robot battle - a #VEX ing day (blog with photos)

Last Saturday, I was part of the small team that hosted a robotics tournament featuring at least 300 participants and spectators, 28 teams, three live displays, two playing fields, and a qualifying spot for the World Championships on the line.

Although we had only a vague understanding of the equipment and software before setting up Friday night, it's amazing that we got the tournament underway only one hour delayed. Huge thanks to Dougherty Valley High's team for bringing the second field control unit; without that, we might have ended at 8 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. If we were lucky.

Friday night we set up the two fields and tested out the network, the three projector displays, and the fields. We didn't have all the equipment to actually run a practice match, so we quit setup around 8:30 p.m. and resumed about 6:30 Saturday morning. The kids were a big help setting up the fields, but the rest of it was up to the three adults who were the least clueless about technology... and who were also the least clueless about not volunteering.

The first field went up quickly. Notice it's not wired yet.

It took surprisingly long to figure out where the tables would go to control the flow of the matches.

The second field didn't arrive until 7:30, but it was up in 15 minutes.

The finished field, 

My schematic of the setup. Fields, laptops, projectors all clearly diagrammed.

I'd attended portions of VEX tournaments in the 2011-2012 school year, but I'd never hosted one. It's an enormous task, far more complex than I had imagined. And chaotic. When you have dozens of teams of high school geniuses vying for top honors, you get some questions like, "When will you have the schedule done?" And, "How about now?" And, "What about now?"

Our club would be fielding three different robots, the A, B, and E teams. They set up shop in the location closest to the concession stand, and they spared no effort in making their space comfortable.

The kids brought the sofas from the school library. Guess who had to put them back?

The work pit was also productive, though, with mods going on all day.

Once we got the first competition underway, however, there were very few glitches. The second match was rerun because a bad cable put one team at a disadvantage. Other than that, our fields and network worked pretty reliably all day. But there wasn't a single second I felt relaxed because if anything had gone wrong, I wouldn't have had a @#$!# clue how to fix it.

The first match is underway! And... it all works!

Most impressive to me (besides the fact that we got the equipment to work) was the behavior of the teams. I did not encounter a single student who behaved badly in any way. One team had a complaint about the field not working (we decided it was team error, not field error), but they were courteous and gracious about it despite their disappointment. A couple of adults got a bit feisty from time to time, but for the most part everyone was civil and helpful and quite pleasant.

Even though the competition was cutthroat.

Look at the intensity on Ethan's face as he drives the bot!

Teams paired up in a 2-on-2 competition, red team versus blue team.
The team to score the most beanbags in the goals won the round.

The spirit of competition was trumped only by the spirit of collaboration, with
teams helping other teams overcome technical anomalies throughout the day.

The least likely robot, the E Machine, made it to the quarterfinals on the strength of
great driving and the luck of being paired up with excellent partners in the late matches.

The E Machine tended to get stuck on top of the beanbags and had some trouble
lifting them up to the goals, but in the end it did better than either of the A or B bots.

This competition is a great event, and it makes me sad that it's not more aggressively promoted to the high school community. I get constant emails about fundraisers and events for all kinds of sporting events at the high school, yet only two or three faculty and none of the school administration came to the event (that I was aware of).

We had about 15 or 18 schools represented from all over the region, fielding 28 different robots. Throughout the day we had at least 300 people participating or spectating or working the event. The club president, a senior at the school, did a fantastic job under great stress, as did the parent volunteers and our faculty advisor. The kids in our high school robotics club didn't fare so well in the competition, but in my eyes (and in the comments from everyone I spoke with), they represented well with great sportsmanship, a solid effort, and good hospitality. No awards for Northgate this time, and a thorough trouncing in the quarterfinals. But an event everyone should be very proud of, and which was terrific fun.

If I had to miss coaching my other son's 5-2 soccer victory over one of the best teams in our league, then this is what I would want to be doing instead.

Good job, Northgate Robotics! We'll get 'em next year.

Writing book two of a series

A writer friend (more experienced than I) recently asked for advice on writing the second book in a trilogy.

Having just published Forsada and beginning work on the third book in the series, I was astonished to find I hadn't really thought about it. Looking back over the past year, though, I did learn a couple of things. I can sum them up in three points:

It's not as bad as you worry it might be

The crowds loved the first one.
Will the second be as good?

Having the first book published and hearing the feedback while you're writing the next book is a double-edged blessing. On the one hand, the praise and great reviews and warm, satisfied glow of watching sales figures tick up is a huge motivator. "People like what I wrote!"

On the other hand, that creates a pressure that didn't exist while you were writing the first book. With the first book, you always had the choice to lock it up in a closet and never let anyone see it. You could always back out. But now, with 34 reviews a 4.7 star rating, you've got a standard to live up to.

As if the pressure of creating something and then showing it to the world weren't enough. As if trying to live up to the fantasy of success you've built up in your own mind weren't enough. Now you've got to live up to the reality of expectations you've already set, both for yourself and your readers.

Which is like steroids for your Inner Critic. You start believing your first book is better than it really is. In writing the second book, you start seeing plot and character complexities that you cleverly set up in the first book take shape, but you worry you're not doing them justice. You remember brilliant turns of phrase from the first book and worry you can't keep being so original through a whole other book. (Then you remember there's another whole other book you have to write when this one's done.) In the first book you introduced your reader to a new world, but we all know the second day at Disneyland is never quite as magical as the first.

In short, you love the story, but you wonder if your readers will. Are you missing something important? Is all your brilliance translating onto the page? Or are you deluding yourself, and you actually used up all your brilliance in the first book and just didn't realize it?

But you power on because, through the 10,000 hours you've spent becoming a writer, you know how to silence the Inner Critic and make the Inner Editor wait until the draft is done. You power through. And at the end, because you've built your skill over years and years, your first draft isn't nearly as bad as you worried it might be. And then you remember how much work went into revisions on that first book to make it so good. and you see how this second book can get to that place, too.

Familiarity breeds contempt, but absence makes the heart grow fonder.
I don't mind saying that I was inspired to write Semper when I read The Hunger Games. So much about the writing, voice, and characters in that book came alive for me in ways that many books don't. (The story and world and characters in Semper are totally different from THG, of course; being inspired by something doesn't mean you try to recreate it.)

Semper was the first novel-length story I tried to write in first person, present tense. That POV ties the reader to the main character in a close, personal way. For good and for bad.

Have you ever traveled with one person for, like, a month? Sharing hotel rooms, sharing cabs, eating together? What about a whole year? Or, have you ever had a roommate?

Writing a novel is like moving into a two bedroom apartment with all your novel's characters for a year. But your readers, the outside world... they only see your characters with their makeup on after they've had their coffee. You have to spend all that time behind the scenes with them. Dishes piled in the sink. Fuzzy green things in the fridge. Laundry spilling out of the hamper. Late night crying jags when their boyfriends don't call, and all those times they had a few too many drinks and you had to clean them up and put them to bed.

Yeah, it kinda feels like this sometimes.

The reader only sees them when they're on stage. We live with them all. the. time. Familiarity breeds contempt. I do get tired of my own characters sometimes while writing. But the readers don't (or shouldn't!). In fact, while you're writing the second book, spending all this time cleaning up after your characters and pushing through their lives, your readers are still in love with them from the first book. They're waiting for that sequel. They don't know anything about it, so to them it's still an anticipation. Absence does tend to make the heart grow fonder (assuming of course your first book was good).

In the end, the story is king
As I said above, I loved The Hunger Games. I don't hesitate to use the word "brilliant" when talking about that book. Catching Fire? Liked it. Seemed a little bit "more of the same," though. Even the beginning is an oh no here we go again moment. But the story is executed with such cleverness and tension that I still enjoyed it. Mockingjay, though... to me, that felt like a 40,000 word story fattened up to 80,000 words.

When I was writing Semper and plotting out the trilogy's overarching arc, I thought a lot about my reaction to Mockingjay. I wondered how I could keep the story fresh for the reader over three complete books all in first person present. The whole series covers only a year or so; while Dane could certainly grow and change a lot in a year, I didn't think I could pull off three separate books, each with its own beginning, middle, end, closure, and character growth.

So I wrote book two from Lupay's point of view. Semper is Dane's story. Forsada is Lupay's story. Both are critical components of the series, but they are their own stories as well.

When writing Forsada, I worried that I'd made the wrong choice. I worried that readers wanted more of Dane, that maybe I should have structured everything differently to fit the more conventional model. But the more I wrote and the farther I got into the plot, the more I realized this book had to be written in Lupay's point of view. There was no other option. Because the story required it.

Changing the books up like that gives me a lot more freedom with the third book. I'm not locked into one character's POV, voice, traits. I'm not finishing up the last bits of a nearly completed story; I'm writing a whole new one that completes the series. And that means I won't have to plump it up if it's too thin. Because that's not serving the story. The structural choices I've made have given me the freedom to let the story be king. I'm not sure that's always true for authors when they're deep into their second book or starting their third in a series.

Every story is a labyrinth for the author.

Your mileage may vary
These are my experiences and my observations. I guarantee you'll find other authors who have different thoughts. Writing the second book felt, during the writing, somewhat different from writing the first. Having the first out there, hearing reader feedback, knowing what I had to live up to and was being directed by... it took more discipline in how I applied my creativity. In a first book, you can just look forward and keep pushing toward the final scene. With a second book, you still have to do that, but now you've got the third book pulling you forward while the first book provides a counter-tension that keeps you restricted to a certain path. It was a fun challenge, but now I'm looking forward to the challenge of concluding a series.

hanging around with writers (at #SFWC13) - blog post

What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicians?

I don't hang around with musicians. I hang around with writers. Mostly online, but also in person whenever my schedule allows. For the past five years I've spent three days each February hanging around with a really awesome group of writers: the volunteers at the San Francisco Writers Conference.

Next month will be my sixth straight year. Volunteering at the conference is a great gig. Not just because I get to listen in on a bunch of fabulous sessions (how much do you think the "tension on every page" and "bringing characters to life" sessions really change year to year?). Not just because I get to chat with agents (four of the five years I've had nothing I was actively pitching). Not just because my work has appeared in the two anthologies I submitted to (including the one pictured here).

I come back year after year because of the people. Although the organizers (Michael, Elizabeth, Richard, Barb, Linda, Laurie, and the others) are fabulous people with a wonderful vision, I really come to hang out with the other volunteers.

Nearly all the volunteers are writers. Many have published books, either independently (like me) or traditionally. They write in all genres, from business to romance to horror to cookbooks. And they all are committed to the same vision that Michael expresses for the conference: To foster a friendly, open, learning community of writers, agents, editors and others all trying to help each other learn and succeed.

I am sure I'll get to tell people about Semper and Forsada, but I don't expect to sell any books. I am sure I'll talk to a couple of agents about my new project, and I may get some requests to see it. And I'll have fun tweeting to #SFWC13. Those are important side benefits.

The core benefit for me will be to refill my tank, to reenergize my creativity and my zeal for this work. To hang out with writers, real writers who take their craft and their business and each other seriously.

Oh, yeah, the punchline: What do you call a guy who hangs out with musicians?
The singer.

ABOUT MY BOOKS
Both Semper and Forsada are 99 cents for Kindle now through January 27 as a special introductory price. Both are also available in print. Semper is currently available at Barnes & Noble, Powell's, and other bookstores. Forsada will be available in those locations soon.

SEMPER and FORSADA bargains, plus a blizzard of #free #kindle #ebooks! (blog post)

Looks crazy, right? 64 free or severely discounted ebooks January 17 through 19.

Even better, to celebrate the launch of my new book, FORSADA, I'm offering the following specials:

• SEMPER 99c download January 17 through January 27
• FORSADA free download January 17 through January 21, then 99c through January 27

Plus, you can get the other 62 books at the following pages through January 19:

• Science Fiction and Fantasy: smarturl.it/BlizzSFF
  (This is where Semper and Forsada are linked)
• Crime, Mysteries and Thrillers: smarturl.it/BlizzThrills
• Women's Fiction and Romance: smarturl.it/BlizzRomance
• General Fiction and Non-Fiction: smarturl.it/BlizzGeneral
  (Notice that Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever is here with one of my stories.)

You really have no reason not to go grab these great bargains.

Please help me celebrate the launch of my new book by sharing either the link to this blog post, or the links above. There are some great books in this promotion besides mine. But I'd sure like it if you read mine first!

The beauty of the 4-way stop (blog post)

This morning, after dropping my boys off at their schools, I stopped at an intersection I've been through thousands of times before. Just a standard suburban four-way stop. I intended to go straight across but waited to allow the pickup truck coming the other way to make his left turn across my path. He had arrived first, after all.

But he paused. He started into his turn, but tentative. He and the two guys crammed into the little cab with him watched me as they crossed slowly.

The pickup was cruddy and old, probably held together by string and prayer. The back was filled with gardening tools--rakes, a dented trash can, a lawn mower. A stereotypical independent lawn service coming to work in our upscale neighborhood from one of the neighboring, less affluent towns.

Behind me as I waited, an enormous SUV, the kind with room for eight kids and all their accoutrements, pulled up behind. Our town is filled with trucks like these, driven by moms who might not be decked out in Tiffany and Cartier but who almost certainly have some in their bedrooms at home. Our town is also crawling with BMWs and other vehicles that cost, I am sure, more than all three of those guys in the pickup truck make in a whole year. (For the record, I live in the "poor" part of town. No Tiffany or Cartier or BMWs for us.)

As I drove home from the intersection, I pondered the tentative way the pickup driver took his turn, the wary looks on the three men as they watched me. I don't know them or why they acted that way. Maybe they'd been hit by an impatient driver there before. Maybe it was something else.

In any case, it was their turn to go. So I waited. And they drove on.

The four-way stop does not distinguish between rich and poor, male and female, old and young, gay and straight. The four-way stop does not recognize the socioeconomic differences between a white bank executive and a Hispanic gardener. Everyone is equal at a four-way stop, subject to the same rules and order of precedence.

I find that beautiful.

But all my pondering left me with a big question. If we can all accept each other as truly equal at a four-way stop, why can't we do it everywhere?

Peter's awesome spectacular very cool year (performed in blogs and photos)

If you're sick of everyone else's "here's how my 2012 went" posts, you can just skip this one. But if that's the case, what are you doing reading blogs in the first place?

My 2012 was a pretty awesome year. Come bask in the glow of my self-satisfaction.

The awesomeness began in January when I published Semper all by myself. (With the help of CreateSpace and KDP and Aerin and Phoenix.) I really didn't know what I was doing, but boy was I having fun. I made a little money in 2012 with Semper (enough to pay my Starbucks bill while I wrote the sequel), and including freebies the book was downloaded over 10,000 times in 2012.

February got even better despite car trouble. I volunteered for the fifth year in a row at the San Francisco Writers Conference and met some great people and reconnected with fabulous publishing industry folks and writers I'd met before. But the most awesome part of February was a weekend retreat at the Sanctuary spa in the Phoenix area Maria and I attended for work. My work is all about corporate philanthropy, and I represented my company at this event called Escape For Good because my boss was busy and couldn't go. Got to hang with celebrity athletes (all of whom are very community minded) for the weekend and talk philanthropy and community involvement with Athletes for Hope and U Give. Among the highlights: Dinner with Mia Hamm and Julie Foudy, Muhammed Ali's 70th birthday party emceed by Johnny Bench, hearing about Andre Agassi's work with underprivileged youth in Las Vegas, an awesome wine tasting, a swell mixology class, getting called an "old guy" by Lance Armstrong, chatting with Tom Jackson, a fun "Iron Chef" competition where Maria cooked with Annika Sorenstam and chef Julian Serrano, and meeting new friends and business contacts. Memories:

Lunch on the patio.

"The Cowboy" from 2012 American Idol. Better than I expected.

Me & Tony watching the chefs at work.

Lance, Maria, and some old guy.

Me and my new BFF.

I know, right? I actually made some business contacts and had a few followup meetings from the event (not with any athletes, sadly). Still working on some ideas with some of those folks.

March came in not so much like a lion but more like a deep breath between hurricanes of awesomeness. It saw my cousin Cassie's wedding, a skiing day with the boy scout troop, and a good corporate citizenship conference in Phoenix. I started in earnest writing Forsada, the sequel to Semper, and I watched actual sales of Sember grow slowly but steadily. (Think frozen molasses flowing uphill.)

April, though... wow, April. I started with a trip to New York for the Charities @Work conference (I'm on the advisory council), followed immediately by a flight to Kathmandu, Nepal. When we got back, Maria had a girls weekend in Denver, then I went on business trips to Las Vegas and Charlotte. All in April. A brief recap of the Nepal trip (the actual blog posts have all the photos):

• Day one: 32 hours to Kathmandu, some shopping and a fantastic dinner, plus a neat hotel
• Day two: Kathmandu historical tour, rough roads, and cows sleeping in the streets
• Day three: A jungle, rhinos, WE RODE AN ELEPHANT, and a twin otter
• Day four: Bathing the elephants, rowboating for crocodiles, and spiders
• Day five: Nepal countryside, insane bus drivers, a near-death experience
• Day six: The most stunning view in the world (perhaps)
• Day seven: Day hike through rural Nepal

Some of my favorite pictures from the trip:

Flying flags at the Monkey Temple

The patio where we took tea and ate breakfast

Crazy bus drivers, crazy bus passengers

Believe it or not, Rhino, we do see you.

In May I had some big work wins. Specifically, my volunteer program won a Summit Award from United Way Worldwide (a big honor), and my workplace giving campaign was named #1 in the country for the third year in a row. Pretty big honors for me and my team at work, who are the most awesome and fabulous crew ever. We get some pretty big results. In May I also was sworn in to the Workforce Investment San Francisco board. And I also did my first ever author reading from Semper.

June smacked me in the head with my 45th birthday, which I spent at boy scout camp. Bigger news was Beth and Chris' wedding on a day that climbed well past 107 degrees.

In July, Ethan turned 16 while we were on family vacation in Washington, DC. Our whole trip the temperature never fell below 143 degrees, or so it seemed. Still, we had fun visiting all kinds of museums and hanging out with bro Mark and sis-in-law Maria. My favorites: July 4th fireworks on the Mall, Newseum, the Supreme Court, Mark's lab at NIH, and the Library of Congress.

At the time, this house was still up for grabs.

Ash and paper fell on us. It was awesome.

LOC. One of the coolest places on Earth.

Brother Mark in his natural habitat. Cures cancer, he does.

Supreme Court.

Still in July, I did business trips to Phoenix (yes, again!), Portland, and Seattle. And in the middle of all that we drove to Mammoth Lakes to meet my mom for a long weekend. We took the tram to the top of Mammoth Mountain but only hiked around a few minutes because it was dog-cold and wicked windy, and the staff said that lightning was seen within ten miles, so we had to get down the hill quick.

Ruler of all I survey. Take THAT, Yertle.

August was a month for staying home. First, my dad and stepmom visited for a week from the east coast, and we did a whole bunch of fun things. Then, I gave up our four nights at a Tahoe timeshare because (a) someone bailed on the plans we'd made earlier in the year, and (b) I had to coach a soccer tournament. But that doesn't mean I'm not bitter about (a).

In September, Ethan got his driver's license, and I went on business trips to Minneapolis and St. Louis. Ethan started 10th grade and Sam moved up into 7th. We ran our employee giving campaign as we do every year at work, this time kicking butt once more and pretty much locking up a fourth #1 year in a row. Plus, I helped judge the Lascaux Flash contest.

October took me to Denver and Colorado Springs for work, and I finished Forsada and sent the manuscript out to beta readers for the first time. I also injured my knee playing soccer. It's not too bad, but I really shouldn't play on it for a few more months. We saw some America's Cup racing and the Blue Angels, and the F-22 was an incredible sight.

I did, in fact, take this picture.

In November I won NaNoWriMo for the fifth time, with a new story that I may finish in 2014 after I write the third book of the New Eden series. I collected feedback on Forsada and completed my first revisions. Over Thanksgiving the family visited my nephew in Portland, shortly after he moved there. We had Voodoo doughnuts and visited the Japanese and Chinese gardens as well as the Mercy Corps headquarters and the Saturday Market. I am getting to like Portland a lot. Wendy Russ produced covers for me for Semper and Forsada, and I relaunched Semper with the new cover.

December was another stay-at-home month, after one business trip to Los Angeles. I got the proof copies of Forsada and had some revisions, so I'm waiting for the final copy to arrive. It will be published January 13, so be sure to go get it then and then review it on Amazon or Goodreads. My mom came to visit over Christmas, then the boys drove back to Las Vegas with her. They came back last night as unaccompanied minors on Southwest, their first time flying alone.

Tonight we're having a New Year's Eve party. I can't imagine 2013 being nearly as good a year as 2012 was, but I seem to remember saying something similar at this time a year ago.

May your 2013 be the best year ever for you.

handy head massager, and WTF is that German?

Free cookies and cider!

On Christmas Eve, we took the day and wandered San Francisco. Many of the hotels sported awesome gingerbread houses. The Fairmont built an enormous gingerbread entry foyer for their tea room. The St. Francis had a twelve foot tall castle made of sugar that was glorious. The Mark Hopkins had a modest but lovely gingerbread house along with free cider and cookies.

We also got to see fifteen minutes of the Grace Cathedral Christmas pageant with tons of little kids in costume and some fine singing. And we walked the Grace outdoor labyrinth. Very serene, except for the toddlers throwing tantrums and the parents ardently trying to shush them.

After lunch at the San Francisco Center (too crowded, and the Thai place had a curry that smelled like burning latex), we strolled Chinatown because the boys wanted to get some fireworks for New Year's. It's impossible to stroll Chinatown without browsing the junk stores. My mom bought a tiny lucky cat statue (half inch tall, about fifty cents). But we all got terribly excited when we discovered...

the Handy Head Massager.

Made in China. What a surprise!

We actually got to try this thing out in the store before buying. And at 99 cents, it's almost worth the price. Here's the actual device:

So easy it doesn't need instructions!

All you do is rub it down your head. It sort of scratches but mostly tickles. I haven't tried it on the cat yet, but I'm betting that will be fun. Let me get out my first aid kit, though.

Even better is the box it came in. Turn it over, and it has this picture and caption on the side:

"The smooth tips glid across the surface of your scalp,sending sparkling sensarions thru your entire body."

Doesn't she look gleeful and unstressed? Yes, if you purchase this device, you too can share it with your bathing beauty bombshell. She will deeply appreciate the ability to scratch her head with thin, flimsy wires. So much better than other "smooth tips" for sending sensarions thru her entire body.

But wait... WTF. Is that German? Let's see...

BDAUNT AUS DER TU WERLUNQ

Well, Google Translate thinks it might be German. Or Romanian. But it basically translates into English as

BDAUNT FROM TU WERLUNQ

Ah, that was helpful.

Oh, but next to this is the German instruction, which begins "Hier verbindet sich jahrtausend alte Tradition der Aborigines mit moderner Technik des ausgehended zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts!" (According to Google Translate, this means "Here, ancient tradition of Aboriginal combines with modern technology of the late twentieth century ended!") So I suppose it is German. Sort of.

This thing only cost 99 cents, and the amusement it's brought us is worth almost twice that.

Whole bunch of #free #books this weekend!

Semper is one of the sixteen great ebooks you can get for free this weekend through this special holiday promotion. Check it out. There's really no reason NOT to download the books, even if you've already got a billion books on your to-read list.

Here's the link: http://smarturl.it/HolidayFree

If you do read any of them, the authors would appreciate an honest review at Amazon or Goodreads. I know I would. (I would of course appreciate a glowing review more, but I relish every comment I get because it means someone took the time to read what I wrote and then took extra time to let me know what they thought. What greater honor is there to an artist than that?)

The Extinct anthology is also free in this promotion. (It contains my short story, Distractions).

Time is the one thing that every human will never have enough of, so I thank you for yours.

#origami #christmas tree... we haz one!

A couple of years ago we spent a chilly but gorgeous day in New York. We stopped by the Natural History Museum and fell in love with the origami Christmas tree they had. So it was no surprise when my wife, at Thanksgiving, said, "I want an origami Christmas tree."

So now we have one.

Yes, it took about 73 hours of work.

I only made about a dozen of the ornaments. Maria did the majority of the work, and Sam helped a lot. Ethan did some minimal amount of work but was generally supportive, offering helpful comments like, "Really, Mom? Seriously? Not like that. You fold it like this."

Some of the ornaments came from kits.

Moof.

Guess what animal this is!

Some did not. I think this is a turtle. Or a tortoise. Or a frog. Or perhaps a moose or a grasshopper. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to be a snake.

See how the fish is mocking the green blobby thing?

One of the themes of the tree is animals, and we have lots of animals. My first attempt at a "zebra" with brown paper (which I preferred to call a "horse") looked more like a "llama," so that's what it is.

Sing along with this!

I am not sure what this is, but I think it's a mouse. It could be a bunny. We do have some origami bunnies that are very cute. Near the bunnymouse on the tree is a blue whale. Or a blue gray whale. Or a blue humpback whale.

I wish I could speak whale!

Isn't it cute? I think it's a capybara.

Best of all, though, is the irony of having a tree adorned with paper dinosaurs. Creatures that roamed the Earth, if you believe in that whole evolution thing, quite a while before any wise men roamed the Earth. The fact that we've gussied up our Christmas tree (which in itself is a good pagan symbol of the solstice) with dinosaurs really tickles me.

Less ticklish but equally ironic is this mini tank. My son insists it's not an M1-A1 Abrams, but I think it pretty much is. Peace on Earth, y'all.

And no Christmas tree would be complete without a star on top. Sam gets the glory for creating this masterpiece from like six sheets of origami paper.

Happy solstice, happy Mayan end of the world, Merry Christmas, and everything that goes along with it. If you've got a special decoration you're proud of, let us know in the comments.