Anderson/Hatgidakis/Nelson/Metcalf: Newsletter

Old news: November 2012

Marsha
11/30/12
I am always happy to see the advent pages! I am home from work today because my car would not start.......... new starter is being put in now. I am not finished with shopping, but we are doing pretty good. Nice weather and no snow yet, but that is ok with me. Did some shopping yesterday with Sam and Anna, had a nice lunch out and we all stopped in and surprised Zach at his work :)

Gary
11/30/12
Yup, the webpage Advent calendar starts tomorrow. As I think I've mentioned to everybody by now, this year your daily click will play a sound clip, taken from TV and movies old and new. Most will be easy to place, but some of them may challenge you. If you get stumped, post a note here and someone will help you out. Also, note that all of the front-page pictures will be large format, so just click on them to see them full size. If you're looking for some Christmas wallpaper for your computer, feel free to right-click and save-as. Especially on December 11.

Karen
11/30/12
Yeaa, Advent Calendar is about to start -- I look forward to that :) Going to get busy now that December is here. Have lots going on at school, not to mention the big Christmas program. Kindergartner teacher is going to out of town the night of the program -- so I have to get kids in position for the program. Had a long practice yesterday and boy oh boy do we need more work. Emily is off to Des Moines tomorrow, has a wedding that she and Jack are going to. Erika is staying at the dorm, has a special christmas program tonight and finals all next week. Will be quiet around here. I am planning to wrap (all my shopping is done) and maybe even bake some cookies.

The Hatgidakis Family
11/22/12

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

Nelsons
11/22/12

Happy Thanksgiving

Dad and Mom
11/15/12

Happy Birthday Emily

The Hatgidakis Family
11/15/12

Happy Birthday, Emily!!!!!

Grandma
11/15/12

Happy Birthday, Emily!!

Gary
11/13/12
Are you done gloating yet? Nah, me neither! They sure laughed at the Dems for eight long years after Bush "won." So in that spirit I offer this montage of photos, most of which were taken at the Romney "Victory" party. Enjoy!

Gary
11/12/12
Good read here for anyone interested in why the Republican Party is dying....

Gary
11/8/12
Be happy that you're not Karl Rove today. (Actually, be happy you're not Karl Rove every day.) But today KKKarl will be meeting with his big billionaire donors to explain why the $400 million they gave him got them nothing in return. Of all the candidates Rove funnelled money to, not one managed to win. The actual dollar figure might be considerably higher than $400 million too, as these funds are secret. Some say Rove handled as much as a billion dollars. With no return payoff. As Rachel Maddow said: If they had put a billion dollars in the fireplace and lit it on fire at least they would have gotten warmth. :-)

Gary
11/7/12
Cool photos here from around the world on election night.

Gary
11/7/12
Okay, stayed up late watching the returns come in, and just now woke up after a great night's sleep. :-) Time for a quick recap, in no particular order:

The great Alan Grayson is back! He won the senate seat that Tea Party money took away from him in the previous election.

The great Elizabeth Warren won a senate seat. She is going to be amazing to watch. And this also means we say a happy goodbye to the lowlife Scott Brown.

The two Tammys (Baldwin and Duckworth) both won, which is especially great as the two guys they beat are real creeps.

And creepiest of the two was Joe Walsh, the deadbeat-dad with anger-management problems. He's gone!

Claire McCaskill won in Missouri, trouncing the loathsome Todd Akin.

Also trounced was Richard Mourdock who, like Todd Akin, brought rape into the political discussion. Bye-bye!

Chris Murphy beat Linda McMahon, the Tea Party wrestling tycoon who spent 100 million of her own money campaigning for that seat. Ha!

Tim Kaine won in Virginia, beating the racist George Allen.

The lunatic (and I mean that) Allen West lost. He was actually kind of scary-crazy, and he's now gone. Bye-bye!

Joseph Kennedy III, grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and great-nephew of JFK, won a house seat last night.

And we now have 20 women in the Senate, which sadly is the highest number ever but at least its moving in the right direction. Okay, one of those women is Nebraska's Tea Party loon Deb Fischer, but even so...

The awesome Nate Silver had a great night. His predictions were proven right in every single case. Many many many people have been ridiculing him for months. Victory is sweet!

Joe Scarborough had a bet with Obama adviser David Axelrod: If Obama lost Pennsylvania, Axelrod would shave off his mustache; and if North Carolina or Florida went to Obama, Scarborough would grow one. Well, Axelrod's stache is safe, and Scarb has to stop shaving his upper lip.

I just heard Scarborough say he felt like Linus in the pumpkin patch last night, waiting for the Great Pumpkin..."but he never came." Ha!

The Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson and many other unnamed billionaires spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past few months -- for nothing! Thanks for injecting that money into the economy, guys! It might have been cheaper for you just to pay your taxes. :-)

Karl Rove oversaw the expenditure of 300 million dollars to defeat Obama. Which didn't quite work out. He now has to explain to his wealthy donors what happened. Rove had a little meltdown on Fox News last night, when he refused to accept the Ohio results. He actually had the other Fox news people laughing at him. (Should be on YouTube soon!) Rove's credibility was shredded last night.

Oh, also this: Mitt Romney lost, and Obama won a second term! Only 13 other Presidents can say that, among them George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton. Romney lost all three of the states where he has lived, lost the state where he was governor, and even lost his hometown where he was born.

And the quiet you hear? That's the sound of no political ads, no phone calls, and no emails asking for money. When World War II ended, there was a phrase that caught on and everyone was saying: "Peace! It's wonderful!"

Any bad news? Well, Michelle Bachmann won by a tiny narrow margin -- only a few hundred votes. So she's still around. But that news was welcomed by Bill Mahr -- he said "I didn't want to lose ALL my punchlines in one night!"

And while Paul Ryan lost his bid to become Vice-President, he did manage to win his House seat. So he's still around, too.

The Republicans kept control of the House, though by a slightly slimmer margin. That means that John Boehner is still Speaker of the House. I hope he got the message last night, and starts cooperating rather than obstructing.

Interesting fact: In five of the past six presidential elections, the Republicans have lost the popular vote. One Republican talker this morning said, "That means we're doing something wrong." They're going to become irrelevant if they don't fix themselves, and we get to watch them try over the next several years. Fun!

Let's look ahead to 2016. The Dems have a deep bench of possible candidates, like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Allen Grayson, Elizabeth Warren, many others. The Repubs, not so much: Jeb Bush? Good luck winning with that name. (Exit polls last night showed that more than two-thirds of the country still blame George Bush for the bad economy.) Or Chris Christie? Repubs hate him right now, because he dared to say nice things about the President and take a ride on his helicopter.

Whew! Okay, that's it for now. Oh, one more thing: My prediction of 303 electoral votes? That's exactly the number Obama has -- at the moment. Florida results are not yet official. If they go to Obama, which is the way they are trending, Obama will win with a mind-boggling 332. What a night!

Gary
11/5/12
As Mitt Romney said just a few hours ago -- and I'm not kidding -- "Tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow." Wha...? So, in expectation of tomorrow's tomorrow today, I am hereby making my election prediction: Obama's winning total, when all the votes are counted (assuming they are all eventually counted), will be 303 electoral votes. With 29 hours before the polls close (central time), you heard it here first! :-)

P.S.: If you're wondering what they will be snacking on at the White House on election night, then click here -- complete menu, plus recipes!

Gary
11/4/12
If you watched the game yesterday, I imagine by now you have calmed down and are back to normal...maybe. As for me, I am now able to walk, feed and dress myself again. What a game: 59 minutes and 45 seconds of agony, and then we win.

This morning I went to a Husker website, where fans text in comments as the game is going on. Found some hilarious comments, which I will post below. The first three are from during the game, all the rest are from just after the game ended. Enjoy:

I hate football.

These guys are going to kill me this year

Breathe. Breathe.

-------

Can you remember a Cornhusker team with so many heartstopping comebacks? I can't. Wow. Just wow.

I can't take anymore like this. No. None. I mean, I'll take the Win, but dang. I'm just damn glad we won, but this is hell on my blood pressure...

Wonder if UNL will pay for my meds?

With that catch...all across the state, text messages are telling medical staff and cardiac professionals to report to triage centers and expect visitors

Thank God Pelini didn't do what i wanted.

oh, by the way, I was wrong back then about the game being over 3 minutes ago...

I was screaming at the TV at one point and then calmed down and came to the realization that we lost the game.................... then we got the ball back with 1:50 something left and started driving and found myself holding my head and pacing back-and-forth. Good god I love this team, but STOP IT!

In all my 25+ years of being a Husker fan I have never seen or read about a Nebraska team like this one. To come back like they have in heart stopping fashion in so many important games is really remarkable. It might give us all grey hairs a little quicker, but we'll take a win any way we can get it.

The one thing every Husker fan must admit now is that Taylor Martinez and this Nebraska team DO NOT QUIT

Just remember that NU will not make it easy for us. They will get behind, have turnovers and penalties and give us strokes ... then win.

How many QBs rush for 200 yards and throw 3 interceptions in the same game? This is why we have so many heart attacks.

Not meaning to get political here, but I honestly said "Thank gawd for Obamacare" after the game -- my heart will never be the same after 2012

Well I just called and left a message at my doctors office to see if he can up my blood pressure medicine, man these finger nail biter games are going to kill me, god I love these types of games.

I confess...after the pick six by MSU for a TD I had to excuse myself from the game. I was way too amped up. Just couldn't watch. I'm glad I came back to check back in and finish it out. I think I have aged at least 10 years this season.

If this keeps up i'm gonna need to start watching games in the ER

Someone asked, "Are we a sleeping giant?" Reply: We only sleep during the first three quarters.

I think we should give every team we play a 2-touchdown lead at the beginning of the game. This way our team plays the whole game like it does in the 4th quarter.

Dear God this team is going to be the death of me. I am sorry for the negativity I take it all back haha

Damn it. My DVR cut off the last three minutes. What did I miss?

Karen
11/3/12
Nice day, just cool enough for a fire -- chicken tacos in the crockpot -- and the game in a few hours. Emily and Erika are both home for the week-end. No Jack, he has a class today. Gary, enjoyed the Trump picture -- good one. Hey, have you seen the previews for the new movie Hyde Park on the Hudson. Think that may be one to watch. A good show I highly recomend is Call the Midwife. On Sunday evenings on PBS, been watching the last few weeks -- pretty good. Think Mom, Donna and Marsha would especially like it.

Thanks for the movie tips. Haven't heard of either one. Bill Murray as FDR?? That's a casting decision I would never have predicted! --Gary

Gary
11/3/12
When I lived in California I once met filmmaker and author Frank Schaeffer, then known as "Frankie" Schaeffer to distinguish him from his then-more-famous author and theologian father of the same name. Anyway, a few days ago Schaeffer asked this "simple" question:

What’s the explanation for the fact that white American Evangelicals made the allegedly philandering lying ignorant braggart lapsed Roman Catholic Dinesh D'Souza their anti-Obama hero, embrace a pro-choice Mormon bishop who promoted abortion and Planned Parenthood in MA, are working to elect a job-destroying tax-avoiding lying flip-flopping-tell-anyone-anything-they-want-to-hear Swiss bank account collecting draft dodger running with a disciple of the God-hating, Jesus-mocking hater-of-the-poor Ayn Rand, for their presidential candidate and look the other way as a crazed ultra-Zionist many Israeli Jews fear billionaire casino owner who is being investigated for allegedly making billions off the dirtiest Chinese gambling Communist Party-controlled outfit in the world funds the enterprise, at the very same time as Franklin Graham sold his ailing father Billy’s soul and denied core evangelical theology by taking Mormonism off the Billy Graham organization’s list of cults in order to help the Mormon pagan-ritual-performing, Trinity-denying, casino-money-grubbing billionaire-coddling, earth-destroying global-warming denying Mormon bishop win respectability for his dead-Jews-baptizing-polygamy-rooted-reality-denying-interplanetary Masonic lodge-embracing faith in an election against an exemplary modest faithful husband good father compassionate smart black evangelical Christian President whose major accomplishments include saving the economy, ending a war, killing our greatest enemy, giving health care to children and the poor and the "least of these" and who has tried to reduce the number of abortions by helping women escape poverty in a reenactment of the lesson of the parable of the Good Samaritan?

Good question! (Go here to see the original.)

Gary
11/1/12
Wow, check out this powerful photo of Hurricane Sandy hitting New York.

Amanda
11/1/12
LOVE the photoshopping! I'll show it to Teghan tonight!!!!