In Huntley, IL for the Thanksgiving holiday.<\/p>\n
I made a flight early Tuesday morning out of LaGuardia and will spend a week in these parts.<\/p>\n
The last time I got back to see the family for turkey day was 2009.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
I hope to watch Jets\/Pats on the tube here at my folks’ place after we eat pumpkin pie.\u00a0 The next day, we’ll drive 150 miles north to a cabin on a lake where the air smells good.<\/p>\n
There are a couple of high school basketball games on the docket.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 It’s win and the Irish are in but this is a very difficult spot.\u00a0 Southern Cal’s quarterback Matt Barkley won’t play after spraining his right shoulder against UCLA last weekend.\u00a0 The Trojans always have a big arm waiting in the wings and will call on redshirt freshman Max Wittek to help engineer the upset.\u00a0 The line is Irish minus six.\u00a0 The “#1” sign atop Grace Hall in South Bend is lit up but I’m not convinced it will stay that way for long.\u00a0 Games like this are very tough on an undefeated team – especially ones that have played a less than rugged schedule.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The hotshot ‘SC coach is gasping.\u00a0 He’s desperate to win this game and I’d be real nervous if I’m an Irish fan.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame is pushing Manti Te’o for the Heisman and he’ll definitely go to New York for the ceremony.\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Te’o is a great football player and he likely has lots of integrity.\u00a0 But he’s a tackler.\u00a0 He tackles guys with ferocity and he anchors a defense that has allowed only eight touchdowns in eleven games.\u00a0 He’s a big part of the reason the Irish are contending for a title.\u00a0 But he’s not a quarterback or dominant rusher.\u00a0 He doesn’t even sack the quarterback.\u00a0 He’s not winning the Heisman.<\/p>\n
-Dense fog blanketed the Chicago area Wednesday morning.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Visibility dropped to near zero at both O’Hare and Midway on the day before Thanksgiving.\u00a0 Chicago-bound airplanes without cockpit technology allowing CAT 3 landings were forced to sit at their origins.\u00a0 Pilots can take off in the stuff as long as they can safely find their way to the departure runway but arrivals are tricky.\u00a0 Given the\u00a0 near-standstill on the arrivals side, airlines cancelled over two hundred flights through mid-day.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Mature adults adversely affected by this made-by-nature problem will openly cry right there in gate areas and ticket counters.\u00a0 It will not be pretty.\u00a0 I’m glad I’m not at an airport on days like this.<\/p>\n
-The most helpful web site in instances like the one above was out of service for the duration of Chicago’s fog problem.\u00a0 The “National Airport Status Summary” page <\/a>maintained by the FAA is your best source for specific information about air traffic flow constraints caused by weather or volume.\u00a0 The info laid out on the site mirrors the guidance issued to airlines.\u00a0 It’s reliable.\u00a0 Unfortunately, those who turned to the site during a period of several hours Wednesday morning got the following message via re-direct:\u00a0 “We’re sorry.\u00a0 You have reached this page because the site is currently down.\u00a0 Please check back soon, as we are currently working to get the issue resolved.\u00a0 Thank you, FAA Web Operations Team.<\/p>\n -One TSR programming note:\u00a0 I\u2019m a bit behind on Punter of the Week.\u00a0 I had Kluwe all ready to go but left the write-up on my computer at home and forget to bring it along.\u00a0 I\u2019ll listen to a lot of football games this weekend and will get back in the Punter groove early next week.\u00a0 The Kluwe segment will be posted on return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.\u00a0 … Continue reading