Miscellaneous end of the month post...

It's that time of the month, err, well, that time where I just sort of blurt out random crap that's driving me nuts in some weird form of Internet therapy (who the hell would do that anyway??)

• Nice game tonight Bears. Vegas had you finishing 8-8 and you're just dying to make them right. Charles "Peanut" Tillman, you're STILL horrible. All of the people who tell me different need to have their heads checked
• We spent some $$ this week. Who says the economy is in a recession? They're quoting that Black Friday sales were up 7% this year on last. Is this just all of us trying to find a deal and then pinching back or are we all shop-a-holics who are trying to drown our misery in material things? New in our house is a Blu-Ray DVD player and a Wii. All nicely installed into our "man-cave" in the basement which isn't really a man-cave as it's a "MK-Duey Cave" We both love all the gadgets and games and of course, alcohol.
• Another Thanksgiving has come and gone and I still love my turkey. Every year we vow to have more of it during the year and now that I brine them, I think that's an easy thing to do. Whipped up a batch of Turkey A La King tonight. Yumm-o (sorry Rachel Ray)
• Another tree is cut, transported, "mounted" and decorated in the LoCicero household. Despite the rampant flu running through our house we still pulled out the ladders and decorated that 10 foot bad-boy today. I've come to accept that there's no perfect trees in the forest (or the nursery) and in some small sort of way they'll always be Charlie Brown trees that are just counting on us to make them beautiful. This is the biggest one yet and it's definitely coming down the day after Xmas this year. Last year I waited and it was a holy-hell mess.
• This coming week is the boy's 1st Birthday. I can't believe how fast a year has gone. I'm sure I won't believe how fast the next 17 go either.
• Watched a lot of High School Football this weekend. There's nothing like the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving in Illinois. I think the IHSA has done the right thing by going to an 8-class system. The games are more exciting and you can truly see the differences in talent, the bigger the schools are. Congrats to Immaculate Conception and St. Francis, two old "West Suburban Catholic Conference" foes who we (Benet Academy) usually beat easily 'back in the day'.
• Today was the first snow in the area that "stuck" to the grass/ground. I guess it's finally here. So much for being able to wear nice shoes and shorts. Also makes walking the dog a pain in the arse.

That's it for November. Only 142 days to our Mediterranean Cruise leaving from Barcelona, Spain. Something warm to think of during these cold, dark months.

Macy's Parade gets "Rick-Rolled"

This is classic. Laughed my arse off. For those of you who don't know what "rick-rolling" is, here's a link.

Sports traditions

Lots of discussion, both on tv and in my household, about how important professional sports traditions are and whether they should always continue. But when we all tried to continue to bring up examples of long-standing ones, we fell very short of well, a handful.

• Celebs/People singing of "Take Me out to the Ballgame" at Wrigley
• Stanley Cup winners being allowed to have Lord Stanley for one day to do with what they please (with escort of course)
• (not professional) but the cutting of the nets in basketball after winning the NCAA Regional or the Final
• Jets fans always being disappointed on draft day and
• Thanksgiving Day football played in Detroit & Dallas

And it's the last one that has everyone talking. With Detroit having been miserable over the last 9 seasons, (40-100 as of 11/28/08) it's called into question whether these "traditions" should continue. During this same period the Lions are 2-7 on Thanksgiving Day.

Only the NBA has marquee games on a specific day (Christmas) and they usually pick the "hot" teams as it's the start of their network television coverage for the season (they are usually on cable up until that point).

But with this tradition, well, first of all it's over 70 years old. The Lions have been playing on Thanksgiving since 1934 (except '39-'44), but even before the Lions, there were teams since 1920 who played on this day. Also, the Lions are good for an occasional upset or two. Although I don't remember it, my Dad and Father-in-Law reminisced about how the unbeaten Packers marched in one Thanksgiving and how Bart Starr got his butt sacked a bunch of times and the Lions won.

So although I'm partly in the camp to dump the Lions, we'd have to dump the Cowboys too to be fair. When you get down to it, both the Lions and the Cowboys are roughly .500 ballclubs on this day and that's only because they play it every year, so either of them have their "moments", but it's only because the Matt Millen-era of the Lions has them in a 9-year slide that it's noticeable.

At the end of the day here, I think we just have to leave it to the Lions and Cowboys. a) Their fans are used to adjusting their feasting schedule to either the parking lots of their stadiums or in their own homes, b) it truly is one of the last long-standing traditions and c) for those not living in Detroit or Dallas, isn't it SUPPOSED TO BE just background noise while enjoying the company of your loved ones, chowing down, and starting of the holiday season?

I actually hate it when the Bears play in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day as it's hard to watch the game and well, not swear ;-p

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay

Time to pull out the big bow saw and sharpen the blades as hunting season is open and I gots to kill me a big ass Evergreen the day after Thanksgiving. (that's the first day of the season so don't be late!!)

This will be the fourth year of our trek out to Spring Bluff Nursery in nearby Sugar Grove. It's quite nice and it's going to be especially fun dragging Aidan out there for the first time. I can't wait to see his eyes when we get rolling out there.

What I love about it is that all trees are $40 no matter the size, shape, condition and they zip it into a mesh sort of bag and tie it to the roof of your favorite SUV (they actually tied it to the roof of my Camry when I had it). You first jump on the back of a hayride trailer and they bring you out to the portion of the nursery where they will let you cut. You then walk for awhile until you see "the tree" and then you go at it and hack it down. You drag it back to the main trail and then they whip it onto the back of the trailer and you head back to the main lot.

They have a continuous fire going and you can get hot chocolate and other goodies. Plus you can visit their little shed and buy live wreaths and other holiday-type things. Last year when MK was very pregnant, I took my Dad and he was amazed at the operation.

So this year, I'm going to stick to roughly a 8 footer. If we get bigger than that, it becomes onerous to decorate and we end up having problems. This year also, we have a much bigger and sturdier base for the tree. The last couple years as we've bought bigger and bigger trees, we've had a few incidents. Nothing like losing a few ornaments to a crash in the middle of the night.

Additionally Wrigley has been messing with the tree and chewing on it. DK how we're going to stop that this year but we'll also have a little boy who is going to want to pull on things. It's gonna be an interesting four weeks with that tree in our house.