Things happening down 'round our way:

• Painted the living room. Finally, we did it. A lovely shade of green called "Hellebore." Got to play with my power sander and breathing mask, as well. We decided to replace the ancient sconces (think 1/4 giant ping-pong ball), and that meant dealing with the fact that they had been painted and painted around for the last few decades. There was a crater left when I pulled them off, and so I had some sanding and filling to do to get things flat again. Now, though, even though we are waiting on the sconces to arrive, it's like we have a whole new room.
• Stayed home for Xmas. Yep, we had planned to go out to Stanford to hang with Shel's sisters and their husbands, as well as our baby niece. Nothing doing, though, thanks to a decision to play it smart financially this holiday. Tough decision, but the right one.
• Got a Bosch router. This has been on my wish list for years -- ever since I started goofing around making arcade joysticks. This will let me make some nice custom sticks, and maybe even some other less geeky bits of woodcraft. Now all I need is a router table. And a table saw. And that drill press I was looking at. And lotsa bits. And a place to put it all. And a million bucks.
• Taken up GBA playing again. Specifically, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. What a great game. Also playing Mario Golf and Virtua Tennis again. Every time I play Mario Golf, though, I hear Piers' Mario impression: "Nice Approach!"
• Still playing online chess; still sucking. Let's just say that improvement is a long-term prospect. I really enjoy it, though. I feel like my only hope for absorbing all the chess knowledge out there is through some kind of electronic osmosis. I am using a program to practice tactical motifs, though: CT Art 3.0. It collects over a thousand real situations from historical games and groups them by difficulty and theme, so you can work your way up over time, learning to recognize certain combinational possibilities when they appear. Or that's the theory. Did I mention I still suck?
• Out with crap phone, in with BlackBerry. Now I can work all the time, and answer annoying emails when they are in fact most annoying. Nothing says speedy communication like typing an angry message at top speed using only your thumbs. You can sit around doing nothing, with your thumb up your rear, and you can get mad and put a foot in someone else's rear; with the advent of BlackBerry, though, you can now put a thumb up someone else's rear.
• Learning to wiki. Going to build a wiki that serves as a platform for user-oriented communication with my instructors. I want to give them access to needy information in a much more intuitive way, and I want them to have the opportunity to respond to it and improve it. Gonna be cool.

That's about all for now. Later!