December 2003 Archives

My friend Liz has been kind enough to host me at her apartment in Dover, NH for the last few weeks, so this week I finished a little thank you present by way of making a pair of Christmas presents for her to give her new boyfriend, Andy. He's a huge Boston Bruins fan, so I made a pair of faux Bruins memoribilia items (click on them for a closer look):

Here's my official 2003 holiday card. It's a photo taken by my friend James while he, Megs, and I were visiting Parc Guell in Barcelona in early November. I think it's a great photo because it had to be one of my happiest days in all of 2003. Here's hoping that the coming year holds more of these types for all of us.

Since I don't have the resources to print and mail this card, I've given you the option of printing it for yourself. If you would like to print it, simply click once on the image and a separate browser window will appear with a higher-resolution version. Right-click on the image and select "Save Picture As..." to copy it to your PC's hard drive. Note: This higher-res image is about 575K in size, so it might take a few minutes to download, depending on the type of Internet connection you have.

Happy Holidays to all!

I'm writing and back-dating this entry a few days, now that I've figured out what day it is. I went to see a performance of "The Nutcracker" last Sunday with my friend LeAnn and her family. It was a great performance and though I didn't give it any thought at the time, I shared a bottle of water with a couple of the kids in our party. Late the next day I was struck ill with a bad bout of the stomach flu. It was horrible--I'll spare you the details, you don't want to know.

Almost every year for the past 10 or so I have made my own holiday card. This year, despite some financial limitations, will hopefully be no exception. Here's the first of several holiday card ideas I'm working on. This is from the Nativity Facade on the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain:

Facing the aforementioned fiscal realities of going abroad in January 2004, I have applied for Writer-Editor positions at the National Science Foundation and NASA, both in the Washington, DC area. I liked the sound of these jobs because they involve writing things other than user and programmer documentation, which is what I've been doing for the last few years. I'm optimistic that the work environments will be better than what I've experienced in my last two jobs.

Upon my return last month I was hoping to find a teaching job overseas that started with the new language school term in January, however I have quickly come to realize that making only $500 a month while teaching in Eastern Europe or South America is not enough to live on while I still have a $275 monthly student loan payment to make--damn that Master's degree!

Just thought I'd share a photo of me and my lovely niece, Rowan. This was taken on November 31st while we were celebrating Thanksgiving at her parents' house in Quincy. She is now 27 months old.

My friend John sent this to me this weekend. After reading it I couldn't help but think of all the times while traveling abroad over the last few weeks that people asked about my hometown and what made it unique from other American cities. Somehow, until reading this, I never considered driving as one of those factors. Check out this list, think of how it compares to your hometown, and ask yourself, "If I were visiting from a foreign country and someone gave me this list, would I want to drive here?" Here's the list, read it and tell me what you think:

At a four way stop sign, wave to offer the right-of-way to other cars. If you are waved at, wave back so they can take the right-of-way instead. When they go, you go at the same time.

Left-hand turns at traffic signals are to be made as soon as the signal turns from yellow to red. Up to three cars may turn on a "Buffalo left."