The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we went to get our Christmas tree. The specific criteria we had made it hard to find a place to go:

I just heard that the Washington Redskins store had a Cyber Monday sale. Great deals, we missed, but you had to go to the web site, pick out what you want, and phone them to place your order.

Vanya's school had a Thanksgiving thing where we all go eat with the class. V served himself a typical little kid lunch: chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, and a roll. While he was eating, the mom who brought the potatoes stopped and asked him how he liked them.

Tigers beat a conference team in a game that many expected them to lose. Saints win an important game that many expected them to lose. On Saturday, I had drinks with good friends and laughed my ass off all night.

A few weeks ago, I was about to head out the back door to put a couple of pork shoulders on the barbecue. Just as I was on my way out, Paul showed up and grabbed the door. I was home by myself, so I welcomed the excuse to ditch the kitchen cleanup and to sit out, smell the meat, and run our mouths.

There's no one of my age -- at least no one whose family hails from the rural South -- who hasn't heard, "When I was bad, Daddy made me go outside and pick my own switch." I always dismissed this as old person hyperbole. In my mind it belongs with, "I walked fourteen miles to school barefoot every day, and it was uphill in both directions."

I don't see anyone else still carrying an iPod classic around, but mine is indispensable, and I spent the better part of a day distraught that I'm one hard drive failure from not having one any more.

Guess how many hours I've spent tracking down and looking at the trove of celeb naked pictures this week? Read this whole post, and find out.

When we last checked in with our intrepid voyagers on Velvet Elvis, they were at a nice little anchorage at about the spot where the civilized Florida coast dissappears for good. We left there between 5:00 and 6:00, knowing that our first all day-all night-all day sail was ahead of us.

I was getting ready for work this morning, and I substituted a long sleeved button down shirt for my usual short sleeved short.

Before I start my story, let me say to all of my Facebook friends that I've really enjoyed everyone's first day of school pictures. At least one of you has extremely cute kids. Go ahead and keep thinking it's you.

There's a certain segment of my family that has earned some notariety with the rest of the family for their propensity for making snacks out of other snacks.