I’m saying it a few hours early because when the clock ticks over to midnight I expect you all to be snogging or otherwise partying away, unless you’re one of those sensible types who doesn’t think having to get a new calendar is anything to celebrate, so you’re off to bed for a good night’s rest.

Here at Chez Myers, we shall be taking a middle road with a quiet evening capped with our traditional root beer floats. Whatever your happy choice of the day, have a good 2008.

You’ve got to have something better to do.

We’re having the traditional white Christmas here in Morris: a foot of snow on the ground, temperatures around 10 to 15° below zero C, a nice stiff 10-15 mph breeze, and no one with any sanity stepping outside.

Which rules me out right there. I made the drive to St Cloud and back yesterday, in even worse weather, to pick up #1 Son; I get to make the longer drive (but in somewhat milder weather) to Minneapolis to pick up #2 Son today. You might expect nothing but gibbering madness and exhaustion from me for a while.

So go do something with family or friends right now and get off the damn computer!

My last class for the semester is over as of this minute. All that’s left is to proctor one final exam, and then…the horror of grading. Exams and more exams and term papers and lab reports, all to be done next week.

I guess I can’t quite celebrate freedom just yet. But I will soon enough. I’ll probably get wild and read a book or something.

Classes aren’t quite over, but I gave my last lecture for the fall 2007 semester today. I still have a discussion session, a lab, and an exam to give, but it’s still something of a landmark in the trajectory of the term. No more lecture prep! No more daily theatrical performances! What’s left is more like friendly conversation and accounting.

I have this six-pack of homebrew from Dave Puskala waiting for me in the refrigerator at home…I’m opening one tonight.

People keep sending me horrible, frustrating news stories — I’ll post some later, but first, I have to restore my center with pleasant contemplation. Deep breaths. Grade some more exams. Watch some fish for a little while.

OK, here’s a pleasant memento: Mrs Janes’ 3rd grade class at O’Brien Elementary School, in Kent, Washington. The year is 1966.

(click for larger image)
Top row: Cindy Burton, Kathleen Sturtz, Nancy Bull, Mary McHugh, Debbie Long, Becky Barnier, Darlene Yamada, Susan Rea, Billie Anderson, Mary McKay, Cathy Jenkins
2nd row: Mrs Janes, Richard Campbell, Richard Nault, Arthur Yabara, Brian Pittenger, Chris Bauer, Loren Deanton, Pat McCart, PZ Myers, Steven Brewer, Tommy Marino, Rob Kimoto
3rd row: Kathy Willkie, Jill Johnson, Mary Gjerness, Linda Bevilaqua, Mike Dixon, Carla Fleming, Patty Spitzer, Cathy Jones, LaJuana Smalley, Bill McDaniel

This is where I met my wife. I’m in the picture somewhere, and so is she. Think you can find us?

I think I’m feeling better now.

Names are added now, you can all stop guessing. I’m fourth from the right, middle row; the Trophy Wife™ is third from the left, front row.

I did not drop off the face of the earth in the last 3/4 of a day — I joined the 47 million Americans who spend the day before Thanksgiving in an annual familial migration. I had to drive Daughter #1 and her sweetie-pie to Buffalo, Minnesota; then drive to Minneapolis to pick up Son #2, who’d had a long day on a bus from Madison, Wisconsin; then back to Buffalo to pick up Daughter #1 sans sweetie-pie; then to St Cloud to pick up Son #1; and finally, back home to Morris. For a time there I had my entire genetic output in a small car with me, in the snow, on a freeway (and I think all 47 million traveling Americans were on I94 between Minneapolis and Monticello for a time), and I was thinking that this whole family get-together thing was an opportunity for a major Darwinian catastrophe.

We made it safely back in the wee hours of the morning, fortunately. Now today I spend preparing mass quanitities of protein and carbohydrate to pack into the gaping, peeping maws of the younglings, which does make Darwinian sense, at least.

I hope you are all out reinforcing the social and familial linkages that enhance your inclusive fitness today, as well.

An article in the NYT on surname frequency settles the most important issue of our time:

Now can everyone please start using the dominant, correct spelling?

This is going to be a big problem. I’m at this gathering of bloggers, which means they’re all going to be posting stuff about our meeting here at Americans United, and I’m outnumbered — I can’t keep up. I had dinner with Blue Gal, BAC, DCup, and One Pissed Off Veteran, and some of them already have pictures up.

And after dinner we had the combined Pharyngula/Bad Astronomy gathering, which seemed to have a majority of BA fans, to my chagrin. I think more failed to show up because they know I shoot laser beams out of my eyes. We also got a surprise visit from Tara and an Evil Monkey. The ScienceBorg Collective was out in force, trying to collect souls for the Empire — we leaned on Phil a bit, but he is stubborn. Clearly, it’s time to deploy the fully operational…but wait, I’ve said too much.

Anyway, anyone who was there should speak up in the comments, and feel free to leave a link — it will simplify my efforts to keep track of everyone.

Oh, one guy it’ll be easy to keep up with is Phil, who is still unconscious up in the room. I guess he needs his beauty sleep.

So I arrived here in Washington D.C. several hours ago, and made the mistake of taking some shuttle service from Dulles…which proceeded to take the passengers direct to their homes, which meant I got a long, long tour of winding narrow suburban roads all over the outlying parts of the city, sitting behind the choked traffic as the wall-to-wall cars parked on both sides meant we were constrained to basically one lane. How do you people live in this chaos? It took me almost as much time to get from Dulles to Capitol Hill as it did to drive all the way across the state of Minnesota this morning! I’m thinking now that I’m going to have to leave awfully early on Monday to make sure I get to the airport in time.

Anyway, I’m going to depressurize here in the hotel for a few hours and then strike out (on foot) for food. There’s some kind of big white marble building near here…there’s probably beer nearby.