Thursday night Gleek (my 4-year-old) barfed all over the back of the minivan while we were on our way to Fremont for bed.

Long story short, we got cleaned up at a gas station, and then Sandra and I got not-enough-sleep while taking care of dry-heave girl all night. Finally I took to a couch, and Sandra went it alone.

Friday morning Sandra slept in, while I helped with breakfast for the 9 kids who were NOT sick. Then everybody except Gleek and I went to the beach. She slept until 2:30-ish (I napped in the same room with her), and then woke up feeling great. She bounced off the walls, ate, drank, kept it all down, and finally settled enough to watch a movie with me.

I thought I might get some drawing done on Friday, but I only did a little. My hand has been hurting in a very strange and disturbing way, and I wanted to give it as much rest as possible. When I DID draw, it turned out that whatever is wrong with my hand isn’t wrong enough that it hurts when I draw. This is good news — even if it’s not better by next Thursday when the buffer must be cranked from two days to two weeks as fast as I’m able to crank it.

Anyway, today we’re all thankful that Gleek is better (though doing a lot of sleeping), and nobody else has barfed. Especially ME. Whatever that little girl had, we managed to keep her from giving it away.

–Howard

Sandra, the kids, the minivan, and I all arrived safely at Grandma’s howse. The trip took almost exactly 13 hours, during which time we traversed 800 miles (give or take 10) and stopped for two hours’ worth of breaks. 800/11 will give you my average speed, which I assure you is lower by at least 5mph than the average the LAST time I took a trip this long.

The haircut has obviously turned me into a conservatively defensive, middle-class, minivan driver.

We took some pictures along the way, but I haven’t pulled ’em from the camera yet. They’re funny — I’ll post them soon.

We also saw a “Highway Cleaned By” sign that forced a double-take. It was for the Shatterhands Holding Company.

“Mister Shatterhands, as your marketing VP and image consultant, I think we should rename the company. You know, to instill a little more faith in our customers that the company has the ability to actually HOLD things.”

*sigh* The whole fam-damily just sat down for dinner, and I’m told my presence is required…

Behold the new avatar… whipped out at CONduit, so I could have a decorated name-plate in front of me.

Yes, the hair is coming in like that.

jmaynard just bought a permanent account, and donated his spare time to me. Then vakkotaur followed suit. The result? I have something like 9 months of paid account credit now.

Woo!

Thanks, Jay! Thanks, Vakko!

–Howard

EDIT… no, I read that wrong. I have a paid account through October of 2006.

Wow. Thanks again, guys!

EDIT… Updated total… Thanks to darthparadox and scrubbo I’m paid through sometime in 2009. Um… wow. I guess I need to create some icons and stuff. Oh, and maybe further donations of Paid Account time should be sent to people who are actually, you know, NEEDY. I’m no longer quite the impoverished LJ-freeloader I used to be. 🙂