Yes my friends…there’s actual news to report from the Home Office this week.

Last Monday…Alabama and Clemson played in the National Championship Game…and as you saw Clemson won the game pretty convincingly. I’m not convinced that overall the Tigers are a that much better team…but they were definitely the better team that night so congrats to them. On the other hand…not to take anything away from their performance…Alabama just didn’t play like Alabama that day. They were outplayed most of the game and a lot of that goes back to Clemson just having a better game plan but a lot of it goes back to just not “following the process” as Nick Saban says. After the first two early touchdowns…one by each team…we figured it would be a back and forth game with somebody making a play at the end to win. Alabama decided to run the ball a lot to shorten the game as Clemson’s offense is pretty good…they put up 300 yards passing and almost 200 rushing…but were terrible on third down and just didn’t finish drives they way they normally do. Given the offense on the other side…going 1 for 5 in the red zone just ain’t gonna cut it. Saban’s press conference after the game said it all…couldn’t get off the field on 3rd down on defense, mistakes in the red zone, and didn’t capitalize on opportunities. A lot of credit goes to Clemson’s game plan for that though…changing pass coverage looks after the snap to confuse the quarterback and they made the key stops they needed to to end scoring opportunities. 

I wouldn’t be surprised to see both of them back in the playoffs next year…both return a lot of talent and both demonstrated this year that they’re the two best teams in the country.

Our friends Bill and Linda got here the day after the game for a week’s visit from NC…they’re glad to be here instead of up there in the snow and ice. We’ve been doing trailer projects all week and eating good food. They’ll head out Tuesday morning for visits to some other places.

We discovered a brake failure on Little Red this week…rear brake pads are shot and one of the rear rotors is toast as well…strange that after only 25K miles that pads are worn out and even stranger that it’s rear pads as usually they last much longer than front pads which do most of the braking. We have an appointment Tuesday morning and Neil will head down to get them fixed as well as an oil change.

The weather down here continues to be nice…mostly highs in the 70s to 80s and lows in 50s to 60s with occasional high 40s but it warms up pretty quickly in the morning.

Our mobile RV tech Gordon was by a week or so ago to replace the fabric for our slide toppers…the seams had failed due to sun and wind the past two summers. It’s a 2 person job to replace them…Gordon will provide a helper for a higher labor rate but Neil did it instead and they got them replaced in about 3 hours.

Connie’s getting closer to being done picking out campgrounds for the upcoming travel season…Neil will get to making reservations this week and also still has a few projects he needs to finish up…once Bill and Linda head out he’ll start knocking things out.

The eaglets are thriving…they’re growing rapidly although still don’t have anything but their downy feathers.

Interesting things found on the net this week.

Remember the old grammar school pneumonic “I before e except after c.”…well, maybe not so much.

Not today they don’t.

The rest of the story…as Paul Harvey used to say.

Food for thought.

Plants are amazing.

Everybody thinks that Mount Everest is tall…and while it is the tallest mountain on earth located completely on land the volcano Mauna Kea in HI is actually taller…it’s total height above the sea floor is about 33,500 feet or nearly a mile taller. However…neither of those holds a candle to Olympus Mons which is located on Mars. The graphic below illustrates the relative height and size of Everest and Olympus Mons…it’s a pretty big hill I reckon. Everest is the foreground one…Olympus in the back and the scale is the same. Wow. Since Mars is actually smaller than the earth is…and since Olympus is over 60 miles wide…if you’re standing at the base you can’t see the top as it’s over the horizon.

And finally…you know what this is…right?

No?

You sure?

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Why it’s the Old Lang Sign of course…

Cyas.