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Most of the time when I don’t write anything here for days or weeks on end, it is because I am simply being lazy. This last week has kept me from even being that… seriously. Last Thursday, I flew to Denver with Georgia to visit her brother and sister-in-law. It was a sweet afterthought really as she had already booked her vacation and travel long before asking me to tag along. We were fortunate enough to run into a check-in agent that could rearrange seating to get us in the same row. The flight was smooth and before we knew it, we were out of the muggy, humid, 80-something degree December Houston weather and in the low 50’s of the mile high city. Georgia’s sister-in-law, Linda, picked us up at the airport and we all met Richard (the bro) for lunch at his office. Colorado always holds a special place in my heart and I have loved the mountains for longer than I can remember. We had a small condo booked in Frisco (just north of Breckenridge) and I was looking forward to getting out of the city and into nature’s wonderland. We stayed in the basement that night. I only mention this because I absolutely love basements. I live close enough to the ocean that the water table prevents basement construction in almost all cases, but I would love to own a home with a basement some day. We headed for higher ground early the next day and were pleasantly surprised at how quaint the town of Frisco and more specifically, our condo, was… it was better than I had even imagined. There was snow falling and the Earth looked candy coated already. We would go on to have over 5 feet of fresh powder over the next 2 days, but even the base when we arrived was just gorgeous. Here was the view from our place via my cameraphone when we were unloading the WonderTruck™:

front porch

back patio

The entire weekend flew by in a few blinks of an eye. We didn’t ski because of Georgia’s knee injury, but we did go on a fantastic snowmobile tour and did a little sledding. The snowmobile outing was a couple of hours and we actually went to about 12,500 feet above the treeline in total whiteout. I’ve never seen so much snow in my life and it was literally white in every direction… pure white. It really gives one an appreciation for how alpine climbers can lose their way to easily and simply die because there is no sense of direction in that sea of white. I played with the snow in the trees and on structures, made snow angels, had snowball fights, drank a lot, ate well, tried to laugh and be merry… it was the first real vacation I’ve taken in over a year even if only a few days. We stopped on the way out of Frisco for a quick cameraphone snap in front of a huge evergreen by our driveway:

My mother and step-dad were watching the little ones while I was out of town. When we got back to H-Town on Sunday night, we all visited for a bit before the realization work was coming with the sunrise set in. Mom took Henry with her Monday morning when she left and I packed again for work out of town. Tuesday I drove to La Grange for a morning meeting before continuing on to Austin. Tuesday night my Internet connection at the hotel was hosed and I couldn’t work, so I hit 6th Street like a seasoned professional. Barry and I drank way too much, but the live blues was over the top. Wednesday morning I got up and drove my boss and coworker to Goldthwaite for another meeting and back again before continuing to Fredricksburg. We had dinner at a local microbrewery then headed to my Dad’s ranch for the night. Thursday morning I drove to Ingram for another meeting and then immediately headed back to Houston to make the Toadies reunion show at Verizon. The show was fantastic. I wish Sean was there to share it with me. The bass fill-in was still the cat from Baboon out of Dallas, so maybe he’s a regular from here on out. I heard a rumor the Burden Brothers were on hiatus, so maybe Vaden will write some new stuff in this line-up? Time will tell.

I am driving to pick up Henry this afternoon at my mom’s ranch near Goliad. Sam is hosting a raclette dinner at his place on Sunday and then I’m back on the road for work. I’m looking forward to a little slow down if you know what I mean. About the kangaroo farts… yeah. Apparently a large percentage (it is speculated nearly half) of our ozone depletion can be attributed to methane expulsion from livestock (cows, sheep, etc.) ass-gas. Scientists in New Zealand have discovered that kangaroo farts contain no methane due to a specialized bacteria that lives in their intestinal tract. They are trying to modify this bacteria to live in domestic livestock so that the ozone contributor they represent becomes a non-issue in our future. That rocks. I’m having trouble with my 64-bit Vista Ultimate machine ever since a recent “patch"… memory leak or some such crap. More and more, technology just pisses me off. It’s a shame I can’t bring myself to leave this love/hate relationship. That being said, the new EVE expansion is the awesome. If you have a system that can run Trinity’s premium content, the eye candy is all that and a bag of chips. Maybe when things settle down after the holidays, I can find some time to finally get that damn jump clone I’ve been wanting. Faction grind is teh suck. Here is a cool MMO link to test your geekiness… how many do you actually remember? Heh.