My brother bought a Dyson DC24 off of Amazon for my parents as a Christmas present last year. My initial thought was "Did they need another vacuum cleaner?". Then when my dad assembled it, I was a little taken aback. The thing is tiny and looks almost like a toy. It seems a little flimsy and even a little mechanically quirky. And the dirt tray is so small you would have to empty it frequently.

Happy New Year! I started writing this yesterday, but didn't get a chance to publish. This last year was quite an revolutionary year. Lots of up's and down's, hello's and goodbye's and some serious shakeups in the workplace. I want to list some of notable points about the last year. There is really no major order, anything and everything that came to mind I added. Some of the positive things...

This Thanksgiving was really unlike any previous that I can really remember. To start, very few guests actually came. While the house was full for Thursday night dinner, no one actually stayed over. Considering this year's events (2 weddings and a funeral), it was not much of a surprise. I just did not intend to be graced with an abundance of free time. With that there were quite a few "

I got back from my trip to California last night. As previously noted I was intending to relax a bit but that never really happened. For better or worse (more of the better), I went around. A lot!. I had a different city for pretty much every day. And I really don't know what I was expecting, but the traffic and driving were too much for me. Although, I was doing much more traveling on account that I was a tourist.

It has been rather stressful summer for me. Lots of ups and downs both personally and professionally. Unsurprisingly, I survived the last round of layoffs, but in some weird way I would not have been upset had I been let go. Quite a few "alternate" scenarios played out in my head. I'm an excuse person, I need an excuse to do something and not the other way around. Losing your job would be a great excuse to take some time off and relax or do some exotic traveling (China perhaps?