As most of you already know, I spent the last two weeks in Abbotsford for the Christmas holidays. We drove back today.

We had a great time back home... I wish I had been allowed more free time to see people, however - I spent most of my 'vacation' writing a paper for one of my HuCo courses. :( Still, I managed to get together with Alan a couple of times, and with the folks as well.

Christmas was really good to me; Kirsten gave me (among other splendid gifts) a set of walkie talkies (or, as they're now known, FRS with a 10 kilometer range (as tested, great for line of sight; lousy on either side of a mountain); Kirsten's folks gave me an MP3 player (which I smartly forgot to take this morning), and my folks gave Kirsten and me a pressure rice cooker, which I look forward to using.

And, as a gift to myself using some Christmas money, I got a PalmOne Zire 31. Kirsten put the bug in my head after Christmas, when she said that she had originally wanted to get me a PDA with wireless 'net, but couldn't justify going waaaaaaaaay over our agreed budget. ;)

When I went into Vancouver with Nathan to get him some computer equipment, I dropped by the Staples to see if they had a Zire 21 (which was my original plan); as it turned out, I remembered that Future Shop had the 31 on for $149; Staples had it for $199. I asked them if they matched the price, and after they checked out FS's website, they did... and then beat it by 5% of the difference. All in all, I walked out with a Zire 31 for $125 - not a bad deal: $40 more than the 21, with twice the memory, MP3 playing capability (off the get an SD card tomorrow) and a colour screen. Of course, I've been enthralled with it ever since. Kirsten (we watched the trilogy the same day) has taken to calling it "my precious".

I also grabbed a bunch of books from the parents' place while I was in town, and among them was an old writing journal. It's 99% dreck, but every once in awhile, I come across something like this:

"For some time now, I've entertained the thought that my right hand is longer than my left...."