Happy Birthday, you old fart!!!

Now go take a nap or something 🙂

Christmasâ„¢ was good at Casa de Tone!

We had good food, good family fun, and presents galore!!  The kids got the XBOX 360 and Rock Band 2 that they wanted, I got a new rotisserie oven and other great things (Thanks for the Texas BBQ, Dad!!!), and my wife was very pleased with the shiny item that she found in her stocking (a sapphire and diamond ring).

As for the snow outside… well… it’s back at it today.  The past two days were pretty warm… around 4oº F (4.4º Celsius).  This caused quite the melt, though it didn’t really make much of a dent in what we had on the ground.  Last night the temperature dropped again and all that melted snow froze solid.  Now it’s snowing like mad and there’s a very slick layer of ice under it.  Sounds like fun driving to me!

Here’s a few pics from this morning:

Of course, now we’re making plans for New Years Eve (which is only in a couple of days).  That should be an absolute blast as well!!

On Wednesday of last week, it started snowing.

It didn’t stop snowing until Friday.  After all was said and done, we had gotten around 27 inches (68.6 cm) of the white fluffy crap.  While having snow for Christmasâ„¢ is great, that much all at once wasn’t.

My car, while it has all wheel drive, also has air dams and such, leaving very little clearance between the road and it’s lowest point.  This means that when there’s an ass load of snow on the ground, we’re pretty much stuck where we are (or risk ripping chunks off the car).  Essentially, we’ve been stuck in the house since last Thursday.

Here’s a few pictures of the damage… click on the thumbnails for a larger view:

While this is pretty and all, being trapped because the road sucked much butt was a pain in the butt.  Thank goodness we have a deep freezer full of food!

But then, last night… something amazing finally happened…. the city plows came to our dead end street!!  This was only, of course, after my neighbor called and yelled at them.  Thank you, neighbor!!!  I was starting to get concerned because I run out of my meds tonight and the perscription has been filled and waiting at the pharmacy since last week.  Now we’ll be able to pick them up!  Also… I haven’t been able to ship any Christmasâ„¢ packages yet… so they may be late (sorry Dad!).  I’ll be sending those today (overnight if possible).

Oh… and if you’re wondering why I put a “â„¢” after Christmas… it’s because the holiday has been totally commercialized.

My wife and I went out and braved the unwashed masses yesterday to get our Christmasâ„¢ shopping done.

While we didn’t get it all done, we did manage to make a major impact into our list.

I can’t exactly go into details on what I purchased (as many a family member reads this blog), but I can say that I spent a lot of money.  So much, in fact, that it triggered an alarm at my bank.

When we got home, there was a message on the answering machine, asking me to call the bank.  According to the message, there was suspicious activity on my account and they wanted to verify that it was me.  I guess that happens when you never leave the house and only make a few purchases per month.

Of course, I called them and verified the charges (they were all me).  It would have been fun to say that I didn’t make any of them, but then again, that would have probably ended badly for me, so I was honest.

As for the shopping itself, I did pick up a few items that we’ren’t gifts: a set of spring form pans for baking cheese cakes, a 2 quart sauce pan (I desperately needed a second one), and a few other items for the kitchen.  Yes… I’m very damn domestic.