Wait, it's Sunday night already?

Whirlwind...

That would describe the pace of this weekend pretty well.

Friday.

Rushing out of work after checking in a ton of code and breaking almost EVERY SINGLE TEST CASE, I had enough time to grab some beer and ice and get the cooler and grill out for our trip to the Brewers/Reds game. We tailgated for a couple hours in 50 degree weather with 20-30mph winds. A tad chilly.

Ben Sheets pretty much ruined the game for us right off the bat as he was hammered for 4 in the first and another in the 2nd. We did get to see Prince Fielder's club record tying 45th homer (he broke the record Saturday night), but it wasn't enough as they lost. I'm 0-3 this year, no more games for me.

Saturday was the 2-man best ball tourney at Door Creek. Dr. Mike and I played pretty well and tied for 3rd place with a 59 net. 52 won it and 58 took 2nd. Mike had an 87 and I had an 86 but I was ready to slit my wrists afterwards. You see, after posting an 8 under par 27 on the front 9 we were not really doing much on the back. On 13 Mike had a penalty so it was pretty much me. I was looking at a 40 foot birdie putt and made a decent run at it but ran it past about 6 feet. Then I missed the par putt coming back, leaving myself another 3 footer for bogey and then I missed that one too! 4-putt double bogey!

I recovered to par 14 somehow. Then Mike birdied the par 5 15th and we were back in it again. We both bogied 16 and then came 17....

Mike started it off by hitting a wild ass slice clear over onto the executive course (out of bounds). I hit a decent drive but it stayed just right of the fairway. Of course, it ended up under a tree but I could hit a wedge and get it over another tree back to the fairway and did just that. I left myself about 85 yards from the middle of the fairway (Mike's hit another tree and at this point I'm not worried about what he does). I hit a pretty nice sand wedge about 12 feet below the hole.

I'm starting to think that a birdie would be nice here and we could get to 56 with a birdie/birdie finish. I hit a pretty good putt but maybe a tad hard and it didn't break as much as it should have and went by about 3 feet. Ok, not a problem. Oops, rammed the par putt by the lip and 3 feet past the hole again. This time I just walked up to it and oh christ I missed it again. 4 putt double bogey after looking at a super makable birdie. I let out the loudest FUCK! ever heard on a golf course (I'm nothing if not classy). On the 18th tee I swung as hard as I possible could and damn near fell as my right foot slipped out (gotta change those spikes). Luckily it went near the fairway by the 150 post. From there I hit a fat 8 iron that landed in front of the green and somehow rolled up to about 8 feet. I guess the golf gods felt sorry for me because I managed to make that putt for birdie.

So, 56 turns into 59 and I'm incredibly depressed as I see that 58 is leading. Jim lets Phil the pro know to keep sharp objects away from me for awhile as I drown my sorrows in some Capital Island Wheat.

Unfortunately I can't just get shit-faced as I Cdubya and I are taking my mom to American Players Theater (outdoor theater for those who don't know) that evening. I go home, shower and we leave for dinner with mom. The play was good ("Missalliance" by George Bernard Shaw) but good grief, it was freezing. By the time the show ended at 11:15, it was 40 degrees! My legs were completely numb.

But today made it all worth it. Not only did the Packers win (whoo hoo!) and the Brewers win (yeah baby!) but I bought an iPhone today! It's pretty cool, the screen is amazing and the set up was super easy. It found my wi-fi network right away and I set up my bluetooth headset in about 10 seconds. I'll post more on it next week after I've had enough "play time".

Phew, and in just a few more hours I get to go to work and start all over again.

Regular Season Finale

Well, we lost our final regular season hockey game last night, 4-3. We finished 4-8-1 to end up in last place. We play the first place team in the playoffs next week.

Before hand I bowled in the company league and had 3 Guinness while I was bowling. I think that may have impacted my hockey skills a little. I did have 3 close in opportunities and should have buried at least one of them but I missed the net twice and hit the goalie in the shoulder with the 3rd.

I bowled pretty well, score should have been higher if it weren't for some unlucky shots. I ended up shooting 691 (208, 248, 235). The 2nd game could have easily been a 300. Every ball was buried but I left an 8 pin in the 2nd and 9 pins in the 8th and 9th. And of course, that first night sets our average for the league so now I have to deal with a 230 average. I'm not bowling in that league the next 2 weeks due to hockey playoffs though, so it'll have to wait.

Leaving at 3pm today to go tailgate before the Brewer game. Strange weather we're having too. Only supposed to be in the mid 50's with about a 15 mph nw wind. Tonight it's supposed to get down near freezing and they're saying 34 at 7:30am tomorrow morning. I don't know when my tee time is yet but I hope it's not TOO early!

Ok, back to work. Have a great weekend.

Bowling underway

Sorry for the lack of posts, it's been very hectic lately.

Started bowling again last week and so far I've been consistent but nothing spectacular. Shot 619 last Wednesday, 602 Saturday and 617 last night. No big games, no low games. Kind of boring actually.

Tonight I bowl again right after work and then hockey is at 8:30. 2 more weeks of hockey left for this season after tonight (playoffs).

Quite a busy time of the year. Tomorrow we are going to the Brewer game. It's Robin Yount Bobblehead night! Saturday morning I have a 2 man best ball golf tournament at Door Creek and then Saturday night we're taking my mom to American Players Theater in Spring Green. I still have more flooring to get done upstairs too. Maybe Sunday? I'd rather watch football... sigh.

Ok, off to a meeting, later!

The Great (almost) Comeback

We had an interesting problem at hockey last night. The center on my line (one of our better offensive players) is also a goalie. Last night he played goalie in the game before us (and gave up 10 goals!) and when it came time for our game we found out that due to vacations, injuries, going to college, etc. that we didn't have another goalie for our team so he was going to play. Well, that hurts us both in losing his scoring but also because he just had a horrible game.

We moved another guy to center our line and went at it. Unfortunately, he picked up where he left off the previous game, giving up 4 weak goals in the first period and we couldn't get any offense going. So we're down 4-0 going into the 3rd period and finally our offense starts getting on track. We score 3 in the first 8 minutes to get us close and we tie it up with about 9 minutes left. We kept the attack going and got some really good chances to go ahead but couldn't quite do it (one of my shots hit the underside of the crossbar and dropped straight down, somehow staying out of the goal).

Then with about 4 minutes left the ref called a pretty bad penalty on one of our defenseman. Ok, we can deal with that, we score short handed goals all the time. Unfortunately, they called another penalty on us a minute later, again a cheap call where two players got their legs tangled and fell down. Not sure how they could decide that was a penalty on us, especially in a tie game and already down a man. By the time we got back to full strength there wasn't much time left. We had a few chances but the game ended in a tie. I guess we get the "moral victory" but it still felt disappointing.

Fantasy Football Draft

Last night was the annual OFFL football draft. It's a scoring only league with the points laid out like so:
Rushing TD: 6
Receiving TD: 6
Passing TD: 4
Defense/Special Teams TD: 6
Defense shutout: 6
FG < 50 yards: 3
FG >= 50 yards: 4
Coach victory: 3

I've won this league a few times and won the playoffs after finishing 3rd in the regular season last year.

We start with 4 keepers. Mine were:
Joseph Addai, RB
Steven Jackson, RB
Willie Parker, RB
Terrell Owens, WR

Here's who I picked up (in the order drafted):
Javon Walker, WR
Donald Driver, WR
Philip Rivers, QB
Darrell Jackson, WR
Baltimore Defense
Eli Manning, QB
Shayne Graham, K
Josh Brown, K
Mushin Muhammad, WR
Kellen Winslow, TE
Vernand Morency, RB
Najeh Davenport, RB
Wade Phillips (Dallas), Coach

I should be able to contend once again with that.

---

After missing the first week of bowling due to golf league, tonight will mark my first night of the season. Unfortunately I can still barely move. My right leg is a little better but my left hamstring is one big knot. I'd be better off if it was the other way around as my left leg is my sliding leg and the one I put most of my weight on at release.

Oh well, wish me luck.

1 down, 3 to go

Picked up 26 boxes of laminate hardwood flooring for the house on Friday and started on room 1 (our master bedroom) on Sunday (Saturday was Badger game, they won 42-21 over WAZZU, and I enjoyed it).
Finished ripping up the carpet and putting down the new floor Sunday night (about 11 hours worth of work). Finished all the trim work yesterday and got to sit down around 5:00 to watch the final round of the PGA. After which I was unable to get up. My body pretty much was very angry with me for abusing it for 2 solid days.

Unfortunately I'm just getting started. I have 2 more rooms plus the hallway upstairs still to do and Cdubya would like that done pretty soon. Unfortunately I'm not sure how long it will be before I can actually walk normally again. My inner thighs and ass are in knots, I can barely walk today. The thought of having to do the upstairs makes me hurt even more. Maybe I should just hire my brother to do it... I'm getting too old for this shit.

Not sure how bowling is going to go tomorrow night. If I had to bowl tonight I couldn't. Of course, there's no rest for the weary as our fantasy football draft is tonight. That shouldn't take too much physical effort at least...

2nd Place

Balderdash and I succeeded in capturing 2nd place in golf league last night. It was a nail biter but we won 16.5 to 13.5.

Now that it's over, it's bowling time. I'll be starting 2 leagues next week.

Tonight starts the home stretch for hockey. 3 more games until the playoffs. I think we're probably in last right now. Time to turn it on! Last time we played tonight's opponent they beat us 7-2. We have some payback to give.

Last night of golf league

It appears that the rain may be done for awhile now and we should be able to get in our last night of golf league. Balderdash and I are playing for 2nd place. One team won both halves so there's no first place playoff.

Tonight also marks the beginning of bowling league. We switched leagues and moved from Bowl-a-vard Lanes to Dream Lanes. I'll have to miss the first night because of golf.

I hate this time of the year, feels like my golf season is slipping away and snow can't be far down the road. Bowling season may be the longest season ever, running well into April. In addition to Wednesday league I'll also be bowling half time on Thursdays in the company league and every other week on Saturdays for couples league. After getting my 300 last year finally, my goal this year is to get an 800 series. Closest I've been is 787, I think.

Saturday marks the kickoff of Badger football. We're going to the game, which is against Washington State. I have experience in booing Wazzu from my years in Seattle going to Husky games. Should be a blow-out in favor of the 7th ranked Badgers.

I'll spend Sunday and Monday of the holiday weekend putting in new laminate flooring that we ordered Monday from Drexel Interiors. I'll be doing our master bedroom this weekend and at some point doing both rooms and the hallway upstairs. Hardest part of the whole thing is getting the furniture out of the room and putting it somewhere else. Not sure where we'll sleep Sunday night if the bedroom isn't done...

That's it for now, enjoy the coming sunshine!

Oh Come on already!

This is just getting stupid now. Forecast for today was sunny and 84. So, what happens? A huge storm rolls through this morning and once again we have pouring rain to soak an already saturated landscape.

To make matters worse, almost all the golf courses are closed again. League tonight was canceled again and with more rain coming tomorrow and Wednesday it doesn't look good for Wednesday night either.

I did get out and play 18 Sunday morning at Door Creek but it was soaked. Squish, squish, squish on every step. And with all the rain, the fairways and rough hadn't been mowed in over a week so they were really long and thick (that's what she said). I shot an 89 which could have been better and could have been worse. Nothing really affected by all the water much except the 3rd hole when I pushed my drive into a very wet tree area and had to try to chip out twice from the puddles and mud. That was fun...

On a downer note, we put down our cat, Morticia, Saturday. She was 17 and her health was failing quickly. She was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism a month ago. We got medication but it didn't do anything. She ate and ate and defecated everywhere, loosing weight till she was down to 4 lbs. I decided that enough was enough, she wasn't enjoying life any more and constantly having to clean up messes was wearing on my patience. That's 2 animals this year, hopefully no more for another 7 or 8 years!

Work is really busy so I'm not sure how often I'll be posting. As you can tell by the time on this post, I didn't get around to my normal morning posting...

Winning Streak ends at 1

That's really not much of a streak. We followed up our good play from last week with another really good game. Unfortunately their goalie made the big saves while ours didn't. That's pretty much how our league goes. If you have the better goalie you'll win. We out shot the other team by at least a 2-1 margin but every time they had a shot close in they scored.

My line continued to get better as we scored all 4 of our goals in the 7-4 loss. I had another goal on a backdoor tip in off a pass from the left defenseman. I had a backhand rebound chance that rang off the pipe, at least the 4th pipe I've hit this season. That's pretty much how we go, no luck.

I was lucky to escape injury too. I was crashing the net for a rebound when the defenseman caught me under the chin with his stick and snapped my head back. To add insult to injury, they ended up with a breakaway and scored while I lay face down behind the net. No penalty called because they couldn't tell what happened from the angle the closest ref had, even though the defenseman was telling them he hit me in the face with his stick and was telling them to blow the whistle. I'm feeling a little sore today but otherwise fine. I know the defenseman that did it and he would never intentionally do something like that and was very apologetic. I'm just glad it wasn't any worse.

---

Apparently after today the rain will stop for 3 days or so... we'll see.

Ok, this is just ridiculous

It won't stop raining! Golf league canceled again last night. Looks like the rain that started last Saturday won't stop till some time Friday.

The funny thing is that we're getting brief respites that make you think it might be over then it just hammers you over the head again. I was able to get out and mow the yard quick Tuesday before another storm rolled through. And yesterday was pretty nice for most of the day but all hell broke loose around 3:30, dumping almost 2 inches of rain in a half hour. It let up by 5 or so but the damage had been done, everything was under water. Every stream, river, pond and lake is flooding over. The low lying golf courses are under water. It's not good.

And to top things off we had a scene right out of Final Destination last night. A bus stopped to let off a mother and her young daughter and just as they were stepping off into a puddle lightning hit a power line and knocked it down into the puddle where the 2 were electrocuted. A man on the bus tried to save them and he was electrocuted as well. Unreal...

Another storm is rolling through now, adding to the mess. They're saying the weekend should be nice but who knows how long it will be until the water has soaked in enough to get back out on the course. This totally feels like April, not August. The dogs are going nuts not getting their normal play time outside.

Waterlogged Club Championship

6 inches of rain do not help golf tournaments... or anything else for that matter.

Around 9am Saturday morning the rain started and it still hasn't stopped (other than a few brief moments). We played round 1 of the club championship in a constant rain and it didn't go well for anyone in our 4-some (or most of the players). It was a very long, slow, wet day that featured rooster-tails on the greens, soggy shoes, wet grips and general malaise.

I started out ok and probably would have had a nice front 9 if I hadn't made a couple mistakes and blew up on 2 holes (7 over for those 2 while the remaining 7 consisted of 5 pars and 2 bogeys). In the increasing rain of the back 9 I pretty much fell apart. I ended up shooting 93 (44/49) which put me tied for 3rd to last in the 1st flight.

Afterwards they still held the long drive contest (though fewer people participated than usual due to the rain). In the preliminary round I placed 2nd (274 behind a 281). It just happened to stop raining for about 15 minutes while we were hitting. That qualified me for the final of my flight. Of course, that was 2 hours and 5 beers later. By the time we got out there at 7:30 it was almost dark and completely pouring. You couldn't even see the drives after about 20 yards. The first person missed the fairway all 3 times. The 2nd guy (the 281 guy) went and missed on 2 but hit the fairway once with a nice drive, but it only went 221. I thought I would win easily. I can hit my hybrid that far... I hit my first 2 left but my last one I hit really well down the middle. I thought I would win easily... until they radioed in the distance. 2 - 1 - 9. 219! That's it!?!?!? I guess pouring rain will do that to a ball. I lost by 2 yards and missed out on the $75 prize.

The 2nd round was canceled as I knew it would be since at least 3 greens were under water when we left Saturday night. Oh well. I think most of the courses in the area are closed and it's not supposed to stop raining until Friday or so. Doesn't feel like mid-August, it's more like October. That's the first time it's rained in the CC for at least 10 years.

The Streak is Over!

We finally busted our 5 game losing streak in hockey last night with a 6-3 victory. It helped to have a real goalie but we came out on a mission and pretty much dominated.

I finally got off the schnide too scoring a pair of goals. First one was a big slapshot from the top of the right circle that beat the goalie inside the far post. Honestly, I never really aimed at anything. The puck was dumped up ahead of me and I was just skating as fast as I could to get to it with a defenseman angling towards me. I just wound up and hit it as hard as I could. Luckily it was towards the net. :)

The 2nd goal was with less than a minute left as we were hanging on to our 2 goal lead. My center intercepted a pass just inside our blue line and caught me on the fly from the right wing and I went in alone. The goalie decided to come out and poke check me. It actually caught me by surprise, just as I looked up to see where he was I saw him coming at me so I just flipped it through his legs and cut left to not get creamed.

Afterwards a bunch of us went to Beef O'Brady's (a fairly new sports bar near the Sun Prairie rink) for some brewski's. We started with the Hopalicious from Ale Asylum followed by pitchers of Smithwicks, Island Wheat, Spotted Cow and more Hopalicious. Got home around 11 and needless to say I have a whopper of a headache this morning.

They have some pitchers that I'd never seen before. They're bigger and have a cylinder in the middle that they fill with ice to keep the beer cold. I, of course, questioned them to make sure we weren't getting screwed out of some beer.

I'll have to leave work early today to try to get the lawn mowed. That recent rain has brought the grass back from it's slumber with a vengeance. It's grown about 4 inches since Saturday morning when I mowed. We're golfing at 5:30.

Not a good tune up

Well, I totally don't feel ready for the club championship now. I didn't play worth a crap last night. Only hit 1 fairway and 2 greens. About the only thing I did well was chip and putt. I seem to have lost the draw on my drives so I kept missing right. I also hit a few really bad iron shots. Maybe I just got all that out of my system. We shall see...

Retro played very well after the 2nd hole (the first 2 were ugly). He ended up hitting 6 fairways and hit his irons as crisply as I've seen and putted pretty well too. He still shot a 48 to my 43, not sure how that happened.

I've got to figure out a time when I can mow my yard again. I just mowed on Saturday for the first time in nearly 2 months but with all this rain we've had I could have mowed again on Tuesday. And I should have, since I had golf last night, hockey tonight, golf tomorrow night, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Looks like maybe Tuesday now but it'll be 3 feet high by then. I'll try to get off at noon on Friday and get it done before we go golfing. It's the only chance I'll have.

---

And then there's the Brewers... I guess this was to be expected with such a young team. They're feeling the heat of a pennant race and not responding well. The pitching staff is getting beaten like a rented mule and the offense only seems capable of hitting a few solo homers each game. Mean time the Cardinals have come alive, like a defending WS champ should and have closed to 3 1/2 games. Some people said I was nuts when I said "don't count the Cards out yet" when they were 8 1/2 back a few weeks ago. Who's nuts now? Brewers are in a must win situation today, with Dave Bush trying to get the first win by a starting pitcher since August 3rd today at 1pm. If there's a silver lining to any of this it's that they're still in 1st and the Cubs truly suck.

Gabe Gross was called up yesterday and Chris Spurling sent down. Look for Gross, who hit .355 in 20 games at Nashville, to be in the starting lineup today. Also, Prince Fielder was suspended for 3 games for his ejection/tirade in Houston Saturday. He has appealed.

Think happy thoughts and have a great Thursday.

Rain Rain...

Go away! Just fuck off already! Why can't it just be nice? Let's just go from 90 and super humid to t-storms. What ever happened to just being 75 and sunny? Oh yeah, global warming, that's right. We're all gonna die... I think Al Gore's jet just went over my house. I hope he turned the lights off at home before he left.

Today looks horrible for golf. Hold on, album over, need to pick a new one to listen to on my ipod. I still need to sell this thing so I can justify an iPhone. Anyone want an 80 gb ipod video? Only a year old, perfect condition. New $350, yours for only $275. What a deal... email me.

Ok, Audioslave over, Black Crowes now.

Where was I? Oh yeah, rain bad... golf league tonight. Last night of regular season. Not sure what would happen if we got rained out. We typically don't make anything up.

Did I mention I want the rain to stop? After golf today, I'm also golfing Friday night (9 holes with Cdubya and my sister and her husband), then Saturday and Sunday we have the Door Creek Club Championship. Forecast for Saturday is 69 and rain. Sunday, 76 and rain. Not ideal conditions. Maybe I have an advantage in the rain though, considering my 15 years of golfing in Seattle where if you don't golf in the rain, you don't golf.

Then Monday I'm subbing in the company league again. Cdubya is showing considerable patience with the amount of golfing I'm doing. She hasn't complained once. Could be that she just enjoys me not being around. I find that hard to believe as I am quite charming and a joy to be around. :) Shut up, you know it's true!

While I was bbq'ing last night I saw Retro out in his backyard practicing his chipping towards a bucket. He must have been out there an hour, still in his work clothes I might add. I asked him this morning if he's got it all figured out now. His reply: "no, i'm no good at this game." I see he's finally reached the knowledge the rest of us already knew. It's probably good that he realizes that 3 days before the club championship. Still time to give up and focus on buying a new minivan for his ever increasing family. :) (Just kidding Retro, you can do it! You'll win, I know it! hahahaha, sorry, couldn't say that without laughing, I'm soooo funny)

Jeez, I'm rambling so much this is starting to feel like a Grinder post (without the "special" spelling).

Ok, I'm done. I need to update another dozen sequence diagrams for these lazy motherfuckers... it's killing me.

Later.

New Favorite Show

A couple people mentioned they really liked "Gene Simmons: Family Jewels" in the past couple weeks and I found 4 episodes back to back on A&E last night so I thought we'd give them a try. And wouldn't you know it, the show was hilarious! It's my new favorite and I'll be setting up the tivo to record as many as I can. If you haven't seen it, give it one episode, it's only a half hour, and you'll be hooked.

Rock of Love is very close to being cut from my rotation. There's one woman on there that I like (Jes) and in no way would I want her to be in a relationship with Brett Michaels. For one thing, she's not a party-girl type and for another she's young enough to be his daughter and it makes me ill to think about it. The rest of the women are just bitches who cuss like sailors (or strippers of course). I think Brett should end up with one of the strippers since that fits his personality better and he'll just cheat on her anyway.

---

I watched Ghost Rider Saturday night (instead of suffering through a Packer pre-season game). It was ok, kind of interesting and pretty good special effects but one thing bugged me that I couldn't get out of my head. In the movie, Nicholas Cage is a stunt bike rider and he attempts to jump a football field from goal post to goal post (ramps on the outside of the posts). After he does it everyone keeps saying "300 feet, a new record!" Well, according to my memory the goal posts haven't been on the goal line in some 25 or so years. They're at the back which adds 20 yards to the jump. It was 360 feet you idiots. For some reason that kept bugging me.

---

I finished the last Harry Potter book yesterday. Best book of the series, by far. Great story and the finish kept you on the edge of your seat. Loved it.

---

In the world of golf (no, not the PGA with Tiger winning again) we played a free round at the Oaks. After complaining about how crappy our round was last time (5.5 hours with no beer cart service) the head pro gave us a chance to do it again. This time the course was dead (sunny Sunday morning at 9am and it's dead?) and we played in 3:45. Much better. I played up and down, hitting some good shots and some terrible ones. Shot a 90 (45/45). Not sure if I'm ready for this weekend's club championship at Door Creek or not. My goal is 160 for the 36 holes. I would pretty much have to shoot my best round 2 days in a row. Not likely to happen.

From bad to worse

Our hockey losing streak has now reached 5 straight after a 7-2 drubbing last night. Once again (2nd week in a row) we were stuck with Roger in goal. I don't want to say he's bad but... yeah, he's downright awful. I swear he has no peripheral vision. Shit that had no business going in continues to go right by him. It wouldn't be so bad if there was another crappy goalie to match up with him but he's far and away the worst there is. We lose by 5 but dominated the game. How in the fuck does that work? We hold the puck in their zone for minutes at a time peppering their goalie but we can't get one by him. They finally get the puck out, skate down, take a weak ass shot and score. And once again, he gives up 2 goals in the first minute of the game so we're automatically playing from behind. That's disheartening. We were down 3-0 and staged a mini-comeback getting it to 3-2 and then they got a breakaway and it was the turning point in the game. If Roger makes the save we gain momentum and possibly catch them. However, Roger couldn't come up with it and that was all she wrote.

Strange drive home after the game too (10:45pm). The temp was 71 and the dewpoint must have been the same because the air was so thick you could hardly breathe. There was a ton of fog and I could not keep my windshield clear despite all the windows open and the a/c cranked and on defrost. I'm sick of the humidity!

Not that bad

I'd have to say that the weather was not that bad last night. In the midst of having an awfully humid week it turned out to be slightly less humid and with a nice cloud cover and light breeze it was quite tolerable in golf league.

I played just ok. 3 pars, 5 bogies and a double (on a par 5 I should not be doubling but I hit a horrendous drive and couldn't recover) for a 43. That's about average for me I guess. Not sure how we did as a team but probably not very well and Balderdash hacked his way through the first 4 holes at 11 over and finished with a 50. Man, he is getting heavy... I don't think a 170 lb man should have to carry a 290 lb man. Just not fair. And to make matters worse, next week is the end of the 2nd half and I'm pretty sure we don't have a chance unless we maybe win 20-0, which is pretty much impossible.

I think I have found my proper number of beers per 9 holes as well. The number is 4. At 4 I was hitting my drives and my irons nicely as I was properly lubricated. And after beer 5 I was still doing that but unfortunately the fine motor skills were impacted and I couldn't chip or putt properly. Gotta remember that.

Even got Retro to have a few beers but of course, being the lightweight he is, he was hammered after 3 and started getting pretty loud and loopy. I think his beer number is 1. :)

First Eagle

I had my first eagle ever last night, subbing at the Oaks. It was on the first hole we played which was the 4th. It is an uphill par 5, usually playing 526 from the black tees but the tees were up yesterday, probably only playing about 480.

I hit a fairly good drive that must have caught a downslope and rolled quite aways. I ended up just on the right edge of the fairway, about 186 yards out. I took out a 5 iron and hit it nice and smooth. I knew it had a great line on it but since the green is so much higher and has bunkers in front of it I couldn't tell where it ended up.

As I walked around the bunkers I saw a ball on the green and as I got closer I realized it was actually pretty damn close to the pin. Ended up only being 3 feet away. Buried the putt for a 3. Not too long ago I gagged one from similar range so I was happy to get that one down.

Of course, from that point on I was mostly crap. I ended up 3 putting for double from short range on the next hole, then falling apart on the next for a snowman. I ended up shooting a 50 taking double, triple and quad on the par 4's while going bogey, double and triple on the par 3's. I was -1 on the par 5's (eagle, par, bogey).

Oh well, those greens are really tough and I 3 putted 3 times. I also 1 putted 4 times so it wasn't really a putting problem as much as putting myself into some bad situations and losing a couple balls.

And while I realize that 85 is not a hot temperature, the humidity and lack of any breeze at all made it miserable. We were all completely soaked after 2 holes. No matter what you did you couldn't dry off. Made it difficult to hang on to the club because you couldn't keep your hands dry. Might have been better to wear two gloves but it was so hot I could barely stand having one glove on. Oh well.

The Brewers and Cubs both lost last night, while the Cards won again to cut the Brewers lead over them to 7 games. I don't think the Cards have enough pitching to seriously make a run but I thought the same thing last year, even when they had Chris Carpenter still. I guess I can't count them out as they are the defending WS champs.

Rollercoaster ride

The Brewers are fucking with my emotions big time. Saturday night was one of the greatest comebacks of the year. Down 5-1 against Cole Hammels and the Phillies the chipped away to get it to 5-4. Then with 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th Prince Fielder crushes a Tom Gordon fastball 400 feet to give them the lead. Then in the top of the 9th Corey Hart leaps high above the right field fence to rob Taguchi of a game tying home run. Amazing...

Fast forward to Sunday. They jump all over the Phillies from the start, scoring 4 in the first and 2 more in the 4th. Staked to a 6-1 lead the Brewers coasted in, until the 9th... Matt Wise in to close it out gave up a runner and a 2 run homer to make it 6-3. He hasn't been the same since hitting Cinci's Pedro Lopez in the face a couple weeks ago. Yost summons Francisco Cordero from the pen to close it out. He gets 2 outs but then a couple hits. Ex-Brewer Wes Helms dumps one down the right field line for a double that makes it 6-4. A grounder that gets past rookie 3b sensation Ryan Braun (E5) ties the score. Cordero gets out of it but in the 11th the Phillies score twice off rookie Manny Parra with 2 outs. The Brewers get guys on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs in the 11th. Yost goes to Estrada and he's intentionally walked to get to Craig Counsell, a career .411 hitter with the bases loaded. He smokes the first pitch he sees from Jose Mesa but it's lined directly into the Taguchi's glove at 2nd to end the game. A foot to the left and we're all tied up again. What a horrible way to lose.

Luckily Tom Glavine got his 300th win in Chicago as the Cubs stayed a game back. Now comes a tough stretch where the Brewers are back on the road (in Colorado to start tonight). The Cubs are going to have to deal with their own adversity as well as stud LF Alfonso Soriano injured his quad and is out 2-4 weeks. That won't help them any. It's going to be an interesting last 2 months of the season for sure.

Golf/Brewer Day #9

Yesterday was the 9th annual Bubba/Adubya golf/brewer extravaganza. We left Cottage Grove at 5:45am heading for DeerTrak Golf Course just north of Oconomowoc. After a 10 minute detour due to some poor navigational skills by Bubba we made it to the course a little before 7. Lucky for us the course was pretty empty.

The course is pretty nice looking, enough trees, ponds, blind shots, etc to make it interesting but not super tight or long to make it too difficult. Only thing that bugged me constantly was the lack of yardage markers. I never saw a 200 marker and I think the longest mark I saw was 176. They did have 150 and 100 yard markers but that was about it. Many times we were left guessing the yardage.

I played ok in spurts and terribly at other times. Ended up shooting 43/47 for 90 while Bubba went 50/50 for 100. He probably would have beaten me on the back had he not had a nuclear meltdown on the last par 5 and took an 11. Or if he hadn't missed a half dozen short putts just to the right.

I had a couple nice shots. On a par 4 where you have to lay up short of a creek I hit a 6 iron from 178 yards to a back pin that stuck about 5' from the hole and I made the birdie. Almost had the chip of my life on another hole. After thinning a lob wedge from about 30 yards clear over the green and under a tree, I punched out into the rough above the green. It was a 2 tiered green with the pin down on the lower tier. I chipped just to the edge of the green and it barely made the down slope and turned and went right at the hole and missed by a fraction of an inch. I made the putt to salvage a bogey.

I putted pretty well with the new putter, 1-putting 4 times on the front 9. I did have a couple of 3 putts, one where I was about 100 feet away and the other where I rammed it past the hole too far. All in all, I'm pretty excited about it.

We finished golf about 10:30 and our plan was to head to the game and eat at Friday's grill at Miller Park. Unfortunately we hit some traffic on the way to Milwaukee (opening day of the state fair) and didn't get there till 11:45 and by then Friday's had a 45 minute wait so we just ate from the concession stands (polish and a hot dog). We grabbed a beer and drank it but it was so hot that even beer didn't taste good (oh my god, did I just say that?), so we pretty much stuck to water.

Craig's choice of seats, while a good thought, was not comfortable. We were 8 rows from the field just past 3rd base, which is directly under the sun the entire game. I don't think I've ever sweated so much just sitting still before. And to make matters worse we were situated amongst dozens of Mets fans, including one woman I referred to as "the stalker" who was alone, in all her Mets gear with a sign that said "The Future Mrs. David Wright." As the game wore on she kept getting closer to the field. I was certain she would be running on the field at some point to attack Wright. She didn't, but I'm sure she was waiting for him at the team hotel.

As for Wright and the rest of the Mets, they put an ass kicking on our Brewers, 12-4. They are really looking like the pressure is too much for them. Lots of pop ups in clutch situations, bad pitching, Hardy made an error on a ball that didn't look that tough, and then Yost and Estrada get into some fight in the tunnel after the 7th inning. I still don't know what that was about. They need to get their shit together and soon.

We left in the bottom of the 9th and lucky we did. Traffic was awful when we left but half way home we heard a traffic report that said Miller Park to Moorland Road (8 miles) was taking 73 minutes. Phew, I didn't have enough left in me to handle that. We got back to Cottage Grove by 5:30.

I laid around for a couple hours then it was time for hockey. By the time I got to the game at 8:30 I was ready for some serious nap time. I ended up volunteering to go back on D since I knew I wouldn't have the energy to play up front. We ended up losing 8-3. Our goalie didn't help matters at all, allowing 3 goals from behind the goal! He's really bad and I pretty much gave up trying to hard by the beginning of the 3rd period.

Got home around 11, quick shower and straight to bed. Usually I can't sleep after a game and have to stay up for at least an hour but not last night.

We'll see if I can make it through a full day of work today.

Rock of Love

Ok, with the demise of Pirate Master we were looking for a brainless show for the summer and we've found it. Rock of Love on VH1 is The Bachelor in Skank-town starring Brett Michaels of Poison fame (hair band of the 80's for you youngsters out there). He's looking for the love of his life and has been provided with 25 strippers, rockers and whores from which to choose. I'm not saying these girls were nasty but... uh, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. First episode and they're comparing their breast implants!

It's like watching a car wreck in super slow mo, over and over again. Perfect summer viewing.

3 episodes have aired thus far, we've only watched the first but looking at the previews for the rest of the season I'm jazzed to watch more. I believe you can get video on VH1's web site.

New putter

For the past year I have used an Odyssey White Hot center shafted belly putter to various degrees of success. I have putted better and with more confidence than I have in the past but I'm still having times of struggles and I'm not really lowering my number of putts per round. I really love the face on the Odyssey but the angle that I putt at made keeping it square very difficult as it was always toed up. This changes the angle the ball will come off the face and cause you to pull left often. I tried compensating by always aiming a little right. All in all, not a great way to approach it.

Saturday I went to Golf Galaxy and tried all the different Odyssey's as well as many other brands until I picked up the new
Odyssey White Hot XG Marksman Blade.

It felt unbelievable. I started draining putts left and right. The balance was amazing and I loved the look standing over it. But that was just the start. I was fitted for it which involved adjusting the length, lie and loft. It didn't take very long but I was amazed at the results. The shortened it an inch, adjusted the lie 6 degrees flat (so it's not toed up any more) and increased the loft by 1 degree (from 2 to 3 degrees).

I went out and practiced with it Saturday night for a half hour or so, enough to get a feel for it. I played Sunday at a course I'd never played before but I putted ok with it. I left a couple of 10 footers 6" short but I always had a pretty good line and I made everything inside 5 feet which was the one thing I was worried about most in giving up the belly putter.

It does make a huge difference in getting the putter fit to how you use it. Like the guy at Golf Galaxy said "there's not a single putter on the shelf that would work for anyone as is."

I certainly can't blame the putter for my poor performance yesterday. I did ok on the front nine, getting 5 pars but 3 doubles and a bogey for a 43. I then went on to lose 4 balls in 5 holes on the back and shot a 49 for 92. Didn't hit a single good drive until 17 and 18. I think I was trying too hard to hit a perfect drive and when I finally relaxed and just let it go I hit two bombs. Just gotta relax, it's not that hard of a game.

Friday was just plain ugly. Played the Bridges from the Blue tees which totally changes the look of that course, increasing every hole about 50-70 yards and turning a fairly pedestrian course into a 6,900 yard monster. I struggled with everything and shot 47/51 for 98. My first 9 over 49 in a very long time. I lost 6 balls that day too. Good thing I picked up some more at Golf Galaxy while I was there. I've been very happy with that store. Always someone knowledgeable to help me, unlike Nevada Bob's where we were putting for 20 minutes and not once did anyone ask if they could help.

Losing streak hits 3 games

No, I'm not talking about the Brewers, though they have lost 6 of 9. They just stink on the road.

I'm talking about my hockey team. We lost another nail biter 6-5. After giving up a goal early in the 3rd period to fall behind 4-1 we mounted a fierce comeback to eventually tie the game at 5 but a freak bounce gave them a break away with 4 minutes left that turned out to be the final tally.

I got to play forward the entire game. First 2 periods at left wing and the final period at center. I think we did a lot better when I was at center instead of my off wing. It gave our banger a chance to get to the front of the net where he eventually scored.

I had plenty of chances. Early in the game I got a rebound out front and pulled it to my backhand and rang it off the inside of the near post, just missing the far post. In the 2nd I got a rebound as I was crashing the net hard. The goalie had slid left and it was just me and a defenseman. I ripped it towards the open net and drilled the defenseman in the thigh. Sheesh.

And to make it worse I was shoved from behind and crashed into the goalie and in trying to brace myself I somehow bent my right thumbnail back. It didn't break but it was bleeding pretty good. I iced it later but it's pretty sore this morning. Hopefully I'll be able to swing a golf club as I don't really use my right thumb much.

My fantasy baseball team is taking quite a hit this week. I still have a sizeable lead but my star players are dropping. First on Sunday, Hanley Ramirez dislocated his shoulder swinging the bat. Tuesday night, ERA leader Chris Young strained an oblique warming up for the 3rd inning. Now last night, all world 2b Chase Utley suffered a broken hand when he got hit by a pitch and is out until late August.

I really don't have replacements for those 3. I'll have to find a way to tread water till they return.

Adubya vs. Retro

To my surprise, I went head to head with Retro in league last night. I gave him a stroke on 6 holes but luckily it came down to putting and I made a few while he 3 putted 4 times. He did manage to make a nice 10 footer on the last hole to win his 3rd hole to my 6.

I ended up shooting my best back 9 at Door Creek ever, with a 38. 5 pars, 3 bogeys and a birdie on 17. Missed a couple of putts that could have gone, but I'm satisfied with how I played. Retro had a 49, about average for him. I took home $10 for low net in the league with 31. That's my 3rd time this season.

My USGA handicap is the lowest it has ever been, down to a 14.0. Until this year it had never been below 17.2. Hopefully I can continue this for the next month as the club championship is August 18th and 19th. I'd really like that parking spot with my name on it!

Did anyone see the Reds player get beaned in the face by Brewer reliever Matt Wise last night? Oh, that had to hurt.

Also, the Brewers traded 3 minor league pitchers, including their 3rd rated prospect Will Inman, to the Padres for reliever Scott Linebrink. Linebrink will take over the set up role, previously held by scatter brained Derick Turnbow.
Linebrink has appeared in 44 games, pitching 45 innings. He's 3-3 with 1 save, a 3.80 era and 1.222 whip while striking out 25. He's struggled at times this year and the one scary stat he does have is an 11.17 era with runners in scoring position. Also, he had a 2.52 era before the all star break but has a 9.35 era in July. Hopefully he'll return to form with the Brewers.

Golf, the way my ancestors intended

The Scots have the right idea on golf. 3 1/2 hour rounds or they'll kick you off the course. Here in the states the accepted norm is 4 1/2 hours (or about 15 minutes per hole). Unfortunately at more crowded links you can see 5 and even 6 hour rounds which is just freakin' excruciating.

Dr. Mike and I decided to see if we could do a Scottish round. Of course, the only way to do that around here is to be the first ones out. So, at 6:15am yesterday we teed off. Made the turn in an hour and 40 minutes and played the back nine in an hour and 20 for a 3 hour round. Very nice. We even ran into a 4-some on the back nine that they put out in front of us. Fortunately they let us play through. We then ran into one guy that was playing 4 or 5 balls (um, that's not right) but he let us go through as well (after he gave me my ball back that he "accidently" hit).

I put myself in bad spots repeatedly early, having to just punch out or lay up 4 times in the first 6 holes. I putted ok but couldn't quite sink any par savers and finished the front with 7 bogies and 2 doubles for an 11 over 46. Back nine was better as I managed to start hitting a few fairways and greens and ended up shooting 42 with 2 pars and a birdie. Mike should have beaten me as he shot 44 on the front but a 9 on the par 4 12th was the difference (first tee shot in the corn field, 2nd one in a pond), as I beat him 88 to 92.

And getting home before 9:30am was an added bonus as it was like I was never gone. Cdubya and I then went out to lunch and saw the new Harry Potter movie. I liked it. They cut out alot of the cruft and just focused on the important stuff. Cdubya is reading the new Harry Potter book and I'm re-reading the 6th book since I totally forgot what happened in it. Interestingly it will not be on the New York Times best seller list as it is considered a "children's book" and those don't count. Weird.

Back on Top

I was surprised to find out that Balderdash and I were in first place after the opening week of half 2. It wasn't much of a lead as we had only taken 11.5 out of 20 points but we're where we need to be.

Unfortunately we split our matches last night right down the middle with B having a rough time on a couple holes. He ended up with a 48 while I had a 42. Once again I didn't play very well, save for 2 nice drives and sticking a wedge within 2 feet on a par 3 for birdie. B had the best birdie ever on that hole. His tee shot was well short but landed on the rocks next to the water and shot up in the air, landing on the green about 20 feet away and he calmly dropped it for 2. Team birdie, baby! Of course, I had the brilliant idea we should do a fist bump and he nearly snapped my wrist with that hamhock he calls a hand. New rule, no more fist bumps with 300 lb men.

Freakin' Moron

You'd think that I would check to see if the outlet in the garage that I have the frig plugged in to was a GFI one or not before just assuming the frig is broken, but I guess I'm not that smart.

When I got home from work yesterday I checked the battery station that charges my battery packs for my yard tools and sure as shit, not working either and it's plugged into the same outlet as the frig.

I finally pull the frig out and yep, it's a GFI outlet and the button is out. I push it back in, plug the frig back in and vroom, off it goes. I smacked myself around for that one for awhile.

---

On a happy note, Cubs Lost! Cubs Lost!

Brewers won their 4th straight 1 run game to extend their lead back to 4 1/2 games. On the down side, Ben Sheets has a slight tear in the tissue surrounding a tendon in his middle finger and is out 4-6 weeks. Only positive I see from this is that I can put Yovani Gallerdo back in my fantasy rotation once again. The kid can pitch.

And woosh, it was gone

Oh golf gods, why do you torment me so? Everything was going so well, felt like I was on the verge of breaking 80 for the first time in my life. It was right there, I could feel it. And with a wave of a hand the gods have slapped me right back to reality.

It all started Saturday. Cdubya and I were playing with Bubba and his wife at Door Creek. Playing from the blue tees, I started with a double bogey (bad drive) on the first hole and then went on a bit of a tear and finished the front nine at 2 over 37, my best for the front there. At the turn I let my mind wander to what could be... 75, 76? Easily I will break my best score of 82, I only needed a 44 on the back to do that and most of the time I can shoot low 40's there without too much of a problem. I thought I should have a beer to help me relax, knowing my mind would be my undoing.

And I started out pretty well. I hit the fairway, just missed the green and hit the pin with my chip to save par on 10.

Ran into a little problem on 11 when I didn't hit a good tee shot and left myself behind a tree with only a punch out possible. Double bogey.

Ok, no problem. Good drive on 12, just missed the green. Chip, 2 putt, bogey.

Then came 13. Wednesday in league I drove the front edge of the 314 yard par 4 13th from the white tees. This time playing from the blues, the angle is not as nice, have to either hit a big fade around them or go over 100 foot high trees. I'd been hitting the driver beautifully the whole day so I got a little over-aggressive. I decided to go over the trees. And it almost worked. I hit it great, but it caught the very top of the highest branch and where it went from there is anyone's guess. I ended up having to take a drop and hit it in the bunker. Bad sand shot barely got me on the green and 3 putted from 70 feet. Triple bogey.

Ok, breathe... it's ok. One bad hole cannot ruin a round if you just recover on the next hole... 14th is a par 3, only 141 yards from the blues. I pull out the nine iron and oops! Hit it thin, flew over the green and into a hazard. Drop, bad chip, damn it, another triple bogey.

I recovered to par 15, then bogey 16 but hit into the trees again on 17 and took a double. Finished 18 with a bogey for 49... 49! My dreams were crushed. Instead of 76 I had another 86. Not bad but definitely the most disappointing back 9 of my life. I was up most of the night replaying what should have happened and how I let it get away. It was making my stomach ache.

I resisted all urges to go out and play again on Sunday and instead ran some errands and pressure washed the house.

Monday comes and I'm subbing in the company league again, this time at the Oaks. Playing the front 9 we started on the 2nd hole (shotgun start). I hit the green and 3 putted for bogey (very difficult green) and then decided to hit 3-wood off the tee on the par 5 3rd hole. Aiming for the right half of the fairway, I hooked it so hard that it ended up in the rough clear on the other side of the 1st fairway! I hit an iron back to the fairway where I chunked a wedge short. Another bogey. Good drive on 4 but thinned a 5 iron into a bunker. Good sand shot got me on and I made par.

Par 3 5th I thinned a 7 iron this time way right down a big hill into the fescue. Luckily I had a decent lie but couldn't even see the pin I was so far down the hill. Miraculously I hit a sand wedge to 6 feet and made the putt for par. Ok, I'm playing like shit but I'm only 2 over after 4 holes. Decent drive on 6, but again, thinned a pitching wedge right of the green. Bogey. Sort of thin 6 iron on the 180 yard par 3 7th and a bad chip and then a lipped out putt gave me a double bogey. Good drive on 8 but again, thinned a wedge clear over the green. Again, a bad chip and another lipped out putt ended with another double. 9th hole I hit a good 3 wood and another that went a hair right. This time I slowed down my swing with my wedge and hit it ok but not hard enough and left it short. Chipped it well past the hole however (what the hell happened to my chipping???). But fortunately this time I didn't lip out the putt and drained it from 20 feet for par. Back to the first hole to finish up. Good drive, wedge hit pretty well left me about 15 feet uphill for birdie. Missed it just left, leaving myself about 2 feet straight down hill for par. And once again I lipped it out! Bogey. Another guy in our group had the exact same putt and did the exact same thing so I don't feel horrible. But, man, 3 lip outs, and some extremely horrible iron play and chipping left me feeling like my game is completely gone. The only thing I can take away from it is that despite all that crap I had a 44 which isn't the end of the world. And my drives are working well.

Oh, and to make matters worse, the guy I was playing (and the guy I beat 12-8 last week despite giving 4 strokes) decided he would exact his revenge on me and shot a 40 while getting 3 strokes from me this time. He whupped me 17-3. Not sure I will be asked to come back and sub again!

---

Oh yeah, remember how my electronics are failing? DVD player, a/v receiver, router and coffee maker so far. Well, you can add spare refrigerator to that list now. When we bought a new fridge a couple years ago I moved the old one to the garage (it's only 7 years old) and use it to store beer and pop mostly. Well, I go out Sunday night to grab a cold Hacker Pschorr and the fridge light is out. Ok, light bulb problem, right? Hmm, the freezer light is out too. And the other lighting doesn't work. And it's feeling a little warm. Oh crap... it's dead. Anyone know anything about fridges? Is it fixable? And what the fuck is going on in my house??? Honestly I'm starting to get really concerned here. How long before I have $6,000 worth of dead tv's?

I'm sorry to whomever I pissed off that's causing this!

Apple Extreme Basestation Draft N

I forgot to mention that I went ahead and bought the new Apple Extreme Basestation from the Apple store online. It arrived last Saturday. It was a snap to set up and I'm able to go back to letting it do DHCP for me instead of having to assign static IP addresses for all the computers. In addition, I was able to put Cdubya's iMac back on wiresless instead of directly wired via an ethernet cable. (sorry to my non-geek readers for the geek talk)

It is working flawlessly but there were a couple things that I didn't know about that made me a touch pissy. First, the 802.11n capability is only available on Mac's that have the Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The "2" is extremely important here. I have Intel Core Duo processors in both the iMac and my MacBook. Those are not supported. I didn't read that clearly enough. Could have saved myself some money there by just getting an 802.11g router.

Secondly, one of the coolest things about the new basestation is that it has a USB 2 port on it. It's designed to make a regular printer (that has a usb connection) a network printer or you can add a portable hard drive to it to make it a network drive. That's what I was really excited about. I could take the usb drive that I had connected to the iMac and move it to the basestation and get access to it from all the computers.

And it works, don't get me wrong, I could access it from everywhere quite easily (software install required for mac's and pc's to add a disk utility to mount the drive). Unfortunately there's one HUGE issue with it. For some reason, which doesn't make sense to me, streaming video from it is near impossible. At least running 802.11g anyway. Bringing a video up on my laptop or Apple TV took forever to load and even after it loaded it would pause every 30 seconds to re-buffer. I sure hope Apple gets this fixed. I ended up moving the hard drive back to the iMac and everything's working fine again. The Apple TV needs to go through the iMac's iTunes library anyway so that was no biggie. I was just hoping to be able to stream from the Macbook and pc without going through iTunes. Not a huge deal since I can still stream from the shared iTunes library. I'm planning on adding another usb drive to the basestation just to use for backups. Should be fine for that.

All in all, I'm happy with the ease of use and setup and the performance seems to be pretty good. We'll see as time goes by. I feel like I spent way too much ($180) for an 802.11g router but I feel good about taking another step towards my goal of converting my house into an Apple house (yes, I have had the kool-aid and I like it).

Homer rules

The Simpsons movie comes out 2 weeks from Friday. Is there anything funnier than Homer? I don't think so. Even the trailers have me busting up. "Spiderpig, spiderpig, does whatever a spider can". D'oh!

In hockey tonight we had a hell of a game but we came out on the short end of a 5-4 total. We were really peppering the goalie, especially down the stretch but couldn't get lucky. I played D for the first 2 periods then moved up to center for the 3rd and scored my first goal of the season, rifling a wrister off the inside of the right post, just missing the defenseman who provide a nice screen for me. Unfortunately I missed a pretty open net on a scramble earlier when I hit the left post. Oh well, it was still fun.

Baseball got underway for the 2nd half tonight. I finished the first half of the COJ league with a 7 point lead in first. Unfortunately I already lost 3 points off that lead thanks to no hitting and Jeremie Guthrie of the Orioles getting lit up by the White Sox. I've never won the league but finished 2nd last year. Hard to believe I'm still up there considering I had Prince Fielder last year and let him go. Of course, who can fault my keeping The Mighty Pujols over The Prince, even if his manager won't let him play in the all star game.

Your results may vary

Balderdash said I'm only posting once a week now so I figured I better post this morning, just to show him that he doesn't know anything. :)

Just finished 3 days straight of playing 9 hole rounds, with some varying results.

First, Monday, subbing in the company league, playing the back 9 at the Bridges, where I typically struggle on the first 2 holes. I ended up playing pretty darn well and shooting a 39 that included 2 penalties for lost balls and I missed 2 birdie attempts that stopped on the lip. I did make a 30 footer for birdie on a par 5 though.

Tuesday, Cdubya and I went to the Door Creek executive 9 (par 30). My tee shots were pretty bad the whole round. I never hit a green off the tee, but I did drive the last hole, a 225 yard par 4, with my 3 wood, stuck it 7 feet from the hole, but proceeded to 3 putt for par. Shot a 36.

Wednesday was golf league. While I was playing pretty well with my irons, I thought my driver was failing me too often so I went to the range and hit a bucket of just drivers until I felt like I had a good shape to them. So, I got up on the 10th tee knowing I would hit a draw. 10th is a dog leg left that has a pond well past the fairway if you drive through. I've been in it before on shots that land and bounce over a cart path and down a hill into the water. This time, however, we were playing straight into the wind and knowing I would draw it around the corner, I aimed right down the middle. And of course, wouldn't you know it, it didn't draw very much and it went right where I was aiming. That's ok, it's a pretty stiff wind, right in our faces. It'll stop, right? Right? Shit... into the pond on the fly. Huge splash... sheesh, how does that feel? You hit the ball perfectly and what do you get? 1 new ball, gone.

I proceeded to hit 2 more ponds and played pretty poorly, shooting a 45. Highlight of the round was on 13, a 314 yard par 4 over a creek at 200 and uphill to the green. I usually hit a 5 iron and lay up. But this time the wind was at my back so I pulled the driver and hit it sooo sweet. It flew down the right side of the fairway, drawing back right at the green and landed on the apron, took a couple bounces and stopped 6 inches from the green on the fringe. Of course, in my infinite wisdom, I didn't play enough break on the putt from the fringe and left myself a 6 footer for birdie which I missed. Very disappointing.

Every other drive I hit was awesome. The others, not so much.

The interesting thing for me is that for some reason, probably because I'm hitting them more consistently, my iron distances have jumped up 15 yards. My 9 iron went from 135 to 150. My 5 iron from 175 to 190. It's taken me a week or so to get used to that but I think I have it down now. One thing that has done for me is make my 3i hybrid club meaningless. It was my 205 club when my 4 iron was 185 but now my 4 iron is 200 so I don't really need the 3i. I'm thinking I will take it out of the back and get a 60 degree wedge instead. Golf Galaxy is having a sale on Callaway Forged Wedges, which is what my sand wedge is. Only $50. I was really wanting to replace my sand wedge with a Mizuno that went with the rest of my set but maybe this is a better way to go for now.

Tonight is hockey night, luckily the temps have dropped from the 90's back into the 70's so the ice shouldn't be too slushy.

I'll probably play 9 on Friday afternoon. Cdubya wants to try 18 holes this weekend, maybe Saturday afternoon we'll try that.

What else is going on? Seems my life is all about golf and work. Oh, I watched a bunch of movies last weekend, including Snakes on a Plane. Totally stupid movie, but worth it just to hear Samuel L Jackson say "I'm sick of these mother fucking snakes on this mother fucking plane!" Nobody says mother fucking like Sam...

That's what she said.

We're having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave

Ok, I'm now realizing I could never live in the south. After a scorching weekend with very high humidity I'm sick of it. I barely left the house this weekend, choosing instead to close all the blinds, crank the a/c and watch movies. On the plus side, I did catch up on a lot of movies but I didn't get to go golfing except for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (haha).

Friday was ultra frustrating. For some reason the Oaks really knows how to piss me off. I called Tuesday for an early bird tee time and got 7am. No mention of anything else. I get there Friday morning and there are 80 kids, I shit you not, scattered around the putting green and practice range. WTF! Oh, it's a pga junior tour event! Thanks for telling me fuck-nuts. They started them in big groups on 6, 12 and 18 just after we teed off. Well, of course we caught them on 10 and after a 2 hour front nine it took us 3 hours to play the back. In addition it was hot and the beer cart girl doesn't start till noon. She met us coming off the 18th green. No water, no gatorade, no beer, nothing. I hate that place and they are not getting my business again. If they had just told me that they had that tourney I would have gone somewhere else and probably would have come back there another time. Now, fuck no. I ended up shooting 92, putting ok but chipping horribly.

---

And to make things worse, Friday morning my coffee maker died so we had to go buy a new one. Let's recap. DVD player, a/v receiver, wireless router and coffee maker, all dead in less than a month. What in the hell is going on in my house?

---

The new Apple Store in Madison opened Saturday. I managed to go over there and wait in line for about 15 minutes to get in. Got a free t-shirt for showing up. Cdubya and I played with the iPhone for about 10 minutes. Pretty damn cool.

---

Looks like the heat and humidity will continue for today and tomorrow before we get a break on Wednesday and should be nice the rest of the week.

---

And you want to talk about pain? I thought you would. Try getting a cardboard cut deep under your fingernail! God that hurts! I hate it when that happens.

Grinder House

I can't believe the weekend is over already. How does it go so quickly? I swear to god the summer feels like it's almost over and I'm spending every minute doing something and still I don't think I'm getting anything done. I finish one thing and there's 12 more waiting to get done.

The weekend started Friday with golf (ok, so I'm not actually getting things done because I'm golfing all the time but hey, ya gotta have some "me time", eh?). Played 18 at Yahara with King Erik and Retro with Dr. Mike joining us for the back 9. I came out firing with an eagle putt on the first hole (missed but got the birdie) and ended up birdieing 3 of the first 7 holes, the first time I've ever had more than 1 birdie in a round, but I also threw a double and triple in there and ended up with a 42 on the front. I followed that up with a 45 on the back for 87. Erik played awesome and shot 84. Retro, well, he's Retro... 103.

Saturday I had to replace a couple shrubs that had bought the farm. Didn't do much else, even though I felt guilty for not getting other chores done.

Sunday morning we were invited to play the course that Grinder built his house on. It's an interesting course, but there are definitely some oddities. For one, it seems to have been carved into existing farm land and some of the course is still being farmed. Secondly, there are no trees on the course, which makes it a little confusing as to where the holes actually are. Third, the layout is strange, especially on the back 9 where you seem to have to go 500 yards between holes, including crossing a highway to play the last 4 holes. Plus, there are no par 5's on the back, so it's only a par 34 (36 on the front).

We went by Grinder's house on the 16th hole. You'd have to hit some sort of god-awful shot to hit his place. It's set back a ways and is less than 100 yards from the tee box. We all managed to miss it. The 18th hole is definitely the hardest. A ravine runs down the entire right side so you can't miss there. But on the left side houses come within 20' of the course so you can't miss there either. So basically, hit it straight or pay. Plus it's 410 yards so you can't just hit an iron off the tee. The green is tucked back behind the ravine so it's pretty hard to get there. I managed to hit what was called for, a 5 yard fade off the left bunkers and somehow landed in a fairway that was about 10 yards across. I hosed my 5 iron shot and went towards a barn where it stopped under a couple of boulders.

I ended up shooting 86 (45/41) with 1 birdie, 3 pars, 3 doubles and all the rest bogies. This time I beat King Erik by 3 so we ended the weekend even. Hopefully we can continue to play decent and win the 2nd half of golf league.

Afterwards we were invited to Grinder House for burgers, brats and beer. The house is quite nice and the basement is huge with enormous potential. Amazingly, he has almost the exact same layout as Dr. Mike's house, only Mike's basement is finished and the kitchen set up is a hair different.

So anyway, back to work today and tomorrow then I'm off until Monday. Not sure how I'm going to spend my time, I guess probably golfing most of it. I still have some work around the house I should do but you know how that goes...

Have a nice Monday.

We are so NOT the champions

Got to golf league last night only to find out that we lost the first half by a single point. Turns out the 3rd place team totally anhilated their opponents and past us. I wasn't worried about them at all, but I guess I should have checked before announcing our win. Oops...

Last night was fun night in league, we played a 4 man scramble with teams being divided equally. We finished at 2 under par, good for 3rd place and 5 bucks. I played very relaxed and hit the ball very well, especially off the tee where I crushed every drive down the middle except for on the 9th hole where I was trying to drive the green and put it in a greenside bunker. We just missed a few putts or we would have won it. Next week starts the second half.

---

In the Circle of Jerks baseball league, I took over first place yesterday. Hopefully I can build on it. My pitching has been very strong as of late and that's been moving me up the standings. Unfortunately, it appears that Brewer rookie hurler Yovani Gallardo will get stuck moving to the bullpen after the all star break, which will force me to bench him and play a different starter.

That really sucks but I understand. He's young and has never pitched more than 145 innings in a season. They don't want to burn him out (can you say Mark Prior?) and want him fresh in September and for the playoffs. Playoffs and Brewers, don't get to say that very often, but the way they're playing right now I sure wouldn't bet against them. For the 2nd day in a row, their catcher comes through in a big way. On Tuesday it was Johnny Estrada's grand salami that opened the floodgates for a 9 run 6th and yesterday it was backup Damian Miller's 3 run walk off homer in the 11th to win it. Speaking of grand slams, they had zero last year and already have 5 this year (Estrada, Jenkins, Hardy and Bill Hall twice). This team could be good for many years, assuming they can hang on to their young core, especially the infield of Fielder, Weeks, Hardy and Braun. Add in Gallardo, Hall and Corey Hart and they have a ton of guys under 27. There's excitement in beer land once again. They head for the friendly confines of Wrigley field tomorrow for a matchup with the equally hot Cubs with a 7 1/2 game lead.

---

There's something funky going on with the electronics in my house. A couple weeks ago my dvd player went tits up, just wouldn't load any dvd's. I junked it and replaced it with the one in the bedroom we weren't using much anyway. Then last Thursday my Yamaha a/v receiver wouldn't stay on. I'd hit the button it would turn on and immediately off. I took it in to American TV to have it looked at. Got a call Tuesday night. The dolby digital board is dead and needs a new one. It will cost $218 plus tax to fix it. In the meantime I bought a basic Onkyo receiver that was on sale for $180 at Circuit City. Now I'm faced with a dilemna. Do I spend the $218 and get the Yamaha fixed, and hope that it will stay working or do I just forget about it and when I need another receiver just go buy a new one for about the same amount? It has always been more receiver than I needed. It has more video and audio inputs than I need and is a 7.1 channel receiver and I don't have the speaker set up for more than 5.1. I'm leaning towards just junking it. Feels like electronics are now disposable.

Also on Tuesday night I open my laptop and notice I have no network connection. I go upstairs and my cheap-o Belkin router has no power. I unplug it for a bit, plug it back in and it seems to be working. Computers are working, etc, but I bring up Apple TV and all appears fine until I attempt to stream Shrek and I immediately lose the connection. I go back upstairs and it's off again. I go through the same steps and once again it dies when I try to stream a movie through Apple TV. I got it restarted again and stopped trying to stream and it's stayed on for a couple days now. Looks like it just can't handle the load trying to stream that much data. I'll have to get a new router now too. I'm leaning towards the Apple Draft N wireless router. It's supposed to be super fast and awesome, but it's $180 too. One of the things I really like about it is that it has a USB 2 port on it that can turn any USB printer or external hard drive into a networked one. I would move my Western Digital My Book drive to it instead of being connected to Cdubya's iMac so that I could access it from any of my computers. It's where I'm storing all my video files for the Apple TV.

I can't help but wonder what's going to die next...

Peace, out.

Red Admiral Butterflies

While out golfing Friday I noticed hundreds of these black butterflies with orange stripes and white spots on their wings. Then on Saturday morning I got up to find even more of them completely engulfing our Ash tree in the front yard. It was even hard to mow as I was getting bombarded by these little dudes and small birds chasing them around like fighter jets. It was amazing.

I took some pictures of them this morning. I did some research and found that they are Red Admirals. They don't show up in this abundance for about 10 years. I'm not a big "butterfly guy" but I thought they were cool.

You can call me Mr. 3-Putt Bogey

Talk about ruining what could have been a decent round. I hit the green in regulation the last 5 holes and 6 of the last 7 and what did I do? Yeah, 1 par and 5 3-putt bogies! I was ready to wrap my putter around my neck. I had 22 putts on the back 9 and only 21 other strokes for a 43, coupled with a 46 on the front that included back to back triple bogies on 7 and 8, for an 89. I gave away so many strokes it was sick. I truly am the worst putter on the face of the earth. I can't believe I had more putts than regular strokes on the back, that has to be a first. Ended up with 40 putts total, my worst of the season. Back to the drawing board...

I could blame it on lack of sleep as I had late hockey on Thursday and didn't get to sleep till about 1am and then was up at 5:45 and started working at 6 from home. To make me even more exhausted, we were short handed and went with only 2 D for the entire first period, I was one of them. We got 1 more player in the 2nd and I played wing for that period then back to D for the 3rd (with 3 defensemen). Ended up playing about 45 out of 63 minutes of ice time, I was dead. Too old to do that crap. We ended up losing 2-1.

My Yamaha a/v receiver took a dump on me Thursday morning too. Just 2 weeks after my Toshiba dvd player died. What's going on here? Is it a revolt? I took the receiver in to American TV for service, $40 deposit, they'll send it back to Yamaha. If it's less than $95 to fix, they'll just do it, otherwise they'll call. I'm hopeful it's just the transformer. In the meantime I found an Onkyo on sale at circuit city so I bought it. If/when the Yamaha is fixed I'll put it in the pub room and move the one from in the pub room to the workout room. I was one short anyway.

As I type this I'm installing the first Apple TV software update. As far as I can tell the only thing in it is the ability to browse and play YouTube videos. I will see shortly. I plan to watch Caddyshack on it shortly as well.

Oh yep, there are the YouTube menus. Well, going to check it out now.
Later

We are the champions, my friend

Unbeknownst to me, King Erik and I took over first place from Retro and his dual partners last week in golf league. I had written off our chances of catching them for the first half but when we took 13.5 points to their 4.5 we ended up jumping 2 points ahead of them. I believe we held them off last night with me winning 6.5 and Erik getting at least 4. Their opponents beat both of them so I think we're safe. First half is over, fun night next week (probably a scramble or something).

I ended up shooting a 40 for the 2nd consecutive night. Now if I could just put those together in 1 18 hole round I'll be happy. I just missed out on winning $30 last night. First, I was about 12 feet from the pin on the first par 3 that was a closest to the hole flag prize and was good until the last group when roofer Bob beat me. Then I find out that I lost low net by 1 stroke to a young guy getting 17 strokes. Then I had a pair of queens in the card game and lost to 2 pair (Aces and Kings). So close...

Retro had a 51 but had probably the best shot I've seen from him on 15. He was in the fairway bunker off the tee shot and sitting about 230 out. I said something about being too bad he didn't have a hybrid yet (he's planning to buy one) and he said I think I'll hit my 3-wood. I was like ok, if you think that's smart, go for it. Amazingly he crushed it out of the bunker and landed on the green, rolling to the back fringe. His eagle putt missed by 4 or 5 feet and he made the putt for birdie. Unfortunately the rest of his round was doubles and triples. I told him he's the only guy I know that can consistently turn a 3 into a 7.

---

My Yamaha RX-V650 a/v receiver wouldn't work this morning, so I'm pretty bummed. For some reason every time I turned it on it shut off a split second later. From the little troubleshooting I could do online it may be the transformer or it could be a bad speaker or bad speaker connection. Not sure how that could happen overnight while we were sleeping and it was off because it was working fine when I went to bed. Looks like I'll be spending some time trying to figure it out tonight. I had to figure out how to turn the tv speakers back on so we could actually hear the audio this morning. And of course that means getting a different remote and going through all that crap. What a pain. I hope it is something simple, I figure the repair costs might be so high that I might have to buy a new receiver.

I'm going to hope for the "it magically started working again" cure.

Nice Surprise

Got a surprise last night when I got home from work. Cdubya said she wanted to go play golf! Awesome, I said. We walked the dogs first and head to Door Creek to play the executive 9. Unfortunately it was full with an outing (who does an outing on the freakin' exec 9?) till 6:30 but I was told the regular course was wide open. I asked her about it and she said ok as long as no one was with us (she gets nervous) and we could take a cart. I said ok.

We teed off about 6:00, beautiful night, nice breeze, upper 70's, nice and quiet. We'd seen a couple teenagers tee off in front of us but that shouldn't be a problem. Cdubya whacks her first drive right into the fairway, about 130 yards, very nice.

We get to the 2nd tee and have to wait just a bit for the kids in front of us, no problem.

We get to the green and notice that the kids have joined up with 2 other guys that are waiting. I glance left and notice a group of 4 looking for lost balls in the creek on 3. I figure it's a slight delay. We get done, they're still looking. The 2 guys behind us get done and the 4-some in front of us still hasn't teed off yet. Ok, this is getting ridiculous.

Finally, they're able to hit, they play quickly, we go, play quickly. Get to 4 and it looks like it's opened up again, we only have to wait a minute.

On 5 (par 3) we wait a little as the guys in front of us are putting. No problem.

We finish (Cdubya hit it into the water but had a nice chip from the drop zone but 3 putted for a 6) and the guys in front of us still haven't teed off yet. Once again, just like on 3, we get backed up 3 groups waiting to hit.

And that's how it went the rest of the night. Luckily we weren't in a rush but that one group was horribly slow and it took us 2 1/2 hours to play 9.

I played nice and relaxed golf, hitting my irons easily and they were straight and dead on. Unfortunately I didn't really take my time putting, just walked up and hit them so I 3-putted for bogey 3 times. Still, I shot 40 with 4 pars and 5 bogies. Could have easily been a 35. In addition to the 3 3-putts I missed a 10 foot birdie putt by a millimeter. Amazing how easy the game is when you just relax and swing easy.

Cdubya only hit 1 bad drive in 7 and it was on the last hole. I think she ran out of gas a little and couldn't really do much on that hole, getting an 11. She struggled with her fairway wood and long hybrid (harder to hit of course). She chipped really well with her wedge and she made a bogey on the 8th hole, putting her tee shot on the green and 3 putting.

I think she shot about a 70, we didn't take great care in keeping track. I'm just glad she's having fun and it gets me on the course more, a win-win!

Golf league tonight, hope I can keep it up.

Long and Hard (that's what she said)

Well, I made it through the weekend and I'm still alive. I guess that's a good thing.

It all started Friday afternoon when I had to mow in a 90 degree heat index and then I attempted to stain my fence after that.

I found what appeared to be a great new product for staining fences, called "5 Minute Fence Stain". The promise of a super easy stain job seemed too good to be true but I figured it was worth a shot so I bought 4 containers of it, supposed to be more than enough to handle the amount of fence I have. The idea is that it is a stain concentrate with the water removed. You hook it to your ordinary garden hose and spray, the water mixing with the stain.

Of course, anything that seems too good to be true usually is, and that was the case here. For one thing, it sprays out hard and very wet, splashing all over the place. For another it runs out way quicker than I would have imagined. It took me 3 bottles to do half the fence and it was way too light. I used the 4th to go back over it as best I could but I think it looks like crap. Never got to do the backside of the fence either. Now I think I'm going to have to do something completely different for the back, hope I can find something that matches closely to what's already there or I'll have to redo the entire thing.

---

On Saturday, Retro and I played in the 27 hole challenge at Door Creek. First 9 is best ball, 2nd 9 is combined net and 3rd 9 is a scramble. Of course, like idiots we walked in the excruciating heat. We kicked ass on the front 9 and shot an 8 under par 27, with Retro shooting a 43 and me a 40. That was good for a 3 way tie for best which netted us a whopping $14.25 after the split. The heat started getting us on the back and we stumbled quite a bit, with Retro dropping to a 52 and me a 47. After a quick bite to eat we went to the executive 9 for a scramble. We struggled mightily there too, coming in with a 35 (par 30). I'm not sure where we finished, somewhere in the top 15 I think.

---

Then on Sunday, dad and I played in the father/son tourney in Baraboo (his home course). It was an interesting format. Both father and son hit their tee shots, then played each other's second shot (so I was hitting his ball and he mine after our first shots). From there it was an alternate shot through the hole. We didn't play very well at all and shot 44/44 for 88. I did win 2 flag prizes for closest to the hole on a par 3, which netted me 2 sleeves of Top Flight balls, ooh boy. I should have had long drive on 18 too, blew by the marker by 40 yards but was 10 feet into the rough.

---

Got to watch episode 2 of "John from Cincinati" last night on HBO. I like this new show from David Milch (Deadwood). It's very different from other shows and intriguing.

Ok, Putting is better but now....

I can't seem to hit things straight. This god damn game is so frustrating, I want to tear my hair out sometimes. I only had 16 putts and no 3-putts so I feel better about that, but my iron shots were either left or right and my driver hooked left a few times that I wasn't expecting. The difference between me of a few years ago and now is that even when I'm doing that now I can still manage to shoot a 43. Couple years ago that would have been a 50.

Our really nice temps are going to give way to slightly higher but much more humid weather for the next few days. That's not really what I need right now with a very busy staining and golfing weekend.

Tonight is the start of summer hockey season, kicking off with a 9pm game tonight. Those are always so tough because I'm normally in bed by 10/10:30 and up by 5:45. I won't get home till 11 and then the adrenaline won't let me sleep till 1am. Tomorrow should be pretty rough.

For those of you unmarried guys that think it might be ok to hook up with an ex-girlfriend, let this story be a word of warning for you. A guy in London is now facing life 1 nut light after meeting up with his ex at a party and taking her home. They were just about to get busy when he decided it wasn't a good idea. She went nutso and ripped a nut right off and tried to swallow it! Fortunately she choked on it and had to spit it out. Unfortunately they couldn't reattach it. Her statement: "I'm not a very violent person." Uh, yeah, right psycho...

Pressure Washing a fence is hard...

Going into this weekend, my goals were simple:
Friday: Golf 18 holes.
Saturday: Trim, mow and pressure wash the fence.
Sunday: Stain the fence.
No problem...

Well, it started out ok. Got the golf in, beautiful weather... unfortunately horrible golf, shooting 46/46 for 92 with 38 freakin' putts, including 6 3-putts. Disgusting wouldn't even come close to describing it.

Saturday morning I got up raring to go. Trimmed and mowed then put the pressure washer together (gas powered, just bought it). Unfortunately I misjudged how long it would take. 3 hours later I'd only done one side and just the outside. Took me 6 hours more on Sunday to finish and I was toast. Missed a few spots with the sunscreen too so now I've got a few places that are pretty f'ing red.

So, now I'll have to wait. Looks like Friday before I can get to staining. Going to my nephew's baseball game tomorrow, golf league Wedneday and hockey starts again on Thursday.

The weather is at least cooperating as it will be mid to upper 80's all week. I have not 1, but 2 golf tournaments this weekend too. Saturday is the 27 hole challenge at Door Creek, with Retro as my partner for the first time. Mike is going on a motorcycle trip to West Virginia so he's not available. Sunday is the father/son tournament at Baraboo. We took 2nd last year and my dad is jacked up about it, wants to win. We'll see... probably not a chance the way I'm playing right now.

Oh, Cdubya got her first birdie yesterday! A robin...

Rain, Rain, Stop!

We got lucky for golf league last night as a big rain storm passed through and it stopped raining just as we got to the course, leading to a very nice night as the sun came out and it was in the mid-60's with a light breeze. Beautiful night for golf.

Unfortunately the golf wasn't as beautiful. For some reason I wasn't hitting the ball very crisply and missed all but 1 green in regulation. On the plus side I was making some long putts and 1-putted 5 times. Of course, I angered the golf gods by stating that my putter was hot before teeing off on the 17th hole and while I just missed reaching the green in 2 (par 5) I managed to 3 putt for bogey. Why can't I keep my mouth shut! The golf gods will get you every time you say something like that. For instance, one guy we were playing with stood on the 13th tee box and stated "I've played every hole with this one ball" and proceeded to land his tee shot in a creek. You can't say shit like that.

I ended up shooting 44, missing a 6 footer for par on 18 that would have won my match. Instead I settled for a tie, with him winning the holes 5-4 but I won total (he shot 43 and gives me 2 strokes), for a 5-5 tie. My partner won as his opponent was a no-show, but I don't think we can make up the 7 points we're down to Retro and his partner(s). Only a few weeks left in the first half.

Speaking of Retro. He killed himself on the first hole with a 10, fighting with the sand traps and ended up with a 53. There's always a little regression as you improve. 2 step forwards, 1 step back.

We play again Friday and this weekend I'll be pressure washing and staining the fence, finally. Should be a gorgeous weekend in the mid to upper 70's.

I dread the end is near

For a year now I've been playing golf with Retro and who is going to win has never really been in doubt. He's struggled and while I have continued to bash his need to practice every day and take thousands of swings in his living room, continually threatening the well-being of his children, he has proved that practice does help.

I always told him that I would have to kill myself if he beat me (I was joking, hope he's not worried about me), and now I fear the time may be coming soon. He's actually starting to play well.

His first 3 weeks of golf league were a joke: 57, 53, 60. Then we go to Whistling Straits and while he wasn't god-like, he did shoot a 51 on the front nine and he was actually hitting the ball pretty well. We get back to league Wednesday and he fires a 47! Luckily I had a 40 so the outcome was still never in doubt.

Then we go out Friday to play nine and after 8 holes we were tied! I didn't panic and when he drove his tee shot into the bunker I knew I was safe. But just to make sure I hit my drive 270 down the middle and hit a 3-wood 225 to 4 feet. Of course I missed the eagle putt but made birdie and he made 7 and I won 44-47. But again, he shot 47! This is really something for a guy that regularly was well over 50 and his best 9 ever is a 45.

Once again we head out to play 18 Sunday morning, this time with Dr. Mike joining us. Mike decides he loves the number 6 and proceeds to have 8 of them on the front 9 (only marred by a par 3 on the 8th) and shoots 51. Retro continues his torrid pace and fires a 46, bested only by my 44. Now Mike is nervous... he's got a bet with Retro (2-1 odds on a case of Guinness) that Retro won't have a lower handicap come September 30th. Mike starts playing better on the back and Retro comes unglued for 1 hole, as he usually does, and shoots a 10 on the 11th hole. He recovers but Mike plays well enough to take advantage and when he bogeys 17 to Retro's double he makes up the 5th stroke and they're tied. I'm maintaining a slim 3 shot lead over both of them.

We head to 18 as ominous black clouds gather over head. Mike hits first and hits a short drive but he's in the fairway. Retro rams one well right of the fairway and I hit a bomb about 30 yards short of the green. We all miss the green on our second shots with Mike in the rough and Retro and I on the fringe. Mike makes a good shot but it rolls past the pin onto the back fringe. I putt up close and tap in for par. Retro putts well right of the hole and leaves himself 10 feet. Mike somehow makes his 12 footer from the fringe for par leaving Retro his 10 footer for the tie. I don't think he knew it at the time though and snuck the putt in the left side for the par and the tie. The finished with 94's (Mike 51/43, Retro 46/48), the best I've seen Retro shoot for sure. I managed a 47 on the back for 91, barely hanging on to beat him by 3. A far cry from the usual 20 stroke wins I've been having.

Now I'm the one that's nervous...

Pirate Master

The debut of Pirate Master on CBS was last night. First episode was kind of slow but that was expected as they need to introduce you to the game and understand how it's going to work.

On day 1 they sailed near to an island and were divided into 2 teams. Each team was given a map and compass to a treasure. They set out in long boats to begin their search. The winning team discovered a treasure chest that was filled with $40,000 in gold coins. They were then told that they would decide who the captain of the ship would be from their team. They ended up going with Joe Don despite John, the scientist/exotic dancer's protests that he, not JD, did everything and should be captain.

Immediately after the majority vote for Joe Don they were informed that the captain would get half the treasure ($20,000). He was then told to pick two officers and they were informed that the officers would get $5,000 and the remaining pirates would get $2,000 each.

Of course everyone was like "WTF? Half for the captain?" And Joe Don took his captain role to heart and became a complete prick to everyone. He and the officers were also given much better sleeping quarters and upon seeing them he said "Would you look at my bed?" completely rubbing it in before slamming the door so the others couldn't look into his room.

JD was then told to pick 3 pirates to be given the "black spot" and the remaining pirates would vote for one of them to be "cut adrift". Or they could vote to mutiny the captain, but it had to be unanimous for that to happen. As it turns out, John was such a douche bag that everyone voted for him and JD was safe as captain for the time being.

The show has potential, especially now that the introduction is over and we can see more of the interactions between the contestants. I can't wait for Christian "The Nigerian Nightmare" Okoye to body slam the first person to order him to scrub the toilet.

---

In other news, today is Retro's last day here at our client. He's going to work on other projects at his contracting firm's office. So, as is tradition, we went out to have a bunch of beer after work. On the way there he told me that 2 or 3 beers was his max and he'd become a lightweight. Of course, once we're there and people are buying him drinks it became a different story. After a couple hours he'd had about 5 Guinness and a shot of Jamison's. I had to drag him out of there or he would have been barfing. He's not looking so good this morning but at least he got off the mat and answered the bell.