They Ride

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Now we're sliding down the hill towards the holidays. The long weekend was enjoyable. Ran the Wild Turkey 5-miler in Salem on Thanksgiving Day and managed to catch the one hour of the day that didn't rain. Despite the roast beef sandwich and beer I had consumed the night before, I ran the race in a PR time of 36:33. Back at the ranch, we had a full house and did some serious chowing. By the third football game at 8, I was already falling asleep. The rest of the weekend was fairly mellow. We had some problems with our heat not working on Thursday (fortunately, it wasn't too cold out) and our toilet leaking water, so we had repair guys in to fix those problems on Friday and Saturday, but luckily we managed to escape any major bills.

I'm getting ready for another work trip, this time to New Orleans on Thursday. I haven't been to Nawlins since 1998, which seems like an eternity, especially now in this post-Katrina phase for the city. I'm staying in the French Quarter, which seems to have rebounded fairly well; it'll be interesting to see how the rest of the city's doing. It's a quick trip. The conference is Friday and Saturday and then I fly back Sunday morning. I'm looking forward to some of that great food.

Testify:

• I don't know about you, but I'm just shocked and chagrined about Pam Anderson and Kid Rock getting divorced. Who could have seen that coming?
• I watched the Patriots-Bears game Sunday at my buddy Phil's house on his 42-inch HD plasma screen. Wow, what a difference. Not that I'm going to go out and buy one because those things cost an arm and a leg, but man, that's an impressive viewing experience. Of course, HD just made seeing Junior Seau's broken arm that much more disgusting. Hell of a game. Nice to see the Pats pull one out, especially against such a tough defense.
• Hats off to the UNH football team, which won its first-round playoff game against Hampton Saturday in a 41-38 shootout. Now it's on to UMass this weekend, which will be tough because the Minutemen have a killer defense this season.