It’s a shame, but it was by far the easiest birdie of the bunch. Although I was striking the ball so well and hitting a LOT of greens in regulation (12 in total), it was the putter that was HOT. In total I had 27 putts which has gotta be one of my alltime lows. Most of my birdie putts (and par saves) were between 13-20 feet. Sinking several of those will make a big difference.

I saved some really nice pars but in general I didn’t miss the green….which is how I scored low. With my game, my chipping and flops are the weakest part of the game. So if I can avoid them I will score low. Of the 7 holes I missed in reg I managed to bogey only one of them….plus a humbling TRIPLE bogey on the par 3 6th on Goose. At the time I was sitting even par so I can’t chalk the meltdown up to stress. Just lack of focus and also being in an uncomfortable situation: having to do a 30 flop over a bunker to an elevated green. Naturally I placed it into the bunker. A shitty bunker. Mostly because of the sand it took me 3 (yes 3!) to get out of the bunker followed by a 10ft save. I went back afterwards to replay that flop and put it within 3ft. Ouch. That 2 under could have been 4 or even 5 under without that mistake.

But there’s always going to be a blowup hole of sorts unless you shoot 59. Who knows how I would’ve played after that. Since I was now 3-over after 6 it wasn’t looking to be anything special so I loosened up. And that’s when it started to get good. In addition, my partner Rob mentioned a change in his stance that had made him strike the ball cleaner: He opened his back leg slightly which allowed for better rotation and less likelihood of the knee buckling on the downswing. I started to do this with remarkable success (obviously). You can read more about this in the new page I added regarding my swing tips and notes.

The lesson to be learnt in all of this is that in the end it’s about 3 things: Putting, putting and putting. Don’t ever take putting for granted if you want to play well. It’s the least ’sexy’ thing (yet the most exciting part if you start draining them) about golf but it’s the MOST IMPORTANT part of the game.

But the thing I will remember the most about that round is how easy the swing felt and how I felt I was going to drain every putt when I was standing over it. Now the trick will be to find that zone again. It’s only happened to me a handful of times but let’s hope I can find it sooner this time around.

One thing I found most amusing was that it’s billed as a nostalgic trip through the 80s. ‘Reminisce’ about your teenage years. Well, as an indication of how sad my musical tastes are, over half the songs they sang are currently on at least one of my USB sticks that are hanging out in my car. Oh my.

ON a side note: Having your home protected by a security system is nice for the peace of mind. Except when it goes off at 2:00am and you’re 300KM away….AND it’s a false alarm. At the very least it was nice to see the security company follow procedures and follow them very quickly. I’m still puzzled how the alarm was triggered though.

But I’m not complaining. I love this heat. And so does my garden. I’ve never seen peppers so abundant and so early in my garden. And the tomato plants are huge and bearing plentifully. The right amount of heat and rain I guess. It may be tough to duplicate this harvest. Well, except for the beans and peas. The bunnies, oh, the bunnies. My chickenwire fence that seemed to have worked for so many years has failed me. For some reason the rabbits are smaller this year and they can easily fit through the tiny holes in the wire fence without even making the fence shudder. I witnessed it and it is incredibly to behold. So, the tender plants have taken the fall for the rest of the garden.

This vacation consisted of cottaging in Tweed and some camping outdoors. But don’t let the away from home fool you, I ate like a king and had some food prepared like never before. Al and Lisa made some exceptional fajitas and I must remember this: Instead of marinating the chicken/steak with fajita mix, take that mixture and combine with oil. Then add to your fajita as much as you want. And don’t forget the Guacamole! Jay made top restaurant quality filet mignon that I must remember how to make: Heat a skillet to high temperature (he did all of this on an open fire by the way), add butter (lots of butter) and wait until it is sizzling. Add tenderloins that have been rubbed in salt and pepper mixture and cook to your liking. Wow, crusty and salty on the outside, melts like butter on the inside. I was highly impressed.

My golf game was up and down over the holidays. On my birthday I had a 7:00am round that I was eager and ready to go. Too bad I shot the worst front nine in years: 48! I followed up with a 40, but 48 is highly frustrating.

I’ve had my first taste of maintaining a pool this summer. I have a 12ft Intek pool (one of those ’semi-permanent’ pools) that can accommodate a filter. It takes about 3 feet of water (just below the bylaw requirements for a fence). There is no way I’m filling and dumping each time so I’ve learnt the art of applying chlorine, checking the Ph levels, etc. etc. This is good practice because I have been told in no uncertain terms that we will have a fullsize pool at some point in the near future (within 5 yrs?). So, please, anybody, tell me the plus/minuses between an above and inground pool. Bear in mind that I am beholden to choose one of these options. No pool is not an option so save your breath on the downfalls of a pool in general.

Maintaining the yard is so much more fun now that I have my riding lawn tractor. It is a whopping 18HP, way more than I need. But there are benefits. When I get it into 3rd gear I can fly around the lawn at breakneck speed. I’ve been able to whittle the time down from 1 1/2 hrs with the push mower to about 40 minutes with the tractor plus the trimming. There is more trimming required since there are spots I can’t get to but I’ve been able to use the weed trimmer for all this work and have avoided having to use the lawn mower. But this may change over time as I attempt to figure out the optimal cutting algorithm.

So life goes on. Summer for me is about not making many decisions in my worklife and trying to keep that as static as possible so that I can enjoy my summer life at home. We were recently bought out by a large German company. So far it hasn’t impacted my worklife and I haven’t put any effort into thinking about how my life is going to change in the next couple years because of the acquisition. I’ll tackle this when October comes around. In the meantime, back to summer and my quest for the inaugural keeper league baseball championship!

Winning skins is new to me. I’m used to winning some low gross and nets but I never take enough risks to capitalize on winning skins. I’m more of a risk avoidance, score maintanence guy. But this year I’ve increased my risktaking and it has paid off. Now to find that balance so that I can rake but still score well.

We used to go up to Doe lake (near Huntsville) from about 2002-2006. But since ‘07 it’s been this place in Wiarton. I’ve enjoyed both and it’s because the routine is predictable. Most of the guys go off fishing. The kids play on whatever equipment is available. I go golfing on Sat and catch some sports in the TV room. I hang out with Sam on the deck, drink beers and reminisce. We have a big bonfire each night where the fishtales are told. The skunks and foxes come out that we have to shoo.

This year had a slight twist. One cottages held strangers that were of the punk-ass early 20’s Mississauga type. Me being old and grumpy immediately knew they were going to be trouble. Towards us they were not except for loud arguments at night. But for the owner they were a headache as during one of the nights one of them bolted out of the place in his car but not before crashing into one of the decks and completely dislodging it from the cottage it was attached too. Good fun.

My golf course in Wiarton is getting an overhaul which makes me a little sad since it will be easier. But understandable. Just a little “It’s a small world” aside: The owner was once the groundskeeper for Walkerton GCC working for Ryan, who by coincidence we saw at Wicked Sticks on the way up to the cottage. I hadn’t seen him nor Heidi for going on 3 yrs now. Nice to see them again.

Well, back to reality. Today is Olivia’s 5th birthday and now I feel old. 1/2 a decade! To celebrate this Sat is the typical party of noisy crazy kids. But if the weather holds for Sat night, Olivia, myself, Chloe and Kevin will attempt to have a campout in the back yard. Wow.

I didn’t do it! This is the first round in the 90s that I’ve had in years. Wow. What is wrong with me?

Anyway, not much new in my life these days. The company I work for was bought be an uber-company out of Germany that is 10 times larger than us. And I thought I was grossly assimilated the first time we were bought out. Look out! 18 months and counting I’m guessing.

Home life is fine. The garden is in, and then out again as some groundhogs decimated the tomato plants before I could get the fence in. But now were back in business again with a replant. The lawn is way to lush for my tastes, and I see a million improvement projects from halving the shrubs to a major overhaul of the shed and the deck railings. With two crazy kids that are outdoor freaks, it’ll be tough to find the time this year.

Apparenly a team won the Stanley Cup last night. My how life changes. I used to know everything about the NHL about 10 yrs ago. Now I hardly even know when the Cup is won. Too much time spent on Fantasy Baseball I guess (I wonder if that is what’s also killing my golf game?).

Anyway, cottage weekend is coming up. Gives me a chance to put pencil to paper on figuring out if I want to pursue building this Archer video game.

Unfortunately it’s a chicken or egg thing where once they suspended the site via html, I couldn’t manage my blogsite to prepare it for upgrade.

Fortunately, the site knew the situation, unsuspended me and I *think* I’ve cleaned it up. I had to wipe out the injection from some static pages as well as remove the malicious js script from ALL my dirs. Finally, since the hack injected some bad functions into each and every js file it could find, I had to upgrade mine, Olivia’s and Christien’s blogsites. So far just this one has been done. Did the post work?

Thankfully, Christien is going to stay at Grandma’s tonight. So, I am taking Olivia out on a date to play mini-golf and then to Boston Pizza where we will hook up with Mommy. This should be fun.

I called her over lunch hour to ask her out on the date. She just loved it. Then, at the end of the conversation, she asked me how I can hear her voice over the phone. After giving her a hint about the poles she sees at the side of the roads, she proceeded to answer the question herself:

“Oh, those are telephone poles. Can we hear each other at the other end because our voices go over those wires?”. Man, oh, man. She’s light years ahead of me when I was that age. But I already figured that out when she started reading books that I wasn’t even opening until grade 1.

Last night was the opening night for the golf league. I played poorly. A 43 on a nine where I’m usually 38 or better. The good news was that I chipped in a couple of shots. One on the 9th to ’save’ a bogey and stop the bleeding. The other was on the 18th where I chipped in on the short par 5 for eagle, my first of the year. That saved me a 39 so things are looking up.

I think this is going to be a good year score-wise. I’ve relaxed my <60 yard wedge shots and am opening the club face on the backswing which is forcing me to make a body turn. It’s less ‘arm-wristy’ and more of a one-piece body movement. This has allowed for cleaner contact which has taken some getting used to. My same length of backswing is now resulting in about 10-15 yards of further distance. But I’m getting that figured out and I’ve already noticed my shots from 120 and in are starting to get very tight. This has been my glaring weakness for years and has prevented me from scoring rounds under par. I’m hoping this new-found swing will get me even lower in my handicap.

As Sean can attest to, the band was on. I would sum up the performance as ‘aggressive’. Rapid rhythms and hard guitarwork. They played some great classics that don’t come up live very often: The Back of Love & Rust.

The highlight for me was when they cranked out Never Stop, The Back of Love, the Killing Moon and the Cutter before ending the set. I haven’t seen that much energy from them.

The encore was a great extended version of Lips Like Sugar. But I must admit my disappointment that they didn’t play Ocean Rain. Up until then, I hadn’t seen them live without that song being played. Although Greg had told me that they don’t often play it I couldn’t believe that since I’ve been so fortunate.

Anyway, a great concert and a great night out even though we didn’t get home until 2am.

Hey Sean, if they ever come back we’ll need to finally man up and by one of those awful T-shirts….maybe the one with Einstein.

Since Wonderboy, not much has happened at the homestead except for the wee fact that Christien is accelerating his growth like mad. Since Mexico, that kid can now run, climb (onto the kitchen table no less) and say one word sentences. If you have the privileges, check out his blog for more details.

Home life with milder weather has opened up the possibilities. It has been great having the clocks move forward so that the kids can be outside roaming and blowing off months of pent up energy. Being cooped up in the house with those 2 can be maddening…even with a basement to run around in.

After the Canadian gold domination in the Winter Games, along with the passing of Wonderboy, it’s time to focus on the upcoming baseball season. This year I’ll be participating in not only the auction, but a newly formed keeper league that we’ve finally been able to establish and get off the ground. It has been an effort but I think will be worth it. It’s key to know that this is not a dynasty league, but a keeper. This difference means more work and effort managing the team and it’s various levels of contracts.

So, with 2 leagues it will have it’s share of confusion with crossover of players to cheer/not cheer for depending on which ones you own in one, both or none of the leagues. I expect the auction to finally fade off into the distance if the majority is willing. Out of respect for the history of the auction however, I will continue to participate until the concensus is to dissolve. Besides, after Year 1 of the keeper, the effort in March is no longer overwhelming and I would have the approriate time to devote to research for the auction. More to come on the success/failures of this new venture.

Next up is golf. Alas, I wasn’t able to commit to the training regimen that Sean and I were hoping to accomplish before the season. So it’s back to a quick ramp-up before the season starts. Sean, are you ready to hit the driving range?

Sonia is back on the golf wagon and has joined a league of her own with her pals. Summer is going to be busy, but summer is going to be fun. I must remember to steal that magnificent golf cart of hers for my league from time to time to make life easier.