"Honk", the play I took the girls to see on Sunday afternoon, was great! I've taken the girls to see many plays at the American Stage Festival. This was easily the best one I've seen them do yet. Granted, I haven't seen all their plays, but nevertheless I give it two thumbs up.
Oh yeah... the Patriots won, too. Can you believe it?! Call me un-Patriot-ic but I wouldn't have placed money on them winning the SuperBowl, not that I wasn't cheering for them. The weekend had two pleasant surprises!
Most of the household is sick right now. Claire and I are the only ones who are still sniffle-free, so far. I stayed home this morning so that Michelle could teach her step aerobics class without bringing the (sick) kids to the YMCA. I also stayed home tonight so that she could go the our parish retreat. The retreat is evenings this week from Monday through Friday. I'm going to do what I can to help her get to all the nights of the retreat. After this past year I think she could use some time for spiritual growth.
I got a surprise this evening in that my friend, Ed Gieske, called. Ed is Daniel's godfather. Ed is about the only one I can talk to who understands USAF life, graduate school, Catholicism, digital hardware design, Mac OS X, and software code development. Most of my other peers only have one or two of those backgrounds in common. Needless to say, we rarely have short phone conversations. Michelle and I hope he can visit again soon.
As I mentioned recently, the last snow storm was nasty for the quality of snow it left. There was about an inch of ordinary snow but then things shifted to sleet, freezing rain, and rain, followed by temperatures that froze it all solid. It made for nasty driving for a day or so. I must say that the trees glistened in the sunlight since they were all glazed with a thin coating of ice on their branches. Claire thinks things are pretty cool now because all grassy lots are covered in ice. To her it's like ice skating rinks everywhere. At least the streets are dry again. Feeling your car's ABS kick in is rather disconcerting.
I gave a talk last week at my parish RCIA program. My topic this time was examination of conscience. I think it went very well compared to some of my other RCIA talks. I leveraged the Catechism and some writings of Blessed Josemaria Escriva (who will be declared a saint this year). As someone very involved in the debugging of digital hardware and computer systems, I find it ironic that my talks go the smoothest when I don't use a computer too much in my preparation. As I've done in the past, I got a few good texts together and started writing notes down on paper. I stayed away from using a word processor.
There's just something about the process of using pen and paper that seems to help you focus so much better than when you are in front of a computer editor. I know that I type faster than I handwrite; I know computers have fast search, replace, and spell checkers; I know a word processor can make my thoughts look professional on paper. And yet, there's something about the process that makes informal handwritten notes just work. It's part of why I haven't moved my daily tracking to something like a PalmPilot. I still use a Franklin Planner quite extensively. It's all about the interface, baby!
Am I a neo-Luddite? ;-) Sure, a Luddite with three computers at his work desk and two at home... right! How many Luddites do you know with high speed broadband internet connections and laser printers? But hey, I don't have a cell phone, a DVD player, or a phone answering machine for that matter. Maybe I'll be categorized as a "bi-polar Luddite".
