Stormy's Corner

If I won the lottery, my Christmas list would be

In no particular order:

1. A couple of weeks on a catamaran in the British Virgin Islands
2. A week on a catamaran in the Seychelles
3. Hmm.  Maybe my own catamaran with crew that I could just send around the world.
4. A  little robot that would sit on our seven year old's ear and remind him to put on his shoes, zip up his bookbag, write his letters, say please, ...
5. A robot vacuum cleaner that would follow the kids around and put all their toys away
6. A really large, open, warm kitchen with a big island in the middle
7. New floors (maybe if we won the lottery Frank would be up for all wood floors :)
8. Some electronic toys to play with: a Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device, a GPS unit for my car, an iTouch, an iPhone, ...
9. A personal chef to deliver tasty foods that meets my diet plan
10. New bedroom furniture for us all
11. A shunt that I can use to designate what food I eat should go to never-never land instead of my stomach
12. A really cool restaurant with good food, good music, great atmosphere and a safe and fun place for the kids to play
13. My own personal jet so I didn't have to deal with commercial airports any more (although I kind of like them for some reason)
14. Better yet, an instant personal transport machine that would just whisk us wherever we wanted to go in no time flat
15. Fun and satisfying jobs for all my working friends

I've left off a few things but that's a good start.

The Best Way to Sleep on an Airplane

I travel a lot and one of my indispensable items is my Eagle Creek neck pillow.  Lately I've been getting a lot of 6am flights (which means I wake up at 3:30am) but it means I have one more evening at home with the family.  My neck pillow guarantees I'll get another two hours of sleep on the airplane.

I used to always get a window seat and then I'd shove a pillow or a coat between the window and my head.  But no matter how well I slept I'd always wake up with a neck ache.  (I even had a guy wake me up once and tell me that my head was bobbing so much he was afraid I'd be in pain when I woke up!)  With my Eagle Creek pillow I can sleep sitting up in any seat.  It's terrific.

The key is not to blow it up all the way - I usually try two or three times before I get it just right.  It inflates and deflates really easily and although it's not the smallest thing in the world, I always make room for it in my brief case on those early am flights!  It makes a great gift for anyone you know that travels a lot.

Book review: Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs and Sharks

These two books make great presents for boys.  Our son got his first one when he was five years old and he loves them.  Each page has a great big pop-up in the middle and lots of smaller pop-ups in the corners.  There's also lots of interesting information - I usually just read a couple of sentences per page.

More gift ideas

This article in the New York Times suggests giving food or alcohol - something that will go away and not clutter the giftee's life afterwards.

See my other post on websites to find the perfect gift.

Perfect Gift

It's Christmas time and if you are like most of us, you are wondering what to get for at least one difficult someone on your list.  I found two sites to help you find the perfect gift for everyone on your list for Christmas:

• FindGift.com.  This site lets you pick things like whether it's an individual or a couple, your parents or a friend, which holiday and how old they are and then it makes some suggestions.  You can then sort by popularity and price.  It actually came up with some pretty reasonable suggestions during my trial run.
• Perfect Present Picker. I had a harder time with this one.  You have to pick words that describe the person's interest, personality and the occasion.  I had a hard time with everything but the personality.  Words like "busy body", "has brain implant" and "controlling" just aren't words I usually use to describe my friends.  After you manage that they ask you about gender, age, occupation and lifestyle.  (If you pick couple, they don't ask you about age and retired wasn't an option under occupation.)  The results were not very good.  It suggested a milk frother or a professional poker set for my in-laws.  Somehow I don't see them using either of those.

So I'd use FindGift to get some ideas and I wouldn't bother with Present Picker. 
Good luck in your shopping!