Just wanted to stop in and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Or whatever holiday you'd prefer to celebrate. Or if you don't celebrate then just Merry day.

Merry Christmas - I take it you've already built your DCM miniatures? http://www2.opticaldynamics.com/~gbk/DCM/dcm/construct.htm

Instead, I ordered myself a cheap camera bag from China. What could go wrong?

Merry Christmas Brian

I got new: 4 pairs of underwear, 5 pairs of socks, a sweater and PJ pants. Yay

Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope the day was enjoyed by all. My wife's sister came over, her husband was working, and we had a nice dinner and watched It's a Wonderful Life by a nice fire in the fireplace.

Somebody decided to carbomb an area of Downtown Nashville yesterday. This hasn't any direct impact on our family but many that use AT&T services here have been without phone and internet I hear. Thankfully nobody was critically injured. I hope they get to the bottom of this.

Our daughter and her family live in the Cleveland, Ohio area which I found out too late is a virtual blackhole for mail these days so our packages to them and theirs to us are unaccounted for at this point. I suspect that UPS, FEDEX, and other shippers are going to start seeing a significant increase in business. I'm not really upset over the matter, at least not yet, but when they have an area dealing with issues like this USPS should inform people shipping to or from that area that they might want to consider another carrier because they cannot guarantee delivery. Even worse than the holiday delays is that many people are without medicines and supplies that they need that are routinely delivered through the mail.

Merry Christmas fellas.

I got Willow on Bluray, a bottle of Sidral Mundet Green apple soda, and a 9 person tent.
I think this will be the last year my kids started out by feeling indifferent about the holiday. When I woke my oldest daughter (2 1/2 years old) she wasn't in any hurry to open presents, by that evening she had transformed into a Christmas fanatic.
All things considered with the pandemic it was a good day.

I got this monitor this Christmas:
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-27-gaming-monitor-s2721dgf/apd/210-axeh/monitors-monitor-accessories

Apart from that, just the usual few Steam games:

• Alwa's Awakening
• Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition
• Untitled Goose Game

I just realized I asked about loot but didn't list mine. I got a couple of hoodies and some new OneUp pedals for my DH bike. Excited to use them but need to wait for the ski resorts to open for biking in the Spring.

Overall things were pretty subdued here. I mentioned we're moving and we're clearing our house of stuff we don't need (giving a lot away, selling some bigger-ticket stuff on craigslist). It's amazing how much stuff we accumulated over the past 15 years living here

Are you moving far? I've been trying to pair things down for about a year now, but in 3 years at my current residence I managed to accumulate tones of junk. Cant image what 15 years would be like :S

About 5 hours away, over to Eastern WA where it's warmer in the summer, colder in the winter, and a lot less rainy. We're trying to get closer to snowboarding and downhill (lift-served) mountain biking and also away from all the rain.

Not only 15 years but 15 years and 3 kids! We still have stuff stored in our house from one kid who is now 27!!

We're also planning to move to a place with little-to-no yard work, so I am getting rid of all my yard/outdoor tools, stuff for building/maintaining builds like electrical fixtures, plumbing stuff, sprinkler stuff, etc.

And we're trying to do it all in the next 3 weeks. It's nuts. But happy to be pursuing a change, things are getting stale for me around here.

That sounds like phenomenal amount of work to do in 3 weeks, good luck! It sounds like it will be well worth it.

Also bought this popper and a bunch of anti-static bags from Amazon.de. Nice.

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Brian, I imagine moving to eastern Washington is about as close to moving towards freedom as you can get without actually leaving the state. I've spent some time in Spokane over the years as I have extended family there and my parents also lived there for about 4 years. When they moved out of my home in California and went back to Washington that is where they moved to. They were quick to get the license plates changed on their car as many people were not so kind with the hand gestures seeing the California plates! I was never a huge fan of the area as my nostalgia for the scenery of western Washington made me like it less but if I had to live in Washington today I know I would be happier in the east.

Good luck with the move! Fortunately our last move was paid for by the military but we did it all ourselves with the exception of friends that helped us load and a two-man crew I hired to help us unload on the second trip. I know it's super hard work and wish you and your family the best!

Haha I'm not sure about freedom since it's still in WA. We looked at some rental houses yesterday and applied for one. The market here is really bad for buyers/renters because there is so much demand. I think tons of people are just leaving Seattle. I read somewhere that rents in Seattle have dropped 20%!! It's crazy.

We're in northern Idaho now to do some snowboarding and it's a whole different place. Businesses are open as normal, including most restaurants (except they have stickers on the floor encouraging people to stay 6 feet apart). Probably 10% of the population is wearing masks.

Jesus.

One of my welding students was hired in Kent at an automotive fabricator for $32.50 an hour. I told him that even though that sounds really good coming from Tennessee it's basically like earning minimum wage out here. Last time I talked to him he was planning on working out there for six months and coming back.



I never spent much time in Idaho but the drive through the panhandle was always pretty. Is moving out of state not an option for you? Even though I love the Pacific Northwest I know I can never live there again.