Holiday Break

As the holidays approach, I am going to embark on a short hiatus. Next week I will be off from school and work, and my contributions to your daily blogosphere will be sporadic, at best. I will return in full swing on January 2nd. (I will, however, be on campus all day on December 28th, if anybody wants to meet for lunch). I will try to have my phone with me, so if I don't respond to email in my usual instantaneous manner, feel free to call.

In the meantime, here are some things that you can do with the time you now spend reading this page:

- Learn a new programming language. During my time off, I will try to figure out how to do more things in Perl, and you should too. It will make you a better person, and much more attractive to the opposite sex.
- Catch up on your Douglas Adams. That way, when I return, we will have something to talk about.
- Reacquaint yourself with your parents/siblings/spouse/cat.
- Learn math. (There is strength in numbers).
- Send a letter to Brian Cashman and convince him to either trade or play Aaron Small. Support your argument with a comprehensive statistical analysis.
- Learn German. They have fantastic words, like Treppenwitz (which means, "clever remark that comes to mind when it is too late to utter it") and Schlimmbesserung (which means, "a so-called improvement that makes things worse.")
- Figure out a way to make friends and influence people without having to resort to bribery and blackmail.

These are just a few suggestions, (I feel bad leaving you hanging with diminished creative content for a few days) and it's certainly Ok to just take lots of naps and do nothing at all. Either way, I hope that you have a lot of fun and enjoy your holiday.