Here we end again

My wife bought some fireworks around the 4th of July. (In NY, it's only legal to buy them at certain times of the year) Most of them were used for that occasion (and my two younger children missed out entirely, having fallen asleep before sundown), but the remainder were earmarked for New Years. She fully intended to start the new year by blowing up a small part of my driveway.

It's been warm for weeks. It's been rainy for days. The current weather prediction calls for rain all day, moreso right around when she planned her detonation party. Big fat raindrops mixed with wet snow.

I'm considering buying a few cheap umbrellas to set over the launch site.

Merry [update pending]

I'm giving the gift of video games to my kids (and a little to myself, not gonna lie), but after years of seeing people complain on social media about updates and patches taking forever, I realized that letting the kids do the unboxing was downright irresponsible.

The console was already in regular use, so after the kids went to bed (and well after we knew they were asleep), I took the games one by one and put them in the system, downloading update after update. Each took little over an hour, but that was normal for how many updates were needed (they weren't the newest games to begin with, but my kids have a taste for this kind of thing).

The update servers are looking at their calendars, knowing full well that they can't do anything about the digital onslaught rushing across the web. Thousands of unsuspecting recipients will plug in their new Xboxes and Playstations, unwrap their new games and

connecting to download server. update pending. 0%.... 1%... time to finish approx 5hours 43minutes

Those update servers get slammed like a screen door in a hurricane every Christmas morning. The past few nights I've been *playing* those games, making sure I had everything ready.

Mostly because I don't want to hear them complaining about it.

Staycation

I value my time.

I will never understand workaholics. Work for the sake of work just seems like a good way to wear yourself out. As for myself, sometimes I just have to stop. The more responsibilities I have, the more I appreciate getting away from what doesn't matter as much.

That's why I always take my time off. This time around I simply added up whatever time I had left and counted back from the end of the year. It's a good stretch, I'm planning on sleeping in.

My kids won't let me, but at least I won't have to haul myself out into the freezing cold.

PartyParty

In my adult life, I've seen an odd trend that many Christmas parties are held on the same day. Now I know there are only so many days in the month, and most such events are held on weekends, limiting it to about 6 different days, but oddly enough the ones I attend seem to fall on the same day. Never the same time, but always the same day. This is a trend that goes back years.

I like overeating at a Christmas party. I can't do that at both if they're within hours of each other. My inner glutton is never happy, but my heart and pancreas are grateful for it.

Missing parts

Having a small tractor that holds, alternately, a mower deck and a snowblower. The mower deck is pretty straightforward. The snowblower requires a lot more. Like twice as much.

It's missing parts, and for the life of me I can't even figure out which parts are missing. I can't even *start* to assemble this thing unless I have whatever it takes to get the first parts attached.

This is what happens when someone else cleans up.