Hello on Sunday Morning

Dear Friends,

We had a pleasant, but cold day in Kansas on Saturday. The birthday party never took place since the birthday boy had a double ear infection.
We decided to pack up the car, and head toward Kansas City. Our first stop was lunch at a place called Oklahoma Hoe's Barbecue, Visualize a garage station, like a Mobile Mart, with a separate room, that serves all kinds of barbecue stuff starting at 11 AM. When we arrived, the small place was packed, and it wasn't even noon time (it opens at 11 AM). Any kind of tender meat, beef, pork, ribs, etc, was there for the offering. Beer and soda was also available.
We heard about this place on the food channel when they did a segment on the best barbecue places across the United States. There is another one in Kansas called Arthur Bryant's Barbecue. We will hit that one the next time that we visit Kansas.
After a quick lunch, we headed off to downtown Kansas. They had a plaza where they had those bouncy castles, and pony rides. Isabelle has so much fun, but she really loved the pony rides.
She has already been on a regular size horse when she visited her other grandparents who lives in Minnesota. The horses belogned to a fiend of Danielle's. I can see Isabelle eventually taking riding lessons when she gets a little older.

We never made it to Walmart to purchase cold weather gear. We actually need turtle necks and a winter coat. It never reached the 50 degree mark on Saturday. 47 degrees will be the high for today. They already showed pictures of the fans tailgating at Arrowhead Stadium this morning at 7 AM. The Chiefs play Dallas at 1 PM.

I am fighting a cold. I am content to sit on my butt, and watch Professional Football all day long. My Patriots play at 4:15 PM. This game will be nationally televised. I think that the Red Sox might be doing battle today also in Fenway.

We drove to the Irish Festival last evening around 5 PM. Again visualize a small town of about 4000 people growing to over 20 thousand people. The festival is located on a side street, but the grounds are very small. We drove around looking for a parking place. We were improperly dressed. We gave up! We went to an Italian Restaurant a couple of miles from where Mike & Danielle (& Isabelle) live.

Politics -- "Don't ask, don't tell" , Health Care", and whether to send more troops to Afghanistan took up most of our President's day on Saturday. He is having problems taking care of all of his campaign promises.

Observation -- I was watching the Good Morning America Show, and there was a lady on from Foxboro, Massachusetts, home of the Patriots. She wants schools to be able to randomly test students for alcohol use and abuse. She lost a daughter due to an alcohol related death, so this has been her cause. They also had on a Civil Rights person who said that this is too much of a violation of our civil rights. She urged the parents to get more involved with their children.
One time, I did bring in my personal breathalyzer to school. I let my students try it out. One of my students had a blood alcohol reading of .05. Anything over .08 is legally intoxicated in Massachusetts. He told me that he was partying the night before. The alcohol never wore off from his partying.
I remember a high school dance where our vise-principal wanted the teacher chaperons to do a sniff test as the students walked into a dance. Most of us chaperons wanted no part of being professional sniffers.

Have a great weekend.
Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad