Every year I send out a holiday card featuring Boomer the Wonder Dog.  She's always dressed up in some sort of holiday season getup, a Santa hat one year, an elf hat another... she hates it.  She thinks she's being punished.  She usually looks miserable and just detests the whole process. See December 2007.

Boomer is tired of the dress up for Santa, and this year I changed the theme a little bit.  This was the holiday card that I sent out this year, although I suspect some of them are still stuck in the mail:

This has been an interesting weekend.  My firm threw its holiday party Friday afternoon, started at Mike Ditka's and moved on to Trader's Vic's for the after-party.  A good amount of drinking but I behaved myself.   Saturday ran errands and then got horribly horribly sick around 4pm.  I can't figure out if it was a food bug or the sudden onset of 24-hr flu but it was bad. I couldn't keep anything down and man, it hurt.  I barely slept Saturday night.  Was thinking of going to the E.R. as my fluid outtake far surpassed my intake, but that's when the worst seemed to end.  

Wasn't feeling great Sunday morning but well enough to keep some water down.  Although I skipped playing volleyball, later in the day I had to go to the Apple Store.  I have a 160GB iPod and it decided to simply stop working, as I could tell from the thrashing noises the hard drive was making yesterday afternoon.  I wanted to replace it before my road trip and thankfully my 2-yr AppleCare warranty doesn't expire for 10 more days.  So they just gave me a new one.  Rock!  And then I took some pictures walking back to the train. 

Thought I'd try something a little different for a self-portrait.

Went to see the Bulls v. Lakers game last night. Full set of photos is at flickr, by clicking here.

So Bob (ruralrob) is always given me crap about my... uh.. interest (habit? love?) of finding and wearing various Aloha shirts. But really, I think a colorful, tasteful shirt is always a classy, lovely additional to any urban professional's stylish wardrobe.

Knowing my love of the colorful shirt, this year Bob sent me a special and unique Holiday card. When I opened it up, I literally screamed "BOOOYAH!"

Its that time of year again.

Time to send out Christmas cards!

For those of you that know, each year I send out a photocard that showcases Boomer the Wonder Dog (tm) dressed up in Holiday finery. She HATES it when I dress her up, because she thinks I'm punishing her for some transgression. While I didn't use this photo last year, it gives you an idea of the general theme behind my holiday cards.

So if you want a card just send me a comment with your FULL NAME and address. I'll keep comments anonymous so others will not see your contact info.

Thanks y'all! Happy Holidays.

So it seems, lately, I've been heading out to the bars on the weekends. That's not my normal m.o. but hey, it was a lot of fun. And really, what does one do in winter to keep off the chill? A little holiday cheer is always helpful.

The weekend
This last weekend, Terry celebrated his birthday. A group of us went out to Big Chicks on Saturday night. Good times ensued.

After the bar, a few of us went out for some late night diner food. I didn't get home until around 4am, which made Sunday a little painful. Owen (murphy ) and Dave (meatybear ) were throwing their holiday brunch and I was intent on being there before my volleyball games.

And they made hamcups. OMG. Tasty, tasty hamcups.


Between staying out so late on Saturday, the early Sunday morning and eating tasty hamcups, to say I wasn't quite up to speed for our volleyball games Sunday afternoon would be an understatement of epic proportions. I had a great time even though we lost all our games, and then went home to relax on Sunday night.

This is my last week of work before taking off next week for the Holidays. Our office holiday party is this Friday afternoon, and that's always a fun event. I mean, an open bar? Of course it will be fun!

Holiday Card Time
Tonight I'm gonna stuff some holiday cards. If you want one, send me an e-mail [mjm4 at pobox.com] or message me on Livejournal and I will send one out to you!

The temperatures here in Chicago have finally started to drop. I do enjoy winter, even the "nose hairs have started to freeze" days. The dog likes the weather too, but her coat is very thin and not very helpful when the temperature drops to brutally cold levels.

So last year, my friend Matt and my sister Cindy got Boomer some winter clothes.