Checking in after a very nice holiday.

Started out this morning with the opening presents ritual.

As usual, the daughter-unit made out like a bandit *grin*. Her big item was her digital tablet so she can start doing her art on the computer. There's going to be a learning curve, no doubt, but she's pretty excited about it. We didn't get a "top-of-the-line" one, but we got a pretty solid one. If she decides to stay with her art, we'll see about upgrading, but I want to know this isn't a "passing thing" before I expend serious bucks on things like that. Course, prying her away from her boxed set of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" was pretty tricky in its own right.

Even though I knew most of what I was getting, it was certainly worth getting up for today. The main new toy for me was the Sony Vaio UX-280P, the smallest laptop that Sony makes. Some might say it's a PDA on steroids since it's primarily run by a stylus, although it does have a tiny keyboard (have to learn how to thumb type). It's Bluetooth and wireless capable with a web-cam built in. This is going to be my convention laptop, where I can bring my various notes and uploaded files/pictures for the panels I'm on, and still get a little writing done.

I'll need to borrow a portable CD/DVD player from mollymorrison when she gets back from California to load WordPerfect on it (it only comes with Microsoft Works . . . yuck), as well as other software that I may need. Plus, I need to get it set up on the family wireless lan as well as figuring out which Cingular wireless plan I want to add to it. The guys at the Cingular store recommended that I just move my sim card from my cell phone to the computer if all I'm going to do is use its wireless capability one weekend a month or so, but I'm a little leery of that. We'll have to figure out the battle plan after I get more familiar with the machine.

Here's a picture of the critter:


In addition, I picked up a 160GB external hard drive that all three of us are going to use to store back-up files, especially of our music and photos that are currently on the computer hard drives, I got some new CDs, to include the Mediaeval Babes Christmas album, the Star Trek Golden Key Collection Vol. 1, an assortment of my favorite candies and a HUGE tabletop book called Cosmos: A Field Guide by Giles Sparrow. Lots of great pictures from Hubble, Cassini, and other various deep space telescopes. I just had time to glance through it earlier today, but it's easily the largest book I've ever owned as far as height and width goes. It adds new meaning to "coffee table" book, as with a few legs, it could be a coffee table.

Spent the afternoon with our friends April and Mark and had a very nice visit/meal there. I was a little nervous about the trip given all the rain that was coming down and the temperature hovering around 41 degrees. I had visions of the temperature dropping with the onset of night and the roads potentially freezing with us an hour from home, but, when we left this evening, the temperatures had gone up to 45 degrees, so the trip home was a lot more relaxing.

Not really looking forward to going to work in the morning, but I do like getting paid, so I probably should wrap it up now. I hope everyone's Christmas brought them what they wanted.