Got the word at the company meeting this morning. As a way to thank us for all the hard work we put in during the past year, we’re getting from Dec 23rd until the rest of the New Year off… with pay!
Just spoke to my manager a few minutes ago, and he officially approved my vacation time. I’m going home!! 😀

Really crummy sleep last night. Woke up several times. Also somebody 5 miles up is slowly dumping the Gulf of Mexico on my roof.

Went to bed waay past my bedtime last night. But I had an excuse. It turns out work doesn’t let me abuse their mailserver after all, so I was figuring out how to become my own mailserver. Got it it all working then hit the hay at 1:45am. I had to figure this out quick, because, well, I only had one day left with my current system.
Got up at 7:20, had a long day, went to lunch with Kemp and Jeff and Mark; left work at 5:35pm. When I got home, there was a slightly damp 8.5×11 mailer sitting at my doorstep. Inside? My airline tickets from Orbitz.com! They were expedited to me via Fedex’s 2-day service.
Tonight was the staff christmas party. The company rented out a little Italian restaurant. As soon as I got there appetizers were thrust in my face every two minutes or so — bruschetta, these great little rice ball things, and pizza. Oh yeah, an open bar, too. I came *this* close to winning an iPod with the random draw! Even though it was an iPod-for-Wintel, it would have still been cool to win (I can always reformat it for a nicer computer, after all).
Then it was dinner — a whole bunch of different kinds of pasta as well as (what I imagine was) a good salad. 🙂 So much fun; there was 110 of us in this tiny little place.
Late yesterday afternoon, the entire staff population was notified of an “all-hands” meeting, 8:30am tomorrow morning. Hopefully to deliver good news!