Work-that-isn't-work

So I'm not Christian, but I am a devout union member, and today's a paid holiday at USF. Never mind that I'm salaried and not hourly, but it's the principle of the thing. But I've got one of those "work drives" on, and I know not to ignore them by now.

But Elizabeth knows this, and has seen me work many hours this week (right in front of her, since she's on vacation), and she asked me gently, last night, if I intended to work today or if I intended to be a good union member and advocate and deliberately not-work.

I thought about that for a few seconds, and I said, "I promise that if I do something work-related, it'll be fun." And then I elaborated: not fun as in playing-with-statistics fun (which I do find fun) but something that's outside the realm of my normal job activities.

So over yesterday and this morning, I stuck my mental crampons into the steep learning curve that is Blender (an open-source animation package) and created two entirely opposite-message quicktime movies (movie one and movie two—each of which is about 10 MB!) that are... well, ingredients for a unit introduction in an online class next semester. If you're a megabyte-glutton, I'll just say it's about democracy and education, I'm an historian, and I'm well aware of all sorts of nostalgic myths we carry in our heads. Oh, yes: I have fixed the embarrassing misspelling that appears in each, since uploading them.

Other things: pinot grigio started (had to buy a primary fermenting tub for that), been beaten in basketball for the second day in a row by Vincent, ate a dark-chocolate truffle from stuff Elizabeth's godfather sent, and other incredibly important activities.

To my Christian friends, a Merry Christmas! It's also the birthday of alchemist, royalist, egotist, and genius Isaac Newton.