A Time for Giving Thanks

At this time, many of you are on your way to visit family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Since I am not traveling home to Connecticut until tomorrow morning and am trying to avoid packing as long as possible, I wanted to take this opportunity to run down a few of the things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving. Some of these will be serious items and some not so much, pretty much a reflection of this blog in general. In honor of the current Writer's Guild strike, consider this to be a "G's Spot Clipshow" where I pull together some old material, slap it together and call it a new post. Hope that all my readers have a safe and happy holiday!

Without further adieu, I am thankful that:

5) The Boston Red Sox won the World Series, the New England Patriots are 10-0 and the Boston Celtics are relevant once again.

As a sports fan, I have been around enough to know that things go in cycles. Your teams can't be on top forever nor will they usually be down forever, and you have to enjoy the good times when you have them. With the Patriots being absolutely dreadful until I was out of college (the 1986 Super Bowl run notwithstanding), the Celtics on a steady decline since their last title in 1986 and the Red Sox finding new and excruciating ways to lose in the playoffs until finally breaking through in 2004 and again this year, it was a pretty dry patch there for a while. However, it is all good in 2007 as I can now say that the Sox have won two championships in my lifetime (heck, they have won two titles in my 5 year-old niece's lifetime), the Pats have won three this decade and the Celtics look to be a contender once again with 31 year-old Kevin Garnett in the fold.

4) I returned to Chicago in 2006.

When I moved away to North Carolina in the fall of 2001, I did so with a heavy heart knowing that I was leaving a great city, fantastic friends and a lot of memories behind. It was the right decision as I needed a change of scenery at that time for a variety of reasons. So, I went down south and connected with my childhood buddy Mike, eventually went back to school for elementary education and was able to watch my home state Connecticut Huskies men's basketball team defeat Duke in the 2004 Final Four on the way to the NCAA title while living in Durham, the home of Duke University.

Good times, but I digress. My transition back here has been a bit bumpy at times and I have not yet been able to find the teaching job I want, but there is no doubt that I am back where I belong in the city. There is nothing like this place, with the diversity of people, the interesting neighborhoods and their many bars/restaurants, great theater/museums and a small town, friendly vibe that no major city can duplicate. I immediately felt at home when I first came here for college in 1990 and I still do. It's nice to be back.

3) My battles with Comcast and AT&T customer service are finally over.

As has been well documented on this blog, I have been in an almost constant state of war with first Comcast and then AT&T customer service in regards to phone and Internet service at my apartment. Whether it was the lady at Comcast concluding that my Windows XP operating system was faulty or the genius at AT&T who said that my network card needed to be replaced (both of which ended up not being true), it has been a slow descent into customer service hell the last few months.

It is nice to come home from work and not be on hold with tech support for the remainder of the night, maxing out my cell phone minutes and watching albeit hilarious reruns of "Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" while hold music blares from the speakerphone on my coffee table. There is more to life than learning anecdotally that Comcast has call centers in suburban Illinois, Charlotte, NC and India, isn't there?

2) The Police finally got back together.

During their heyday in the early to mid 80's, I always felt like I'd come to regret not seeing Sting and the boys perform live. I was a little young at that point and didn't go to my first concert until after the band basically broke up in 1984, though they played a series of shows for the Amnesty International A Conspiracy of Hope tour in 1986. As the years passed and Sting churned out one solo album after another and you really didn't hear much about what Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers were doing, it seemed as if the occasionally rumored reunion would never happen. It would be the one band I had most wanted to see live but never got the chance.

That all changed last year when the trio set aside (or maybe didn't) their animosity for each other and decided to cash in (and I mean cash in) on a 30th anniversary tour. I saw them in Chicago at Wrigley Field with my buddies Rob, Chris and Greg and again in Hartford, CT with my childhood buddy Mike, a huge Sting/Police fan who saw many Sting shows with me back in the day. The concerts themselves were good, not great, and it seemed like Sting and Andy Summers were going through the motions at times while Stewart Copeland made up for it with his energy behind the drum kit. That said, I sang along to every song and had an absolute blast at the shows. And I can now say this: I saw The Police perform live in my lifetime.

1) My family and friends were able to share in some of the experiences listed above and/or read about them on this blog.

You're the best. Enough said.