Sunny, Cool!

So the weather guessers were wrong as far as their predictions for 1-4" of snow down here in the valley yesterday and today. I am not surprised, they are generally wrong more times than they are right. In any other industry or profession they would be fired based on averages alone. I guess everyone needs someone to fill up 5 minutes of their day with gibberish.

While I may be down on the guessers don't misinterpret me and think that I am unhappy they were as usual, wrong. I am actually really happy because not only did it not get windy yesterday (If you know me you know that I hate the wind). All said and done, the clouds only spit out a dusting of snow that was melted by the time we left for work. It was cold all day but that was it, I will take that any day over driving to work for hours in the snow.

Today it is nice and sunny and while still cold out it's a nice day. No worries about all of the last minute Christmas shoppers zipping around town ramming into each other trying to get to the mall. Should be a fairly quick commute to work since a lot of people are starting their holiday early and have already left town or have family here so they will be hunkered down at home. All that combined with the sun makes for a great Friday to me.

Dinner

So last night Cicely made us the most perfect dinner for a cold day. King Trumpet Mushroom Chili with Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread! Holy shxt was this stuff amazingly tasty and really hit the spot. It was one of those meals I had to tell myself to stop eating because I was full but wanted "just a little more". Thankfully there was more than enough so we will be able to have leftovers for lunch today!

The only real negative to the meal was that while Cicely was making it my eye were on fire for some reason. I think it was a combination of the aromatics as she was prepping everything. Then once it was cooking it gave off yet another set of vapors. I mean anytime you combine onions, garlic, 2 jalapeño peppers, chili powder and a bunch of other spices you are bound to have something burning. Whether at that time or the next day ha ha.

So yea it was awesome and I can't wait to have some more of it today. The photo below does not do it the justice it deserves though. You really need to be able to scratch and sniff the screen to get the full effect. I will work on that technology for us.

Bake Offs & Elephants

At work today we have our annual bake-off contest. Usually Cicely will enter a fancy dessert of some sort that she slaved away on for hours on end. This year I think she decided that she would prefer to be on the sidelines and enjoy eating a few of the treats vs. being a contestant. That is fine, it means that we wont have stacks of goodies sitting around the house, left over from the event that I will inevitably end up eating, regretting and have to do even more cardio than I do now.

For the first time the studio is also doing a white elephant Christmas gift exchange. The organizers of the event sent out a sign up a few weeks back with all of the rules. Basically you cannot buy anything but have to get something from your cube that you have been wanting to get rid of or think would make a good gift. It has to be something you own and not property of the company obviously.

It will be really interesting to see what people give away and receive as gifts from one another. I have a feeling that it will be mostly the free stuff that we get throughout the year as rewards for working on games. Things like plaques, pins and pens, flashlights and mugs. I think you get the idea, mostly crap that no-one really wants but keeps because for some reason we just cant bring ourselves to toss it out or donate it to someone that could use it. Maybe this will help to resolve that problem?

Vacation

After all of the events today Cicely and I have to run over and pick up a Christmas gift for Oggy at the pet shop by work. Last year he REALLY enjoyed it and actually was able to open it all by himself once we tore just the edge and let him know that it was OK to dig into it. The only problem was for the next few months everything that we received in the mail he thought was for him. He would get excited and want to start pawing at it to see what yummy treat was hidden inside.

For Cicely and I the end of today's workday signifies a nice end-of-the-year vacation for us. We will be off work all the way until the 3rd of January. I am really excited to be off for so many days to sort of catch up on things, rest and enjoy the holidays without work in the mix for once.

At the end of next week we have Cicely's mom coming to town to spend 4 or 5 days with us which will be a nice treat for everyone. She is surely excited to see her daughter with a big belly and her granddaughter on the way in a few months. We have some preparation to do to prepare for her mom coming but that is no big deal at all. Thankfully we have the baby room about 99% cleared out so we will be able to put some nice bedding in there for her mom to have a nice nights sleep the days she is here with us.

Doctor

There has not been anymore updates in the news about my doctor / surgeon that was shot on Tuesday at the local hospital. I guess that could be considered good news because in my mind that means she is still fighting like a champ and will pull through.

There was a candlelight ceremony outside of the hospital in a nearby park at 7:00 PM last night to support the victims and show that there are a lot of us thinking about them and hoping that they will pull through this tragic event. I for one am very hopeful things will turn out OK.

Puff

Otherwise that is about all that is going on. It has been a pretty mellow week for the most part. Lots of stuff going on but not really - if that makes any sense. Partially why I have been talking about the weather more I think, ha ha, it helps to fill in some of the blank areas and actually I do like to record what was going on particular days. By tomorrow we mostly forget what was here yesterday.

I think I will start doing a bunch of building this weekend. I need to build the crib and bassinet as well as other things for the baby room. Then I want to start building our 3D printer so we can mess with that over the holiday as well.

A buddy / coworker of mine just bought one for himself last night, a Makerbot 2. I am really happy for him, its the one I would have probably gotten if we were not trying to take care of so much up front before baby arrives. No biggie though, ours will be great to learn on and the technology is changing so rapidly that you never know when its the best time to buy.

No matter what it's a learning experience so messing with the bottom of the line tinker type bot all the way up to the big money models is still a good education in the technology. I for one look forward to diving into it!

Photo: The awesome chili Cicely made for us last night. Sorry, no photo of the jalapeño Cheddar cornbread.