The Empirical Manifesto

Kids went to a birthday party today - they were gone 4 hours. I wish I could tell you that I took this opportunity to clean the backyard of all the branches which had fallen over the course of the ice storm, but that would be misleading as it would suggest some sort of internal motivation. Rather, my wife encouraged me to do so. Once all that was finished, the birthday boy showed up at the house asking if we'd seen our daughter, as they couldn't find her. Thankfully, neither my wife nor I flew into a blind panic. I don't know what kept her level headed, but I simply assumed she was small and therefore overlooked. The mother in charge of the party was more anxious than I was, but my daughter was quickly found in a restroom after an emergency in which her need for assistance frustrated her independent nature and she was mulling over this dilemma in silence.

Spent an hour visiting with our neighbors from Bethlehem after which we agreed to attend a cultural Arab party in late January. I'm pretty sure we'll be the only Caucasians there. It was a nice visit though, as I'm familiar with many of their customs from my time in Saudi, and my wife being a lover of Mediterranean cuisine (their cuisine seemed to run about half Med and half Mid East). Oh, and they brewed some strong Turkish coffee for us (as is their custom). My first fully-leaded cup of coffee in over a month, and sweetened something fierce. I'll probably remain in a zombie-like state for the duration of the weekend because of it; not being able to sleep, yet not being truly awake.

Burned the remainder of Battlestar Galactica Season 3 from my TiVo for Bill. Cannot WAIT for the Season 3 soundtrack. The piano solos were beautiful. I want. Badly. La La Land Records is of course not even accepting pre-orders yet. *Le sigh.*