Notwithstanding several unfortunate spills and a few tense moments, this year’s Christmas was an unparalleled success. My mom got a new oven/stove, Sukie and I got the Omega-Vacuum (aka, a Dyson), Jabba got a chess set and some keen books, and I think everyone’s a little closer and happier for it.

I’m glad that everyone was able to congregate and play some wonderful Apples to Apples – as I have previously testified, it is a game that is not likely to start any wars, family feuds, or mild discomfort. I’ll bet President Jimmy Carter invented it, he’s such a sharp chap.

Christmas Eve rolled on in to Christmas morning, so Sukie and I loaded up Jabba, explained that Santa wouldn’t come until he was asleep, and put him to bed, all of which occured in that order.

With last year’s computer, and this year’s oven, I think it’d be keen if we tried to top ourselves for next year, and spoil my wonderful mom rotten

So on Christmas, Yoshi Dax and myself played a few games of Magic, which I promptly lost, each time. I have a lot of so-so cards, but as fate would have it we each had Goblin decks, and a war nearly ensued. Some other time, eh?

Oh, and I got RISK (classic) from Jabba – I MUST PLAY SOME RISK, DAMNIT!

This Holiday Season I have many reasons to consider myself lucky.

Well, at least, this week. Earlier this week I was nearly involved in an absolutely terrifying car accident. While merging from one freeway to another, the car in front of me (which was a rear-wheel drive old school sports car) was going too fast, and the car behind me was going too fast.

Trouble ensued. Let’s start at the beginning.

I’m driving along, well aware that I need to get in the next lane over to make the next exit. The jerk behind me (sports car) zipped on past and switched to the lane I was eyeing, with another jerk (the rear car) zipping on through.

Ok, the roads were WET that morning, but I know that you can SLIDE on WET asphault. So I get over, behind the sports car and in front of the rear car. The rear car proceeds to get all up ons, and I’m like, whatever, I needed to be over here. I take the ramp at 10 under the speed limit, because I know the end of this ramp is an abrupt turn, and not to be taken lightly (the last car accident I saw was at the same place, the guy and his passenger were OK though.)

So there I am, taking the ramp slower, the guy behind me is intentionally closing the gap between us.

It was then that I knew that shit was going to go down. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew, and time literally slowed down.

The sports car hits the end of the onramp, where he’s supposed to merge in to traffic and just slides right in to the other lane, hitting the other car at 30+ mph. I saw it all happen and started to slow down. No sooner did I touch my brakes than I look in my rear view and see the stupid ass jerk behind me SLAM his brakes, causing his car to slide.

Ok, I need to be careful about that, my brain says, and I look forward again, the sports car has ricochetted off the car in the other lane and both of them are leaving the freeway. I tap my brakes long enough to let the sports car and his target clear the freeway and the jerk behind me is still a slidin’ away towards my bumper, so as soon as I can tell the right side of my car is in the clear, I take my foot off the brakes and coast on past the wreckage.

What happens next is embarrassing. EVERYONE has left the freeway, pretty much. Cars that were hit, cars that weren’t hit are leaving to avoid being hit. There was a highway patrolman right there, not more than 30 feet from the accident, so my mind says, oh, he’s got it and I drive off, I was so absolutely pumped with adrenaline that it didn’t occur to me til much later (maybe 20 minutes) that I should have stopped, and then when the adrenaline left, I sort felt sick.

I feel bad about what happened, I don’t feel as though it was my fault in the least, because the situation could have been a lot worse for everyone involved, had I not taken the onramp as slow as I did.

Anyway, we didn’t get the house we wanted, but we did start the process to get a killer loan for an as-yet unspecified house.

I will mourn for the house that almost was.

I’ll be getting a house. There’s an extremely slim chance that things might not work out, and even then, I’ll get a house eventually.

People ask me why I don’t blog more often. Really.

So theorb77 and I have been talking about collaborating on several projects together, one of which involves building speakers. I spent some time today coming up with a pretty simple cabinet design (speaker-enclosures are called as such) There’s all kinds of ideas and methodologies to alleviate the sound going out the back of the speakers, it was a fairly interesting read over at WikiPedia, as are most things over there.

I’m keen on building a prototype, I have a set of shelves that were recently scrapped that could be used to build the cabinet. If I knew more about what was needed to shield a speaker I’d say making a center channel would be a cool endeavor to start things out.

I think we all beleive in Karma at one level or another, or at the very least, that people get what’s coming to them. So today, when I went to the doctor’s not sure if I was getting a large amount of blood drawn or a long-overdue physical, something that was causing a large amount of aggitation and displeasure.

So this morning I was super-crabby and unpleasant towards my wife, something that is the hallmark of my people, I guess. Anyway, back to the doctor’s appointment.

It turns out today is a followup for my allergy problems and for my biopsy that I had two weeks ago. The doctor went to fetch my results, and I waited.

I thought of Karma instantly. My heart sank and despair set in.

What came back is that I had a really large, potentially hazardous mole, and not cancer. What happens is that a mole can go bad, and my mole was a risk.

Sukie is going to have her wisdom teeth out today, and she’s not afraid at all. I’ve seen many older brothers go through hell was this, so I’m worried.