On to Palo Alto!

Well, thanks to the gracious hospitality of Amy Guarino and her family (who would expect anything less??), the vonWussler Family Drummers are heading north tomorrow morning to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with them and their extended family. We are certainly looking forward to our mini-Band Reunion this weekend.

We'll squeeze a football game in between dinner, pep rally, tailgater, etc.. Should be a great weekend, win or lose.

The weather prognosis--cloudy, mid-60s. The game prognosis--Stanford currently favored by 3 1/2 points. So after Saturday's drubbing of Duke (sounds good, doesn't it?), what can we expect from our Men in Blue (well, mostly white, with blue and gold trim)?

Who the hell knows. I'd like to wax eloquently about the momentum we could capitalize on based on last Saturday's performance, but i can't. Our last "momentum" game was BC, as I recall.

However, the Irish are 1-0 in games played in California attended by me. So we got that going for us, which is nice.

One happy note--based on feedback from the folks up north who are appropriating tickets for the alumni band, tickets are plentiful, so there should be a good Irish crowd. Our crowd was good at UCLA as well. Amazing--Stanford builds a new stadium with 30,000 less seats and still can't fill it with people dressed in Cardinal Red. Two years ago witnessed a great turning out of the Blue and Green. Of course, that was a play-in game for a BCS bowl and we were 9-2, not 2-9. But based on the UCLA Domer crowd, I'm counting on a good showing. Plus, who can resist listening to the mighty Northern California Notre Dame Alumni Band???

Regardless of the record (remember, I'm a Faust veteran), it's on to Palo Alto to root, root, root for the road team. A good time will be had by all.

Here's hoping we go out on a high note. Let's do a dark side/bright side: On the dark side, the best we can do is 3-9. On the bright side, 2 of our victories would be on the road as underdogs. My biggest gripe about Charlie's first two seasons was we didn't beat anyone we weren't supposed to, so now we might do it twice this year. Well, I tried.

Happy Thanksgiving to all--travel safe if you're on the road or in the air this weekend.

And please remember all the military members stationed far from home, and their families who live each day with the hope of greeting them when they return safely.

I'll file my trip report upon my return Sunday PM.

The Colonel