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This is Whiskers. I call him "my cat" but I suppose that's not really truthful. He lives in Salt Lake with my parents. So yeah...in terms of ownership and residence, he's not my cat. But he was at one time. I picked him out of the dozens of other cats at the Utah Humane Society. It was October of 1996. He was 5 months old. I opened the cage, he stretched a bit, and then jumped out on my shoulder and sat there calmly. I like to say he picked me. He was my buddy for the next 6 years. I played rough with him and I'm pretty sure that's why he developed a pissy personality. He doesn't really like anyone beyond my parents and I. He tolerates a few other people...but he's bitten or scratched all of us at one point or another. He's a grumpy old man. He'll be 14 years old in May. In cat years, that's about 72. He's pretty much my mom's cat now.

He made that very evident with the look he gave me in this picture. "You abandoned me," he's thinking. "What did you think would happen?" Still, he greets me with a warm welcome every time I come home. He hasn't forgotten me...which is kinda nice.

In other news from the home front, here's this year's Graves Family Christmas tree. It's hard to make out the ornaments, but many of them are shaped like large Christmas lights.

Ever since I can remember, my parents have done a different Christmas tree theme every year. It's an expensive habit. Our crawl space is stocked with old ornaments, used once, and then packed away. But we've had some awesome trees. I think my favorite was the country western theme. That was years ago. The snow man tree was a good one too.

It was a good Christmas. I got a Nintendo DS and a new Canon PowerShot SX200 camera (which took the above pictures).

My parents, in their continuing quest to humiliate me, also bought me a Snuggie. It's still in the package...beckoning me to take it out and try it on. I don't know if I can do it. And if I do...I certainly won't admit it.