Hello, and welcome to the Valentine's Eve edition of your Fleur-de-Links Preview/Teaser/Space-Filler.
First of all, thanks ever so much to fearless Head Blogger Mr. Dave for covering my shift yesterday.
My wife had back surgery (discectomy and nerve decompression) on Friday, and I was out of pocket for a couple of days. The good news is that the surgery went well and was successful, we are now back home and she is finally resting peacefully in our own bed, on the Road to Recovery.
Make the jump to read about what awaits you in today's Fleur-de-Links.
What's on tap for today, Hans?
Well, let me tell you. Apparently, our boy Tracy Porter tied the knot with his sweetheart yesterday. You'll see some tweets about it and a link to a short message board thread from someone who worked at the wedding. (Which reminds me, I am going to plug the hilarious show about a group of zany, eccentric catering employees in Hollywood - it's called Party Down, and it's on Starz [you know the channel's cool when it uses a "z" instead of an "s"]. But I'm sure you could get it on netflix or on demand, too) How smart was TP to set the date close to Valentine's Day, so he can lump together anniversary and Valentine's presents/celebrations in one fell swoop. Nice.
I also give you a collection of NFL labor-related articles and columns from the past week that offer up a range of viewpoints and commentary. I'm hoping it might lead to an interesting discussion of their various takes on the situation, but it might just sink like a lead balloon. We'll see.
It closes with a couple of broad NFL pieces from John Clayton and Jason La Canfora.
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In addition to discussing Tracy's hairdo in the comment section, we can also get into appropriate wedding gifts for an NFL millionaire who captured the hearts of Saints fans everywhere with two game-saving INTs in the playoffs last year...