December 2004 Archives

I understand the giggles from the kids about "Round John Virgin" when we sing Silent Night.  And of course the boy is at an obnoxious age, so the last lines have become "Sleep in heavenly peace out dude".

And honestly, I think "Later on we'll perspire as we drink by the fire" is perfectly Christmas-y, and I don't know why anybody complains when I sing it that way.

But this new one is fucking twisted:  All night long on Christmas night, I had the most bizarre earworm going through my head, and it was hours before I consciously realized exactly how messed up my wiring must be.  I was humming the tune to "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", with the words to the theme from "Gilligan's Island".

God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip

Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day;
That started from this tropic port aboard a tiny ship

To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray.
The mate was a mighty sailin' man, the skipper brave and sure

O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy;
Five passengers set sail that day for a three hour tour

No clue.  I tell you, man, this is the kind of shit that happens when you're spending Christmas with the parents and you can't drink your way through it.

We're spending the holiday in Baton Rouge this year, with my mom and her husband and all my brothers and sisters and neices and nephews.  The weather is about as perfect as you can get when you're this far south...cloudy, temperature right around freezing, and the odd snowflake or two.

Last night we did something I've wanted to take the kids to for years.  We took them down to St. James Parish to see the lighting of the Christmas bonfires.  This is a Louisiana tradition dating back over a hundred years.  They light bonfires all along the levee on Christmas Eve to guide Pere Noel on his travels.

Now if there's anything Louisiana natives like almost as much as partying and eating, it's setting shit on fire.  Like an idiot, I forgot my camera, but I found a picture on the net that kind of conveys the true scale of this thing.

18-foot high bonfires spaced 50 feet apart, all along the levee in both directions as far as the eye can see.  [More pictures available on this guy's site here.]

This is not a town-organized event.  Most of the fires are family projects, built year after year by succeeding generations.  You do need to get a permit these days, which I think is more a way of keeping families from fighting over spots on the levee, but as far as what goes in the fire, it seems like anything goes.  Before the lighting, we walked along the top of the levee, and clearly some of these things were fueled by kerosene and god knows what else.  Right before lighting I saw one guy fooling around with a propane tank and two huge boxes of fireworks, and made a little note to be far away from him when things got going.  And one fire had a big "Black Cat" fireworks sign stuck on it and a lot of empty fireworks wrappers next to it.  We were a quarter mile away when it was lit, and we could hear it popping like a thousand machine guns going off for almost fifteen straight minutes.

Liam thought it was even cooler than the beacons of Gondor in "Return of the King", which is high praise coming from him.

Anyway, wherever you are, and whatever traditional things you like to blow up, I hope you're having a great holiday surrounded by people you love.

Merry Christmas.

I got laid off on October 1st, and it was quite a blow...for about two weeks, until I landed another job at a healthier, more mature, more well-funded startup. But it still hurt my ego a little.

Well, last week, that company that laid me off went out of business. Just folded up, booted out all the employees, and put its assets on the market.

So now I find myself in the odd position of being the only ex-employee who currently has a job.

I'm not gloating. Like they told me when they let me go, it's just business.

Really. Just business.

Really.