Wow, it’s almost Thanksgiving! Who knew that a holiday could sneak up so quickly. I guess time flies when you’re playing with a new computer, at least if you’re a nerd like me.
We’re planning to head down to Bedford for the holiday, as you may have expected. We’ve made the dubious decision to leave town Wednesday evening, which means we’ll probably be mired in traffic all the way to Charlottesville (likely turning the 3.5 hour drive into a 5.3 hour drive). No worries though; the pain on Wednesday means we can sleep-in some on Thursday, and the iPod will provide a nearly endless supply of good tunes. Let me know if you’re in the area and free on Saturday or Sunday, maybe we can work something out.
A lot has been going on. I just got recruited to a couple of positions at our church for 2006, including being an alternate Annual Conference delegate (I’d step in to represent the church if one of our two lay-delegates couldn’t make it) and a three-year term on the Staff-Parish Relations Committee. These nominations became official at the Charge Conference on Sunday evening, and I think I ‘take office’ in January. What does the Staff-Parish Relations Committee do, you ask? It’s basically the church’s HR department.
Things have been going well at work too, although it’s been a little busy. And I’ve finally started working on some creative projects again, including the Ubuntu Linux 5.10 review and Panda Name Generator Widget, as well as an opinion column that I plan to post some time today (I wrote it last week, but wanted to attempt a couple different publication avenues before posting it on the site).
I had a slight illness that I’m just getting over that made my voice somewhat scratchy for a while, but now that it’s finished I might try a little more recording. I have 2 or 3 songs that are basically finished and just waiting for me to lay down the vocals. I make no promises though, since they usually prove hard to keep with my music (I think the demo was originally slated to be finished in January 2003 ;-)).
And we’re still looking at cars, but the 2006 Honda Civic sedan is pulling further and further into the leadership position based on our research (trailed at a distance by the Accord sedan, and the others have fallen so far they hardly warrant mention anymore). In fact, I’m willing to wager that the only thing that would cause us to not get the Civic Sedan is if it fails the test drive—I can be slightly picky, and since I’ll be the primary driver, it has to pass my muster.
We’ll have a better idea pretty soon of a timeframe for actually getting the car. It depends on two things, basically: when we can finish paying off the Chrysler (tantalizingly soon), and when we have enough saved for our down-payment. The amount necessary for the down payment depends in part on how much our insurance rates will change. If the insurance will go up too much, we’ll need to spend more up-front to keep the recurring monthly cost of the car (payment+insurance) in a reasonable range. Many of the other wild-cards will be settled in the next month, and then I can start getting some quotes regarding insurance and financing. Once we have those, we can set a rough date for purchase.
:-) This will be fun.
Anyway, hope you all are doing well! Keep an eye out for that opinion piece later today!