With the bulk of Holiday work behind us I think we can all sigh with relief. This year we had to play more of a poor mans Xmas. With all the money we have going to emergency funds or capital contributions there is really not much more to go around so we gave what we could and some heartfelt creative gifts that went over well. My Nephew who is 1.10 year old going on 5 recieved a landslide of packages. As we were watching with at first enthusiasm, we began to feel overwhelmed, as did he. I think a child needs only a few choice entertaining and educational toys that have an arc to allow others to contribute to a goal or series. Anything else is just too much. Their memories aren’t that developed for so much, and with the growing attention span too many I feel leads to uncommitted distractions. Anyhow, he’ll have fun, and his mom is planning on cycling a bulk of toys to storage and cycling them in/out for him as it merits.
Big question, what’d we get? We were lavished fairly well even being that everyone else said it’d be a skimpy year too. I recieved a [Breadmachine](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?search-type=ss&tag=myislanandyci-20&keyword=http%20www%20amazon%20com%20exec%20obidos%20tg%20detail%20B00004R93S%20qid%201104174341%20sr%208%201%20ref%20pd_ka_1%20103%200620605%205675852%20v%20glance%20s%20kitchen%20n%20507846&mode=apparel-index&platform=gurupa) from Robin’s folks, a weather monitoring station from my dad, an MP3 player from mom, a Bodum Santos from Jeff, a slew of DVD’s and CD’s of things I was looking to pick up, a few gift certificates and other things that are just falling through my swiss cheese of a head. I’ll try and get around to some reviews on these items since they are all quality products.
Thursday Robin & I are going to head to Myrtle Beach. Robin’s wants to see her Sister and some visiting family that is in the area. We will celebrate the new year down there and be heading back the next day.
I feel like I have a slew of things that need working on and really need to plot them out of my head. I really wish Wifi was on the highway, I could get a lot more milage out of myself if I could do more work while on the road. Of late I’ve really been armoring the new server. It’s been designed quite well IMO with a very generalized config to allow for flexibility of virtual domains and the local network that Jeff and I are assembling. I got Jeff a WRT54G for Xmas and installed [Sveasoft](http://www.sveasoft.com) Linksys firmware replacement. It has allowed us to bridge our routers and tripple the output of the units.
I am still working on a site revision. It eats away at me because I want to display all the information I can with the right flows. However I have not recommitted myself to it because of the amount of work it involves. Now that I cannot just have CSS work flawless across all browsers (PITA PITA) I need to simplify my idea and bring about just the essence of what I was trying for. Have patience, you, me, yea.. The story of life.
I’m alive and well, hope those of you who track me are as too,
-a