<b>Title Section</b>

I've decided to write a couple blogs in which I will try my best to utterly roast something or someone. Not necessarily because I don't like something, but just because it's fun. I'll start with an old letter I wrote but never published.

http://64digits.com/users/bendodge/Open_Letter_to_Phillip_Gamble.pdf

<b>Christmas</b>

This year we had the most amazing Christmas ever. Last January my baby brother was born prematurely and had to spend about a month in our local hospital's NICU. We were shocked when the hospital called and told us that they had chosen our family for Christmas. Apparently they choose people each year to give a load Christmas gifts to.

Now, gifting our family is a pretty major undertaking since we have 9 kids, but a nurse from the NICU showed up with a trash bag of presents for each kid. There were about a hundred gifts total, and we still haven't opened them all. (The stuff they gave us isn't cheap either.) My favorite stuff so far is my flannel pajama pants, leather moccasin-slipper, and especially the new office chair I'm sitting in. (My old one was quite worn out.)

But that's not all. On Sunday night we came home to discover that someone had gotten into our house while we were gone. Unlike you may be thinking, they didn't take the presents. We walked in the door after our candlelight Christmas program (the annual highlight of my audio-technician career :P), and our living room had dozens of gifts arranged (unwrapped) around the room. There was a ton of stuff, and it was nice stuff. (Like Gold Toe socks, Farberware kitchen knives and Razor scooters.) It appears that it was someone from our church, but all the tags just said "From Your Friends".

Yesterday (Christmas), we were sitting in the living room with our grandparents when suddenly our cousins arrived. (They have eight kids who's ages almost match ours.) Someone caught sight of one of them trying to sneak up on our house, and all the kids gave a shout and emptied out of the house in about 7 seconds. They had driven about 4 hours to get here, and they stayed until dark. (We couldn't persaude them to stay the night.) We were all quite happy with the surprise (my parents knew, but no one else), and we generally had a blast.

So this Christmas was the biggest we've ever had and probably ever will have. I can already feel the cramps in my hands from handwriting thank-you letters. :P

I hope you all had a great Christmas, but even if you didn't get <i>anything</i>, remember that the greatest gift has been freely given to everyone.

<b>LCD Monitor</b>

A few days ago, I bought a small LCD TV off eBay for what seemed like a fabulous bargain ($50). What I didn't notice was that it didn't acutally work. So now, I be learning to fix LCD's and also reading eBay descriptions better. (First I'm trying the warranty route, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast ATM.)

When I turn the screen on, works fine for about 5 seconds, and then the backlight turns off. The image is still there (a very bright light reveals this), but the backlight doesn't stay on. From my research, it's either a bad connection or a bad inverter. I don't believe it's the CCFL because it's light and color are flawless while it's lit. Does anyone have any experience with monitor repair?

<b>Stirling Engine</b>

My dad bought us kids plenty of gizmo gifts, one of which was a Simplified Stirling Engine kit. I've assembled it and put a video on YouTube <s>to waste your time</s> for your watching convenience. You can see it (and others) here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5X8BVBwISc

<b>Commenting</b>

Since there seems to be a trend around here of only replying to the last two sentences in a blog, I'll list the topics covered here to aid you in your clever commentary. :P

<blockquote>-Criticism and Open Letter to Phillip Gamble

-Christmas

-Monitor Repair

-Stirling Engines</blockquote>