Thank God Almighty, we're free at last!

I've ascended from a dive into the depths of a murky pond, and I'm now decompressing. I'm finally done with my college applications; I basically finished on the 13th. It's the first thing everyone asks me, so here is where I applied to: Miami, OU, Grinnell, Kenyon, and Carleton. Everyone says, "Why OU? It's just a party school." Well, for one, it's a safety, though I probably don't need one of those with my handsome record. For two, it has the prestigious E. W. Scripps School of Journalism, which could come in handy.
-Since coming up to the surface, I've finally had time for stuff that isn't colleges. The first fun thing I did was whittle a pawn. I've decided I'm going to whittle a whole chess set. This pawn might not be part of it, because I'm not sure that I like pine, which is what I carved it out of. I have a stick of holly, which feels like it should be good carving. I also have some oak, but that's most probably too hard.
-If I haven't mentioned, I've gotten pretty into chess. It's not like an all-consuming obsession, but I do tend to be very diligent in doing the things I like to do. Look at font designing, for example. I do it a lot. If not for hobbies, what would we fill our lives with? That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I play with Keith at lunch every day. We sit outside of the lunchroom on a concrete picnic table, even when it's cold (though we haven't had to worry much about that yet, about which more presently). Currently my record against him is 24-0-6 (6 draws). Keith and I went to Borders yesterday, because on Fridays, chess enthusiasts - and for some of them, "enthusiast" is clearly not a strong enough word, nor would "maniac" even possibly be - aggregate there and play each other. I beat Keith twice first, just to warm up. A guy stopped by our table, and Keith asked if he'd like to play me. He was about fifty or sixty, and looked like Dr White, or, if you're not currently attending Finneytown, imagine a slim version of the Gorton's fisherman. I played him twice, once as white and once as black. He beat me and made it look really easy. It was a little jarring to be on the other side of that for the first time in a while. I walked right into a knight fork with my rook and king, and I also gave him a pawn fork with my bishop and knight in both games. The second game was closer than the first, but not very much. He also beat Keith a couple times, just for fun. His name turned out to be Andy. After a while, a second guy came by. If you walked by him in any other context, you would never ever mark him as a chess player. He's a lean black guy who probably more than anything else looks like a hobo. I never did catch his name, but until I do I'm calling him Burma Jones, for which reference you should read the super and very funny book A Confederacy of Dunces. I came closer with him. I actually pulled off a couple nice moves, though he beat me in the end in both games. The second was no good, because I accidentally pulled off two illegal moves: moved my knight back two-over two, and somehow got both my bishops on white squares. Pretty embarrassing.
-I'm getting really frustrated with Cincinnati. Since I first decided that I like winter quite a bit, I've been paying attention to the kind of winters we've been having. Two years ago it was pretty good, but then last year's sucked almightily. I won't get into too many specifics, but I vividly remember sitting outside on a balmy day in January or February and seeing a fly calmly land on our bench outside. I figured this year we would surely be compensated, but thus far it's turning out even worse. We've had a total of two days this December below freezing, I believe, and about a half an inch of snow. There's not even going to be snow for Christmas. The typical day, has been about 50 or 60 degrees and quite often raining. Keith remarked as we were going home from Borders how much snow we would have if the temperature were below freezing. I told him we might as well say the same thing in Florida during hurricane season. Doesn't matter how much we could get if it were cold, only matters that it isn't cold and thus we're getting none, because Cincinnati is a tepid toilet bowl. Dad says it's going to end up being a really terrific winter, as soon as the weather takes a sudden turn toward the severe. He says last winter nothing happened because it just gracefully went from warm to coolish to warm, but this year we've got tension going on and that's what makes big weather. Well, we'll see, but ain't nothing going to assuage how much I hate having a green Christmas. (Chant: MinnesotaMinnesotaMinnesota)
-Today we went to, what is it, Dayton or Centerville? I can never remember which it is that Aunt Tami and Uncle Mike live in. Well, we went there and did Christmas. Nana and Papaw were there, and so were Travis and Jackie, and later, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Tanya (embarrassingly, I probably misspelled that), and my cousins Kyle, Katie, and Erica, and Erica's kids Emma (3) and Will (30 mo.), and Katie's boyfriend whose name I've already somehow managed to forget. Joshua? I think it was a J. We don't see this last bunch that often. In fact, I don't think I'd seen Erica for about ten years or something, and I don't believe I'd ever met Emma and Will. What are they? - they're my cousins once removed. I thought it was more exciting than that. I thought they made me an uncle or something. I think I should get at least some special term when I gain a generation under me. Well, in any case, they're cute kids. For Christmas I got some peanut butter fudge, a Borders gift card, and two Engrish shirts 1, 2. Also Micah and I got a communal sledding-type inner tube, which hopefully I'll be able to USE this year.
-That's about all I'm going to write for now. Because I now have free time, after the holidays I'm finally going to get around to writing about Crowduck. I understand that we may not be going this year. Hah! Not likely. I'm going to Crowduck, if I have to bike.