12/26/06

I'm back. Here we are in the last week of 2006. I'm sitting here at my desk because I frittered away all my vacation time earlier in the year. Of course if I were off I'd probably just be frittering away my time at home right now. I wasted the entire three-day weekend. Friday afternoon, about 1430 h or 1500 h I'm not really sure, I cut out of here. I said I was going to go for a hoon but I wound up going straight home instead. My brother and his family were at the house so we all sat around and talked for a while. Around 1800 h or so we went to Spring Creek Barbecue for dinner. My aunt and uncle met us there, as did my sister and brother-in-law eventually. We all went back to the house for a bit then opened presents. Yawn. Everyone crashed out about 2200 h. I rolled out of bed about 0845 h to find my brother and all ready to head out. They left for Not-Texas to pick up her mother and go back to Round Rock at about 0900 h. I asked mom what she had planned and she excused me to go to the shop if I wanted. I decided to wait for 1000 h before calling John and Gregg. Gregg had mentioned possibly going to the shop to round up some of that Z-car stuff but I wasn’t sure how long my brother was going to be there and said I'd let him know. At 0959 h my phone rings. It is Gregg telling me he isn’t going to be able to make it. I say, “That’s cool,” because it was. I try to call John but his phone is off. No biggie, he’ll call me if he’s going to the shop I figure. I never hear from him so I sit around the house all day “helping” mom with Christmas crap. Around 1800 h I tell her I need to go check on Pat's house and suggest we have dinner on that side of town. We go do that and eat at Red Hot and Blue. Back at the house I waste the evening watching TV. Sunday morning mom asks me for some help. The dishwasher has stopped pumping water out and was full of nasty green funky stuff. She asked that I bail it out while she was at church. I start thinking of how I could do it without actually having to bail it out. I decide to go to the hardware/home improvement store to buy a sump pump or something. I begin walking the isles looking for a hand-powered pump when I come across the wet/dry shop vacuums. Duh. I find one I like and figure I'll give it to her for Christmas and if she doesn’t want it I'll take it to the shop. I pick up the box and see a smaller unit I like better. I buy the smaller unit thinking it will be cheaper but it isn’t. Still, I like it better. I take it home and open it up. I assemble it and get to work. It sucks up about a half gallon in about thirty seconds and the ball closes off the suction thingy. I dump it out and try again. This goes on for about five or six suction/dump cycles. “Should have bought the bigger one,” I think to myself. Oh well. I get the dishwasher dried out and clean up the vacuum. I repack it and take it upstairs to wrap. I write on the side, “To: Mom, From: Tim, (or To: Tim, From: Mom as the case may be)” and set it under the tree. Mom comes home and we have lunch. I waste the afternoon watching TV. We go to the Christmas Eve service and stop at Braum’s for hamburgers and ice on the way home. We exchange a few gifts, including the shop vac, which it is decided will stay at the house, and she calls it a night. Eventually I go to bed as well. Christmas morning I get up and go see what I need to do to help get ready for another invasion of relatives. They start arriving and we all mingle. I try to avoid the two newest ones, my nephew’s wife and their spawn, because I can’t stand her and I just don’t like babies. My sister finally arrives and we all exchange gifts. Yawn. Finally we eat around 1330 h or so. My sister and brother-in-law hightail it out of there because they can’t stand our nephew and his wife either. There’s a whole story about a rent house in College Station that I'm not going to get into. I can’t figure a way to go with them so I’m stuck. Eventually the rest leave and I'm free to do whatever I want. Well, it is 1700 h by now so I just say, “Screw it,” and settle in for the evening. Now I'm back at “work” trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the day. The guys aren’t here to work on the Board Room so I'm at loose ends today. Tomorrow, and perhaps Thursday, the installation guy wants to stay until he’s finished in the Board Room so I'm probably stuck here late. That means shop night may not happen this week. We’ll see. Well, that’s about all I've got for today. Talk to y'all tomorrow.