First, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas day. My parents are in town for the week and it has been great having them here.

Second, Woot gave a bit of a gift today with a Random Crap and Random T-Shirts on shirt.woot. I happen to be up at midnight looking out for Santa and got lucky. Both are on their way. Yippie!

The bowl games start in earnest this weekend. Steady yourselves for a fun football ride if the TCU/Boise St game was any indicator.

The folks made it into town yesterday and we are having a pretty good time catching up, shopping, and eating.

My Woot-Off items arrived. I got a Lowepro camera bag, two Phillips extension cords, a Mad Catz Power Pro to power and charge iPods, a ball cap, and a Sandisk USB cable and ear piece. Not a bad haul.

My personal Christmas gift also came in this week. It is a Hi-Point Carbine 9MM.

Have a great holiday everyone!

A man was walking back home when he noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery.

A long black hearse was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind. Behind the second hearse was a solitary man walking with a dog. Behind that were 200 men walking in a single file.

He respectfully approached the man walking with the dog and said, “I am so sorry for your loss, and I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I’ve never seen a funeral procession like this. Whose funeral is it?”

The man replied, “Well, that first hearse is for my wife. My dog attacked and killed her.”

He inquired further, “Well, who is in the second hearse?”

The man answered, “My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog turned on her.”

After a moment of silence he asked, “Can I borrow the dog?”

The man with the dog replied,

“Get in line.”

Woot.com just completed an unprecedented (at least to me) three day woot-off. I ended up with three items.

I got the early version of the Yukon Spotting Scope. They had a better and more expensive one later that I would have picked up if I knew it was coming, but alas that is the point of the woot-off.

One of my buddies and I are splitting a Penfolds Bin 28 Shiraz four-pack. We did the same thing a few months ago and it was a great pickup.

While I was at the data center this afternoon, I got a bit lucky and got a Random Crap. They changed the order process so you can only get one and it costs $3. We shall see what comes of it in a few weeks.

After doing a market research survey earlier in the week I was planning on picking up a new carbine and have it shipped for Christmas, but they are out of stock. Big bummer.

The newest issue of Truckin’ is out.

Check it out here for five good reads. A nice way to waste some time this afternoon.

I spent six days of holiday time with my Brother and his family in Columbus, Ohio this past week. It was a nice change of pace even if my sister-in-law does not get my fascination with college football.

I flew in on the craziest travel day of the year but was able to fade all crying babies for both legs of the trip. The only hiccup was the fact that they could not use one of the cargo holds due to a mechanical failure. Somehow (and thankfully) they were able to get the door closed and it stayed closed the entire flight. We were late, but these things happen. My parents were there to pick me up from the airport.

Turkey Day itself was good. The food was delish and I slept like a lamb that night.

Friday we went to a model train store. My nephew is trying to get into HO scale trains and with some help we starting building a 8′ x 4′ train track for him to build on. I skipped a small family outing on Saturday to watch the VA Tech/Virginia game and missed, for the most part, the only family drama. Two ten year old kids tend to add a lot of drama… And now VA Tech gets to try to earn it’s way into the BCS. Somewhere along the way a few old model railroad magazines were picked up. It intrigues me, but I do not need another hobby- really I don’t.

Due to one of my parents’ friends passing, they had to leave Sunday morning to head back to Georgia. This left me alone with my brother and his family. We ended up heading to the Wexler Center on Ohio State’s (The) campus for an Andy Warhol exhibit. While I don’t get his Pop art, I find it interesting. His video and TV show art projects are just flat out weird. Take Empire for example. Film the Empire State Building for 6 hours. Slow the film down to 8 hours. Then show as an art project. The highlight of the film is the fact that in reel seven you can see Mr. Warhol’s reflection in the glass window in front of the camera. Yeah. I’m glad we went, it was interesting in a lot of areas and I do want the fish wallpaper for something but I’m not sure what.

It was snowing the morning I left Columbus so I am glad to be back in Austin. There were more crying babies on the return flights but I was lucky enough again to dodge all those bad beats. And thanks to the pretty lady in 11B on that incoming flight for being so pretty across the isle. 🙂

The parents are coming to Austin for Christmas so I am done major travel for the year. And for that I am very thankful.