Kris and I went up to San Carlos today to play in the tenth annual Beware-o the Sombrero tournament. We've been playing in the tournament since 1998, missing maybe two since then. The tournament was originally a high school only tournament, run by the group of high school kids on Christmas vacation, and morphed into a "you're home over Christmas break from college and have nothing better to do so comem play" one day tournament in subsequent years as the high schoolers moved on to college. They've since graduated and moved on to work or post graduate school or, as I found out today, the Peace Corps and missions and such. As a result of the inevitable march of time, this is the final year it'll be held, at least by under this name, with the ex-high school kids as organizers.

Good ideas last, so I expect another group to continue the tradition of the one day tournament the last week of December next year.

My team was led by Eric the Red. Eric managed all of three words before the experienced players (read: over 30) started talking over him. It was a little frustrating to see the toe stepping and hear the cacophony of the elders all wanting to be heard.

We played well as a team, familiarity and skill helping us along. I knew four people on the team (Dave, Sarah, Venga, Phelps), having played with them at various times before. We didn't have any beginners per se on the team, so people who had problems throwing in the wind were our weakest links; which is to say, we didn't really have any weak links.

We won our first three games handily, though not necessarily easily. The third game was against another 2-0 team in our pool. Oddly enough, we went up 9-0 on them before they scored their first point. They had four or five players on their team who played together at a local college, according to Emily who was on the team. Their coach was playing on my team. I suspect they intimidated themselves into playing poorly. The experience is going into my UCPC talk at the end of the month: "don't lose before you start playing."

Lunch of delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches was after our first three games. We started late, and came out flat. One of our players, Phelps from San Diego, left after lunch, and his loss was quickly felt. The game capped when we were on our comeback, but not back, so we lost 6-7.

I played well. I had two throwaways, but neither mattered, as they were in games we won. My ankle held up very well, for which I am quite pleased. At one point, Dave McClure (who is no longer at SimplyHired, and is currently waiting the birth of his second child) commented to me, "There's no shame in wearing ankle braces for the rest of your life, if it means you can play."

I thought about it, and, have to agree. I can play with the brace on, and that's what counts.

I can play ultimate.

Our trip to Australia wasn't the best trip we've ever had, certainly not the best trip I've ever been on. Actually, it's one of the most not-fun trips I've had, and that's including the trip to France back in the early ninties. Now that was a trip to forget (travelling companion: marvelous; braving french culture without a thick skin: forgettable).

Because it wasn't a particularly good time, I had a lot of time to think: when things aren't good, I try to figure out why not, and how to fix them so that they are good. This quirk often backfires, but didn't this time.

I spent the time thinking about what I want to change about myself, because the self is both the hardest to change, and the easiest to attempt to change. The first change I decided to make was to stop biting off my fingernails. Not sticking my fingers in my mouth every moment I'm still, which isn't often, since I'm always bouncing around.

Clipping my nails is now a weekly chore, one I haven't had since, well, since never.

The other decision was to cook on a regular basis. Instead of going out to eat for dinner six nights a week and cook for one, I decided we were going to cook for six nights a week, and going out for dinner would be a treat.

I started cooking each night for the both of us. Kris didn't mind that we weren't heading out for dinner: he'd arrive home and dinner would be ready for him. Dinner couldn't have been much easier for him than sit down and eat. After a few weeks of making dinner for us, I told him what I was doing. He was encouraged, and began cooking with me: sometimes making side dishes, sometimes making the main course.

I'm not sure we're saving money on eating in each night. I'm not sure we're not. It's been a good trend so far, though. We've started eating healthier. We're eating far more regularly. We're spending more time together, talking about the day, what happened and suchk. We're also throwing away significantly less food than we used to throw away. Since returning from Australia, I think I've thrown away maybe two items; instead of our previous two items a week or so.

I'm happy by these changes.

I'm now trying to figure out what other changes to make, continue this trend.

Kris and I made the journey to the Gulls again yesterday, this time taking the girls for a Christmas hike. We were planning on a long hike for Christmas day, where long is greater than three hours. After the call exposing the amazing gifts from the Gulls, we switched plans and asked if they were up for a hike, too. They were interested, but for a shorter one that Liza could walk, and suggested the trails around their new house. A few minutes later, we were on our way.

Kate had been on the trail we were going to hike. The trailhead was near the end of their road, so we wandered down the road, and turned to head along the trail back around to their house.

Once we hit the trail, Kris was terribly keen on letting the dogs off their leashes. Since the trail was along private property, Mike and Kate could give us permission to allow them off leash. I was a little worried about letting them off the leash: that Annie would take off and not return; that Bella would wander off and not return. When we let them off leash at other park, we're confident we'll find them again because not only is the park fenced in (leaving only about 30 acres where the dogs could get lost), but the interesting smells are centralized so they don't go too far. Annie is a beagle in fur only, she acts more like a lab or collie, in that she'll run away along a trail for twenty-thirty yards, then run back to see that you're following, run forward, run back and check. Bella is a true beagle, she puts her nose down, starts sniffing, and wanders away, following her nose.

After a short way down the trail, I agreed to let the dogs off the leashes, but quickly changed my mind when we had to stand around for ten minutes waiting for Bella to wander back to us. We put her on a leash, but left Annie to run, since she seemed to be following us.

Definitely a mistake, as she caught a scent and took off. We kept walking for a bit, as Annie's howls followed us as we walked along, but had to stop again when she seemed to be running along the top of the ridge instead of near us. Some of her howls were almost desperate, a sound Kris assured me meant only that she wanted us to come to her, see what she had caught.

After standing around for another ten or fifteen minutes, and hearing Annie's howls become fainter, I decided to run back to find Annie. I have no idea what possessed me to think that, after three years of ignoring me, Annie would suddenly stop chasing the delicious smell she was following, and come when I called for her. Clearly just dumb on my part.

I gave up after running a quarter mile back along the trail, and ran back to the group, telling Kris he had to go get Annie, she wasn't listening to me. Shock. Mike went with Kris as Kate, Liza, Maeryn and I went back up along the trail. We waited for close to half an hour before Kate gave Liza and I trail directions and instructions on how to break into the house, so that we could turn off the oven, saving the Christmas turkey. Mike hadn't been on the trail before, so Kate didn't feel comfortable just hiking away from Kris and him. She went back to find the boys, as Liza and I went home.

Liza was a trooper. She walked the whole trail, complaining only briefly in the last quarter mile or so. However, even that complaining wasn't really complaining so much as telling me she was tired, and, heck, so was I.

Mike and Kate asked us to stay for dinner, which was a tasty, tasty meal. We went home a little later. After we checked the dogs for ticks, I went to take a shower. That's when I discovered the little hitchhiker.

The poor shadow placement, not withstanding.

I'm really beginning to hate ticks. This is number two in as many years, and, as far as I'm concerned, two too many.

Especially since both are from chasing the dogs into the bushes.

Santa was good to us today. He brought me a fabulous new printer, which works straight out of the box with my Apple laptop, via Kris. Also via Kris came a set of whisky cordials and some much needed wooden spoons for cooking, my previous ones having fallen victim to Annies over-aggressive "licking" that turned to "consuming" of the actual spoons.

Santa especially loved Kris, with a slew of gifties ranging from the Baseball Forecaster (guaranteed to help with the software he's developed for team drafting in the fantasy leagues he plays in) to a coffee grinder (from his Seekrit Santa, my sister-in-law) that is sure to enable that coffee addiction.

The biggest surprise of the morning, however, was the amazing gifts from the Gulls. It was pretty much the only gift I hadn't figured out before opening besides Heather's, and the only one I didn't know about.

Mike called in the morning to ask if Santa was good to us (he was). We chatted for a bit, and I asked how Santa was to the girls. He said they were good this year, so Santa was good back, but, unfortunately, he gave a gift that needed assembling. Tragically, their tools were buried somewhere in the boxes in the garage, could we help them out?

My initial thought was, um, uh, well, you've seen my tools, so, uh, I hope all you need is a screwdriver, and a flathead at that. Anything else, and you'll have one sad kid shortly.

Out loud, however, I was, sure, let me see what I have, and wandered over to the toolchest. Here I have this amazingly nice toolchest, and all my crappy tools that I've piecemealed together over the years, buying what I need at the time, but never big sets all at once.

In front of the toolchest on Christmas morning was a new full set of metric and standard sockets. Wow, this was so cool! My enthusiastic screaming was something along my most joyous cursing. When I returned to the phone to thank Mike, he asked if I had actually opened the toolchest. I hadn't, so I put the phone down to see what else there was.

Oh.

My.

Inside was the most awesomest, complete set of tools! The toolchest looked like my dad's set, I had all these really cool, totally awesome, amazing tools. WHoo!

My happy curing continued. I'm sure Mike turned off the speaker phone after the first five seconds of the minute long, "Oh My GOD! LOOK AT THIS! AND THIS! AND HOLY SH*T THIS! WOW!"

Mike later told me he and Liza snuck into the house yesterday when we were out buying souffle ramekins for John and Heidi. In and out in ten minutes, and Santa Gull was very good to us. Liza was thrilled to be his little accomplice.

Heidi and John invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner. We went over, fortunately arriving only a little late, after having dashed out to purchase a set of four ramekins for them. Heidi asked if I would make souffles for dessert, not realizing she was asking me to make them for New Year's Eve, and not tonight.

She let me make souffle anyway. Who can resist chocolate souffle?

Answer: not me!

John's family has a tradition of playing pinochle on Christmas Eve. To follow in this tradition, John taught us how to play, and we played one game. The partners ended up being John and I versus Kris and Heidi.

In my true beginner card playing tradition, from which we have derived the term, to have a Kitt hand, I drew six of the eight aces in the deck. My first hand, and I managed a meld score of fifteen. Clearly I underbid when I said, "21." John had one of the other aces, so we ended up dominating the hand, setting the tone for the game. Heidi and Kris couldn't catch a break, and the game finished quickly.

Heidi jumped in next with euchre, except she didn't quite remember all of the rules. Our euchre game lasted twice as long as the pinochle game, but had far many more laughs. Heidi won the first game on her first hand by some obscure rule we think is a Grantz-Smith house rule, and we played a second game. After John and I were down by at least half in the second game, with Kris and Heidi near assured victory, we all realized the order of the cards was not J-J-A-K-Q-10 for all suits, only trump. We had played several hands wrong, and the game was started over. The evening continued this way, with various rules coming to light only after a card transgression had happened, much to the delight of John, Kris and me. At one point, we were laughing to hard that, had we had any liquids in our mouths, they were have sprayed the far kitchen walls.

We left late at night, with visions of Christmas goodies dancing in our heads, and warm fuzzies from the house and good cheer of good friends.