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I've been to Cabela's in Lubbock for black Friday the last three years running. What I've seen there is a well-behaved line of people joking about the cold. This time, we had drizzle to make it fun. For my troubles, I received three $10 gift cards and a couple of decent deals inside. My wife won a pair of hunting boots, which she horsetraded into a nice pair of boots for me (she really doesn't want or need boots right now). Yep, I was wearing those nice insulated boots this year!

I choose my battles on Black Friday. I don't really like large crowds to start with, enthusiastic crowds even more so. That means that Walmart, Target, the mall, and Toys-R-Us are out. I've been the first and only customer at some smaller stores when they opened on Black Friday.

I was in Academy Friday when the lights went out. I'll give Academy credit - emergency power worked to keep emergency lights on and a few registers running. The staff and customers inside were calm and cooperative, many using their cell phone lights to continue shopping. We found out later that an intoxicated driver hit a utility pole, killing his three passengers and knocking out power for 8000 people for an hour. No word if there was any Black Friday sale connection with the crash.

Black Friday is insanity at it's finest. I never go and neither does my wife. We stuffed our faces and went to watch The Night Before on Thursday night, slept in on Friday and didn't get out of our PJ's till 5pm while doing most of our shopping online with coffee in my hand like sane people!