I have a feeling that many more people read this blog than I suspect, so I’d like to take the first day of the year as an opportunity to thank all of you for your interest and attention. May you all enjoy a happy, healthy and prosperous 2008!

(Yes, the site has a new look. Like it? Hate it? Yes, I’m still using WordPress after all. I’ll post more about that soon.)

Yes, it’s snowing on Christmas Day here. I think it’s because we watched White Christmas last night. “They don’t make ’em like they used to” is a phrase that certainly comes to mind when watching that movie. It’s not the best of musicals, but it’s interesting to note that it was the highest-grossing film in the year it was released.

It’s also worth noting that the film opens during WWII with Bing Crosby entertaining his fellow troops in an impromptu Christmas show in a bombed-out building with explosions flashing in the distance. Once again, the U.S. has thousands of citizens spending Christmas away from their families because they’re serving as troops during wartime. (This time the war was started by us, on false pretenses, with no clear goal and no exit strategy. Oh, and by the way, we’ve already spent more on restorations efforts in Iraq than we spent to rebuild Japan after WWII, and there’s not much to show for our efforts. But I digress.) read more

When I was a kid, it was a family tradition to pile into the car and drive around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights. Tracie and I continue to observe this tradition. There are some pretty good displays near our house, particularly in the somewhat ritzy golf-course neighborhood next to ours.

One display this year, though, was so odd that we had to go back in the daylight to photograph it:

As I said to Tracie, “is that Santa and Joseph?” I’m not particularly familiar with the Bible, but I’m pretty sure that Santa isn’t mentioned anywhere. But who else could it be, given the time of year? And if it is Joseph, where are Mary and child? Maybe that explains his downcast countenance. You can almost hear his dejected voice: “Santa, I’m really afraid that Mary took the baby and split. Things just haven’t been the same since those three guys came by, and this whole baby thing totally caught me by surprise anyway. I mean, last time we talked about it, she was a vir– well never mind that. Sorry Santa, there’s no reason to bring you down with my troubles. I mean, I know you’re busy this time of year and everything…” read more

Here’s a word whose existence I did not know of until today: pangram. A pangram is a sentence that contains all letters of the alphabet. There’s a website about them here that has a list of them, both longer and shorter than the old standby about the quick brown fox.

For the amusement of people who don’t live in snowy climates, here are more photos of the snow. These were all taken in the back yard.

The snow stopped for a day and returned last night. It’s still snowing now (10:25MST). Here are some more photos.

A nice amount of cold, fluffy snow fell here last night. The accumulation was around 15cm, I think. Here’s a photo taken from one of the front windows of the house:

It’s been cold, too. The low temperature last night was 10F and the high today was 19F.