Traveling, the Race Track and Thanksgiving

[2MinsToPost]

Thankful that I am employed and making enough money to pay my bills, keep the roof over my head and still play the horses occasionally

Thankful that I am alive and healthy today

Thankful that there are some people in my life who provide me with what really matters, friendship when it counts. I can only hope I do the same for them

Thankful that I will be able to help some who are not as fortunate this Holiday Season and bring a smile, I hope, to their face and hearts and good memories that will last a lifetime

Thankful that over the past year and a half or so I have lived a lifetime but gained so much knowledge thru the hard times. As in what to do and not to do, life is all about decisions, you either make the right ones or the wrong ones. WEven if you make the wrong ones, the true test is did you learn anything? If you did, get up, dust yourself off and go on

Last but not least, I am thankful for the people of this board, starting with Steve, who expend much of their time and energy, not too mention money, so that we as Horse Racing Enthusiasts can have a place to gather and talk

[brianwspencer]

I'll just cross post from my blog on things I am thankful for:

Thanks for Fairgrounds opening tomorrow.

No thanks to Northville Downs for being closed for simulcasting tomorrow, so that I won't be able to thank Fairgrounds with my wallet.

Thanks for the Triple Crown trail being just two months away, and thanks that its arrival will mean the death of the neverending, and unwinnable (by anyone) bias debate throughout the entire racing community.

Thanks for people like Michael Matz and Roy and Gretchen Jackson.

Thanks for my favorite horses and their health: Gorella, Vacare, Dreaming of Anna, Original Spin, Malibu Mint, Courthouse, Maddy's Bobcat, Mystery Giver, Rapid Proof, Crimson Design, Silver Drummer, Moette, Atlantic Frost, Camptown King, Gravano and my first favorite horse after I became of gambling age, this blog's namesake, Mckinney.

Thanks to people who figured out how to make fake meat of every kind: fake sandwich salami, fake hamburgers, fake chicken.....even fake Thanksgiving turkey.

Thanks for Arlington live racing. There is no building more spectacular or well taken care of in American horse racing.

Thanks to Early Times Whiskey, for all you've done for me. Yes, both the good and the bad. I love you still.

Thanks to Chase Bank for the free $100.

Thanks to Phoenix Reach's connections for bringing him to the Million. Last place or not, I am a happier person having been able to see him up close and in person. He is a remarkable horse with a remarkable list of accomplishments. Likely the best horse I've ever seen in person, and I've wanted to see him for years.

Thanks for Serene Teaz. I've only been waiting my whole life for a store like that to open.

Thanks for the fact that I've inherited a world in which people will actually pay money to see me play music. I've been nothing, if not lucky, in my life. This world is coincidentally the same world in which every year the President of the United States holds a ceremony in which he pardons a turkey and saves its life. The music thing is easier to understand once you remember that -- the lesson is that nothing in this world can truly be explained because the reasons we do certain things simply make no sense.

Thanks for Frank Calabrese and Wayne Catalano and Rene Douglas getting a Breeders' Cup win.

Thanks for the reintroduction of the word "peckerhead" to my vocabulary.

Thanks for the fact that Hawthorne's late pick-4 almost always pays more than the parlay. Way more. Way way way more. As in at least a thousand more. It makes losing late pick-4 tickets much more tolerable, knowing that you only need to hit one to make up for all the losers.

Thanks for Jazil's Derby and Belmont.

Thanks for homemade stuffing, 100% Gravenstein apple juice, and fake turkey that I'll be enjoying in the night-before-Thanksgiving feast after work.