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It’s a few minutes after 9PM here in Madison and we’ve turned off the light over the front door.

The total number of kids who came to our door this year? Two. A witch and a pirate.

Don’t let anyone tell you that door-to-door trick-or-treating isn’t dying.

As I wrote months ago, the government was seriously kicking around the idea of forgiving the mortgages of people who bought too big a house for their incomes.

For a while, it seemed like that moronic idea had been laid to rest in the cesspool of bad ideas from whence it came. Well, surprise! It’s back and with a vengence.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the current economic situation, you have to be a complete and utter moron to be living within your means. As someone said in a recent NY Times story:

“Why am I being punished for having bought a house I could afford?” he asked. “I am beginning to think I would have rocks in my head if I keep paying my mortgage.”

If the government is seriously thinking about forgiving mortgates, it seems like I should be one of the first in line. After all, I haven’t been part of the current problems’ causes, so shouldn’t I be rewarded for being part of the solution and not the problem? Well, maybe in Normal-Things-Make-Sense World, but not here in the USA, circa 2008.

Oh, and clearly, Sarah and I are stupid for operating without a month-to-month credit card deficit. After all, people who are behind on their mortgages and up to their ears in credit card debt can now get their credit card debt forgiven. How great a deal is that?!?

Apparently, the new American Ideal is as follows: First, you buy a house you can’t afford, with money you don’t have, and then fill it with big, flat screen TVs and stainless steel appliances that you finance solely on credit cards. Then, you take the equity you haven’t earned out of the house, combine that with more credit cards, and go on some pretty ass-kicking vacations around the world. Finally, you wait for the financial system to collapse around your head due to your bad decisions and those of your friends and neighbors. When that happens, your debt will be forgiven, you’ll own the house and the stuff outright, and you can start the whole process over again!

Work 9 to 5? That’s only for chumps and losers! Why work to pay your debts when the dummies who pay their debts can pay yours too through higher taxes? You’d have to crazy not to sign up for a program like that.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a Minnesota Vikings fan, through and through. However, that’s not to say that I always root for the team to win. This year, I find myself routinely hoping for the team to lose. How did I come to this place?Almost three years ago, Brad Childress was hired by the Vikings as their head coach. Prior to that time, Childress was an assistant coach with the Philadelphia Eagles for six years. That was his entire NFL experience since he came to the Eagles from UW-Madison, where he served as the offensive coordinator. When Childress was scheduling interviews around the league, his original schedule called for him to interview first with the Vikings and then with the Packers. However, the Vikings never let him get back on the plane and, at the time, the Packers felt like they really missed out. The Packers then turned to Mike McCarthy, who was a real unknown.

Looking back from our current perspective, we can see how badly everyone misjudged that situation. Childress has a losing record as an NFL coach (17-22) and no playoff appearances to his credit. McCarthy is 25-14 with a 1-1 record in the playoffs.

There are all sorts of particulars I could discuss about Childress’ lack of coaching acumen (his lack of clock management skills; his lack of situational awareness during games; the continued deterioration of the offense; the laughable special teams; the big-money, low-return defense, etc., etc., etc.), but since those are all reflected in his record, we should simply let that speak for itself.

Beyond his lack of ability as a head coach, Childress is an awfully uninspiring leader. There are coaches out there who aren’t fiery leaders (Bill Belichick comes to mind), but who manage to maintain an aura of being in charge and making decisions that make sense (even if only to them). Childress not only doesn’t give the impression of being in charge, he often looks confused by his own decisions. Like he’s got a split personality and one personality gives the orders while the other is forced to stick around and deal with the consequences. There are no media reports of Childress inspiring any of the players. More often than not, those reports detail how he doesn’t communicate very well with the players. The fans certainly don’t seem inspired. Well, they’re inspired to create websites imploring ownership to fire Childress, but that’s about it.

When Childress was hired, he promised to bring accountability back to the franchise after the Mike Tice era. We all know how well that’s working out. Ray Edwards was suspended four games last year for a substance abuse violation. The two Williamses are probably facing suspensions for using steroid masking agents this year. Newly acquired defensive end Jared Allen is noted for his “dramatically increased” strength (‘roids, anyone?). Does that sound like getting your house in order? It’s not bad enough that the Vikings are cheating, but they’re doing it really badly and getting caught.

Unfortunately, it seems that the only way we’ll get rid of Childress is for the Vikings to lose badly, since simply losing doesn’t seem to be enough for management to pull the trigger. So, I find myself cheering for the Vikings to lose, every week. Even last week, when they had a bye, I was hoping that the Vikings would lose. If any team could figure out a way to turn a bye week into a loss, I was sure the Vikes could do it. They specialize in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

After reading about Mike Singletary’s debut as head coach of the 49ers last week, I was quite jealous of that team’s fans. Even if Singletary isn’t a legendary coach, he’s a leader you can get behind. Why can’t we get a coach who’s decisive, who’s decisions we can understand, who speaks in the first person?

I’ve expressed this sentiment to people before, and sometimes they say, “How do you know that you’re not firing the next Bill Belichick?” Well, that’s an easy one. For every Bill Belichick there are fifty Brad Childresses. How many of these former Vikings coaches have gone on to fame and forture elsewhere?

• Scott Linehan – Fired as St. Louis coach in 2008
• Brian Billick – Working as TV commentator
• Ted Cottrell – Fired as San Diego defensive coordinator in 2008
• Foge Fazio – Out of football
• Tony Dungy – Head coach, Indianapolis
• Dennis Green – Radio commentator in 2008
• Sherman Lewis – Out of football
• Mike Tice – Tight Ends coach for Jacksonville
• George O’Leary – Head Coach – University of Central Florida (record 22-27)
• Les Steckel – Out of football

That’s ten coaches, and only one is still coaching in the NFL as a head coach. For every Bill Belichick or Bill Walsh, there are plenty of Lane Kiffins, Marty Schottenheimers, Nick Sabans, Wanye Fontes, Bruce Coslets, Dave Shulas, Sam Wyches, Joe Bugels, Gunther Cunninghams, Jim Fassels, and Cam Camerons. You can’t hold on to your guy forever on the off-chance that he just hasn’t blossomed yet. At some point, you have to cut your losses and move on.

So, until the Vikings have a new head coach, I’m cheering for the other guys. This week, I’m a Houston Texans fan.

Two days in Cleveland is not to be confused with One Night in Bangkok, by any means. Two weeks ago we traveled east to visit Cleveland.We decided to take a trip east because I hadn’t been to Cleveland since May, 2007, and Sarah hadn’t been there since December, 2007. In addition, Sarah’s parents recently purchased a different house and we wanted to see what it was like.

As usual, the drive there and back was epic in length. There is simply no good time to drive through or around Chicago. We hit the metro area around noon while traveling eastbound and around 13:00 while westbound but had to suffer through traffic both times. I guess the only consolation is that we didn’t expose ourselves to full-on rush hour traffic. At least the electronic tolling that Illinois installed over the last couple of years has made the payment of tolls less of a headache.

Dalla came with us, as you might expect. She’s not much for staying at other people’s houses, but she likes visiting the Cleveland Metro Parks and running through the woods.

The Cleveland metro area is about like I remember it. More real estate signs than I’ve seen there in the past as their housing market is suffering a fair amount, but that’s probably the biggest visible change. The Ohio GOP is using many of the same tactics that the Wisconsin GOP currently employs to discourage people from voting, which I guess isn’t surprising. Skullduggery doesn’t seem to be limited by state lines.

Fall arrived here about two weeks ago and the weather seemed to go from warm and sunny to rainy and chilly with almost no transition. We had our first frost of the season last Friday, though it was mild and didn’t kill off any of our plants.
Sarah and I have been busy putting up food for the winter over the last few weeks. Our basement shelves are weighed down with pickled green beans, cauliflower, cucumbers, jalapenos, and green tomatoes; pasta sauce; jelly; tomatillos; and tomatoes. We’ve also been drying herbs and hot peppers. Last weekend I started a batch of mead and it is happily fermenting away.

We finished with our soffit replacement project a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been nice to have that monkey off our backs. We really enjoy hiking in the autumn and we went out for a nice long hike last weekend. While we were hiking we found some hickory trees that were dropping nuts. We gathered a couple handfuls of the nuts, took them home, cracked them, and baked them into some chocolate chip cookies. Normally, I’m not much for nuts in cookies, but the hickory nuts have a well-rounded, nutty flavor that doesn’t overwhelm the other ingredients in the cookies. In addition, the nuts soften nicely so that they blend in with the other textures in the cookies. If you can find and crack the nuts, I recommend them.