Having been a Minnesotan all my life, there are a few things that are almost a certainty to happen every year. Snow...check. The Vikings build up your hopes and expectations, only to let you down...to be continued. It is really tough to be a Vikings fan sometimes since they are notorious for building up your expectations, only to shatter them in some amazingly woeful fashion. Every year the season ends painfully and I tell myself, "you knew this was going to happen, don't get attached to them next year." Yet here we are a week before Christmas, my Vikes are 9-5 and atop the NFC North, and quite frankly they've been pretty impressive lately.

Last Friday afternoon, a friend and I took a flight to Phoenix for the game and to visit an old friend from high school. The environment at the game was almost surreal and it felt like we were in Minnesota, right on down to it being "the coldest it's been all year in Phoenix." I would guess that 30-40% of the stadium was wearing purple, and the cheering was definitely louder for the road team than the home team. Plus the fact we pounded the Cardinals from the first minute on made it a really exciting game to be at. Skol Vikes! Tough last two games, these'll really be a good indicator of if the Vikings are for real or not... Home vs the Falcons, and home vs the Giants (who could potentially be playing for something if they lose to the Panthers this weekend). SKOL VIKES!

Saturday we went to Casino Arizona for a few hours and I played some 60/120 that became 75/150. Solid card room, with some great games at those limits. At least I know if I ever go busto I could probably grind a roll back up at Casino Arizona. Har har. I won $4400 while playing and another $200 via staking Thorvy into their $5-150 spread game.

Last night I brought my Dad to the Minnesota Wild game, and though we lost 3-2 in OT to the Calgary Flames (bummer...we NEEDED that one to keep the distance behind Calgary smaller), it was still a super fun game to be at. Derek Boogaard laid one of the hardest looking hits on someone I've ever seen at a hockey game, and lucky for us our seats were super close to it. I haven't heard the glass make a noise that loud all season! If you're at all into that kind of thing, go to gamecenter.nhl.com/nhlgc/console.jsp and you should scroll down to "play by play ice tracker" and first click 'video highlights," then click 1st period and then watch "derek boogard hit on rene bourque."

Poker is really going well, September thru the present months have been fantastic for me both online and live, which is good for me because I'd like to get into more investments in 2009. Also I've managed to bang out like 10,000 words so far for my ambitious LHE book that may or may not ever get finished. I'm pretty proud of the content that's been produced by me for it thus far, I don't think much of it has ever been in any LHE book to-date (/end teaser).

That's it for now. Stay warm...it sounds like most of the country is experiencing colder than normal temperatures!