Technology is awesome

Let me start by saying that my wife is a genius!!! I absolutely love her!

For this holiday season, I opted to update (read: replace) some of the technology in the house and that resulted in the need to upgrade a few additional peices of our technology. As with most technology, all of this stuff is Internet connectible. The problem is it requires networking magic to make it all happen and I am not a wizard of the network (nor do I have the patience to be a wizard). This is where the Magi Queen comes into the picture.

I won't bother to list all the goodies, but lets just say that my TV talks to the Internet, the Xbox is rocking more than just games, the disc player talks to everything and I think we can control all of this stuff with our phones and computers.

Being off work this week has given me a chance to figure out the basics of this stuff. Today I was playing a game on the computer, playing one on the Xbox, streaming radio off the Internet, and watching a TV, ALL at the same time. My mind was a little overloaded but the sheer coolness of being able to do all of that simulaneously is awesome.

Look, we live in a world of cheap electronics, fast computers, Internet connected everything (just look at the newest refrigerators!!) and everything else that the imagination can conjure up. I think it is awesome but at the same time, I question, are we really any better off, are we really any smarter?

I don't know about you but I don't think I am any smarter but I sure am having fun with the toys! Thank goodness for my wife that seems to be a heck of a lot smarter!

And everyone plans to sleep good ...

Wow, what a day. Cant go into details now. Thanks to everyone that came over today, thanks to everyone that helped, thanks to everyone that participated, we had fun.

The dogs are exhausted. The cats are tired. We are out of it.

Merry Christmas.

Pre-Christmas happenings ...

I hope your days have been as crazy as ours lately and I hope you have enjoyed it too. I don't know what is more tiring, the week leading up to Christmas or the weekend of Christmas. I think Big E would say that it is the Pre-Christmas run up that is more tiring.

We've had a blast the past two weeks with family happenings, work happenings, friend happenings, shopping happenings, and more ..... Now, we are trying to prepare for a really BIG Christmas Eve day and night.

Tonight, we had a party with our surrounding neighbors. We aren't exactly in the same age bracket as most of the neighbors (most are retired) but with that said, we have a great set of neighbors. We are truly blessed to live in an area with older people that can provide wit and wisdom for us. The party was a nice break from cleaning and baking.

We are hosting two different parties on Christmas Eve (tomorrow).

In the morning, we have my family coming over to open gifts for all of the kids. This was the only time that all of the kids (regretfully this does not include my sister since she is so far away) could be in the same place for an hour or two. So, Big E and I will be cooking breakfast, serving breakfast and laughing as our kids and nephews open presents. I am truly looking forward to it.

In the evening, we have Big Es family coming over to open gifts, play dirty Santa (why is it called that), eat and catch up. Everyone brings food to the evening event, which means you have no idea what you will be eating but you know it will be good and plentiful. This is a yearly family event and I really enjoy it each year.

I don't know what we will be doing the rest of the holiday, but I bet we will be sleeping in on Christmas morning. What you ask, sleeping in on Christmas? Yes, our "kids" are older and think getting out of bed before 10:00 AM is early. I kinda envy everyone with little people waking them up at 4:00 AM screaming about Santa Claus.

In the meantime, I think all of the stockings are hung, all of the gifts have been delivered or are wrapped and under the tree, nothing has to be put together (thank goodness), and the kitchen is cleaned (finally my mom gets to see the house clean!!!), so I am going to bed .... Happy Christmas Eve Eve, Christmas Eve and Merry Christmas.

Pride, my belly and Christmas Shopping

As you can imagine, our family is like most other families at this time of the year, we are shopping for Christmas presents. One of the problems, is that I tend to get frustrated after an hour or two and start to shop for myself!! When I know what I am after, I am one of the best at getting in and getting out. However, the idea of spending all day "browsing" for the right thing does not make sense to me.

I can not be specific about the gifts and individuals, but I have really been blessed with some good ideas, thoughts and strategies this year. Maybe I paid attention to "hints" or maybe I simply lucked up, eitherway I've hit the jackpot on ideas and prices in many cases.

With that said, I spent yesterday ... "browsing". This resulted in me shopping for myself. I bought a new pair of jeans. I've had two pair of jeans give up on me lately (ie. the crotch area literally blew a big hole in each pair). You can put a patch or even ignore a hole in your jeans in any location but the crotch (I'm modest like that!). I should say that both pairs of jeans were five plus years old, one was probably closer to eight or nine years old.

So, I took a break from Christmas shopping and went Stephen shopping. Since I haven't bought new jeans in several years, I went with the size that I remembered buying last time (34 X 30). I've been that size for many years. However, when I got home, the jeans had shrunk!!!! .... or I bought the wrong size? I tried squeezing my way into the jeans (and could!! haha) but I couldn't breath after I cinched the last button.

As a result, I went Stephen shopping again today, to exchange the jeans for a slightly larger size. This is when it got funny. The nice lady at the store asked if I underestimated my belly!!!!! She better be happy its Christmas time or I would have ....

Aside from that, I managed to knock out most of my Christmas shopping. I still have an item or two that I am considering for my beautiful bride (she deserves it all) and I have a Christmas Eve gift to purchase, otherwise, I am done. I hope everyone enjoys their gifts as much as I enjoyed shopping, digging, brainstorming and other painful "ings" for them, but I also hope that everyone stops to remember why we celebrate Christmas and enjoy the family and friends that we share these moments with each year.

One last thought, its really nice having children that are old enough to purchase gifts on their own, with their own money!!!!! With that said, there are some items that they can't purchase. Today, one of them learned that she could not purchase a movie for her mother. No, it wasn't a dirty movie like that, but it was a rated R movie and she isn't 17 or 18 whatever the age limit is for rated R movie's. I guess I will have to make one additional stop to handle this purchase.

Last, to my Mom, the girls have requested frozen dinners for Christmas. You know what they want and it will be great to eat out one less night a week. Thanks!!!