Sacrebleu! INVADERS!!!

"So let me get this right. You aren't going to watch another football game for the rest of the year?"
"Yes... well, no. I mean, You are correct in that statement"
Long pause. "Why not?"
And here is where the background information shall be revealed. I shall start by saying it was a bipolar week; Wonderful highs mixed with painful and maddening lows. I shall begin with the end, as I have already done, and proceed backwards through this last week.
The reason I did not post a blog yesterday is because my father, in all his care and worry, but quite possibly in an effort to probably try and call what he assumed to be a bluff on my part, took me to the hospital to get my hand examined and x-rayed. You see, I had a rather unfortunate Sunday night as a Packer fan.I have allowed these events, which I have no control over and no impact on, to have a huge impact on the way my week goes. I have gotten amazingly better at accepting a win as a win, no matter how ugly, and everyone loses at some point so I can accept those with some form of dignity. However, when every contest against the Giants brings us a visual debacle in which receivers don't separate, lineman come out of their stance and then just get knocked back, linebackers seem to not flow to the ball carrier or their coverage assignment, and Rodgers refuses to get rid of the ball, seems frightened the whole time, and misses wide open catchers, then I get rather upset. No matter how how the Pack is and how downtrodden the Giants, we never play a good game against them. I stopped watching after McCarthy settled for a field goal at the 10 yard line. We had gotten kicked up and down the field to the tune of 24 points, and then got stopped 4 inches short of a first down. When you are getting beat that bad, a field goal is like putting a band-aid on a gash; it's a sign that you are resigned tot he fact that you are done, and you just want to make it seem that you are still trying. With 3:30 left in the half, you punch back and show YOUR team that you are still in this fight, that they are still swinging to win. I know I'm not no coach, and definitely no McCarthy, but that is my opinion. The Pack seemingly given up, so I gave up, and proceeded to spend the rest of the night doing two things; laundry and hitting my punching bag. I do not have boxing gloves, so both my wrist and my knuckles tend to get quite a punishment during my round with the bag, and in this case I appear to have jammed my right ring knuckle down and back into my hand and also pushed my middle knuckle (also on the right hand) further toward my thumb than is natural. My knuckles are scraped pretty raw, too. I was fine with it, but when my dad saw it in the morning, he began to contended warmly with me regarding 'throwing future away by letting my hand shrivel up and wear away' through lack of medical care. We compromised; I went to the hospital under the agreement that I would not have to do anything they told me. So here I am today, typing with a slightly mangled hand. Cheers world! It is due to this outcome that I have decided to not watch football for the rest of the year. It will be a great challenge, but I must resist. I have to know that it is not that important, that it has no right or reason to influence me to beat on a fifty pound bag for 90 minutes.
Anyway, the rest of the week was mostly better. We Spent Wednesday through Saturday with my Aunt and Uncle, Nancy and Keith, and their adorable daughters. I ate like a pig the whole time. I went through 5 bags of candy on the drive to and from Nashville. I had a serving of turkey on Thursday that would have choked a great Red Dragon. I ate an entire pie (pumpkin, of course). I had four steaks, topped with melting cheese and sides of mounding mashed potatoes. I devoured a half dozen turkey, avocado, bacon, and pepper jack tortilla wraps. I ate a salad that filled an entire serving dish, heaped with garbanzo beans, cheese, bacon, turkey, cherry tomatoes, and topped with a Caesar dressing. It was sooooooo good. YUM! The company was spectacular. The little cousins swarmed me, a little too much to be perfectly honest, but they are so sweet, so I was purty okay with it. On the way down we ended up driving through a fog that cut vision to maybe 25 feet in front of the car. Even driving 20 miles an hour slower than normal, it would have given us about .3 seconds to recognize the danger ahead of us, react, and bring the car to a complete stop... not likely. We were actually barely staying on the road while driving through Indiana. But, we saw no accidents and arrived safe. Christmas miracle!
The rest of the week was fairly ho-hum. Not a great deal going on. Doing good. Living... I'm looking for a good book to read though. Any suggestions?

The Late Night Post with Curella Deville

It has been two weeks yet again. It is a bit harder to stay consistently posting each and every week when I no longer can only use the internet once a week. How peculiar it is that I seem to be accomplishing far less now that I have almost all day to do whatever I want. On to the real content!
WE have had some amazing weather in Wisconsin these past two weeks. I have gone for runs and ended up shirtless multiple times, I went for a walk tonight and wore only jeans and a T-Shirt. It just began raining again, but I even enjoy the rain at this point. I have always enjoyed rain, as well as fog, so I am hardly bothered by them.
Another wonderfully fun thing that I have done this past fortnight is playing with Quigley. He has seemingly been taking an even greater liking to me since I began to play with his balls whenever he wants... oh, I should probably let everyone know who doesn't that Quigley is my families overly active and exuberant Red Heeler. He is a magnificent dog. Now it is hopefully not so awkward. He has mellowed out a bit relative to where he was when I left for my mission, which is a very good thing. He was almost to the point where he was out of hand and we were considering finding a nice farm for him so he would have all the running room he wanted, but it did not have to come to that.
This past weekend was the highlight of the last 14 days. I was able to go back up to school and see people that I was planning on possibly never seeing again, because that is unfortunately what happens. Once graduation has transpired, your class comes together in a giant group hug, and you all swear to see each other every other weekend for the next entirety of your earthly lives. It is sad that in a lot of cases you never get together again, so I was very pleased that I could see so many of you. To those I haven't seen, I tried, but I am without my former cellular telephonic device, so it made it pretty hard to get in touch with anyone. I shall return!
Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night.

Home Field Advantage

I must say that I love Packer games. After the Packers went a combined 0-6 with me in attendance, they have won the last two when I have made my presence felt. That puts a good feeling in my stomach. I felt very guilty about cheering them into defeat for the last 22 years while sitting on the benches of Lambeau Field, but the last 10 months have been much better. It was a great win for the ground game, and the defense was great on (most) third down stands. Casey Hayward gets to the ball. I was unsure about him coming out of Vandy, but he has performed better than I expected. Brad Jones has returned to his rookie form after spending far too much time being purely mediocre. Ryan Taylor can block. Defenses are going to start watching Crabtree, the ugliest man in the NFL. Rodgers showed his feet but was both high and low on way too many throws. It was good to see some hard running from Green and Starks. I miss Kuhn, Nelson, Woodson, and Jennings, and will be missing Matthews.
This past Friday, I was given the opportunity from my great-great-grandfather, Adam Mason, to fly up from south Milwaukee. He needed a plane, and asked me to accompany him in fetching one. It was a lot of fun to fly at night. I have been doing a lot of flying the last six months, and will fly again in December. To Utah, to Cali, back to Milwaukee, then flying into Sheboygan. Next month, I will fly to Denver, where my brother Tom and I will be reunited in an overt display of flamboyance that would get us court marshalled if we were in the military. From there, we shall travel to Phoenix to see our beautiful sister, her hunky hubby, and our oh-so-cute nephew. I may even run a race down there in AZ.
I have also been doing some cooking. My mother has taken to sending me recipes and telling me to just follow the directions, and wouldn't you know it, it works. Isn't that incredible? I have added Chicken White Chili and a charcoal cooked Ham to my thus far still short list of achievements, but I am working on expanding my culinary horizons.
I think that about wraps it up... except that Ke$ha and Gangnam have been stuck in my head all week.