1 week, 2000 driving miles, and many flying miles later...

Despite the many miles I traveled over the holidays, it felt good to shut things down, take it easy, and enjoy the little things over the holiday break :) And yes, I did put 2000 miles on my mini-van traveling between NYC, NJ, PA, and Ohio. In NYC on the 24th, I caught up with my friend Kevin, and we went to see the huge Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. There also was this cool snowflake light pattern laid on the side of a building, and about every 20 minutes in the evening, the snowflakes would flicker to a song.

On the 27th, I caught up with more Cornell friends in NJ where Orca kindly offered her house to let us play games (Apples to Apples, Texas Hold'em, Taboo, and Guitar Hero) all day despite the remodeling her house is undergoing. Thanks Orca for the hospitality! ^_^

From the 29th till the 1st of the new year, I was down in Houston, Texas visiting Velius. It felt good to be outside in 70 degree weather in December, and Velius took me around several restaurants to get a taste of Texas. The best of the ones I went to was Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen, since I'm typically not a big fan of seafood, but this place made the best salmon I've probably ever had (and yes, it came on top of a wood plank that's used for flavor while baking). Also interesting to taste was fried alligator as an appetizer. To top it off was some delicious banana pudding in a jar you get to keep! Before I was down there, Velius and I were trash talking on who the real Guitar Hero was, but I went down and showed him :PBesides Guitar Hero, Velius and I comboed our way through X-Men 2 on the x-box with our unstoppable team of Iceman, Storm, Cyclops, and Nightcrawler. I also got to meet up with some of his Texas buddies as we all went bowling and played an interesting game called Mafia. My goal in bowling was to try and break 100, but I just ran out of time as our 2 hour limit on the lanes had just ended when I broke 90 on the 7th frame of the 3rd game -.- Ah well, considering it had been months since I last bowled, I guess I can't complain too much :P Thanks Velius for your hospitality! ^_^ We'll have to get Team =VGI= together sometime.