Hodgepodge

Thanksgiving at my parent's new place this year was a rather big affair. It was the first time in quite a while that all six kids were together with all of their kids as both myself and my oldest sister live out of state (she's in TX). So it was one quite full house, but a lot of fun was had by all.

We ended up staying at my sister Amy's house as her and her husband have a huge home, so there was plenty of room for all. They have a very nice dog that my kids just loved being around, and an evil cat that unsucessfully tried several times to kill us all in our sleep, but the dog took care of him each time.

Amy's husband Tom works for a construction company for his dad. Tom's pretty much in charge of the business and is the heir to the throne. So he used his power to take my son off to where the construction equipment is kept and had him sit in the cab with him of a huge excavator. Now, my 5 year old loves construction so he just about burst with excitement. Tom showed him how everything worked and even let Adam manuever the excavator around and dig a hole. It was awesome! No pictures unfortunately right now as my camera was at home and my sister had not sent me the pictures from her camera yet. Adam had a great time and was grinning ear to ear. Not too many 5 year olds can say they have worked some serious construction equipment. He even was saying that he wanted to stay and live with Tom and Amy so that he could work on the equipment all the time.

One of the highlights of the weekend though, was playing Texas Hold 'Em with Tom's friends. There were 10 of us total at the table and yours truly who has not played poker in about 1.5 years, walked away the winner and $100 richer. Once you find out who bluffs and how they play, your odds of walking away the winner go up tremendously. Winning the final hand with pocket kings (my first pocket pair of the night) certainly helped things out.

I had my 35th birthday on Sunday and it was good. I was given my gifts in bed by my wife and kids in the morning. My son had a huge smile on his face with the card and gift he got me, which was the game of Battleship. After we went to church, we came home, set the game up and played. After a long game, I ended up winning 5-4. Hey, I can beat my son at a game on my birthday so don't go crying about that I should have gone easy on him. You try intentionally throwing a game to a 5 year old and see how easy it is. Oh and Shane, I think we have our final event for the Backyard Border Battle to go with chess and bowling.

Packers
I totally disagree with Bob McGinn about his article on why the Packers lost the game. He states that the defense is at fault for not being able to stop a team at the end of a game. They should not be in that spot to begin with as I point out at The Frozen Tundra.

Badgers
With their win in Hawaii, they finish the regular season with a 9-3 record and the Capital One Bowl in their sights. The officials from the bowl have said that unless Ohio State gets screwed by the BCS bowls, that the Badgers get the nod. A January 2 bowl is a great way for Barry to go out.

Brewers
A great article by Tom Haudricourt over at the Journal Sentinel about Bud Selig, and what a great commissioner he has been. I could not agree more. He has his critics and has made some mistakes. But his successes have been outstanding and frankly the game is much better than it ever has been.

Bucks
After the great start, they have cooled off a bit. I am not too worried as they have played a rather tough schedule and are still looking good. They are outrebounding teams and eventually that will result into more and more wins.