• Two days left until Christmas.   I think I can make it.
• He who complains that I make the coffee too strong gets the distinction of being the guy who convinced me to stop making coffee.
• My aunt and uncle came through town on their way south to spend Christmas with one of their sons and his family.
  • My uncle observed that there was an 86 degree difference between North Dakota and Kentucky.
  • One of the things that I’m most angry about with my parents was that when they divorced, they took away our extended family.  It’s good that we are reconnecting.
• There are few things I like more than a good fire on a cold evening.
• I have discovered an inability to exhibit self-control when attending a family pot luck.
  • The only thing I’ve got going for me is that I stay away from the desserts.
• Watching Star Trek TOS with Boo is a wonderful way to spend a winter evening.
  • Even he notices all of the women that Captain Kirk seems to find.
• This year, for Christmas, be both practical and generous:  give ammunition.

• I was putting some things up and making some munchables today and it occurred to me that I’m using implements that I will be passing on to my kids.
  • There was a time not too long ago when I didn’t expect to get more than a few years out of anything I purchased or made.
  • Now, I’ve got guns and cooking implements that I know will be owned by my kids and grandkids.
  • When did that change happen?
• Of course, it rained today.  It was only in the 50’s and I have two guns that I wanted to take out to Knob Creek to try out.
• For the record, I’m not using an old family recipe to make krumkake.
  • As a matter of fact, I don’t have any old family recipes.
  • I’ve had to figure them out on my own via friends and the Internet.
  • Half the fun has been trying this and that to try to approximate things that my grandmothers made.
• It is impossible to surprise a woman who notices every time your cell phone rings.
• The Grinch was a great character until he got off his meds and let his heart grow.

• A vendor took us out to lunch today.
  • I ate so much I felt ashamed of myself afterward.  Going to the car felt very similar to the walk of shame up the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Monterey on a Sunday morning.
  • My compliments to the chef, though.  It’s not often that I am both satisfied after finishing a plate of food and disappointed that it’s all gone.
• If the weather cooperates tomorrow, I think I’m going to take the new shotgun and the Chipmunk out to the range to give them both a try.
• Irish Woman has asked if we can go shooting together over Christmas.  I am definitely going to take advantage of this opportunity.
• Apparently Oprah Winfrey, Rudy Giuliani, and some baseball coach I can’t remember are people I’m supposed to emulate when it comes to communication.
  • If I ever meet the author of that book, I’ll tell them that my good examples are R. Lee Ermey, Fred Flintstone, and George S. Patton.
• I really ought to be baking, but I just can’t get in the mood.  Guess I’ll do it this weekend.  If I could find a Norwegian bakery in Louisville, I’d probably skip it altogether this year.

• Mental Note 1 – Crash has no problem leaping 4 feet off the ground and hanging by his claws.
• Mental Note 2 – The center of my chest is exactly 4 feet off the ground.
• Today I managed to get pissed off at the same person three times.  That’s gotta be some kind of new record.
  • For the record, it wasn’t the Irish Woman, who has the patience of a saint, or anyone else that I care about.
• I’m probably in trouble with someone for telling the lady blocking the aisle at the grocery store with both her cart and her body that she was the reason that the baby Jesus cries, but I felt much better afterward.
  • Apparently it was more important to block the aisle and harangue the store employee who was preparing more samples of something deep-fried than it was to let the rest of us go about our shopping and go home.
• I better get points in the afterlife for refraining from telling the little girl, who was sitting on the floor of the grocery store and screaming herself hoarse because her mommy wouldn’t buy her whatever it was that caught her eye, that Santa died last night in a drunken brawl at a leather bar.
  • I can’t say I wasn’t tempted.
• My coffee shop has a drink called a “Beekeeper”.  It’s cinnamon honey, steamed milk, and four shots of espresso.  I got one today with two extra shots.  The Irish Woman dubbed that “The Swarm”.
• Today was gray, bitter, and cold.  It fit my mood perfectly.

• Good Day – Going to your favorite range to shoot a pistol match with good friends.
• Great Day – The range is having their Christmas open house, so you get a cup of good hot coffee to ward off the cold and wet while you shoot.
• Awesome Day – You get a call from the front desk of the range while you’re getting your safety briefing telling you that you won a gun from the drawing you entered when you got your cup of coffee.
• The best thing I can say about the weather today was that it wasn’t raining frogs.  Then again, shooting in nasty weather is probably good training.
• Like I said, the best I can say about my performance today was that I didn’t get DQ’ed.  I did better than I thought I would, though.  It’s been a long time since I shot anything other than paper; I definitely need more practice at shooting on the move after drawing from the holster.
• The new gun is a Chipmunk .22 pistol.  Basically, it’s a single shot, bolt-action .22 LR target pistol.  Honestly, it’s not something that I’ve ever considered owning, but hey, free gun!
• For once my mil-geek self did something right.  When Irish Woman was looking for something to use to hang the ornaments on the tree, I remembered that I had a roll of old tripwire downstairs.
  • Rather than be scandalized by this, Irish Woman seemed quite happy to use strong, thin, almost invisible wire to decorate the tree.
  • Now to boobytrap the lower branches against the cat.

• Today I had two vastly different experiences when visiting small businesses.
  • In one business, the owner was working the counter, and as far as I could tell, my friend and I were the center of his universe.
  • In the other, I’m not sure if the yutz who waited on me was the owner or an employee, but apparently it was more important to make jokes with other people in the store than to sell me something.
  • The first guy gained a new long-term customer.  The second guy may have just lost one.
• It’s not every day when I meet a gun store owner seems excited to meet someone from the local Friends of the NRA chapter.
  • Not only is he offering to let me put up signs and posters in his store, but he also says he’d be happy sell our raffle tickets.
• Script drafting rhythm:
  • Hour 1 – Stare at computer screen, trying to visualize how the procedure you wrote down on a legal pad is going to look in PERL.
  • Hour 2-3 – Wrote PERL like a boss!  Oh my gosh, this is awesome!
  • Hour 3:05 – Hit the wall like a bad actor in an over-powered Porsche. Go back to staring at computer screen.
  • Hour 4 – Go get some lunch.  Think.
  • Hour 5 – Get over issue from Hour 3:05.  Make a little more progress.
  • Hour 6 – Give up for the moment.  Realize that the solution to the problem will come to me at 3:27 AM when the antagonist in my dream will taunt me with it.
• Going to a Christmas party tonight made me realize what our home would look like if we didn’t have children.  And if we had time.  And money.
• It’s been a long time since I had good scotch.  I must do it more often.
• We took one of Irish Woman’s co-workers out to Claudia Sanders‘ the other night for real Kentucky cuisine.  It doesn’t get much more Kentucky than fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans with ham and onions.

• I’m not sure what was the low point of my day – being stuck four times to get four tubes of blood, being asked to leave the exam room while the doctor spoke to my daughter, or power-augering out the drain from our laundry room.
  • Yes, I know I have every right to be in that exam room while my child is in there, but Girlie Bear gave me that “Please!” look
• You know why plumbers are so expensive?  It’s because they’re worth it.
  • I saved a couple of hundred dollars by doing it myself, but for once I’m not sure I came out ahead.
• I got out a big bunch of tree roots from the drain, but it came along with a guest.
  • I’m not sure whether the thing that came up with the roots started life as a dryer sheet, a bleach towelette, or a baby wipe, but it was apparently the secret sauce on the clog.
  • Yeah, I don’t know how it got down there either.
• Tonight I followed a family tradition and made a dinner that my spouse doesn’t like while she went out for dinner with friends.
• I showed Girlie Bear how to make hunter’s stew out of good, high quality ingredients, which cause the meal to cost about $6 to prepare the entire meal.
  • I also discussed the cheap way of doing it, which would have brought the cost down to about $3 to feed a family.
  • She will be able to make both versions before she leaves for college.

It is never a good sign to be running a drain snake down a pipe and come back with tree roots.

That about sums up my day.