I got to use the Skype video feature for the first time the other evening;  Pretty darn cool.  I bought a camera for just that purpose like two years ago, only to find I didn’t really have a use for video conferencing.  So, the camera has set idle on top of my monitor since then.  But, when Ed & Kim brought home their new baby the other day, I figured “Now there’s a fine opportunity for a video chat.”  Indeed, it worked out nicely.  We got to see the new little ‘un, and talk with the new parents for quite a while.  The video is rather shockingly clear, I was surprised.  Matter of fact, I thought it was so cool I am thinking about getting it hooked up to the TV somehow or another.  Anybody know how to do that?  Anyone?

Wow it didn’t take long for that vacation to wear off.  Remind me never to complain about it being 8 degrees in the morning again.  Geez that would have quadrupled this morning’s temp.  On the “good news” side of things, my bus pass finally came so I didn’t have to walk all the way to work.  Even better, a $15 rebate showed up in the mail too, so I was able to afford lunch today.  Heck I got enough left over from that for a (cheap) lunch tomorrow too!  Oh yeah, let the good times roll.

So did I tell you about all the famous people we hung out with in Hawaii?  Rubbing elbows with the rich and famous.  We’re sitting on a beach in Kauai, when none other than Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner plop down next to us, with their two little girls.  (I must admit, although I do recognize the name “Ben Affleck,” he certainly didn’t look familiar.  And Jennifer Garner didn’t ring any bells at all.  Donette filled me in right quick and fast though.)  Donette and the littlest made fast friends;  I guess it’s the “teacher” vibe or something.  We were even lucky enough to have this famous young ‘un get sand all over our stuff.  About had a little trouble over that incident, but Ms. Garner (“Jen-Jen” as she asked me to call her) apologized nicely so we let it slide.  And if that run-in wasn’t exciting enough, Donette ran into Greg Brady where we stayed in Maui!  I get a lot of questioning looks on that one.  Greg Brady;  From the Brady Bunch?  C’mon, it’s only one of the greatest shows in television history.  I think he may have an actual name instead of Greg, but he might as well have it legally changed if so, because he is, in fact, “Greg Brady.”

Eight??  It’s eight freaking degrees out?  Shouldn’t there be a zero after that?  And shouldn’t all that white stuff out there be sand?  Eeeesh.  Grim.  I had a heck of a time getting into work yesterday, even with the city’s new snow removal plan.  (Was that a cruel joke Funk?  The streets looked just the same as ever, which is to say “untouched.”)  My first snag hit when I remembered we’d stopped our mail while on vacation, and therefore I had no January bus pass.  Not a huge issue, but we are literally so broke I didn’t have the $3.00 it takes to get downtown and back on the Metro.  That’s broke.  We scavenged around the couch cushions and came up with an ample number of quarters though.  I caught my 6:30 ride and was cruising merrily along, but didn’t get too far and the bus got stuck.  Hmmm, didn’t see that one coming.  I mean he got stuck good too.  Sideways in the road, up in some poor guy’s yard, the whole nine yards.  Several other riders seemed a bit put out, but I thought it was rather entertaining.  Kind of like a carnival ride.  He was banging off the curbs, fishtailing everywhere, and smoking the tires like he’d just won the Brickyard 400.  It was never really close though, there was no way he was getting up the hill.  Full fifty minutes later, he finally got backed up across Main street to a spot where he could get started, and just cut that part of the route out.  We made it about three more miles and he gets stuck again.  Unfortunately I had my headphones in and didn’t hear what he said, because I bet it was worth hearing.  At any rate, he just shut off the bus and got out.  So, everybody else followed suit, and got on the next bus to come along.  All told, an hour and half ride to work.  Which is much better than an hour and a half ride home.  Today, I afforded myself the rare luxury of driving the car to work.  Not that I was worried about the bus getting stuck again, but our two weeks of mail didn’t show up yesterday and I still ain’t got three bucks.  Anybody got a quarter?

Wow, I am so glad to be back home in KC.  This nice little snow-fall provides me a timely reminder of how lucky I am to live in a climate that has these changes of season, so I don’t have to look out the window and see the same ol’ 79 and sunny weather every single day.  Yes indeedy.  That’s exactly what I was thinking as I was stuck on the bus in a snow-drift for an hour and a half this morning.  Indeedy.

I do apologize for the lengthy website outage, that was quite unintentional.  As a matter of fact, I had planned to keep a running update of our island time while we were gone.  Alas, in my zeal to save an extra 48 cents on the light bill while we were gone, I apparently flipped one switch too many on the way out the door.  Oops.  That leaves me with an entire two weeks of updates to type in here, so here goes.  Day 1:  Sat on the beach and did some snorkeling.  Grilled some fresh fish for dinner.  Day 2:  Sat on a different beach and did some snorkeling.  Grilled another kind of fish for dinner.  Day 3:  Sat on another….  OK you get the idea.  With the exception of one rain-out day, one off-shore snorkel trip, and one dinner cruise, that pattern effectively describes every day of our two-week trip.  We did take a few (literally, “a few”) pictures, which have been posted already, before I mess around and never get it done like after our Colorado trip.  I also have a ton of videos taken with our super-duper new GoPro camera, some of which are rather cool, which I haven’t quite decided what to do with yet.  I’m not so sure this site would handle them, maybe I’ll just link to utube or something.

So anyway, the vacation is over and it’s back to the routine.  My New Years resolution is to update this page a bit more regularly (although I really can’t imagine with what) so we’ll see how that works out.  I guess this week could feasibly be spent covering some of the highlights and lowlights of our trip…  After that things might get dicey.

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas. Updates may be a bit sporadic over the next few weeks as we enjoy ours. So I will throw in “Happy New Year” while I’m at it too.