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Seriously guys, can anyone else out there agree with me that Dutch women are crazy insanely good when it comes to card games? Even (and possibly especially) those games which depend as much on luck as on skill?

My wife and her sisters are all half Dutch, and even that fraction of Dutchiness seems to be enough to thoroughly defeat any and all who would seek to dethrone them in card-playing ability. Larissa’s mother and grandmother are fully Dutch, so don’t even THINK about beating them at anything. Her grandma told us this week that she plays Bridge one day each week, Cribbage another day each week, Bid-Euchre another day each week, and various other games just for fun in-between. I only hope she does it for money, because that Dutch card-skill could seriously increase our future inheritance.

No matter how hard I try to imitate the skills and strategy of my Dutch in-laws, I never seem to be able to fully assimilate their innate card-playing abilities. I guess that old saying is true: “Beware the Dutch, for the card-playing gods shall uphold the offspring of Holland in their strong right hand”. I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere before.

This is the last Christmas (most likely) that we’ll be outside of Qatar for the next several years. It’s not that we don’t like coming to Canada for Christmas – it’s more that this is actually a bit of a fluke that we’ve ended up here this year in the first place. We only get one paid trip to Canada each year, and we tend to use it in the summer, when Qatar degenerates from “comfortably warm” to “comfortable only for the denizens of Hades”. Wintertime in Qatar is absolutely perfect, and Canadian winters are, shall we say, less than perfect (weather-wise).

There are many things that we miss about the Christmas season when we’re experiencing it in the Middle East: Christmas trees, Christmas music in the malls, a light dusting of snow on a cool (but hopefully bearable) winter evening… but we make up for it in other ways. We have palm trees, Christmas-level parking problems in the malls year-round, and a light dusting of DUST every single night and day.

One thing I’m particularly enjoying about being home in Canada for Christmas this year is… the all-day Star Wars movie marathons running on not one, but TWO television stations over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! I can turn on the TV at any point of either day, and be assured of seeing legitimate Star Wars content being displayed for my viewing pleasure. One thing I’ve noticed in the course of catching bits and pieces of the various sequels and prequels in the Star Wars saga is this: The stories and acting of the prequel movies is undoubtedly crappy, while the original 1977 film is truly worthy of repeated viewing. I don’t know why it took me so long to admit what most other geeks have been claiming for years, but there you have it.

As I write this, Larissa and two of her sisters are upstairs putting icing on several dozen Christmas cookies, while the rest of us are crowded around the TV in the basement, which is showing the movie White Christmas. That doesn’t mean that we’re all actually watching the movie. Grandma is knitting something that looks like it will be worn be an infant at some point. Brenton is trying to act natural as he attempts to fit in with his future in-laws. Mom Morris is doing something on her computer, which I think involves playing something on Popcap. Dad Morris is actually watching the movie. And then there’s me, trying to update my blog while Brenton interrupts me to explain how the World Junior Hockey Tournament works.

Earlier today we played a board game (given to us for Christmas by Larissa’s sister Alaina and her fiance Brenton on the recommendation of Alicia – another sister) called Pandemic. The board game is unique in that up to four players work together to try to cure a worldwide outbreak of four different diseases before the diseases take over, rather than competing against each other. I’m proud to say that in our first playing attempt (playing at the simplest difficulty level) we were successful in ridding the world of deadly infection. We’re going to try playing it at a harder difficultly level later, so if you find yourself getting the sniffles on boxing day, you’ll know that we were less successful in our second attempt.

All in all, this has been a very enjoyable Christmas. The food has been good (too good, actually – I’ll have to do Boot Camp twice over just to return to my pre-holiday waistline!), the company has been good, the presents have been good (very little useless crap, and everything is relatively easy to transport overseas), and even the weather has cooperated nicely, for the most part.

What we’re hoping is that next year, some of our favourite people from Canada might decide to make the trek over to our part of the world and experience Christmas in a place where you can go swimming outside on Christmas day. We might not be able to offer a Star Wars marathon or a white Christmas, but I can promise you that enjoyable board games will be played, and that the weather will be nice enough to keep anyone from uttering a “bah, humbug” all winter long.

Well my friends, it’s been a while. I wish I could offer you a good excuse for not writing more often, but here’s the real reason: I didn’t feel like it. Sometimes you feel like writing, sometimes you don’t. For a long time, I was enjoying writing regularly on my blog, but then one day, I didn’t feel like writing, and the feeling seemed to continue for… oh, about the last five months, I guess.

But then, here you are reading a new post, so does that mean I’ve suddenly got my motivation back? Not really; It mostly means that I’m bored. Larissa and most of the rest of her family are spending today taking care of some stuff at the mall, and a day at the mall with 4 women on December 23rd is not my favourite way to waste a Wednesday. So I decided to update my blog while watching the Star Wars marathon on Spike TV. If I suddenly slip into Yoda-talk, then hold it against me you should not.

Let’s start with a re-cap of the last 5 months, shall we? My last post was all about getting shirtbug.net up and running, and while I did get the design looking the way I wanted, something was wrong with my affiliate links, leading to me not generating a single sale from any of the traffic on my site. I had done so much to get it up that I didn’t feel like going through and debugging every link to make it work, and so I’ve just left the site doing nothing. At some point I’ll revamp things again, but perhaps with a different focus.

A few days after putting up my last blog post, we left for Zambia to visit with Larissa’s sister Alicia and her family. They were in the middle of a 3 month African trip, working with an organization called FCE. The experience was amazing, and we learned far more about southern Africa than we ever imagined we could know.

Alright, this post is going to take forever unless I pick up the pace. Here is a list of what we’ve experienced since last July:

Traveling to Zambia (Africa)
Visiting with our friends and family in Canada during the month of August
Cashing out of all of our stock market positions for a 95% profit
Coming back to 45+ degree temperatures in Qatar in September
Getting pregnant (Larissa, but I contributed to the situation!)
Traveling to Prague two weeks after starting work again for a one week vacation
Meeting new friends in Qatar who forced me to quadruple my text-messaging output
Digging for desert roses in the Qatari wilderness
The Doha Tribeca Film Festival
Making a Halloween costume based on a Doha landmark
Moving to a new residence on the other side of Doha
Driving in Qatar for the first time (rented vehicle)
Exploring the West and North coasts of Qatar (not much to see)
Taking a class for Adobe Flash animation
Larissa taking a pottery class
Taking on a new position at work creating and editing audio files
Getting involved in an excellent investment opportunity (ask me if you want to know)
Preparing and presenting a workshop at TESL Ontario
Recording and editing interviews for a video we presented at the above workshop
Visiting friends and family in Canada over the Christmas holidays

Which brings us to the present day. Of course, what I’ve mentioned above has only been a selection of the highlights of our past 5 months. The day-to-day living is where all the real stuff takes place!

Plans for the coming year include:

Saving for and buying a new vehicle
Focusing on learning Arabic in a more concentrated way
Having our baby in early April
Preparing a new workshop to present at future conferences
Attending Larissa’s 2nd sister’s wedding
Welcoming a nanny into our home (possibly Larissa’s 3rd sister?)
Posting on this blog more regularly

I’m hoping that, this coming year, I’ll be able to post daily on this blog, even if the posts are shorter than my usual fare.

Of course, my next post could appear in another 5 months. It depends how many other “something elses” I have on my plate, and how our new baby will affect our lifestyle. In the meantime, I’m going to watch some more Star Wars. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year I wish you.