The Knight Life by Keith Knight

Packers 34, Lions 12

It's been a pretty good Thanksgiving holiday for me. I finally managed to see all of my kids today -- my daughter had to work during the shank of the day and one son was stuck at his in-laws all day, but both managed to stop by for a while, and we ate dinner with the other son at my sister-in-law's house -- and through a Facebook connection I hooked up with my best friend from high school, a guy I hadn't seen in about 30 years, for a while Wednesday. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

Update: I was going to link to this mental_floss blog post about why the Lions and Cowboys play on Thanksgiving when I posted this, but they were having server problems or something. Here it is now.

"Bohemian Rhapsody"

The best cover versions are those where the artist doesn't try to recreate the original song note for note, but reinterprets it to fit their own style.  Like this version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" by the Muppets...

Quotable

"It is starting to become clear to me what the GOP strategy is- they are trying to turn the entire country into California- an ungovernable mess where the majority is incapable of governing because of an obstinate and insane minority party and ridiculous procedural hoops.

"And when you realize that, it makes complete sense why no one in the Republican party stands up to the lies spewed by Sarah Palin, like, for example, this nonsense about mammograms and death panels. She is flat out lying, as she does most every time she opens her mouth, but no one in the GOP will call her on it because it is to their advantage to make the country ungovernable. They like it when there is so much bullshit and disinformation out there that the public is incapable of being informed. Sarah Palin is cheaper and far more effective than all the bullshit factories the Koch Foundation and others have been funding for decades."

-- John Cole

The Cost of Dying

60 Minutes had an excellent segment Sunday on "The Cost of Dying" -- how Medicare (and by extension, we the taxpayers) spent $50 billion, more than the budget for the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Education, on end-of-life treatment, doctor and hospital bills during the last two months of a patient's life.

They're talking about people with terminal illnesses whose lives are prolonged in ICUs at a cost of about $10,000 a day.  That might sound crass, but, in many cases, it's treatment that doesn't do much good, that only delays an inevitable death.

"Families cannot imagine there could be anything worse than their loved one dying. But in fact, there are things worse. Most generally, it's having someone you love die badly," (Dr. Ira) Byock (of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H.) said.

Asked what he means by "die badly," Byock told Kroft, "Dying suffering. Dying connected to machines. I mean, denial of death at some point becomes a delusion, and we start acting in ways that make no sense whatsoever. And I think that's collectively what we're doing."

A vast majority of Americans say they want to die at home, but 75 percent die in a hospital or a nursing home.

We've heard all the diatribes from the tea-baggers -- rationing, death panels, and pulling the plug on grandma -- and thus this topic has become off-limits, but...

Multiple studies have concluded that most patients and their families are not even familiar with end-of-life options and things like living wills, home hospice and pain management.

"The real problem is that many of the patients that are being treated aggressively, if you ask them, they would prefer less aggressive care. They would prefer to be cared for at home. They'd prefer to go to hospice. If they were given a choice. But we don't adequately give them a choice," (Dr. Elliott) Fisher (of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy) said.

"At some point, most doctors know that a patient's not likely to get better," Kroft remarked.

"Absolutely," Fisher agreed. "Sometimes there's a good conversation. Often there's not. You know, patients are left alone to sort of figure it out themselves."

Read the story or watch the video.  There are also two short web extra videos, "At Home, At Peace" and "Comfort and Costs."

"Immigrant Song"

I've been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.  I've been something of a Luddite, shunning some of the more popular sites around the web, content to just do my thing here at the old Blogspot, but my wife basically forced me onto and into Facebook.  A few days later -- actually in the wee hours of this morning -- I finally broke down and, on the advice of several friends, signed up for a Twitter account.

One of the first people I found on Facebook was my best friend in high school.  That got me thinking about the days when "when in doubt, I whip it out" seemed like a viable personal philosophy.  Led Zeppelin was a favorite back then and this song still kicks a generation later...

NASCAR Tracks: Homestead-Miami Speedway

This is another post in a series on the NASCAR Sprint Cup tracks. I started this series when the 2008 season began, and planned to feature each track as it came up on the schedule. Due to a couple of unscheduled absences from the Internet, I still haven't quite finished the whole list two full seasons later. I'm planning to profile the few remaining tracks before the start of the 2010 season. Here's the list thus far.

Image via Wikipedia

Homestead-Miami Speedway is located in Homestead, Florida, southwest of Miami. Florida developer and promoter Ralph Sanchez proposed building the track to help the area recover from Hurricane Andrew.  With financial backing from H. Wayne Huizenga, groundbreaking began on August 24, 1993, exactly one year after the hurricane. The first race, the Jiffy Lube Miami 300, a Busch (Nationwide) Series race, was held on November 5, 1995, and was won by Dale Jarrett.

When the track first opened it was a four-turn, rectangular oval, a smaller 1.5-mile version of Indianapolis Motor Speedway with long 1760-ft. straightaways, flat turns and short chutes.  The racing was not good.  The flat, almost 90° turns made passing difficult, and the geometry of the track created severe crash angles.  In 1997, the track was reconfigured -- the turns were still a rather flat 6°, but the aprons were widened and the ends of the track were rounded off.  The track went from a rectangle to more of a traditional oval.

After a massive expansion that saw the seating capacity almost double, the NASCAR Winston (Sprint) Cup series made its debut at the track on November 14, 1999.  Tony Stewart won the inaugural Pennzoil 400.  2002 was the year of the first Ford Championship Weekend, with each of NASCAR's three national series all crowning their champions for the first time on the same weekend at the same track.

In 2003 Homestead-Miami Speedway was configured yet again.  The track's website describes this as "the most technologically advanced track-reconfiguration project in the history of motorsports: a $12 million re-banking project that transforms the track from a flat 6-degrees to a computer-designed 18-to-20-degree variable banking system in the turns."  Lights were added a short time later.  The racing is a lot better now.  There is much more side-by-side racing and you'll see drivers moving up and down the track to find the perfect line and the fastest way around.

The track is one of the most beautiful on the NASCAR schedule with soft pastels that evoke the art deco decor of Miami.  1005 palm trees line the track.  Four lakes were created in the construction of the banking.  Three of the lakes are on the speedway property, two are in the infield.  The largest lake covers 18 acres and is stocked with Peacock Bass.  HMS also has a 14-turn 2.2-mile infield road course that utilizes both oval straightaways.

Greg Biffle leads all drivers with three wins at HMS.  Jamie McMurray holds the Sprint Cup qualifying record, 181.111 mph, set in 2003.

In 2009, Homestead-Miami Speedway became the first track ever to host the championship races of six different racing series.  In addition to the season-enders for NASCAR's Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Truck Series on November 20-22, HMS also hosted the season-enders for the Indy Racing League, the Firestone Indy Light Series, and the Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series on October 9-10.

  (diagram from NASCAR.com)

Homestead-Miami Cup winners
NASCAR tracks index

Local Must See Video

I saw this on the local news last week, and meant to try to find it online so that I could share it with you, but I forgot.  Then I saw it a couple of days later on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.  He had it on his Oddball segment.  I forgot again.  Finally remembered.

Here's the scene:  There was a rock slide on U.S. 64  -- I'm guessing maybe 30 miles northeast of Chattanooga.  They sent a crew out to clear the road.  The crew almost had the road cleared.  There was just one good-sized boulder left in the middle of the road, and they went to work to break it up so they could move it.  Click here to see what happened next.

Update:  A local TV station has a report and some aerial photos...and even more aerial photos.

The Golden Age of Video

Lemondrop calls this "the best video you will see this week."  Yeah, what they said.  If the techno music was turned down a touch so that you could hear the "lyrics" better, it would be just about perfect. This video also makes for a good game of Name that Movie or TV show...




Here's the "lyrics" and the shows they came from.

The New York Frigging Yankees Win the Series

I was really getting into baseball as the season was winding down.  The Atlanta Braves remarkable run that fell just a few wins short, the last couple of races that kept tightening up, the final race that went to an extra game that went into extra innings -- these were happier times.

As the Division Series gave way to the League Championship Series, my mood worsened.  I was hoping for one (or both) of the Los Angeles teams to advance to the World Series so that I might actually care who won.  A Yankees-Phillies Series was the last thing I wanted to see.  Wasn't there some way that they both could lose?  I was still watching, but I had to root for the Phillies.  I wouldn't (couldn't) root for the Yankees if they were playing the al-Qaeda All-Stars.

A clash of the cretins indeed...

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Keith Olbermann had a segment on his Countdown show the other night -- "The Nine Smartest Plays in World Series History."  (I can't find the video on his show's page; the link goes to Olbermann's baseball blog.)  These are the smart, heads-up, small ball plays that are often overshadowed by the big home runs (although one of the plays is a home run -- on the list because of the scouting report that the player, Kirk Gibson, remembered).  Although my Braves got burned by one of the plays and the top play was made by a Yankee this past Sunday, it's a good list.

So now, in a postseason that has habitually failed to go the way I would have liked, the Yankees have won it all.  Hideki Matsui was named the Series MVP after knocking in six runs in the 7-3 clinching win.  I guess I should have used a live chicken.

What a revolting development -- the Yankees have won and another baseball season has come and gone.  There's a chill in the air and winter will be here before you know it.