Well, I'm no longer feeling sick. I feel short of breath all the time due to the bronchitis, but I'll see my physician again today to see if we can't take care of that.
I feel decent enough to even write up a worthwhile entry here.
It's been a really quiet vacation so far. I got here, almost immediately got sick, and then slept and slept. There's been a lot of subtle nice things happening too though. I've really enjoyed being able to have meals with my family. We cook together, eat together, talk and enjoy ourselves. It's the kind of thing that I've really come to appreciate while living on my own through its absence.
Bear, our golden retriever, just came downstairs to join me as I'm typing. It's about 6:00 AM, and I'm the first one up today. Bear is such a social dog. He always needs to be around people. Just needs to be in the room.
I'm looking forward to doing some driving once I stop coughing. Dad got some new tires for his car, and they're amazing. It's like the car is on rails. There's a huge amount of traction available to work with, and with between the Renesis engine in the RX-8 and the huge disc brakes, accelleration becomes something tangible. You can sculpt it.
I love lounging in the basement down here. We've got a stereo system with nice speakers, and I've got my iPod hooked up playing music quietly. These speakers are something else, actually. They date to about 1980 (the ones upstairs are from about '77). Some of the foam in the drivers was getting old, so Daniel got a foam kit and rebuilt them. Now they sound brand new. They're a Cerwin-Vega model that is still rather popular on the aftermarket.
Giftgiving was a lot of fun this year. It wasn't as fancy as it's sometimes been in the past, but there was a lot of thought put into this time.
We got my Dad a wireless router for Christmas, so I'm using that to connect to the network in the basement. It's nice. We got him a wireless mouse and a microphone headset as well, for the new laptop he was issued at work. He's really enjoying them. The router was a WRT54G, same model as mine. Very solid product, and that's been appreciated. The mouse ended up being impressive as well. It's a Microsoft model which is just well designed. It's the kind with a USB dongle that houses the rf unit. Unlike the other ones we looked at though, the dongle snaps into a depression in the base of the mouse when you're done with it. And when you push it in place, it shuts off the mouse. It's very slick.
Ashley probably brought half of the family's gifts from China. The gift getting the most use at the moment is the bootleg box set of Ghibli films. We've been slowly working through the collection - we've watched Howl's Moving Castle, Lupin the Third and the Castle of Cagliostro, and Porco Rosso in the last two nights. It's nice to be able to sit down with everyone and enjoy a film.
I've been watching a lot of DVDs with the family. We burned through Firefly, which was a huge hit. Everyone really liked it. My dad really appreciated how it had a lot of nods to shows like Gunsmoke that he grew up watching. The two of us had an engaging conversation talking about parallels between the two shows. I could tell that he was really getting into it - there was a certain glint in his eye that shows up when he's really enjoying himself. My folks got me Serenity on DVD, so we watched that too. Also a hit. We're hoping to go see Narnia or maybe King Kong as a family once everyone's feeling better. It's no fun to go do something like that with half the people being sick.
Mom's really enjoying the books we got her - a couple of huge volumes by Hugh Nibley. She's just devouring them. I always enjoy seeing her get so involved in her reading. It's good to remind myself sometimes that reading can be something to do for fun, instead of just work. Actually, on the flight here I got about halfway through Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I'm enjoying it. I think I'll finish it on the flight back.
Ashley's started a huge scrapbooking project to hold all of her memorabilia from her semester in China. There's bits of colorful paper and such all about the house. She brought back some amazing photographs. A lot of the pictures are of the people she went with, and so not terribly exciting if you don't know them. But others are just stunningly gorgeous. Apparently one of her friends there knows a ton about photography and she set up some great shots. I'll try to get some copies and post them here. I'm not sure if they'll be as impressive online as the prints Ashley had made from the digital files though.
Daniel's been spending most of his free time with his high school buddies Tom and Nick. They're good guys. The three of them are currently playing through Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones on the GameCube. But between that and Daniel being sick, I've not seen much of him.
My dad and I have been trucking through Lego Star Wars. The game is a hoot in co-op mode. There's just something about lightsaber battles with little lego men. Force pushing droids into walls is a lot of fun too. We're about two-thirds of the way through the game right now, but we've been going back to collect all the secret items. It's a bit slower going when you try to find all of that stuff.
I've been playing a fair bit of FFXI while I'm here. I've been taking part in a bunch of organized group activities in the game. It's a bunch of fun to run around wreaking havoc with a bunch of friends in that game. At this point the folks I play with all really know there stuff so we can go do crazy things and have a chance at surviving :)
I actually got a digital camera for Christmas. I'm really excited about it. It's a Canon PowerShot A520 - same model as Miriam's new camera, actually. I went yesterday and picked up a 1GB memory card, a carrying case, and a rechargable battery kit. I'm looking forward to shooting a bunch of photos, and posting up some good ones here! Ashley picked out the camera, actually. She got some advice from her photographer friend, and picked out a good model. Ashley's got a surprising amount of aptitude when it comes to things like that. She's not a camera afficionado, but she knows how to find out the right questions to ask to find the right model for someone who is. She's not a car buff, but she helped dad pick out the car he really wanted.
Outside of being horribly sick, it's been a pleasant, low-key vacation.
I feel decent enough to even write up a worthwhile entry here.
It's been a really quiet vacation so far. I got here, almost immediately got sick, and then slept and slept. There's been a lot of subtle nice things happening too though. I've really enjoyed being able to have meals with my family. We cook together, eat together, talk and enjoy ourselves. It's the kind of thing that I've really come to appreciate while living on my own through its absence.
Bear, our golden retriever, just came downstairs to join me as I'm typing. It's about 6:00 AM, and I'm the first one up today. Bear is such a social dog. He always needs to be around people. Just needs to be in the room.
I'm looking forward to doing some driving once I stop coughing. Dad got some new tires for his car, and they're amazing. It's like the car is on rails. There's a huge amount of traction available to work with, and with between the Renesis engine in the RX-8 and the huge disc brakes, accelleration becomes something tangible. You can sculpt it.
I love lounging in the basement down here. We've got a stereo system with nice speakers, and I've got my iPod hooked up playing music quietly. These speakers are something else, actually. They date to about 1980 (the ones upstairs are from about '77). Some of the foam in the drivers was getting old, so Daniel got a foam kit and rebuilt them. Now they sound brand new. They're a Cerwin-Vega model that is still rather popular on the aftermarket.
Giftgiving was a lot of fun this year. It wasn't as fancy as it's sometimes been in the past, but there was a lot of thought put into this time.
We got my Dad a wireless router for Christmas, so I'm using that to connect to the network in the basement. It's nice. We got him a wireless mouse and a microphone headset as well, for the new laptop he was issued at work. He's really enjoying them. The router was a WRT54G, same model as mine. Very solid product, and that's been appreciated. The mouse ended up being impressive as well. It's a Microsoft model which is just well designed. It's the kind with a USB dongle that houses the rf unit. Unlike the other ones we looked at though, the dongle snaps into a depression in the base of the mouse when you're done with it. And when you push it in place, it shuts off the mouse. It's very slick.
Ashley probably brought half of the family's gifts from China. The gift getting the most use at the moment is the bootleg box set of Ghibli films. We've been slowly working through the collection - we've watched Howl's Moving Castle, Lupin the Third and the Castle of Cagliostro, and Porco Rosso in the last two nights. It's nice to be able to sit down with everyone and enjoy a film.
I've been watching a lot of DVDs with the family. We burned through Firefly, which was a huge hit. Everyone really liked it. My dad really appreciated how it had a lot of nods to shows like Gunsmoke that he grew up watching. The two of us had an engaging conversation talking about parallels between the two shows. I could tell that he was really getting into it - there was a certain glint in his eye that shows up when he's really enjoying himself. My folks got me Serenity on DVD, so we watched that too. Also a hit. We're hoping to go see Narnia or maybe King Kong as a family once everyone's feeling better. It's no fun to go do something like that with half the people being sick.
Mom's really enjoying the books we got her - a couple of huge volumes by Hugh Nibley. She's just devouring them. I always enjoy seeing her get so involved in her reading. It's good to remind myself sometimes that reading can be something to do for fun, instead of just work. Actually, on the flight here I got about halfway through Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I'm enjoying it. I think I'll finish it on the flight back.
Ashley's started a huge scrapbooking project to hold all of her memorabilia from her semester in China. There's bits of colorful paper and such all about the house. She brought back some amazing photographs. A lot of the pictures are of the people she went with, and so not terribly exciting if you don't know them. But others are just stunningly gorgeous. Apparently one of her friends there knows a ton about photography and she set up some great shots. I'll try to get some copies and post them here. I'm not sure if they'll be as impressive online as the prints Ashley had made from the digital files though.
Daniel's been spending most of his free time with his high school buddies Tom and Nick. They're good guys. The three of them are currently playing through Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones on the GameCube. But between that and Daniel being sick, I've not seen much of him.
My dad and I have been trucking through Lego Star Wars. The game is a hoot in co-op mode. There's just something about lightsaber battles with little lego men. Force pushing droids into walls is a lot of fun too. We're about two-thirds of the way through the game right now, but we've been going back to collect all the secret items. It's a bit slower going when you try to find all of that stuff.
I've been playing a fair bit of FFXI while I'm here. I've been taking part in a bunch of organized group activities in the game. It's a bunch of fun to run around wreaking havoc with a bunch of friends in that game. At this point the folks I play with all really know there stuff so we can go do crazy things and have a chance at surviving :)
I actually got a digital camera for Christmas. I'm really excited about it. It's a Canon PowerShot A520 - same model as Miriam's new camera, actually. I went yesterday and picked up a 1GB memory card, a carrying case, and a rechargable battery kit. I'm looking forward to shooting a bunch of photos, and posting up some good ones here! Ashley picked out the camera, actually. She got some advice from her photographer friend, and picked out a good model. Ashley's got a surprising amount of aptitude when it comes to things like that. She's not a camera afficionado, but she knows how to find out the right questions to ask to find the right model for someone who is. She's not a car buff, but she helped dad pick out the car he really wanted.
Outside of being horribly sick, it's been a pleasant, low-key vacation.
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