The Time Sink

Dialogs...

"What's Brad doing out in the front garden?"

"Heck, I don't know; I told him to clean out the car before we leave."

"Brad, what are you doing?"

"Hunting for a snail!"

It was at this point I noticed the empty pretzel bag in his hand. Empty of pretzels, but not of salt...

From the 'Christmas station' on radio on the way back:

"Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere..."

From the back seat: "Why in the heck are they playing this?"

Radio: "...that Jesus Christ is born!"

"Oh, that would be why..."

Hmmm... Can we just say the Christmas season is in full swing? ...like maybe I should capitalize and highlight things like "Christmas $eason". ...and stay the heck off the roads? ...and out of the stores? Oh, like that's easy or something? I do purchasing... Yeah...

...and oh, man; the events start tonight for us. Hither and yon, yon and hither, this recital, that concert, this visit, that group event, this party, that one. ...and all the time balancing homework and the school projects. ...and somehow maintaining our sanity.

Ah, well, there are the bright spots in the season. Like the lights and the ornaments and all the cool colors and visuals of the season that I can photograph and put up on the blog. Yep, I started last night with an ornament; there will be more to come between now and then.

No post...

The back story on the squirrel? Sure...

Every December we spend some time at one of the local cemeteries adding a Christmas arrangement of some sort (often a tree, as you'll see next week) to Shelley's mother's grave. In the early years I'd go alone to handle things, but for the last several years we've gone as a family. ...and the squirrels have become part of the tradition, with the boys and Shelley feeding them and me taking pictures of them.

The fellow over on the blog had feasted pretty nicely on peanuts supplied by Brad (hey, he's gotten better: he no longer throws the peanuts at them) and had proven friendly enough that I'd actually been taking ground level shots with the macro settings on the Casio. Well, he'd had his fill and headed over to a tree and began his scamper upwards. ...but he stopped and I was there and the camera was still on and yeah, I'll take a shot like that any day!

Well, this is the last weekend before the last week of school before Christmas vacation for the boys. Brad's catching a break (or so it seems), but Daniel is on the receiving end of one of those homework/project combos you just have to have some pity about. So far he has a handwritten paper for English, a brochure for History, a book test (for a book he's still reading, "LotR") for Literature and a model of an atom for Science all due by midweek...

He's been chunking away at things pretty well, but this weekend will be important because he'll be losing two evenings next week to events. So yeah, guess what we'll be concentrating on for the next few days...

Whew... It's been a longish day here, but we did most of what we set out to do. ...and caught a couple of breaks! Friday, the written assignment Daniel had due on Monday became due on Friday! Hooboy, was he glad he'd started on it and been chunking it out already this week. We'd reviewed it Thursday after his first rewrite, but we'd only hit the first paragraph or two with the detailed eye. Still, it was well into the Good Enough stage and it should hold up enough to generate a decent grade for a second draft.

The second break came in late this evening when we found out the heavy reading assignment may be extended over the vacation. That would work out just fine; his daily reading would just continue to be the books for school. ...and he'd planned on working on a second one anyway so we're all feeling some relief from that one.

...and in the category of "Whatever it needs is too bad; it's done", the model of an Oxygen atom is completed and ready to turn in. Sheesh, what a deal that one was. We ended up using beads and wire from the hobby shop. As has been said, "It ain't pretty, but it works!". All that's left on the homework plate is the second review on the brochure for History and we'll be done with the heavy lifting until January (Hey, Donna, he picked New Jersey as his 'colonial state'!).

Yep, the fog is back, at least for a day or two. Yesterday's was pretty dense in areas; we had it light comparatively.

Hey, if you liked that squirrel pic the other day, you'll love this linkage sent along by garret over at dangerousmeta! I gotta' tell you, that's an intriguing photo to me <g>!

...and today may end up being a kickback day for me; I'm thinking a little down time before the workweek fires up again may be a good idea...

Click image for larger version

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

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