Restive State

It was a truly eventful holiday season, so much so that I haven't had a chance to write anything about it. Suffice to say the picture above just about sums it up. We spent Christmas at the in-laws. The day before we got there, the TV broke. I'm not a huge TV person, but it is nice to have it around. But it was broke adn the girls nearly had a fit. So we did what all goo red-necks do: put the working TV on top of the disabled TV... I really feel like part of the family, they even fight in front of me. But I did spend most of the weekend performing tech support for bot my father and sister in-law. I guess that goes with the territory. I keep thinking I need to start charging for that... Like I said though, it was great. For once, I totally surprised my wife with her gifts. She was not expecting what she received adn she loved every one. Finally, I've learned how to do this.

But it was good. Along with millions of other people this year, I too unwrapped an iPod (the 512 Shuffle) and absolutely love it. I won't go on about it, because it has already been written, but this was rather funny: "iPod Shuffle Voted White Trash King". The confirming factor of that was that Wal-Mart was basically sold out of every iPod accessory they had, except a couple of iTrips and iTunes cards, (now remember this particular Wal-Mart is in red-neck country). I keep joking with my wife that we need to stop resisting, put a car on blocks in the yard, start dressing up in wife-beaters, knock out a couple of teeth and move into a single-wide. For some reason it just doesn't appeal to her and I don't know why...

And like this kid (who may or not be real), I didn't get an XBOX 360 either. Which suits me just fine, I have enough to do without plunking myself in front of it for the rest of Spring Semester.

And speaking of Spring Semester, I only have 1 more left. That's right, in about 18 weeks, yours truly will have to ability to test for his license. It scares the hell out of me, but I know that it will be a good thing. There's just a couple more hurdles to jump through, like Microbiology and Advanced Med-Surg Nursing and of course my senior "project", Capstone. But as the saying goes, I've made it this far already, now is not the time to start slacking. Today I've been consumed with getting things ready, getting into classes and making plans for the end fo school, all the while freaking out about whether or not I'm good enough to get into what I want to get into. So much for self-confidnence, eh?

But a word about New Years. We live in a small town in Northern Arizona. Not particularly small, but small by my standards. For New Years, we drop a Pine Cone. Yes, a Pine Cone. I'm not making this up. They hang it off of one of the old hotels in downtown with an LED sign counting down to New Years, and it drops just like the Ball in Times Square. Of course at about midnight +2 minutes, they hoist it back up, ruining the illusion. But it is fun, cram hundreds of people, many of them very drunk, on a cold night into a public area and call it a party. Hilarity ensues. People started yelling and screaming 10 minutes before midnight, in a bout of prematurity. The bars emptied and we became close friends with many stranggers in the mad press of humanity that flooded the streets. This year we couldn't even count right, as the crowd was totally off from the clock, but corrected itself at about 4 seconds before. So another year ended in the same way it began, loudly, racously and with great fanfare. Here's to a better year!

'Til later...