I did it!  I did all 12 12 of 12s for 2008!  … damn, that’s a lot of 12s.

I have to take a minute to send very positive thoughts in the direction of Chad Darnell, aka the one who thought up the 12 of 12 idea in the first place.  Chad recently had a testicle removed and the doctors have confirmed that the mass was cancerous, so he is about to go through many rough months with testing and treatment for it.  I don’t actually know Chad personally, but I’m sort of a believer in the karmic philosophy, so I’m sending out the positive vibes.

And now, on with the 12!

6:36 am: Don’t leave home without it:

7:14 am: Field of Yield:

The garage where I park on a daily basis recently got the floor sandblasted and repainted.  The day it happened, Bev and I were walking to my car after work and I noticed that they had painted YIELD (as above) no less than seven times (that pattern of five in the upper left are all identical to the square in the foreground).

I paused for a second and took on a musing pose.  “I sense that they’re trying to tell us that they want us to do something here,” I said, “But I can’t figure out what it is.” 

Ever since then, Bev giggles uncontrollably every time we walk by it.

11:33 am: House Cleaning:

I’ve been using my computer desktop as a storage space for ages, and I decided today to bite the bullet and clean it up and stick all the little files away where they belong.

Who knew my screen was so big?

11:50 am: Winter at Last:

Winter has sort of arrived in Texas.  Usually around this time of year, the leaves suddenly turn brown and fall off the trees with an audible thud.  Thus year hasn’t been much different.  We didn’t get enough rain to make the leaves turn pretty colors.

11:52 am: Fine Dinin’

I hate intersession at the University.  All the decent places to eat close and you’re left with … well, this.

12:11 pm: A Little Light Reading:

A few years ago I decided to make use of my god given hour for lunch and I generally use it to sprawl down on the sofa in my office and read one of the many, many, many books on the shelf.  Here I’m re-reading Albert Hourani’s classic “A History of the Arab Peoples.”  I could probably teach the book instead, but it’s nice to refresh myself every once in a while.

2:42 pm: Meeting:

Natalie: “Oh, god, are you doing that 12 of 12 thing again?”
Me: “Yup.”
Her: “Don’t point that camera at me.  Dork.”

So I pointed the camera at Rachel instead.

5:39 pm: My widdle cowwege student:

Ray is finally going back to school.  He’s been talking about this since I met him, but he just decided to up and do it.  He got his application in, and he had his meeting with the admissions counselor today.  He’s all set to start up at Austin Community College at the end of January.  They have a pretty neat program where they can get you your Associate’s and then work with you to transfer to a four-year university–in Ray’s case, it’ll most likely be Texas State, which just opened an extension campus right up the street from our house.  I’m very proud of him.

Here he’s showing me all of his paperwork.  He’s taking an English course and a course in Macroeconomics.  I hate to say it, but I barely remember my macroeconomics course.  I kinda took it because I had to and forgot it three seconds later.  Jeez, I hope he’s not counting on me to help him with his homework …

Mocha wants her picture taken, too:

5:53 pm: Look, honey, I refilled the ink cartridges!

Aww, sweetie.  You shouldn’t have.  Really.

5:55 pm: Do I want wine?

It’s chilly out, and I don’t have any red.  Plus, I’m being annoying by taking really close up pictures.

How about some 7 and 7?

As Borat would say, niiiiice.

It’s going to be a weird weekend.  Tomorrow I have a funeral to go to in the morning, which I’m dreading.  Even though I greatly respected the person who passed, I still don’t like funerals.  And then in the evening we’re going to a holiday party, which will be a bit of debauchery.  From one extreme to the other.

At any rate.  I hope your Friday went well — happy weekend, y’all!  And Merry Christmas, ‘Eid Mubarak, and Happy Hanukah!

Tags: 12 of 12, art, Austin, bla, blog, Books, cat, christmas, class, college, economics, english, Friday, fun, god, hilo, history, Home, ice, khowaga, me, men, Mocha, mubarak, Natalie, party, rain, Ray, SHE, tea, texas, trees, university, weekend, weird, Will, wine, winter, work