Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 3:00 a.m. in "The City."

No my loyal readers, I did not blog yesterday. Why? simply because I didn't have anything of note to say.

The current temperature is 22° under skies with snow-showers. Today's high is forecast to reach 25°! The sun will rise today @ 7:33 a.m. and set later @ 5:23 p.m. Looks like a good day to stay inside and do as little or as much as we wish. We have no need to travel, so...

Those conditions mean that there is a Winter Weather Advisory in effect until 5:00 p.m. today. Bands of Lake Effect Snow Showers have been forecast by the NWS. Some of the snow will be locally heavy at times. Additional snow accumulations of up to 5 inches is possible. With winds gusting as high as 35 mph! This could lead to some blowing and drifting of the snow in Lake, Muskegon and Ottawa counties. Travel could become very difficult, with near zero visibility possible at times. The hazardous conditions will develop early this morning and impact the morning commute. Motorists are strongly encouraged to slow down and use caution while traveling. Ya think?


Plus, there is yet another Small Craft Advisory in effect for the "Big Lake" until11:00 p.m. tonight.  Waves of 7 to 11 feet are possible. A Small Craft Advisory means that winds or waves are expected to produce hazardous conditions to small craft. Inexperienced mariners...especially those operating smaller vessels, should avoid navigating in these conditions. Once again, Ya think?

It took the 4 - 5 Chicago Bears four quarters of football to defeat the 3 - 5 -1 Detroit Lions last Sunday, 20 - 13, with the Bears offense struggling to move the ball in the first-half. The team must have "lost" the very conservative playbook left behind by George S. Halas, long-time coach and owner of the Bears, as they actually threw the long-ball in the second-half and that produced some early third-quarter points before they "found" that missing playbook and reverted back to the Bears we know and love.


The Lions were without the services of Matthew Stafford, their regular starting QB, due to a back injury. He had started 169 games in a row over the last several seasons. His backup QB, Jeff Driskell, looked like the second-coming of another long-ago Lions backup QB, Eric Hipple, who many may remember as having defeated the Bears in a Thanksgiving Day game in 1997, 55 - 20.

The 1997 Lions scored the most points ever scored by a Lions team in their regular season history that day. Plus, those 55 points were the most ever allowed by a Bears team.

In 1997, the Bears had a 20 - 17 edge as the first-half ended, but the Lions and Hipple went on a tear in the second-half and buried the Bears with 38 second-half points. Hipple played his entire career for the Lions, but never had another game like that one in his limited role as a backup QB.

Whether Driskell will get another chance to stun the Bears this year on Thanksgiving will be up to how fast the rapidly-fading Lions regular starting QB, Stafford, recovers. If I were the Lions, one of only four teams, along with the Browns, the Jaguars, and the Texans, to have never played in a Super Bowl, I'd make sure that Stafford was 100% healthy before sending him out again.

It is worthy of note that the Lions and the Brows did make it to the NFL Championship game prior to the NFL/AFL merger in 1966. This year's schedule has the Bears and the Lions playing on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, @ 12:30 p.m., in a battle for third or fourth place and a seat on the couch in the post-season.

Yesterday, I was out and Mary had time in the kitchen to make a steamed hammish. That took about one-hour. Normally, we use the Crockpot™ which requires about six hours. Frankly, I couldn't tell the difference when we had some for dinner. Mary felt a need to make a hammish as she has been allowing me to make them recently.

At 10:20 a.m., I heard MMRR locomotive #2019, heading south. While I didn't see that passage, I did observe that same locomotive heading north @ 2:30 p.m. towing one rarely-seen box-car and one DBTC. So unless the MMRR left another locomotive at the southern terminus, I'm assuming it was only #2019 that went south in the a.m.

Today has nothing to challenge us. We are expecting that significant snowfall today, necessitating a visit by our snow-removal service. I won't be using my yak to move the snow. There are yonger yaks for that.

I will be using my yak to play with the girls, maybe get to that painting I have had on my agenda for several days, and perhaps make a visit to the man-cave. Mary will get a chance to work on one of her own myriad craft/sewing/knitting projects. Ciao.