I'm flying home for Thanksgiving in a couple days, which will be nice. My mom tells me that she wants me to do the turkey, so I've been contemplating that a little bit. Last Thanksgiving, I was in San Diego, and did a smoked honey-brined turkey that turned out amazing, which I fear might have been unreproducably amazing. I'm going to get a chance to do it, but it will be interesting. They don't have a smoker or a grill that can be easily converted into a smoker, but they have a hot plate and I think I can take Alton Brown's cardboard smoker (link) to make something that will safely smoke at a higher temperature. I'll have to take pictures if it works, and pretend like it never happened if it doesn't.
I played some penny online no limit hold'em this weekend and made a few bucks. That was fun. It makes me want to re-open my "Tired of Grinding Project" and see where NL takes me before I get bored of it. Maybe that will be my Christmas break project. I like that I get Christmas break.
Classes are nearing the winding down phase now, which is a relief. In one of my classes, I'll start the end-of-semester wrap-up of all the material (one chapter per class period). I cut out a couple topics at the end, but it's not a big deal. It's a terminal class for most of the students, so I'm not preparing them for something harder (like calculus). What matters most is that they develop a sense of the structures and logic of algebra.
I also bought my plane ticket home for Christmas a few days ago. I'll be celebrating the New Year in Livermore for the first time in a number of years. I don't know if it will be too different, since I don't really do much on that day, but maybe it will be. I do know that Vegas will be having a much bigger party, but I probably wouldn't be on the strip that evening anyway.
