That’s about 26 miles. Hadn’t ridden since Friday – surprising my legs were a little dead tonight. Not sure why. Good ride though.

Tomorrow: Vietnamese class, review class for ComLaw, and our CAN volunteer group will be having dinner and English lessons for Save the Children Vietnam.

We had a nice weekend – except Ole Miss lost to Mississippi State – which probably cost Ole Miss a New Year’s Day bowl game. Surprisingly, Georgia beat Georgia Tech. I watched that whole game Sunday morning here on my laptop. Good game. I can’t believe football season is basically over already now. It seems to go by so quickly.

A nice ride tonight – we were going to go at 7 but it rained from about 7 until 8 so we waited until it stopped raining. The best time to ride is after a good rain because it’s much less dusty.

I needed the ride tonight because Thao and went out for a big Thanksgiving dinner with my Vietnamese teacher, co Phuc, and another friend of ours, Duy Anh. We rode a long way – to the Black Cat restaurant in An Phu – to avoid the crowded restaurant in the city, but it was great – there was barely anyone there and we had very good service. $25 for all you could eat and drink – including cranberry sangria, beer, and soda. The cranberry sangria was actually really good. They had pretty much the full Thanksgiving spread – turkey, cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, sweet potato pie, etc. We all ate way too much.

I drank a cup of coffee today for the first time in three months. I’m not sure what’s gotten into me, but I’ve started eating a cookie or piece of cake after lunch again and today went completely crazy and had the cup of coffee. It didn’t taste that good, but I’m sure if I keep drinking it will quickly grow on me again. I will try not to get started back up. Of course, my new addiction is diet coke. What are you going to do.

Kind of hard to believe that my mom and stepdad will be in Vietnam in about 3 weeks, and that Thao and I will be married in 4 weeks. Next Thursday we have to go out to her hometown of Long An for our mental check – which she keeps telling me is a test to see if we can “control our actions.” I’m going to pitch a lunatic fit at the doctor’s office just to see what happens.

I hope everyone is doing well and had a nice Thanksgiving!

Amazon is having a big sale on Apple computers, iPods, etc. The best deal I’ve seen is the new MacBook for only $884.98.

That’s almost netbook-level pricing.

[UPDATE: That didn't last long. It's back up to $999. You gotta be quick!]

This is not some right-wing Republican “tea-bagger” or whatever – this is Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and former Democratic National Committee chairman – who also happens to be a medical doctor – and this is about the harshest critique of the proposed health care bill that I’ve heard from anyone:

I am not opposed to health care reform, and in fact welcome it, but this bill is not the answer.

*Update: To be fair, this also famously came out of the mouth of Howard Dean:

Her dazed stumble toward the camera at the end is the best part.

Not really that funny, but for old times’ sake.

Check this out – video of LSU coach Les Miles clearly telling his QB to spike the ball with 1 second left (meaning the game is over and Ole Miss wins) and then denying that he did so in the post-game press conference:

Remember: This is a man who is paid $4 million per year to coach college football.

Also remember: We’re Ole Miss. We take wins any way we can get them.

Today was Monday – my day off – so I decided to go for a bike ride by myself. I ended up going 54km – about 33 miles. I rode straight south out of Phu My Hung for about 20km until that road dead-ended into a river, then I started just kind of exploring around. I ended up getting lost and had to walk my bike through a swamp and wade across a creek carrying my bike in order to get back to a road. I was really tired when I got home – also a little lightheaded as I didn’t get home until after 3pm and had only eaten breakfast at like 9 this morning. So I took a quick shower, napped for about an hour and a half, then went out to get something to eat. Just got back now. Thao is at yoga.

I finished reading a great book today, Legacy of Ashes by Timothy Weiner. It’s a history of the CIA and it was extremely interesting – and more than a little bit disturbing given the repeated screw-ups that agency had between its founding after WWII and the present. It won the National Book Award and is a very good read.

Rode 34.5km tonight – about 21 miles. A little shorter than our usual ride because we didn’t go over the Phu My bridge tonight – just did three loops around our industrial park.

Having a mellow weekend – which will continue through tomorrow as I don’t work Mondays. I worked most of the day yesterday (Saturday) – taught class in the morning and then worked on grading midterms and some other stuff I had to do at work.

Also went to work for a few hours today. Almost finished grading the midterms – 4 more to go. I thought my class was doing much better than usual when I first started grading, but I guess I just happened to hit a batch of good exams because after a while the average started dropping to about its usual level.

Thao and I went out for sushi last night with two other couples. Went to a different sushi place than the one we usually go to. This one was Ohan in Phu My Hung. The quality is really good but it is substantially more expensive than the Tokyo Deli where we normally go. I think I’ll stick with the Tokyo Deli from now on.

I’ve gone off of my diet a little bit the last few days. I hadn’t been eating any sugar at all – for a long time – and then out of the blue this week I started having my pre-customary cookie after lunch at school. Then last night I ordered a piece of cheesecake after dinner. And today at lunch I ordered an apple crumble with two scoops of ice cream. I need to knock that back off. I was doing so well.

Ole Miss beat LSU this weekend – LSU being the #8 team in the nation. Ole Miss is 8-3 for the season now with only Mississippi State left. If we can be State we’ll finish 9-3, which is not bad. But it makes those two losses at South Carolina and Auburn even more disappointing. I can handle the loss to Alabama – which is the #2 team in the nation but which I think will likely beat Florida in the SEC Championship game and so play for the national championship – probably against Texas. Notre Dame lost to Connecticut. CONNECTICUT! Ha! Won’t be seeing that pompous ass Charlie Weis on the ND sidelines any more. I actually hope ND gets a good coach. It’s been fun kicking them while they’ve been down but it doesn’t feel right for them to not even be in contention. Of course you could say the same thing about Michigan. Or USC. You could also say it about Tennessee, but it is always fun to kick Tennessee when they’re down.

I’m out.

Q: What do the following photos, taken at various times over the last 16 years, have in common?

HCMC, Vietnam, November 14, 2009:

Atlanta, Georgia, Approximately 2003:

Havana, Cuba, 1999:

Portland, Oregon, 1996:

New Orleans, Approximately 1994:

Sagres, Portugal, 1993:

Spain (Seville or Granada – not sure), 1993: