at 11:00pm Christmas Eve. At least everyone was still there, and awake. I will never try to save money by flying into airports other than CVG again. It is so not worth it.

The actual vacation was cool, but hectic. I was always running somewhere, and it wore me down. I got to see almost everyone, so that was good, but I was more tired when I got back to Austin than I was when I left. I'm going to have to scale back the travel for future visits home.

Speaking of getting back to Austin, I missed the last connecting bus by half an hour, so I had to call a cab from the corner of Trinity and MLK. There was a truck across the intersection that kept squealing its tires and jerking forward, raring to go. This went on for a full five minutes, before he finally ran the red light. That light didn't change to green in the half hour I was standing there. I don't know what was going on, but the pedestrian light would go to red, then back to white, over and over, without the traffic light ever changing.

The next day, I got an email from C saying she was going to give her last ex another shot. Getting dumped by email was a new experience for me. I didn't care for it all that much.

Then a busy week at work went by in a hurry, ending with my evaluation, which came out even better than I hoped. I was very happy with the resulting bonus and raise. You might say it turned a frown upside-down.

I've been working on a video project for a guy at work, and he came over to check it out. It sounds like he's happy with it, which is always rewarding. The next night, he and I and another guy we work with met at the Ginger Man for the monthly beer tasting. It started raining about halfway through, so we all moved indoors, where it was cramped but warm. Outside, the temperature had dropped precipitously since the sun went down, and wind gusts were turning over the wine glasses we were using for the beer tasting.

Ramzi wasn't able to recover anything from the hard drives. Not a big surprise, but still disappointing. I guess I'll need to rerecord some tunes. I don't know when I'll get around to the pictures.

I'm going to start looking for a house in the next month or two, probably in south Austin. Phil says he's sticking around for at least a few years, so we'll probably split it, at least in the short term.

I'll be heading up to Fort Worth the weekend after next for a wedding, so I guess I need to start watching Jim's Lost Season 1 dvds so I can give them back to him while I'm there.

Today I worked out at the building weight room after work for about half an hour. It was the first time I'd touched weights since I completed physical therapy for my shoulder three years ago or so. I decided I'd better ease into it to make sure I don't strain anything. Working out and writing more are my two New Year's resolutions.