Well here I am, waiting for a GearLive video of the 1.1.3 version of the iPhone to finish loading over my home internet connection, which is actually markedly slower at the moment than the cellular connection I’ve been using the past week or so on a pretty fun Christmas trip to Florida, and though I might as well spend these last fifty or so minutes of 2007 blogging about it in general, oh and that beat 2008 that has already engulfed our nation’s eastern shore. Yep, I’m in the central time zone and for the moment it’s still ’07.

So I found out today that I passed all my classes last semester. Finally taking the time to find the right place to look, it also looks like my GPA is just a smidgen over 2.5, so I need to do some serious A-grabbing this time around, but that should be easier since my classes are more diluted (3-hour classes, 18.5 hours total, only one true four-hour class) and more focused on the humanities etc. I dunno but something tells me that a case study will be easier than a geologic column and a problem or two on rotational kinematics. Hopefully my upcoming grades prove this out, else my merit scholarship is endangered. And no, I’m not spending too much time on business, or at least I’m not now…there isn’t much to do with a company that makes sales in the single and low double digits per day…it’s that I was spending too many late nights beating bosses on Need for Speed. Then again I actually bought a game for my Wii: Need For Speed ProStreet. Go figure…at least my Wii is in the common area of my dorm suite where I’ll be competing with people watching movies, playing Wii tennis and just plain socializing. Yay, not owning a TV.

But I digress…and will now proceed to watch a little more of the slowly streaming video in the background…

…and I’m finished watching all of it, and also finished performing a speed test that shows my internet conneciton as deceptively sprightly. Funny how speed tests do that…

But anyway I’m back home from a trip to Florida filled with short nature hikes, middle-length (if I say long the die-hards will kill me) kayak excursions and a long day at Peace River (near Arcadia, middle of the state)fossil-hunting, which was for the other members of my family mildly successful. I chose instead to listen to Microtrends in Audible format, and kayak some of the time. Oh, and we had Christmas, which was a non-event in terms of gifts (aside from a post-Christmas sweater and some on-Christmas food that did include a cheesecake) but a fair-sized family gathering. All in all a decent way to use a week of vacation time, or more like a week and a half to be exact. I mean, you gotta visit the relatives, though visiting ’em doesn’t always mean going to their respective houses (this time my family didn’t due the uncle-and-aunt-house-tour to which I’m accustomed, which I suppose was okay). Interestingly enough though, within 24-ish hours we watched two movies down there, National Treasure: Book of Secrets and Water Horse. Both in a cheap theater where you actually got what you paid for with popcorn and drinks. Both were good movies that I’d recommend people watching, though NT: BoS seemed a tad too drawn-out in terms of plot line, with unexpected struggle after unexpected struggle, plus a villain the hero had to work with and scenes that, while markedly different, nonetheless made me think back to the original show in a militantly bored way. But in spite of all this, I’d watch the movie again, preferably with a different set of people in a slightly nicer theater. But can someone else pick up the bill for the drink costs that make ballparks blush?

Hmm, I still need to offload two Tuesdays ago’s school Christmas concert footage onto my computer, edit and upload to YouTube\burn to DVD. Wonder whether I’ll tackle that first, or whether I’ll first splice together a slick slideshow of Christmas pix (few movies…my video tapes had the concert on them) on my now thankfully four-footed laptop (thank you Dell for forcing a 2-year warranty on me).

Though, speaking of laptops, looks like I’ll have to write off my poor Toshiba R100…looks like the hard drive is failing or something, and I’m not sure what black boxes and black arts I can use to boot the darn thing up from elsewhere. Darn. Maybe that’s a reminder that the Toshiba R500 is what I need…mmm, thin-and-light performance you can just about taste…with an equally sense-able price premium.

But I’m rambling. Be back later, or maybe not. Anyhow, in case I’m not back, hope everyone had a great year 2007, and best wishes for ’08!