It’s official, I’m no longer part of the 30-something crowd… not sure how I feel about that yet! But as it’s now December 31st in Seattle, I’m 40 years old. Surely I will soon figure out what I want to do with my life… besides ride a motorcycle, that’s a given.

It’s also New Year’s Eve… I’m not really down with the whole resolution thing. Never really saw the point personally. This year, things are a little different.  I’m going to try to be more social this year. Get out more, meet people, some of them might even be women.  It could happen.

There are complications, I may seek your advice.  You have been warned…

Update 1: I also resolve to start replying to comments… this resolution thing is a slippery slope it appears!

Update 2: I thought my birthday should have a soundtrack… I like this song and it suits, dark though it may be.

Christmas morning at the kid’s house, dash home and gear up, upper 40’s, patchy blue skies, no rain, full tank of gas… hello Alki! A lovely day… hope yours was just as good!

Hooray, Christmas Eve is here!  The kids are over today, we’ll do “holiday stuff” all day, go to a party this evening and then I’ll take them home tonight.  I’ll be at their house in the morning and then, weather permitting, I plan to take the motorcycle out for a ride just so I can say I rode on Christmas Day!

Hope you have a wonderful day doing something you enjoy! I’ll leave you with this, one of my all time favorite Christmas songs…

I spent most of the day hanging out with a friend who’s wife is out of town for the holiday. We braved the treacherous environs of the mall near my house.  Good grief the traffic.  I volunteered to drive, my friend Mike is far to passive behind the wheel to make any progress in this kind of situation! It requires a delicately balanced aggression, just enough to trip the self-preservation instinct in other drivers.  I like to think I’m fairly good at it… we did make good time getting in and out of the area!

Up until early today I *was* done with shopping but the kids and I were invited to a Christmas Eve gathering at another friends house so I had to pick up a few additional items to go into the gift exchange. I went with DVDs, not especially creative but I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired. I *think* I’m done now… kids are coming over tomorrow night so I’m running out of time anyway!

One day closer to having Christmas over! I like it, but dang it’s a lot of work!

I’ve never seen anyone play the guitar this way, fascinating and fantastic! I think I’m going to have to buy his CD, available online here.

Uhg, my brain is full… so you get a brain dump today!  Fortunately, this was the last day of work for me this year.  I’m taking vacation tomorrow and then my company is on break until January 2nd. I still have a fairly busy schedule, but most of it is social activities with friends and my kids.

I’m working on a new movie review tonight.  I caught a screening of The Good Shepherd yesterday. I found it fascinating.  This is no light weight piece of entertainment but rather an intellectually challenging look at how the CIA came to be.  Based in part on fact, with characters that are composites of actual people. If you are into history and political intrique, you might enjoy it.  Brace yourself though, it weighs in at nearly 3 hours and you will find no fight sequences or car chases… this one is purely character driven.

Back to time off… hopefully tomorrow I’ll actually get my Christmas cards and mix CDs in the mail.  Talk about putting it off until the last minute… sheesh! I still have to pick up a few stocking stuffers too… I might try to do that early tomorrow when hopefully most people are at work… and I’m not! Mwwaahhaahhhaaa…

Did I mention there is half a carrot cake in the kitchen beckoning me… calling me… seducing me… followed me home from a holiday luncheon today…

I leave you now with a Christmas song… I may swap music daily for the next week or so and run through some of my favorite seasonal tunes.

Don’t pity Kiko… after all the mauling my hands and arms took this weekend from his fangs and claws, he deserves a little payback… freakin’ psycho cat!

Cat’s just can’t resist the allure of a Christmas Tree… it’s like giant-sized catnip!

Power finally came back on this afternoon… and low and behold my broadband was actually working too! I had to trek down to my ex’s to pick up the kids for the weekend. They were still in the dark so they’re happy to have electricity too! First thing my son did was charge his PSP and iPod!

Just driving around to pick up the kids was eye opening. The power grid is really patched together… you’d drive down one block and everything would be fine, the next block over no power. The traffic caused by signals at intersections being out was *insane*! I took advantage of being out to put gas in the car. The station I stopped at was fairly vacant compared to most I came to. Turns out their network was down and they were only taking cash. Hardly anyone had any. Not a problem for me, I always carry cash just in case.

Back at home with the kids, we relaxed, put up the Christmas tree and watched Christmas specials… a pleasant evening after the events yesterday!

Still no power at home. Even my office (that I rarely visit) has no networking. I finally found a company location with power and networking and am holed up there temporarily charging up my phone and taking care of a few critical items.

The local news is reporting over one million homes without power, I can believe it. Only one friend I’ve spoken with today has power so far. Just a block away from me a major power pole snapped at the bottom and is across the road, with power cables strewn about. I imagine it will take them a while to get to that.

SeaTac Airport, just a mile or so from my home, reported peak winds of 69 mph last night. Pretty much what they predicted. The wind is tapering off now, but a winter storm is rolling in behind it that will bring heavy rain, some hail and maybe even a little snow though the temperatures aren’t expecting to get down to freezing.