Not that it’s been a *bad* holiday season or anything. Except for the Christmas music and commercials (which are still airing!). The only reason I don’t really enjoy the "Holiday Season" is because the damned stores start it just after Halloween. By the time Christmas comes around I’m totally burnt out on it all.
But, Christmas here was pretty good. I was home with the love of my life and that was enough. SWMBO got me a big box of Imax videos. I love those "educational" type of shows! It was a nice Christmas…
Weather around here has SUCKED for the past month or so. Still getting lots of rain; none of those sudden downpours that flood us out. Just steady rain. Even had some sloppy wet snow/rain mix last night. I tell ya; I hate the rain so much I’d prefer it snowed. Wind has been a big problem around the Seattle area also. Trees down all over the place and such. Not so much where we live but close.
Enjoying my Ham radio and getting into it more. Studying for my General; test is on Jan 8th. Playing with "Echolink" the past couple of days and have already talked to Australia twice (VK4SN & VK4FSRD Hey!) and looking for more places to talk to. I’m slowly learning what to talk about but still kind of stilted and at a loss for words sometimes. Funny for a guy that spent 20 years giving some pretty good first-aid lessons. Echolink uses the Internet to make contacts. Sound quality so far has been better than tuning in on the radio. But it does take some of the "guess work" out of making a contact. I’m still going to log them though!
Getting my long wire antenna up on the roof for my real radio. That should put it about 25 feet or so up in the air. Ought to be able to make some better contacts then. Hopefully! Antenna tuner works pretty good for that long wire antenna. Still saving up to get that handheld unit…
Putting together a website for the NMARC club and am going to take over the blog for the MCARC. Something to do… I’m thinking about a major overhaul of my personal site…
Not much else going on around here. It’s raining out again and already plenty dark. May have a bit of snow tonight. We’ll see….
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