Gonna Be a Cold One . . .

Got up at 7:00 AM or so, got dressed and went into the great room. Turned on the lights, Judie had closed all the blinds, a sure indicator of cold weather as she is trying to shield as much of the house as possible to prevent cold intrusion. Looked at the thermometer on the patio, and it read about 39 degrees or so. Checked the electronic gizmo do dad thermometer and it read 31.8 degrees.

So I got the coffee pot ready to go, put out the cereal bowl, got the coffee creamer and sweetners (note: new lexicon - can not imbide in sugar anymore so I use "Equal" and "Splenda"), poured up the cereal - Cheerio's, and added 2% milk to the mixture. Then I went out and got the newspaper. Returned to settle in and eat my daily cereal and read the paper. Temperature had dropped to 31.2 degrees on the super duper gizmo thermometer.

After cleaning up the cereal paraphernalia, tossed the folded newspaper into Judie's chair and fired up the computer. Perused the email, some spam, nothing to reply to. Did the crossword puzzles in the USA Today and Washington Post and now into this blog.

I'm looking out at Enrights driveway, I can see it is glazed over, his roof looks slick too, so I'm surmising, it is frozen over. Gonna be a slick and cold day. Time to hunker down.

Everybody, drive slow and carefully please.

Soup Time

Yep, it's soup time. We got Smoked Turkey and Split Pea (with ham) soups. The kids are coming over and we will rid ourselves of some the Christmas excess. Good thing about it, the excess, I mean, it turns into great leftovers dishes like soup. Soup is the elixir for cold winter days, it both warms you up and fills you up.

And we will have such culinary delights as crushed bacon to sprinkle on the Split Pea Soup. And Tabasco for the Turkey Soup - zips it up alive with heat! And for us old Louisianians, a small taste of File' for the Turkey Soup quickly turns it into gumbo.

And it's cold outside. Still air but still cold. Right around freezing. Perhaps a couple of pro football games and certainly a couple of basketball games will be on the TV. If not we can locate a good movie to watch. Switch on the fire place, yes that's right switch it on. Gas logs behind a glass cover, you reach up and flip the switch and it lights off. Does not give off much heat, more for show than anything else but sets the tone so to speak. Kinda cuts down the cold a bit.

Tax time will soon arrive. Even though funds went down they still produce capital gains. We will have to get our annual issue of TurboTax to do the taxes. We have been using it since 1985 and it has saved us a lot of money. Plus it eliminates all math errors.

Get ready. . . .

Texas Number 1 - Not!

Colt McCoy put on a good show after getting beat up here and there by completing a pass for a touch down in the last seconds of the game to win. Neither team looked great, no blow outs, just smash mouth football. And once again poor Ohio met its match out of conference resulting in a loss.

So University of Texas number one, sorry, no way. Good, even great but not national champions. Ever since Texas Tech showed that they were beatable, they have had to fight to stay in the game. And Texas Tech got run over by Ole Miss, one of the several beatings administered by SEC teams in post season bowl games. Both Texas Tech and Texas are good teams but not quite to the tippy top. Florida and Oklahoma will settle that issue Thursday night.

I feel sorry for Ohio State, they keep going to big bowls and keep getting beat. Tressel is a great coach but he is not getting the job done. He may suffer the fate of Tommy Tuberville - out before his time. I hope not, since he provides good cannon fodder for the SEC and Big 12.

Looks to me like the SEC did it to their opponents again. Big 10 is certainly not producing the winners like those two conferences. The PAC Ten has flashes ala University of Southern California. Mountain West is coming on strong. Look at what the Utes did to Bama.

AAC is not quite there either as is the Mid America conference. And the independents are slowly aligning with a conference now days. Notre Dame will hold out to the end but they are presently struggling.

Clearly the competition in the SEC is as tough as it gets. Any one SEC team can rise up and beat another. There are no undefeated teams in the SEC.

Next year will be equally good. See that LSU has hired away Tennessee's defensive coach. Now if they get rid of Crowton things will really look up. He's a good coach but a terrible offensive coordinator. Saw where LSU got a new coach for defensive line and for offensive backfield. So Miles has regrouped and looks like he is going for it again next year.

Til then . . . .

Its Begun . . .

The turkey carcass has been aboil for a while now, wonderful aroma of smoked turkey abounds though the house. The pecan smoked sausage has been added to the simmering pot along with some onions and celery. Maybe even a bay leaf in there, don't know. This is my lovely wife's concoction, not mine. I started this tradition but she is finishing it. So it is a bit out of my control.

I do not know if bullion cubes or chicken broth were used in the water base. No matter it is just as good. Maybe both.

The bones for the most part have been removed and it is now declared to be "soup!"

We had generous bowls of smoked turkey soup with rice last night. And we are gonna have it again tonight. I add a bit of Tobassco and dash of file when I serve up my bowl of the soup. Makes a little more "gumbo-ish" to me.

Right now there must be five candles burning to rid us of that mouth watering smokey aroma. Well, you know, got to get things back to normal.

We have lots of pieces of smoked turkey left, so we will have a season of it so to speak.

The pot made about a gallon and half in this initial batch.

So it will last a while.

As son James would say, "Yummy."

Chomp, Chomp, Chomp . . .

No, I am not referring to copious Christmas meals, I am referring to the Tiger eating the Yellow Jacket. The vaunted Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, those engineers that embarrassed University of Georgia which beat the crap out of LSU, got there behinds whipped. LSU, a decided underdog, went into the Georgia Dome, Georgia
Techs home field and back yard, and creamed them.

One comment from a newspaper reader said, I looked at the stats and they were about even, what happened to the scoring. Simple, LSU capitalized on Georgia Tech errors and scored, while, LSU did not make many errors and Georgia Tech did not score.

It was special teams that did the job and a hearty defense that bottled up the Sierra Hotel Georgia Tech running game. Yes, they did get some nice runs off, but then so did LSU - mostly into the end zone. LSU pulled off an on side kick, did a three and out, punted to Georgia Tech who fumbled the reception back to LSU. LSU scored.

LSU had an 86 yard pass TD called back. Georgia Tech did not have any such plays called back. They did give up three penalties in a row on one drive and LSU capitalized on that too.

To wit, LSU opportunistic offense came alive and ate up the Georgia Tech team. GT looked good at times but could not put it altogether.

All in all it was a pleasant game to watch. The defense played well, and the trick plays like the fake punt worked. Colt David even had a 53 or 54 yard field goal, we will see him again on Sundays somewhere.

Twas a good New Years Eve.