Elbows and Egg Nog

A buddy of mine here at work usually mixes up a batch of his special 'Nog for the holidays, and hands it out to a few of us before we have our shutdown (between Christmas and New Year's). This year, he had a bunch of things going on and wasn't able to get that done...until now. He just presented me with a huge bottle of it and man, I gotta say that I'm pretty psyched about it. This stuff packs a punch, all while being smooth as silk. I've asked him for the recipe any number of times, but he just kinda winks and smiles at me. It's home-made egg nog to start, and then he spices it up from there and adds in some decent alcoholica to top it off. I think I know what I'll be drinking when I'm watching the Pats game this weekend.

And now it's time for a bit of a story. Roughly 20 years ago, when Brother Bill was going to UMass, a few of us would go up and visit him on weekends and we'd all get into trouble of this sort or that. Anywho, one of our favorite past times was to get liquored up and play hallway football. There isn't a lot of strategy involved when you're working in a space that's only about 8' wide. Basically, you tried your damndest to run through the line of guys that was waiting for you and hoped that you didn't get crushed too badly. The fact that the walls and floor were concrete didn't lend much in the way of softening the pounding...but that was what the alcohol was for; do deaden the pain. Good times!

At any rate; Brother Bill had his elbow smashed off the wall at one point and his it swelled up to the size of a softball. The next day (when the buzz wore off), he got things checked out at the college's Health Services and they said to just ice it and it would be fine. It took a long time, but eventually the pain and swelling went down. However, the elbow has flamed back up from time to time over the years and he finally went and had it checked by a professional. Hey, whaddya know; turns out it was actually broken all this time and it didn't heal properly (I think he did score the touchdown, though, so maybe it was all worth it).

Bottom line; he's going in for surgery on it tomorrow morning. Should be pretty straightforward, but send him some good thoughts if you can, for a full and speedy recovery.

Ride Hard, Take Chances