Hi!

We were away on a cruise this week — six nights through Mexico on Celebrity Cruises' GTS Infinity — but now we're back. More about that trip soon.

Between my getting-ready-for-crusing lack of blog entries and the dogged tenacity of the blog-spamming commenters and trackback-pingers (triggering the blog's update mechanisms with each porn-hawking comment or ping), things went blank around here in my absence. Looks like it's time to drop our rickety MovableType 2.63 + MT-Blacklist setup around here and upgrade to the latest and greatest version of MT.

It took me a few days to get used to the motion of the ship (no over-the-rail nausea, just a general disquiet); now that we're back on land, it may take me a few days to get used to that again. I'm sitting in my desk chair on solid ground, but it still feels like we're moving back and forth, up and down.

Unintentional mean trick: big things happened in the halls of my beneficent employer while we were away on the cruise. The group of unfortunates who had their jobs efficiency-through-synergizationed out of existence were supposed to get their notices last Friday. (Right before Christmas, just like the villain in a bad movie.) I wasn't expecting to be laid off, but still, you never know, and my heart sank as I walked up the steps yesterday and found a DHL express envelope from The Employer waiting for me on the doormat. I opened it with great caution and shaking fingers to find inside ... an American Express gift certificate. Each manager gets a certain amount of money per employee to throw a holiday party, and since I'm remote, my cost-center manager in San Jose sent me a gift check for the equivalent amount. Ha ha! Thanks, boss! Merry (phew) Christmas, everyone!