We will be open our regular hours (9-5 Mountain Time) Monday and Tuesday the 22nd and 23rd of December, and will close sometime early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve. All trading, shipping, and receiving will continue as always, and then we’ll take a long weekend off…

And we’ll re-open for our regular hours Monday and Tuesday December 29th and 30th, again making a short day of it on New Year’s Eve, and starting a second consecutive long weekend off on New Years Day.

On Monday, January 5th, we’ll be back in the saddle for the New Year and what promises to be an exciting 2004.

Amidst all the real festivities, let’s not forget that the shortest day of the year, December 21st, the Winter Solstice, is upon us. It means that from this day onward, only good things can follow as the days lengthen, if only a minute or so per day, over the next six months.

For thousands of years, various cultures have marked that day in which the sun makes its lowest and shortest transit across the sky. Although the Winter Solstice marks the beginning of winter, here in the desert of Arizona when daytime high temperatures average in the 70s, the concept of ‘winter’ really doesn’t amount to much of a threat. To us, it just means that the days start to get longer, and what we laughingly call winter is just about over.

As a matter of fact, glorious, sunny Spring Training is just a few weeks away.

So light a candle tonight, or a whole tree, and enjoy the turn of the season. Because this is the one time of the year that we can all say,


“Things are looking up.”