Tomorrow is December. Now that's hard to believe... December 1 is the date, every year, where I mentally shift from thinking about the past season to thinking about everything that still needs to be done for the coming season, and sure enough that feeling is knocking on the door and will be looking me square in the eye when I wake up tomorrow.

And, since the final Thursday in November is always Thanksgiving (we had a GREAT one, and I hope all of you did as well) I think it only makes sense to make the final day of November (11/30) a traditional day for "Q & A" here on the blog. No, not the Canadian Billiards championship (that would be "Cue & 'eh") but your questions and my answers.

Q & A is also the fallback for any blogger who is running low on material, as you might suspect. Once the season ends, and I've wrapped up all the stuff from Pomona, there's a startling lack of racing things to write about for a few weeks, until we really start to ramp up the next season, and things like cats, ponds, local sports teams, and major holidays can only take me so far. I mean, those things are interesting to me 365 days a year, but believe it or not (I know this is a stretch) I'm actually not dumb enough to think it's all that interesting to anyone else. I do have to keep in mind the near- constant flow of emails asking for more pics of Da Boyce, as well as the regular in-bound stream of photos from readers, featuring their cats of all sizes and colors (all of which are enjoyed and appreciated) so in the interest of keeping up with the overwhelming amount of requests, Boofus and Buster will never be too far away.

I'll jump right into the questions I've been saving, and then will finish up with some miscellaneous nonsense and photos at the bottom. Let's get started...

The first question is from Bryan H. in Frisco, Tex. Bryan (whose name is also the name of another town in Texas, for whatever that's worth) asked "Are you guys planning a lot of changes over the off- season, in terms of how the car will look?"

There's a really short answer to Bryan's question, but I'll stretch it out a bit. The short answer is NO. Seriously, though, we actually made a conscious decision to keep all the changes to a bare minimum this year, starting with the paint scheme on the car, right to the uniforms and the hospitality area. Other than the possible addition or deletion of an associate sponsor decal or two, the car should look almost exactly the same, and that goes for our shirts, as well. We have a "drop-dead date" with the shirt manufacturer (Vicci) and we know we have to pull the trigger by that date in order to have our shirts in our hands before the Winternationals, so we'll wait until then to see if we need to make any additions in terms of logos, but otherwise the shirts will look the same as they did this year. We're making a few cosmetic changes to the hospitality area, in response to a few things we learned this season, but overall we're going to look very 2009 in 2010, and that's fine by all of us.

Next up is Cheryl M., from Marietta, Ga., who asks "Are we ever going to see those die-cast cars?" Short answer: I think so! They were on the boat, over on the other side of the world, a couple of weeks ago and the projected arrival date here in the U.S. of A. was listed as 11/30/09. That would be today. If I lived in Long Beach I could drive over to the docks to see if any die-cast cars were offloading from any of the huge ships, but since that would be impossible I did the next-best thing and dropped the folks at Motorsports Authentics a note and asked for an update. We really should have them soon... And this question actually ties in with the first one. If the die- cast cars didn't get to us until the 2009 season was over, we might as well keep the real car the same in 2010 so they, at least, match up.

Thirdly, I got this somewhat hilarious note from Carl H., who hails from the beautiful town of Portland, Ore. Carl asked "Now that the races are over, and you don't have all those press releases to write, what on Earth do you do with yourself? Do you still write as much stuff every week to keep in practice, or do you go through withdrawals?"

I go through withdrawals. Actually, for the first week after Pomona it feels pretty nice to not have deadlines on my calendar, but after that it gets a little odd to start a week (like today) without having a pre-race feature to write. I figure, during the course of the year I probably write about 68,000 words just putting out pre-race, post- race, and qualifying releases, and that doesn't include any additional feature stories or notes I might also put out. Nor does it include the blog, which now regularly features so many words per week my calculator simply bursts into flames if I try to add them up.

But... To ease the withdrawal issues, I still write and "pitch" feature stories on a fairly regular basis during the winter, hoping to get them out there and visible so that I'm still doing my PR job even though the season is over. You might just check NHRA.com over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours... I'm just sayin'...

And that whole withdrawal thing reminds me of the first few years after my slow-burning mostly-fizzling minor league baseball career was over. I might not have been very good when I was a pro, but I did go to the ballpark everyday and I was usually the first guy there, around 2:00 in the afternoon for a 7:00 game. For at least three or four years after I was out of baseball, hardly a month could go by when I'd simply be walking through life somewhere, at around 2:00 on any warm afternoon, and I'd feel a wave of panic wash over me, because I thought I was late getting to the ballpark... Weirdest thing...

Okay, next question. This one's from Marty T., who lives, coincidentally, in Winter Haven, Fla. I say coincidentally, because I was a member of the Lakeland Tigers in the Florida State League, and the Winter Haven Red Sox were not only in the league, but just a few miles down the road. Marty asked "Is there some sort of protocol for the whole start-up and burnout thing? Who starts first? Who stages first? Is Rick Stewart telling you guys what to do, or do you communicate with the other teams, since everyone seems to do things at a different pace?"

We've had variations of this question on here before, but it's been a while and it's worth repeating. Rick Stewart is up by the tree, so he's too far away to be involved with how and when we start the car, but another Safety Safari person is right in between us. When he or she gets the "all clear" they immediately ask both teams if we're ready, and if we are they say "Fire 'em up" or something to that effect. Marty is correct, though, in that most teams do things at their own pace, and we all have a pretty good handle on that. Our guys have a mental book on just about everyone, as do the other teams on us, so there's rarely a time when both teams want to start last, because we all want to stay within our normal routines and our normal timing. I'd say about 85 percent of the time, we end up pulling to the line together, right on schedule, but there are instances where either something goes wrong, or the other guy does a longer burnout than usual, or something delays them, and we have to wait.

Once both cars are near the staging beams, and the crew chiefs are ready to back away, you can almost always see both crew chiefs turn to each other and nod. That's a professional courtesy that says "We're ready to go" and from that point forward it's up to the drivers. It can, of course, get a little tricky after that, because some drivers like to go in last, no matter what. Tim has a clear mental book on all the other drivers, too, and I've never seen him get rattled by staging stuff. For the record, if you ever line up next to John Force, he likes to go in last. And he usually waits for a solid 3- count to get fully staged after you're in. Guys mess with him all the time, of course, and he will go in first if you make him wait long enough, but if everything is normal John will go in last and you can just about set your watch by the 3-count he takes to light the second set of bulbs. Everyone knows this, and most just do their own deal and go along with it, but there are some guys out there who just can't help trying to throw him off. Best of luck with that one...

Today's final question is from Terry P. in football-crazy Indianapolis. Terry wrote "Is the entire state of Minnesota just going absolutely insane over Brett Favre?" Short answer: Yes. There was actually a story in the paper yesterday about the "Favre Factor" in terms of retail sales throughout the state. Store owners, real estate agents, and other people who normally do a lot of business on Sunday afternoons have learned that EVERYONE watches the Vikings games now, and they can anticipate a near vacuum in terms of transactions and traffic. Something close to a million Minnesotans are now watching every Vikings game on TV, and you could just about shoot a cannon off in a grocery store during the games and not hit anybody... I've never seen anything quite like it.

And visually, around the Twin Cities, it's impossible to miss the impact. I haven't heard how many purple No. 4 jerseys Reebok has sold, but I think the number is about a gazillion.

There are more questions left, and feel free to fire off anything that I'd have a clue about (as opposed to anything too technical about the car) and I'll wade in and try to get to all of them as we go forward into December.

Before I leave though, I'll utilize the photo gallery to catch up on our wonderful Thanksgiving, next door with the Jacobsens and their large extended families. I'd say we had to have close to 40 people there, and we did consume two (count 'em, two) 20-pound turkeys and a full ham, as well as a kitchen-full of side dishes galore. It was all wonderful, and Barbara and I are made to feel so much like family it's like being "home for the holidays." Since you've all gotten to know Dave, and his family, via this blog, I thought you might enjoy a few pics.

It's also always a little funny to be inside Dave and Nichol's house, because the view is almost the same, but just from a slightly different perspective. Same pond, just a slightly different angle. Same view, but our house is out the window, instead of theirs. At least that gives me a chance to check out the retaining wall and the porch, to see if everything looks shipshape over here...

I'm also including a new Pond Cam shot, from our house, because the back pond has been starting each day with a microscopic little layer of ice each morning, for the last few days. It usually melts by noon, but one of these days it will make it through to the next night, and get a little thicker, and then the skating rink won't be too far away. I'll believe it when I see it, because we actually just had the second-warmest November on record, and the least snowiest. It seemed like it was in the 50s all month, and if not for a little dusting of snow on Saturday night we would've had exactly zero white stuff. As a matter of fact, the people who set the hunting seasons around here are discussing the fact they probably need to make some serious changes to when the goose and duck seasons are scheduled. They've always been the same time, in the fall, but with the warmer days lasting longer, year after year, the timing of the annual migration has changed. Right now, when it's goose or duck season, the hunters hardly have anything to shoot at, because the main masses of the birds are still up in Canada and aren't here yet. By the time it finally cools off enough for them to come flying through, the legal hunting seasons are nearly over. I'm not a hunter, but I find that to be a little troubling...

Oh, and one last thing that is also Jacobsen related. I mentioned, last week, that Alexa has been talking to a lot of colleges, trying to decide where she wants to go next year, both in terms of playing hockey and getting the degree she wants. One school that has been very interested in her is St. Norbert College, just outside of Green Bay. She visited the campus, and really liked it, but she also really liked the coach, who just came to St. Norbert from Dartmouth, and he's starting the girls hockey program from scratch, next year. Alexa had to make up her mind by today, and late last night I got a note from Dave, the proud parent, letting us know that Alexa has committed and will be headed to St. Norbert in the fall, where she'll get a chance to play four full years of varsity hockey for the Green Knights, on a brand-new team. Way to go, Alexa! Perhaps, a year from now, I'll be giving you updates on how the Green Knights are doing.

That's all from here. I'll be back in a couple of days with more stuff, I'm sure.

Wilber, out!