Sunday Epiphanies

On any given Sunday, you’ll find me awake before sunrise.  Old, very old, habits die-hard.  I embrace being a morning person.  Only causes an issue when I want to toast in the new year since I generally turn into a pumpkin around nine o’clock.  Today was no different from any other weekend.

Yesterday was Twelfth Night, the official end to the Christmas season.  When Dickens was a youth, Twelfth Night was ‘THE’ biggest day of the winter holiday in England.  Between his Christmas Carol and Prince Albert’s importation of German Christmas traditions (namely the Christmas tree), Twelfth Night began to fade out of fashion during Dickens and Queen Victoria’s lifetimes.

I did not stay up late celebrating or hosting a Twelfth Night party.  I had servers to upgrade and test bright and early on January 6th, also known as Epiphany.

I woke up before my alarm (I almost always do this; my alarm only woke me up once in the last six months) and got logged in and ready to upgrade a server.  It went much smoother than the last time I tried, right before Christmas, and I was done within 20 minutes (leaving an hour forty minutes of my maintenance window unused).  Server patch testing took another fifteen minutes so I was done ‘working’ before seven o’clock, still before sunrise.

Continue reading “Sunday Epiphanies”

Ten Days Until Christmas

A Christmas Carol: Enhanced Edition by Charles Dickens, read by Monica Dickens - .65!I follow a blog devoted to finding inexpensive and often free ebooks for Nook Color owners called The Cheap.  This morning they blogged about a unique edition of a classic and beloved Christmas story:

A Christmas Carol: Enhanced Edition by Charles Dickens, read by Monica Dickens – $1.65!.

I had already planned to re-read this classic tale, but traded in my old ebook version for this new ‘enhanced’ one.  I even sent it as a gift to a family member (who also owns a Nook Color) as an early Christmas gift.  I wanted to test out the new ‘Buy as a Gift’ feature at Barnes & Noble as I plan to do some last minute Christmas shopping over the next few days.

Once I read (and listen) to this version of A Christmas Carol, I will post a review of the experience here.

Merry Christmas Everyone!