Hi, I hope that everyone had good Christmas or whatever holiday (or holidays) that you celebrate. This year's holiday season was dampened both by the recent loss of my father-in-law Ken and the theft of our Christmas decorations. Nevertheless, both Rachel and I had a good time.

The recent theft of our outdoor Christmas decorations has set off a minor media bonanza. Shortly after the theft, we noticed a letter to the editor of "The Morning Journal" (a local newspaper. The writer of the letter detailed a similar theft. After a bit of investigation, we discovered that this writer lived only a few streets away. Therefore, Rachel wrote her own letter to "The Morning Journal". They published it the next day.

Yesterday, we took down our inflatable turkey and put up our inflatable Christmas Tiggers. They did not last long. Sometime between midnight and 6:00 this morning, someone stole them. We, of course, called the police. But, there probably is not much that they can do.

Tagline for today: "When I first heard that Marge was joining the police academy, I thought it would be fun and zany, like that movie 'Spaceballs'. But instead it was dark and disturbing, like that movie 'Police Academy'." - Homer Simpson

I hope that everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. Rachel and I slept in most of the day. Around noon, we decided to get up and do something. We met Rachel's mom, brother, and grandmother at local restaurant. I had their special Thanksgiving buffet dinner. It included turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, macaroni salad, ham, garlic sausage, turkey soup, green salad, and pumpkin cake. The food was extremely filling. I probably will end up skipping dinner and tomorrow's breakfast.

A few weeks ago, I received a ham from the HoneyBaked Ham Company. After removing as much meat as I could, I was still left with a rather large ham bone. Instead of tossing the bone, I decided to use it to make some bean stew. I started the stew last night, and I think it is about done. Of course, now I have the problem with an abundance of bean stew. I did use some of the excess ham stock and trimmings for the dogs' breakfast this morning. I think that might have been a mistake.

Yesterday, we got our first snows of the cold weather season. While the Snow Belt just east of us got six to eight inches, we only received flurries. Rachel kept bugging me to write something about it in my blog. For me, it does not count as snow until it gets to the point where it sticks to the ground (and it needs to be shoveled). It is like comparing moss to salad. Sure, there are loads of similarities, but that does not mean that I am going to give up lettuce.

Since the company that I work for does not allow employees to carry their vacation time from year to year, I have to start using my vacation time. Between normal vacation time, company holidays, and compensation time, I have fifteen days of vacation that I need to use before the end of the year. So, I have decided Tuesdays and Thursdays off until I run out of vacation time. I am planning to use that time on schoolwork (as my current class is fairly tough). However, things have not worked according to my schedule so far. I have spent the first few days of vacation working.

Last week, I got my new computer from Dell. I opened up the package and noticed that the speakers were missing. After a quick online chat with a Dell representative, the speakers were on their way. A few days ago, I received my missing speakers. However, I was very surprised when I received another set of speakers. While I do not mind the extra stuff (though I will return the extra speakers), Dell is going to hurt their business if they keep doing this.

Today, we had our first major windstorm of the season. The wind was just ripping leafs and branches off our trees. When Rachel and I looked outside, she noticed that we were missing two of our pumpkin leaf bags. We found them back by our garage. It was at this time that we noticed that one of our garbage can lids was missing. We found it in our neighbor's yard, just over the fence. Fortunately, it was not difficult to retrieve the lid.

I hope that everyone had a safe night of trick-or-treating and did not end up eating too much candy. Rachel and I spent the last several days decorating the living room and the front yard. In the front yard, we put an inflatable Tigger dressed as a vampire. We also put out some orange and purple lights. Unfortunately, the purple lights were not very bright, so we had to take them down and return them.