Tag Archives: Thanksgiving

Giving Thanks

I incorporate by reference all of the other, more eloquent, thanks given by and for family, friends, dogs, food, shelter, and the important peace and safety officers who are working on this holiday. I want to give more specific thanks to the people who made today possible.

For example, I am grateful for whoever invented the Traeger pellet smoker:

to our contractor, Mike, who recommended we buy one, and to the large online community of pelletheads (yes, that’s what they call themselves) who supply and comment on Traeger recipes like this one. Also thankful for the geniuses at the Pillsbury, StoveTop, and McCormick companies who ensured that my guests were not exposed to my actual [lack of] cooking skills. For the people working today at Village Inn (where my in-laws picked up the pies) and Safeway (where I got my last minute ingredients at 7 a.m.). And for the specific family member (hi, Mom!) who taught me how to substitute wine for water in the powdered gravy mix.

Now thankful for my sofa and enriching televised entertainment like how to make a deep-fried Nutella pizza. So not kidding.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What I’m thankful for (an incomplete list):

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Family who do not measure love by the number of dishes cooked from scratch.

Sam Taylor’s Bar-B-Q, StoveTop stuffing, and Frances Lively, who happened to give us cranberry chutney last week.

My nerd family, where turkey is followed by pie which is followed by laptop time:

The people who make Hot Chillys long underwear, which made it possible to run off at least 42 of the 10,000 calories I consumed today.

The dogs, for making the clean up go so quickly.

All of the people willing to do the hard work so that the rest of us can be safe and free: servicemembers, peace officers, and lawyers who represent the unpopular and the condemned and take crap for it.

Speakers of truth to power.

Writers who make me think.

Co-counsel who laugh at the absurdities of law.

And always and most of all, Tim.

Polycom saves Thanksgiving from the TSA

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Here at Fox & Robertson World Headquarters, we’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how not to travel. I could list all the reasons but let’s face it, travel sucks. And travel sucks worse in a power wheelchair than just ordinary suckdom. “I’m sorry sir, we left your wheelchair on the runway in San Francisco; it will be here on the next plane.” etc etc. I’m pretty sure Tim at least got some serious drink vouchers out of that one.

But the good news is: the results of our extensive anti-travel research can save the world from the TSA gropers … and hours of family tedium too. I present: the video conference Thanksgiving!

This is how we do depositions now; why not family dinners? Instead of schlepping through airports and spending money on hotels just to ask some clown a couple of questions under oath, we drive 10 minutes to Hunter & Geist where our buddy Dan sets us up in front of a video monitor with all sorts of fun remotes to play with. In addition to not traveling, and being back home by dinner, this system offers a number of other advantages, like only having to dress up from the waist up. (I do recommend *dressing* from the waist down, but you only need to wear a suit from the waist up.)

With this same technology, you can enjoy a happy Thanksgiving with your loved ones from around the country without anyone having to travel:

But wait! There’s more! When Thanksgiving dinner starts to sound like this:

That’s where the remote comes in. For example:

One button that would be very important to me:
And what a time saver the picture-in-picture feature is!

But here’s my favorite feature:

It’s sort of like chatroulette: you push the button, and you can completely bail on your family for a random different family. For example, perhaps you prefer a more traditional family: