David posted about goings on his life and it's been a while since I did that, so here's my version of that kind of a post.

At home, we got through Chanukah, but I was very disappointed at two toys that seemed to break or not work right away. One was this remote control hovercraft thingy you can buy at a kiosk in the Galleria; the other was a remote control little car. I guess they haven't quite gotten the five 9s on these products that their real conterparts demand. One of my kids had been asking for a ferret as a pet for a while, so I gave her a ferret calendar as the next best thing. Unlike Christmas, Chanukah is usually celebrated as a holiday just for kids, so I didn't get any gifts, and I have to admit that I don't like that.

There's the new family that moved in down the street, the Frosts, and they put an amazing gift on our doorstep the other day. It was a tower of boxes each containing various kinds of chocolate candy. My wife wanted to regift it so I broke into it right away to eat some of it so she couldn't. This family is like something out of a TV show. The guy completely remodeled the house on his own inside and out; the wife puts out cute seasonal yard signs; each of the family members could pass for a model; and they sent this amazing gift to their neighbors.

Our hockey team has been suffering with a 0-6-1 record until this past week, when we won our first game. A number of strange things have been going on in and around our team, but we seem to be pulling things together again and I hope we'll turn our season around. We have a chance to crawl out of last place with our next game.

I will be playing Christmas Eve services at Christ Lutheran Church in Webster Groves. They have an early and late service, one with communion but I forgot which one.

I am enjoying my sabbatical too much -- so much so that I'd like to continue for another year. But I also have the opportunity I think to overhaul what used to be CS 456 (a software engineering course). Rob is going to teach it in Spring the way it's been done for a while, but I'd like to change it over. If you have some ideas about that, please write me. Some thoughts I've had are to make the projects more about developing software engineering practices and infrastructure, and somehow making the course more quantitative. A good text would help here, and while I haven't found anything too compelling yet, it seems that people at the SEI at CMU are onto something.

Our dog has gone out of puppyhood and is now just over a year old. She's turned into a rather amazing dog, if I may say so, and it's just so great having her around. I had been used to a cat for over 20 years now, and while cats are great, I'm amazed at how much a dog just wants to hang with people.

At Temple I continue to be involved in getting music organized for services. Last night I got to "sit in" with HaShemesh---a local group that includes guitar, mandolin, flute, and tof (drum). Their usual songleader/guitarist was out of town so I played and sang with them, and it was too much fun. They are an amazing group and I hope they'll come back to our services again soon. Our Temple is undergoing interesting changes in worship and music, and it's fun to be part of that.

Well enough of me. How are things with you?

Posted by: rkc at December 21, 2004 5:12 PM

Posted by: Chris Hill Festival at December 22, 2004 8:56 PM