Happy New Year!

(pictures coming soon)

hope everyone has a fabulous '06!

merry xmasses

some xmas photos, not exactly all in chronological order:


Merrica and Mom, ready for dinner on Christmas Eve


Mimi with the roast at my mom's


xmas at my mom's, with Emily, Dorothy, Merrica, and my mom


a funny t-shirt from my mom (translation available upon request)


Merrica seems pleased with this Times collection of stories about the Beatles


at Chris and Carries place, after seeing them both perform at Improv Olympic . . . funniest single joke? well, it has to be Carrie's talk of twins having sex in the womb--unstoppable

and on to Mimi's family:


well, although the roast at my mom's was big, it wasn't a nearly 20-pound rib roast . . . yow, Fran & Dave!


a whole lot of Campbells and relatives . . . and crying babies

and now, some bonus material:
a video of my cat grooming me--I know it's dark, but if you brighten your screen it should work

and a video of Braxton playing his new drum, with help from his, um, cousin once-removed, or something, Matthew Larkin

finally, the Chris Parnell/Andy Samberg song from SNL is available for free on iTunes, and it's just awesome: click here

welcome, Merrica!

Merrica's back stateside, for the 1st time in like a year and a half; & she flew here Monday to attend a KU basketball game (against the Pepperdine Waves)

first things first: we had Merrica go ahead & open one present, a new KU hat . . .

and then Merrica & I trekked through the snow & got to the game just in time for tip-off; the seats were good, the place was packed; the team seemed off that night, but we had some fun anyway

Sasha Kaun at the free-throw line; unfortunately, the Jayhawks missed quite a few that night


well, this should be a photo of CJ Giles dunking the ball off an in-bounds pass; as many KU plays that night, though, it didn't quite work out . . . they did still win by 20 points, so not a total loss


say what you will about the game, it's always great fun at Allen Fieldhouse

today, we slept in a bit, then did a little last-minute shopping downtown

and it looks like I'll be flying to New York next week to interview for a job at the U of Wyoming--so cross your fingers that the transit strike ends soon!

cheers

ps, in case you can hear the music, props to my Mom for telling me that it's Jim Nabors' version that rocks that song

pps (added 21 December): I guess since I bought that song on iTunes, it'll only play on my computers; so now you can listen instead to this fun 'Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo' and just think about how good that other song must've been . . .

happy holiday parties; and, congratulations, graduates!

Emily had a holiday celebration with her co-workers last week, and though I'm going to offer her the chance to do a guest entry about that later on, I do want to use her picture of the tree at the Unity library to lead this post--notice the archive-box decorations on the tree . . .

well, on Friday, we went to Tom Tuozzo's for a philosophy department holiday party, which was great--good food, good stuff to drink, heat lamps on the deck for the smokers . . . and the people were okay too
(especially, I should say, as the hour got later--when, for example, the smokers just moved inside the house & gave up on the heat lamps)
Sadly, this weekend Emily & I forgot to bring our camera with us, so all I can offer are blurry photos from my cell phone, like this one:

Here Rodd offers Dodie some sort of house-plant (Christmas cactus, I'm told), towards the end of the party . . .

On Sunday, Deron invited us to attend the December graduation ceremony for the Journalism School. Deron receives his masters degree this month--well done

My friend Kengo, who took that free Spanish class with me a couple years ago, also graduated, with a bachelors in journalism


Mimi and Haley with our graduate himself--congratulations, Deron!
(& yes, if you're wondering, he did keep his collar up like that even as he crossed the stage . . . that's our Deron)


I know this is quite blurry, but here's a photo of the J-school faculty and graduates singing the KU alma mater to close the ceremony

well, there's still 45 papers I'm supposed to be grading, so that's all for now
though I just wanted to mention that I think I may set up a second blog (no, Deron, not about basketball--though I'd gladly read it if you started one)--people (well, at least two people) have asked about some of the 'fancier' things I've been doing on here lately, so I think that from now on, for anyone interested, I'll keep a tally of any web-design tricks I run across . . . so I guess that's something to look forward to in the next few days (?)
(the address will be www.yancy9b.blogspot.com)
cheers