Glad I didn't see folks out over the past two weeks...

To call it hellish would be mildly understating things, and I really hope that bad s*** isn't contagious. Just to briefly  recap:

1. Got stuck in blizzards up here, delaying the trip by 12 hours
2. Got my windshield smashed in by a passing gravel truck in St. Joe's, MO (replacement cost $596)
3. Got snowed in Santa Fe for two extra days
4. Clovis, NM, site of the earliest indigenous artifacts in N.America, has been relinquished to real estate developers who are now plowing over one of the most important archeaological finds....ever....for the sole purpose of building some of the ugliest homes in a truly desolate part of the country for low-level military functionaries.
   
5. Girlie got food poisoning
6. Kiddo got pneumonia
7. I got abandoned in a desolate hospital in Pratt, KS when my pancreas went out.
8. Flat tire in Monroe, LA
9. Baby Mama in Montgomery was psychotic as usual
10. Human feces covered the bathroom of the first hotel I tried to rent in Amarillon, TX.
11. Construction on campus has really, really f'ed up any future guided tours :)
12. The first home I ever owned, in Tuscaloosa BTW, has been retrofitted...garage gone, pool gone, fenced in yard gone...to make way for an ugly piece of s*** that doesn't fit the character of the neighborhood.
13. Christmas Day, got a call from the neighbors...the basement storm doors got left open (my fault) and the pipes burst when the air temps hit -16.
14. My brother had just been placed in a wheelchair, from which he will never exit, two days prior to my arrival in El Paso, TX
15. Got back here, checked email, was just sacking out, and the CO2 detector went off...The furnace blew, blowing 800 ppm of CO2 into the air, so had to spend a 15th night in a hotel. New furnace cost = $2300.
16. We got our asses royally kicked last night by a fast, aggressive, exceptionally well-coached team that took our weaknesses and fed them to us like foie gras.

Hope everyone's holidays were a blast, and everyone is hail and well. Here's to next year (this year!). Happy 2009, and Roll Tide.