It’s Monday, and I’m back at work.  The first day back after a long weekend or a vacation is always rough…  And today looks like no exception.

I’ve already had to log in and do some remote work, and I haven’t even been at the office for an hour.  Usually it takes a little while for the phone calls to start coming in…

The weather is fairly decent at the moment – relatively warm, overcast, rainy.  But they’re predicting snow for today.  I can’t say I’m looking forward to that…  I’ve never really minded the snow all that much, but I hate the cold.  Once the cold sets in I’ll be permanently chilled until spring.  I hate that.

My Thanksgiving weekend went fairly well, and passed entirely too quickly.

I did the cooking on Thanksgiving…  Nearly dropped the turkey on the floor.  Managed to catch it, and burnt both my hands in the process.  But dinner turned out quite well.

Friday was largely spent reloading Terri’s computer with Windows 7.  Her Vista install has been slowly falling apart, and I’ve been trying to get her to let me reload her machine with Windows 7 for a while.  Friday was the best time she could come up with.  Unfortunately we didn’t do a thorough backup, and she wound up losing some of her old Palm datebook data.

I didn’t do much of anything on Saturday or Sunday – just kicked back, relaxed, and played a lot of video games.

I played a lot of Chrono Trigger over the four-day weekend…  That game just never gets old.  Truly terrific.  I sincerely wish they had made a real sequel to it.

I also played some more STALKER.  That game is a ton of fun, but I can only handle it in small doses.  More than a few hours a day and it starts getting to me.

I finished reading The Diamond Age over the weekend…  Terrific book.  It ended very abruptly…  But I guess that’s something I’m going to have to expect from this author.

I’ve just started reading Ghost Story.  Not far enough in to have much of a feel for it…

We watched Angels & Demons last night.  It was certainly better than The Da Vinci Code – but I don’t think that’s saying much.

Terri wound up purchasing an iPod Touch over the weekend – it is actually her Christmas present, but due to the sales it made more sense to buy it now.  She’s absolutely thrilled with it.

And now I’m back to work…

Like I said, I’ve already had to do some remote work.  And I’m on the schedule to do some on-site work in about half an hour.  Plus I’m waiting for a call back from one of our clients, some lingering issues from last week.  And then there’ll be the normal weekend breakage – except that this time around it was a four-day weekend.

Hopefully it’ll be enough to keep me busy and make the day pass quickly, without becoming overwhelming.

Pharyngula | Porn causes tsunamis and earthquakes

It’s Friday…  The day after Thanksgiving…  Black Friday.

I’ll be spending the day safe at home, away from the crowds of rabid shoppers.

I’ve never been a big fan of shopping…  And I’ve always hated big crowds…  So I’ve never really felt the need to go out on Black Friday, regardless of how wonderful the sales might be.

Then I worked retail for a couple years…  Which really ruins the whole holiday experience.  People are real assholes when they’re out Christmas shopping.

These days, however, it’s the crass commercialism that really keeps me away.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I actively dislike Black Friday.  Loathe it with a kind of cold passion.

All year long you hear various financial reporting about how one retailer or another intends to make up its lagging sales over the holidays.  All year long.

Then you’ve got Hallmark and a few others doing some kind of “Christmas in July” type sale, because the few months of holiday shopping just aren’t enough for them.

And you’ve got all the aggressive holiday advertising…  Scenes of winter wonderlands and happily families getting together…  But underneath it all is the throbbing heartbeat of pointless consumption – buy, buy, buy!

Then the conservative Christians and pundits start whining about people are saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas…  And there’s a war on Christmas…  And people are trying to take away Jesus…

Honestly, when was the last time you saw somebody decorate their house for Christmas with a nativity scene?  How many of those cards at Hallmark have anything at all to do with Jesus?  How many kids care at all where the holiday came from, as long as they get good presents?

The folks waging war on Christmas aren’t the inclusive people who want to wish everyone a happy holiday…  It’s the big corporations who want to wring every last penny out of you.

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays…

We will traditionally go around the table and each state what we are thankful for.  Folks normally express thankfulness for a loving family, a reliable job, helpful neighbors, a compassionate friend…  Things like that.

Which, for me, expresses what is truly important in this world.  Not material goods, or some intangible ever-after…  But the people we share our lives with.  The folks who help us through the hard times, and share in the good times.

It is the people that make life worth living.

So, here we are at another Thanksgiving…  The snow hasn’t really shown up yet, but it is certainly on the way.  The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting colder.  The leaves are gone, the grass is dead.  Time to huddle together as a family – us against the elements.

I’ve really got quite a bit to be thankful for, despite all the muttering and complaining I do.

I’ve got a truly wonderful wife who makes every day more joyous.  She listens to my whining and complaining…  Holds me close when things become truly overwhelming…  Offers a smile in even the most dire straits…  She’s smart, funny, witty…  All I ever hoped for and much, much more.

I’ve got a step son who, despite his distance and disinterest, is really a very good kid.  He’s bright and has a terrific work ethic, and is doing very well in his first year of college.  I’m really very proud of him.

I’ve got terrific parents.  They’re a little intimidating to be honest…  An optometrist who owns his own practice and a lawyer who’s always excelled in everything she does…  It’s a little hard living in their shadow sometimes.  But they’re really great folks.  Always there when I need them, always understanding, usually helpful.  I couldn’t ask for better parents.

I’ve got a fun and interesting sister that I don’t hear from nearly enough.  It’s funny…  Growing up I couldn’t stand her – always fighting over something.  But these days it’d be nice to hear from her more often, maybe actually visit her once in a while.

And then there’s my job…  It’s mind-numbingly frustrating more often than not.  Largely because of the folks I work with, and not the work that I do.  But it’s been a very reliable source of income for the last several years…  And the work is something that I’m interested in and fairly good at…  Any my boss really does try to be flexible and understanding when I need time off…  Frankly, I’m pretty thankful for this job.

So, today has finally wound down towards 5:00.  Things were fairly crazy until somewhere around 1:00 and then started settling down.  Then got downright boring.  But that was OK, because we were heading into a long weekend and I didn’t really mind twiddling my thumbs for a bit.

Then, at about 3:45, I got a call from one of our clients…  A fairly large client, and a fairly frantic call.  A couple bits of software were very broken and needed fixing.

I put in a call to their software support and started digging through logs to find the problem.  Scrambling to get it fixed before 5:00 so that I didn’t have to work late.  Hoping to at least get it fixed today, even if I did have to work late, just so that I wouldn’t have to work on Friday.

I get everything resolved in fairly short order, give the client a call back, and nobody answers.  I try our primary contact’s cell phone, which also rings and rings, but eventually he picks up…

They closed at 4:00, he’s already at home, they won’t be open again until Monday.  And he doesn’t even sound like it was that big of a problem in the first place.

…so why did they call me, in a panic, mere moments before they walked out the door for a long weekend?!