Cool.
Got the lead from the folks in Montana
July 16, 2004
Stereogram
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Homespun
I don’t join groups. I’m too independent for most organizations. I just did:
I like the attitude in the group. Tom has set this all up as:
Homespun Bloggers is a loose association of bloggers for whom blogging is a labor of love, and no more.
What I like is that it is for folks like me who have a small, loyal audience. Tom will post weekly “favorites” from each member blog for others to sample. I recommend the site to you as a place to find those who write–just because. No Hewitts or Malkins there, although I like them both. And one requirement is being family-friendly. I like that, too.
Meanwhile, I did a check on people who link to me over at Truth Laid Bear just to see if I’ve been missing someone of interest. What I found is a couple of good ones, some I read daily, and some where my site is one of ten thousand in the list. I’m sure that’s true for every blogger.
When I put a link on my site, it is there for my convenience. If you like my stuff, they might interest you, too. But I also have some standard bookmarks in my browser toolbar for sites like Lileks, Vinny, Instapundit, Drudge, Sullivan, and Glenn. I don’t think they really care if I link to them or not, and my readers already know them well.
What I’m getting around to is that if you link to me, I’ll check you out. But you won’t appear on my sidebar unless I read you every day. I also may skip adding you if one of my regular readers has you linked, and I hit you from their site. I read far too much each day!
So, if your goal is to be a Higher Being in the blogosphere, I won’t be of much help. But if you want to be read by my readers, you have a shot at it. And my favorites don’t always talk about politics, except Liberal Larry, of course.
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Music in Flight
Annie Jacobsen writes in WomensWallStreet about a domestic flight she was on recently.
So the question is… Do I think these men were musicians? I’ll let you decide. But I wonder, if 19 terrorists can learn to fly airplanes into buildings, couldn’t 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?
I like this lady. She has a logical mind. Probably better than some of the agents doing the investigation on this case.
****UPDATE**** I’ve sworn off watching the news on TV for a while. So I tend to get current events updates on the web. This story is one which should be broadcast. Apparently it wasn’t. But, as Sarah noted, it is all over the internet.
The mainstream media have had a stranglehold on news reportage for so long, I don’t know that it’s possible for them to change. It is kinda like the buggy whip manufacturer who insisted people still needed his product long after horses no longer provided pull power for the majority of Americans.
They had better evolve.
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July 15, 2004
The Sounds of Golf
The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of butterflies in the adjoining meadows.
P.G. Wodehouse identified a problem with many golfers, good and bad. Colin Montgomerie has rabbit ears, and so does Tiger Woods. Which is really odd because Earl Woods always talked about how he taught his son to shut out all sounds. Berle is another.
Oh, you don’t know Berle. He is one of the regulars at my course. Berle is a talker. He goes non-stop. I was playing in his group one morning and we waited at the first tee box for the group ahead to play. Berle was telling us all kinds of tales as that group tried to play. Jabber, jabber, jabber. The foursome managed to tee off without too much damage.
Now, Berle loves to talk, but hates to listen. That same round, as he prepared to hit his drive on the second hole, the three of us carried on a discussion as he stepped to his ball. We then shut up. He backed away from the ball, and one of us finished a sentence. As he returned to his stance, we all got quiet. He backed away again. We continued the conversation until he again took his stance. He stood over the ball for a second or two, then backed off again.
“Look. I don’t ask much but when I’m about to hit I’d appreciate it if you guys quit talking. I’ve had to back away three times, now.” He was quite stern.
It pissed me off, but I kept up a friendly exterior. “Hell, Berle, if you’d hit the damn ball and quit worrying about us we’d be on the green by now. Nobody was talking when you got ready to hit.” He finally did, and we were all very quiet and patient the rest of the round. All of us know him, so nobody bothered to get upset when we hit and he carried on a monologue. But he didn’t say anything more about it, either.
Tiger has problems with cameras. Even when he takes a practice swing. I think it has more to do with endorsement money or photos being sold on the internet, myself.
Focus means a lot on the golf course. Maybe some can’t turn it on and off. Every sport requires it, and good athletes can ignore everything around them when they need to. On the golf course there are always sounds. But what is distracting is the sudden, unexpected noise or action seen out of the corner of your eye. I missed a putt last week because a mosquito decided lunch time began during my stroke and instinct made my body try to react and crush the little bastard just before I hit the ball. I made contact–with ball and mosquito at the same time.
Other sounds on the course are not only less distracting, but pleasureable. Karsten Soldheim named his putter “Ping” because of the sound it made when it struck the ball properly. One of my regular partners has a putter which makes the same sound. I tease him about the “ping-plop” sound he gets when he strokes the ball well. The plop is the ball falling into the hole. Any time I hear the ping, I expect to also hear a plop.
I like the sound of ball contact when I use my persimmon driver. It is the same as a baseball off a wood bat rather than aluminum. Even using a metal driver, you can hear a different sound when the ball is hit well. Iron shots no longer have the distinctive click, but that is because balls are made differently now. Again, there is a different sound when a ball is hit well, but it is no longer as noticeable.
Laughs, cheers, and groans are common sounds on a golf course, and they waft their way across yards of turf and settle around you. They are the essence of golf. They signify the good and the bad in a round. Last weekend we had them all, with long putts made, short putts missed, balls that took an odd bounce to end up in a bunker, and balls that took an odd bounce and ended up in the hole. We had a long approach shot that stopped next to the hole, then fell in before we got to the green, and we had a ball hang up in a mesquite tree. We had missed birdies and made eagles, three-putt bogies and no-putt birdies. Balls hit cart paths and water. Every one evoked a sound.
And we had the sounds of nature. Grackles and mockingbirds vie for food left in a cart, trying to drag away packs of cookies. Mosquitoes buzz. The wind rustles palm trees and the flags on the greens.
And there is friendly conversation about topics which range far and wide. I think golf is as much an aural experience as it is physical. Maybe more.
Maybe I shouldn’t be so tough on Tiger and Berle.
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Recycle
Alan Caruba writes about the decline in recycling.
Recycling advocates say the reason for the decline is that the need to recycle, debatable at best, no longer gets the kind of attention it used to when it was fashionable to shame everyone into thinking they were
July 14, 2004
The Oldest
It is called, simply, The Open.
Everyone wants to know how Tiger is doing, and whether he’ll win another Major after a drought of two years. Well, the last few times the Open has been played at Troon, people like Justin Leonard, Mark Calcavecchia, and Tom Watson won. Even though all the experts talk about how long the back nine plays when the wind is up, shotmakers have always seemed to finish well at Troon.
Don’t be surprised if someone like Darren Clarke does well. Of course, Tiger can use his power to advantage if the rest of his game is on, and Ernie Els can do it all.
My money is on one of the shorter hitters who place their shots well this week.
And this is the last week of the professional golf season, in my opinion. Yes, there are plenty of tournaments remaining, and one “major” (the PGA). But I won’t really be interested in what’s happening on the PGA Tour again until the Ryder Cup comes up.
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Hole in One
Got this from Dad:
This morning my tee shot on # 9 went left, after a little looking I found it in a turtle shell. It had gone next to his head & left front leg. I tried to make him walk to the green but no such luck. So we pried the ball out, he went one way, I the other.
Turtles just don’t listen.