I’m doing Nanowrimo again this year (whereupon I try to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days). This is my 3rd year – the first was successful, and the second still sits untouched since Dec 1st. That fact that I churned out 50,000 words doesn’t matter so much if the vast majority of it is pure drivel! Anyhow, I’ve got a vague idea for this year, was hoping to get an outline done but we’ll see about my level of ambition.

You know what makes me super sad? The fact that there are no Lindt stores out here. Even when the one in Richmond disappeared, I could still head to DC or Charlottesville to get my fix. But alas, no such solution here. On a related note, I’ve been trying to get all my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving. Last year, we wound up at a mall the day before Xmas, and it was seriously traumatizing, so I’m trying desperately to make sure that never happens again!

And on a final note, I have a super sweet new phone! I’ve had one of those “Upgrade your phone for free!” coupons from AT&T for awhile, and decided that, rather then get one of the free phones, I’d throw in some money and get an Iphone. Was gonna just get an Iphone 3 at first, but then I got swayed by the fact that I could get a refurbished Iphone 4 for $150. After doing some research and discovering that there’s not difference between new and refurbished Apple products (and the fact that 4 hasn’t been out that long anyhow), I got it, and it is shiny indeed! At this point, it’s functioning mostly as a game system for me. Angry Birds and Plants VS Zombies are helping me through my period of sickness! And I love the fact that there are so many games for just $.99. My next step will be to figure out how I can make some Iphone apps. This is mostly because I want to get my first Nanowrimo novel, a Choose Your Own Adventure type book, playable on an Iphone. I am a sucker for having as many markets for my products as possible!

Oh yeah, and on a final note, this is me as a zombie in the Denver Zombie Crawl this year!

Now here’s something I’m curious about: New York has the ball drop and all, but what about the other time zones? Seems to be that Chicago should have a ball drop for the Central time zone, Denver for the Mountain time zone, and I suppose Seattle for the Pacific time zone. Don’t let New York get all the glory! I’d suggest more southern cities, but it seems that people have this idea that the holidays should be all gobbed up with snow, even though many parts of the US don’t see snow around the holidays at all. However, I’m open to a ball drop in .

We were there 2.5 days, whereupon I received stuff and ate stuff and hung out with Drew’s relations. We decided to split up the drive back into two parts, and ended up getting a motel room in Topeka after having eaten some incredibly delicious BBQ in Missouri earlier. I need to either make or get ahold of some St. Louis style BBQ sauce, as it’s really good. I’m a sucker for some sweet and smoky. We might have driven further that night, but at some point the roads got slushy, then icy, and it would have been a waste. It’s interesting to observe weather driving west. It was really cold in Nashville with no snow, bitterly cold in Topeka with bunches of snow, and the further west we drove across Kansas the warmer it got, and it’s gonna hit close to 50 in Denver today.

Incidentally, next time we’ve got this kind of distance to go, we’re gonna try to fly instead. Driving is fun if you aren’t really familiar with the route so much, but we’ve both seen the 430 mile stretch on I-70 across Kansas waaay more then we need to at this point.

And here’s a few thoughts on hotels. I like nicer hotels, but only if someone else is totally covering it. As Drew and I were splitting the tab, we stayed at a Motel 6. In terms of cheap hotels/motels, it often seems better to choose chains over non-chains. With non-chains it’s questionable as to how livable the room will actually end up being. However, it doesn’t matter much for that chain if whoever stays there thinks it sucks, as they’re just passing through and so repeat business isn’t too much of a concern. So, if they’re sheisty or lazy, they can get away with lower standards. However, staying at a chain place, there’s a possibility that you’ll continue to visit their other locations when you travel. Thus, the Motel 6 was as bare-bones as the price suggested, but had the benefit of being appropriately clean and not being sketchy.

We got back last night around 8:30, and Estha was super glad to see us. We now have giant piles of crap sitting everywhere which we should probably deal with at some point. Also, so much junk food. My goal is to not eat it all today. Incidentally, my New Year’s resolution is to not gain too much weight. Screw losing weight. And screw not gaining weight. I’ve accepted the fact that, every winter, I put on lbs. Conversely, every summer, I lose those lbs. All I want is to not gain so many lbs that my bras stop fitting, as that is a royal pain. Mind you, I’ve got summer bras and winter bras for this precise purpose, but when I start outgrowing the winter bras things start getting really pissy for me.

Anyhow, we scored a giant bag of miniature candy (kisses and teeny Reeses cups and such), which pleases the little Martha Stewart part of me as it means we have stuff to put in our candy dish for the next month or so. Incidentally, we decided that we’re gonna keep our Christmas tree and lights up until the beginning of February. See, I get depressed in the winter. I think the excitement of the holidays helps, but January is generally pretty bleak. So, I shall experiment with leaving bonus Xmas light cheer up, to see if that combats seasonal affective disorder type issues.

And on a final note, today is Drew’s and my 4 year anniversary, yay! Unfortunately, Drew is currently passed out in bed with whatever disease he picked up on this trip. We’ll be hitting the Macaroni Grill later for anniversary dinner, whereupon I will gorge myself on sea life and exciting beverages. Until then, I will hang out with Drupal and try to figure out what the heck to get Drew for our anniversary that he hasn’t already received over this long holiday season.

Oh, Job stuff. I was employed for a day. I neglected to realize how freaking long it takes to drive to Boulder (and North Boulder at that) during rush hour (1.5 hours, to be precise). It didn’t pay enough to make it worth the drive. At this point, I’m keeping my eye out for something part-time, as I’ve got a web job coming up for a research center which should fill out the rest of my time OK for awhile.

Every two-three months, I get really dissatisfied with my personal site and decide to poke at it, which I’m currently doing now. I’d say that maybe someday it will be perfect, but I’d be lying. I’m also not sure if I design websites right. Seems the hip thing to do these days is build it entirely in Photoshop first and then begin hacking away at it in html/css. Thing is, as someone who fears clunky code, giant images, and the giant load time that goes along with it, I’m more inclined to build where all the content’s gonna sit, and then figure out how to make it look good from there. In other news, I really need to join one of these local designer/developer groups, as I lack friends to talk to who design/develop.

And on a final note, I have eaten a metric ton of sugar cookies in the past few days. This is both delicious and bloating.

I’m gonna go eat shrimp for breakfast now. Have a great day!

After that was the Starbucks visit. I keep having fewer and fewer reasons to go to a Starbucks. See, I’m not a coffee drinker, as coffee is disgusting, but I do like hot and frothy beverages, so their pumpkin spice latte (minus anything resembling coffee in it) has generally proven quite tasty. Then, a few months ago, I got it in my head to try making my own, via heating up some milk and whisking it around, then adding pumpkin spice coffee creamer. It’s really quite good. So I got the pumpkin spice latte last night, and it just wasn’t as good as what I made at home. It was a bit watery, and I wanted to dump more creamer in it. I opened up the container, and it looked kinda weird as well, an yellow-orange color. I suspect that it was dyed that color, in the same vein as some pies that you buy at stores, because of that ‘people think pumpkin products are supposed to be orange because pumpkins are orange’ marketing technique. Mind you, it still tasted good, and it’s not like I get it more then once a year anyhow.

Other things happening…hmm. I’m playing with expandable textboxes. These are new realms of javascript I’ve never explored before! I’m also getting close to being done on a ‘make your own ascii stereogram’ dealio. The problem is that I keep getting lost in the logic of it all.

Saw ‘Burn After Reading’ the other day. I totally wanna be Chad (Brad Pitt’s character) when I grow up. Also, started watching Kimagure Orange Road, which is very cute so far. I’ve gotten into the exciting world of online Civ IV, which, while frustratingly full of 15 year old, will teach me to be much better then I am at maintaining my military. Drew and other people he plays games with have a serious advantage over me in some areas, in that my background in military-type gaming is playing Risk once every 3-4 years when I was a kid.  So in Civ I’m all like ‘la la la, I’m building cities and being religious and exploring the world and OH CRAP 10 SWORDSMEN’ and then I lose my city that’s got one spearman defending it. I’m working on that, though.