Wow, doing the Christmas Eve in San Jose is tough. Driving home is the tough part but the fun the children had at Nana and Grandpa’s is enjoyable to watch.

Now it’s time to set up their presents so they can see them first thing in the morning and then off to church. After church, we’ll have to quickly return to prepare for our visitors for Christmas Day. Liz’s side of the family. Liz and I might get to get some sleep Sunday night. Maybe. Man, it’s almost mid-night and we’ve got to get up at 6 a.m. and yet maybe I’ll be in bed in an hour.

I just checked my logs and I’m two-thirds to having one million hits this month. Wow, what a way to end the year…and svenrox. I can’t believe I’ve got that many hits. True, the number isn’t as accurate as unique views, but hey, it’s a nice number to throw around to people that don’t fully understand web sites.

I posted sometime back about changing my domain name and really never could think of any thing that was a good replacement. Well in the last couple months, my tech posts have gone up and personal posts down. I guess I’ve kinda converted the site into a technology resource.

That said, it occured to me that I could ping into the tech thing and play with it with my name. The two names I’ve come up with are… wait a minute. I could be setting myself up here for trouble. I mean, I could type it off and then someone would register it and squat it. Well, I’ll take a gamble and tell ya. I was thinking either techSven.com or SvenOnTech.com. techSven.com would be a tie in into hyperSven.com keeping the nameSven.com thing, you know. But SvenOnTech.com kinda says better what the site is about. Further, I can see people not getting it when I would say, “TechSven.com,” when giving out my URL. “Text Sven?” is what the question will most likely be, I’m sure.

I don’t know, that’s why I’m putting it out here. What do you think? Do you have a better suggestion? If so, I’d like to keep something about tech in it and my name. Those are the only two requirements.

OBTW, all the other nameRox.com domains will be going away, too. I won’t be renewing them or its web services. Since I password protect them and thus only friends and family use it, it’s just not worth the cost. Maybe I’ll bring back the sites in a sub-domain of raffertyfamily.com. That’ll be easier and cheaper.

If you’re looking to save even more money in your last and final days of Christmas shopping, you may want to check out Wow Coupons. It has a page that lists a bunch of retailers with printable coupons. Lots of very well known stores here. Click, print, and save!

Infiniti’s don’t seem to hold that same “cool” factor the ultra-large Escalades hold but once someone peaks inside this M45, that might change things a bit. Sporting a Mac mini inside with a fold down LCD “big” screen, this Infiniti can take a corners at speeds far greater then that over price big ‘ol stickin’ Caddy can. The kiddies can watch that latest episode of Lost downloaded via the Airport connection when the car was last parked in the garage as you fly by that gangster-mobile. Don’t worry, the internal Mac can also be used for some GPS guidance help as well as looking up the location of the nearest In-n-Out Burger. All this from the sweet car that many just over look. Why? I don’t know. I think M45’s are mighty powerful and how fitting to have a Tiger in it, too!

It’s another season of rain here in the Central Valley and with it comes high winds. Our season started much later then it has in the past and I’ve been thankful for that. Last night as I went to bed, I could here the wind beating on our house and patio items protesting to it as it banged around in the backyard. As I closed my eyes, I could see it was past one in the morning on my LED clock. Through the night, I was wakened by the wind playing with our house as if it was a game for the mighty forces of moving air.

This morning I came down and noticed the cats crate had spilt water on in it. I figured the cats had played inside and knocked their water bowl and that was the cause for the drenching. I went over to pick up one of the cat when I felt something ping my head. I looked up and groaned, “Oooooh, man!” A large line about three feet in length with bubbled up paint was on the ceiling. At the top of the line was a beading head of water. The leak that was fixed last winter that had plagued us for three years was back. Ugh.

Long story short, this leak seems to nail us only when it’s very windy and raining. Regular rain without any wind produces no leak. The home builder has sent out people and things have been done to correct it. Every year when it’s fixed, we do not get another windy storm to check if in fact it was fixed. In essence, the next test is a year later. We failed our test.

So off to calling the builder again and I hope and pray this time they do get it fixed because I really don’t want to sell this house to someone with a leaky roof. What a drag…

This house went all out for Christmas and man, check out them lights! You can see the stars from blocks away. Tom told me about this place a few weeks ago and I found it on the web. Takes them 350 man hours to get these all up. Man, I believe it.

Outside of being really cold, this was the perfect house for lights I’ve seen thus far with my own eyes…in the flesh. Man, it was bright! It took my eyes a while to adjust to the dark road ahead of me when we hoped back in the Grand Prix and drove away.

The kids really liked it, but Katelyn complained of being cold. Dresses. That’s one reason I don’t wear them.

Dude, looking to save a couple of bucks a month? Want to ditch the broadband expense but still get the broadband connection? Hey, pull a State Farm and yank your good neighbors unprotected wireless signal down! What? It’s too weak? Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids but Hawking Technologies Hi-Gain USB Wireless-G Dish Adapter are for leeches like you!

Claiming to up your signal strength by 300%, you should be able to pull Frank’s one or two bar signal and zap it up to a near fully lit green meter on your Windows XP Wireless Zero Configuration window. Just place the dish on your window ledge, point it at Frank’s house and plug the cable into your USB port and call SBC and tell them you’re done with their high priced DSL!

Yesterday, besides celebrating Katelyn’s fifth birthday, we did something pretty big. We got Summer and Sunny snipped. The kids and I dropped both of the cats off at the vet at 8:55 a.m. and wished them a goodbye. Actually, when I brought down the kitty crate down for the kids to say goodbye, I said, “Kids, say goodbye to the kitties.” Katelyn came over and Joshua took me literal and from the seat yelled, “Goodbye!” Ya, he was done with them.

We returned at 4:30 p.m. to pick them up and a very medicated Summer and Sunny peered through their cage sleepy eyed. I got one minor meow from Summer and that was it. When we got home, they quickly decided that they wanted to jump from my arms so I let them down. They took a few steps and almost fell over. I then brought them to their crate in the other room and gave them some food and water. After they ate and drank they basically slept the rest of the night.

This morning they’re running around and climbing up the couch as if it were Friday. Minus the shaved area, you can’t tell something happened to them. They’re their usual kitten selves again.

Oh ya, one last note. I told the kids what we were doing the kitties the night before and on the way to the vet yesterday morning, Joshua told me, “Daddy, I don’t you to do to me what you are doing to the kitties, k?” I almost crashed laughing. “Don’t worry, little buddy. I won’t, ” I reassured him.

My father, brother, and I once saw a military 747 land on the Coronado Island off San Diego and it was an incredible site to see from the beach. While the jumbo jets wheels weren’t even close to the sand, it still was close enough to make you wonder if you were safe standing on the beach.

Watching this 747 land would have me running. Dude, it nearly does touch the sand! Outside of the great footage there is also an excellent history lesson on the most famous and recognized airplane in the world.