Random holiday and post holiday notes

Just some random thoughts from vacation, in no particular order:

2 weeks is either too long or too short of a vacation. Not sure which.

Time with the dog is always well spent. Always.

Time with the cat is usually well spent, except when he's being pissy about something.

Time with the other cat doesn't matter. He ignored me and slept under the couch all day until LullaBelle got home. Except when I had food, then he came out to beg, and guilted me into a snack, threw up 3-4 times (all in separate rooms, for my convenience). Then he crawled back under the couch and went back to sleep... Jerk.

2 weeks without NPR and CNN, and yup... The country is still doomed, people still suck, and Bush is still a moron. Nice to know some things are dependable.

Best Christmas present; "God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History." A collection of translations into English (where necessary) of the great works of math, plus commentary and explanations of what they mean to our lives, why and how each was a leap forward, etc. Yes, I did math on vacation and it was really cool. Reminds me why I love science and logic.

Worst Christmas present; the weather. It should be 20 degrees and snow, and it's 40 and rain. No snow, no sun, just lots of gray and damp. This sucks.

Interupting vacation for work is pretty ok when it's a meeting with a director and she agrees to fund a project you are working on. It helps that she's pretty cool, and I had a senior colleague with me to make sure I didn't goof.

Family is nice, but stressful.

Christmas eve at church was nice. The sermon was good, and managed not to mention tithing. The church news letter that came out right after the holidays mentioned it front page. *sigh* Reminds me that I still need to sit down and write a letter to the vestry to tell them I'm not pledging this year and why.

The good side is, I'm going to pick some charities to write checks to each month and give the money away to people that need, and probably appreciate, the money more. I'm thinking it will do more good than helping pay to put more pasty white in the Wonder Bread that my church is becoming.

It's sick and wrong, but I'm actually glad to be back and work. Still waiting to find out that my new boss eats puppies and kittens, or that my cool new colleagues hold Satanic sacrifices after ours in the conference room. Unfortuately, I might have to come to terms with liking my job, which is a paradigm shift similar to a Fundamentalist having to admit that evolution is real.

More randomness, and maybe even some organizedness, later...