Now you’ll have to forgive me about last week. You see, I was so excited by the new snowfall, I couldn’t force myself to sit in front of the glowing beast on a modem. We got like 8 inches, and there is still snow and ice on some of the streets! Last week, I barely made it out to church it was so blizzardly.

Well, the break has been both uneventful in some ways, and very eventful in others. I have not done a lot of stuff, relative to the hectic school days, but the calm has given me a chance to do some major reading and reflection. I have come to some important conclusions about life, happiness, and motivation. Have I found the secret formula I’ve been looking for? We won’t know until deep into next quarter most likely, but I’m optimistic. One manifestation of the change is my cutting myself off totally from the world of MP3s (except backups of my own, legal, albums). This is bound to cause a stir, most likely in a negative way, but I believe its best in the long run. I want to shift my focus to things that matter, and this will help. I have felt a moral obligation as well.

Hmm, what has happened? I’ve read a lot - C.S. Lewis, Stephen Covey, and others… I talked to my pastors, and that was good. I’ve done a lot of waiting - for my hair to grow back in that is, it seems to be punishing me for using clippers by growing much more slowly than usual. I went to see the morally corrupt movie again, where we needed 15 people, or the guy would have to give us our money back and close up (it was a $2 budget theater). We were the 3rd and 4th, and we only had 11 when he got out a stack of ones and started around the counter. Tension mounted, all 11 of us hoped and clenched our fists, I was ready to make a flying tackle, but a carload of 4 people showed just in time! At this point, I felt a bit guilty considering the movie’s content, so I said aloud “Let’s go Steve, we can see something else.” This got a couple of threatening glances and some cynical, “move toward the door and die” laughter, so I changed my mind.

The cold streak has not been especially fun after my acclimation to California weather, especially as I am driving a car without a working heater. On the way back from Paige’s house a week ago or so, we got into the car to find my Sobe drink frozen solid, and the mercury at -10 F. The drive was an hour of misery, punctuated by fear. I accidently left my brights on passing a semi on the interstate, and he flashed me several more times than I thought was necessary. Right as Steve asked “You think we’ve got something wrong with our …” BOOM! The car shook as if we had been shot, or a tire had blown. I immediately hit the brakes and stopped, as the semi flew by. We got out and inspected, but could find nothing wrong. So, all we accomplished was losing the precious little body heat we has saved up in the car.

I just got an email from someone I have no recollection of, threatening further action after they logged a huge port scan coming from my machine, probing thousands of ports on one of theirs (38.something, psi.com?).. I’m not the least bit concerned, but I do wonder what my computer was doing snooping around without my permission, and what administrator and security@stanford.edu are going to do about it, since they got a cc of the email. Looks like fun.stanford.edu needs some discipline. I know I’ve been a good boy, because I got everything on my Christmas list, which was the title of this Chronicle.

Last night, unfortunately Steve was sick and working, so Mike and I visited him at the deserted tennis club where he works. I started a bit of a tennis ball fight with Mike, which was fairly even until I found the practice tennis ball launcher, which made short work of my adversary. Well, next week I will again be back in Stanford, and newly committed to a organized and productive lifestyle. Just like last quarter.. and the one before that.. and…

Quote of the week:

Sometimes you gotta eat it to prevent the moon.

This is Bradley, signing out from Christmas break paradise.
(Note: all the quotes are taken from something I or someone I talk to actually said…)