Happy New Year

... and yes, I'm back. And apologies to the two or three of you who tell me you actually fairly regularly read this thing that I went mostly AWOL a while. But hey, it's been the tradition for quite some time now in the parts of the world from which my ancestors come to hole up in your cave and feast on distilled spirits and other even less healthy things for the darkest weeks immediately bookending the solstice, and this is a tradition I've always tried hard to uphold. And since the sum of my thoughts over the last several weeks has been, pretty much, "chocolate, Bushmills and Glenfiddich are tasty", I didn't particularly feel the need to regale anyone with the complex and demanding process of research by which I arrived at these startling revelations.

That said, I had a nice holiday--and the longest I've had in quite some time. New Years was a fun thing (we did a sit-down dinner with friends at a nearby dinner 'n martini den--the dinner lasting from 8:30 pm to past midnight), and I got more sustained quality time with my wife, daughter and cello than I've had in quite some time.

So Happy New Year all. We now resume irregular programming.