Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and all other celebratory greetings!

New Hardware Happening – The big news is that I’m now blogging from the new Battlestation (which is the name I’ve used for my laptops for the past two decades). My old laptop kept crashing, and Best Buy had the Alienware m18 on sale. It is significantly larger than my previous laptop, and I dislike the fact that I can’t charge via USB-C. Still, playing Civ on this beast is going to be fun – particularly when Civ 7 drops.

I hate having to go through and do all the setup. Logging into accounts, finding old license keys, downloading applications. I will use this as an opportunity to streamline some older processes.

I’ve also had to reorganize my desk a bit since the new laptop is bigger than my old one.

There will most likely be more reorganization as we go through “The Great Upstairs Shift” when we decompress The Wife’s office, turn the upstairs living room into a craft/hobby room for both of us, and a bunch of furniture trading between rooms.

If all goes according to plan, I will have an aircraft carrier in my office for all my veritechs / transformers / etc.

Party Happenings – The Wife and I went to the Christmas party hosted by a former colleague of hers. She got to meet with some old colleagues and her current boss. Plus we met some new acquaintances. The Wife always comments on how I can hold a conversation with folks even though I’m a raging introvert. Which is true. The problem is I’m an outgoing introvert – which translates into once Derek starts talking on subjects he knows well, he doesn’t really shut up. I’m really working on info-dumping during conversations and making sure I’m not dominating a conversation.

Keeping Warm Happenings – The Brother found this little fireplace. I find it very relaxing.