How Many Words Is A Blurry Picture Worth?

Well, I was going to write up a story about my weekend spent lighting our Christmas tree. Nobody ever believes me when I tell them how many lights are on the tree, so I thought I'd take some pictures along the way and share the experience.

Sadly, I am a poor photographer. I thought the pictures would look better if I turned the flash off and let the tree lights provide for the exposure. The pictures are nicely lit - unfortunately they are also quite blurry, thanks to my inability to hold the camera still.

Without the pictures the topic loses what little appeal it had to start with, so I will just summarize. We have a 7 foot tree this year - give or take a couple inches. I put 18 strings of 100 lights on the tree. I started putting the lights on at around 10 AM Saturday, and worked until 5:30 PM, at which point I had completed 15 strings of lights. I began anew Sunday morning about 10:30 AM and worked until noon. I averaged about 30 minutes a string, which isn't bad considering Bloody Mary breaks, lunch breaks, "playing Hot Wheels with Cameron" breaks, and the like.

How do you get that many lights on a tree? Simple. Pick a branch. Starting at the trunk, wrap the branch out to the tip. Then wrap back to the trunk. Go to the next branch. Repeat. Do I really wrap every branch? Pretty much - I do tend to cheat a little bit at the bottom in the back, but you can't really see that part anyway. I also recommend an adult beverage every three strings or so.

In other news, my fantasy football team was eliminated from my league's playoffs tonight. I had a pretty good season this year, coming in second in my division - but now that I'm out of it, I won't pay much attention to the NFL until the Super Bowl - and even that's just an excuse to eat salty snacks and drink beers. When does spring training start again?