Recap...

Yeah it's been a while, I've been busy. Busy enjoying myself actually.

The flight home was relatively uneventful, other than the fact I had to leave by 4am for the 6am flight... Also got robbed blind for extended parking at the airport because the economy lot was full, but oh well. It seems the plots that caused massive security at LAX were foiled along the way at some point, for other than the rain there were no mishaps on that end. All in all I awoke about 1:30am Pacific time and finally walked in my front door about 10:30. I was already tired, but alas it was a full house and Christmas had just begun.

Had the usual good time in the living room, with my sister's fiance and my brother's girlfriend making it a group of seven rather than the usual five. The typical hilarity ensued, which was captured in quadruplicate thanks to new digital cameras for my mother and sister to go along with my father's and mine. Great fun had by all, and eventually much chocolate was eaten and many insults were tossed.

Finally got an MP3 player for running, although it appears that the wireless earpiece I was hoping for doesn't actually exist. It would be a really cool James Bond type of product, being able to just have the mp3 player in my pocket or on my arm and have a wireless little thing in my ear, but alas. Got all sorts of interesting books and whatnot, which should keep me busy for the couple weeks before I'm off to ASBC.

Was able to meet up with a bunch of people during the few days I've been here, which is always good for the soul I suppose. Saw one friend I had missed out on seeing my last time to Santa Barbara, so it had been quite some time. That had me more cheerful than usual, even though misestimating the travel time to get down into that general area caused us to miss the movie time we were aiming for. Allowed more time for chatter though, which I never complain about.

Yesterday was dedicated to the art of snowboarding, which is always a good time. Although I can still make my ankle hurt if I move it a certain way, it wasn't noticable on the slopes. There was more snow on the ground than any previous trip, so the dreaded patches of ice were much fewer and far between. I took on the roll of teacher for the first few hours and managed to get one person from the stage of not being able to stand up to being able to heel edge and skid all the way down, and the other person from that stage to being able to do toe edge and sometimes string them together. Quite a lot of progress, and in the meantime I managed to not do anything retarded. Then while they all ate lunch I went over to some of the more difficult slopes, since we'd gotten on the mountain much later than planned thanks to me reading the wrong opening time and then an hour long rental line. We finally made it onto the mountain at like 10:30, and I highly recommend showing up at like 7 for a 7:30 opening in Big Bear in the future. Anyway, had some fun going fast for a while, then right before the lift managed to eat it pretty hard in a flat patch, which is always the most difficult section for me. I'm fine with most steep slopes, the steeper the better to a certain point, but give me a flat section and I'll find a way to catch an edge and go flying. I later did a nice somersault off the top of a lip (unintentionally) but other than that it was a mishap free day. Sore wrist and sore ass are really the only casualties, other than the usual sore muscles pretty much everywhere. Ended up being quite a long day as we didn't leave until around 6, then raided Denny's for all sorts of unhealthy food (I didn't eat lunch I was allowed) and eventually made the three hour trip or so home due to routing through Glendale to drop someone off. Finally hit it around midnight and tried to stack up some sleep, as we all know where I'll be tomorrow.

Speaking of which, all you stalkers and internet admirers, as well as prison inmates in Nebraska (well assuming you break out), I'll be at Disneyland tomorrow doing the usual New Years Eve thing. You could probably read past years' posts for info. Rumor has it that at Noon I'll be at the Walt Disney and Mickey statue in the center of Disneyland in front of the castle. Then of course for the big event at Midnight I'll be in New Orleans square at the edge of the bridge above Pirates of the Caribbean. Too bad I'm already hoarse from yelling so much encouragement yesterday, as busting out the countdown at the top of one's lungs is always great fun. So yeah, feel free to come say hi, I guarantee I'll say hi back. Well, potentially once I pick myself up from having keeled over.