GregHowley.com

Returning to Connecticut after two years away was a bit surreal. I found myself amazed at how little had changed. The night we arrived was cold and rainy, but to me it was beautiful. I didn't realize how much I missed New England. It was so so very familiar.

Driving to the dance on Tuesday night, I couldn't even entirely remember the route to get to Middletown. I just knew I had to get onto route 72 in Forestville and make my way to route 9. As I drove, everything came back and I made it there with no problems, putting along in my mom's 17-year-old Toyota. It was great to see everyone at the dance. Gretchen and I did a lot of reminiscing, and decided that "Our memories are funner than theirs". Afterwards I headed to a bar with Wil, Michael, Francis, Joy, Nicole, Jess, and a couple other folks. I ate most of Joy's sweet potato fries and got home late. I had a lot of fun.

Friday night, while Linda was in NYC hanging out with her girlfriends, I met up with Mark, Rich, and Paul. We discovered The Invention Game, one of the best party games I've ever played - up there with Cranium. I usually don't love those party games, I'd rather play Runebound, Carcasonne, or Settlers of Catan. But when you have people trying to guess what a device to kill termites with their own flatulence is by looking at a simple diagram, hilarity ensues. Alcohol only helps.

On Saturday, Linda and I went over Michael and Joy's house where we met up with them, Michael's twin brother Fran, and Fran's girlfriend Nicole, who I'd met at the dance on Tuesday. We spent the whole time playing Wii, which was excellent. First thing, we made Miis. By the end of it, Linda couldn't get over how much my Mii looked like... me. We mostly played Wii sports, especially tennis, but we played some Elebits too.

The trip back on New Years Day came much too soon. Linda and I took today (Tuesday) off work to recover, and went together to her doctor and listened to our baby's heartbeat.

Linda's coming along pretty well - since she's so small, her stomach is seriously popping out, even though our baby's not due until June. Apparently, women in her family tend to carry babies more towards the front. They say when Linda was born, people thought her mom was going to have twins.

After the doctor's appointment, Linda decided that we should go looking for a Wii. So we did. We hit Circuit City, Target, and Best Buy but had no luck. So we ate Sushi. Mmmm... Sushi. While we were there, we made a phone call to a different Target, and they said they had twelve in stock. We couldn't quite bring ourselves to scarf down the avalanche roll - it was so good - but we did kind of hurry up and get ourselves to Target.

And we got the Wii. We also bought a copy of Elebits. Linda's in the other room playing it right now. I actually haven't really played it yet, other than creating Miis, setting up the wi-fi, and downloading painfully slow updates. Linda offered to let me play first, but I want her to get hooked on the Wii.

I think I've written enough. I think I'll go out and play me some Wii sports. I should also mention that the Mii I created tonight doesn't look nearly as much like myself as the Mii we created at Michael's house, but the Linda Mii looks better. I'm also going to have to get Twilight Princess soon, but I'm almost more excited to get a copy of Eternal Darkness. I've already got my wavebird wireless controller, and I'm ready to go.