I go back and forth between very excited and kinda sad that the last Harry Potter book is coming out in a couple of weeks.  Right now all I feel is happy though, because I finally figured out where I am going to get it.

I have been seeing Amazon and Barnes and Noble advertisements telling me to pre-order for months, but I thought it would be much more fun to pick it up at the store in person.  I was even (secretly) hoping for a midnight pickup with a bunch of eager Harry Potter fans, which I have never done before.  There is no big box bookstore in town, so I decided to support my local independent bookstore and buy it the day it came out.  I finally called today to see if they could put a copy on hold for me and… yes, they are open for one hour at midnight for all of us who want to read until the sun comes up!  Who needs sleep anyway?

For those who are curious what's happening with our wedding...

We're having the ceremony @ Cataract Falls and our honeymoon stay will be @ Rose Court Cottage in Arcata. See more pictures of Rose Court Cottage here and here.

We plan on getting in a lot of hiking during our stay in northern California.  We'll be trekking in the  Redwood National Forest and/or Prairie Creek State Park hopefully, and may do the Avenue of the Giants drive (though the weather might make this less appealing).  Of course we'll be stopping by the city forest and the marsh as well, as they are nice and close.

I don't get many days off of work at all. Not even on the weekend, and usually not for holidays either. If I ever catch up on all the items in the queue (which seldom happens), I still have tons of stuff to study. So my days off are very special to me. This week I took a day off that I couldn't really afford, but then I also couldn't stand the chance of missing to opportunities: Using my tickets to the Wild Animal Park which were about to expire (they were gifts from somebody who I had done some work for), and seeing friends visiting from Oregon who I see very little of these days.

Duck: "For the first Christmas in quite some time, I'm totally jazzed about the possibilities. A simple idea Bee and I have had has sparked in me the Holiday Season magic that I lost long ago when I realized that no matter how generous we try to be, Christmas is really about:

• being encouraged to believe that loving someone is shown by how many material things you can buy them
• being led to believe that gifts are more valuable if you purchase them than if you made them yourself
• spending more that you can afford in the consumer frenzy
• trying to find parking
• waiting in long lines
• searching for any random trinkets to buy people when you've no idea what they really need
• being bombarded by really bad covers of classic Christmas songs
• stressing out to have a good time
• using a tree worth of wrapping paper that will be taken out with the trash before Christmas sundown."

Bee: "Our idea is essentially to combine our desire to support individuals/entities with our dollars, and give people useful things. We can do this by providing people things they would enjoy which we obtain from people and companies that we support. Like Amy Goodman always says during the Democracy Now! and the KPFK fundrives, 'donating to a good cause will make you feel good, and the gifts you get will make great Christmas gifts'. Hey, Christmas is supposed to be about making a better world and self. This is an excellent way to do it. And in that spirit..."