Brian just informed me that the comments were not working on the site, so I fixed an error (which I made a few months ago) and now all my readers can comment again--both of you.

I wonder how many great comments I've missed?

I'm announcing the first December 31-Day Challenge. In order to participate, you simply have to post here in the comments that you are taking up the challenge, and then post to your blog at least once every day for all 31 days in December. I will be doing it whether or not I have any co-bloggers. If you join in the challenge and make it all 31 days, I will send you a prize at the end. But don't forget to comment here if you're participating. Good luck

A scientist at my office just told me he was going to the "metabolic transmigration facility." Where do these guys come from?

Dear Butch,

I understand that you would rather be 8-4 with a loss to an arch rival than 5-7 with a win. And I can also understand that a loss to a hated rival does not define a season.

But I would be remiss if I did not point out that you will probably never win a national championship without beating State, and (I'm sorry to inform you) a loss to State does in fact diminish what the team has accomplished this year.

While I can respect the attempt to cast this as "just another game," this is not actually just another game, and that approach is not working for you. It is time to get out your 2010 calendar and a big red marker and circle the date of next year's State game.

Though you can go to the Kenan football offices on Monday and be surrounded by sympathetic UNC supporters, the rest of us will have to go to work and face down the gloating masses, who have nothing else to be proud of but another convincing win over our "suck @$$" team (their words--not mine).

9-4 will still sound good next season (if we win the church's chicken podunk bowl), but we regular-guy fans will have to put up with that bull $#!+ for another 12 months.

Thank you for your time.

Miles Travis, class of '00  

I went to the "Rock" (as in Roxboro, NC) for Thanksgiving today. That's where my grandmother lives, we had a smallish gathering that included Mama H, Kim, Dixon, Skip, Maggie, Mom, Dad, and the Pattens--Sarah, Aaron, and Emma. As usual the food was outstanding, and I even got to load up a tin pie-plate with leftovers for the weekend.

If Brooklynne was here, I'm sure she would have gone all out to contribute our share of the fixin's, so there was some pressure for me to represent our branch of the Travis clan. However, I've only really been to the store once since Brooklynne left, and all I got was spaghetti sauce and noodles. So, it was time for some old-school, Miles-style razzle-dazzle in the kitchen.

I got up this morning and surveyed the available ingredients. I wanted to make something traditional, but I really didn't have anything that fit the bill, so I had to be creative. Here's my train of thought:

Let's see.... I have one sweet potato (left from before Brooklynne flew out). That's kind of Thanksgivingy. What could I make that takes only one sweet potato? A pie? No--that takes 2 lbs. This one is maybe 1/2 lb. Maybe that would be enough for cookies? Is there such a thing as sweet potato cookies? (I looked in The Joy of Cooking.) No sweet potato cookies listed. But I do have all the ingredients for oatmeal cookies. Could I make sweet potato flavored oatmeal cookies? I'll never know until I try....

An hour and a half later I had a large dish of sweet potato-oatmeal cookies. Don't laugh--they got rave reviews at dinner. In fact, they got such good reviews, that I am posting the recipe here for my own future reference and for Kim and Mama H. One caveat before I continue, though: this was an experimental batch, and they came out kind of flat and gooey, so the baking time is still open to tweaking. I'm putting exactly what I did in the directions below, but I'll put a note at the bottom of the recipe explaining baking time and temp options that might be worth experimenting with.

1. Position a rack in the top third of the oven.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 375.
3. Grease several cookie sheets (at least 3 for the most efficient baking rotation).
4. Skin, chop, and boil 1 average-sized sweet potato until it is very soft.
5. Whisk together:
   • 2 cups all-purpose flour
   • 1 teaspoon baking soda
   • 1 teaspoon baking powder
   • 1/2 teaspoon salt
   • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
   • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
   • 1/2 teaspoon all-spice
   • 1/2 teaspoon cloves.
6. Beat until well blended:
   • 2 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
   • 1.5 cups packed light or dark brown sugar (this is what the oatmeal cookie recipe called for, but I discovered at this point that I did not have brown sugar, so I substituted 1.5 cups regular white sugar and 3/4 cup molasses)
   • 3/4 cup sugar (just to be clear, this is in addition to the other sugar I used to simulate the brown sugar)
   • 2 large eggs (Kim mentioned that increasing the eggs may help the cookies keep their shape later--so perhaps worth trying 3 eggs?)
   • 2.5 teaspoons vanilla.
7. Beat the sweet potato into the butter mixure until the "sauce" is smooth.
8. Stir the flour mixture into the butter/potato mixure.
9. Stir in 4 cups rolled oats.
10. Use a tablespoon to drop the dough onto the cookie sheets. An even tablespoon will make a large cookie. You should space them at least two inches apart, and I got the best results by limiting myself to only 9 cookies per sheet.
11. Bake one sheet at a time. I found that 10 minutes was the best amount of time, but I was also using the "speed bake" feature on my oven. If you do not have "speed bake," you may have to bake the cookies longer, or increase the temp to 400. The cookies will come out darker bron than typical oatmeal cookies and you should take them out when they are just barely firm in the middle.
12. Let the cookies firm up on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a rack for cooling. I got in a rhythm of taking one sheet out of the oven, placing the next sheet in to bake, and then loading a third sheet with dough while the first sheet cooled (thus the 3 sheets from step 3 above). Once the third sheet was ready to go in the oven, the first sheet would be cool and the cookies could be removed to the cooling rack. Then I would repeat the pattern. The recipe yielded 6 batches of 9 large cookies (54 total).

Brooklynne took the digi with her out west, so I dug out my old and trusty film camera. Then I had a debate--should I spring for new film, or should I use the 7-year-old film that I found in a box at the top of my closet? Cheap son of gun that I am, I decided to use up the old film first. Well, I don't know if it was the old film or the process of putting the pictures on DVD that messed them up, but they all came out really grainy. Oh well, they are still fun to share, so have fun enjoying some more of the pictures after the "continue reading" jump.

**Update: after posting the pictures, I realized that all the good shots came from outside places we ate. Weird.

This weekend, I drove to NYC and got to catch up with Will "the thrill" Hart, Brian "Possum" Sellers, and Cory "ridge hippy" Cavin. Brooklynne took the digital with her to UT, so I had to dig up the old, actual-film camera, which I don't think I've used since Brooklynne and I took our trip to Barrow, AK in 2004. I took two rolls of film over the weekend, so if any of the shots come out, I'll scan and post them here tomorrow. But for now, here's a couple of pics from Cory's iphone.

My girls skyped me today so we could talk face-to-face before I leave town. Beau was too busy crawling around to speak much, but he did try to eat the webcam from time to time. Here are some snapshots of the fam in UT.

I've heard of instant replay, but should an entire game be replayed because of a blown call? Well, soccer fans, it has happened before (in 2005), and Ireland wants it to happen again. Check out the video of the game-winning goal that will likely send France to the World Cup over Ireland. If you don't speak German, the guy is saying that 1) France was offsides before the kick, and 2) Henry played the ball in-bounds with his hand. It will be interesting to see how FIFA will rule, but it's a fat chance FIFA takes this one away from France.

I forgot to mention that I made it a total guy cooking night by setting up the laptop in the kitchen and watching Aliens while making the sauce. I'm sure the Alien Queen would find my sauce tasty.

My office is having a thanksgiving potluck today. I wanted to contribute, so I tried to think of something that was

1. traditional
2. cheap
3. easy
4. cold (so I could make it the night before and not worry about reheating)

I settled on fresh cranberry sauce. Brooklynne has the camera in Utah, I think, so you will have to settle for and approximation. This is about what the finished product looked like.

Welcome Barnes!

Harrison Barnes will announce his choice of schools in a press conference today at 4pm. If you don't already know who Barnes is, he is the #1 ranked college basketball recruit, and he will be choosing between offers from Duke and UNC, as well as Kansas, UCLA, Iowa State (he lives in Ames), and others. He has said that he's interested in schools with top-flight business schools (which favors both UNC and Duke).

Beyond all of that, he seems like a really nice guy. Check out this video and then click here to see his highlight reel.

Brooklynne is taking the kids out west for a while. They haven't ever met their great grandparents on Brooklynne's mom's side, so that will be good. And they haven't seen any of Brooklynne's family since the summer (except Katie, of course).

So... I'm baching it for the next couple weeks. Here's my to-do list for my first day alone:

1. Enjoy quiet house
2. Sleep

Short--but effective. Tomorrow the while-you-were-away project work begins.

Not that it was ever really bad... but I was telling Brooklynne last night that the kids have been more enjoyable, I've got some creative outlets, I feel more in tune with God, I feel like there are exciting changes on the horizon that we can anticipate, and I'm reconnecting with old friends. Even the disappointments kind of lose their bitterness.

A color-inverted image of our sun.