During the month of November, I've been occupied with National Novel Writing Month, a crazy ordeal where I'm supposed to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I've attempted it in previous years, but my end of the month word counts were measly a measly 12K and 18K. This year, I got my act together, and with the help of my shiny new Thinkpad (with a battery that works! imagine that!) and some self control, I managed to cross the line with 50,026 words on November 30. It's not a terribly good novel, but the important thing is that I finished it.
We were given three days of vacation for shipping Visual Studio 2005 at the end of October, so Justin and I went up to Vancouver Island to backpack at Strathcona Provincial Park and then relax in Victoria. While driving between the two, we also stopped at Merridale Cider House and Blue Grouse Vineyards. Pictures to follow, and there's more about the trip on the website.
I went back to Indiana for Thanksgiving, which was an unpleasant trip there thanks to US Air's lack of seat space and inability to land a flight on time. Uncle Liang and Alex drove down from Ann Arbor, and we all gathered at Uncle Jen's house for a family reunion and Thanskgiving dinner. I also drove up to Chicago to hunt down some of my college friends and sing some karaoke.