Hmm, I'll have to try Fran's caramels next time I'm in Seattle. Chocolate covered caramels are my favorite, and in general Sees dark chocolates are my favoritest of all. I fully admit there's a childhood attachment there, but they are very good nonetheless.

Ooo, I should go to Sees tomorrow and buy chocolates! To bring to the office staff when I go in on Thursday.

Congrats, Nanita, and speedy recovery to amyth. Sparky, congrats for the employments news, and I'm sorry for the emergencies.

All the ~mas, Zen. All the ~mas.

Apologies if I missed anyone else - I think that everything that happened made me miss some things.

It's morning where I am and I'm at work, 'istas, but I'm here for you and reading if it helps you to post and to know that someone is reading in real time.

Much, much love.

Toe~ma, Lee.

And all the other~ma, Zen.

OK. I am awake, my socks are pulled up. Going to work today. be a productive member of society.

They are sloth socks, which are maybe not the best for the metaphor, but they are objectively pretty great socks.

Lowe's Iris system lets you track what Santa does in your house.

[link]

I didn't work on the Santa tracking stuff specifically, but my code is all over the place on the cloud infrastructure supporting it.

I like Bernie Sanders like I like my dad like people. But there's a part of me screaming ' but you just don't get it' just like with dad like people.

I like Bernie and I like that he proposes things that would actually make a big impact on people's lives for the better. Knowing I'd always have access to healthcare and my kids would have access to a college education would take a lot of stress out of my life and a lot of others. He seems to have remembered the "promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" part of the constitution.

However, he really frustrates me sometimes too. Once you go beyond his specific issues he often seems really tone-deaf. Clinton seems more well-rounded.

Once you go beyond his specific issues he often seems really tone-deaf.

His stance on gun control has been so incongruous with the rest of his platform (though it seems to be changing)...but then I remember he's from Vermont, and damn, they love their guns there.

Vermont is such a weird state. Will' youngest son was able to buy some huge rifle thing because he wasn't old enough to get a hand gun license and the rifle thing he could legally get.

He wanted something to kill the racoons and possums that were harassing the barn cats.

I've always thought Vermont was the Tea Party's worst nightmare--a bunch of well armed lefties.

Sanders has been tone deaf on some things, but at least he seems open to learning. And with him it somehow feels like genuine learning and not tacking into the latest shift of wind. Or maybe I'm just biased because I like the old guy.

Gud, that looks fun.

I think we can safely assume that someone who happily refers to himself as a Democratic Socialist probably doesn't change his position on issues in response to public perception of his image.