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.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, July 27, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, July 23, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
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!
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!
Friday, July 13, 2007
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).
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).
Thursday, July 12, 2007
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.
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.
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.
Monday, July 09, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, July 02, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
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
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
Thursday, June 21, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, June 18, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
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...
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...
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