We had another earthquake here about 90 minutes ago. No word yet on the size of it. That's the second quake in 3 months here at the homestead though. It sounded like a transformer blowing up or a propane tank explosion or something.

Can't say that I liked it.

Alright media! You've fed me just enough crap and now I'm ready to puke. In an article talking about how people see right through Hillary Clinton and want nothing to do with her, the media spins it as this : "If anything, she is too entrenched, too competent a leader."

Yes. Exactly right, media! Hillary Clinton is just too awesome and that's why people aren't voting for her.

Makes perfect sense.

Or... it could be that she's actually full of horrible ideas and is willing to pander to any and every group in order to get power.

I'll go with the fact that she's just too awesome to vote for though.

Stupid Ohio State! Not only did I already dislike you, but now, because of your shoddy performance, I have to listen to ESPN mouthpieces talk about how bad the Big Ten is. Give me a break.

Take the SEC out of their domes and permanent 70 degree weather and throw them in a few thunderstorms and blizzards and lets see how they do. Oh? Not able to pass as well? Interesting. What's that? You can't run a 4.2 40 in the slop otherwise known as Northwestern's field? Never would've guessed.

Anyway, our poor, slow, and terribly sucky conference must now wait for another year for a chance to beat itself up while the 1-2 good teams in the Big 12 are put up there with the elite and the SEC is heralded as God's own conference, full of his mighty warriors.

Bleh. That's right. I said Bleh.

Take that Jean-Francois!

Nothing happening really. Just keeping busy. Yesterday was a relatively nice departure. I was able to sit around and do nothing for about 3 hours.

Lindsay bought me Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii and we've been playing that for a couple of hours over the past few days. It's pretty fun. Nintendo games may not have hookers, drugs, or guns in them, but they manage to pull off being fun to play, and isn't that the point of a game?

Tonight's the game between LSU and Ohio State. I can't say that I'm very excited about it either. We're going to go out and watch the first half, otherwise I'd watch maybe 5 minutes of it. It's like the NFL in that regard. If my favorite team isn't in it, I'm not likely to watch it.

I watched a grand total of 3 minutes of the playoffs this weekend and I can't say that I missed it.

So the holidays are over, but the busy life continues. Lots of pending travel is coming up. In fact, I've already submitted vacation requests for almost all of my time for the remainder of the year.

Potentially going to Maryland in January.
Going to Nags Head in February.
Staying home in March? That's unpossible!
Orlando is up next in April.
For my birthday in May, we may go to South Carolina.
Middle of June we'll be in West Virginia.
End of June and beginning of July, we'll be in Hawaii.
August through October have nothing planned yet, but that doesn't mean anything as we'll surely go somewhere.
In November we'll definitely be in South Carolina.
December calls for a Christmas trip to Maryland.

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.