November went by pretty fast. … And here we are, ready for our cruise out of San Diego going down to Baja and the Sea of Cortez!! So this is going to be a pretty short update. In two or three weeks I’ll be able to provide an update on how the cruise went 😊We’ve had some pretty cold weather with a couple of warm days thrown in (the record temperature for October 27th was broken – 23 degrees C). We’ve had a few snow flurries but nothing serious; however the wind chill has gone down around – 20 C !! I finally finished raking and bagging leaves – the final tally was 141 bags!! Hopefully won’t be back to the recycle depot until April. The next two weeks we will be on our cruise to Mexico, sailing out of San Diego.
The war between Hamas and Israel is still going on – they brokered a temporary humanitarian truce for a couple of days and about 70 Israeli and about 100 Palestinian hostages / prisoners have been exchanged. However, Israel is determined to destroy Hamas and they won’t stop until Hamas is broken up.
The war in Ukraine is still dragging on, winter has set in and the counter-offensive wasn’t as successful as they wanted. The Russians have stepped up their attacks in the East – but at a loss of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers. They have intensified their drone attacks against Kiev and Kherson – 83 drones in one day last month!! However, the Ukrainians have started manufacturing more powerful aerial drones and are targeting Moscow and a couple of other Russian cities. The other day Ukrainian Special Forces blew up two Russian trains in Siberia and ruined the railway. But winter is a war of slow attrition and the Ukrainians just have to last out until spring comes and they can start using their F16’s fighter planes. That should help reduce the Russian’s air superiority in the East. Ukraine has also established permanent beach heads on the left bank of the Dniepro River – so hopefully they can cut the Russian supply lines to Crimea.
… We are cooking meals as always … but as we’re leaving soon we’ve kept it to fairly simple dishes in order to use up the food in the refrigerator – so lots of grilled sausages; hamburgers; lots of pasta and meat sauces; steaks; and many paninis (roast beef, chicken, turkey, bacon and Swiss cheese, etc.).
We finished Season 5 of ‘Virgin River’ – better than Season 4, but still bad. On the Netflix side I finished rewatching ‘Las Chicas del Cable’ (Cable Girls) – it’s a pretty good series about women in Spain during the late ’20’s and the Spanish Civil War ‘30’s. I watched Season 2 of ‘Holy Family’ – about a pretty dysfunctional family with lots of flash backs showing how they got this messed up in the first place. There are a lot of actors from ‘Money Heist’ and ‘Locked Up’ in it – it’s another series done by Alex Pena – he said it was the best he has ever done. I’ve watched some pretty good Scandinavian series – ‘A Nearly Normal Family’, a Swedish series about a girl that was raped when she was 15 and runs into the rapist 4 years later. Lots of family drama. I’ve just finished rewatching ‘Home For Christmas’, Seasons 1 and 2. It’s my third time watching it, but it is one of my favorite Christmas shows of all time.
On the NHL front – the Maple Leafs are not off to a good start, in seventh place in their division (12-6-4). Seattle Kraken pretty much suck – they are in 10th place.
On the MLB front –Texas Rangers won their first World Series ever.
On to golf … The Fall Fedex tournaments are over – it gave golfers a chance to move up in the standings and qualify for the big money tournaments in 2024. The Next 10 – positions 51 to 60 qualify for the Genesis Open and Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Mackenzie Hughes came in at 51st and in the last tournament at the RSM Championship came in second place ($900K U.S.) and finished in 51st place for Fedex. Other golfers had to come in the top 125 positions in order to maintain their PGA Pro Cards. Taylor Pendrith (5th at RSM) ended up around 90th, so he’s safe.
NFL news – Seattle is kind of off and off – they’ve lost 4 out of 5 of their last games ☹. Their record is now 6 and 6; only half a game ahead of three other teams for the last wild card spot. … And with their next two games against San Francisco and Philadelphia the odds are not in their favour. Unless they win their last three games against Tennessee, Pittsburgh, and Arizona … then they might still make it.
Have a great and safe week … pray for Ukraine … we will see you in a bit!! 😊