Eight Feet Deep

 Some national cor­po­ra­tion are thank­ing vet­er­ans this year by putting their money where the vet­er­ans’ mouths are.

 But show­ing appre­ci­a­tion for those who are serv­ing or who have served this year will not be lim­ited to free din­ners from Golden Cor­ral on Mon­day,  Novem­ber 16, and Applebee’s on Wednes­day evening (Vet­er­ans Day).

 Lowe’s is offer­ing a 10 per­cent dis­count on in-store mer­chan­dise up to pur­chases of $5,000 from Nov. 6 through Vet­er­ans Day. This is accord­ing to media reports I have seen. I saw noth­ing on their Web site about it. I would call first and ask if inter­ested. Home Depot is like­wise offer­ing a 10 per­cent dis­count through Vet­er­ans Day. Check the Web site arti­cle for lists of limitations.

 I am unsure how long any of these cor­po­ra­tions have shown their appre­ci­a­tion for vet­er­ans other than Golden Cor­ral. The buf­fet and grill restau­rant has held the Vet­er­ans feast for the past eight years. Their Web site notes they have served more than 2.1 mil­lion meals to active duty mil­i­tary and vet­er­ans dur­ing these occasions.

 Applebee’s requires some kind of proof of ser­vice such as a pic­ture of the vet­eran in uni­form, mil­i­tary or retired mil­i­tary ID card, DD-214 or vet­er­ans orga­ni­za­tion card. Their list doesn’t include a VA patient ID card, so I wouldn’t count on that get­ting you a free din­ner. Applebee’s is also offer­ing a lim­ited num­ber of items on their menu for the gratis meal — six to be exact — but they all look pretty good.

 Golden Cor­ral does not require proof of ID. I still would take some though. You never know if your waiter under­stands the rules and hav­ing your papers in order might avoid hav­ing to get a man­ager and mak­ing a scene. I have been only once for Golden Corral’s meal, a cou­ple of years ago, and I wasn’t asked for an ID.

 A num­ber of other restau­rants and busi­nesses are giv­ing free or dis­counted meals or mer­chan­dise across the coun­try includ­ing, or did so over the week­end. Some of these also honor those uni­formed folks serv­ing in pub­lic safety such as police, fire and EMS. You just need to check around and see, I sup­pose, because I don’t have a full list. I wish I did.

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT

  Dis­ap­point­ing would be an appro­pri­ate word to describe yesterday’s Houston-Indianapolis game.

  The Tex­ans came in with a respectable 5–3 record for the first time in their his­tory against the unde­feated Colts. Still, there was no way the Tex­ans could beat Indi­anapo­lis, right? Well, even though they weren’t throw­ing hand grenades or play­ing horse­shoes, they almost pulled off an upset. Even more, the Tex­ans should have won this one.

  A big exam­i­na­tion was tak­ing place on Beaumont-Houston’s ESPN Radio, the Ticket, this after­noon, as to the blame for the Tex­ans 20–17 loss to the Colts. It was a con­tro­ver­sial fum­ble at the Colt’s one-yard line by Hous­ton run­ning back Ryan Moats, said some. It was flat out turnovers and stu­pid penal­ties, said oth­ers. It was kicker Kris Brown, still oth­ers said while you could almost see heads nod­ding through the many radio receivers through­out the Houston-Beaumont area.

 Brown could eas­ily be seen as the goat that ate the chance to knock off the Big Dog Colts. The Colts saw their lead cut to a nar­row mar­gin at the end of the first half when the Tex­ans’ kicker per­fectly nailed a 56-yard field goal. Brown, com­ing into the game, had a per­fect extra point record and he left with that intact at 25-for-25 upon leav­ing Indy. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Auto­matic with 9-for-13 com­ing into the game but nei­ther was he Mr. Aro­matic. That path to Mr. Smelly quickly changed in the esti­ma­tion of some Tex­ans fans when Brown had a chance to send the game into overtime. 

 But just as plane crashes hardly ever have one cause, nei­ther do lost foot­ball games. Some­how the clock quickly ticked off until it was stopped at one sec­ond — amaz­ing in itself that Hous­ton didn’t lose because of poor time man­age­ment. Brown seemed like a sure shot for a 42-yarder to tie after kick­ing one a very respectable 56 yards. How­ever, the ball went up and up and just freak­ing missed the goal with a veer to the left.

  Well, Coach Dan Kubiak thought his team did okay con­sid­er­ing they were play­ing Pey­ton Manning’s Colts. I have to say I feel the same way although, as I men­tioned before, I am very disappointed.

 As for one goat. It wasn’t Kris Brown. It wasn’t one play. It wasn’t the refs. It wasn’t Moats’ fum­ble. It was all of those wrapped up with penal­ties that were just dumb, though as I have noted  here before I sure as hell couldn’t have done better.

 The Tex­ans now are nei­ther down nor are they out. They have to play the Colts again at the end of this month and beat them. They have to beat the Titans again the week after next week’s bye. That the­o­ret­i­cally should be easy against a now 2–6 team that only picked up its sec­ond win just yes­ter­day by beat­ing the equally lack­lus­ter 49ers. But the­o­ries are like a**holes, everybody’s got one and every once in awhile some­thing goes wrong with them. Then you got your Rams, Sea­hawks, Jaguars and Dol­phins in no par­tic­u­lar order fol­lowed at the end by the Patri­ots. The Patri­ots. Yes.  Uh-huh.

 So the Tex­ans can still make the play­offs. Hell, they could go to the Super Bowl. I mean any­thing can hap­pen and does hap­pen in foot­ball, just look at Ter­rell Owens or John “Sandy Baby” Rig­gins — remem­ber the latter’s drunken encounter with Supreme Court Jus­tice San­dra Day O’Connor? Per­haps those aren’t the best examples.