I left Jackson, MS last Tuesday at 2:00 and drove the eight hours to Dallas on I-20. It's a fairly boring drive. The only points of interest are Monroe, LA which smells like a wretched fart that never dissipates because of the paper mills and Shreveport which you by-pass if you are smart. There is Marshall, Longview and Teryl Texas but... the prize is Dallas. Stopped for a burger and a shake in Canton, TX at the Dairy Palace. It's a little pricy but the food is good and its not one of those cookie cutter chain food abominations.

I arrived about 9:00 at night and made it to my destination completely exhausted and got some sleep.

Wednesday- Next morning I got up and did some Christmas shopping. All the usual suspects are there like Walmart and Target but in Dallas, you've got so much other stuff to chose from. One of my favorites is Fry's. Fry's is an electronics superstore that makes Best Buy look like a Radio Shack. Don't expect a whole lot of customer service. If you know what you want/need and have some knowledge, the prices are great and you can really make some sweet deals.

Ate fajitas at Rosa's Cafe in Highland Village. Nice place for a quickie lunch and the food and prices are good.

Spent the rest of the afternoon in Denton. Mostly at Recycled Books more commonly known locally as "the Opera House". It's a giant used book store in an old theater building which is painted purple. Just my kind of place. I went in and began digging right away. Bought gifts and finished up my collection of Samuel E Morrison history collection. Yes! Found some rare videos on DVD. My kind of place.

Supper on Wednesday was at Pappadeaux's Seafood Kitchen in Dallas. YUM!! I had A shrimp po-by and seafood gumbo.

Thursday- More shopping, much cooking. I made two pans of lasagna and a pecan pie.

Visited LA Fitness Gym for work out. Many yummie twinkies and assorted eye candy, some quite flirty. What happens in the steam room stays in the steam room.

Friday- Christmas Eve. Stayed out of traffic mayhem. Read Venus by Ben Bova and enjoyed it thoroughly. It's a great yarn about near future exploration of the solar system. It was a neat book but the characters were its strength. Check it out or any of Ben Bova's Grand Tour series. It's all good stuff. Beats the hell out of insane traffic and panic shopping.

Massive feast of Prime rib, twice-baked potatoes and other goodies. Never had prime rib before. Now I am completely ruined. How am I supposed to eat beef again? Nothing compares. My sis-in-law rocks in the kitchen.

Exchanged gifts with family. I gave 32 gig thumb drives and Amazon gift certs. I got amazon gift certs, polo shirt, and a fat gift cert for Recycled Books in Dallas.

Saturday- Slept late. Ate too much. Played with the kids. Put everybody's electronics together. Troubleshot the neighbors home network and got their new printer working. Watched footbrawl. Ate lasagna. Slept with a huge cat on my lap.

Sunday- Church at the Village Church. It's an amazing little church of about 5,000 members. They have an excellent pastor. He preached the parable of the house built on sand and the house built on the rock. The traditional interpretation is that the house built on rock will stand the storm. His take was that it didn't matter: both houses had to experience the storm. Interesting. Very different culture for a church. Much more open and accepting. I liked it. Too bad I'm going back to Mississippi where there hasn't been an original sermon in 100 years.

Lunch at Animia's in Flower Mound. Had enchiladas verde or chicken enchiladas in green sauce.

Watched the Giant's choke. Worked on my brothers truck.

Monday- Went to Denton to visit niece and her husband. I've adopted these two. She's expecting twin boys in April and I fully intend to spoil them rotten.

Took the aforementioned kids to Recycled Books to use our gift certificates. I added the Omega Man, A Boy and his Dog and Soyent Green to my DVD collection. Added a major pair of books to my astronomy library: Uranometria 2000- high resolution star charts for the northern and southern hemispheres. I also got Variable Stars by Petit. It's old (1989) but it is a serious text on the subject.

Cat was back tonight to sleep on me.

Tuesday- Lazy morning. Big breakfast. Left Dallas at 1:00. Returned home listening to Sirus Radio. Channel 14 Classic Vinyl or Channel 24 Lithium. Drove back through stinky Monroe. Fart still has not dissipated. Traffic crazy. Listened to Saints vs Falcons. Got home just in time for the final drive where Drew Brees through the winning touchdown.

The perfect end for the perfect Christmas Vacation.

Sad part is going back to Mississippi. You have to go somewhere else (anywhere else) to fully realize what a f**king dump it really is.