Seems that the Higgins household has been rocked by another virus. We are guessing that it is a stomach bug that Eric may have picked up from the Velases last Thursday. We babysat Zoe, Paul and David as a last minute favor for Marty and Solange. Everyone seemed to have a good time, we discovered that Eric loves Matchbox cars. He would drive them around the coffee table making the driving noises. Solange let him take 2 home with him. Now Eric does have a few matchbox cars of his own, but they are still in the packages. They are almost like collectibles as they were his very first cars.

Over the weekend, Eric wasn’t that hungry and was feeling pretty yucky. On Sunday night, he had a 101.3 fever, which wasn’t that bad but uncomfortable for him. He threw up in the mornings but was rather chipper for the rest of the day. Yesterday, my stomach started to feel bad. I wasn’t that hungry but I didn’t think that I was going to throw-up or anything. It was a shame too because Jen was having her Star Consultant Dinner at Olive Garden and I only had about 2 spoonfuls of Minstrone soup. This morning, Jen woke pretty sickly feeling. She has rescheduled her doctors appointment, which all we were doing was finding the heartrate and a general checkup. This means that we probably will now have new ultrasound pictures on January 3rd! Stay Tuned.

If you haven’t seen our holiday card you can click here.

More computer problems,My one computer that was using has died. I have emailed the manufacturer about a new motherboard, no word yet. So, I took some of the parts out of the sick computer and put them into the new computer. I tried to put Win XP on the good computer but that did not work at al. So now I havea computer that sort of works. It can connect to the internet, but I am afraid to connect it to the internet because it is lacking some of the security features. I have a few other options before I really get some computer rebuilding going. I probably should just order a new motherboard now, so that I can have 2 good computers working. Since Jen has her laptop, I don’t really need two computers, but I do need to get Eric’s pictures up and running. If can construct the albums before Christmas, that would be AWESOME!

I am SOOOOOO excited:

#10 Christmas Island - Christmas Island - Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy Buffett has his own Christmas album and even though a steel drum Jingle Bells is pretty cool, Christmas Island is my favorite.

#9 Rise Up Shepherd and Follow - An Acapella Christmas - Glad

This whole album was ingrained in my brain, I will not mention who was responsible for it, but she would put the CD in and his repeat. About 100x later, we’d turn it off. Nevertheless, many of these songs are very good and there where two that I was considering. I light this one because it is the slower deeper song.

#8 White Christmas - Bing Crosby

With Johnny Mathis, Burl Ives, Nat King Cole [and XTC] you can’t have a Top Ten without the likes of Bing Crosby. I am referencing the “long version” of the song that has the spoken part explaining where he is and why he is dreaming of that white Christmas. I too am dreaming of a white Christmas. It was when I was at 1810 that it snowed [but did not stick] on Christmas and the year that I went to Colorado for Christmas, a blizzard shut down the East Coast.

#7 Thanks for Christmas - Rag & Bone Buffet - XTC

Of course, no musical list couldbe complete with out an XTC song, right? One of the two mai Christmas songs that XTC has released. Despite the group’s views on Christianity or religion, they “get” the meaning of Christmas and how we should treat each other. It is a shame that Christmas is only one day in the year.

#6 Winter Wonderland - A Very Special Christmas - Eurythmics

They did such a wodnerful job on this song that this is my favorite arrangement for this song, even above The Carpenter’s version. Another song from the 1987 A Very Special Christmas album.

#5 Go Where I Send Thee - A Very Special Christmas 3 - Natalie Merchant

As Steve martin once referenced, Christmas should be for the children. Ms. Merchant does a wonderful job at making this song almost haunting in ym brain when I heard it and like the U2 song, it also helps start my musical season

#4 Good King Wenceslas - Time Life Treasury - Morton Gould

What a crazy rocking christmas song. I should look up to see if this Wenceslas was a real person and why he was so good. Perhaps the Christmas song that people don’t know the title and couldn’t match up the lyrics to the music.

#3 Christmas in Hollis - A Very Special Christmas - Run-DMC

Sorry Curtis, but this is my favorite Christmas rap song even if it is not the oldest. This is a great song and a cheesy video, teaching that you shouldn’t steal, that most situations are tests of character and produce great rewards “…and the dough [1 million bucks] was for me!” This song is the base for many of the current rap christmas song that are out there, if not for sampling but for the song structure itself, it will always retain its own identity as artists sample hooks and riffs from it. This song is another reason why Run-DMC is such an important part of the rap history.

#2 I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas - Dr. Demento - Gayla Peevey

Once I found out that there were other novelty songs available, I did my best to find them. THe Dr. Demento album highlights many of the older Christmas Classics, this one was always in my top 5 favorites. I value this song much more now because in 1999 Jen practiced this song with Jeff at TVA and then at the Christmas party, to my delight, sang it in front of everyone.

#1 Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - A Very Special Christmas - U2

Ever since my Mom bought me the A Very Special Christmas cassette back in 1987, I have played this tape to launch the musical side of my Christmas season. This song is my favorite song on that album. It’s about capturing the fun and excitement of the holidays with those that you love.

Honorable Mentions

The Chanukah Song - Adam Sandler
Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses
Wondeful Christmastime - Paul McCartney
Oi to the World - No Doubt
Sailor’s Christmas - Jimmy Buffet
Glory to God - Acappella

Yesterday was a rather busy day for me and an exciting one for my mobile phone. We had a meeting scheduled with the people at the Department of Labor who awards us contracts. This would include my American Samoa trip and the report that I will generate. We were scheduled to have 3 separate meetings and then hopefully making a few courtesy stops, if time permitted. Our goal was to go up and back in a day.

Our flight was at 7:00am on Independence Air, which is owned by Atlantic Coast Airlines, one of my past employers. Of course now they have 50 seater jets instead of the gritty Jetstream 41 - 29 seater turbo prop. I flight went very well, it was fast and even though it was crowded it wasn't cramped. We made it to Dulles at about 8:35ish, went to find the Metro Flyer and then waited until the next bus came to the terminal. I called Jo Ann Foltz to see how she was and if there was any chance of meeting, since I would have about an hour or so before my plane departed in the evening. Unfortunately, work had her stuck and since she lives inside the beltway, there is no escape!

This was my first time with the Metro and it showed. I did a lot of watching other going through the process of using the machines to get a farecard and then getting past the meters. The ride into the city was fine, we only had to transfer from the orange line to the red line, other than that no problems. We made it to the DOL, about 10am and had our first meeting at 10:15. After our second meeting, we went to the cafeteria on the 6th floor and I had a small pizza and diet pepsi. I was living large on a part day's per diem!

Before we went to lunch, I found out that my mobile phone was downstairs at security. Hmmm… how di it get there and how did they know whose it was??? Our american samoa meeting was at 2:20 and lasted right until 3pm, when we were scheduled to leave to go back to the airport. We went back to security to drop off our badges and pick up our drivers license. Before I made it halfway through the Commons area, one of the Security guards said “Mr. Higgins”, “That's me, do you have something of mine?” “Yes, we found it here at the security checkpoint”. Apparently, someone found my phone, put it on the security counter, the security people then went through and called numbers until they got Pete. Pete then called Jen, but she was out, and he realized that he had my work number, so he called work. Dr. Schriver called our contact at DOL, who confirmed to security that I was in the building.

With mobile phone in hand, we made it back to Dulles and I stayed outside of security so that I could see Devaney. We were both hoping that we'd have more time to spend, but the security line was very long. We cut our meeting short so that I could take off my shoes to get through security. Our plane was about on time and we got to Knoxville a few minutes early.

The trip overall was successful and I was happy to be home. I did get to see Eric when I got home for 2 minutes. Also, I did run on the treadmill for 3.1 miles at a 9:22 pace. I think I am going to run early early on saturday (brrrrrr) for 12 miles, or a really should do 14 miles, but we have plans on saturday morning

As a cure for my sore legs I ran 3 mile yesterday on the dreadmill at a nice 9:30 pace. This would be a faster pace that what is prescribed for how I want to perform in the Knoxville Marathon, but 10:08 pace is a little slow for me on the treadmill, err, I mean dreadmill. I managed to get through the work out in 28 and 1/2 minutes just fine. In fact, the soreness was gone after the first mile and I wanted to run faster, but discipline my young grasshopper, discipline. I do watch the movie Without Limits which is about Steve Prefontaine and that does provide a bit of motivation for staying on pace.

I did find out that when we are in Orlando for Sylvia’s National Debut, there will be a babysitter available for Saturday morning. This means that I get to run a race in Orlando! Ironically, it is the Disney Marathon weekend that particular weekend and there is a 5k. Unfortunately, it would be like $20-25 registration plus parking at the Park. Hell, no. I found another race that is only $18 if I preregister and it not too far from us. It is the New Year Resolution 5K - Northlake Park 5K Series at Lake Nona. It has been flurry/snowing here off and on all morning and afternoon. There is no stickage, although it has been very cold, so if there was stickage then it would not melt. Which is usually the case here in Knoxville, it snows after a couple of 37-40 degree days, so there is little accumulation. Of course, we only need the threat of ice here to shut down a handful of county schools.

Tomorrow I will be in DC for the day on business. We are going to the Department of Labor to see the people who oversee the projects that we do. We are flying on Independence Air which is run by Atlantic Coast Airlines. Now that we have a new baby on the way, I am going to rearrange the website. This should only affect some of the bookmarks that you have made. I will update our Error Message to indicate some of the new links. am hoping to have that changed before Christmas. Some of it would have been done today, but it is taken too long to update the picture album links… if only my computer at home worked!

12.13.04 Jack Frost
He is abusing us right now. It is cold outside and it is just frightful, he is eating our noses. Regardless, it is nice to not have any rain and none in the forecast. Woo-Hoo.

Yesterday we put up our outside lights up. Which included icecicles on our driveway barrier wall. Colored lights in some of our bushes and then some white lights, on the ground, bordering the landscaping garden. I will have to try to get a picture at twilight to show the great work we did.

Also yesterday, I started to build a little compost with the intention of creating a garden in the spring. Unfortunately I have little real estate to build a garden. I have the space, it’s just that my backyard is protected by trees and so lighting is a problem. There is one patch that is relatively flat and that will get a couple of hours of mid day sun. That should provided enough for a small garden. I figured that I would start off small and see how it goes. I am starting with a 2×2 plot of compost. I figure for my garden will extend that out some what to accommodate what I want to grow.

My computer is still dead. I need to write to the company to see if I can get a replacement. I found one online that is about $50. In the mean time, I am going to take Jen’s old computer now that she has the laptop and convert it to win XP, then slave the hard drive so that I have access to the files on the computer. I really need to get the pictures of American Samoa and Eric’s pictures. I have a bunch to put up, but they are stranded right now.

My quads are aching right now. I will have to try to run on the treadmill tonight to work the pain out. I am pondering if I am going to break 500 miles for the year. I definitely can if I put my mind to it. My Next official race will be the Calhoun’s 10 miler which my PR for the race is 1:34:40 which works out to be a 9:28 pace.

12.11.04 Saturday Excursions
Today was very busy for the whole Higgins family. I woke up to what sounded like Eric throwing up. In the mornings, he has has congestion that drains which causes him to cough. So, I lay in the twilight of snoozing the alarms as Eric is hacking away. He doesn’t really wake up and so I don’t tend to him until 7am or so which is his normal wake up time. yes, he sleeps continuously for 12 hours. Jason Turner my buddy from forever said that his girl Lauren wakes up now mainly because she dreams now. I thought that was very interesting. Anyway, this morning about 6:30 it sounded like Eric cough some and the threw up. Well, he didn’t thank goodness and since I already committed him to wake up, he was up early.

Jen and I are battling a cold, well, I think all three of us are battling a cold of some sort. So, I let Jen sleep until 7:30 because she needed to get up for her Mary Kay Rally. We had gotten everything ready the night before and the food was in the Xterra, but the one thing that was missing was raffle tickets. I had taken some out, but Jen thought they were in there… sorry. Regardless, we got Jen a little late, only 15 minutes, to her rally. Of course 5 minutes after we went there the guests started showing up. Eric and I went to Kroger to get some tissues, since we were out and Eric and i have runny noses, we were in the market for snot rags. Eric and I played at the house for a few hours. Jen got a Christmas Gift/Business Expense - a laptop for her Mary Kay business. It will be her computer. The timing can’t be anymore perfect because I have to use her desktop computer while my computer’s motherboard will be replaced. So, I put some programs on that and started to transfer files

Eric and I then went on to Best Buy to return our phone system. The transaction went well although Best buy is a ZOO! I won’t go back until after Christmas. We went to Bi-Lo to get some First Rally Flowers for Jen. Eric didn’t quite make it back to the house before he was out. As we were passing the parking lot of Jen’s Training Center, she was leaving the parking lot! So we got home at the same time. She was able to share about her successful rally while I got my stuff to run with Marty Velas

Marty and I ran 12 miles along the Alcoa/Maryville Greenway. We had some flooding that we had to negotiate. I wish I had brought my camera because there were some neat water scenes. Other points of interest. We saw two clams, or clam like creatures, one dead fish on the greenway that didn’t stay with the receding water and one sassy crawfish. He was big and would have been great in a Po’ Boy. Marty antagonize him briefly and he stood his ground taking some swipes with his claws at Marty. He let him be, just wishing him well as we left. I had only wanted to do 10 miles since I figured that was about as far as I could go, but we did 12 instead. I hit the wall at mile 9.5, which was close to my estimate. I had to stretch every 0.5 miles after that. Marty was patient with me and we finished in less than 2 hours, including a negative split! My legs are sore and should be sleeping instead of typing this but oh well…

Jen and I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban this evening at the Dollar-Fifty Theatre. My price. I thought it was good. The new director stayed with the spirit of the first two movies but let allot out from the book. The third book is my favorite book and so i was a little disappointed at what was left out. Jen and I talked about it on the way home, but she did make the point that the books are getting bigger. I would hate to see how long the fifth book’s movie would be. Well, off to bed… maybe.

I now have a livejournal blog set up. The  that blog is here Terry’s LiveJournal Blog. The nice thing about this one is that you can have a RSS feed and if you have a aggregator you can check quickly if I have update the web blog. As I mentioned before, I should be able to embed that blog onto this website, so that the two can be one. Although I chose the free version, I may ave to upgrade to get all the features that I need.

Jen is having a Mary Kay rally this Saturday and she is very excited about it. i have never been to one, so I am not sure what is going to go on there, but I would share I knew. I have been making arrangements for our crazy trip to Orlando and then New Orleans in January. Our National Sales Director (Jen’s goal) Sylvia Kalicak is having her National Debut on a Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, Mary Kay’s Leadership Conference (for Directors) starts in New Orleans. So what this means is that we are going to Fly to Orlando, on my old airline! We are going to participate in Sylvia’s Debut and then Drive Saturday night, stay at a hotel and then on Sunday night get into New Orleans for Jen’s conference. Eric is coming with us and since I can’t go to Leadership with Jen, Eric and I are going to tour around New Orleans!

I am hoping that my training for the Knoxville Marathon will start Saturday morning. If I don’t start soon, then I won’t have a chance at a good time. Good time, meaning my overall race time. I am sure that I will have a blast at the race and am really excited about finishing in Neyland Stadium. I wonder if I could some how pick up Eric right at the end and run with him over the finish line. They are supposed to show you on the Jumbotron and a race picture with Eric at the finish would be cool.

We have been slack with our Christmas card this year. I am just about done creating the picture for this year it has been long in the making. We have not had any great inspiration this year, but I think the card we have this year will suffice. More to come on that.

Is anyone out there? I have created a livejournal as a test to determine whether I want to use this as my blog as opposed to my website. I was attracted to the fact that I can embed this blog into my website. I currently have my blog set on manual at my website and I do all the archiving, etc.

I like the fact that people can respond easier to my posts and would like to request that if you are to respond please include your name either via a registered user or signing the anonymous response. of course, if you are truly being anonymous please disregard my request.

Okay, now to see how this work. submit.

I just checked the spelling and I CANNOT believe that this place doesn’t have the word ‘blog’ as an okay word.

12.09.04 Drought
It has now been 2 weeks since I have ran, any distance. How much does that stink? Not as much as my natural butt odor (haha). Anyway, all lingering signs of HFM disease are over for me. I think that I have beaten the stomach bug that seems to be bother the rest of the family. Could be from the large quantities of hot sauce that I have consumed that has made my stomach resistant to these viruses. mmmm hot saucilious.

Eric seems to have a running nose now. Not exactly sure the cause for the drainage whether it is the bring weather changes we have been having, and allergy or sorts or perhaps on coming cold. Today is the last day that he is in preschool for the rest of the year. They are closed for the rest of the year, so that will limit his expose to germs. He played in a bunch of leaves yesterday and enjoyed it immensely, I do not have pictures though.

Tragedy struck yesterday morning. My computer would not wake up from hibernation. I am not sure what is going on, but I think that the motherboard is down and out. I checked my receipts and it is not covered anymore for an exchange. I could have bought the 1year technical warranty, but I seem that was a little foolish when I was buying parts. I can see getting it for a brand new system, but not for parts. Anyway, if the motherboard is the culprit, that will be another $50 or so… and time. Unfortunately, all my pictures of Eric are on that hard drive (please, hard drive be okay!) and so I can’t update that until I can extract or revive the computer. Luckily I made an archive backup of all the pictures up to date.

I have not decided about livejournal or not. I think I may play with it a little bit and see if I want to make a change. I’d sure love to have people be able to make comments to specific posts and then use The Scribblin’ Monkey as a guestbook.

Jen has a skin care class today and so I am not sure that I will run. I would consider running out side after Eric is in bed, but given the state of the weather, I do not own water skis.

I think in the next few days you might see the website changed a little. First of all, the back ground that I have been using for the past 2 years is getting a little old, I may opt for something fresher. A larger change is that I have run across a blogging site that lets you embed your blog into you own website. The advantage that this has is that you can comment to specific blogs, not the archaic way that I have set up right now. The site is called livejournal and I am waiting to hear some info from someone who is using it before I decide it. The nice thing is that it has automatic RSS feeds. I know that at least ONE person is saying ” What is RSS and why is it hungry?”. Basically, you get an RSS aggregator and submit the Feed links into this program. The aggregator will check each of the links to see if there are any updates. This way you can check a number of different sites in one fell swoop. Yahoo is moving toward this, because you can get, for example, News Headlines as they are posted. In Firefox, which I use as my internet browser, I have a very small program called Sage that allows me to check my favorite feeds and click the latest and greatest.

I am cured of my Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease. I can now swallow and eat like normal. Of course, I lost 5 pounds with the disease so the lack of eating was probably a good thing. Seeing that last pregnancy, I gained somewhere close to 10 pounds, I am sure could loose some of the weight I have now. I was at 168 before I got sick, I am now back to 164 and I was at 153 last December 8th but I would settle for 158.

I just had my first beef with Firefox, when I use the header bar to navigate through my website, when I click on the link, the page I want is not put in the correct target frame. UGH! this means that I lose navigational ability when I use the header bar.