End of the Marathon

On the thirteenth of December, I began a magical journey.

It was that day that I began my non-stop all-out work-every-day effort on the Weapon's System Handbook. Well, part of that is a lie. Admittedly, my primary motivator when I hauled myself out of bed everyday was to earn enough extra hours in one pay period to take a big swatch of time off around Christmas. Because I travel home (from VA to MI) for the Holidays, I had to decide early on how many days I would take off. Meaning that I had to come up with twenty-four additional hours this week, or pay exorbitant cancelation fees from the airlines.

My original plan had me working nine hours a day for eight days. The obvious problem here is that I wouldn't get home until very late every day. The less obvious but more pressing problem was that I tend to either run out of work or run out of energy before nine hours. In the end, I came up about two days short and had to burn through my comp. leave time.

Yesterday, the big decision was whether or not to go into work and make up the -.15hr I now have. I decided against it.
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That's not very interesting, but do you know what is interesting?
CHRISTMAS.

As mentioned earlier, my plans are to trek up to Michigan followed by the annual Indiana Pilgrimage. However, Christmas has found a home at 1801 DeWitt. About two weeks ago, Claire and I bought a very small Christmas Tree while coming back from the Cathedral. It's about 3.5-4ft tall, and is one of the famous Frasier Fir trees.

Most people may not remember this, but in the mid- to late-90's a survey was released which placed the then-unkown Frasier Fir as KING OF CHRISTMAS TREES. And I can see why. The needles are fat, blunt, and resiliant. Its perfection of shape and structure is such that it sometimes looks more like a fake tree. As far as needle-retention goes it is peerless. I clipped several branches and used them to fashion a festive spray for the front door. These branches have had no water for over two weeks and despite being very dry are still supple and have all their needles.

I was also able to score some LED Christmas lights for the first time ever -- they are awesome, and also ECOLOGICALLY FRIENDLY. Or they at least lead you to believe that they are, and that's all that is really important anyway.

But it's what's under the tree that counts, and this year that has included some excellent woolen winter gear and delightful Christmas ornaments from Claire (in addition to a delicious meal) but also gifts for the faithful hound Tenzing.

From Tenzing

Click to see the exciting battle between Tenzing and a tasty bone wrapped in paper towel. I figure that everyone deserves to unwrap something.

From Virginia Apartment: Awesome

Happy Holidays to you and yours!