Where are all the bloggers?

One of the things I like to read are the blogs on blogger. com. But for some reason, few people are updating regularly. Can't say any good reason for that. It's free after all.

So I've taken the lead in blog posts. I'll keep the fire burning.

Today, I thought I might get the Christmas decorations down, but I only got a few of them done. I did take several loads to Goodwill. I washed 2 of the cars. Guess whose?

Oh, and I did get a 12 mile training run it today. I saw a friend of mine Chris yesterday and asked "Did you run today?" He said he was going to do 12 miles today and I volunteered to go with him - meet outside his house at 0700. Needless to say, he didn't make it :) But I did.

He'll be sorry he missed this golden opportunity .

Friday after Thanksgiving

We had a nice Thanksgiving yesterday, driving to grandmother's house in the morning. After a little time getting the food together, we all (5) sat down to Thanksgiving dinner. Lots to be thankful for. That afternoon, we took it easy in the evening, we watched the UT/A&M game. The Horns lost but you can't begrudge the Aggies anything. If anyone had to send us to a losing season, it might as well be them.

Today was a fun one. Sarah and I drove back for the Memorial/Cibolo Steele H.S. playoff game. On the way home my friend John S. called about going to the game together. So we rode over there and watched Steele win 48-31. It was not even that close, with Steele leading 42-0 at one point. But it was a good season and I enjoyed all the game.

Hard to believe next year is Sarah's senior year. Just a handful of games left. I'm glad I saw as many as I did this year.

Favorite Thanksgiving Memory

My parents like to say that when I went to college, that I drove out of the driveway in August 1983 and they didn't hear from me for 2 weeks. I think that's an exaggeration: I must have called from the road or when I got there.

But it's true that once I was there, I was like Cortez in Mexico, no turning back. They did come to visit for Parent's Weekend. But there were no visits home.

By Thanksgiving we had a week off and I was ready to get back to Austin. I had arranged to ride with a group of friends - the prospect of the group must have been appealing. So 5 of us were in a '72 Buick and headed south. 8 hours later, with me in the middle of the back seat, we were in Nashville, TN for the night.

Now I had tickets to see the Police in concert on Saturday night in Austin. That night I got a call (I was staying with my friend Richard) that the car was broken and would likely not be fixed until noon.

Wait until noon to leave? Miss the concert? Ride 14 more hours in the middle?

I called American Airlines that night and booked a reasonable priced flight for Saturday. Nashville to DFW to Austin. Richard took me to the airport. Home that afternoon. Well worth it!

I was obviously ready to get home and made it happen. One friend Jeff later recalled "We weren't going to get home fast enough for Greg, so he flew". So true.

It was the longest I'd been away at that time. It made it all the special to be home. I guess we would have gone to my grandmother's house for Thanksgiving Day. We did that mostly, if we didn't go to my Uncle Vernon's and Aunt Sharon's in those years. I recall those dinners as particularly large and lots of family there since we were all in Austin.

Car talk

I went to a meeting with another car guy today. Fortunately I'd gotten my car back from the shop - all cleaned up. I got my baby back/baby back/baby back...

"How much horsepower does that have?"

[pause... confirming if he was worthy of the specific answer...]

"604"

[no topping that :)]

So he was telling me about trading the Nissan GT-R for a Dodge Viper and getting an offer to trade the Viper for a Corvette ZR-1.

So it was cool to say, "I've driven a ZR-1. That's an awesome car".

If any women want to find out what is going on in a man's head... as they said on Top Gear:

"Not much"

Sittin on a Bar Stool

Actually, I'm sitting in the Austin Java coffee shop. That old Charlie Daniels song "Drinkin My Baby Goodbye" was on the radio on the way up and it was in my head. It'd be a good one to learn to play - Pour me another one/I'm finished with the other one/I'm drinkin my baby goodbye.

There was a lot of drinking going on this weekend for the Gonzalez Palacios TMLT golf tournament that I came here for. I got here Friday and played golf in the afternoon. The guy I played with Vinny took advantage of the Buy 5 beers Get 1 Free offer on the course - twice. He had some help with them from the other 2 players. Then Friday night they had a nice dinner and the bar was open late. I enjoyed the dinner but snuck out at 11 to get back to the hotel.

The tournament was a lot of fun. I really like the course - reminded me of my old home courses here in Austin, Lions Municipal and Riverside. I played pretty good but there were a lot of good players here. Afterwards we had a mid day lunch - a la Thanksgiving. It broke up about 3:30. I was ready to play golf again (nothing else to do) so I went and got my putter and wedge to go to the practice green about 4:30.

I took a wrong turn and was on the golf course. The green was open so I hit a few shots into it. Looked different. Then there was a trail that led to the tee box through the bottom of a creek bed. Amazing what you find exploring. Then I was on a tee box. Looked different. Hit a shot. Still different.

I realized I was on the other course. And since it was so late, I was the ONLY one out there. So... I proceed to play the other course with a wedge and putter. Stayed out til it was dark. A lot of fun!

REminded me of another song "Sign Says - you ain't supposed to be here!" But I was a resort guest and dressed for the occasion so nobody noticed. :)

I went to see the movie 127 Hours and really liked it. It's probably an Austin thing but check it out if it comes to your town.

Week before Thanksgiving

I'm trying to get as much work done this week before people (such as myself) start holiday mode and will not be around for work. Today, I made a bit of progress. I'll be in Austin Friday so I've only got 2 more days to work with.

My car is in the shop so I've got a rental for the week. A Toyota Corolla which is a midsize car if you can believe that. But most cars are tending to get larger over the years. This one should be a very economical ride up to Austin Friday and back Sunday.

In my spare time today I did get to review my Twitter posts for the past year. They're pretty interesting to me at least. Like a journal. It was interesting that some were pretty wise while others were little sayings that pop into my head e.g. Better to light one single candle than to curse the darkness.

Tomorrow I've got to go to Bankruptcy Court and then I have a 3:00 appointment at the office.

I'm hoping to get a bit of golf practice in before rounds on Friday and Sat. in Austin, but that didn't happen today. Tomorrow doesn't look so good either. Oh well, I'll probably just rely on my 10,000 hours of experience.

Go Mustangs!

I went to Laredo yesterday on the football booster club charter bus to watch Memorial play Eagle Pass in the first round of the 5A Division 2 high school football playoffs. I'm glad I went to cheer them on: it was a great game and Memorial won 28-20.

We left about noon and its a 3 hour drive there. Once we got there, we set up a tailgate party and stayed there until about 4:30 and went over to the game starting at 5:00. I got to see Sarah before and they seemed happy to see me.

The game was pretty exciting. We got off to a 28-7 lead but pourous defense allowed 2 TDs. Eagle Pass missed the extra point to make it 28-20 and then we were able to make a long drive on the ground to run out the clock. Good offense won the game for us.

Afterwards, we rode the bus home and it was great to sleep most of the way.

Today there is a car show at Palmer Pavillion which I am planning to go to. May also see the movie Due Date