jimsjournal
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Happy Solstice -- 12/21/02 | |
The sun rose here in along the Rhode Island coast at 7:09 this morning and it will set at 4:19 this afternoon (just about ten minutes from now as I am writing this). That's not a very long period of daylight, night hours outnumbering day hours two to one. However, it was not too cold, lots of bright sunshine (although always at an angle) and strong, gusty winds.
Tomorrow's sunset will come at 4:20... hey, every minute counts.
I'm now on my Christmas vacation, a combination of vacation days and holidays (and weekends) such that, having left work around 5:30 on Friday, Dec. 20th, I won't be returning until the new year, not until Thursday, Jan. 2nd.
Ah, yes, it feels good. [Oh, okay, so I'll probably do some work-related stuff -- in fact, a book I had ordered -- J2ME in a Nutshell -- was just delivered this afternoon and I'm sure I will not be able to resist reading it and probably doing a little experimenting, writing some code to execute on a PDA or a cellphone. (J2ME is the specification for java to run on that kind of small device.)] but I'll be doing things at my pace, relaxed, at home...
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When Jennifer and I visited my brother on Wednesday (by the way, he is recovering rapidly from his surgery) he brought out a collection of photographs and newspaper clippings he had received from a nephew of a cousin of Dad's (the cousin had passed away a few years ago, her ninety-five year old husband died a few months ago, and the nephew had sent Charlie some memorabilia that he thought would have more meaning for our side of the family) -- Eventually we will get most of these items copied; in the meanwhile, I'm going to see what I can do with some of the geneological material. The photo on the left is from this collection; it's a picture of our father taken in 1931. (He was born in November, 1906, so he was probably twenty-four when this picture was taken.) |
Yesterday was Christmas at work. That meant that people in my department put little token gifts on each other's desks (I distributed little Christmas mice -- something Nancy and I saw being made on some program on HGTV -- made of a maraschino cherry dipped in chocolate -- the stem serving as the tail -- with a Hersey's Kiss stuck on for the head -- almond slices for the ears -- the tv show had used icing dots for the eyes but Nancy had the idea of using the tiny M&M candies you use for putting in cookies.) One co-worker put holiday candies into glass jars decorated with red holiday bows, another gave out little packages of home-baked holiday cookies. Another one distributed photographs of each of us that she had taken at Julie's wedding earlier in the fall.
| No, I was not as intoxicated as I appear to be in the photograph... honest...
we had just been dancing a lot. (I know, I know, I really do look pretty
looped there.) Around 4:30 or so most people wandered from their Dilbert cubes and gathered to celebrate the holiday by consuming a very tasty array of foods and beverages before heading home for a long holiday (almost everyone is taking most of Christmas week off). |
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