Is your holiday schedule filling up? It's time to mark down a couple of upcoming seasonal goings-on on this blog, if you don't mind. Buck-a-Hit Day -- our 10th annual charitable giving fest -- will be held all day and night next Wednesday, the 19th. Over the years, faithful readers and our family have given more than $50,677 to worthy local charities through this event on this day. Our record for any single year is $10,410, which we reached in 2011. We're going to try to beat that this year; more on our plans over the next several days. Please call your rich uncle.

And then on Thursday the 20th, we'll have our annual cyber-office Christmas party. We're not sure how many of these we've thrown now, and even if we did remember, we wouldn't say. Because what happens at the cyber-office Christmas party, stays at the cyber-office Christmas party. We'll crank it up in mid-afternoon that day. Please plan to come as you are.