...for Christmas, of course.

New Patriots hoodie, gift cards, NKU fleece pullover, Patriots "Sons of Belichick" long-sleeve shirt, a really neat "859" shirt, a zoo membership, a UK hoodie, Patriots slippers, SOA blue-ray collector's edition box set, and a couple other small things.

 

Made out pretty well.

Bunch of books, some shorts, couple of hoodies, and a zeppelin.

Seeing the Randy Parker name reminds me of a few Christmas' ago. My son was getting a BB gun. Of course, I couldn't stop saying "you'll shoot your eye out", much to his mother's dismay. Anyway, upon opening the package, he had to cut free some plastic ties. In doing so, he sliced open his hand & we spent the next hour in the ER. Fortunately, St.E is two miles from home & we knew the ER Doc on hand, got us in and out pretty quick.

 

Got the knife lesson, not the gun one that day.

Got this...

Plus a couple of books (including latest "Clancy" book), American Graffiti & Hollywood Knights Blu Rays and some other stuff

I got a lot of good ones, including a framed art piece made by my grandmother - she's been gone for almost a decade now, and that one meant a whole lot coming from my parents.

 

One of my other favorites was this, though. It's gonna be on my office wall as soon as I can get it in a frame.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the list of signatures:

 

Row I

Ethan Allen, John Winthrop, Jane Addams, George Washington, Rutherford B. Hayes, William Henry Harrison, James Monroe, James Madison, John Tyler, John Quincy Adams, James K. Polk, Martin Van Buren

 

Row II

John Brown, Edward Rutledge, Henry Kissinger, Francis Marion, Col. Harland Sanders, John Paul Jones, John Jacob Astor, George Gershwin, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Byrd, George Clinton

 

Row III

Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, John F. Kennedy, Clara Barton, James Oglethorpe, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, Henry Ford, Paul Revere, Kit Carson, Theodore Roosevelt, James Buchanan, William McKinley, James A. Garfield, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, William H. Taft

 

Row IV

George Marshall, J.P. Morgan, Lew Wallace, George McClellan, Wild Bill Hickok, John Trumbull, Harry Houdini, Langston Hughes, Joseph Smith, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, George H. Thomas, William Pitt, Henry Knox, William Lloyd Garrison

 

Row V

George W. Bush, Harry Truman, Herbert Hoover, Alexander Hamilton, Eli Whitney, Robert E. Lee, Norman Rockwell, John Steinbeck, Annie Oakley, J.E.B. Stuart, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Pierce, Benjamin Harrison

 

Row VI

George A. Custer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Buffalo Bill Cody, Geronimo, Matthew Brady, Salmon P. Chase, Nathan Hale, Robert Fulton, George Eastman, Neil Armstrong, Charles Lingbergh, Helen Keller, Charlie Chaplin

 

Row VII

George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson, John Adams, Herman Melville, Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Walt Whitman, Phil Sheridan, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Thomas Jefferson, Warren Harding

 

Row VIII

John Dickinson, Alexander Cartwright, Increase Mather, David Farragut, Samuel Gompers, Nathaniel Bacon, Frederick Law Olmstead, Marquis de Lafayette, W.E.B. DuBois, James Bowie, Ray Kroc, Laura Ingalls Wilder, George Washington Carver, Charles Goodyear, William Penn, P.T. Barnum, Horace Mann, James Fenimore Cooper, Amelia Earhardt, Thomas Nast, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Andy Warhol, Chester Nimitz

 

Row IX

Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Sam Houston, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John Marshall, Thomas Edison, Oliver H. Perry, Mark Twain, Davy Crockett, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan

 

Row X

George Rogers Clark, Rosa Parks, Patrick Henry, William Randolph Hearst, George S. Patton, Les Paul, John J. Pershing, Sitting Bull, Bill Gates, Nathaniel Greene, Louis Armstrong, John Glenn, Marilyn Monroe, Abner Doubleday, Aaron Burr, Omar Bradley, Douglas MacArthur, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.,John C. Calhoun, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

Row XI

Andrew Jackson, Samuel F.B. Morse, Wilbur Wright, Eleanor Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller, Robert Treat Paine, John Jay, Horatio Gates, Winfield Scott, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Hancock, Brigham Young, Wyatt Earp, Gerald Ford, Calvin Coolidge, Jimmy Carter, Andrew Carnegie

 

Row XII

Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, William Faulkner, Walt Disney, Jackson Pollock, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, William Bradford, Samuel Slater, Cotton Mather, John Pemberton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jonathon Edwards, John C. Fremont, Robert Peary, James Dean, William Brewster, Myles Standish, Israel Putman, Robert Kennedy, Muhammed Ali, Babe Ruth, Alan Shepard

 

Row XIII

Orville Wright, Elvis Presley, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allen Poe, Cyrus McCormick, Jonas Salk, William Jennings Bryan, Meriwether Lewis, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Noah Webster, Grover Cleveland, Susan B. Anthony, George Meade, Daniel Boone, Richard Nixon, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman

My wife surprised me with Tickets to see the Lakers @ Cavs Feb 10th. Get to see my favorite player before he retires.

 

 

Also a zoo membership for the family.

That's a sweet picture @Colonels_Wear_Blue

Got some nice clothes, new pair of shoes, a commemorative book of the 50th Anniversary of A Charlie Brown Christmas, two new pillows, and a couple bottles of bourbon.

That's a sweet picture @Colonels_Wear_Blue

 

Agreed!

 

It came from one of my brothers, and as a gift I honestly couldn't care less how much it cost because the fact that he knew I'd dig it as much as I do is what really matters to me, but it's not too pricey either. I've had about a dozen folks ask where they can get one, so my bro emailed me the link: Signatures Of American History: USA Flag

2 Waterford crystal old fashioned drinking glasses, ice spheres, clothes, and a selfie stick. Yes, a selfie stick. Nothing I will be packing around, but it is great for face time.

Not a Christmas gift per se, but a couple of weekends back the girlfriend and I were drinking at a friends house. The friend LOVES autographed stuff and we got on the site he uses to purchase a lot of it. As a joke I told him to search "Mike Tyson + Evander Holyfield + Ear". Sure enough, Iron Mike has autographed that photo. It was delivered on 12/26...

As is the case every Christmas season, I take the parents up to the Quad Cities area to visit with my mom's side of the family. During that time, I always make a plan to go to Ragged Records in downtown Davenport, Iowa, one of the finest record stores in the nation.

 

The place is so overwhelming, I've learned to have a strategy when I go in. Skim through new releases and weird box sets, thumb through the funk and R'n'B sections, and maybe look for some specific artists in the Rock'n'Roll and country stacks. But I always end up in the back corner of the store, sifting through what is a massive selection of old blues records (QC is on the Mississippi River, and has a rich music history), where I've found some incredible stuff over the years.

 

This time around I got:

"In Memoriam" by Sonny Boy Williamson (blue cover, on Chess, and it's a Dutch pressing and in great shape)

"They Call Me …" by Muddy Waters (1970 Chess, mint vinyl)

"Josh White" — he was a contemporary of Robert Johnson in the 1930s who was involved in civil rights causes and had a close relationship with FDR and Eleanor — later blacklisted in the 1950s — I had never heard of him, but the story on the back of the nicely-priced 2-record set was interesting and the record was in good shape, so why not?

 

Went down there yesterday, braving a weird winter storm that brought sleet, freezing rain and snow to the area. When I got back to my cousin's place later on, I found out she had gotten me a $20 gift certificate to the place, so I stopped by again on the way out of town and picked up a new copy of "Second-Hand Heart" by Dwight Yoakam. Nice!

Nothing, on the naughty list, of course!

Quiet Christmas for me. Lots of needed undies, socks, shirts etc. Got a nice pair of boots. Going to a couple of expensive concerts for the both of us.