Tonight, Sunday, December 17, 2006, was the (by the way, I like commas) George's Cycles Christmas Party At Happy Fish-A Sushi Joint (Can I Stop Capitolizing Now? ok.). Yeeah, so, that was good times. The sushi was made extra small, but it tasted, er, extra tasty. Fern and I indulged in a couple roles worth each. We arrived just a little late (there is no attempt to put this in logical order, by the way), and had some difficulty finding a seat amongst the 30-40 Georges employess crammed into the small restaurant. We did manage to pull up a couple of chairs next to ol' Dean Montgomery (our 70 year old ex-customer/janitor) and his wife, as well as John Hawk, the huntin' manager of the Meridian store. We all know each other well, so all was fine as we engaged in friendly banter and waited for the sushi to show up. Fern took advantage of the less than exciting time by working on a Christmas knitting project for lil' ol' me. Loads of sushi came in huge platters and we all descended upon it like vultures. After sushi we played a cash give-away game Sandy came up with. Each George's employee stuck his or her hand in a bag and withdrew an envelope that contained a bill of some sort. We could choose to either keep the envelope we grabbed or trade it for one of the others that we didn't grab. It was a silly game, but one that netted me $100. I only got $1 on the first round, but hit the jackpot on the second. There was only one $100 bill in the batch of 60 or so envelopes. Thanks to Fern's hot hands and good luck (she grabbed it from the bag and decided to keep it), my Christmas is much merrier. Besides these fun times, I enjoyed chatting and joking with the likes of Caleb, Patrich, Brian, Jason, Sandy, and others. I also enjoyed watching a lil bit of the classic cycling movies they were showing on the flat screen-Quicksilver and Rad.

Yesterday, Saturday, December 16, 2006, Fern and I went snowboarding together for the 3rd time this year. As a reminder, I'll note that the first time we went this year, it took a few runs before I got my groove back from last year and started feeling ok. I never felt great on the cat track. The snow was fine. The second time, a week ago, the snow sucked, and both of us had a pretty bad time falling over and over again. Yesterday, I wasn't sure about the snow at first, but quickly came to realize that it was great. I was able to progress more than I've ever progressed in a single day before. By the last run of the day, I was cruising down moutain at a descent rate of speed with a big smile on my face. Fern and I both had a lot of fun in the four or so hours we were up there, despite Fern falling and hurting her tushi 2-3 times. We even did some exploring, going off "trail" three times along the same path through semi challenging terrain and deep snow.

After going our seperate ways, cleaning up, and resting a bit, we met up downtown and did a little Christmas shopping. Then we returned to the Flying M and procurred some refreshments and did creative things. Next, we scurried off to the dollar theatre and watched the computer animated flick "Flushed Away". The movie was not devoid of entertainment value, but it was one of the worst movies of the sort I've ever seen-not of the quality of "Open Season" or "Monster House" at least.

Friday, (correct me if I'm wrong) I met Fern at her place, then had dinner at Red Robin...what else...hmm, I'm not sure...

n e way, night