The Brad Hole

Lots of little things have happened this week worth noting.

First off, Beth and I went to Disneyland this past Sunday and Monday for a quick getaway. We've got annual passes, so it's mainly a matter of a 5 hour drive with some audio books and booking cheap rooms on Priceline. Last trip out, we stayed in the Anaheim Hyatt for $38 a night, this time it was the Anaheim Marriott for $45 a night. Although both are very nice hotels, the Marriott was within easy walking distance of the park, so it has shot to the top of our non-Disney hotel list. I'd never been to the Disney parks during Christmastime, so I was impressed by the decorations they had done. In particular, I thought the holiday arrangement of the small world ride was excellent, as was the Haunted Mansion makeover.

Upon returning, I read on several forums how the recent 1.01a Jedi Academy patch had not solved some of the issues it was designed to solve, which was frustrating. Turns out that the patcher app (based on Stuffit InstallerMaker) was essentially broken - it wasn't patching anything but the Info.plist in the apps, so they weren't being updated properly. A new 1.01b patch is out now that fixes all that and adds in a fix for an issue with the Vjun level that was reported after release. Even though this patch is official, it apparently has managed to fly under the radar of both VersionTracker and MacUpdate.com, which secretly pleases me. :-) Perhaps this has to do with the inaccurate description for the patch on MacGameFiles - I dunno.

I came down with a minor cold on Christmas Eve, which started out (as usual) as a sore throat and has now moved into my nose. My mom is in the throes of coping with the flu, but my dad and brother have more or less recovered, so we met them for lunch on Christmas at the Lantana Grill at the Pointe Squaw Peak. Yesterday, we drove down to Tucson to see Beth's Aunt Betty and her cousin Gary, which is always a good time. It's rare to find someone over the age of 70 who appreciates humor (sometimes self-deprecating) about incontinence and flatulence, but Aunt Betty rises boldly to the occasion.

In 2 weeks, the best Christmas gift I've received in a long time will come true - I'll be going on a tour of Skywalker Ranch. I'm not sure if my benefactors want to be known, but this ranks as one of the most generous and unselfish acts of kindness that I've received in a long, long time, and I'm extremely grateful for this. And it'll be while one of the Star Wars movies is in production, no less! I'll try not to pee my pants if I see George Lucas while I'm there, but I can't promise anything. I may have to put on a pair of Depends just to be safe.

And in the Christmas spirit, I recently became aware of something that happened back in 1914 that struck me as particularly poignant. Read about it here.