In Huntley, IL for the Thanksgiving holiday.

I made a flight early Tuesday morning out of LaGuardia and will spend a week in these parts.

The last time I got back to see the family for turkey day was 2009.  What’s nice about this visit is that I’m on my final vacation week of the calendar year and won’t have to rush back to punch a clock.

I hope to watch Jets/Pats on the tube here at my folks’ place after we eat pumpkin pie.  The next day, we’ll drive 150 miles north to a cabin on a lake where the air smells good.

There are a couple of high school basketball games on the docket.

My brother Tim is a Notre Dame grad so on Saturday night we’ll likely try to find a place with a television to see ND-USC.  It’s win and the Irish are in but this is a very difficult spot.  Southern Cal’s quarterback Matt Barkley won’t play after spraining his right shoulder against UCLA last weekend.  The Trojans always have a big arm waiting in the wings and will call on redshirt freshman Max Wittek to help engineer the upset.  The line is Irish minus six.  The “#1” sign atop Grace Hall in South Bend is lit up but I’m not convinced it will stay that way for long.  Games like this are very tough on an undefeated team – especially ones that have played a less than rugged schedule.  Yeah, the win at Norman was impressive – and yeah the Coliseum’s mellow climate isn’t automatic doom for a visitor – but Kiffin is gonna find a way to put some points on the board.  The hotshot ‘SC coach is gasping.  He’s desperate to win this game and I’d be real nervous if I’m an Irish fan.  Briefly reaching the top spot in the rankings after two decades of mediocrity doesn’t mean a whole lot unless ND plays in the title game.  I’ll abstain from a prediction because I want to see Notre Dame play for a national championship but if I had to make a bet, I’d take the six for sure.

Notre Dame is pushing Manti Te’o for the Heisman and he’ll definitely go to New York for the ceremony.  As they advance Te’o’s case, Irish athletic department officials are citing published Heisman Trust criteria for the award including the provision “pursuit of excellence with integrity.”  This is obvious and smug code for ND’s effort to inject an inflated view of its identity and image on an election that’s almost always won by football players who put points on the board.  Te’o is a great football player and he likely has lots of integrity.  But he’s a tackler.  He tackles guys with ferocity and he anchors a defense that has allowed only eight touchdowns in eleven games.  He’s a big part of the reason the Irish are contending for a title.  But he’s not a quarterback or dominant rusher.  He doesn’t even sack the quarterback.  He’s not winning the Heisman.

-Dense fog blanketed the Chicago area Wednesday morning.  It went away by mid-day but by that time significant havoc had been reeked at the city’s two airports on an important and already stressful air travel day.  Visibility dropped to near zero at both O’Hare and Midway on the day before Thanksgiving.  Chicago-bound airplanes without cockpit technology allowing CAT 3 landings were forced to sit at their origins.  Pilots can take off in the stuff as long as they can safely find their way to the departure runway but arrivals are tricky.  Given the  near-standstill on the arrivals side, airlines cancelled over two hundred flights through mid-day.  Having seen the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at the airport ruined like this in years’ past, it’s safe to say lots of passengers with solidly built Thanksgiving plans will end up with badly altered itineraries.  Mature adults adversely affected by this made-by-nature problem will openly cry right there in gate areas and ticket counters.  It will not be pretty.  I’m glad I’m not at an airport on days like this.

-The most helpful web site in instances like the one above was out of service for the duration of Chicago’s fog problem.  The “National Airport Status Summary” page maintained by the FAA is your best source for specific information about air traffic flow constraints caused by weather or volume.  The info laid out on the site mirrors the guidance issued to airlines.  It’s reliable.  Unfortunately, those who turned to the site during a period of several hours Wednesday morning got the following message via re-direct:  “We’re sorry.  You have reached this page because the site is currently down.  Please check back soon, as we are currently working to get the issue resolved.  Thank you, FAA Web Operations Team.

-One TSR programming note:  I’m a bit behind on Punter of the Week.  I had Kluwe all ready to go but left the write-up on my computer at home and forget to bring it along.  I’ll listen to a lot of football games this weekend and will get back in the Punter groove early next week.  The Kluwe segment will be posted on return.