Yuleish Random

I'm so far behind on blogging, I'll never hit it all, so I'ma gonna go a bit random, and I've been needing to for a while.

Last weekend my company had their Christmas party. It was the same place as last year, but it was better than last year. The bar lines were shorter, and it was less crowded. The former likely was related to the latter. It seems rather early in the month, but this month does get busied up, so it worked out well.

We also got a room there this year. It was just about as far as you could get between the party and our room. And it cost about twice what the place we stayed at last year. Nice room, but hardly worth the extra money in my estimation.

A rather cool thing that happened, though. I'm not sure if it was the hotel *excuse me, Resort (one of those places that you're sure they have the word resort capitalized in their minds as they refer to the place... ANyway...) or my work, but they were giving vouchers or gift cards for $50 when we were checking in. For use at the Resort, but could be applied to your room price if you'd like. Nice, it almost exactly covered the room tax and mandatory valet parking.



In other news... the Christmas season is coming on fast. I went to Wal Mart around two weeks back, and was hoping not to again until next year or later. Now I'm thinking I may end up having to again. Dread.

Goodie day is going to be this Thursday. I signed up to bring my Chili. I just now decided that my Chili shall be capitalized thenceforth.

Friday, my older boy's comp apparently spontaneously shut off, and now refuses to do anything. I attempted to use a different power supply, and then even tried to swap everything into my Linux computer's case. No luck. If it's not a power supply issue, I don't have a clue what it could be. Rather unusual that I'm at a loss.

I've already purchased one of my own Christmas presents. A Garmin GPS unit. The main reason I got it at an early date was it comes in most handy going somewhere you've not been before. I got it prior to the Palm Springs trip, and it works out pretty nice. Of course, you kind of need an address of the destination to have it navigate you somewhere. I'm very pleased with it. I'm also further pleased that every time I've seen it (or even the small screen twin of it) the price has been at least $20 more than I paid!!!

On goodie day, several of us are having a first ever T-shirt gift exchange. Funny T-shirts are the idea. I got mine for it today, it's pretty cool. It has a skull and crossbones, with a bandanna around it and a scimitar clenched between it's teeth. The message above it reads "Just A Pirate", and underneath, "Hunting Booty".

I've missed the last two mileage updates, so here they are: 27.59 MPG and 30.66 MPG. I noticed a dip on the first one following the anomalous 42.31 MPG fill up, likely related. Brings the lifetime average to 29.98 MPG. I'm good with that.

I had been planning on taking the family to Universal Studios on Saturday, but by the time we got out of bed and started the chili up (that's right, I'm making it up almost a week in advance. Don't want to be up till one AM on Wednesday getting it going, then not have it be done in the morning. Besides, my Chili is always better after it's been out of the pot and in the fridge. Perhaps that will be the final step in my Secret Recipe) (Dang, talk about a run-on parenthetical statement or two!!! Now back to our regularly scheduled sentence) it was near noon. I had been wanting to get one more in before our annual pass expires, but that my not happen now.

They announced the cash profit sharing number on Friday. 350%!!! And this year, after having been employed longer than two years, I'm eligible for all of it!!! I'm pleased indeed!!! Right on the announcement, there was mention that next year's number will not be so good. They must have crystal balls. Of course, they almost always predict the number of orders and lines per day within a couple hundred, which I find remarkable.

Interestingly, after I put everything back into the Linux case, now that one does nothing when you go to turn it on, either!!! I'm wondering if it could be power supply, and whatever caused it to go in the original configuration could have done it again. That case did have a much weaker power supply. I'm hesitant to use the power supply from mine.

Along the inner wall (which used to be an outer wall before our last expansion) at work, in a stretch with nothing but walkway and wall, they've placed one of the decorative poinsettias right on the ground. It is totally random looking there, and I smile every time I see it there.

Maybe that was the idea.

I'd been thinking of getting myself a laptop for Christmas, but last week I saw an ad for the same DSLR camera my dad has, with a 300mm lens kit, for only $599+$29, with no sales tax. Price was good for quite a while, too. Sigh. Right after I'd talked myself out of getting a DSLR.

I haven't gotten a ton of things for my wife yet, either. I'm thinking of buying her something like 50 or 100 big spin lottery scratchers. Good times!!! Maybe I'll buy 50 for each of us!!!

I'm not finding the laptop I want for a price I want anymore. Back around October, I was seeing nicely equipped Toshibas with 17" screens for under $600, but now they're asking almost $700 for almost all nicely equipped PC's with only 15.4" screens. I thought for sure that with the economy tanking they'd actually try and get people to buy stuff near Christmas. Oh well, I'm in no hurry.

Actually, I would like to buy before the end of the year. The sales tax goes up another 1/2 percent come 2009. *Rollen my eyes*

Instead of going to Universal (and getting the all you can eat pass like the older boy and I did last time, but for both us and wifey this time) we went to John's Incredible Pizza again. The price was about the same, but that included $25 of game credits. I got to try the garlic pesto and BBQ chicken pizza this time, and they both rate high with me now.

Maybe I'll buy neither. I'm considering buying myself some commodities. If I'd bought about $400 of oil last Thursday and sold it on Friday, I could have made around $100. I've heard talk of it getting down to $25 a barrel for light sweet crude, but I honestly don't see that happening. what I do see happening it it going back up... eventually...

I see Tiger Direct has a build your own system with a dual core AMD 2.2 gig processor, 2 gig RAM, 250 gig hard drive, as well as the motherboard, case and power supply for only $149.99. Really, almost too cheap to pass up!!! Could likely be the easiest way to get my boy up and running again.

Honestly, I can't imagine the oil companies even bothering to extract oil at only $25 a barrel!!!

After returning from John's Incredible Pizza, the boys and I FINALLY got the Christmas lights set up. Nice, wouldn't likely have gotten that done if we'd gone to Universal Studios!!!

I had wondered if the plummeting gas prices would help the fortunes of the big 3 auto makers. They profit best making gas guzzlers. Which, ironically, is why any bailout will fail. There's this thing called Corporate Average Fuel Economy, and it will torpedo any turn around attempts. Opinion stolen from the Wall Street Journal, but if you think about it, it makes sense.

I've been thinking of buying annual passes to Six Flags Magic Mountain for the family for next year. I'd been looking at Disneyland, but the price!!! Insanity!!! Six Flags is a relative bargain, and they throw in passes for one extra visitor one trip, and one pass to the water park. I'm thinking yea. Maybe wrap 'em up, then after we open everything Christmas morning, take the family there for the rest of the day!!!

I don't think they've done this before, but they told the day they're going to give out the profit sharing checks. It'll be on the 22nd. Nice, you don't get a weekend in between to spend it. Not a big deal to me, I'll take me gravy no matter when it comes!!!

I'm not especially worried about posting possible Christmas gifts here, only one member of the household reads this, and that is only once in a blue moon.

By the way, I just checked the dates Six Flags is open, and it's closed Christmas day. Glad I checked that, it would have been JUST like National Lampoon's Vacation, starring Magic Mountain as Wally World!!!

There's more random left within me. If only there were a way to safely extract it!!!