Most of the family is in town, so no long-distance travel will be involved for me.

As for the menu, I really prefer it to be predominantly traditional. However, I must confess that as I go through the Christmas Tour every year, the only thing I want to eat between the Christmas parties is Mexican or Asian just to have something completely different.

How long do I have to wait for Uncle Sam to break up AT&T again? Wire telephony is the only area in the whole communications "utilities" that isn't a monopoly or near-monopoly. Just because there are two options doesn't mean that there is competition in the marketplace.

* Today is my big work day of this week. Nothing else to focus on but work.

* Tomorrow morning, I will be getting two old fillings replaced. A little bit of my military dentistry history will be removed from my mouth. I probably won't get back to working until after lunch.

* I think Wednesday will easily slip into "Friday" mode with doing prep for T-giving. I'll be working, but the probability for distractions will be very high.

* Thanksgiving will be at my parents' house. Shortlegs will be coming down from Nashville and is going to be staying a few days.

* JD and her mom will be doing the "5am Until Physical Collapse" shopping spree on Friday. I have decreed Friday to be "Manly Black Friday" at the Berry home. It is way past time for the hole in the garage ceiling from where I fell through earlier this year to get patched up. Before/during/after the replacement of the drywall for the ceiling, we're going to add extra bracing and put down more plywood flooring in the attic. While that work is getting done, Calvin and Mac will be working on drilling out and hanging the new bedroom door for the boys' room (Calvin kicked a hole in the door earlier this year while having a tantrum). Mom will keep Harper and/or Nigel preoccupied while the guys are working.

We'll be doing the home improvement stuff in the morning and will have the Iron Bowl serving as our deadline early that afternoon (although I will have the DVR set to record it and we'll likely start watching it 30 minutes later anyway). I'm still debating what sort of food stuffs we could throw in a crockpot overnight or first thing in the morning to feed us during the game so we aren't sending someone out on a fast food run.

(Insert obligatory answer that my family/children is my proudest life accomplishment.)

Okay, now that's out of the way, I would have to say that my work in talk radio is my proudest accomplishment. If that is too general... I'll narrow it down to making it to a Top 5 market (Dallas/Ft. Worth), taking a morning slot that was at the bottom of the ratings (36 or 38th?) and taking it into the top 15 in about a year and a half. While flipping formats on a music station can result in swift changes in ratings, things tend to be much slower in talk radio. Listeners get emotionally attached (either love or hatred) for the on-air personalities. Coming into a show with few listeners, winning them over, and getting listeners that typically listen to other stations to switch over to you isn't easy. The level of effort that Darrell and I put into that show was really astronomical.

I have kept my old card-style rolodex of all the numbers I collected while in talk radio. Undoubtedly, at least half of the cards are hopelessly outdated. Just before leaving radio, I copied all of my rolodex into a Word file; so I have all the data. I just have a certain nostalgia for this now outdated method for storing and retrieving contact information to couple with my own personal experience with this particular rolodex.

But I'm trying to shed some of my pack rat mentality and getting rid of silly knick-knacks I attempt to keep because of nostalgia is where the process is now. This rolodex isn't something I will likely ever find useful again. Is it worth my stashing it away again on some shelf for me to look at in several years for 5 minutes? I certainly have lots of other radio memorabilia (much of which takes up far less space), so why hang onto this item?

I need to get famous so I have someone or some institution interested in keeping my mementos I don't want to store myself.

For a full week now, I've had some sort of headache every day. Last Thursday, I had coughing fits that gave me a tremendous tension headache for much of the afternoon and evening. On Friday, the coughing only gave me a very mild ache. I woke up Saturday hungover. Sunday, I had a mild headache when I woke up. This week has seen switches between waking with a sinus-like headache or getting a tension headache from an occasional coughing fit. I really am ready to shake whatever it is that is causing this continuing trend.

I'll recap on the weekend later when I get the pics off my camera. It was a well-needed refresher for mental wellbeing. Much fun and relaxing was had.

Now, I'm doing some catch-up on work before my dentist appointment this morning to get my new cavity filled.

For the 5th day in a row, I have some sort of headache. Thursday and Friday, when I coughed, the muscles on my head spasmed so much that I ended up with a headache (tremendously painful one on Thursday). Saturday's headache was mostly due to the alcohol from Friday night. Yesterday's creeping headache in the afternoon was probably a bit related to dehydration since my soda to water/juice ratio went completely wonky.

Why a headache this morning? Maybe sinus, today's headache is more in the forehead area than the full-skull headaches of the past several days.

This situation is only one CD better than never hearing any music again. Are there albums I love that I could be happy with for a long time? Yes. But to have only one collection of 80 minutes or less of music for the rest of my life? HELLISH!!!

I was going to complain and then post my best guess, but while the practical aspects of the question and the stated limitation of a single CD would make me lean toward some sort of compilation, I know that no album could possibly keep me satisfied for the rest of my life (unless I'm going to die in less than a year).

It seems that our DVR got a bit fried yesterday. JD said that shortly after they got home yesterday afternoon, there was a quick off/on blackout. Last evening, I go to watch a show and there is a 7-10 second delay before it would start a show, ff, rew, skip ahead or back, and there would be odd time lapses and freezes when pausing live TV. I did the obligatory reboots and saw no change. It was too late by that point to contact tech support.

This morning, JD notifies me that the DVR is still funky. I get disconnected while waiting on the phone for Dish, but yet again got great customer service over chat. After checking some system settings and outputs, my DVR was deemed totaled and a replacement one is on the way (no charge). I should have the new DVR in 2-3 days. I really hope it arrives Thursday afternoon because there are too many shows that JD and I watch on Thursday nights. I hope I don't end up spending a couple of hours watching Hulu to catch up on the NBC shows I missed.

Some of these playlists have themes and others are just collections of songs I think go well together. Today's has a definite theme - Falsetto Fiesta!!!

( Tiny Tim - 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips (on Laugh In)' )
( The Darkness - 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love' )
( Fine Young Cannibals - 'She Drives Me Crazy' )
( Earth, Wind, & Fire - 'Reasons (live)' )
( Bee Gee's - 'More Than a Woman' )
( Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons - 'Sherry' )
( Lenny Kravitz - 'It Ain't Over Til It's Over' )
( U2 - 'Lemon' )

For the past month or so the boys and I have been waiting for us to have several days of no rain so the ground will dry up and we could camp in the backyard. We were planning on camping out either Sat or Sun night but the three of us are sick. I'm really frustrated because I'm really hoping to get a campout done before the overnight temps get below freezing. While I have a sub-zero sleeping bag, neither of the boys' are recommended for less than 20 degrees or so. There is a 50% chance of showers overnight, but the rest of this week looks dry. Can we get well enough soon enough in the week for us to camp before I leave for Nashville?

Today I went to the dentist for the first time in over 6 years. Ick. I've been fretting this for the past few years because I've become more and more concerned about the likelihood of needing a root canal. I went about 4 years without a dental visit starting in college until I got dental insurance from WTN/WSM. That first visit resulted in an appointment for a root canal. I was convinced that my current, longer span was going to certainly lead to another root canal.

Thankfully, a root canal is not in my foreseeable future.

Since I had a ton of fillings put in my head in the early 80's, I've been anticipating the need to replace those fillings. Two fillings will be replaced in a couple of weeks. I have one new cavity that will be filled the Monday after my weekend in Nashville. What was unexpected, through, is that I'm getting some periodontal treatment done for some plaque buildup below the gums. I'm now using an electric toothbrush with a tip to help clean below the gumline and a medicated mouthwash. I think I'm supposed to do the mouthwash over the next couple of weeks just before going to sleep. Over the few weeks, I'll go in to get half of my teeth cleaned (with emphasis on clearing out the hard plaque below the gums), another visit to do the other half the same way, and a third visit which will be basically the usual cleaning.

While not cheap, all of this comes to a cost that is a third of what we just spent on JD's mouth (which included a root canal).

Um...but there is one odd thing I'm concerned about. As I'm getting ready to leave, the hygienist said that she should warn me that some folks have complained about food at breakfast not tasting quite right the morning after they take the medicated mouthwash (chlorhexidine).

There's so much blame to be placed with the racing at Talladega. I'll try to keep this brief.

1. NASCAR - Switch to engines small enough that you will remove the restrictor plate. All the power in the world is moot when you have to have your pedal to the floor for a lap and a half to get to full speed and there's nothing you can do to pass because everyone always has their pedals to the floor. I would also like to see some of the aerodynamics fucked with so cars don't cut through the air quite as well. No, it is harder to get more exiting than seeing 40 cars in a 3-wide pack. HOWEVER, a whole race like that is freakin' dangerous! Allow the cars to get some space between them. I miss a trend from the mid 90's where there was a good-sized front pack, a large middle pack, and then a straggler pack. NASCAR will have to give up the ghost on packing everyone together or they're going to see most of the field continue to be knocked out in more than one wreck per race or drivers will just give up and line up in a train.

2. Mike Helton - WTF with morning announcements that basically completely screw over what people can do on the track? Decide on these rules before final practice, you idiot!

3. Drivers - Not all of them fit into one or more of these categories, but many folks do: A) Don't pitch a fit and say "I'm just going to stay in line all day," B) stop bumping folks in the corners, C) don't let you crew chief talk you into a fuel strategy at Talladega; there WILL be a wreck near the end of the race to use up the last of your fuel before the checkered flag waves.

4. Talladega - It's probably worthwhile paving over most of the grass in the infield. Make it possible for cars to escape wrecks by driving through there. Also, invest in a study to see if graduated banking can be incorporated to smooth out the transition from the corner banking to the apron. Too many times, a car at the bottom has bumped against the apron and been bounced up the track to the outside wall.