The family is heading down south (i.e near Canton) tonight for an annual get together. It should be fun, as it always is, but more somber thoughts can't help but creep into my head.

The prognosis on my grandmother is worse than I had originally been told. Previously, it was said that within 6 months she would begin to feel pain in her arm and that her life expectancy was 1-2 years. Now I've been told that she can start to feel pain at literally any moment and that her life expectancy is 6 months to 1 year. That's a hard pill to swallow for me, as she's essentially been another mother to me.

I recognize that I need to savor the time that we do have and absolutely make the most of it, but I'm having a hard time doing that while simultaneously thinking of what the near future holds. I've got to try to leave those thoughts for the future and not let them taint the present, but it's not easy.

The Purdue - Central Michigan game reminded me of the Oklahoma - Boise State game from last year. Lots of offense. Defenses that were incapable of stopping the other team. A last minute victory.

Of course, the Boise State game from last year had more at stake and featured much better teams, and did have perhaps the greatest ending of any college football game ever... but hey, the Purdue game at least reminded me of that one.

I'll take a bowl game victory, even if it's in the Motor City bowl. The game was nicely attending, and certainly won't go down as the most boring game of the bowl season.

I trust that everyone had a good Christmas.

In case you haven't noticed, and judging by the attendance, you haven't, Purdue plays Central Michigan tonight in the Motor City Bowl.

Woo! I'm so excited I might watch part of it. Woo!

Making another trip to Maryland tonight. Hopefully we have no car trouble *knock on wood*. We should get in hopefully before 10PM tonight.

Today I heard something utterly and completely ridiculous on the radio on the way to work. The morning hosts were talking about Christmas gift ideas for kids. They were trying to show that Christmas is more than just getting toys and new clothes, etc. Some of the gift ideas were 3X5 cards with things written on it like "Use for 1 extra hour of staying up before bedtime" or "Redeemable for one weeding of the garden." Stuff that is more about the kids giving or receiving time than monetary gifts. Anyway, at one point the guy who was being asked for these ideas said "Tell the kids to remember, it's not their birthday." What he's saying, obviously, is that it's not just another birthday party for them. The gifts are secondary. There's a reason for this particular holiday that we call Christmas. Well then the host said "Yeah, it's Santa's birthday."

Are you freaking kidding me?!?! Christmas is now Santa's birthday? A make believe guy that delivers presents? That's what Christmas is now? I think you shmoe that what the other guy was saying is to tell the kids that Christmas is about... you know... Christ! That's why it's named CHRISTmas! Have we really gotten to the politically correct point that we're so afraid to mention Jesus Christ when talking about Christmas? It's obvious that we have.

It's completely ridiculous and extremely irritating to me.

The Browns are sitting at 9-5. I would've bet any amount of money earlier this year that they would not be 9-5. 5-9 would've even been a stretch. After the season opener against Pittsburgh, when they got drubbed, I was predicting 3-13, or 2-14. Apparently Charlie Frye really was the problem, because as soon as Derek Anderson came in, the team really took off. They're actually exciting to watch. That's something I haven't been able to say in a long time.

Hopefully this will be the second to last busy night of the year. I'm working on somewhat of a secret Christmas present for my family and am trying to get it all done tonight.

Last night I was busy responding to Lindsay's kids. She had them write letters to Santa Claus (me) and I responded to them. Quite excellently I might add. I went above and beyond if I do say myself. Hopefully they like them.

Two days from now is my Dad's birthday, but we're having them over tomorrow night for dinner, so that should be the last busy night. Until of course we have to drive to Maryland on Friday... so maybe I have no idea how many busy nights I have left.

Yesterday was my graduation ceremony downtown. Everything started okay at home. The weather was fine, well cold, but otherwise fine. We went out to breakfast and the weather was still fine, which was weird as there was supposedly a huge winter storm coming our way. After breakfast we were driving downtown because I needed to be there at noon and the ceremony was starting at 1:00 PM. About halfway there it became evident that there really was a large winter storm coming our way, and in fact, it was here. The roads were clear, but it was still essentially white out conditions. The winds were quite heavy and were busy blowing all of the snow sideways, thus obscuring your vision.

Lindsay dropped me off at the Wohlstein Center (see Convocation Center) and headed out to park. As I would be wearing a cap and gown, I left my coat in the car. It turns out that it was cold outside. Really cold. Especially with no coat on. Anyway, I made it alive and unfrozen into the building and headed over to pick up my honors award. Yes, they gave me an award in the form of a large medal because I graduated Magna Cum Laude. Top 15 in my class. Yay for me. I guess that's what happens when I can be bothered to attend class. Back to the story, I got my award, and went to the basement. I signed in, got dressed, and here it was, 45 minutes before the ceremony. Yada, yada, yada, I went up to take some pictures and say my hello's, went to the ceremony, etc, etc. Now the ceremony is over. Great. It's only 3 hours later. We met up and headed out.

It was cold, windy, wet, snowy, and all together sucky. Did you see the weather at the Browns game? Conveniently, it was exactly like that. We had to walk about 2 blocks. No problem right? Well there was a problem. The city of Cleveland has exactly zero snow plows. Maybe even less than that. Snow? In Cleveland? Come on! That never happens. Why do we need snow plows? We don't. Problem solved.

So we're running through the arctic circle otherwise known as downtown Cleveland. Cars are sliding all over the place, nearly running down pedestrians like they're getting bonus points for doing so. Eventually we made it to the car. Next stop, the highway. If only we could see the roads, let alone the lanes. Lindsay was driving, and she got to the highway, which were better than the roads but not by much. At one point, we were in the fast lane and there was a car about 100 feet in front of us in the slow lane. He tried to get over a lane and instead spun out in a 720 across all four lanes of the highway and into the wall directly in front of us. By directly, I mean he was about 20 feet in front of us when he crashed into the wall. We stopped and he got out, checked his car, and then just drove away, so we did the same.

Long story short, we made it home safely, and had a nice party with a bunch of people. The end. Come to think of it, maybe later I'll expound on the party itself, complete with pictures. Or not.

The last day of school is at hand. Rejoice, I say to thee rejoice! I'm almost free of my chains and shackles. I cannot wait. One last exam. One more time getting ripped off at the bookstore. Who cares, I'm out. Done. Finì. Adios muchacho.

I just bought something on eBay... a USB SD card reader. It's coming from Hong Kong, which last time I checked, wasn't too close to Ohio. Total shipping on the item is $1.99. I can't ship something to Akron for $1.99. How exactly are they making any money on these things? Do they have their slave laborers swimming across the ocean and then hand delivering it to me?

Good news everyone! I went to sell back my books and for one they'll give me a whole $6. For the other they're willing to take it off of my hands for a grand total of zero dollars. What a deal!

We went out on Saturday and cut down our own Christmas tree. That makes three trees that we have up in the house this year. I took pictures of each of them, but they're on Lindsay's camera and we couldn't find the cord to connect it to the computer, so you'll have to wait to see them in their glory. We have a fake 3 footer, a fake 6 footer, and a real 7 footer.

Sawing down a tree with a handsaw is a lot less fun than you'd imagine, and I imagined it to be not very fun.

I have a presentation in my knowledge management class in about 15 minutes. The class is useless. The idea of knowledge management itself isn't so bad, except of course that it has no practical applications... at least not the way this course is being taught. It's more like a class on buzzwords.

That said, my buzzword presentation is in 15 minutes.

As you all know, my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer about a year ago. She had a few surgeries, chemo, and radiation in attempts to get rid of it. On Monday she had another PET scan and it showed that the cancer had grown in her arm and had spread to her lung.

She had previously stated that she wouldn't go through that stuff again and that she'd just let it run its course. As such, the doctors told her that within 6 months she'll feel pain in her arm and will need to be on pain medicine. They also said that she should contact hospice because she'll be needing it. At this point they don't know how quickly this will progress though. They said it's possible that she could go 1-2 years with no other symptoms or that it could spread much faster than that. Why they can't be more specific I don't know.

What they do know is that it's in her arm and at least one lung and in her lymph nodes. They only scanned her upper body, so they said it could be in other areas also. I don't know if they're going to do another scan. At this point I don't really know much of anything other than now she has a terminal illness. There's no cure and she's not going to attempt to delay the inevitable either.

Really bad news on a personal level today. I'll post details if I get a chance.