The Wednesday Ws - Twas the Week Before Christmas

What is happening? My I-Mac died, froze up and wouldn't restart. It had somehow filled it's 1-TB hard drive to overflowing.  Reformat, reinstall, start over tabla-rosa - how I spent my weekend.   

What am I doing? I spent a few days blogging from my tiny Chromebook, my travel computer. The worst is access to the 1,463 photos I took in Spain on the good camera is limited, I didn't have them all downloaded and backed up when the big-mac crapped out. 

How was my reentry?  Exhausting, a couple of 10 hour work days, a bit of stress, a few people who seem intent on making my work harder than it needs to be.  Some success, a new contract moving forward, leads on a couple of new projects.  A couple of times when I had to remind myself that I need this job at least until August.  

What do I need? A haircut, it has been put off too long.  Hopefully Rocco has an open appointment sometime soon.  

What was surprising about Spain? The people are happy, content. The cities are clean, they work hard to keep public areas clean.  Things work - an example - at the airport we rode a bus from the terminal to the plane, it was smooth and quiet, in Philly we rode and almost identical bus from one terminal to another (A to F) that shuddered, shook and the brakes squealed like they had never been maintained.  The train from Madrid to Malaga had a top speed of 182 miles per hour, and passed through about 200 miles of olive groves, I have never seen so many olive trees. 

Where have I been? Home, the office, the Apple hospital.   I need to shop for Christmas dinner, I still don't know what I am making.  

Who have I been talking with?  Besides work, my sister, and my sweet bear. 

What have I been eating?  At this point I am kind of on auto-pilot cooking whatever is handy. Tuna steaks, a hearty soup with assorted fresh veggies and smoked sausage. 

Who deserves an atta boy?  We had two decent trans-Atlantic flights on American Airlines.  The flights left on time and arrived ahead of schedule.  On the overnight flight going to Spain, I moved to an empty row, pushed up the armrests and stretched out, full length, I slept on and off much of the night.  On the flight back, when we checked in, I moved us to a row of three seats, with an empty middle seat, always a risk, but it remained empty.  It made a nice difference.  

What have I been watching? On the trip out, the latest Downton Abbey movie, the one about the house in France, on the flight back two movies - and honestly they were so unremarkable that I can't remember what the names were,  

What am I looking forward to?  A four day weekend, a quiet couple of work days, then another four day weekend.  

What do I wish for you? A very Merry Christmas.