New Years Wedding

Congrats to Lindsey and Adam for tying the knot today, and looking so cute doing it. Amy made a smoking hot bridesmaid, too bad I'm coming down with a nice sore throat and couldn't take advantage. Oh yeah, Amy happened to catch the bouquet... uh-oh.

home for Christmas

I'll spare the details of my three hop flight home for Christmas (via Memphis and Minneapolis) and three hop flight back to Texas (via Minneapolis and Detroit) and simply state that it was good to be home, if only for a couple of days. Winnipeg really is the Christmas Capital and there's nothing liek landing amongst all the snowbanks to get one in the Christmas spirit. This year happened to be the warmest Christmas in Winnipeg in 110 years, with temperatures hovering right around freezing. It was rather pleasant compared to some of the -35C deep freeze Christmases I experienced when I was living at home.

It was great to see my parents and relatives and catch up on all of my card paying and board games. I absolutely killed in the traditional Christmas Eve game of Monopoly. On Christmas morning Mom absolutely loved the angel I bought for her and Dad seemed happy with his selection of golf gadgets and books, even if he isn't really into Sudoku (he just needs some practice).

It was a wonderful but far too short visit. The supply of Cheezies and chocolate tucked into my caryy-on bag will have to satisfy my Canadian cravings until the next visit.

Christmas Party... wow

The polar opposite to my office holiday party is the Christmas Party thrown by Amy's employer. They booked the Gypsy Tearoom Ballroom for the annual dinner, Christmas Video viewing, secret Santa exchange (not Yankee Swap) and office cover band show. Dinner was excellent with six cozy tables set up in front of the ballroom stage where I've seen bands ranging from Jimmy Eat World to They Might be Giants to The Polyphonic Spree to The Hives play. Tonight, after the hilarious Christmas video, the stage was graced by Amy and her coworkers belting out a smattering of rock tunes. My sympathies to the professional sound guys who were working the gig but they did get their share of the freely flowing refreshments from the bar. It was a smashing affair with the low point being an ill-fated cover of "If I Had $1,000,000" and the last half hour or so when several spouses and employees who had imbibed heavily began to drop like flies. It was epic.

Harry Potter and the Something or Other

Amy convinced me to go see the new Harry Potter movie with her. It's the first time I've seen one in the theatre. It was okay and I guess I would have appreciated it a bit more if I actually read the books and/or knew and followed the entire series. Definately not as good as watching Claire Danes for a couple hours. Is it wrong to think that the chicks in blue from the all girls school were kind of hot in a Swedish blue-eyed blonde schoolgirl kind of way?

Office Party... hooray

Tonight was the annual HDR Holiday Party. We can't call it the Christmas Party or have any Christmas decortaions or Christmas music because that would just be politically unacceptable. Either way, my office party isn't that much fun. It's like living an episode of The Office. Seriously. I blame all the architects that I don't know because they work in dallas on a separate floor from the engineers so I only see them once a year. The highlight this year was the cooked-to-order pasta chef at the end of the buffet line. That was really cool. I guess one could also point out my early exit from the musical chairs contest. That was not so cool. Some architect chick with a lower center of gravity than I was going down the line taking everybody out and I just happened to get in the wrong place at the wrong time. See, it's always the fault of the architects. An engineer won in the end, which is not surprising since it is one of the environmental engineers who goes out and wrestles alligators and fends off snakes with his bare hands while deliniating wetlands. The artsy architect chick was no match for him. I'm going to start training and take this event next year.

Shopgirl

Shopgirl is a semi-independent film with Claire Danes. It also stars Steve Martin but that's beside the point as Claire is who is important here. It's a sophisticated and idiosyncratic movie about a bizarre love triangle. Danes, who is featured in almost every scene, plays a caracter that speaks more with facial expressions and body language than words, a redhead with a wardrobe torn from the pages of an Urban Outfitters catalogue. In other words, she has a somewhat spooky resemblance to Amy in both appearance and mannerism. Afterwards Amy said it was like looking in a mirror through the whole movie. All Claire Danes all the time for a solid two hours. It's hard to beat that.