Whoa Nellie!

It's minus 13, but it feels like minus 13 with the AC on

Minus 13 degrees here on January 24, and for the second week, the heat is out in my office. The thermostat reads 46, the space heaters are churning but my hands are still cold - to the bone cold, Bob Cratchet's office cold.

A quick wrap up of the weekend, Friday, the boys and I spent most of it in the basement. I went grocery shopping with Benny while O was at school, and after picking him up had a nice chat with his preschool teacher about kindergarten readiness. In virtually every regard he's ready but the size issue haunts me because of my own, um.... stature issues when I was young. It's definitely not easy looking like you're three years younger than everyone else in your class....  Saturday, I gave K, the moring and afternoon off and the boys and I went to the McDonald's gym thingee, which turned out to be a big hit. They played happily for two hours with some other snowbound youths from Slingerlands and it was a simple pleasure to read the sports section while they frolicked in the germ pit known as the Delmar McDonalds playground. 

The snow began in earnest while we were there and continued through the night, about 13-14 inches total. Yesterday, not quite as cold, we made a snow fort on the front lawn, which looks impressive from the outside, but needs to settle a bit before we continue construction. Memories of my brother Mark being trapped in a snow fort and my father frantically digging him out while I sat inside and watched "The Man from UNCLE."

The most compelling golf story is this one I read in this week's Golf World. I hope this guy's father doesn't get a penny.   

Torrey Pines? He's back, baby! Not quite the Sunday charges of year's past but even playing lousy, Tiger comes out on top. If nothing else, the kid can scramble and grind.

Back from Seattle

Back from Seattle, lovely, lovely, lovely. Marc, the bachelor bridegroom, continues to impress with his house renovation skills and his freedom to do things like take four day hikes in northern Washington. No kids, and up until this past weekend no marital responsibilities. From my perspective of this weekend-long jaunt across the country, the Marqueen Hotel is recommended, as are hikes up Queen Anne hill and the views once reaching the top. I would say "aye" to the porter I drank Friday night but I had so many that I can't remember its name.

And, of course, I brought my camera with me and didn't take a single shot.

Hum de dumm dumm...

I'm staring at my calendar with its lonely little meeting at 9:30 a.m., and while the meeting itself lasted a solid two hours of mostly productive work, the rest of the day tumbles out before me. PBJ lunch, a sharing, office round, of the Redemption Academy brownies purchased last evening, a little webbrowsing and now it's back to work....I'm rather up-to-date on all projects crossing my desk - in the netherworld of waiting for folks to get back to me with information, proofs, pubs, etc. I should call Jim Saputo and have him find me a good feature from amongst his boat captain course students, some corporate lawyer who is giving it all up to be a captain on the Minnehaha....I will do this.

I suck at appearing busy. I'm not self conscious about my workload - perhaps I'm just a little too productive....Anyway, I'm too psyched about the trip to Seattle in two days to start any major projects today... phee!

This from Laura Vecsey's column today, with Flanigan and Beattie admitting the presence of baseball in D.C. is effecting the O's off-season moves.

After months of speculation, Beattie finally used the Orioles' FanFest to 'fess up.

"The uncertainty of what's going on in D.C. has certainly hurt the way we can be out there and go at some of these things," Beattie said.

Aside from first base, the only truly glaring gaps are on the pitching staff. I say let's give the younger arms the chance to prove themselves for another year. One or two of these guys will step up - Maine, Bedard, Bauer, Matt Riley - and with Rodrigo and Fat Sid as anchors, things might look up. Competitive with Yank'mes and Sox? Ahh, I'm just bs'ing myself.

My only hope is overachieving pitchers, a Tejadafest, solid play from the rest of the infield and a breakout year from Larry Bigbie and/or Jay Gibbons. Yank'mes and Sox? one of those will fall mightly this year.....

Ok, I'm back to work....

On the white hills of Normanside CC

Went sledding with the boys yesterday. I can't say there wasn't some trepidation considering last year's failed attempt to tackle the hills of Normanside. What a difference a year makes....
We made a solid hour plus on the slopes, both boys laughing and giggling as they zipped along in near perfect conditions. With a wide grin, I said that to total strangers - "These are near perfect sledding conditions..." Like Kitzbuel in '88.
Of course, there was much harkening back to my own childhood days on these hills (harken, harken...) - the gruesome Mike Pizzatola collision, the time Tommy Whitney had his fingers crushed in the station wagon door. Ah memories.
It's hard to truly say how juiced I was by this activity - the reliving of my past, seeing the boys having such an awesome time (I was pulling Benny up the hill when Lucas and Owen caught air going over a jump), seeing a ton of other kids having a great time...
I constantly wonder what "memories" will lodge themselves in my boys' subconcious, but this place holds such a draw for me that I hope yesterday was one of them. I kept thinking to myself, "remember this....This is a good day...This is a great day!"

Why I will never subscribe to Golf Digest or Golf magazine

This game is hard enough; a challenge to the mind, body and soul. Feeding on the insecurity of all three however is the standard golf instruction mag, which numbers its subscribers in the hundreds of thousands. Please, for the love of Pete, stop with this telling us to do one thing and then totally discounting that advice in the next issue (or even within the same issue). Should we, when performing an effective backswing, extend away from the ball or should we not?

My comment is... Argggh! and also....

Gee, Butch Harmon's gotta lay off the Arby's.

These magazines make some serious coin within the smoke and mirrors game of golf instruction. Let's face it, everything that can be considered "gospel" about the conventional golf swing could be written on one 8 x 11 typed sheet, but I guess it just wouldn't be profitable to reprint that info within every issue. It might make the issues a little thin, too.

It bothers (and confounds) me that hundreds of thousands of people sit down with their 100-plus page copy of Golf (or Golf Digest) magazine each month thinking they are going to find the Holy Grail for their swing, When, in fact, all they get is confusing testimony on what Butch or Leadbetter or Jim Flick think the cure is for the "average" golfer. These guys are probably laughing up their sleeves. No one I know has ever said "I read a tip in a magazine and it made me play better," or even more importantly, "I read a tip in a magazine and it made me enjoy the game more."

I can recall one article last year by Hank Haney that basically said what he was teaching, he couldn't duplicate himself! He then proceeded to outline some wacky swing change that "changed his game forever..." Huh?  I have to find the article to prove my point, but the overriding idea here is - "Don't believe the hype..." Find your swing, trust it. Enjoy the game.

BTW, I took some cool shots at the muni as promised but my home computer is wacked out and I can't seem to right it. They will be posted as soon as we fix this problem.