Wow. Well, we're in the home stretch of the run-up to Christmas, and I survived... barely. I think my health took another nosedive last night, since I could barely speak by the time I talked to Stef on the phone right before bed. Right now I'm feeling a little bit better, but who knows what could happen in the next 20 minutes.

Last night was insane. I had to go to Meijer, so at the last minute, I chose the one out on Lake Lansing (I was in E.L. at the time) over the Okemos one, thinking it would be a little less busy. I was wrong. My God, the traffic was bumper to bumper practically the whole way there. I bet it took me 40 minutes to get from the CVS in E.L. to the Lake Lansing Meijer. What a nightmare. Ah well, I finally made it, and actually managed to get in and out of there pretty quickly. By the time I got home I was ready to collapse, but I still had to get crackin' on cleaning up the apartment ahead of my mom and Dan's Christmas vist. Everything is all spic 'n span now, so at least that's out of the way.

Well, today is my last day of work until January 4. I'm getting my hair cut at noon, and then heading out to Stef's. We're probably going to see a movie this afternoon, but what I'm really looking forward to right now is finally getting to watch my perennial Christmas favorite, It's A Wonderful Life. I'm really looking forward to this Holiday break. We leave for the Bahamas next Wednesday, and it's going to be a fabulous trip. Don't know if I'll have time to update the site between now and then, but we'll see how it goes. If I don't check in again, I hope everyone has Happy Holidays (Bill O'Reilly, eat your heart out).

This cold ballooned yesterday night. I don't think a few hours of last-minute Christmas shopping helped my cause at all. By the end of the night last night, I felt like complete crap. This morning was worse. I woke up and could barely talk. I felt like my head was about to explode. But, thanks to a miracle cocktail of Aleve, Zicam nasal gel, and Halls Fruit Breezers, I'm feeling a lot better (knock on wood). We'll see how long this lasts. Earlier this morning I was ready to head home at noon and go to bed, but now I'm feeling like I can make it through the rest of the day. Crossing my fingers.

Well, all that's really left for me to do tonight is to run to Meijer and pick up some groceries for my mom and Dan's visit this Christmas weekend. Once I'm home I need to finish wrapping a few small things, and clean the place up a bit. That's pretty much it though. Tomorrow I'm coming into the office, but only staying until a little after noon. I'm getting my hair cut at 1, and then hitting the road for Stef's house.

It's official, folks. I'm getting a sore throat. It started with a headache last Friday. I had some lingering funkiness going on all weekend, and then yesterday I got the pre-sick lump in the back of my throat. Today was really the first full day of non-stop pain, even though it's not that bad yet. Looks like I'll need to pick up some Halls at the store today. Great.

 

The results are in, amigo. What's left to ponder? It was a pretty good semester. I got 3.0's in my COM 225 and EC 301 classes, which are about what I expected. Somehow managed to snag a 3.5 in my EC 302 (macro) class, and also got a 4.0 in my screenwriting course. So, not my best semester, not my worst, but just a good, solid 18 weeks. I guess the most important part is that I feel like I learned a lot; probably more than I ever have at MSU. I mean, I wrote a freakin' screenplay. How cool is that? And I finished my economics cognate. Whew.

Now all that's left to do is schedule my last twelve credits for the spring semester. Right now three of my four classes overlap in one way or another, so some shuffling will be necessary. Of course, every time I log onto the website to make scheduling changes, none of the classes I want to change into are available. Not a surprise, I guess, but still a pain.

Well, tonight I really need to get some shit done. HAVE to finish my shopping. WANT to finish my wrapping. We'll see how things go though. Ugh. I'm just not looking forward to going back out towards Okemos. It's a zoo out there. If I can't get everything done tonight, I suppose I can finish up tomorrow, but I wanted to be able to go shopping so there's food in the house for when my mom and Dan come to town. We'll see how it goes.

What a fun day at the office today. We had a staff meeting this morning, which I was actually really glad about, since it was the first one I've been able to attend in forever. At 12:30 we wrapped things up, and headed over to the Cadillac Club for our Holiday office lunch. Christi bought all of us a whole bag full of goodies, including: some candy, a twinkie, a McDonald's "Arch" card, and a nice Christmas bonus. It was really sweet. Of course, all our food was excellent at the restaurant, and I think everyone had a really fun time.

It was all downhill from there. The rest of the afternoon was pretty easygoing, and the day just flew by. Tonight I'm planning on finishing the bulk of my gift wrapping, so hopefully I can finally get that taken care of. Originally I was planning to head out one last time to finish my shopping (which is about 95% done), but after spending an hour in a VERY busy Target last night, I'm taking a day off from shopping. It's actually a nice little system for wrapping though, since I can have "Curb" on in the background. That's basically it for now.

I can't believe the news today. Bono is (one of) Time's "persons of the year". Yes, the man who, for some ungodly reason, claims to have invented the mullet, Mr. Paul Hewson, is one of the most important people on the planet.

He's beyond music. He's beyond politics. He's a bono-fide global phenomenon (har har). Name someone with more influence (and don't say you-know-who). Seriously though... try to think of someone. Presidential terms only last four years. Bono isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Part of what's so great about Mr. Hewson is that, although he's clearly Mr. do-gooder liberal, he hasn't been sucked down into the partisan warfare so many likable musicians find themselves trapped in. I love artists like Bruce Springsteen and Dave Matthews to death. And you gotta give 'em credit for having the balls to go on those anti-bush tours last fall. But do they have even an ounce of the political influence that Bono has? Do they have the ears of Rick Santorum, Jesse Helms, and George Freakin' W. Bush? No! This guy gets stuff done. He sucks it up and WORKS WITH THE MAN instead of fighting him tooth and nail. People from both sides of the aisle respect Bono, and that's why in the next few years, his ONE campaign will have as many members as the N-R-A. Yep, that NRA.

Bono, wherever you take us, I wanna go there with you. Congratulations!

Friday: Stefy and I went to go see The Family Stone, which was actually pretty good. I mean, most of the story is telegraphed from all the previews on TV, but it was still entertaining. SJP and Luke Wilson were probably my favs. Surprisingly Craig T. Nelson was really good too. A far cry from his "Coach" days on ABC.

Saturday: Slept in a little bit, but had to get up relatively early (for a Saturday) to get ready for a trip to Jackson to see my godparents. It's been about 18 months since my trip down to visit the Shaughnessy's in Florida with my mom, so it was really great to see them at my grandma's house. Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom are both doing really well, and everything seems to be going fine for them. It was great to get a chance to introdouce them to Stefy, since I probably won't see them again for another five months or so (when they come up to Michigan again for my graduation). One interesting development was finally getting to put my head together with Uncle Tom's, and talk about doing an interactive DVD slideshow project for his business. I think it'll be a really cool undertaking, and could bear fruit into other side-projects, including (potentially) doing a new website for him.

After our visit, Stef and I came back to town, and went over to her place for a while. She needed to pack up a bunch of stuff from her apartment to take home for the winter break, so I basically hung out while she took care of getting stuff together. Once we had that taken care of, we came back to my place and watched Spinal Tap on DVD, and then SNL with Jack Black. Parts of it were pretty funny, but on the whole, it was still a pretty mediocre episode.

Sunday: FINALLY got a chance to sleep in this morning. I rolled out of bed at around 10:30, and took my sweet time getting up and around for the day. Finally had my act together by 1 or so, and made my way out to Dimondale to hang out at my dad's house for most of the day. There was a whole bunch of laundry to wash, and I was curious to see how ugly things got for the Lions, so it was a perfect day to hang out at home with the fam. Of course, the Lions found new and exciting ways to lose on Sunday. I think it was fitting that our last home game of the season featured the Detroit Lions getting their brains beaten out by the only other franchise in the NFL that (might be) historically WORSE than ours. Today the Lions are as bad as ever, and the Cincinnati Bengals are Super Bowl contenders. Perfect.

Monday: Back to work for the week. I'll pretty much be on the clock from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day this week. Probably spending tonight doing some more Christmas shopping and finally wrapping gifts. We'll see how it goes. I hope everyone had a great weekend.