Monday, November 28, 2005

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.

5 comments:

Curt said...

Sorry Oracle, but I don't buy the "Selig is great" thought. In my mind, he hasn't went far enough in overhauling baseball's economic scheme, although a fair amount of that can he laid at the feet of the player's union. He will also never be forgiven for trying to contract the Twins. Both he and Pohlad will be assigned to lowest level of hell for that one. Of course, I am not at all bitter...

Curt in Grand Forks

Anonymous said...

Well, if we can ever get around to go bowling, I would love to play you in Battleship. Sounds like fun. Glad you had a good birthday!

Bud Selig is a slime if for no other reason than floating that stupid contraction plan. But I do like inter-league play and the wild card...

Cheesehead Craig said...

I will continue to be a Selig defender. He has had to make decisions on subjects that no other commish has ever had to even consider.

If you want Selig to suddenly implement an NFL-style revenue sharing and salary cap, it's not going to happen Curt. Nobody is going to agree to it and it would be foolish to even propose it. If that is your expectation of what he should have done, then keep drinking the Kool-Aid. What he has done is make some very good strides in helping out the smaller market teams with the revenue sharing.

As far as contraction goes Shane, I know that if it wasn't the Twins being mentioned you would be behind it.

All Selig has done is make the job of the next commish that much easier. He has created an environment where baseball can flourish.

Anonymous said...

Actually, CC, I can honestly say that after going through a contraction scare myself I am now of the opionion that no team should ever leave its host city. Ever. I don't even think the Expos should have left Montreal. I am completely against contraction, and all moving of any team now and forever more, amen.

So, I would not "be behind it." Not at all.

Anonymous said...

Get an NFL style cap? Not going to happen. 1)Selig is'nt dealing with the weak hockey union. And the backlash if an entire baseball season was cancelled would be 500 times intense.
2) Baseball is'nt in need of the complete overhaul like hockey was.3) With teams making money, the game on the upswing and some competitive balance returning, Selig would be on shaky ground convincing people an NHL style lockout was needed. The players union did'nt accumulate all this power overnight, they feasted on decades of Owner bungling.I think the Owners-if they stick together, can get some more concessions in the future, it's just going to take awhile.
In the meantime, Selig has done more to help the smaller market teams compete than his tag-team contraction partner has done to make a ballpark happen in Minnesota. Pohlad and his family need to be more pro-active.
YESTERDAY