Back from England

Turns out the union jack is a combination of the crosses of the saints of England, Ireland, and Scotland. If you look at it and cross your eyes you will see a pony. His name is Charles.

So, Christmas is over, thank God, and it was well spent in England with family and friends. There were side trips to London, but mostly we stayed around the family homestead.

A good deal of beer, brandy, wine, and especially sherry was drunk by all. If America has a fascination with food, England would like to slur some ill-chosen jibes about it at us before falling under the table.

The big news is that J-- and P-- are engaged! Congrats to both of you. I'm only putting this on my blog because I happen to know that the people who read it either don't know J-- and P-- or know already. If you don't fall into either camp, keep it under your hat for chrissake! Welcome to the family P--, you poor sod.

Now, on to New Years! I don't believe I'll be doing anything for new years. The party I was counting on fell through and I don't feel like dragging my ass to Boston where Eric has kindly offered to try and introduce me to desperate gals looking for someone to kiss at the stroke of midnight. With great thanks to Eric, I'm going to stay in Reston unless something truly awesome comes up locally.

In retrospect this year has been a fucker, and the sooner we can put it to bed the better actually. I moved to Reston for a new job and while the job's still pretty engaging I know it's not what I want to do with the remainder of my years. Reston can suck it, not least because I still don't really know anyone here and I'm not about to meet them at the local Porsche owners group. I will be going to Champps later tonight to watch the UFC fight with folks from my dojo though so I shouldn't complain.

K--- and I broke up, although I'm beginning to think in retrospect that I was dumped. I believe in self-help one calls that a "growth experience" but I'm not so cheerily inclined and I'll call it a bit of a poke in the eye and move on. Not bitter, just single in Reston without much to look forward too vis-a-vis moving on. Also, not nearly as maudlin as the rest of this paragraph would seem to indicate.

My resolutions for the coming year are, in their entirety:

1. clean the living room (9 months without ever actually finishing unpacking borders on the ridiculous)
2. create a website for mom to display and sell her art on - it's coming mom, I promise
3. create a website for my damn self for things like resumes and so forth.
4. start either kickboxing or jiu-jitsu again so I don't look like a girthy sausage any longer - not helpful in the singles market
5. invest money cleverly, or at least understand how

I'll come up with others, but New Year's isn't the only time for self-improvement so I'm not bothered about having an incomplete list.

Happy new year's all!