Failed Quest for Par

Small eighteen hole course outside of Albany.  Decided to play nine because it was nearly 4pm and apparently it gets dark around 5pm around here.  Note: this is the country (to me, the country is suburbs of a small city) and dark means pitch dark; I’m talking can’t find my way off the course dark; I’m talking scared I am going to be bagged and tagged by a lurking serial killer dark; freaking crickets chirping and I can see the planetoid Pluto dark.  Anyway, the lady who we paid (as you will see, I don’t play golf so I have no idea what you would call this lady if there is a fancy name I’m supposed to call her --- I considered making something up here like “lodge assistant” or “caddy-wench,” but thought that’s what parenthesis are for) said we should be able to blow through nine holes, no problem, but eighteen would be pushing it.  Did she think she was talking to Jack Nicklaus (decided to go with the Columbus, Ohio reference in lieu of the Black reference here) and Jumbo Ozaki?  No she’s talking to shank/slice master and a guy who literally dug a ditch trying to get the ball off the tee.  We pushed nine holes and only finished seven.

Well, we, and “we” is Kenji and I incase you didn’t catch the obnoxious “Jumbo” reference (yes, I googled famous Japanese golfers), played seven holes and the results were less than stellar.  Less-than-stellar is actually a deliberate yet gross understatement.  It is early and I have not had coffee so I cannot come up with a way to succinctly say that most of my seven-stroke holes fail to even have a description – i.e. my seven stroke holes cannot even be labeled “triple-bogey” – which is three stokes over par.  Nope, no – it was, for the most part, a three-par course.  Seriously, it is the type of course where a good amateur could give Tiger Woods a run for his money. 

I mean even I hit the green a couple of times – yes, literally TWO; a good player should go green-putt-birdie, green-putt-birdie – whereas, I go: whiff-whiff-slice-reset; whiff-scrape the top of the ball-break the tee-reset; shank-shank-fairway-over the green-green-putt-putt-putt-quadruple bogey. Hole-in-ones are mere Eagles; thus, Albatross (double-eagle/three strokes under par) and Condor (triple-eagle) are mere words that kids of this region may never incorporate into their vocabulary much less accomplish; I doubt I will ever even dream about sinking something in the Aves class of phylum – perhaps a passenger pigeon (RIP Martha!) one day.

Anyway, I suck at golf.  If there is a silver-lining, it is that I now know that I suck and that I should promptly add learning golf to my to-do list.  I am also very glad I have never successfully organized a driving-range date.  That would have been a certain LAST date.  I will be attending the driving range alone this winter, sorry ladies. 

Highlights 

My best shot: Hit right outside the green on the drive

Kenji’s best shot: two feet from the hole – he blew the birdie

Worst shot aka most awesome shot: drove ball so hard into a tree it almost came back to me; I think I heard the tree say ouch

Best hole: Kenji actually won the quest for par, the bastard birdied a hole

Most lost balls: Easily Kenji, he sliced several into the woods

Post-script:  I’ve posted the scorecard below.  It reflects that we attempted the back-nine.  We got a slightly later start, played a little better, but spent the extra time photographing the spectacle – thus, we only completed six holes instead of seven.

 

Distance	120	150	150	220	150	145	130	285	335
Par	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	4	4
Kenji	5	5	6	4	2	8	4	---	---
Craig	4	7	7	10	7	8	4	---	---

 

Distance	150	115	150	110	120	115	155	185	285
Par	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	4	4
Kenji	5	3	5	4	3	3	---	---	---
Craig	6	7	6	5	5	7	---	---	---

 

James Bond Rhyme

On the chase like James Bond and you're wearing lace
wear the right perfume and I'm in your face

Buy you a drink then we hit my place

Wake up, your gone, shit, where's my safe?

Guess I had too much wine and slept too late

Now its your death I must contemplate

First I must figure your route of escape

Wasn't the front door, oh I see you pulled the drape

Hmm, a long fall, I hope you wore a cape

Just talked to M, she said "Bond just wait"

Yeah right, I don't follow orders, protocol is what I hate

Got to solve this crime, I have dinner plans at eight

And I can't miss ---her name is Destiny and I'm her fate

Cause tonight she promised me love and I won't hesitate

I'ma be on that as soon as we scrape the plates

Shit I'm distracted, focus man, and get your mind straight

You playing with a killer, it's high stakes

I know where I'll check first, steak-and-shake

I heard she patrons there after a caper cause it is quick and the food is great

Ah! There she is, that's a fast rebate

One shot between the eyes --- I'm out, peace, LATE.

Silly stuff, off the cuff…Completely off the chains, deranged, crazy, but not quite insane

Do I write these lines just to rhyme?
Or am I sharing what’s on my mind?
Not this time, because I’m doing just fine
Good stuff is boring…Who am I to leave you snoring?
There’s no glory in that story
So I will leave you shortly
And return when I have the passion
And reach out to you for a little compassion
But don’t wait because being late is my fashion
I mean I’m fashionably late
So don’t go harassing me, just wait
I’m sassy when I can’t concentrate
Go ahead and pass me the hate
Dropped this on one take, just another thing off my plate
Hmm, another point that’s pointless
Now look what I’ve written? A hot mess.
I must confess, this is just jest
Put the pen to the paper to see what I got left
That answer is… not much
And as such
Enough is enough!

A little out of practice, but . .. gotta start somewhere

I’m back, but have nothing to say

Have nothing on my mind but work anyway

Well that, and certainly play

But aside from the person, tomorrow looks the same as today

But as I stir, then I open my eyes

I’m always hopeful for an unrealized surprise

I guess the surprise today is no more free lunch

My company’s acknowledgment of this awful economic crunch

Not the surprise I’d hope for or like

But that’s what I get for checking email while I write

But time is very tight. . .

And with that said, I supposed I should return to the good fight

Give the man MY ALL even though there’s no bonus in sight

Whatever, whatever, just live for today – everything will be alright

My Boss and Her iPhone

I must give credit where credit is due. My manager might be the sickest user of an iPhone (or Blackberry) I have ever seen. She is no joke managing like 15 projects, several employees, overseeing client presentations, research reports, and the launch of a best practices website all while on vacation at her beach house and likely trying to hide the fact that she is working around-the-clock from her husband. Her email count for today is easily in the hundreds. All emails read: “sent from my iPhone”. Mi jefe has skills. She’s lucky I’m more of a Peter Petrelli than a Sylar.

I met me.

And I got me’d by me. It hurt, but I hope to laugh about it soon; I am grinning about it now, but that painful awkward grin, a grimace. I understand, but fully don’t understand. I do, however, fully understand why others never understand.

It is complicated, yet oh so simple. So simple that it needs to be complicated. What is so complicated about NO? But complicating NO eases the pain. Aha! But does it? Classic argument: rip the band-aid off or peel it away slowly? Peeling it off slowly hurts and prolongs the pain, and the pain can be exacerbated by anticipation of the pain that is sometimes not fully there. [ I.E. you suffer from the bark, only to find the bite isn’t as bad as you thought it would be; thus, you suffered more than you should have.] On the other hand, ripping the band-aid off quickly can reopen the wound. Careless.

Forget the band-aid analogy; it does not work for me. I’ll stick to what I know. I slam the door shut and sweep up the broken glass. Fast and easy, but acknowledgment that there is and will be broken glass. You sweep the glass and it is clean, but you are not surprised when you walk around barefoot one day and catch a shard that you missed; you missed it because it scattered off to someplace you did not expect. But it is a minor cut and you deal with it quickly. That happens.

I do not regret meeting me. The mirror grants perspective. I like me. I don’t blame me. I don’t blame me and I don’t blame me. The mirror distorts. You stare too long and you find imperfections. You should fix what you can and move on. Live and learn, learn to live. It is better to regret the things you do than to regret the things you don’t do. I looked into the mirror and said “here I am.” I never do that. I understand why. But this time it was worth it. It truly was. I didn’t stare into the mirror for too long, but liked what I saw – even while not seeing what I wanted to see. I didn’t need to stare too long to know I was looking at something special. However, continuing to stare into the mirror, longer than you should, only to change what you see is …um... What’s that word...delusional? Yeah... and so it is time to step away…. Perhaps not forever, but certainly for now. When it is time to acknowledge that the mirror is your friend and nothing more, then you can return to the mirror. If you so choose. It would be silly not to. I like me and look forward to seeing me again soon. Perhaps me looks forward to seeing me too and perhaps when me looks at me, me will see a different me… a me that is more me. Only time will tell; only time can tell. Okay, I think I have written about me enough. Forever.

An Election Day Story

Since I have no personal stories from election day, I thought I'd share one from one of my good buddies. Mr. Campbell is a law student in Chicago, is terrible at Wii Baseball, and chugs beer slower than anyone I've ever seen. His story:

A group of us DePaul students went down to Indiana on Election Day as part of a Voter Protection Team for the Democrat Party. The woman who organized the carpooling of us DePaul students is putting together a compilation of our experiences and stories from Election Day, so I typed up the story below and thought that maybe you (and your friends) may enjoy reading it:

In the late morning a woman in her mid 60s with Parkinson's, Vicky, walked into the voting building where I was stationed as a Democrat Watcher in Elkhart, Indiana. Unfortunately the Parkinson's had taken away much of her dexterity and to look at her navigate the voting room (from the table where she showed her ID to her voting booth) you wondered how she was able to make it around without falling. She was offered a hand a few times in walking around but she turned it down every time saying she was fine. Instead, Vicky was using the extender from a vacuum cleaner as a cane.

After Vicky finished voting the Democrat Judge at the precinct asked me and the Republican Watcher if one of us could give Vicky a ride home. I offered her a ride which she rejected, but I insisted so she finally agreed. I assumed she lived over in one of the houses visible through the window just a few hundred yards away, but figured that she deserved to be saved that few hundred yard walk (as well she did) with a little door-to-door service. We get in the car and she starts giving me directions: "Turn left up here ... ok, keep going... Turn right up there... ok, now turn left up here... keep going, it's just a little more." This morning I went to maps.google.com to figure out how far we went: 1.4 miles. Yep, she'd walked 1.4 miles to vote, with Parkinson's, using a vacuum cleaner extender for a cane, and then initially rejected my offer of giving her a ride back home.

On the ride back she told me she'd only ever missed one vote in 43 years: a Primary when she was pregnant and too nauseous to make the trip. After I dropped her off I told her how impressed I was by what she did, and she told me "If you see Obama tell him that Vicky [I forget her last name] made the walk to vote for him."