Thanksgiving Scores

The following ratings are based on a 1-to-10 scale with 10 being the best and 1 being the worst.

Category: 2009 Thanksgiving Day

Rest: 8...Claire and I had a lazy morning, we slept well and there was little to no stress.

Company: 6.5...it is not that the people we were with were not fun, cause they were. We enjoyed the conversation and like the people we were with. I also love every minute I am with my wife. But the score reflects the missing family and other close friends that we were not with.

Food: Solid 6. My pancakes fell a bit flat (Why can't I ever remember to put enough sugar? I have been making these since I was a kid!) and my Famous Egg Nog was a little on the salty side. But the turkey that Suzie made was amazingly succulent (despite the lack of dark meat) and the rum cake was straight from Heaven. I was also missing the one thing I have had at EVERY Thanksgiving (and Christmas!) since I was born...Yiftees. It is not Thanksgiving without Yiftees. That certainly hurt the score.

Football: 2-minus. The only reason this is not a negative score, was that the 30-mins of the first half I got to see of the GB/Detroit game was actually pretty good. The rest...well, there was no rest. There was no football on at our friends house. We had Sly and the Family Stone albums playing and that was pretty cool, but the football was not there...Oh yea, I also gave consideration to the fact that I really did not miss anything and it was not Baseball.

Turkey: 8.75. I know I already mentioned the food, but this bird was rock'n. It was moist and good. I even had a turkey sandwich last night with nothing but a roll and the bird...no other thing was needed. Why was it not a 10? I love me some dark meat and it was not there. Apparently they sell white meat turkey only. For shame.

Weather: 9. It was Sixty Five and Sunny. What more could I want? Maybe 75 and sunny, but a 9 is a GREAT score.

What categories am I missing? How do you rate your Turkey day?

Honking the Horn and Getting Chubby..wink, wink, nudge, nudge

Most of the time I really like the fact that I live right next to the water. The ferry stop is 100 feet from our building, we have a great waterside view of downtown Norfolk and we just love being near water.

Then there are nights like last night that make us question the sanity of living on a busy waterway...1:30am...ONE THIRTY AM...on a Tuesday...a Navy ship decided it was time to test their horn. The ship is buoyed less than 150 yards from our place.

Navy ships have loud horns.

Especially at 1:30am.

Over and over and over and over...

I respect our Navy. I love our servicemen. I am married to one.

I HATE the horn honker at 1:30am.

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I really don't like the fact that the horn honking has continued on a regular basis ever since...about 5 or 6 honks per hour.

That last line...scratch it from your memory...sounds like a bad line from a B-Movie.

Or remember it if you are a movie script writer...I just want the credit.

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We decided to try this recipe from Tyler Florence on Monday night.

To prepare, we picked up a Sugar Pumpkin at the farmer's market this weekend. Well, at least we were told it was a sugar pumpkin. Sure, it was larger than the one's Tyler used, but the farmer's daughter told us this $6 pumpkin was the same...we believed her. (Little Lying Farmer's Daughter)

We then proceeded to make the pies...exactly how the recipe directs. We cook/bake often. We know how to follow a recipe.

The pies turned out way under sweet. They tasted vaguely like banana flavored pumpkin sauce that really needed sugar.

Boooooooo Farmer's Daughter....Boooooooooo,..

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We did manage to fix the pies last night with a little ingenuity and elbow grease...First, we took 1/2 a loaf of cinnamon bread and one of the pies...cubed them and turned them into this wonderful Cinnamon Banana Pumpkin bread pudding. Oh my. (We used this Paula Dean bread pudding as a basic guide)

Then I took the other pie, mixed in more sugar and made a new pie. It is okay...edible...but nothing like the greatness that is Cinnamon Banana Pumpkin Bread Pudding.

My love handles just got a lot more lovely.

Hoooray for the Holiday's!!! Hoooray for San Diego!!!

Its the most
Wonderful Time
Of the year...

I love the time from now until the end of the year. Christmas music is playing in the stores and I get to eat Turkey.

This weekend, Claire and I will be picking out a Christmas tree and decorating the house.

I love it!!!

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On Saturday...
1. Went to the Happiest Place on Earth
2. Made Chili with Claire...the 5 alarm type
3. Watched Cal beat Stanford...Watched Nebraska roll K-State
4. Walked around town to look at the Christmas lights

What else could you want from a Saturday?

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Chalk this up to my love of all things San Diego...

1. The Chargers won! Convincingly. First Place...woohoo!
2. Jimmie Johnson won. 4 NASCAR Sprint Titles in a row. I am not a watcher of NASCAR, but Jimmie is from San Diego. Ergo, hooray!
3. San Diego is named #1 Beer town in America. I don't drink beer, but San Diego was named #1...Rock-On San Diego!!!

Bring Me My Lychee

Our trip to the Second Happiest Place on Earth a couple of weeks ago was a wonderful time with Claire's family.

Having never spent time at Disney...except for that unusual situation in January, I was very excited to check out what people east of the Mississippi think is the Happiest Place on Earth.

And yes, we really did have a great time.

I am so blessed to have a family-in-law that I love to be with.

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The Food and Wine portion of the Disney trip was a bit disappointing. The food and wine booths they had lining Epcot were interesting, but the few things we tried were: 1. Expensive 2. Average.

I know, I know...what should I expect. We are at a theme park where food should be expected to be: 1. Expensive 2. Average

I just thought that since it was "Food and Wine Expo" that it might be a bit different.

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I will say, the amount of Lychee things I ate (mostly thanks to my wife finding them and bringing them home with her!!!) was fantast-i-licious! Gummies, hard candy, Sake, etc....yum, yum.

And if you have not tried a Lychee, you NEED to. A Lychee martini might be a good place to start.

SuperMegaNews...or just an update.

News...so much news...okay, just some news, but I figure if I make it sound important y'all would forgive the two weeks without an update.

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So I started a new job last week. I was surprised when I was recommended for a job with the SuperMegaCorporation. I was surprised when they flew me out and I liked it. I was surprised when they made a solid offer.

I am most surprised that I accepted and will be working from home some of the time...while traveling to the middle of the country some of the time.

I wanted to say "strange things are afoot at the Circle K", but that seemed so 1990's.

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So, I was gone last week...the week when the "Kill Bogart" storm hit P-Towne. If you click on the link, you will see the beginning of the flooding, including the ferry that stops at the base of our building...the same ferry that they say they don't shut down...the same ferry that was shut down for Thursday and Friday because the area that they dock (1.25min into the video) was completely underwater.

Oh, if you look for it, 59 seconds into the video, you will see a shot of the Big White Monstrosity that Team Bogart currently resides in...wooohooo.

Nothing like making the local news to make you feel famous...or something.

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Poor Claire had to deal with the crazy flooding all by herself. Even being rudely awakened on Thursday morning with water dripping on her head.

Drip....Drip....Drip...4:30am...Good thing she found the buckets and pans to catch all the water!

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My experience with the storm? We had wind shear warnings when we were landing on Friday night...made a couple of attempts to land and then were diverted to Raleigh-Durham, NC. We deplaned, sat around and then reboarded. We made one final attempt, landing safely around midnight.

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It is nice to be back home. It is nice to be back to the blog.

Alive and Well...Thanks for Checking In

Being alive is good.

While we did have a couple of close calls upon landing on Friday night in Norfolk, including a redirect to North Carolina, Bogart is alive and well.

As far as the blogging goes, well, clearly I have lacked in that department for the past two weeks.

I know it is really no excuse, but I was in Chicago then Kansas City, covering the better part of the last two weeks...

I do have so much news and still owe you an update of pictures from Disney.

I will be getting to it soon.

No, really, I will.