My ties with my immediate family has always been strange since late 1980's- My relationship with my parents was a factor of my moving from Billings to here. Since then its been an on and off again from OK to outright spooky.

So it was with a great amount of soul searching that I decided to visit them over last Thanksgiving. My brother and his wife were going to be there as well so had things gotten out of my comfort zone someone else would be there to ease the potential bad visit. I had not been on any aircraft since 09'11 the hassle with all the airport security was adding to my stresses.
My parents became involved in politics a few years ago and I was able to keep tabs on their actions by searching google. My parents seemed to be aligning themselves towards a more liberal point of view and they were rooting for Obama. I saw this as a sign that perhaps their point of view would have softened.
As it turned out the trip was a good one. I extended an offer to have them come visit for a couple of days the next time they were going to visit my brother Julian, who lives in Billings it adds about 250 more miles to the trip. I told them if they were apprehensive about meeting Greg they could skip meeting him. I told them with they way the economy continued to worsen I might not be able to come visit them; how little did I know that things would be much worse and still could continue to spiral downwards.

Both my parents and brother asked me last November what I wanted for Christmas and my birthday --strange on their part since we rarely exchanged gifts so I answered before I really thought about it I really wanted a Bluray DVD player and an Amazon Kindle!

I had been researching a model by LG which could be hack to be a region Free HD/Bluray- this player supports all the old disc I have and some of my other region discs from the UK and other parts of the world.

Well for Christmas to my surprise got 2 LG players apparently my brother was bidding on EBay and accidentally purchased 2 players. He asked me in a phone conversation if I still had 2 TV's to which I answered yes to. When Christmas came so did my new players. I thought that was the end however to my surprise gifts however I got an email from my parents who said they all had chipped in last November to buy the disc player I wanted and at the same time they bought me a Kindle.

My birthday is next week and today I got a package and inside was a new Kindle version 1-- Since I have such a small home buying books takes up space having a Kindle offers me a way to get back into reading without taking up space. I just bought a 8 gig SD Card for $17.00 so I can hundreds of books on new Kindle without taking up space at home.

I am sure that if they had not pre-order/purchased these the situation of money would be out of reach for such purchases -- my brother business is way down his wife lost her job, my parents who are retired say their retirement have not been affected too much. As for me work continues I am crossing my fingers that Greg's position at his work continues. My new gadgets will keep me happy for the time being.

Oh by the way if you click on the title of my post you can see 3 sites that are offering a chance to win your own Kindle...BUT HURRY some of the contest end SOON!!