I am currently in Mankato, in southern Minnesota for my grandson Duncan’s baptism. (For you Little House on the Prairie fans, Mankato was  the “Big City” where people from Walnut Grove would have to go for any major purchase or task)

I had just enough time to catch some rugby news on the web from the Dunn Brother’s Coffee shop where I am currently seated.

Interesting to see that Toulouse took the upstart  Basques, Avirion Bayonne , to the woodshed today in Toulouse, 32-11. This solidifies Toulouse’s hold on First place in the Top 14.

The more interesting bit of news is probably having Western Force and Wallaby fans about ready to choke on their VB or Carlton Mid: Word is that Bayonne is looking to break the bank to get fly half Matt Giteau playing in the Basque region for the next 3 years-possibly an even BIGGER deal than the one Perpignian just gave to All Black fly half Dan Carter.

The Wallabies, just coming off a tight loss in Cardiff to Wales, must be just besides themselves with another top flight player leaving Australia to play his club rugby in Europe.

With the deal that Giteau looks to get, he will be able to buy a lot of Bayonne ham for his mates and his family back in Oz. Stay tuned.

In the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, the late Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy get’s exasperated when being trailed by the forces of the law, and exclaims with both irritation and admiration, “Who ARE those guys?”

This early part of the French Top 14 season, the OTHER Basque side, Bayonne, has been the surprise of the competition making more than a few French rugby observers wonder just who are these guys, and how are they actually second in the top 14, behind only Guy Noves’ always formidable Toulouse side. Usually when you talk about quality Basque clubs, one usually thinks of Bayonne’s chic neighbor, Biarritz. Well, Bayonne has taken Biarritz and Clermont Auvergne to the woodshed. Last week, they smoked Montpellier, 42-9.  Don’t let the offensive numbers fool you, Bayonne also has the best defense in this young season in the Top 14.

Jean-Philippe Coyala and Thierry Mentieres’ men in blue have a date on Saturday in Toulouse with Les Toulousains. This will be the first of two interesting matches for Bayonne, for they play Stade Francais next week.

Bayonne has gotten some great play from Australians Manny Edmonds at fly half, and Craig Gower at Center. (Which should make Matt at http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/ a very happy Aussie)

This weekend’s match should be more than a little intriguing. Toulouse has had a number of it’s players seeing duty for Marc Lievremont’s XV de France, and are more than a little tired and nicked up after the international schedule is now done for France untill the 6 Nations starts up in February.  Toulouse has also had some emotional matches already in the Heineken Cup.  Bayonne is going to show up in Toulouse on Saturday with a willingness to show that their great start start to this season is no fluke-and is ready to crash the party that has been dominated by Stade Francais, Clermont Auvergne, Biarritz and Perpignian these last few years.

I think with all of the progress Bayonne has made, I just don’t see them beating Toulouse, although the men in red and black do look ripe for the taking.

As interested as I am in the French club scene (look, I studied in Montpellier, so sue me) Most rugby fans will be following the internationals England-New Zealand and Wales-Australia…for good reason, because wins by the Kiwis and the Wallabies will have meant that the Tri Nations sides have made a clean sweep of Northern Hemisphere competition. I just don’t see England beating New Zealand. Wales has a shot-albeit a slight one of beating the aussies in Cardiff.

Look for the Tri Nations sides to run the table. I think it will be back to the drawing board for Six Nations sides with the World Cup less than 3 years away.

My dad officially turns 70 tomorrow. Boy, time flies…it did not seem that long ago when I was in college giving my dad a hard time about turning 40. (My dad was a young father, he was 21 when I was born, and I was child #2)

With everybody going to all different locations tomorrow, we had a birthday party for my dad a couple of days ago at my brother Bill’s house. He has such a great house for entertaining. He grilled some pork chops and hamburgers. We picked up a honey cake from my cousin Margo’s bakery (Patisserie Margo) in Edina. She does French style baking, and is really quite an exceptional baker.(Her petit pain au chocolat are as good as you can find in France)

My 92 year old grandmother, my sister Wendy and her family, Bill’s in-laws Jim and Nancy and my family all made it.

Getting my dad a gift this time did not have nearly the amount of intrigue as when he turned 60. My dad had always wanted to get a parrot, but that is the type of thing he never would buy for himself. We all chipped in a couple of hundred bucks each between my aunt, my brother and my sisters and my brother did the research to find the bird: a lime green eclectus parrot that my dad named Green Bean. The expression on my dad’s face when we all met him at his real estate office to present him with his bird was just priceless. Green Bean has been an integral part of life at Adams Associates Realtors since then. (So he would not get lonely, dad bought a second eclectus named Lindbergh-a neurotic bird who keeps plucking off his own feathers, so he looks half-naked most of the time)

This time, everybody’s budget was, like most everywhere else in the US, a bit more limited. My dad really did not need more “stuff”, so I thought about a more unique dining experience for him. Years ago, when I was doing a business trip in Dallas, I discovered a Brazilian steak house called Fogo de Chao. It was one of the most amazing dining experiences I have ever had in North America. A few months ago, they opened one up here in Minneapolis on Hennepin Avenue. My dad is pretty game and a good sport about trying different foods, so I got him a gift certificate so he can have a meal and sample the myriad of meat products that are so lovingly prepared at Fogo de Chao.

Eventhough my dad is 70, he still works. He loves his job-even though real estate is not doing very well right now. He has been working as a realtor for over 40 years now. I imagine that he will keep working untill they carry out of the office feet first, or he is unable to put the key in the lock-whichever comes first, I guess.

Happy birthday to my dad-a person who has taught me a lot about trying to stay positive, and the importance of being polite, and how not to burn bridges.

“Surely, You must be joking!”
-”I’m not Joking…and my name is not Shirley.”

With apologies to Leslie Neilsen in “Airplane”, that was about what I was thinking this afternoon when I witnessed another “corporate moment” that makes me wonder if we have lost our ability to have some sort of common sense in this country.

My bulldog, Buddha, needs his nails trimmed quite frequently. He’s two and half years old and probably goes about 75 pounds now. He’s a sweet and personable dog that belies his appearance All of that bulldog good humor vanishes quicker than CITI stock value when I try to cut his nails. It degenerates into a wrestling match that is as stressful to me as it is to my dog.

The groomers at Pet Smart have always had the magic touch. We usually have a good system. I hold Buddha, and then the groomer cuts his nails. He still doesn’t like it, but he is less of a pain in the ass than he would be. Plus he likes seeing the other dogs that come to Pet Smart.

Today, when I finally brought Buddha in, I was informed that I could not longer go on the other side of the counter to hold him. Another groomer would have to do that task. I was told that there was a customer at another Pet Smart store somewhere in the US who was holding onto his dog during a grooming task, when the dog bit his owner; who did what most Americans seem to do when they mess up: He hired a lawyer and sued Pet Smart, because he charged that it was their fault that he got bit by his own dog. Because of this putz, Pet Smart now has a corporate policy where NO customers can go in the grooming area to hold onto their animal to prevent them from biting the groomer. The other groomer was using all of her stregnth to keep my uncooperative bulldog on the table, and ended up muzzling him.

The long and short of it, a situation that normally would have been done in a couple of minutes had I been able to hold Buddha, took longer than it had to, and ended up occupying a second groomer at a time when they were full of dogs needing pre-thanksgiving doggie cuts…and all of this just because some idiot could not accept responsibility for their own screw up, and sued somebody.

I know there are way more important things going on in the world, but this situation just really bothered me. It’s just one more sign how lawyers and people who cannot accept responsibility for their actions are making a major dent in the quality of life in this country.

The economy is not the only thing that is sinking fast in the USA-it appears that our rugby fortunes are tanking one year removed from not winning a match at the Rugby World Cup in France. There were some positives in playing with a lot of heart against England losing close games to Samoa and Tonga. The Eagles may have scored the try of the tournament against South Africa in Montpellier.

As the saying goes, that was then, and this is now: 2008 has not seen much success by the USA Eagles. We have a handful more of our players playing professionally in Europe, and Todd Clever signed with the South African club, the Lions-but we have yet to see those results show on  the field wearing the USA jersey. It’s not 100% negative: At the beginning of the month, they manhandled Uruguay in Utah. It should be noted that Uruguay did not qualify for last years rugby orgy in France.

In the past, Japan used to be good for a win-in fact the only two USA wins in Rugby World Cup history have come at the expense of the Cherry Blossoms-the last  one at RWC  2003 in Australia.  Going into the last two tests in Japan, the Eagles had been 13-3 against Japan  all-time. The Japanese  have been putting a lot money and work into improving their rugby, even shelling out some big bucks for Kiwi John Kirwan to be that National Team Coach. We got a glimpse of Japan’s improvement in last year’s RWC by getting a draw against Canada, a team with more than a little history. They have owned the Eagles the last several years, and it should be remembered, made it to the quarterfinals back in the 1991 RWC in England (where they beat Fiji and Romania and lost by 6 points to France). The fact that  Japan tied a team in a major tournament that had been kicking sand in USA Rugby’s face for the past decade should have been an omen to American rugby fans.

The Canucks may have falling fortunes from those heady times, but in the past two weeks, I think it is safe to say that Japanese have not only caught up with us, they have left USA Rugby eating it’s dust. The Japanese beat the Eagles last week 29-19, and today took the Eagles to the woodshed once again, winning 32-17. I guess it should not be a surprise, with the amount of money and sweat that the Japanese have put into the sport, but I think the results of these games are going to have to be a serious wake up call to the USA Rugby czars in Colorado Springs.

There are teams that seem to be improving a lot-the Japanese, the Russians, the Georgians and the Portuguese(who played Canada tough 3 weeks ago and only lost by 8 points) have improved by leaps and bounds. I am beginning to wonder if we as a nation will even be able to qualify for RWC 2011 in New Zealand, which would be a serious setback for rugby in the US. It can be easy to read too much into internationals before qualification starts, but these two loses to Japan have an ominous look to them.

The Good news this weekend is that there will be a bunch of fall international rugby matches played.  Among the two most mouth-watering match-ups will be South Africa playing at Twickenham against England, and the one I am most looking forward to seeing, The Wallabies playing Marc Lievremont’s French XV at the Stade de France in Paris.

The bad news is that England-South Africa and France-Australia will not be shown live tomorrow-Setanta Sports will be showing both games on Sunday Evening. My friend Jacques plans on coming over to catch the former, I am going to have to TIVO the latter, as we are going to get together at my brother Bill’s house for my dad’s 70th birthday party.

South Africa will have to get over it’s problems at the ruck-they were penalised a whole lot in their game against Scotland last weekend. To be honest, they were just hanging on at the end, and dodged a bullet when Scotland muffed an easy penalty with 6 minutes left in the game that altered thins a bit in the final minutes. A loss at Murrayfield would have left the Boks red-faced, to be sure. The Boks won’t be the only team at Twickenham with something to prove. England’s front row is still licking their wounds after the Australian front row’s amazing performance in the Wallabies win last weekend. It’s been a long time since an Australian pack of forwards have played so well against England. England clearly has more talent to go against the South Africans-will they bring as much heart to tomorrow’s contest as the plucky Scots did last weekend in Edinburgh?

As much as my friend Jacques, a Port Elizabeth native, will be looking forward to the game from Twickenham, I am highly looking forward to see if Australia can continue it’s good form-and to see if France will open things up a bit and play with more flair and cut down on the horrible kicking that marred their contest against Argentina a fortnight ago.  I have gone on record saying that I think that the Australians will win in Paris.

I am getting the adult beverages and snacks ready for Sunday afternoon. I can hardly wait!

Dan Santoro with the Yahoo Old Boys Rugby Group forwarded the following story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/sports/othersports/15rugby.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

My son Ian came up with an interesting project for one of his college classes. In bold below are his words:
The way I looked at recess was a time to do whatever one wanted with no real schedule or intent other then to take a break.
As adults so much of what we do is structured even our leisure time often involves leagues rules bureaucracy, and structured classes. I wanted something that could offer stress relief, physical exercise, and room for imagination.
Recess offered this, it is a very organic experience you have some raw materials, playground equipment, balls etc. but then the rules are constantly in flux as more or less people want to play something the game adapts, if it is no longer fun a new game is started and that is changed and altered as well, if the ground is lava then it is lava and you can not touch it until a change is needed to keep the game fun. That is an interesting concept in many areas rules are made to prevent or control, in recess rules are used to enable the enjoyment of those involved. Unless, you are playing with a bossy kid. If the field is too small it can be expanded to the next landmark.
Also I wanted people to participate on their own even far away just to see what would happen, I have not heard back from any one else and I am not sure if I will. For my actual event I had six friends show up, along with my Dad, girlfriend, son and myself.(PS Ian is in the neon yellow sweatshirt, I have the neon yellow hat) This event also inspired my girlfriend to act like a kid she made a note for me and had a friend pass it to me, there is a picture attached. We played for square tag and just ran around on the equipment simply put, it was fun. Many people changed their plans or had to do homework I hope to try something like this again but with a few more people so we can play some more games and so some people an do one thing while others do another.

I initially was going to go the gym and work out, but I was intrigued with my son Ian’s idea.  So I tagged along, played four-square and tag with Ian and his friends-and just had a really good time. Oh yeah, thanks to trying to chase after MUCH younger kids (they were all in the 21-22 age range) It ended up being a good leg workout.  Ian and his friends looked like they had a really good time as well.

It got me to thinking that back when I was a kid, we never talked about “exercise”, per se-we just went out and played. With all of the running, wrestling, climbing and playing games like street hockey, baseball and touch football. Back then, the overweight kid was the exception-which is not the case anymore if you see any group of American elementary school and middle school kids. Recess, and free play not only helped us out physically, but mentally, it was a great way to relieve stress.

Sadly, in this day and age of “no child left behind” and parents afraid of perverts behind every tree, schools in the US are getting rid of recess-so kids can be prepped more on how to pass mandatory tests, and parents won’t let their kids go down to the local park just to play. Take a look at this picture we took yesterday-if free play can make this group smile, think about what it can do for YOU!

I think Ian stumbled onto a really great idea that has a lot of take-aways for parents, kids…and those of us who are just big kids at heart.

You have to wonder just what more the Pumas, the Argentinian National Rugby Team, can do to get a little love. Like a precocious, motherless child looking for a home, it now looks like the Pumas will be having to wait until a minimum of 2012-that’s one year AFTER the NEXT Rugby World Cup in 2011-before there is even a remote chance that the Pumas will be allowed in the fold to expand the Tri-Nations into a Quad-Nations tournament. For now, that means that the Pumas will have to content themselves with spring and fall internationals, along with beating up whatever XV comes their way in the Western Hemisphere.  In real terms, it means that the only meaningful tournament that the Pumas get to participate in is the Rugby World Cup.

Here is a team that has already taken third place in the last Rugby World Cup, where it beat the host country France not once, but TWICE, almost all of their top players are playing professionally with top clubs in the best European Leagues. Last Saturday’s loss to France in Marseilles was only the second time that France has beaten Argentina in the 21st Century.(For the record, Argentina has won 6 of 8 matches) There is no denying France’s pedigree-and for Argentina to take a team with Grand Slam Success in the Six Nations, as well as being New Zealand’s Bogeyman in the 1999 and 2007 Rugby World Cups, it just begs the question of how much more Argentina can do.

Adding Argentina to the mix in the Southern Hemisphere will be a win-win situation all the way around. Let’s face it, with just 3 teams, expanding the number of games with the same 3 teams makes it just a little more than an intramural competition. If rugby REALLY wants to expand the game, adding Argentina, or even Japan to the mix would be a big help. As it stands, with the results that the Pumas have obtained, it would seem to me that Argentina has first dibs for inclusion into the Tri-Nations club.

As you may, or may not know, I was a medic in the Active Duty Air Force from 1984-88. My wife was active duty USAF from 1985-88. We both served in the Minnesota Air National Guard from 1988-1990. I went back into the military after 9/11. I was Minnesota National Guard from 2002-03, and 1st Lieutenant in the US Army Reserve Nurse Corps from 2003-05.

Over the years, I have had a chance to speak with people who have served in WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq.  I have been humbled by what these soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines did and what they witnessed.

In warfare, they saw some of the best in human nature, but they also witnessed  the worst. You cannot listen to a veteran talk about being there when a concentration camp was liberated, or surviving the Bataan Death March and not be moved.

Last year, during my trip to France, my friend Patrick Simon took my son and Ian and me on a great tour of the Ardennes. One of our stops was in and around Verdun. When you thousands of bones of unidentified French and German soldiers intermingled at the Ossuary in Verdun, or the thousands of grave sites marking the final resting places of American soldiers who died on French soil, it makes you realize that Freedom really is not free. But it also highlights the responsiblities our elected officals have of doing the right thing-when they make that decsion to put troops in harm’s way, it had better be for a good reason.

The situation in Iraq stands to make a lot of Americans more isolationist in thought and deed. That would be  a big mistake, because that would repeat the mistake that Americans, English and French peoples made after ‘The Great War”.  The hesitency to intervene militarily early on in the mid-late 1930’s only emboldened people like Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo to invade and seek further conquests. 

I think Veteran’s day is a day of deep reflection-but also extreme gratitude for the sacrifice of so many people from so many nations who have tried to defend freedom and do the right thing.