Sammy is beaming himself to the moon.

Sent from my Windows Mobile® phone.

Competition for the Grinch of the Year awards is already heating up. Our first nominee is this pizza store owner on the outskirts of Olympia that won’t turn on the heat for his employees.

You’d never know it from the 20-degree temperatures being recorded outside my door right now, but today the Earth is at the closest point to the sun in its orbit. (I don’t link to Bad Astronomy often enough, but it goes without saying that you should be reading it every day.)

(camera phone quality)

This is a sad time of year because everybody is taking down their Christmas lights. I go out driving nearly every night to get the baby asleep, and December has been so great because of all the lights around the neighborhood. But now the lights are disappearing, and it feels different. Lonely. It makes me wish the lights could be up year-round, because they were such a joy to look at.