Uncle Crappy’s been slacking once again. Busy. With, uh, stuff. Here’s what you missed:

* I’ve skied twice, on the last two Fridays, both at Seven Springs. The first trip was nice, with about four inches of fresh snow and a decent number of trail open. Last week’s trip, however, was killer, as good as I’ve ever seen Seven Springs. Nearly everything open, fresh snow covering the corduroy, nobody in my way … wow. Finally getting to go was a little like seeing moe. last summer — just the thing I need to shake a little funk.

* The Wife and I spent Friday night gallery hopping at the, uh, gallery hop dahntahn. Fun. Good art. Beer. We’ll go again.

* While we were heading to Pittsburgh Friday night, we got a call from sister of Uncle Crappy, who said her family would be in Canton for a few days, because of the death of my brother in law’s grandmother.

One of the reasons we went to Canton on Saturday was to pay our respects; she was a neat lady. But the other reason we drove to Canton was to see the Florida kids — two of whom were born in Cleveland but moved south before they could gather any significant memories of winter — play in the snow.

It was totally worth the trip. When we pulled into the driveway, all three kids were bundled up and running around outside. Actually, the youngest wasn’t running; her face was all red because she had been eating handfuls of snow. The boys, however, were beside themselves. The older had already built one snowman and was working on a second; the younger was diving, face-first, into piles of snow by the driveway. I did my best to start a snowball fight, and we ran around a bit, both before and after some family visiting.

My sister was worried about how cold it had been leading up to the weekend, but on the day we were there, Canton was positively balmy. She should have gotten a taste of real northern winter before they left, though; it looked like it was snowing in Canton on Sunday, and I know it got a whole lot colder. I imagine the boys would have been pretty wound if they got some significant snowfall while they were up north.

* The rest of my time has been devoted to getting ready for Groundhog weekend. We’re holding the party at the new home of the Grandhog and his brother, in a location that should have been pretty easy for people to get to. But I was a bit bummed to find that only a handful of people are planning to attend. This has led to some thoughts about all things Groundhog-related … but I’m not going to get into those now. We’re going to have a good weekend anyway…

* Last night, The Wife and I finally got around to drinking the bottle of Delirium Noel we bought three weeks before Christmas. Beer shouldn’t be allowed to be that good.