I moved, along with two of my roommates, to a new place in early December. It was quite cold at the time.

Two days after the move, I went on my typical holiday trip. Two weeks in Indiana, where it was even colder and there was a ton of snow on the ground.

Then two weeks in Washington, which had just weathered the snowpocalypse, still had snow on the ground, and wavered between cold and rainy, cold and snowy, or just plain cold while I was there.

During all this, the weather had apparently warmed up considerably in San Francisco, and was sunny and bright. I'm sorry I missed that, although because I now live in Daly City and not the Richmond, I wouldn't have been in easy access of the park, even if I had been i the area.

Just after I got back, one roommate left for a week. Then second roommate left to join her the following Friday. My weekend while they were gone was rather boring and quiet.

And then I threw up.

Not entirely sure why. On Saturday, I made some fried rice. Had a bowl and was still hungry a bit later, so I had a second. Felt odd. Puttered around a bit, went to the bathroom and BLARGH, up it came. Felt perfectly fine afterwards. It wasn't even that unpleasant.

Weird, but I dunno what to make of it. I'm not even sick. (As I keep telling myself, I don't get sick, anymore, because I work out and am healthy... except I haven't been working out that much of late.)

Christmas was very nice, overall. I think that two weeks in Indiana is just about right. Long enough that I feel I can spend time with everyone there, but not so long that I get bored because I really don't know anyone besides my family.

It's interesting that both my mom and I went there with the same impression: we'd be able to do the family stuff AND be able to work. I clocked an amazing number of hours over the Christmas week, which was good. Tiring, though. I feel like I'm still recuperating, even a month later.

One interesting highlight was going to see Bolt with my dad, niece and nephew. They're both five and a half and like cartoons quite a bit. However, my nephew apparently does not like movie theaters at all. When I initially pitched the idea, he didn't want to see 'that movie', and even when we went, he wanted to stay in the car. He eventually spent the entire film on my dad's lap.

My niece was pleased as punch about the whole thing. She got a soda and cotton candy at the start, sat next to me enraptured for about the first third and then leaned over to me: "Uncle Jeff, I have to go to the bathroom."

Afterwards they did express how much they liked it, with my nephew asking if they could get it on DVD. (Perhaps in time for their birthday.)

BTW, cotton candy? Gross. Honestly do not know how I ever ate the stuff. No accounting for taste, I suppose.

Washington was nice, despite the weather. I do enjoy hanging out with all my peeps up there, and had considerable fun hitting various gaming nights.

Climbing with Chris was cool, as always, although I continue to feel like I'm not advancing because I don't get to do it regularly. (I suppose it's actually a bit easier to get to a climbing gym from Daly City, but a round trip on the BART plus the fee to climb means it's a $30 hit or so. Bit pricy for me, at the moment.)

I also went to a nicely sedate and enjoyable get together of Puzzle Pirates players, which was an afternoon of fun conversation. And I attended the USSM/LL meet-up thingy where we got to listen to a few hours of Mariners officials talking about how things are different. Nicely uplifting considering the last few years of the franchise.

Spent a few days with my brother at his newer place, which was cool. We made an awesome curry one night. And I introduced him and his wife to Calpico. I think we all like the aloe flavored one the best, which is ironic considering I'd been worried about it at first.

The only downside of going to Washington, besides the fact I don't get to spend enough time there for my taste, is that I always spend a ton of money on food. I've been trying to cut back now that I'm in the Bay Area again, but haven't quite succeeded. I went to a hockey game and sports venues are always expensive.

***

I'm not normally inclined to discuss the Christmas haul, because comparisons of the loot don't do a whole lot for me, and I hate to sound like I'm bragging.

However, theonlymegumegu shocked the hell out of me by getting me a DS, which is totally awesome. I've already gone through Professor Layton and am currently working on Hotel Dusk. I'll probably look up getting a kanji dictionary of some sort in the not too distant future.

My brother got me this awesome baseball jersey. As best I can tell, it's a genuine article (even used, as there's a few dirt stains) from a Japanese high school. I've never had a jersey before, so I lubs it.

I got an incredible number of sweatshirts and books, which is always great. I've turned my bed area of my room into a little reading cubby, so my stacks and stacks of reading material are close by.

And apparently my parents are getting me a TV, another shockingly awesome surprise. I've been a bit overwhelmed researching them, but I'm amused by the different character that each company has.

***

After I got back, I bought a number of games. Given how much my friends (both in Washington and down here) are into purchasing games, I've never really felt the need to do so. Anything I've wanted to play has generally been available.

However, I finally decided I needed my own copy of Race for the Galaxy. And I enjoyed my games of Dominion, Kingsburg, and Witch's Brew enough that I wanted those as well. So I got a big order together and for the first time, actually have a stack that I can consider my own. It's kinda cool. Especially Dominion.

***

Looking forward to the next year, I want to write more and play more board and card games. I really enjoyed the game nights in Washington, so I'd like to try and do something fairly regularly down here. Also, poker.

For writing, I think I'm going to try something Cory Doctorow suggested: just find 20 minutes each day to get a page or so out. Do that, and you'll have a novel in a year.

Also need to be blogging more regularly on goddos. I kinda fell apart during the vacation, so I've not gotten either the November or December recaps done, nor did I get a January preview.

My July Movie Recap is up on goddOS.net. I'm surprised to find that my accuracy was relatively high for the month. I need to get started on my September preview.

I'm also back in Washington for a week, since it's my grandmother's 90th birthday party this weekend.

The weather is awesome.

SF's weather is not.

Somewhat impromptu, but I'm making a trip up to Washington for July 4th and so I can get some damn summer weather to enjoy. (It's absolute ass here in SF.)

I'm flying up on the 1st and back on the 16th. Will need to hang out with everyone at least once.

And now it's bedtime.

Birthday party goes down this weekend, which will hopefully be stress-free, but I've got a few bits of concern. Hopefully it's just nerves and not premonition. In any case, it'll be blast to have theonlymegumegu, uriel_godfire, and wooko down here for it all.

On the 26th, I'm heading back north with them to spend some time in Washington. We may possibly stop over in Portland on the way back, depending on how some things fall for Chris. I'm kinda hoping we get the chance to do so, because it seems like an awesome opportunity for him.

I'll be up in Washington for about two and a half weeks. I've not really defined when I'm coming back south, but it's likely I'll get a flight on the 12th or 13th.

While I'm up there, I want to make sure to get together with all of the cool people I'm pleased to call my friends. A few things are defined in the schedule. April 6-8 (and likely the evening of the 5th) is going to be Sakura-Con, which I'll probably be working all of. On April 1, I've got a meeting with other Guest Relations people so I can learn how to do my job all over again.

April 2nd is Mariners Opening Day, which I'm getting to see courtesy of dr4b. Woo!

Other than that, schedule's wide open. I expect I'll have ample opportunity to meet up with people in the Tacoma area. I also definitely want to hang with capnexposition and josienutter at some point. Both Seattle peeps, so I'll likely need a bit of planning to make sure I get up there. I may want to try to get in on one of those happy hour things that tenshiemi keeps posting. And I'd like to meet up with bizket, because he always makes me laugh.

So, yeah. Comment, e-mail, call, whatever so we can hook up and do all the fun things I've forgotten how to do in my six months in California.