Freedomland

(Yes, the title of this post is a shout-out to a tune from the first Yellowjackets CD with Bob Mintzer in the band. It seemed appropriate for the end of a semester where Combo Too played the tune in the fall concert and Halfling and I got to meet Mintzer a few months ago.)

Vacation is here. A few weeks to recharge, get caught up on stuff, and hopefully play my horn for fun again like I did in the summer. Blogging should increase, since I have quite a few topics on my mind and will actually have time to commit them to the keyboard now.

Technically, there's a tiny bit of work left to be done: finishing up the last bit of Christmas shopping, figuring out my taxes for the last part of the year (though I suppose I'll wait to see if any checks from the lagging students come filtering in during the next week or so), addressing my Christmas cards (yes, I'm old-school like that and will post on it later) and doing my grades. The grade part will be easy since it's all done online and can be completed right here in the comfort of my home office.

Speaking of doing things from home, I've gotta say, I really love the Internet. Sure, it's been a major deal for me for a long time, keeping me connected to my friends and being a handy source of all kinds of information. But this year, my Christmas shopping is almost complete, and I've only bought one item (a toy for my one-year-old nephew) in a brick-and-mortar store. Everything else has been purchased online, with the majority coming from here. I've only had to go to the post office once to pick up a package; the rest of them have been left right by my front door, which is nicely concealed from street view (that also came in handy a year ago when I accidentally left my front door open for a few hours). You could say it's the lazy man's approach to holiday shopping, but on the other hand, it's been nearly stress-free since I haven't had to fight the crowds and parking-lot maniacs so far.

At any rate, it's good to have some time off. With any luck, there'll be something new here every day for a while.

Weird news story of the day: The San Antonio City Council voted today to require all exotic dancers to be licensed and wear a permit while performing. As you can imagine, talk radio was abuzz today over the story, with the obvious question being "where would they wear the permits?" Heh. You'd better believe I emailed this one to Dave Barry's Blog.