...knowing when to quit. Hee! Hee! I got the lime and sugar into the brew a couple of days ago: WOW! Great stuff! I love it. I still have to filter out some of the sludge at the bottom but the liquid stuff is dy-no-mite! I'll be sure to try the Goslings Black this weekend while I help (or try to) decorate the Christmas tree. Hey, speakign of Christmas trees, we took a drive out to the foothills of the Rockies and cut down our tree. I hate buying those pre-prepped things when we have so many to choose from in teh wilderness. We've been cutting our own tree off and on over the last 20 years. The tradition is to bring Pirate Cookies along for snacks and for me to get stuck in deep snow on a logging road after slipping off of it. Nothing like that happened this year but last year I had a good one. I was driving up hill on a one-lane logging road, rounding a curve, when all of a sudden this loaded semi barrels aroudn the corner. I jammed on the brakes. No room to pass and the rig wasn't able to back outta my way. Besides, in this world size is everything (not the magic in it) so I decided to give way by driving partially in the ditch keepign the left side of the van on the edge of the road. Bad move: the ambankment was too steep so the van handily slipped into the soft deep snow at the bottom. The trucker saw this and offered to help me out. I turned him down. I expalined to him that it's a Christmas tradition for me to get stuck on the tree hunt and a show of my inginuity to get 'er out on my own. He stayed to watch the show. My van was an All Wheel Drive Voyageur so getting out was just a matter of reversing/forwarding until I had a good run then giving it all she would give me to ram it up the embankment. I got out and we were able to carry on with our tree hunt. We found a couple of beautiful trees (one for mom) and drove home through the mountains on a narrow ranger road with precipitous curves. We spotted a rare Lynx on the road at one point but I couldn't get off a picture because it disappeared as soon as I spotted it and it spotted the van. Well, that's my Christmas story for 2003.

Happy Holidays, Malcolm.

Robert N Pruden