Happy New Year, all!

We have returned from the land of my birth, loaded down with Moravian cookies, gifts, and liver pudding.

Gotta love North Carolina!

It was a lovely way to extend the holiday season an extra few days by spending some quality time at the Gibson compound - and we saw lots of Gibsons this time!

We visited my Aunt Eunice (who contracted a mysterious illness that has landed her in a nursing home temporarily - but is so feisty that it's probably only a matter of a few short weeks before she's good to go again), and also my Uncle Joe Bill and Aunt Ora Mae (whom y'all previously met here) and toured the many wonders that make up their house - they pretty much made everything in the house by hand.

We also visited with the wild and wonderful Mrs. Whitsett (a Cuban war bride from the '40's who is now my mother's best buddy. Mrs. Whitsett has actually called my mother 11 times in one day once - and she only lives two houses away)and went to many fine establishments in Tobacco Town.

We also survived Hogmanay in Williamsburg - though barely. I forgot that an imperial pint was 20 ounces......

So tomorrow it's back to work and the Monitor. We're counting down to the opening of the new exhibit that I'm curating - March 5 - mark it on your calendars, kids - as well as the launch of the new website, which will be an upgrade of www.monitorcenter.org. There's also numerous grants that I'm supposed to be working on and all manner of maritime mayhem.

Oh - but speaking of websites - I've done a bit of changing around on my other ones - mainly because of the stats reports I'd been getting where most folks were going straight to the Cat Chantey page. So that is now officially Chantycat.com, while my personal site is now Tunnelofgoats.com.

Why? You may ask? Mainly because I was surprised to find that no one had purchased that URL yet. Dreadfully shocking if you ask me.

I am happy to report however that someone else did have the presence of mind to purchase spiderbaby.com. Anyone for freakpointing.com?