Water is not always your friend

The majority of today's post can be found on my Basement blog

That's pretty much my entire weekend except for 2 other things.

1) We won our hockey championship Friday night, 5-0. I had the first and last goals and finished the season with 26 goals and 43 total points in 22 games, leading the team in both. Here's a team picture.


2) I bought a new lawn mower (mine died last fall). It's a kick ass rear propelled model with variable speed and a big engine. It also has a high vacuum bagging system. About as good as you can get in a walk behind without going to a pro model. Sears had a big sale Saturday that I couldn't pass up.

Kohler Cup 2008

Well, we didn't win again but that didn't stop Pat and I from having a good time golfing. While the weather in Madison was awesome all weekend it wasn't quite that great on Lake Michigan up north. Saturday was about 46, cloudy and windy at Whistling Straits. That seems to always be the temperature up there, I don't know what's going on with that.

We played Saturday at even par, which was pretty disappointing because we didn't play that poorly. It always seemed that Pat and I would get birdies on the same holes and bogeys on the same hole. If we'd just switched that up a little we could have been 4-6 under par. We went into Sunday in 53rd place out of 93 teams.

Sunday we didn't get off to the great start we needed and faded poorly at the end shooting a 3 over par. Once again there were 6 holes where neither of us did worth a crap and cost us.

All in all, a great weekend despite not winning. Can't wait till next year.

Quick catch-up

I haven't been in the mood to blog lately. I think a lot of it stems from being busy but also I'm finding that I have nothing to say. Nothing really happens around here. Work, bowling, hockey and now golf are about it for me.

However, I guess there are a couple things. On Sunday we had our first Comic Wonder full team meeting in Milwaukee (of course, scheduled during the final round of the Masters so I didn't see any of it). It was really good and lots of great energy and ideas to make the site great and other ways we can make use of the technology. After that we went to see the new office space that we'll be getting May 1st. I still won't have to go in very often but it's cool we have a space to get together in. It's right by the Milwaukee river with a good view of downtown. It also has a basketball/tennis court next to it and one side has a big garage door so you can really open up the space. Kind of an industrial thing.

This weekend is the Kohler Cup. I think the 3rd one I've been in. Mike can't make it this year so Pat is taking his place. I went to play 18 on Wednesday afternoon to get in some more practice. I did ok, considering the wind was gusting to 35mph! Shot a 92 (46-46). The wind was amazing. On one par 5 dead into the wind I hit 2 straight 3-woods, each about 115 yards! They were rising shots that just went up and up and up and then back and back and back! I swear it was like a boomerang, thought I'd have to catch the ball as it came flying back past me. I ended up parring 3 of the last 4 holes so I feel ok about this weekend. I found the key was to relax and not try to swing hard. We'll see how it goes.

Weekend forecast calls for some showers tomorrow with possible t-storms in the afternoon. Of course they also said it was going to rain all day yesterday and it didn't rain at all until almost 10pm. Sunday is supposed to be great, mid-60's and sunny.

What else is new... oh, hockey playoffs. We won our first 2 games and are in the championship game next week already. Somehow I have no goals and 2 assists in 2 games though I did play better last week than I did the previous.

That's about it, lots of work to do today. Have a great weekend.

Is this the beginning of the end?

I meant to post this Monday but I was too depressed. I'm starting to wonder if, at the ripe old age of 43, my natural athletic ability has left me.

It all started Friday night with our first playoff hockey game. I arrived early and got plenty of warm up time (too much, maybe). No signs of what was to come a short time later.

The game starts and for some reason I keep tripping, stumbling, basically acting like I hadn't ever done this before. Then I started having good scoring chances and either losing the puck or shooting a weak ass shot into the goalie. No signs of the guy that lead the team with 23 goals during the regular season. I don't think I could have played any worse and while, personally, I was quite down on myself, at least the team picked me up and we won 7-1.

Then Saturday comes around and it's time for our first golf round of the year. We head out to the Oaks and I hit pretty well on the range so I'm feeling pretty optimistic. I keep forgetting the old "good on the range, shit on the course" adage. And that's pretty much what happened. I hit a few decent drives but my iron shots were, for the most part, horrendous. I kept chunking so many shots.

I probably can blame some of that on 1st time out. Stuff like flying a lob wedge 15 yards over the green is mostly just a lack of playing time and re-learning my distances again. But I was taking 20 yard chip shots and hitting them 10 yards into a bunker, taking divots big enough to start my own lawn sod business, etc. I also managed to hook a hybrid on the par 5 15th over a fence and land it in the middle of the road, luckily between 2 sets of cars or I might have caused a major pile-up.

And to make matters worse, Retro beat me for the first time, 104-106 (yes, I had a freakin' 106).

There were a couple bright spots, mostly long drives, but I did birdie the par 3 7th hole with a nice 6 iron from 175 to 12 feet. Of course, that was sandwiched by triple bogey 7's on 6 and 8. Oh well, tough day, but at least it was sunny and warm in the mid 60's (tapered by a good 15-20 mph wind however).

None of that is why I felt depressed come Monday. It was the fact that I was winded walking a golf course (pushing a cart no less) after 8 holes. I'm so out of shape I think it's finally starting to catch up with me. Outside of hockey once a week I really wasn't doing much (I did play basketball 3 times in 3 months too). So, this week began my quest to get back into shape and not be that beer belly toting inactive putz that can barely waddle his way to the kitchen for another bucket of ice cream.

I'm not a fat guy mind you, but at 5'8" tall I should be in the 155ish range and I'm over 20 lbs beyond that. 20 lbs, amazing what that little difference can do to you. Of course, it's all in the gut region and no, I'm not going to quit drinking beer so it's going to take some actual body movement to do this. My goal is 156 (20 lb loss) by my 20th anniversary (May 15th). That gives me 6 weeks to lose it, a little over 3 lbs per week. I did it once before about 4 years ago but put it right back on. However, until recently I never went much over 170. I think working at home and having access to a continuous flow of snacks is not helping as I'm heavier than I've ever been in my life after only 2 1/2 months of doing it.

So now my weekdays begin with a vigorous 30 minute workout on the elliptical machine and some upper body weight work. Now, staying disciplined and doing it every day is where I've always failed so I'm going to have to be stronger and fight through on those days when I just don't feel like it.

Wish me luck...