Wednesday, 29 November 2006 through Sunday, 3 December 2006

On Wednesday morning my CPAP machine arrived - thank goodness! I immediately gave it a test drive with a 4-hour nap. It's a beautiful thing...

Thursday and Friday, I just hung out with the family down here in Tampa. Brother-in-law Joe and nephew Joey went out to get the Christmas trees - that's right, in the plural. Turns out Joey gets his own little tree that he then decorates all by himself. Well, except for the very topmost branches - for those his Uncle Rexus ('cause his dad drives a Lexus) helps him out some. My sister Lisa really gets into the Christmas season, and the house is completely transformed from its Fall/Halloween/Thanksgiving motif into a holiday wonderland. Here's an example of the mantle over the fireplace.

My Sis drives a van, of course, having a little one. She has kept her other car though, and when I'm down here I get to drive it. It's OK.

Last night I went to a Bike Fest in Plant City, just up and over from Valrico. I was a little disappointed. There were lots of bikes and bikers there, but I went alone and didn't really do anything except wander around. It was a pretty small affair, with a few vendor booths and some food stands. They did have a slightly threadworn band up there on the stage singing some good old hard rock from the 80's. The lead guitar player was pretty good, but the lead singer had seen better days, both vocally and in his personal hygiene.

I stuck around for a couple of hours and ate a grouper sandwich and some hot boiled peanuts. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry - as we say down here, "It's a Southern Thang. Y'all wouldn't understand." I did find a vendor of leather jackets, vests, and patches to be stitched thereupon. It was a very warm night, but I did have my leather jacket in one of my saddlebags, so I went and got it and had a few patches stitched thereupon.

There was a brief but intense rainstorm right before I left, but I had waxed and polished the bike that afternoon, and you should have seen the beads of water standing up on the tank - it was a beautiful thing.

I return to the Philly area this coming Tuesday evening. I'm flying back and am going to leave the bike down here with my brother in JAX for the winter. That way I won't have to winterize the bike and store it up north. He'll take good care of it and ride it, and I also expect from his comments on my wimpy 2-into-1 stock exhaust system that I will have some straight, much louder pipes when I next see the vehicle. Suits me...

Today is the first day of Advent. I got up too late today to attend a service this morning, but I found an evening service not too far from the house and will attend that tonight. If I don't get another post to this blog off before I leave, I wish you all a joyous holiday season. Whatever our individual beliefs, faiths, and practices might be, I am sure that all of us have blessings of our own understanding for which to be thankful. In the last few years, I also have come to an awareness of the role that adversity, conflict, and pain plays in the journey of personal growth, so in a way I did not ever experience or understand in the past, I am grateful for those too.

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