...and not really in a good way.  Why, you ask?  Because my favorite month has come and gone.  Is it really November already?  Is it really dark at 6 o'clock already?  Are all the leaves gone from the trees already?  Did The Rusty and a certain father of one of my friends develop a new training regimen over the weekend, already? (more on this later)  Yes, I'm afraid so, so no more birthdays for me for the next 11 months, and perhaps saddest of all, no more Halloween marathons on AMC for awhile.  I had a busy weekend, so I have a lot to get to tonight, but there's been something that a certain mother of mine has been pushing for a while, and even I feel that it needs to be addressed.  

So my birthday was a couple weeks ago, and lost in the cards filled with $20's and get well wishes, as well as intriguing yet likely unconventional gifts from my closest of friends, was a more obscure gift that I consider to be a diamond in the rough.  Those of you who are my friend on Facebook may already know (but that's likely few of you, given that my blog tailors mainly to the "Parents of Wabash Students", and consequently, "older than ideal Facebook friend" demographic), but my momma went all out this year.  She got me a Snuggie.  I know, envision me in a Snuggie... pretty awesome, right?  For those of you who may not be familiar with the awesomeness/practicality of the Snuggie, it is essentially a bathrobe, but the difference is the opening is in the back, and it doesn't really close.  Neither is it ideal for transport (i.e., I would not be able to run in my Snuggie, and from firsthand experience, it is difficult to walk up the stairs).  But what it is ideal for is warming you up while not restricting all the activities you would normally want to perform while seated.  "How is it any different from a blanket?" you ask.  A blanket doesn't have arm-holes in it.  A Snuggie does.  So I may or may not be typing my blog right now while entrenched in my Snuggie.  But I could not in any way be typing my blog underneath a blanket.  

Now, those of you who are familiar with the cheesy commercials pitching the Snuggie are probably thinking I'm a dork, and that's okay.  It actually started off as kind of a joke.  I jokingly referenced the Snuggie when mentioning my birthday wishes in front of my mother.  But once she got it for me, and I was able to experience the awesomeness firsthand, it became a joke no more.  In fact, my good friend Denver Wade, whose birthday just happens to be 2 days after mine, was given a Snuggie by a Mr. Skip Tokar - but his is pink.  Mine is blue. (By the way, that's Skippy protecting me Saturday at Oberlin.)  I'm sure at some point, I'll put a picture on here of Denver and I chilling in our Snuggies, but that may be a while down the road.  Basically, my goal from here on out is to pitch the Snuggie once every blog until my faithful readers start buying them.  The commercial for them shows a whole crowd at a soccer game clothed in Snuggies... that's kind of what I envision for the Monon Bell Game.  Can you imagine the intimidation factor of 5,000 people draped in red Snuggies?  Wouldn't that be epic?  Okay, probably not a good idea...

So I mentioned Mr. Skip Tokar earlier, and that is now a good transition to my next point.  So we traveled to Oberlin over the weekend for our game, which was my first game back from my lung injury from a few weeks back.  It was great to be back on the field.  We quite frankly, played horrible in the first half, but were able to pick it up in the 3rd quarter and get the job done.  Now, it was a good thing for a certain father of mine, and father of Skip that we decided not to show up in the first half, because if we had, they would have been worn out.  Case in point... anyone who has been to a Wabash home game has seen the Sphinx Club guys do pushups for every point that we have scored following another score (i.e., Wabash scores a touchdown to go up 34-0, the guys do 34 pushups, and so on).  Normally for our games in Ohio, alumnus Mike Warren's son Ben does all the heavy lifting.  Well, as Mike informed me, Ben had an important basketball game to be at, so he was unable to attend.  Enter my father, Mr. Cowbell himself, The Rusty.  Although more known for his tendency to fight with opposing fans, he is quite the workout animal.  So I look over at some point during the 3rd quarter yesterday, following a touchdown, and I see a little fella and a big fella.  It doesn't take me long to figure out that The Rusty and Skip's father, Stephen Sr., are in the midst of a pushup contest, at the end of which, Wabash fan superiority will be claimed (see above left).  Well, neither one of them looked like they were in the best of shape following the touchdown that got us to 41 points, so I'm not sure either one of them could be declared the winner (although The Rusty did claim that Mr. Tokar threw in the towel after 35, but I'm not sold just yet).  Overall, it was a good day, and seeing the fathers staging a competition in the stands only made things better.

Okay, I'm gonna get out of here tonight without my usual Sunday night NFL comments because the World Series is on, and I need to focus.  I'll get to them later on in the week.  In seeing 5,000 strong in Snuggies in two weeks... I'm out.