Loot and an unrelated rant

So, first things first - Christmas was great this year. While my family usually celebrates a bunch of little Christmases this year we had somewhat of a Christmas extravaganza at my parents' house in Connecticut, involving myself (I'm 31), my wife (29), my sister (30), my parents, my mother-in-law, and really all centered around my 3-year-old son. The tree on Christmas morning should speak for itself:

I got a couple games (Kinect Sports and Black Ops) and new tires for my truck, and my son made out like a bandit. He loves playing with my iPad and told Santa that he wants his own iPad, so we got him an iXL, which is like a Game Boy Advance built by Fisher Price and geared toward younger kids and told him it's a big boy iPad.

I was originally going to drive back Monday morning and meet with clients on the way home, but because of the blizzard I stayed an extra day and my clients accommodated my new schedule so I just drove back this morning. I'm at the office right now so I still have no idea how buried my house is - I will know in about an hour and a half!

Also, over the weekend my family and I had long discussions about baby names. There are tons of sites out there that cater to the newest and trendiest baby names, and in my opinion these sites are doing a huge disservice to future generations. Even calling them "baby names" is a bad idea - if I had any control over any of these websites, I'd refer to it as "names that a human being will have to live with for the rest of his or her life." Yes, a baby with a cute name is lots of fun to flash around to your group of friends. But when little Hunter goes to school and there are a thousand other Hunters in his class, the cute trendy name now causes some sacrifice of his individuality. Some of the trendy names are just plain weird - it took me awhile to realize that parents of little girls named "Nevaeh" are not putting a spin on Nivea hand cream, but rather spelling Heaven backwards.

And on a related note, Mrs. JP is 3 and a half months pregnant and expecting in June. And yes, she wants one of those cute trendy names.