Upcoming vacation

Wow - sun - that has become somewhat rare here in the last couple weeks!

Cloudy is generally fine with me though - it feels like winter at least - and everything's still green - so it's not like there's the winter 'dead season' like in NC.

Allison and I are headed to Wisconsin to meet my family for Christmas - it looks like temperatures there will be moderate - highs near 30, lows in the upper teens. I was kinda hoping for single digits :-p The warmer weather means good odds of snow at least. The really cold air is typically very dry as well.

Last weekend we took the 'new' car out to the foothills east of the city - absolutely stunning scenery from sweeping twisty roads - followed by green tea frozen yogurt at Red Mango (yes, it's in a huge suburban mall). The Merc is definitely no Porsche, but it provides good feedback, and the engine goes from silent to muted-roar when called upon. Hopefully it will be easy to live with in the longer term.

Thinking ahead to the next vacation - odds are that will be to NC at the end of May for my brother's wedding.

However I'm already figuring out a way to get to the other side of the Pacific for a couple weeks. Still undecided on Japan, Hong Kong, Australia or New Zealand. Japan seems to be the most easily accessible, as it is only a 10 hour flight. Australia is 18 hours - that is near insane. I was looking forward to being closer to that half of the world from here, but it's still rather far away.