Merry Christmas Everyone~!

Wow~! The holidays are here and gone. Sometimes they seem so fast and other times they seem to just drag on and on. So it would make sense that it has been a while since I updated here. Let's see what has gone on?

The run up to Christmas was pretty uneventful. We had the party, and mostly just hung out here at the house, seeing a few friends along the way. It was pretty quiet mostly. Both my wife and my brothers wife (since they work at the same place) had to work this week and the weekend as well. My brother was on call as well, so we really did not make big plans other than for Christmas eve, and Christmas day.

The whole family gathered Christmas eve, as per our tradition, and exchanged gifts. We had a buffet type dinner, with all sort of different foods to snack on all evening. We laughed and joked, and had a general great time all evening.

Christmas day was just the household family. It was a nice peaceful day , until dinner. We usually get a fresh turkey from one of the local turkey farms. It is never dry, never frozen, never processed with any machines. The place is a real gourmet turkey farm... they even "calm" the turkeys throughout their lives by playing classical music for them all the time!

Well long and the short, we got a bad Turkey. There was something terribly wrong with it. It "looked" alright on the outside, however as soon as we started to carve it, we knew something was wrong. The color was not right, it had cooked all the way, but there was this wine red tinge to it, but only on the last 1 inch of the bird near the skin, not in the center of the bird. It was dry, tasted funny, and it took no time to determine we got a bad bird. 25 pounds, almost 75 dollars, and it ended up in a garbage bag. Very sad.

This years Christmas was more epic than I ever imagined as far as gifts went. We really went too far I am sure. In the mix were some gifts that really stunned us. We got some video games, some other surprises we normally do not get, but the biggest gift for me this year did not cost a lot of money, it was the amount of sneakiness that went into getting it.

A few months ago I was with my brother in our guitar shop. A guy came in and asked if we could buy his guitar for whatever we could give him. I looked at it and it was nice, in great shape, no more than 2 years old, and well cared for. He needed money to feed his family he said. He was having hard times. I felt for him, but I could not buy it at that moment. The shop bought it for 85 bucks - the price of the hard case it came with, but that was it. I felt awful for this kid. I have had to do that in my past. It is never easy.

I wanted to buy the guitar, and I had the money, but needed to feel out the situation at home. I realized it would have been hard to get away with. I went back the next day and it was GONE! Sold in under 24 hours. The deal on this thing was too good to be true, but honestly, that fast?

My brother had "excused" himself, went outside, called on his cell phone into the shop, gave Ron his credit card, and bought it. He told Ron to hide it and never let me see it again. Ron was only happy to screw with me!

....

It is sitting next to me right now. I am smiling at it. It sounds divine plugged in and not plugged in. It is an Alvarez RF20SC You can see and hear a video of what it looks and sounds like here:



I got to be honest, I can barely put the thing down.

Happy Happy New Year Everyone!!