I figure after a two-week break from the boards during a whirlwind east-coast holiday tour (wasn't really planning on it, just running around a lot & didn't feel like having to keep tapping out iPhone replies) this is probably the place to ramp back up to my usual speed in dealing with you motherfuckas.

Anyway, whazzup y'all?

Happy New Year.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas/Channauka/Kwanza/Festivus/etc.

Mine was tremendous, got to meet my new nephew & actually really talk with the older one for the first time.

Uncle Bomby's gifts for the kids (like all other gifts this year, done on Christmas Eve while being driven by old friends with bar stops for some grub & pints of Guinness between stores) were based on the usage data of the following week the hits of the season.

My sister & brother-in-law dumped the kids in South Jersey while traveling to Dublin, Ireland for a wedding (my sis spent a year of college at Trinity over there & still keeps up with a few people over there) the day after Christmas and left an 8-month & 2-year-and-9-month old for my parents to deal with for the following week (or should I say my mom, since watching my father magically disappear for long stretches only to pop up from time to time to emit his trademark bellow that at times scared the babies gave me a chance to get some grown-man insight to my early childhood).

That made the last week.......interesting. Did a lot of things I had no intention of doing until I made some of things on my own: bathing, feeding, memorizing the entire On-Demand season of Little Einsteins, yes even unfortunately diaper-assistance (pops claims to have retired from diapers after the early 80's, my mother claims his diaper career was mostly a figment of his imagination to begin with & I tend to believe her).

Managed to still slip away from all that babysitting enough to hit up DC, Philly & NYC for some fun.

Stopped into Dream Puffz http://www.dreampuffz.com/ the other day with plans to get the perfect photo of Bomb, Zoubek, my boy (wearing a UCLA hoodie) & some Cream Puffs for a post Longo, Basa & Coolidge could have thoroughly enjoyed but alas, Big Z must have decided that December 30th was a day he'd rather have the college-kids behind the counter than manning the shop himself.

Great trip overall except that my folks' house should have been quarantined, at some point during my stay everyone in the place was sick (probably from the little disease-factories young children can be) but myself & my mother fought it off gamely until about New Year's when both of us realized our shared usual method (pretend nothing is wrong & eventually we'll be able to trick ourselves back to good health) was not going to win out.

I flew back into LA at the crack of dawn yesterday, landed at around 9 & since I park my car in my garage at work when I go to LAX anyway I attempted to roll into my office ready to get back to work like nothing was wrong.

My boss took one look at me, told me to go home & stay home tomorrow too.

So now I'm laying on the couch in/out of cold sweats, coughing, blowing my nose, drinking tea, scarfing Vitamin C's, just listened to Skip Bayless still talking about Lebron's lack of 'clutch-gene' & figuring I'll pop in one of these movies my sis bought me (True Grit or the second Sherlock Holmes) in a minute but wanted to check in with y'all first.

It's 2013.

What's on your plate for the new year?

Gotta few plans of my own in the works but I've taken up enough space in this first post already.