Monthly Archives: September 2006

Poll: Crazy “Leaders”

Rank the following political leaders in order of most screws loose. Please justify your top pick. Feel free to provide rationale for other ranked persons:

  • George W Bush
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
  • Hugo Chavez
  • Muammar al-Gaddafi
  • Ehud Olmert
  • Vladimir Putin
  • Other (please specify)

Assignment due ASAP.

Escape for our 5th anniversary

On Tuesday August 22nd, one month before our milestone 5th anniversary, Sonia and I went on a very special outing.

Sonia is a fan of the Food & Beverage magazine that you can pick up for free at any LCBO outlet. It is very good for getting recipe ideas for unique and very tasty dishes. While scanning through the material, an ad with a picture of a beatiful sailboat caught her eye. Upon further reading the ad turned out to be for a tour company that offers sailing excursions out of Toronto Harbour that takes you around Toronto Island and the waters of Lake Ontario in and around the city. The price was fair (I forget exactly but something like $180 per person comes to mind) and what was offered was a 3 hr tour on a 30 ft yacht with 6-8 other people that includes lessons, wine tasting and cheese tasting followed by a 4 course meal (with a wine pairing for each course) at the Toronto Yacht Club on the island at sunset. Then a quick jaunt back into the harbour in the dark to see the lights of the city.

What sealed the deal was the wine AND cheese tasting on the boat and that one of the dinner courses was a cheese plate served with port. Continue reading

Jesus Christ Superstar

I am a huge fan of Webber and Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar (way and by far either man’s best work) and have been since I was around 7 yrs old. If you talk to my mom, she can tell you all about the funny things I used to do when ‘the rock music’ was playing on the turn-table.

The 1st Superstar album we had came on 2 LPs. It was the ‘pre-motion picture version’ and featured Ian Gillan as Jesus and Murray Head as Judas. I highlight these two ‘characters’ as they are the key to the rock opera. Without 2 singers that can scream/sing with power the soundtrack is nothing. These 2 singers were very capable with Murray Head doing an outstanding performance. In fact, I maintain until recently he was the best Judas ever. Continue reading

Baseball retirement?

Every year as the season comes to a close I debate whether this is my last year.  How much did I enjoy the season this time around?  Well, I can honestly say this has been the least enjoyable season so far.  Not because of the quality of the team.  Au contraire this team equals the best teams I’ve ever played on.  Not because of any other reason than I have lost a lot of the motivation I once had.  The desire to win has dissipated in a league where winning is key.

I did enjoy the games, but only after I got to the game and started warming up.  Leading up to the day, and on the day of, I had a sensation akin to dread that left me saying over and over in my head “Crap, there’s a game coming up.  I don’t want to play”.

Now, Sonia hears this all the time and know me better than I know myself.  Once I’m there and playing I’m as competitive as ever.  And I’m hitting the ball as good as I ever have.  In fact, before this year I think I’ve only had 1 or 2 out of the park HRs on the NCR diamonds.  This year alone I’ve had 4 or 5 and they’ve been spread out on all the diamonds.  So what’s the problem?

Most of it is the incosistent playing time.  As opposed to playing every game in past seasons, this year Sonia and I have each played about half the games.  For me, this results in games where it sometimes takes a few ABs to get a decent hit.  But more importantly, my fielding is not what it used to be.  And that results in lack of confidence.  Which results in a sense of dread leading up to games.  I don’t want my inconsistencies to hurt the team.
I see my future in baseball continuing on the trend of fewer chances to play in a season and hence a decrease in the quality of my game.  The family is now bigger and priorities have changed.  It would be nice to use that night of baseball for something else – especially when OG starts going off to play sports herself, or whatever extra-curricular events pop up.  To eliminate this commitment to ball is a very appealing notion.

If I can’t play regularly I degrade – and then I compare myself to what I used to be and get frustrated knowing the potential I’m unable to achieve.  When faced with this reality, pro players retire, so shouldn’t I?  I haven’t entertained ideas of playing a more recreational version of the game, but right now it doesn’t feel like a good idea.

How I maintain my swing mechanics

One of the problems of living in a part of the world where Winter accounts for about 5 months of no golf and no baseball is how to maintain your swing from season to season.  One of the bitter-sweet facts of golf is that just when you’re swinging your best and scoring your lowest the season is rapidly coming to a close.  And looking at the calendar, it’s getting close to that time of year again.  The baseball season ending tournament is this week-end which signals the end of baseball and the beginning of the end of golf.  Aside:  as I write this I am writhing in agony over a torn hamstring.  Happened last night in a meaningless game against the MudHens (who I hate with a passion – apparently the only one on the team that does for some reason).  With our unfortunate loss to the BrewJays due to lack of starters, we were unable to pull off the miracle 2nd place finish that my previous blogs were leading up to.  We needed 5 of the last 5 to steal it but only ended up with 4 of 5 with the loss coming from the game I would have least expected.  To my defence, I wasn’t there so really there’s nothing I could have done ;).

Yes I digress.  Back to the pains of living in Canada.  Right now, I believe I have my swing tuned to the best it’s ever been.  Consistent off the tees, better than usual in the fairway and in my opinion very good around and on the greens.  I have been working hard on the short game and have reaped some rewards.  So, at this point in time, my mind knows exactly what to tell my body to do during a swing.  Continue reading

Pampered golfing

I have been spoiled a bit this year when it comes to golf.  First of all, I feel I’ve been able to play far more rounds than expected.  And they have been on some nice courses.

2 rounds in particular have been on Clublink courses.  For those of you not familiar with our wedding venue, it took place at Rattlesnake Point – a ClubLink course.  The day before the wedding I was able to play my first ClubLink course (other than Granite Ridge – but it wasn’t ClubLink at the time).  These courses are premium courses.  In fact the entire facility is premium from the change rooms through to the staff service.  It does make one feel like a snob but it certainly leaves an impact.

The 1st round this year was at Glen Abbey.  Pat, my colleague at work has a friend from school that has earned enough money as a consultant to afford the high priced premium level membership that allows access to all the Clublink courses – of which Glen Abbey is their signature course.  This course is the home of many Canadian Opens and the ‘pro’ element has been stamped on this course.  It is a very difficult course but by no means the most difficult I’ve played.  The intangible element is the uniqueness of many of the holes and the sheer artistic beauty of their layouts.  When playing the valley holes you can see what makes a pro-level course different from any other type of course.  It is the thought put into virtually every yard of the hole that creates a challenge deserving of hosting a professional tourney.

I ended up shooting 86 that day on a par 71 course but I chalk that up to being to wrapped up in being at Glen Abbey.  If I played it again (which I hope to as long as I can keep my connection) I am certain I can get into the 70’s.   The most enjoyable part of the round was that we were able to play from the pro tees which gave us the true feel of how the course should be played.

The 2nd ClubLink round this year was just south of Barrie at their most difficult course:  National Pines.  This course is extremely tight and extremely long.  We decided we would not play the tips as it was very wet and humid out.  Since the tips top over 7000 yards it would have been virtually unplayable for some of the guys in the group.  So we opted for the next level down which sets the course at 6600 yards which is still longer than almost any course you might play.  There were many par 4’s that were within the 420-440 range and almost all par 4’s were over 400 yds.  Any under that were hard dog-legs that still presented a plus-150 yd shot into the multi-tiered undulating double-cut greens.  The par 3’s were typically long as well except for one that was 158 (still long in most people’s books) but riddled with traps and water.

It was the biggest challenge I’ve had in quite some time and I am very proud to have carded an 81 on this par 72 track.  I was certain I was going to score well as -even though I’ve been negligent in logging my scores to HandiWeb -  I believe I’ve brought my handicap down to its career low.  My educated guess would be I’m sitting around a 6 to 6.5 at this time.

To get an idea of how an 81 fares on this par 72 – the rating and slope from our tees were 73.1 and 139 – which puts 81 at around a 6 handicap.

Admittedly, playing ClubLink is pretty much as good as it gets for a non-millionaire like myself.  But the prices still hit the wallet.  Both outings were over $100 for the green fees and it’s tough to find any public course that would come close to that fee.  But it was worth it and I think I could manage a few of these a year.