Tournament of Champions - Thanksgiving 2025

      I love Thanksgiving. I mean, who doesn’t? Getting together with family and friends. Two days off from work. It’s great. Plus, where I live, the temperature is in the 50s and 60s during the day. Go for a walk, a bike ride, or just enjoy being outside. It’s the perfect time of year. And of course, great food. Right?

I don’t enjoy Thanksgiving food all that much. OK, it’s manageable. Presented with a plateful of the “classics,” my mandibles will do their duty. And admittedly, I’ve overeaten at three of the last five Thanksgivings. Actually, I’m on a lifetime streak. But still, is it really that good? I don’t think so. Yet, most people rave about Thanksgiving food. 

I believe there are two reasons people claim to love Thanksgiving food. For one, its nostalgic. It’s what you ate in the 90s, back when baggy pants were cool. It’s what you ate the last time you were with your great uncle. It reminds you of the good old days. As anyone who’s rewatched a favorite childhood movie (Ernest anyone?), nostalgia can only do so much, and it’s just part of the reason people love Thanksgiving. The other reason is that we just love food. This is America after all. When we love a certain food, it is the functional equivalent of saying it is not abjectly horrible. It’s binary – if it it’s not bad, we love it. That’s a low bar, and Thanksgiving food surely passes that threshold.

Whatever the reason for this false love, Thanksgiving is certainly a holiday focused on food. A holiday centered around food, well should have better food. Yet every year, we cook the same ten things. It’s like we’re on auto pilot. Not this year.

I’ve come up with a way to upgrade the Thanksgiving experience. Instead of cooking the classics, I’m going to cook my favorite foods, whether they fit into the Thanksgiving paradigm or not. No ethnic limitations. Burritos and brownies is an acceptable solution. Thai and cookies? Yes, please! Hamburgers? Yee-haw! Whatever I want, no limits.

       When I want really to go all out, well, I usually go out to eat. Normally, I buy all my favorite foods. On Thanksgiving, when all the stores are closed, I’ll have to cook myself. The plan is to test out recipes of my favorite foods. I’ll have to test recipes leading up to the big day because I want the lineup locked down. I don’t want to be fooling around with a recipe on the big day. There’s just too much on the line. 

        I’ll test possible recipes each week until Thanksgiving. I’ll test recipes in three categories of food: main dish/meat, side dish/breads, and desserts. To the victor goes the spoils, and the spoils will be consumed by me. Each week I’ll write about the recipe of that week and make a cursory year or nay selection. Then, the week before Thanksgiving, I’ll finalize my choices. 

       There is a possibility that none of the recipes will work, and I default to Papa Murphy’s take-n-bake pizza and Betty Crocker fudge brownies. But that is a risk I’m willing to take, and that would still beat the classics.

Book Reviews

    I read a lot. I don’t keep track of how many books I read, but I would guess I read about twenty books a year. I enjoy classical fiction – Brothers Karamazov, Great Expectations, Don Quixote, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, etc. I also enjoy self-improvement nonfiction – Atomic Habits, How to Win Friends and Influence People, etc. I also read religious books – the Book of Mormon, the Bible, etc. As I see it, I either read to feel and experience something or to change my thinking for the better. I enjoy it.

    Given that I read a lot of books, you can expect a book review every now and again. Sometimes a book will be so good that I want to share all about it. At the very least, I’ll want to give a brief recommendation while sharing a couple of the highlights. I’ll also be keeping a book list to keep track of the books I have read. If you want to hear more a book I’ve read, you’re always welcome to reach out.

Pizza Hut Triple Treat Box

        This year, I caved and bought the Pizza Hut Triple Treat Box. 

What is the Pizza Hut Triple Treat Box? At its core, it’s a meal deal with two medium pizzas, a side of breadsticks, and some sort of desert. And yet, it is so much more. You see, it comes in a giant box, with smaller boxes within that box. If that’s a little confusing, just think of Russian nesting dolls, but instead of dolls, boxes of pizzas and breadsticks.

It seems every year during Christmas, Pizza Hut is dazzling the TV with commercials of the Triple Treat Box. Pizza Hut knows their audience. We don’t just want pizza; we don’t want just to be fed. We want to be entertained. For the past couple of years, I always said I’d get it (“Next year at Pizza Hut.”). This year, I finally came through with my well-wishing intentions. I bought the box, bit the bullet, splashed the cash.

I must say a little about ordering this Italian-inspired behemoth. When it comes to the medium pizzas, you can choose two, one-topping medium pizzas. Here’s where things get interesting: you can upgrade to premium pizzas if you want. That’s what I did, and I certainly have no regrets. 

        When upgrading, Pizza Hut may ask you some befuddling questions about what crust you want. I have no clue why they do this. They’ve got to know their audience. How can I say this nicely? I faithfully ate Little Caesar’s pizza once a week through nearly my whole college and post graduate career. It was a staple of my physical and emotional well-being. If you asked me how many crusts Little Caesar’s had, I’d say one. I really doubt there are Pizza Hut aficionados that know the various crusts on offer. Pizza Hut, nobody loves you that much. 

        If I could tell Pizza Hut anything, it’d be this: “Look Pizza Hut, nobody knows the difference between tavern style, hand tossed, thin crust, etc. Just give me your crust. Everybody’s got “their” crust. Domino’s, Papa John’s, Little Caesar’s. Just give me yours. You don’t have endlessly adoring fans that know all your crust types. I certainly don’t. Let's not make this complicated and awkward. Just give me “your” crust.”

  

        During the ordering process, you can also upgrade the breadsticks and the desert. With the breadsticks, you can step up to cheese sticks, and if you’re feeling flush, cheese sticks with bacon and jalapeños (or something like that). With the desert, you can upgrade to some Cinnabon thing, brownies, or a giant cookie. Don’t quote me on this.

        After ordering, I picked up the pizza. The two medium pizzas each have their own box. The bread sticks and cinna sticks come in another medium-sized box. All three of these boxes are stacked and then put inside another box. I had hoped that the pizzas came in euro-style, frameless corrugated carboard cabinet, with each of the pizza boxes forming a drawer. I seem to remember commercials that may have been the cause of my delusions and fantasies. Sadly, I was disappointed here. That aside, I paid for the food, and put my beloved passenger, the size of a small toddler, in the car and drove home. After all that excitement, I have to say the food was good, not great. But I knew that going into this whole experience.

        For me, it really was about the experience, not the food. It’s about watching TV, commercials and all, seeing something you absolutely desire, and then getting it. It’s about knowing you are being marketed towards, but still wanting it anyways. It’s about getting the sides that your parents never bought for you (who gets cinnamon sticks at a pizza place?). It’s about unabashedly being a consumer and loving that too. For that, the box truly delivered.

President's Day

President’s Day weekends are always a blast. The past two in a row, I’ve put together a new bike. While that’s not happening this year, it is a great tradition that I’ll have to keep up to some degree. Last President’s day, it snowed in St. George. Still wanting to go out with my new bike, we decided to ride a trail mostly on sandstone. It actually turned out quite well. The sandstone had a lot of grip and the trail was just fine. It was muddy, but still great.

            It’s been over two centuries since George Washington died, and over a century and a half for Lincoln. Every year, we celebrate their legacy. What does their legacy mean today?

            In a broad assessment, I’d say both we’re people who gave it their all. Whatever they did, they give it their best shot. That’s not to say it was always success for them, but rather, they successfully tried.

            They also spent their time doing the important things. For Washington, that meant starting a nation, and for Lincoln, that meant saving a nation. But not just any nation, a nation started on new, and important ideals of freedom. They believed in America, and their faith was rewarded. We should believe in America too.

            They both believed in God and lived their life accordingly. Both were known for their upstanding moral character. That’s an example for all people everywhere.

            Yet, in saying all of that, it’s important to remember the contributions of those whose names will never be heralded or will never have a holiday. There are many who have lived their lives in a similar, noble way. That’s most of us. Just because there won’t be a holiday named after us or we won’t be the president doesn’t mean our contribution isn’t just as important.

Nomad 4 Review

            Last February, I bought a new bike. Actually, I purchased the frame, a Santa Cruz Nomad 4 frame, and the necessary parts over a number of weeks. I finally built the bike over President’s day weekend in February. Before that I’d ridden an Astryx Strike. The Astryx was a 12-year-old bike that weighed over 40 pounds. It was an excellent bike; it had a Bomber 66 RC3Ti fork (which felt like butter and weighed a ton), as well as a XT 2x10 setup. I’d grown fit pedaling the 40+ pound bike, but it was time for something new.

            With 27.5” wheels and all the right geometry, the Santa Cruz Nomad 4 was more than a capable replacement. For a bike with nearly a 64-degree head angle, the bike handles and pedals quite well. The VPP suspension provides a firm pedaling platform that also keeps the bike planted when descending. I’ve never bottomed out the suspension, and the bike has given me the confidence to do things I’ve never done before. Not to mention the 27.5” wheels on 30 mm internal width rims that give me all the grip I need. Yeah, the Nomad is a blast.

            What makes my bike so great? For one, the Nomad has all the right numbers. I put a 180 mm fork on my bike and ride the bike in the high setting (to avoid pedal strikes). This gives a head angle around 64 degrees. When descending, that is confidence inspiring. The bike also has a steep seat-tube angle and a large, though not unmanageable reach.

            Santa Cruz also got the suspension just right. With their new lower link driven VPP suspension, Santa Cruz has fine-tuned the Nomad’s leverage curve to perfection. The Nomad is linearly progressive. It starts with a high leverage ratio which creates really good small-bump compliance. The leverage ratio drops as the bike travels through its suspension. This provides a really strong pedaling platform and with the air shock also ramping up, a near bottomless feel. I can’t remember a single harsh bottom out (or a bottom out at all).

            I put a Marzocchi Z1 fork on my Nomad. I’ve always been a fan of Marzocchi (my first fork was a Marzocchi Bomber X-Fly), so I decided to give their new fork a try. Of course, since Fox bought Marzocchi, Marzocchi is now more or less rebranded Fox. That said, the Marzocchi has exceeded expectations. I’ll be honest, the small bump isn’t as good as my RC3Ti, but it’s pretty close. The ramp-up and mid-stroke support have been phenomenal; I haven’t bottomed out the fork yet. The compression and rebound adjustments are straightforward. On previous forks, I’d always wondered if moving the dials did anything, but on this fork, you can feel the difference. Overall, I’d say the Z1 is an excellent fork, and at the price I got it, an unbeatable value.

            I’ve said a lot of nice things about the Nomad 4, but there are some not so nice things to say as well. Pedal strikes. Keep ‘em level or you’ll be strikin’. With such a low bottom bracket, the bike hits a lot of rocks, and when I’m not careful, the pedals strike rocks a lot. If I did it over again, I’d buy 170- or 165-mm cranks instead of 175.

            Overall, I’m glad I bought the Nomad 4. With the confidence it’s given me, I’ve progressed my riding and had a lot of fun. Here’s to many more fun rides on Send-A-Soar-Us Rex.