Wow. The winter holidays have come and gone, and I feel like my feet are finally starting to touch the (frozen, icy, and *very* slippery) ground again. It was really nice to have my folks come up for a brief-but-fun visit for Christmas eve and Christmas day. The Boy implemented a play-with-it-after-you-open-it policy for all his gifts, so he didn’t finish off his monster-stack of presents until the evening of the 26th. (It doesn’t help that I made a tactical error by using Hot Wheels as stocking-stuffers.)

And in the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a bunch of potential side jobs start stacking up. Of course, none of them (except a free site rebuild I’m doing for some friends) has actually come to fruition yet. Everyone’s talking pretty big, but with most side projects, I ask for half (usually) the money up front, and I won’t start work until I have a check. Most folks don’t have a problem with that, but I have yet to have anyone in this group actually hand me a check. Oh, there are rumors of money, even, with one group, assurances that “the check is in the mail. Really.”

And while I’m not working on any of these projects yet, I’m still thinking about them all of the time, and I feel pressure from them all in the back of my head like I *should* be working on them, but have chosen to slack. But I’m standing firm. I’m telling these folks what Cuba Gooding, Jr., told Tom Cruise in “Jerry Maguire.” Show me the money. We’ll see how that works out.