Month: December 2003

7 Years and counting down to New Year’s

Lest it pass unnoticed, Dec 28th was Scott’s and my 7th wedding anniversary. In previous years, when our schedules and finances permitted, we would try to get away somewhere to celebrate our anniversary, but that wasn’t possible this year. We had a nice day anyway. We went to a favorite diner for brunch, did some shopping, and came home. Scott cooked us a nice dinner, and we watched Duty, one of the new Horatio Hornblower DVDs. One of the plot points in Duty is Hornblower’s marriage, but that was just a happenstance of timing.

Aficionados of the original C.S. Forester series may find the additions to the plot confusing and/or annoying. Or as Scott might put it, I have a really bad habit of yelling at the TV when the plot deviates from what I expect based on the book. Nevertheless, overall the A&E version of the Hornblower series is a lot of fun. Its strength in casting goes a long way towards alleviating the weaknesses of the plot and the production values. Ioan Gruffudd (Hornblower), Paul McGann (Lt Bush), and Robert Lindsay (Sir Edward Pellew) are my favorites, but the other actors are all quite good as well.

One aspect of C.S. Forester’s Hornblower books that’s extremely hard to dramatize is Hornblower’s internal life. In modern parlance, Hornblower struggled with depression and poor self esteem, which only his extreme self-discipline and willpower kept under control. It’s not easy to put that on screen, and the A&E series generally doesn’t try to do so – which is, I suspect, part of the reason for so many plot additions.

Anyway, I’m re-reading Hornblower and The Hotspur.

And so 2003 winds to a close. We’ll spend New Year’s Eve at a local comedy club, which should be fun. We hadn’t planned it that way, but a friend has tickets she can’t use and it’ll be a nice change of pace. Some of the better New Year’s Eve’s we’ve spent in the past few years have been up at Lake Tahoe, but again, time and $$ took that off the table for this year.

I can’t say I’m sad to see 2003 go. It was a better year than 2002, but not a stellar one. Financially, we’re ending the year in better shape than when it started, but we’ve got a lot of catching up to do after the fiscal chaos of the past couple of years, and it’ll be a while yet before there’s light at the end of that tunnel. Our families are healthy and thriving, which is good, but America as a whole is still a mess, the war in Iraq is a sinkhole, and the outlook for the future could be better.

One bright spot: in 2004 America will elect a new President. My heartfelt wish is that we Americans get our collective butts in gear and send President Bush back to Texas where he belongs. In 19 days, the Democratic primary season starts with the Iowa caucuses. It’s an exciting time. It’s no secret I’m for Howard Dean, but even if some other Democrat is the nominee, I intend to do my part to make sure whoever gets the nomination can beat Bush.

Happy New Year, everyone! Please be safe if you’re going out tonight.

Frozen Jell-O

Did you know Jell-O could freeze? I didn’t. When I went to take some of the batch I’d made a couple days ago out of the refrigerator tonight, though, I found that one of the cups had frozen up. Guess it’s time to adjust the coolness setting in the fridge.

I let it defrost a bit then vigorously stirred it to break up the frozen bits. Frozen Jell-O tastes OK. A bit crunchy.

I’ve been a bit down the past few days and, not wanting to turn this blog into something overly self-absorbed (if that’s possible in a personal blog) or negative, I’ve refrained from posting. I’m feeling a bit better tonight.

I had to give one of my staff members a 30 day review today and had been quite nervous about it. I’ve had so many bad managers in the past that now that I myself am in a manager’s shoes, I want to make sure I do a better job of managing than what I had to cope with. It helps that the employee in question is overall doing a good job, but I was still somewhat nervous about getting it right. I wanted to hit just the right tone – positive, but still wanting to call attention to some areas that needed improvement. I’m reasonably sure I did. She seemed happy after we were done and things went smoothly the rest of the day at work, if that’s anything to judge by.

Business has picked up post-Xmas, which is also a reason for feeling more cheerful. It’s no fun to be bored at work. Plus, I’ve taken the holiday music CDs and packed them away until next year. I wanted to break them into little pieces and then toss the bits into the garbage, but decided that might be overkill.

Auto Update & Odds & Ends

For those who’ve been wondering, the car situation is still – almost 2 weeks later – in limbo. Allstate has gotten a firm estimate from the body shop – $5,600. They’re supposed to finally send a human being out to take a look at my car and assess the estimate sometime this week, as well as check to see if it’s too close to their “threshold” for writing the car off. I’m getting a bit tired of waiting but there hasn’t been much I’ve been able to do to speed the process along, other than call Allstate every other day to check on the progress of the claim.

I’ve also been having problems with my web host – the site has not been accessable much the past few days. If it keeps up I’ll have to start looking for a new hosting company.

I’ve got a few blog posts in my head that I have to make time to type out – my “Lord Of The Rings” review, the long-overdue review of my iPod, and a couple others. With the holiday season almost over, my work schedule will shortly lighten up and I’ll be able to post more regularly. Or so goes the plan. We’ll see what reality brings.