Weekend plans comin' together.

First, OK, happy St. Patrick's day to everyone. In celebration of the day, I'll warn you. Just don't click on this. Mmmmm, I figured as much. Happy Holidays!

OK, now that that's over with. I filled out my census form last night. What a letdown. I opened it up and it looked like the friggin' SAT. I was expecting all sorts of tedious questions about the different aspects of my life and work. I was expecting to be angered by the invasion of my privacy. But then I started fillin' out the form and quickly realized that 90% of it was superfluous. It took about two minutes.

All they want to know is how old I am, do I own the house, my "race", which really means what color I am, and are there any other folks livin' in the house with me. Jebus, there was room for about 20 folks there. Who'd have that many people livin' in their house with them? Mormons? Mexicans? One of those fundamentalist couples that can't stop poppin' out kids, like they don't know how it happens?

Lets face it folks, there's only one race. the HUMAN race. Otherwise it's about ethnicity. When it comes to that, they only want details if you're not White. I mean, I could lay out my ethnic heritage... French Creole, German, Scots-Irish. And, being Southern, maybe there'd be some African and Cherokee in there too, but there's no space for that on the form. They only really want the dirty details of your ethnicity if you are a "minority". There's a box for Samoan, but not Scots-Irish. Hmmmm, I wonder why?

Like I said, there's space there to fill out the particulars for like 20 people who may be livin' in my house. But it's just Denise and I here, so the rest of the thing stayed blank. Yep, I filled in the info for Denise. She's been livin' here for close to three years. Then she'll have to fill out her own form when she get's around to goin' to her place and checkin' her mail. Does that mean she'll be counted twice?

Anyway, as I said, the plan for the weekend has finally come together. I've had the week off, but Denise only got half the week. She'll get off tonight, and we'll spend the night here. Then, Thursday morning, we'll drive down to Fredericksburg. We'll enjoy ourselves down there, eat some good food and drink some beer, and then we'll drive on down to San Antonio.

We've got reservations for two nights at the nice Holiday Inn on the river, with a balcony overlooking the water. Other than eating good food and having a great time, my one plan is to drive down to the Goliad mission and check it out. I've never seen it before, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Many of you may not know, not being from here, but the Goliad mission played a large part in the rebellion against Mexico in 1836. They never talk about it in the movies. They go from the heroic last stand at the Alamo to the victory at San Jacinto. But in the middle there, untold by Hollywood, there were several other battles, including the battle of Coleto Creek, and then the massacre that took place there at the Goliad. 342 some-odd men, walked out into the scrub and shot by firing squad. It's gonna be very interesting to finally see the place. It's been alive in my imagination for years.

Anyway, we plan to spend Thursday and Friday nights at the hotel, and then drive back home Saturday morning. That'll give us plenty of time to relax before we both have to go back to work on Monday. I'm sure I'll have cool pictures to show you after all that, so I'll see you again after all the merriment. Y'all be good,, and if ya can't be good, take pictures. Cheers!

Update: OK a shit storm has blown in to Denise's office, so we won't be goin' down to SA till Friday afternoon. Muh! WTF? Maybe Goliad on Saturday and Fredericksburg on Sunday, on the way home. We'll see.