The King of Doing Jack Shit

You can guess from the entry title what I've been doing this week: Not very bloody much! This is good and bad. Good in that it's a vacation, so being lazy is sort of expected. Bad because I'd hoped to get a lot more reading done this week, and it's just been a non-starter for the most part. Ah, well. I haven't even touched some Web projects I'd hoped to get off the ground this week.

Several of my days were occupied with shopping, mostly for stuff I needed but couldn't find (it took me forever to find the cleaning neutralizer that I use to disinfect my contact lenses, for instance), and partly at post-Christmas sales (bought some stuff at Mervyn's, and took advantage of Kepler's' 20% off fiction sale.

Wednesday Debbi and I got together with her friends Michel and Lisa to exchange presents. They gave me a nice set of fireplace tools to go with the screen that Debbi gave me. On Friday I actually built a fire in my fireplace and learned that (1) The gas starter works really well; (2) It works so well that I need to be careful not to burn my hair off when lighting it; (3) The flue has a convenient handle for opening and closing, and (4) There was about ten years of ash in the bottom of the fireplace. So Saturday I cleaned out the fireplace and it looks much better now.

Anyway, I suspect Lisa and Debbi had fun just giving each other stuff. Which is cool. Afterwards, at my suggestion, we went up to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream.

Earlier that day I'd also gone out for my first bicycle ride from my new place. I biked down to the Stevens Creek Trail, which is quite nice but neither quite as nice nor quite as long as the Los Gatos Creek Trail down where I used to live. I biked up to Shoreline Park and biked around there for a while before heading home. It was on the chilly side, but I had a good ride anyway. When I warms up, I'll probably start biking to work regularly.

It started raining later in the day and has rained most of the time since. Which hasn't really bothered me at all.

Thursday I went over to John's place to help him make egg nog. He makes really good egg nog. He did most of the 'making' of course, but I helped with some of the chores (stirring, separating eggs) to speed things up. I also checked out a dining table he's willing to give me. It's old, but is in pretty good shape. The chairs are pretty decrepit, though. However, it beats the heck out of my "urban-curb-style" dining table and chairs that I have now, so I'll probably take it to tide me over until I eventually get around to buying a fancier set.

That evening we went over to Becky's to play Bridge. My game has definitely fallen off since I stopped playing frequently, but it was fun anyway.

Friday, Debbi, Lisa, Michel and I went to dinner with Debbi's old roommate Diane, who's in town for the holidays. That was also fun. I enjoy showing people around my new house. (Grin!) We went to Frankie, Johnny & Luigi's and pretty much pigged out. Mmm.

I've mostly spent this weekend on my own, though Debbi's coming over later and we're going to go see movies, and then do New Year's Eve together. I've been working my way through the book I'm reading (books, actually: Not just Sean McMullen's Eyes of the Calculor, but Subrata's Christmas gift to me, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract). Also working my way through leftover Christmas dinner, egg nog, and candy. Urgh. But it's been nice and relaxing, even if I feel like I've frittered away much of the week and have been staying up too late reading about 19th-century baseball.

If you're interested, I've added some photos I recently scanned to some old journal entries:

• 19 Sept 2001: David and CJ at the Giants game.
• 4 November 2001: The Mike and Sully statues in the Apple atrium.
• 24 November 2001: Me in front of my car in the driveway in front of my townhouse.
• 6 December 2001: Photos from our trip to Philadelphia.