Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving greetings, personal news and more...

Happy Thanksgiving Day, everyone! I got up early and fixed cornbread and sausage stuffing (I’d fixed the cornbread last night along with some banana pudding). The turkey is fresh and raised locally. I packed the bird with cornbread and sausage stuffing and it's now roasting. I had banana pudding for breakfast which would have been a Thanksgiving favorite had the Pilgrims landed in Honduras. Even if we can’t rewrite history, we can at least experience it! I hope all of you who read this have a wonderful thanksgiving and if the dinner comes out to be a disaster, well, that’ll be material for another blog post or two!

Personal News: I am feeling like such a bad blogger as I have been so incredibility busy lately. It’s mostly good! My big project which has taken most of my energy for the past five years is finally winding down. Someone recently asked me what’s next and I think I found it. I have been offered an incredible gift for the upcoming year—a sabbatical—and I am now working on the details on a round-the-world trip that will involve no (or as few as possible) airplanes. If any of my readers have taken freighters, I’d love to hear from you. When the details are worked out, I’ll share them with you. This may cut down on my blogging in the short-term, but should be a boom to my blogging for the long-term.

National, Local and More Personal News: What should have been yesterday’s headline in newspapers: “Tom is now really delayed.” Closer to home, we have a former county commissioner and former county Republican party chief who is charged with animal cruelty. When a police officer asked him what he was doing with a dead wet cat that didn’t belong to him, he said he was trying to teach it to swim. It’s a sad thing, the only positive outcome being the new jokes around the coffee shop. And, when our boys in blue aren’t rustling up cat-nappers, they’re pulling over you-know-who. That’s right, yesterday, for the first time in 30 years, I saw blue lights on my tail. Humbled, I pulled over and the officer came up and asked for my license and registration. As I was looking through the glove compartment for my truck’s papers, I asked what I’d done. The officer said my driving was fine but I was missing a sticker on my license. Sure enough, I pulled out my registration and there was the sticker stapled to it. The officer laughed and allowed me to put it on. He ran my license and then gave it back to me saying that I had an “exemplary driving record.” My only problem is that my truck registration comes up in January and the stickers say that you have to put it on when it is warm and dry (which is never is in Michigan in January). So, waiting for a nice day, I forgot all about the sticker. At least the officer was nice about it and I didn’t get a ticket or anything.

23 comments:

  1. Glad to hear a long term project is coming to fruition. And sabbatical! Such a magic word. I was gettign ready to apply for one right when Katrina hit. haven't had a chance to think of it since.

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  2. I'm glad you didn't get a ticket!!

    Your dressing sounds great and I hope it all turns out well. Happy Thanksgiving!

    Freighters?? Not on your life!!

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  3. whew.,..i would have gotten a ticket...lol. happy thanksgiving!

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  4. Happy Thanksgiving. You got some things there to be thankful for. Sabbatical has a nice ring to it; I'm looking forward to all those round the world blog posts, and I truly understand your aversion to airplanes.

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  5. Hi Sage: Don't worry, my friend, about regular posting. As I am learning from you, Alisa, Hilary and others, Blogging really is alive and well. I thought about you when I read about new theories concerning the loss of the frieghter, "The Edmund Fitzgerald". You are the most seasoned traveler and sturdy, knowledgeable guy I know to take a sabbatical and record your impressions for the rest of us. Happy Thanksgiving. I am grateful for your Blog!

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  6. Seriously Sage a whole year (near enough) with the wrong tag? You walk with angels, either take the plate into the house and let it warm up for a bit or take the hair dryer out to the car and warm up both tag and plate because they really do not adhere well in the cold.

    If you want to go all Detroit, once it's adhered take a razor blade and slit it about ten times that way no one can peel it off and use it. It is actually the same as a stolen plate.

    Have a wonderful holiday and I know you will never forget but be grateful first to God and the family he has given you.

    Be Well

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  7. Happy Thanksgiving to you and all of yours.

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  8. Like you, I'm not a big fan of flying. I'm still debating on whether to join the hockey team in Philly this coming February for their final tournament or just end the season here in January.

    Btw, most guys don't get off that easily when pulled over by a cop (at least not in my town), but you did have the sticker in your glove box, so that must've counted for something. Glad you didn't end up in the slammer, my friend! ;)

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  9. Thanksgiving dinner is way over, guests have all left, there is a fire in the hearth and I'm stuffed as that bird was this morning... I should write a post about flying--it's not that I'm afraid of it (I don't it quite frequently), it's just that I don't like being squished inside that cigar and I find planes and airports so impersonal. If I have the time, I'll take the train.

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  10. By freighters you mean container ships? I hear it's noisy.

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  11. The sabbatical sounds wonderful.
    I fly too often--unfortunately it's much cheaper than trains

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  12. I trust your T-day went well. I, too, made cornbread and sausage stuffing, but I tried a new (recommended by a friend) recipe, instead of my grandmother's Alabama variety.

    Big mistake.

    I must remember to sacrifice a pan of cornbread to her spirit in penance.

    The good news, was that her corn casserole and creamed spinach were a hit.

    Cheers.

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  13. A ride on a freighter? Is there room for one more? This would be Big A's trip of a lifetime.

    You've now made it into that officer's all-time favorite pull overs. :-)

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  14. Awesome Sage--Prayers and Traveling Mercies--You better Shape up before you Ship Out!

    I hope you have tons of adventures and share them all!

    Was that a free range Bird??

    Blessings,

    John

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  15. the pilgrims should have taken turns and land everywhere. I love this Holiday. Come to think of it, I never blogged about last years TG when I ran out of gas...had to use the grill and unaware that the aluminum pan was not going to hold, had flames that resemble an explosion and of course the bird was completely black on the outside and uncooked on the inside.
    Sounds very promissing for future.

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  16. Your 'round-the-world sabbatical will be a most marvelous opportunity...and how could it not be a boon in your blogging once you get going?! I remember my mother talking about a guy she knew when she was young who worked on a "tramp steamer" only for the love of travel, and it is how - in her romantic view - she thought she would want to travel, if she ever did, which she did not.

    I like your description of yourself in your profile as a "desert rat." I am too...a Reno girl. Have lived in NW Oregon a long time now but the desert is always a part of me.

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  17. Sage, Happy belated Thanksgiving. The banana pudding sounds great. Looking forward to reading the many stories to come from your upcoming sabbatical. I will try to post next Saturday morning with photos of my Thanksgiving weekend.

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  18. I got pulled over last week, too! For following too closely. *eye roll* That's almost embarrassing to even tell. At least if I had been doing 120 in a 45, it'd make a good story.

    Also, I trust that was homemade banana pudding, and not this instant-pudding-with-vanilla-wafers crap that some places try and call banana pudding.

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  19. Isn't that blue light thing the worst? I got pulled over earlier this year for not stopping at a stop sign for a sufficient enough time. He pulled my record - no tickets in the last 20 years and told me that the police are not out there because of people like me. He felt bad for giving me a ticket, so gave me one for a seatbelt violation instead of a stop sign violation. Much cheaper.

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  20. Wow.. a world trip.. how exciting.. can't wait to hear the details. And that really was nice of the officer not to press further. It all sounds very up to me. :)

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  21. Can you talk with my boss about a one year sabbatical? Sounds like a great time and I can't wait to hear about your journey.

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  22. By the way, let me know if you need a guest blogger while you're gone. I need to introduce the iSage app :)

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  23. I wanna know more about this trip around the world!!! Can you take TC with you?!?! I am the traveling chica after all!

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