Happy holidays to you! Whatever you're celebrating, including simply celebrating life with friends and loved ones, I wish you all the best.
It's been a lovely, quiet weekend. After a bit of gaming at home with friends, my brother came down on Saturday afternoon. That evening, he and Nate jammed in my living room; he taught Nate flamenco guitar, and we audience members got to "write a song" for them to play. I made a few movies of them playing on my digital camera, and will post links when I get a high-speed connection. Two or three hours of this fun!
blzblack stopped by for an hour or two on his way south (great to see you, Trent!). We all did a bit of astro-viewing (Orion Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy, Pleiades Cluster, and some other goodies) with the 10" Dob and 100mm binocs until we froze. Then out for late-night coffee, later-night talking, sleep, up for eatin's, out for shoppin's, back for more eatin's, then present-opening, then a movie, then more late-night talking. Up early today for breakfast before he headed out at about dawn (in order to make it to Omaha in time to see his son during visitation hours), and then back to sleep until afternoon *g* - making up for several nights of not-enough-sleep. It was great to see my bro.Pleiades open cluster:
Orion nebula:
Andromeda galaxy and its companion galaxy:
Oh, and this morning after my bro left, I peeked at Saturn:
After waking, I opened the rest of the presents in the sunshiney afternoon; a lovely, quiet time. Then calls to the relatives to say thank you; just got off the phone, and now it is time to... hmmm, dunno. Go out and see a movie, perchance. I only regret that I haven't been able to get in touch with some people and that I never got to build my silly gingerbread house that I bought for a party a week ago! *hmph*
I hope your holidays are all you hoped for and more. Love is all around us, even when things are hard - perhaps especially then. Bask in it, my friends.
A quote I have on my office door has been on my mind a lot lately:
Hugs,
Chris
