Every day, the folks in my office get together in our conference room to eat lunch. We have a television in there which had three channels: the Weather Channel, MSNBC, and a corporate information channel. We watch the news unless there is nasty weather approaching.
I use the word ‘news
Course marshals. God bless them. They perform a thankless task. Many do the job as volunteers simply because they love the game. Others are paid. Others do it because the course gives them access to play for free. Today I ran into one like all those we hate to deal with.
Yesterday, as we finished on the 18th green, the marshal drove up and told two of my partners to keep their pull carts at least 30 feet from the green. Today this same man approached us at the 8th. I was pulling a cart and had left it about 20 feet from the green behind a bunker. He accosted my partners again, so I asked him if he could explain the logic of this request. He told me it was in the rules.
He also told us they were trying to grow the grass, and pull carts matted it down. I explained that there are approximately 8 square inches of footprint on the cart wheels carrying about 50 pounds
Wednesday’s round at Colovista was mixed. On the good side, I hit several drives around 300 yards and straight, and averaged about 260 on the round. On the bad side, I 3-putted too many of their fast greens. Then, to make it worse, the greens on the back nine hadn’t been mowed that day. So, they were kinda fuzzy, and a little slower than the front.
I find it hard to play a course with fast, soft greens after playing regularly on my home course. I know I have to leave the ball short here to get it close to the hole. At Colovista, when my ball hit the green, it stopped. It took some adjustment…more than it should have. The 15th hole had a 120-foot drop to the green. We all played two balls from the back tee just for grins. It is a 190-yard hole, and we tried everything from 7 iron to 3 iron. Three of the eight balls hit the green. One of them actually bounced! It was an experience.
My swing deserted me this morning, though. I hit really good drives on the first two holes, then didn’t hit another the whole round. It was colder than it has been, and the extra clothing and stiffer joints combined to destroy me. It was really frustrating because I’ve seen steady improvement over the last two weeks, and today it just disappeared. I’ve brought my handicap down from eighteen to fifteen this last month, so I guess I was due for a bad round.
Our weekend group plays a team format with everyone who signs up. After all have teed off, the manager puts names into the computer, which does a sort to select teams. So, you don’t know who your teammates are until you finish. Well, the program acts up, so I’ve started working on a new one in Visual Basic. As I started, though, I realized I no longer know VB well enough to just sit down and write the program (a pretty simple sort routine). So, this afternoon, I dig back in the book and get it done!
Today I get to travel to Austin for some training at National Instruments tomorrow. This afternoon I’ll meet the son-in-law at Colovista for a round of golf. We tried playing once before, but got rained out. The course is beautiful, but the morning we showed up was a typical central Texas spring thunderstorm kinda day, and even the high points were soggy. Today should be simply awesome.
We tried playing the back nine last trip, but even high on the ridge above the Colorado River, the ground was just too soaked. Instead, we got a full tour by the developer/owner of Colovista. He was understandably proud. His name is Les Appelt, and he is a good old-fashioned Texan, a graduate of A&M’s engineering program. He drove us around, showing us many different properties, highlighting the tour with a drive up to the 14th green/15th tee. The 15th is a par 3 with a great view of the river and a big drop from tee to green. It is their signature hole, so you’ll see it in all ads for the development. I hope the wind stays down today so I’ll have a chance of actually hitting that green!
I ran across this interesting discussion while surfing the web today:
“Maybe we could have Sarandonistas, who all live in a land known as Streisandistan where everyone indulges in faux-Shakespearean quotes while walking around kissing each others southern protuberance in between venomous spoutings against whatever the multi-culti hatred du jour is. Sounds positively cheery, no?”
Some proposed titles for the hard-core left wing:
Neiman Marxist
Garafoolish
Moore-ons
This is satire. Not the bilge (or is it “vocal vomit”?) that those types put out.
If everyone had a sense of humor, things would be much better for us all! Lighten up, people. Our daily worlds do not revolve around politics. Get to know someone today as an individual, not as a member of some social, racial, ethnic, religious, or political group. Diversity lies not in those things, but in the unique qualities of each one of us. Live that!
A very large man in Cincinnati was stopped by police. He attacked, and ended up dead.
Racism, pure and simple. Threats based on race were spewed. A hate crime if ever there was one. The two cops were white, and the man was black. Jesse Jackson and others are all over this. But they’re defending the racist criminal against the cops he attacked. He was the one voicing racist comments. He was the one who resorted to violence. The cops defended themselves, then attempted to handcuff him. He fought until he could fight no more. Now he is dead, and the ‘usual suspects
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