New Year's Eve day I shopped for dinner and wandered Best Buy comparring computer prices - and Barns and Noble bookstore - I love bookstores. Then home to fix my cornish game hens in the special Blue Strawberry sauce that James Haller taught me some 30 years ago. Colin came over and we had a grand time; watched the movie Into the Blue. Marissa fell in love with that movie and bought it. I've seen it now twice and shes seen it about 6 times - it's paid for itself about three times over. It's actually pretty good; very well done and the underwater scenes are some of the most spectacular I have seen. Good plot and the acting is pretty good. Sort of a treasure hunt adventure meets drug trafficing and good over evil type thing.

We had to interrupt the movie at 11:30pm and switch to watch Dick Clark's Rocking New Year's Eve from Times Square in New York City. The kids don't get it, but though I don't much care for New Year's eve you just have to watch the ball drop. Dick Clark's show has always been the one to watch. He suffered a stroke in 2005 and was not able to be on. But he was there this year. He was very open about what had happened - that he had a stroke and basically had to learn how to walk and talk all over again. Though his speech was markedly affected, the courage in his expression was priceless. It took real guts - not only on his part but on the network's part - for him to be on. Regardless of if you are a Dick Clark fan or not, the guy is a class act. I wouldn't have missed his appearence for anything. By the time Colin left, it had started spitting snow.

New Year's day, Marissa slept in so I worked on some paper work. We got about 2 inches of snow overnight and it was still coming down lightly when I got up. Colin was going to come over for bacon and eggs for a late breakfast, but because of the snow he had to go into work and clear the lot. So I just let Marissa sleep. And no Tournament of Roses Parade or bowl football games! Gee - I only watch football 3 times a year: Thanksgiving, New Year's, and Super Bowl. Outta luck this year...

But when she got up, we were off to Wal-Mart. Back home and just chilled out for awhile. Since it was New Year's day, I offered to take her and her friend Rachel out to Uno's American Bar And Grill for dinner. I was up for an Uno burger anyway: 10 oz of really really good bar burger. We had a great time.

When we got back home, Marissa and Rachel watched... Into The Blue (what else) up in her room. I did the 3rd movie in the Lord of The Rings trilogy downstairs in Dolby Digital Surround Sound and then watched 2 great segments on The Travel Channel: one about a cruise to Alaska (I now want to go see Skagway...) and the other a segment on mega rich yachts - 20 to 50 million just for the boat. It's amazing the money some people have to blow...

Marissa and I both had Monday off, so she slept in until she went out to a movie and lunch with her mom while I ran into town to get some errands done. A good end to what has turned out to be a very relaxing and enjoyable 10 days off from work! I could easily do another 10...