Notes from the Cave

We will soon be leaving for the 30-minute drive to Cincinnati for Thanksgiving.  It will be at the house of my wife's aunt, which is where we have generally been celebrating Thanksgiving since my wife's grandparents' died.  My in-laws live two doors down from my wife's aunt, and the grandparents, when they were living, lived across the street.  Small town scenario in a large metropolis.

M has been slaving in the kitchen all morning, and it's about 269 degrees in there.  I helped by washing a pan for her :)

I recently finished a fantastic historical novel set in the 12th century called Lionheart, by Sharon Kay Penman.  As the name implies, it is about the life of Richard I, specifically his exploits on the Third Crusade in the early 1190's.

I'm now on to a Robert McCammon novel called Mister Slaughter.  Over the last year, McCammon has become my new favorite author.  I just LOVE his books.  Sitting down to read a McCammon book is like sitting down with an old friend.  I haven't disregarded my previous favorite, Wilbur Smith, but I've read all of Smith's 35+ books now and he only publishes a new one every couple of years or so.  Over 80 now, his newer books just don't have the spark of the older ones.

Work has been interesting of late.  Our lead tech on 2nd shift has been out for a few weeks, so I have been given the duty of temporary lead tech (with no extra pay of course).  It has been very hard - harder, I suppose, than I would have expected.  In addition to handling departmental calls and crises, as well as a few administrative tasks, I also still have to do my part as a regular old x-ray tech - namely, working in the ER, doing portable exams on the inpatient floors, and running x-ray machines in the OR.  So it's been pretty stressful, but I am adjusting to it now.  Makes me appreciate the work our real lead techs do year 'round.

In my predictions for the presidential election this year, I correctly picked 47 of the 50 states.  Additionally, every state I picked for Obama went to Obama.  The only ones I missed were states where I picked Romney, but Obama ended up winning.  Neither the electoral vote, nor the nationwide popular vote, was as close as I expected.  However, I said at the time that given two possibilities - A large Obama victory, or any Romney victory at all - I thought it was more likely that Obama would win big than Romney would win at all.  Still, I predicted a closer battle.  All political biases aside, I think the Republicans have some real soul-searching to do to figure out how to appeal to Americans across generations, economic backgrounds, and ethnicities.

Time to head to Cincinnati.  M just told me we were supposed to be there at 2 pm.  It's 215.