Merry Christmas to Oz...

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,741
Location
USA
While visiting New York City:

DSC00685.jpg


Christmas tree at Rockefeller center
 

time

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 18, 2002
Messages
4,932
Location
Brisbane, Oz
Well, it's 10pm so Christmas Day is almost over here (actually it's 9pm right here, but the rest of Oz has daylight saving). In Brisbane, it's been lower temperatures (not even in the 90's) but high humidity with thunderstorms circling.

Thank God for air-conditioning ... :mrgrn:

Having said that, one of our units leaked all over my desk late on Christmas Eve (and the phone, speakers etc) - so not even the slightest chance of getting someone to look at it. :cry:

But I think I had some success today disconnecting the drain and repeatedly inserting some mains flex. 8)

It's a peculiar Christmas for my wife and me. We've lost our three remaining parents in the last four years, the last being my mother on Christmas Eve last year. So we found ourselves the matriarch and patriarch of our family this Christmas. Maybe we'll accept that fact next year.

Still, it's good to see children enjoy themselves, and we more or less managed that. Ate too much as usual, although not as bad as some previous years. :roll: I actually managed to roll out the door at 5pm and finish mowing the grass (this place is on a slope, so mowing is pretty strenuous). Untangled the hoses (75m total!) after the younger kids' water fight from a couple of days ago, while the lightning came closer and closer. :eek:

But I didn't become a statistic, so here I am after a couple of glasses of red, tapping in a few mundane thoughts from Oz - still a rather nice place, and a relative oasis in the troubled world (although our government is hoping to change all that).

Merry Christmas to everyone in a retarded timezone - I'm not going to list you all. This is a wonderful little virtual meeting place, and I hope to see you all here next year.
 

Tannin

Storage? I am Storage!
Joined
Jan 15, 2002
Messages
4,448
Location
Huon Valley, Tasmania
Website
www.redhill.net.au
And the compliments of the season to all from us!

I spent one of my better Xmases yesterday: read quite a lot, played on the web, did some plumbing to alter my shower outflow so that it waters the roses (there is a severe drought on here, remember), read some more, went to Belinda's to water her seedlings (she's away) and make some running repairs to the watering system in her orchard. (Those black plastic pipes are quite old and have gone hard as hell. Getting the joiners in needed lots of upper-body strength. Lucky for me that Tea was around!) Home, yet more reading and bed.

That's a pretty good Xmas in my book. No rellies, no screaming kidz, no presents given or received. My whole family is pretty much like that these days: we tend to give presents on the Lewis Carrol system: like the Mad Hatter we have unbirthdays whenever it seems like a good idea. Not being Christians, the religious side of Xmas means nothing to us (and if we were, I'd hope that we'd be more interested in Easter, which has always struck me as the significant time for Christians), and not being great consumers of capitalist propaganda, the mad spending side of it does not appeal either.

Christmas Day and Good Friday are the two days of the year that are always difficult to negotiate. You can't buy anything, even bread or milk or petrol is difficult, and you can't go anywhere because there is nothing on, and you can't even listen to the radio or watch TV because it's got nothing of the slightest interest: just stupid carols and idiot tallkback hosts who suddenly decide even though they have built an audience by talking about science and politics and current events all year, that they must mindlessly talk about Christmas (or Easter) on this day, even though a moment's reflection would tell them that anyone who is actually interested in Christmas will be somewhere actually doing it and not listening to the radio, and anyone who is listening to the radio will not be interested in yet more stupid Christmas stories.

Thankfully, ABC Radio National came to the rescue: they were playing re-runs of "the best of Radio National" and while I worked I was able to listen to really interesting interviews with Sir Gustav Nossell (perhaps Australia's most eminent scientist), and Albert Ellis (very famous American psychologist).

In short, a good Christmas, spent just the way I like it. May you all have whatever the sort of Christmas is that you like best!
 

Dozer

Learning Storage Performance
Joined
Jun 25, 2002
Messages
299
Location
Chattanooga, TN
Website
planetdozer.dyndns.org
Echoing your post, Tannin, I have to say that my Christmas was quite enjoyable as well. My family does Christmas gifts, but we never make a big deal of it. As Christians, Christmas means the celebration of a significant event, the birth of Christ. But you are quite right, Easter is, in the scheme of our beliefs, a very significant event. It is the center of what we believe. But Christmas to my family has always been less about presents and hustle and bustle, and more about spending time together.

This Christmas, we shared dinner and time with my parents closest friends, and cooked a Turducken, a Cajun invention which is basically a turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken. This was a new and quite enjoyable experience for us. We looked on with much anticipation as my dad carved the hybrid bird, trying to figure out which meat was which. As he carved, he revealed various types of stuffing (cornbread between the turkey and duck, and adouille stuffing between the duck and chicken). Along with the various side dishes my mother prepared, we had quite the gourmet feast. But the most enjoyable part of the day was just relaxing, talking, laughing, and enjoying each other's company.

I hope that everyone at Storageforum had an enjoyable Christmas day, and that everyone is blessed the remainder of this year, and the new year to come.

-Bill
 
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