The luckiest table of all time.

It may seem like all I do is golf and lately that's not far from the truth. Yesterday was an outing with a client and two auditors who are potential referral sources. Good guys, all of them, and we walked the course with caddies so it was really hot, but fun and good exercise. By the way, if you don't live around here, our weather has been really, really hot and humid (90 degrees or so). The course was very nice (Ridgemoor Country Club) and every time I play there I think I should join because it's very close and isn't crazy, crazy expensive.

Today the weather remained hot and humid and yes, I went golfing again! The event today was a fund raiser for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. While I was excited about playing and in particular shooting with my buddy Joe D. (I went to his wedding in Sarasota in May), I did have to make a trade-off since my softball team had two games tonight as well as part of a state tournament. Since I had already committed to the even though and the softball tournament was almost last minute, I stuck with golf (plus we had plenty of guys to fill in).

Joe and I were teamed up with Ken and Alan, neither of whom golf much as evidenced by their playing in tennis shoes. We were playing a scramble though where everyone hits and you play the best shot of the group. Everyone hits again from that spot and you take the best result again. Lots of fun easier to play than struggling with just your shots. Here are some pictures:




Had to start with this shot. A guy, now out of the picture, was supposed to hit the ball left and instead it went off the end of his club over the houses on the right almost perpendicular to the proper direction. Ha!










Me, Joe D., Alan and Ken, taken with the camera on a timer and obviously very low to the ground. Don't we look huge?!?!?












A nice dogleg left. Notice the clouds? They go away soon enough.












What a great looking par 3. Still some clouds.













A nice hole with no clouds in the sky!













Not a cloud in the sky by the late afternoon. This was an uphill par 5. Very scenic.









So we plugged away on the course, but we just didn't have the talent to get it done. We finished at -1 and the winner was at -10. However, I did hit a nice drive on the longest drive hole, temporarily taking over the longest drive lead. We were the second or third group though, so even though it was 280 yards, I was pretty sure it wouldn't hold up.






If you're not familiar with this part of the event, you write your name on the placard and move it to where your drive stopped if it's further than where the placard was previously. We started on hole 15 and this was hole 16.






But guess what? It did hold up!! There were two foursomes per hole for a total of 144 players and I won longest drive! Whoo-hoo!!! Not only that, my playing partner Joe D. won the closest to the pin contest. Another pic:





Ken, me, Joe D. and Alan. Joe and I won those trophies for our nice shots.








Joe and I winning set up the funny part of the evening. We both participated in a 50-50 drawing where you pay $10 and if you win, you get half the pot. Instead of a typical ticket though, they had a deck of cards and they would rip a card in half and give you half and keep half for the drawing. Well, because of the number of people they had to use three decks, all with different backs. When they picked the winner, they called four of spades, which Joe D. had!! Up jumps Joe, high-fiving people and heading up to collect his winnings. Nope, wrong four of spades. The winner was from one of the other decks. Doh.

Later, Joe's Uncle Frank announced the winning foursome and then followed with the longest drive winner, me, and the closest to the pin winner, Joe D. Joe and I were sitting right next to each other. Then they started doing the raffle and there were only a few prizes: a basket of booze, a golf bag and a trip to Cancun. First was the booze and they called out "370246" which was my number!! Awesome!!!




I'm going to have to keep this stash away from el supremo de NM. No doubt.








So then they call the second number, "370250". And Joe D. jumps up right next to me! "I won!" And again he starts high-fiving people and heading up to the stage to collect his prize. Ala Derek Zoolander though, Joe D. did not win. I knew Joe had 370240 and wondered why he got all excited after the number was read. I wasn't going to rain on his parade though as he'd already gone up once with no reward. Maybe I heard it wrong. Nope. Poor Joe D. Two trips up to the podium and no prize. We laughed hysterically though. And then the guy on the other side of me won the trip to Cancun!! What a lucky table!!

Sunday and Monday, the final days.

Sunday brought another beautiful day and another day of golfing. Just look at these scenes of the course we played, Woodloch Springs:




Just a beautiful dog-leg right hole. Look at those trees and that sky. Not one green was even close to being flat. Putts were sailing all over the place. You were always putting up or down or across a hill.









Looking across a hole or two. Just great.













What a pretty hole and gorgeous morning!!
















Here are the guys! Me, Frank, Joisey Ken and Captain Jeff. Took this picture with the timer feature. Not bad.







Fortunately my thumb injury did not impact my swing at all. That was one of two things that raced through my head while I had the hook in there. First was that if I just ripped the hook out, I might snag something and then not be able to throw a softball.

Sunday afternoon brought more boating, more jet skiing and more of Joe looking like a white Michael Jackson (I know some of you will be surprised that MJ isn't already white). I was actually allowed to drive the pontoon boat, which gave Captain Jeff a break. If I must say so myself, I did a great job through the many, many wakes generated by the other boats and jet skis. Maybe next time I'm up north, my pop will let me drive the boat. It's like I'm still 12!




Monday morning the weather turned cloudy and it was time to return the boat. Ken, Mark and me, again with the timer function on my camera.








Ken drove me Newark and the trip home on Monday was pretty easy. Next time, I'll try booking a flight into Newark and out of Scranton, which is a lot closer to the lake house.

A few last things: we lit fireworks every night, very cool. And then Monday morning Hoboken Dawn made pancakes with fresh blueberries. How awesome is that?

Some of the people staying there tried to convince me that the new Halloween movie coming out was Halloween 3. I tried to tell them that it was already made (years ago) and several additional sequels as well. Here's the list:
Halloween (1978)

Halloween II (1981)

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) This is the one with the mask with a chip in it.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Halloween 5 (1989)

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

There may have even been another one since then.

Michael Jackson and the fish hook

Still trying to catch up on stories from last weekend. This entry is long and covers only Saturday.

When I left you last, I was happily sleeping on Friday night after the big rain storm went through, forcing Ken to grill in the rain. Saturday morning however brought a fantastic morning weatherwise and I slept in, being the second to last of the 11 people in the house to get downstairs for breakfast.....and that was 9:00. Some early risers up there let me tell ya.

Anyway, after "whacking down" a couple of bagels as Ken likes to say and a couple of cups of coffee, I prepared for a day on the lake. Two of the guys went to get the pontoon boat early in the morning (we were renting one for the weekend) and had it down at the dock by the time I had my coffee. The whole group was heading down and I was following. As we walked down to the water's edge, we saw Hedge Fund Mark looking on as a young lad of 12 or so landed a good sized small mouth bass. After applying some sunscreen, I was ready to hit the boat, the water and the jet ski. Loads of fun awaited. Then Mark came over and said, "This kid can't get the hook out of the fish. Can you help him?" Now, I'm not a huge fisherman, but I was a day camp counselor for two summers and we went fishing several times a week.

So sure, I went over to help the kid out. This leads me to my favorite saying, "No good deed goes unpunished." Upon examining the fish, I realized the lad had caught the bass with a lure that had two treble hooks on it. What I failed to recall was that all of my fishing experience has been with single hooks. HUGE DIFFERENCE!!!





This is a typical treble hook used in fishing.











Well, after grabbing the fish, I tried to get the hook out of the mouth. The back treble hook stuck my index finger on my left hand, but only went in a small bit. This, as it turns out, was a warning shot from the lure. The next time it stuck me, it stuck me good, burying a barb into the side of my thumb on my right hand. With the help of Captain Jeff, we were able to get the fish off the lure at this point, but the hook was still stuck in my thumb and it was deep. Ken got a pair of pliers (what I should have used in the first place by the way) to help pull out the hook. No matter how much I maneuvered the hook (pushing, pulling, pressing, turning, twisting) while it was in my thumb, I was not able to dislodge it. When Captain Jeff finally said, "I read somewhere that there's a trick to doing this.....you have to.....push it in and pull it back or cut the hook and then push the barb forward through the rest of your thumb." that's when I said, can someone please take me to the emergency room and we'll just get a doctor to take it out.

Unfortunately, who wants to volunteer to take my sorry ass to the hospital instead of going out on a boat and drinking and having fun all day? Well, I guess I was Ken's responsibility for the weekend, so he volunteered like the true buddy he is and off we went. I had the lure still attached to the hook which was obviously embedded in my thumb, quite a crazy mental picture. I would have taken a picture, but the camera wasn't the first thing on my mind. Clearly I couldn't drive as I elevated my hand with the lure to keep the bleeding to a minimum.

Once in the car, we realized we didn't know where we were going and had to ask some neighbors. The closest place was about 20+ minutes away, not much fun if you have a barbed hook in your hand. We made it though and after waiting for 40 minutes or so, I was able to get in and see the nurse:

"So what's wrong Mr. Sutton.....oh, I see."
"Yeah, I have a hook in my hand."
"Otherwise how are you today?"
"Well, the hook in the hand pretty much dominates my state of mind right now."
"Ok, let's take your pulse.......60 bpm."
"Not bad for having a hook in my hand."
"No it's not. Let's take your blood pressure.......122 over 80."
"That's a bit higher than normal for me."
"Well, you do have a hook in your hand."
"Touche`."

The doctor numbed the thumb, made an incision and got the hook out.
"Ok Mr. Sutton, the hook's out. We're going to bandage it up. Keep it dry for the next few days."
"Um, no getting it wet?"
"That's right."
That obviously caused a dilemma for me as I was there to jet ski and such.
"What if I used those latex gloves over there."
"Hmmmm, that might be ok."
Boom, there it was, my answer to the weekend problems. I'd jet ski with a latex glove on!! Would I look gay? Absolutely. Would I look possibly retarded? Without a doubt. Would I be able to have water fun? Yes!!

The whole trip to the ER took about three hours round trip, maybe four after I had to get my prescription filled for antibiotics. Ken was great about missing the water time and was able to still get in a few hours on the water when we got back to the house. I went into the water as well, with the latex glove on and yes, I looked much like a Michael Jackson worshiper or boat happy proctologist ........ or in Kramer's terms, The Ass Man!

Kilts and hooks and fireworks, oh my.

Finishing up the weekend discussion:

Friday we got up early and headed to Ballyowen Golf Club in northern NJ. We were running a few minutes late but really wanted to take some practice swings. They were supposed to have range balls to hit, but they were out so we couldn't even do that. We headed up to the first tee and were greeted by a curmudgeon in a kilt who told us we were "on the tee". That meant no time for putting practice either. I dropped a ball on the practice green and hit a putt and the kilted ranger said, "You're on the tee!" This ranger nazi theme would continue throughout the day unfortunately.



The course itself was very nice with fewer trees and more high grass in the rough as it emulated a links style course. Links are originally Scottish, hence the kilts on some, but not all, of the rangers. I wonder if you have a choice....hmmmmm. Anyway, the rangers kept politely badgering us, but at one point I had enough. Some innocent older ranger (about 75 or so) came hobbling onto the green while we were putting. I shot a nasty comment at him in the vein of "Are you going to keep walking while I putt or stand still?" Now he had already picked up the flag for us and turned out to be a nice guy and all and probably wasn't going to say anything to us about our pace (which was well ahead of the group behind us), but my fuse was lit and he was too close.

Anyway, the rest of the round was fun despite our playing partners. One of the two guys must have spent several thousand dollars on his clubs and talked a blue streak about his sticks, but we routinely outhit him for distance off the tee. His putting stroke was good, I'll have to give him that. The other guy, also named Ken, was a complete hack. He took 4 shots out of one bunker and even turned to his buddy after one of the shots and said, "I wasn't even looking at the ball during that swing." What the hell is that?











































After the round we headed up to PA and Lake Wallenpaupack. On the way though we stopped to get Ken some cigars. In the next building over from the cigar store was a store that sold little knick-knacks and "God bless this house" signs and the like, in addition to fireworks!! Too funny. I went in the there and bought this four foot high box of fireworks originally priced at $100 for $35. What a deal, post Fourth of July and all.

Then, finally, we got to the house on the lake. Here are some shots of the house:



Yes, that's a little waterfall in front of the house. It has a huge wrap-around porch!
















Charlie was too tired to move out of the sun apparently.









Yep, that's one tired pooch. Did I mention it was about 95 degrees and extremely humid? Hoboken Dawn said the house had never been that hot. Oh, and where was Joe's room? The top floor. Ouch.









This is the yard and driveway looking up from the deck.












Finally the heat broke due to a cold front passing through. That meant heavy, steady rain for about an hour or so. Unfortunately Ken had already started grilling dinner. What to do? Simply move the grill under the canopy.....seemed to make sense to us!








After the heat broke, the upstairs room was as cool as any other in the house and remained that way through the weekend.

Tomorrow, the dreaded treble hook story and the near collapse of the weekend.
(that's known as a teaser by the way)

Back in the house!

Ooooooh, so many things to write about!! Where to begin? First, let me correct my last entry. In The Office, they visited Lake Wallenpaupack for the booze-cruise episode.

Since it's late and I'm beat, I'm going to post the pictures for Thursday and then hit what happened Friday through Sunday tomorrow.





First stop after getting off the plane? Bada Bing of course. It's 10 minutes from Ken's house. It's actually called Satin Dolls. The inside really looks like it does on tv, except the women have bikinis on...no nudity. Weird.









This is the side door that one dancer, I think, was dragged out and shot. Or maybe it was Chris' wife? The "dirty who-o-r-e".












We had breakfast on Ken's back porch Thursday morning. His hot tub sits in the background.

Oh, and that's the New Jersey bagel breakfast sandwich....good eating. I'm not sure if a meal went by that I didn't have a bagel. Yum.










Charlie the 10 year old dog of Hoboken Dawn, Ken's girlfriend. This pic is inside Dawn's home.











The Yankee Clipper crew! Joisey Ken, Hoboken Dawn and Principal Natalie, Dawn's friend.

The Clipper makes three or four stops on the way, but they are really quick about getting people on and off. It's a smart way to get to the game. You can bring food and beer to have on the way!




Some views from the Clipper:









































































On to the ball game!! Here's the stadium from the boat.


















The world series championships since 1950. Crap. No wonder I hate the Yankees.















Here's the lineups for the day. This pic is from our seats. Roger Clemens against Jon Garland. I think the last time the Sox faced Clemens was in the 2005 World Series game which I attended and the Sox shelled him.









The Sox shell Clemens again scoring 8 runs in the second inning. Hope you can see that on the scoreboard.












Nice job Garland. The Yankees come back with 8 runs of their own in the bottom of the second inning!! 16 total runs in one inning....wow.


The Sox did end up winning though.

Quick note from Joisey

The first leg of my long weekend has gone just swimmingly. Easy flight in, it was actually a half hour early, then Joisey Ken and I hit Bada Bing! for a few cocktails. After a great egg bagel sandwich, we hit Hoboken as the staging area for our trip to Yankee Stadium. We took the Yankee Clipper boat (after hooking up with Ken's girlfriend) around the southern tip of Manhattan and up the East River to the stadium. It was really hot and humid, but the game was fun. The Sox scored 8 runs in the second, only to have NY come back and score 8 runs in the bottom half of the inning! The Sox ended up winning though.

I've taken plenty of pictures already and now it's off to Lake Wallenpaupack, PA. If you watch The Office, you'll remember this lake as the place they went for their little bonding experience where Pam walks on hot coals. Too funny!!

Quick note before I leave.....

....I'm all packed for my weekend out east! Like I said earlier, I might not have much internet access for the next few days. In the absence of entries, I will take plenty of pictures and post them upon my return.

This morning I did indeed pass my boater's safety test for Pennsylvania. I can now operate a boat with more than 25 hp or a jet ski. Whoo-hoo!! Bring it on baby!!

Oh, I'm not sure that I mentioned my Bears dilemma or not. Each year I have to enter a lottery for parking. They guarantee I'll get it somewhere, but not necessarily where I want it. This year I was given the North Garage in which you can't tailgate!!! Horrors!!!! To rectify the problem, I went on Craigslist and posted my request to trade for the Waldron Deck (just south of the stadium). Two people have responded so I'm good to go!!!! Whew, that could have been disastrous for my season!

Another busy day!

After starting off the day waiting for Manual Labor Mike so I could help install some closet doors (the 9 footers!), which we didn't do for one reason or another, I headed for the office. Ricardo and I have been ships passing in the night for most of the last three weeks, so it was good to catch up. You'll be relieved to know (as I was) that many GOOD things have transpired for Ricardo: his old computer hard drive has had almost all files recovered, his new drive is working like a champ and his house sale went through!! Yay for Ricardo!! Unfortunately his cell phone is still on the fritz and his building's developer is still on the lam, but the latter is a longer term problem. Still, some victories.

Work was busy in anticipation of me not being in the office and el supremo de NM coming out next week. Since I won't have much internet access, it means I need to have the schedule at least mostly solidified before I leave. Plus I had a bunch of documents to mail out including August invoices. It's all good though and I'm just awaiting one client's response.

Studied some more for the PA boating licensing exam (chapters 4,5 and 6). Tomorrow is the test exam and then the 75 question test. I need to do that before I hit the airport.....nothing like waiting until the last minute. If I pass (80%), I'll be able to print out a temporary permit. Whoo-hoo!! In my studies I found out that 1/3rd of boating fatalities involve alcohol. Unless there's a big bottle of beer going around to lakes and rivers whapping holes in boats, it's not a good statistic for me. Few people can say I'm irresponsible though, so I'm sure I'll be ok. If not, I'll definitely have my Type I Personal Flotation Device wrapped around me at all times!!!

Boating and Alaska

Since I'm leaving for Joisey on Wednesday, I only have a few days of work this week so today was busy, busy, busy. Many emails, calls, copies and print outs were made. Good progress today.

Which makes it even more surprising that I was able to make progress on my Pennsylvania boating license exam. Why am I studying for this exam? Well, the Joisey trip is partially in Joisey and the rest of the trip is in Pennsylvania, except for a side trip to NYC and Yankee Stadium for the White Sox/Yankees game on Thursday. Where we are staying in PA is on a lake and if you want to drive a PWC (personal watercraft.....yeah, I know, the abbreviation doesn't work but I didn't create it) you have to pass this test and have proof of it. Fine. I haven't had the best luck with the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) who tend to be a little overly aggressive with the tiny, tiny little bit of authority they possess, so I'm going to try and avoid them entirely.

By the way, you'll be interested to know, if you're a Sopranos fan, that I'm going to go to Bada Bing! with Joisey Ken. Should be a hoot.....or at least sentimental.

I watched a new show called Jeff Corwin's Into Alaska. The subject matter is infinitely appealing to me since I've been to Alaska, but Jeff Corwin is annoying to a similar degree. For instance, he started off with this scene of him watching a bear fishing in a river not 100 yards away from him. So he says, "In this harsh environment (don't mind the wooden banister in the shot where Jeff is standing which rings the patio set up along the river), a kill like this could make the difference between life and death for this Alaskan Brown Bear (it was larger than a typical grizzly and it was one lousy salmon)". C'mon Jeff, stop playing to the camera. Jeesh, talk about over acting. Ugh. Great footage though. Still, not sure I can hold out for the entire series with with his lame-ass hosting.

First Cicada of the Year.

Yesterday was another softball tournament, this one a combination of teams at our level and one higher. In order to "equalize" the competition, the higher level team has to use the lower level team's home run rule. Our level in this organization is limited to 2 home runs per game and a level higher than us is limited to 4 per game. If you hit a home run after you reach your limit, it immediately ends your offensive inning regardless of how many outs there are at the time. It's really not much of an equalizer, though in one of our losses the other team had already hit their two home runs and on the first pitch of their half inning, they hit another home run which ended the inning for them. We won our first game and then lost against two higher level teams.

Just shot this today! This is the only cicada I've seen in Chicago proper this year and it's on the stairs on my back porch. The grub shell is on the right and the newly hatched cicada is on the left.








On my way to Michigan I heard a radio spot that I found somewhat disturbing. It went something like this:
"Looking for that once in a lifetime anniversary gift? Want to show her how much you love her? Give her the gift of a vasectomy! Is your family complete? Get an incision free vasectomy at the Vasectomy Clinics of Chicago "
What?! Are they serious? Is this really considered a "gift" to a woman? Good Lord.

Pictures as promised!

Sorry about the sporadic entries this week. The internet connection at the cottage is dial up and sometimes is very slow and problematic. I'm home now though after a 6 hour drive today, so here are the golfing pictures that I promised!!


Upon arriving at Olympia Fields on Monday, this sight welcomed me. There were two outings at the same time. My outing's table is the one without the three pretty women at it. Damnit.












Here's the majestic main building at Olympia Fields Country Club.














The famous clock on the practice green. When televised tournaments are held here, they always show this clock.













My teammates!













Right off the first tee we saw this feller looking down at us. Foreshadowing of things to come? Let's hope!


(you may need to copy the picture and zero in to see him well. He's on the end of the limb in the middle of the picture.)








A nice looking par 4 with our fore-caddy in the light rough on the left. He had a busy day chasing our errant shots all over the course!!
Yes, we tipped him well.











The winners!!!! The tie breaker was decided by who scored better on the back nine. We started on 12 and if you recall, I played well for the first 7-8 holes, which helped secure the victory!!

















If you know anything about Chicago politics, the name on the locker that I was assigned for the day will ring a bell.












On to Tree Tops, one of my favorite courses anywhere. This is how the first hole starts. It's a dogleg left.












This is the end of the first hole. It's what you see when you get around the bend in the last picture. Pretty, but daunting.










This is my favorite par 3 in golf. It's 120' vertical drop. You hit your shot out and it drops straight down. If it's rained in the last week, you ball ends up half buried in the green. What a view though.








This might not look like much, but the purple heather in the background was really neat in contrast to the greens in the foreground and the dark green trees.

Golfing day-one and a disturbing sighting.

Another good day in the great white north…..coo-loo-coo-coo, coo-loo-coo-coo. Hopefully someone will get that reference.

Hit the golf course at a reasonable hour this morning, my favorite golf course to play, Tree Tops in Gaylord, MI (no jokes please). It’s $120 to play, which is at the top range of what I’ll pay to play outside of charity outings, but it’s worth it. Unfortunately today I had putting issues. On the front nine I shot 41 and had 20 putts!! Barely seems possible doesn’t it? Trust me, it is. On the back I shot 44 and had 19 putts, hardly any better. Not really sure what to do tomorrow when I play the same course again. The course was very pretty and I took some pictures, so check back this weekend when I’m back home and can download and post them.

The computer connection I’m working with is very primitive (think monks and scrolls), so even my blog gets written in Word first and then copy and pasted during moments of “clarity”.

As I drove up a hill towards the club house to return my cart, who should zoom in front my path very black-cat-like? None other than one of the few people on the planet that I have met and really just don’t like.
Can you guess who it is?
My mother did.
Give it a minute……………..
…………………………………….
…………………………………….
Got it? Yep, none other than the incompetent one himself, the coo-COO in person, Tao Huang. Unbelievable. I was “this” close to ramming him with my cart, but recognized him too late and he was off to the first tee (he was just starting so that he could enjoy the twilight rate I’m sure, like he doesn’t have enough money to play in the morning the ass-face). Anyway, it was almost comical and almost homicidal.

It's just a cup of coffee for cripes sake.

After a very nice night’s sleep in a Super 8 (yes, that’s right, a Super 8), I was off for the remainder of my drive to my parent’s cottage. Needing the sleep, I didn’t get on the road until about 11, so I missed the hustle and bustle of Hudsonville’s rush hour. However, my traffic issues were not negated completely.

I’m not sure if you’ve driven in Michigan before, but many cities here abhor left turns and simply make them illegal. It’s a total pain-in-the-ass. MOST of the time, they have a little place past the intersection where you can make a u-turn. Why? No fu@#%#$ idea. It’s fairly retarded. All you do is move the turn light down 50 yards and make everyone wait there. Whatever.

The problem in Grandville, where I needed to go for a Starbucks which is about 5 miles away, is that there are no u-turn areas. So they just have no left turns and then say to hell with you.

So I hit the highway and head towards Grandville getting off at exit 67 and headed east. On my left, of course, I see the Starbucks. As I neared the intersection, I realized there was no left turn. Fine, I’ll just go to the next light and turn there. Same gig, no left turn. Well what the hell? How can I get there? So I cut across traffic to my right so I can make a right hand turn. Now I need to be going the other way to get across the street so I go to make a u-turn in an un-trafficked intersection and I see a cop in my rear view mirror. So I interrupt my u-turn (essentially turning left, but this was one of the rare places it was allowable) and make it into a side street to turn around. Cop passes by. Whew. Go back out and turn right. Now I just need to cross the intersection and make a left. Guess what? No left turn there. Damnit!!!

After going straight through the intersection, I start to make another u-turn and, you guessed, another cop. What the hell? Leave me alone! I just want a damn cup of coffee!! So another side street and a two right turns later and I’m finally at the Starbucks. Guess what? It’s not even built yet, but they have the sign up. Still no fu@#%$# coffee!!

So I need to head east to go back down the strip, but that, of course, involves another left turn which I can’t make there. I hear what you’re saying and trust me, at this point I really am considering just getting back on the highway. But I stick it out and make it down to a Meijer’s which has a Starbucks inside. Their pastry selection sucked, but at this point I just wanted my coffee and to get the hell out of Dodge.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and even included a little White Sox vs. Tigers baseball. After arriving, my folks and I caught up on the nice little patio. It’s been a good day (despite the Fiasco in Grandville as it shall be known) and a very slow dial up connection.

Whoa-a, I'm half way there...whoa-a, living on a prayer.

Got up this morning (even though I screwed up setting my alarm) feeling relatively ok. Left later than I wanted too, but I got to the golf course in plenty of time, especially considering that they closed their practice range TWO DAYS AGO!!! Nice. Playing one of the tougher courses in the Chicago area and no warmups.

Well we made do and I actually played well for the first 8-9 holes. Then I just got tired and my game off the tee fell apart. Unfortunately we weren't playing a scramble (where everyone hits, you take the best shot, everyone goes there and hits from there, repeat). Instead, everyone played their own ball and the two lowest net scores (we used handicaps) would be your group's total for that hole.

My buddy, Young Tim, who is really good, shot a 78 and just smoked putts from all over the green. He basically carried the team with the rest of us contributing when we could. I was the #2 guy for the first part, like I said, and the other guys split the rest. We ended up tied for first and won in a tie breaker!! Yay for us!! No trophy, but a bottle of wine. I also won the closest to the pin contest, beating one of my teammates by about a foot, to capture a free foursome at another golf course. Sweet!

I have pictures, but might have to wait until I return home to post them, depending on the setup my folks have at their cottage. Hell, I may be lucky to have internet access at all!!

Still gots the fever...but I feel a little better

After more than 10 hours of sleep, during which time I'm not sure I even moved, I wakened to find that I still had a fever of 100.3. Crap. Before I went to bed, my fever had gone down from 101 to 99.9. That was a huge difference in how I felt believe it or not. Seems like a minor fluctuation, but I felt a ton better. Today I actually feel pretty good, but can tell I have a fever.

The softball team went 2-2 yesterday. They won 10-0, lost 9-6, won 15-0 and lost 12-11 against a team we've beaten already this year, but we gave them 6 runs on the progressive penalty home-run rule (we hit three). If you told me would would give up 0,9,0 and 6 runs, I would tell you there was a 95% chance that we went 4-0. Instead, I'm at home resting instead of jeopardizing my vacation time next week by playing softball today....which I would have!

So my focus is on getting healthy today so I can golf in a Make-A-Wish charity outing tomorrow in Olympia Fields Country Club, home of the 2003 U.S. Open. After the event, I'm going to head towards my parents place in northern Michigan. I won't make it all the way, so I'm going to have to get a room probably in Grand Rapids. That will get me out of traffic Tuesday morning and make it a short trip to their place.

I've got the fever.

It hit me about 9:00 on Friday night, started as a small chill and then blossomed into a full on fever. Though it was the middle of July, I had socks on, pajama bottoms, two shirts and a sweatshirt AND I was laying underneath an Afghan blanket. When I went to bed, I kept it all on and even moved the Afghan to my bed. That seemed to help, but within the first hour of sleep, I had to change my clothes because of all the sweat. That would happen again one more time during the night.

I'm not sure what my temperature topped out at originally, but this morning it hit 101 several times. That of course ruled out me playing softball today: a beautiful day and a state tournament. Damnit. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be better and can play the second half of the tournament, if we're still in it.

Can't really think straight, so that's all I have to offer today.

Rib Fest Part Deux

Oooooohhhhhh, what a day. Got up at 6:00 yesterday over at my buddy Principal Chris' house, showered and headed out to the Quad Cities. The night before, I drove through the rain and lighting to get out to their place so I didn't have to get up at 4 or 5 to make it out there in the morning. The drive to the Quad Cities was uneventful, but we arrived only shortly before our 9:00 tee time and it was raining, something that would actually work in our favor. We hit some balls, putted and as the rain halted, we teed off shortly before ten.

(Insert picture of beautiful golf course here, if I had my camera with me.)

As it turns out, the tournament was only last weekend, not two weeks ago as I thought, so the gallery stands were still up surrounding many of the greens and the course (The TPC at Deere Run) was still very much in great shape and playing like the pros played it. The rough was really, really rough, probably close to four inches deep and wet because of all the rain. Essentially if you hit the ball off the fairway, it would be a wasted stroke just trying to get your ball back into the fairway. Also because of the rain, we had to keep the carts on the paths which meant a lot more walking than normal. That was fine with me, but with the humidity and warm weather, we were soaked with sweat by the end of the day.

(Insert picture of deep rough, stands around the green and the Mississippi River.)

We finished our first round in under four hours, but then were caught up in the local crowd who decided the weather was good enough to play and the second round took us almost five hours.

Another shower and off for grub! First stop: Jim's Ribs. While not in the best part of town, it's not far from the other places we would go for food as well as where Chris grew up. After $40 worth of food and drinks (sodas only as we still had to drive home), it was off to Harris Pizza next.

This place is one of Chris' wife's favorite and last year we couldn't return without a pizza for her either. It's a thin crust pizza and they have grated sausage instead of the chunky sausage that you get around Chicago. The cool thing they do though is that they will half-cook the pizza for you so you can stick it in the fridge and cook it at your leisure. Pretty smart. We didn't actually eat any pizza this time, just picked up a pie for Mrs. Chris.

Our final stop was at Whitey's Ice Cream Shoppe. Chris worked there as a youth and was very funny with his "back when I worked here...." stories. With a name like Whitey's, I wonder if it could make it in Chicago without being picketed on a regular basis. Apparently they tried to open one in Peoria and had to close it. We did partake in a shake and it was indeed good.....better than any other place?.....maybe some, but not unbelievable. Lots of choices though and some interesting ingredients.

As we drove from neighborhood to neighborhood, we saw a house on 12th and 16th street in Moline that I just loved. It was a big white house with a wrap around porch, but the porch not only wrapped around, at the corner it bowed out and was rounded like a half circle. It needed a little work and the hood isn't all that great, but I would probably buy it in a heartbeat anyway.

Finally it was time to head home. We were at Chris' just before midnight and I got home just before one. It was a long, long day. It was very analogous to going to Rib Fest in Naperville: a ton of ribs finished off with ice cream. A good day indeed.