I'm still here.

Life has been a little crazy this year and certain things in my life have suffered a bit as a result. This blog is just one of them. My game playing has been another. Now things are starting to calm down a little bit and I finally almost feel like I'm ready to start another holiday season.

So what's been going on? Oh that's a very long list, my friend. Here are just a few of the things that have been conspiring against me recently:

First off, my dad died of a heart attack in September. That took me out of commission for a couple of weeks while I helped my mom and siblings prepare for the funeral. It was sudden. It was horrible. It's in the past and we're (mostly) over it now.

At about the same time, my wife was diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. We caught it very early and after a round of radiation therapy she's doing well but it's never a fun thing. (Incidentally, she's running in a fundraising half-marathon for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. If you'd like to help, you can go to her fundraising page.)

But not every barrier to my productivity has been such a downer. These days the biggest thing standing in my way of attending our game night (which, by the way, has been moved to Thursday night) is that my 15 year old son is taking driver's ed on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I've needed to help get him to and from (mostly from) class.

And there's one other little project that's been eating up most of the rest of my spare time. I'm not quite ready to talk about that in detail yet but let's just say that it involves the iPhone and a certain popular card game. Papers are being signed. Code is being written. Details will soon be forthcoming.