Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Never Seen That Before

My car is taking a beating. Friday, in the parking lot of a municipal court in a city out to the west of here, someone took a hammer to my car's windshield. He or she hit it twice, as far as I can figure, based on the pattern of the crack. Things like that happen ... it wouldn't have been my client, who was quite pleased with the outcome of his case; but it was probably someone who was not so satisfied and took it out on whatever was close at hand. We can be happy that there wasn't a skull close by.

I told you that to tell you this. Today, I actually saw the crack meander half-heartedly across the windshield, stopping in the middle, then a few minutes later, take a little downward turn right in front of me as I was driving, coursing toward the edge at the driver's side, then stop. Finally, it decided to drop down just before reaching the side and dived into the dashboard.

That was pretty cool. Little things tend to amuse me.

As you may or may not know, I'm a baseball fan.

I hate the American League's designated hitter rule. Also, having been a catcher, I find the practice of some guy on the bench signaling to the catcher what the next pitch to a batter should be insulting; however, I realize that the modern-day catcher, as opposed to someone in the Carlton Fisk or Johnny Bench or John Roseboro mold, lacks an education in the philosophy of pitching so as to give meaning, again, to the phrase "tools of ignorance," which the catcher wears for protection.

I could go on about my dissatisfaction with Major League baseball, but I will truncate my diatribe and say that I am extremely disappointed that my first childhood baseball idol, Minnie Minoso, was denied a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame today. Minnie played for the Cleveland Indians before I was born, breaking in for a cup of coffee in 1949 with the team that broke the American League color barrier, and, again, returning to Cleveland from the White Sox, for which he played from 1951 to 1957, and should have won the Rookie of the Year Award (after hitting .326 and leading the league in stolen bases) to the winner, Yankee Gil McDougald (.306 average, and whose major claim to fame was hitting a line drive into the eye of phenom pitcher Herb Score), when I first became acquainted with Major League baseball in 1958. Minnie Minoso started in the Negro Leagues and was one of the players to create the bridge to Major League baseball, who, by virtue of his play for three years for the New York Cubans (batting over .300 for those three years, helping beat the Cleveland Buckeyes in the Negro World Series in 1947 and 1948) and his play in the Majors, in which he hit a lifetime .298, made seven appearances as an All-Star, and won the Gold Glove three times, among his other accomplishments, deserves a bronze plaque and place in Cooperstown. And he is still alive. To deny him a spot, while alive, in the Hall of Fame is disgraceful.

The Negro Leagues special committee did, however, elect the first woman to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Effa Manley ran the Newark Eagles for 10 years. Under her leadership, the team won the Negro World Series in 1946. She was, in addition to being a successful businesswoman, a champion of Black civil rights.

Hit-Skip

Some lady hit our new old car this morning in the city, sideswiping it. I stopped. She didn't. I got her license plate number. A personalized license plate. [The voice of reason over there on the other half of the screen told me to take the license plate NAME out of this post; so, I did.] And she didn't stop. I dropped in to the Third District in the afternoon, where the officer was salivating because I had the license number ... he said in most hit-skips, there's no traceable license plate number. He called while I was sitting there and ran the plate. The owner information as to race and age and make and model of the car matched what I gave him. He smiled. "Now, don't you try to contact her," he said.

"No way. I'll give you guys the pleasure," I replied.

His smile broadened. She'll be getting a visit in her suburban "Gold Coast" condo from the police. And she'll be charged with the hit-skip, which is punishable by up to 6 months in jail and/or $1,000.

She looked right at me and then kept driving, as if I was irrelevant.

I didn't realize that my visit to the police department would be so satisfying.

Golf in the North

I drove by an outdoor heated golf range yesterday, and the parking lot was filled with a bunch of SUV's. The range has a sheltered area divided by wooden partitions into stalls, each stall with its individual infrared heater, from which golfers can hit golf balls in relative comfort, protected from the elements.

I don't partake in such activity. I hate hitting balls off of artificial turf. On artificial grass, usually the bright green bristles known back in the day as Astro-turf, a slightly fat hit, that is, hitting the ground behind the ball with the club before impact, instead of resulting in the clubhead digging into the ground, results in the clubhead bouncing off the artificial grass or skid along the turf and striking the range ball rather cleanly. There's no big chunk of mud and grass, a divot, flying farther than the ball, which the clubhead may or may not actually hit. The ball, instead, flies fairly true and nearly as far as if hit properly. So, the ordinary golfer may think that he or she is hitting the ball well, when, in the world of real grass, he or she will be hacking up the real estate on the way to triple-digit scores and a lot of frustration.

Practice of this nature is counter-productive. The mistakes in a golf swing are difficult to detect and correct by oneself at a golf range. Without a true outcome to help detect a mistake, a golfer simply reinforces the swing error by repeating it again and again and again.

I find that going out to the course and playing when the weather breaks produces far better results than in-graining poor swing habits for a few months at a heated driving range.

Of course, there are others who swear by going to the heated golf range several times a week, no matter what the weather, and hitting golf balls. They claim that simply hitting ball after ball causes improvement. I think it's more that they are looking for something to do, rather than working on their golf swing. As I've said before, we are all born with a limited number of good golf swings; so, why waste them at a driving range.

Since about half of the shots one makes in any given round of golf are putts, these fanatics would be better served to practice putting on the living room carpet.

Or maybe I'm just lazy.

LOTS OF BLOG ENTRIES IN ONE CONCISE OUTLINE

check out the two "new" posts in the kitchen. one is new, another a reprint from this site. i cheated. shoot me.

my office is closing march 31. after that i'll be working from home for a short time. this is good news, people! i'm looking forward to it. severance pay, savings plan money, unemployment compensation. and the time to help bill out with his office administration stuff.

bill and i are lov-ing (say it as two words people. love and ing) the olympic curling. too much fun. we don't have a freaking clue how it's scored, but we love it anyway. oh i suppose we could read about how it's done, but that would be work. and how much more could we enjoy it anyway?

we never told you that bella had a little piece cut out of her ear a couple of months ago. suspicious growth. all a-ok. and she looks awesome with this little half-circle-notch cut out of the edge of her ear. bill likes to say to people, "you should see the OTHER dog." heh.

i hate these freaking fake knees. blah, blah, blah. they'll feel better someday. blah, blah, blah. they freaking better. next!

my little sister, pj, moved to sarasota (where the girls are the fairest and boys are the squarest. in f-l-o-r-i-d-a. ole!) has always wanted to live there. i'm gonna miss her like hell. she and i are only 14 months apart, and we're very close.

yesterday around 11:30, we started hearing the booming of someone's stereo bass thumping very loudly. couldn't hear any music at all. just this annoying bass. we've heard it before, but this time it went on and on and on. i couldn't constrain myself, so i walked down the hall to the apartment from which i assumed the bass was blaring. i brought with me a gladware container of bill's lovely chocolate chip cookies. i had on my jammies with a robe. socks, no slippers. i wanted to appear harmless and friendly. lady down the hall with cookies in her jammies. uses a cane. "hi. i'm stacey from down the hall. we wanted you to have these, and could you turn down your bass?" lovely, charming, VERY familiar young man says, "we were sleeping. don't have on the stereo. but THANKS for the cookies and IT'S REALLY NICE TO MEET YOU." i love him. shoot. the bass is coming from downstairs. local news anchorman who is being REALLY nice about the 3 ca-razy doggies over his head. eat it, stacey.

it dawns on me later while cooking up a lovely saturday-afternoon-it's-freezing-outside-we're-not-going-anywhere just-watching-the-olympics stew that the young man is one of our favorite waiters from our favorite restaurant, stino's. neither one of us recognized the other in our pj's. go figure.

Nutrasweet in Iraq

Have you heard about the Italian research group which published a study that supports the notion that aspartame is a carcinogen? The experimenters let the lab rats, to which they were feeding aspartame in amounts equivalent to a human drinking a half dozen cans of diet soda pop per day, live a longer time than researchers at G.D. Searle did in the original studies submitted in support of its application to the FDA. The rats, about 1400 of them, developed cancers in statistically significant greater numbers than the control group, which was a different outcome from Searle’s research, in which the rats were killed at much earlier ages compared to the Italian study.

Why do I bring this up? Don’t you think that Searle twisted the “facts” to support its position? Many cancers do not make their presence known until after age 50 in humans; so, if the population that is the subject of the study is less than age 50, the data will be skewed if applied to the whole population. So, Searle used some suspect data to support its application to the FDA, using a younger population and extrapolating the results for the entire population.

Searle’s application for FDA approval as a food additive was denied several times until shortly after Ronald Reagan took office in early 1981 and shortly before Reagan’s appointee as director of the FDA resigned to take a position with G. D. Searle. Yeah, that’s pretty bad. But that’s not the point I wanted to make. That’s just an interesting footnote.

Can’t we compare the case of G. D. Searle getting approval by use of some suspect in-house “scientific” studies to the Bush administration making the case to invade Iraq by using suspect “intelligence” reports, passing off suspect information and data as the truth in spite of the findings of weapons inspectors, to dupe a majority of the American public and its elected Congress into believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them so as to get approval to attack Iraq.

Okay, you think it’s a stretch. Paranoia reigns, I suppose. How could I possibly compare those two things?

Well, the guy running G. D. Searle, the guy who was using suspect data and information to lead people to believe that aspartame was safe and to get approval of his billion-dollar food additive by the new Republican administration, was none other than Donald Rumsfeld, our Secretary of War.

The cancer continues to grow in Iraq.

Target

There was a time when I said that I would not be one of those people picking up dog poop with plastic bags. You see, I never walked the dogs; they always stayed in the yard and I then cleaned up the yard. I was wrong. I admit that the polite and decent thing to do is to clean up after my pets. Man, that sounds like I’ve been brainwashed. Really, I haven’t been. But I am one of the polite and decent people in the neighborhood who cleans up after his dogs.

I was stopped by a security guard just inside Target's front door a couple days ago. He asked if he could help me. Now, I went to security guard school. I, in fact, have been a security guard; so, I know a lot of security guard secrets and tricks of the trade.

No, really, I did go to security guard school. I got a perfect score on the certification test for unarmed security guards. And then I worked for Royce Security guarding professional golfers at the U.S. Senior Open golf tournament. I donated my earnings to my son’s high school hockey team. And then my son up and stole my Royce Security sweater that I stole fromforgot to give back to the supervisor who gave it to me because it was awfully chilly one morning of the tournament.

Why was he stopping me instead of the blue-haired lady who walked into the store ahead of me? She probably needed help more than I did. I told him, “No thanks. I don’t need any help.”

He persisted in his examination, “What are you shopping for today? I can direct you to the proper department.”

“Several things. I know where I’m going,” I claimed. “Thanks.”

The guy was starting to annoy me; he was invading my space, coming way too close. He was not looking me in the eye, however. He was looking at the white bag that was peeking out of my coat pocket. I pulled out a couple of white plastic bags with the imprint of the small market next door to our building, “Poop bags. You know, for when I walk the dogs.”

Yes, it has gotten this bad ... I carry around a stockpile of poop bags.

Hunting With Big Dick

_____________

And was Dick Cheney in Canada hunting yesterday?

Food Recall

Approximately 54,690 pounds of Stouffer's "LEAN CUISINE® ASIAN-STYLE POT STICKERS," with the package code 5262595512 stamped on each package, were recalled recently. The pot stickers are described as "chicken and vegetable dumplings with rice in an Asian-style dipping sauce."

I have a question about Lean Cuisine pot stickers. Besides the obvious question of why the small hard plastic fragments were part of the recipe, what the hell does "Asian-style" mean? Asia, the largest continent on Earth, is made up of 37 different countries, give or take a few depending on the day of the week. I'm not familiar with the native cuisine of Afghanistan or Brunei or Papua New Guinea, but I suppose that the style of food in all those countries could be termed "Asian-style," since they are in Asia.

Turkish food ... I have written about my experience in a Turkish restaurant before, which was not a good dining experience ... as I recall, is quite different from Japanese cuisine.

And Indian food ... well, you couldn't put out the fire in one's mouth with a fucking fire hose ... and "white" was written on my order; since, I guess, non-whites can tolerate a helluva lot more than stereotypical whites can.

So, what the fuck do they mean by "Asian-style?"

Parking Lot -- Saturday Morning

I'm sitting in the car outside the hair salon that my lovely wife frequents now and again. I did my shopping ... OXO mandoline for her and a frame for the black-and-white photograph of some ironworkers sitting on a steel beam, laughing while eating lunch high above the New York City skyline. I was going to get a courier bag that was on sale, but ... two women are headed into the storefront adjacent to the "Salon & Spa;" AAA operates a travel agency there, but the two would be better served by going to the salon and getting their mangy, over-blown, seven-shades-of-blonde-with-dark-roots, long hair trimmed and styled ... but I have several courier bags and this one, with a leather Timberland logo affixed to it, had a black elastic mesh thingy on the side, which I hate, even for the price.

A yuppie woman, 35-ish, with her baby, wheeled her shopping cart over to the Audi station wagon that is parked next to me, unloaded her groceries into the back and then loaded her infant son into the carseat in the back seat of the suburban symbol of affluence. I can't believe she is taking her cart back to the store, which is very nice, but kind of stupid, because the doors to the car are unlocked (no chirp or flashing lights) and she left her kid in the car. I know she's going to be back in less than a minute, but how long would it really take for someone to snatch her son? I'm ready to rescue the kid if that happens, though.

Whoa! There's a guy in an Audi convertible with the top down ... pushing the season ... it's 35 degrees. He's got a temporary tag on it. Just got it yesterday, Audi A4. Okay, he's excited about his new toy. I wonder if it's more expensive than the station wagon, whose driver has returned, having played the odds correctly ... this time.

And I am totally upset about the Coneheads. You will recall the movie by that name and the Saturday Night Live skits ... they are like totally making fun of bald people.

Stacey's walking out, hair shorter and lighter. Better head on down the road.

Deus Vult!

The Holy Crusades against the infidels, the radical Muslims, Turkish in ancestry, who occupied Jerusalem and the Holy Land that began back in the day ... 1096 to be exact, were largely a failure. Richard the Lion-Hearted, of Robin Hood fame, was able to secure a treaty giving Catholics safe passage on trips to Jerusalem for three years, but he suffered huge losses and suffered a number of defeats and returned to England with his treaty without even reaching Jerusalem so that he could take care of his nasty brother, Prince John, who was not doing a very good job taking care of the throne while his brother was away.

In 1212, groups of French and German children marched to ports on the Mediterranean Sea with the mistaken belief that the sea would dry up and they could march into the Holy Land, God on their side, and reclaim it for righteous Roman Catholics everywhere. The radical Islamic Turks captured several boatloads of children. Many other children died, and few returned home from the Children's Crusade.

Radical Islam has reared its ugly head again, according to W. He does not wage his War on Terror anymore. It is a war against "radical Islam -- the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death," as George the Lesser described it in his Mis-State of the Union address last week.

Well, George the Lesser called the war on terror a "Crusade" at the very beginning of his quest to find Osama bin Laden. He was called on the carpet over his semantics at the time, but now it is apparent that he meant what he said. We have a war waged on Islamic radicals by Christian fundamentalists (the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death).

And We the People stand at the crossroads.

Cut Me!

I had an inflammatory post all ready to go, then I heard something about the Gillette Fusion razor, a new safety razor -- that's what they were called originally because shaving was somehow safer in one's own hands than in the skilled hands of a trained barber.

I haven't needed a shave in a number of years, having ushered in this beard thing in fashion that is going on as well as helping Michael Jordan decide that bald really is beautiful so that it has come down to men with hair shaving their heads to be fashionable.

I have some knowledge about shaving, though, having been the guinea pig training model for my sister-in-law when she was going to barber school and learning how to give a shave with a straight razor. Although I can't compare the two now, there was nothing closer than the shaves my sister-in-law gave me.

The Gillette Fusion, six micro-thin stainless steel blades in total, five for the face, one for the trimming, powered by a plutonium power source that makes the blades vibrate, buzz, and sweep whiskers away, is supposed to be the ultimate, beating out the four-bladed, battery-powered Schick Quattro, that which is equipped with only four blades, but made of teflon-coated, kevlar-impregnated, gold-plated titanium-steel with built-in lotion dispenser and vacuum cleaner handle.

I don't know how any of you might feel about this, but just what is the point of all of this multi-blade madness; and where will it end? And don't you think that they would have invented a better way -- I mean it's the 21st fucking century, and now it's five times easier than ever to cut yourself ... and it's got power, like a chainsaw. We're not talking about making cars fly, we're talking about a fuckin' razor!

*And to the asshole driving the GMC XXXXL Grand Tahoe who came flying up the St. Clair Avenue hill and turned right while I was crossing with the light and in the crosswalk with the dogs and nearly fucking killed me, next time you will have a significant dent in your fucking gas-hog!*

"God Is Pro-Life"

It's time. What time is it? You query oh-so-cautiously. What’s the matter? Scared?

It's time to piss off some of my fellow humans again.

I saw a trunk sticker today on a luxurious Lexus F-625-U driving ahead of me, which said, in bright red, white, and blue, of course: GOD IS PRO-LIFE.

What does that mean? Because when I look, I see death all around. Is that god of yours pro-death, too? And the other stuff that happens in the real world -- like the 18-year-old gang banger thinking that a rival gang member lived at a certain house; he figured he’d cap the dude and fired his nine-milli into the house, killing a 15-year-old honor student who was watching TV with her dad – where does that fit into this pro-life deal? Her death has some meaning that will be revealed only on judgment day?

And that brings to mind the small town that evolved into an upper middle class bedroom community in the years we lived there, where those luxury SUV’s with similar bumper stickers were common enough not to cause anyone any consternation. The high school football team won in overtime before an SRO crowd against a team from a predominantly black school district. A woman, a local dentist’s wife, sitting in front of one of the guys with whom I played golf, won the 50-50 drawing at halftime. About two grand, he said it was. One of the biggest 50-50 drawings he’d heard of at the high school. That would have made a great donation to the Red Cross, since it was just after the Hurricane Katrina disaster, but that’s another story. We’re talking about a "sense-of-entitlement" type. We’re talking about the one true god blessing the town first and the good old USA next.

Anyway, the guy in my foursome tells her to stand up and be recognized when her number got called … I’m guessing that’s how it worked (That’s how it worked at hockey games. I never won.). She turned around and told him to shut up. "I don’t want them to know I have that much cash."

I don’t know what kind of car she drives. Lexus, maybe? Surely not a black one; after all, we know how she feels about that color.

Makes me ill. Them … the same mentality leads our country.

Next: Deus vult!

Strange But True

Well, my mother-in-law, her Uncle Jim, and his good friend, Art Rooney, are celebrating in the after-life, if there is one, since Pittsburgh won the Super Bowl.

I called a jail in another county a few minutes ago because I was told that a client, who is supposed to be in a local court in the morning for a hearing, was arrested and is being held. Sure enough, he's in the can. I don't think he'll make it tomorrow.

Why is it that criminals cannot keep out of trouble? In Orem, Utah, some dumbass called to report a burglar took his bag of marijuana. As if that wasn't stupid enough, the dope went to the sheriff's department to identify his stash.

I apologize to you all about not notifying you sooner; but since I've lost about 20 more pounds in the last couple months, I no longer keep track of this stuff like I used to ... the Queen Mary World Chili Cheese Fries Eating Championship is set for February 11th aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach. The competition is sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.

And on this Super Bowl weekend, Joey Chestnut won WIP Radio’s 14th Annual Wing Bowl’s top prize, a 2006 Suzuki Grand Vitara S model, MSRP of $20,594. He also won the Wing Bowl 14 ring worth $5,500, setting a new Wing Bowl record with a total of 173 wings eaten in 30 minutes.

Joey had a good eating week, winning $4,000 on February 1 by taking second place at the GoldenPalace.com World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship, having been swallowed by KathyHowe Sonya Thomas, who eked out a half-sandwich win.

DISCLAIMER: The International Federation of Competitive Eating is against at-home training of any kind. The IFOCE strongly discourages younger individuals from eating for speed or quantity under any circumstances. The IFOCE urges all interested parties to become involved in sanctioned events -- DO NOT TRY SPEED EATING AT HOME.

Unwarranted Wiretapping During Wartime 101

If civil rights are to be curtailed during wartime, it must be done openly and democratically, as the Constitution requires ... Antonin Scalia, dissenting in the case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004).

Now, what about a warrant for those wiretaps of American citizens, Mr. Bush? Do you think Mr. Justice Scalia is in your corner on this one?

Tomato Soup Redux (or, What the Fuck is V-8 Anyway?)

V-8 ... this variation of tomato soup with some other vegetables ground into it meant to be taken cold is another stomach-turning thing that I was ordered to buy yesterday.

It wasn't my grandmother who forced me to drink something like this ... my grandmother would never do that. My grandmother on my mother's side enjoyed scrubbing and cleaning my scraped knee when I would report to her place on the way home after baseball practice. She had not only peroxide and iodine for the occasion, but something else without a label that burned like hell ... and she would sing while she was working on my knee and then laugh when I was making noises, trying to choke back the tears. She enjoyed that. Then she'd bring out the reason I stopped by ... fresh-baked bread or hot, right-out-of-the-oven apple, cherry, or peach pie (from the fruit my grandfather grew with his green Croatian thumb) or her famous banana cake with the butter frosting, sliced bananas and frosting between the layers, and a glass of cold Cotton Club Less-Sweet Ginger Ale (with a picture of Big Ginger on the neck of the 32-ounce green glass, returnable bottle) or icy-cold milk.

No, it wasn't my grandmother who made me gag. It was her sister, my great aunt, the religious fanatic who went off somewhere in the western wilderness to start a religious fanatic encampment, she was the one who was an all-natural, all-the-time, vegetarian, who made her own V-8 juice in her juicing machine, before anyone ever heard of a juicer, which she probably made herself.

And one afternoon, when I was a captive there at my great aunt's house, sitting in front of the 8-foot-tall statue of the blue-and-white-robed Blessed Virgin Mary, whose ceramic arms were outstretched with one hand partially amputated, and who was surrounded by a circular bed of flowers, she brought out a fucking huge glass of reddish-greenish-brownish liquid that she claimed, oh-so-sweetly, was good for me and good for my soul.

One sip ... that was it ... the gag reflex kicked in ... I dropped the glass as I tried not to throw up, the home-made V-8 soaking into the grass, which began to wither before my eyes. She wanted to know what was wrong; and I lied to her, a religious fanatic, before it was fashionable, in a time when God really did listen to them and do their bidding, risking that I would be stricken deaf and mute because that's what God would do back in the day for religious fanatics like her, and said that I hadn't been feeling well, all the time silently cursing my mother for having dropped me off for a visit because my great aunt on my mother's side was lonely ....

And that's why I won't drink V-8.

Going Newk-you-lerr Again

I admit it. I didn't watch or listen to the State of the Union speech by Bush the Lesser. I read it. Nobody interrupted me ... except I did take the dogs out for a walk ... with applause. I didn't see all of the quirky smirks and nervous laughs characteristic of W when he is telling a lie or uncomfortable with giving a straight answer to someone.

The transcript I read, though, either wasn't complete or the big W left out something. Are we not concerned about global warming as a country; and since the U.S. is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, what is in the plans ...

:-(

jackson CUT HIS HAIR! i LOVED his long hair. it was long. really long. probably 8 inches below his shoulders. wahhhhhh. i've only seen a picture that he sent me on his phone. he looks like simon cowell. wahhhhh.

Report From Olive Garden

I love the Olive Garden, where we went for dinner tonight. Something was very different, however.

The server was excellent. The server was polite. The server was attentive. The server smiled and was not intrusive. The server laid down the plates in a measured, deliberate manner and picked them up in the same manner, so as not to interfere with our conversation or spill anything. The server's white shirt was spotless. The server walked erect without moving her head up and down. The server's posture was perfect, too good.

The server was perfect ... I'm thinking that it, disguised as a young woman, was an Olive Garden automaton, which Olive Garden is field testing.

I have a hard time with the alternate explanation ... like she's definitely an alien.