Some sad news on the home front. Get a tissue.

Since I don't think Violet could take announcing the news, I've decided to try and find a new home for our dog Sebastian (her site has pics). I just feel both he and us would be better off if he found a home that could take better care of him and give him more attention than we do. I posted an ad on Pet Finder 2 evenings ago and already we've had 4 inquiries about him. We met with one family today, a mom, pop, and 12yr old boy. They seem to be a great fit for our energetic "baby bastion". The meeting went well and we have another scheduled at their house for tomorrow to see if Sebastian will like their environment. They have 1 cat and 1 lizard. Although it does pain me a little to even conceive of putting him up for adoption, let alone going through with it, I believe it'll be for the best of everyone involved, especially our "pupper frog". My main issue with the whole ordeal is Violet's sorrow... she's the one that wanted him in the first place, and we've had him for 3 years and 1 month. Obviously we're all fairly attached.

Listing the advantages and disadvantages of giving Sebastian away for adoption would be somewhat distasteful, so I shall not do that. Suffice to say that I will not give him to anyone whom I don't think will give him a better life than we currently do. After all, he's a happy dog now. Its a difficult, life changing decision. I am not making it lightly.

Finally picked a GPS. Thanks to generous Best Buy gift cards from my folks, I was able to pick up the Garmin c330 GPS today. I like the interface and some of the features, but the route it calculated for me to take home from Best Buy went through several city streets and not the freeway, so I'm not sure I saved any time or distance with the GPS proposed route. Time will tell if the unit meets my high satisfaction demands.
I also looked at the TomTom One and Lowrance 350c, and several others in the $300-$500 price range. Some had some of the features I wanted but there wasn't one clear winner. I finally decided on the Garmin because of free updated POI (Points of Interest), clean interface, and cheaper price. Seeing how I had Best Buy GC I was limited in my choices though since Best Buy doesn't carry Lowrance GPS units.
As a result of this purpose, I have forgone my Xmas 2006 list and won't be getting anything from it. Ah well. Driving around New England SUCKS and a GPS should really help. I hope.

The Mrs. and I spent Xmas day at a friend's house eating lasagna, Oreo pie (which was frickin fantastic!), and playing games. We tried to watch A Christmas Story, but I didn't much care for it so we stopped about 1/4 of the way in. Violet did very well in Iron Dragon. If we had finished the game she had a good chance of winning. I have this week off from work. My plans include finishing NWN2, getting the oil changed in my car, and cleaning the house a bit. Exciting, huh?

Violet got her Xmas present several months ago (80gb iPod) so you can refer to her blog (link is on the right) for that. I haven't bought anything for myself yet. I am looking into getting a GPS, but haven't decided which make/model I want or even if the cost justifies the the device. Fortunately we've paid off all our credit cards except one, so that makes me very happy. It only took a several years :) But I digress...

Happy holidays everyone! As my mom says, I hope you got everything you wanted and wanted everything you got.

I enjoyed the 3 part mini series The Lost Room.
It was very different, fairly weird, and entertaining in a Clockwork Orange kinda way.
If you didn't catch this Sci-Fi show, then you missed out. They've got a lot of other good looking shows on the horizon too. Like The Desden Files. A few others too. I approve of Sci Fi taking on more original series. Good for them.

I still wanna know what the coat hanger does.

Well, *I* wouldn't want one of these weird tech watches, but I'm not afraid of robots from the future. Speaking of weird tech, check this out.

Violet's favorite thing to do for Xmas is to look at lights. New England homeowners appear to "get it" and we've seen some really nice lights this year. Nothing as good as the crazy light guy at the top of the hill in Escondido, but he was special. Anyway...

We went to this supposed amusement park/light extravaganza called Edaville. It was South of Boston a ways, just a few miles from the King Richard Faire in fact. Since we had a doc appointment in downtown Boston we decided to visit the Red Robin down South since our proximity wasn't too much farther and Violet LOVES Red Robin. There aren't any anywhere near here North of Boston. But they might be building one next year. Anyway, the park probably 89 mins from home, which is a good distance but not too bad.

Apparently our camera works pretty crappy in the dark while moving. They had a train that took us around the entire park and I took several pictures. But they all turned out blurry or too dark though. Bummer deal.

The lights were OK.. Here's Violet near a pair of animated kissing reindeer (Rudolph finally gets some). It was mainly a park for small kids, maybe under age 10. Its a cranberry farm outside the winter months, apparently. We went on the Ferris wheel and the carosel and I tried Fried Oreos for the first time (The more you ate, the better they tasted).




The train ride was OK. Here's a pic of me in front of a train they had on display. I have the same model train (HO scale). Oh you didn't know I did model railroads? Oh my yes. I have lots of trains, many of which are antique, miniature houses and activity scenes, lights, and US-1 Electric Trucking. Its like a racecar track but you control semi's and you can backup on special tracks to load and unload stuff like logs and gravel and such. I loved it as a kid. I had it setup on a large pool table cover in the garage back when we lived in SoCal, but alas, I haven't had the space to build it back up. :(

We wont go back unless we have some small kids to tote along, and the 14 dollar cover price was a little steep, but overall it was a nice time spent together. And I suppose that what really matters.

Regardless of your political preferences, outside your financial status, and beyond your cultural heritage... We're ALL GONNA DIE. That'll solve traffic, but not in the way you probably want.

Everyone knows about it, but everyone ignores it because of propaganda, ignorance, refusal to believe, despair, or whatever. Well, stop ignoring it and DO something about it. Start by watching the movie An Inconvenient Truth. Don't just be aware of the truth. Accept it. Believe it. Live it. Otherwise, you won't be.

There's so many sad things going on in the world, but this is probably the biggest threat to the American way of life that I can think of. In fact, it's a threat to everyone's way of life.

Being in the Boston area, there are numerous Italian sandwhich shops and restaraunts. All mom and pop shops, really.. not a lot of chain restaraunts here. Anyway, My latest craze has been the Chicken Parmesan dish. Its bascaily Chicken, Cheese, and Marinara sauce. Im not a big fan of the sauce but usually its not real sauce with bits of onions and tomatoes in it. Bleh. But I've acquired a taste for it and have ordered it a lot in the last few weeks.

Parmesan is the common term for any cheese similar to Parmigiano Reggiano DOP. The word parmesan is derived from French referring to the original Italian Parmigiano Reggiano, such as Grana Padano, a hard, grainy Italian cheese close to Parmigiano Reggiano.