Over the Holiday...

The posts have been lacking again - sorry about that. One thing lead to another...it was an evil domino effect. Horrible stuff those dominos. Evil dominos of blog prevention.

The holidays were nice. Had a great visit with A&E, ate lots of turkey and marveled at how quickly time can fly when you're having fun. Took a great road trip - Dublin Dr. Pepper plant in Dublin, TX. It's the oldest Dr. Pepper bottling plant in the world. Pretty interesting really. AND, we got to see the world's largest cedar rocker on our way there. Nifty!

Got lions and tigers...only in Kenya.

Then, once you've digested that... 5 more minutes.

Wheeee....

I Love This Time of Year

It's a beautifully crisp night out tonight - weather that reminds me strongly of the Northeast. The air is very cold and smells like decaying leaves and far-off chimneys. Your breath hangs in the air after you exhale or talk...it just feels right. I really love this season the best, but can't point to just one thing - it's a combination of them all.

Mrs. Monkey and I are getting things in order to put Thanksgiving Dinner on the table this year. It's going to be a lot of fun this time around - we'll have Mrs. Monkey's mom and grandmother here, as well as our good friends A&E. We're very excited about the full table. I'm going to cook some of my famous pork stuffing and Mrs. Monkey is making her famous pumpkin pecan pie. Yum!! Any favorites out there? The stuffing is something my mom made every year and I just LOVED. I could eat it all by itself by the pound. What was your family's favorite dish?

Oh, and I have a TV in my office that stopped working a few months ago. It just all of a sudden up and died one day. Was the strangest thing... Well, I've tried to turn it on and see if it's running a few times but the status hasn't changed. So, I was sitting in there the other night, and I just had this feeling I should turn it on and check...I ignored the urge for a while, but finally I turned it on, just to appease the notion. Well, sure enough, it was working again. It was the weirdest thing. But, at least it's working again.

A Bit of This...A Bit of That...

Oops - missed a few. Well, you didn't think I'd make it all the way through the month posting everyday anyway, did you? I actually thought I might be able to, but oh well. Hey - I'm still going to do my best to finish out the rest of the month strong.

So, the Stars made a few moves today. They fired Doug Armstrong as the GM and replaced him with Les Jackson (who I think was the director of scouting operations - could be wrong) and Brett Hull, who will be "co-general managers". It's an interesting twist, and I didn't see it coming, for sure. I saw the writing on the wall for someone, and had a feeling it would be either Armstrong or head coach Dave Tippett who would get the axe, but I didn't think that Hullie would be one of the replacements as GM. He's definitely loved by the fans...maybe owner Tom Hicks and team president Jim Lites wanted someone in the front office that the fans wouldn't get angry at. Hard to get mad at the man who gave us our one-and-only (so far!) Stanley Cup.

In non-sports news....well, there's just not much non-sports news right now. My buddy Trog (I'll call him that for reasons known to him and the world of WoW) and I are going to see a theater screening of The Menagerie, which is a 2-part episode of the original Star Trek series. It should be pretty cool - we're both Trek fans (and not Trekkies...just don't have that kind of time to devote to a TV series....any TV series). That's on Thursday. Will let you know how it goes. They reportedly have cleaned up the film and turned it into a high-definition projection with stereo surround sound. It's hard to do something like that when your original is mono (I think it was recorded mono) and in "Panavision". But, fingers crossed....

Random fun video of the day: Wanna Buy a Ghost?

Apple Dinner

Today at work we had an impromptu visit from some Apple representatives. It was interesting, because I'm not completely Apple Certified yet, and don't have anyone that I work with who is...I am therefore at a loss, sometimes, as to how to use their help pages and support site. During the visit, they cleared up a bunch of things which was nice.

They also let me know about a "Bench Table Live" event that was going on this evening, and told me they would be doing some live demos, giving some explanations about the support site and providing food. Well, that was all I needed! It turned out to be a really nice event. The event was at the Palomino Hotel in Dallas - a relatively new hotel in a pretty nice area (right near SMU and Mockingbird Station). The food was VERY tasty, and the information was helpful. All in all, a good time.

Other than that - a quiet day. Thanksgiving is getting close, and A&E will be visiting. Mrs. Monkey and I are really looking forward to their visit. They're great friends and we have a great time whenever they're around.

Back to my hockey game and my beer... Oh, FU-D - you can get beer towers at several places around here, including Humperdink's (all their locations) and Blackfinn in Addison. Enjoy - and bring a designated driver...