Aces

May 4, 2013 Bastrop State Park Golf Course, Hole 8

Pictured above are my brother John and me (in red). The very next day John would collect his first lifetime hole in one on his home course in Dallas Texas. This leaves me as the last of four brothers and our dad as not making an Ace.

I have seen two aces in my life, both from my other brother Eric. The first when he was about 10 years old and the other when he was 50. I believe he has a few others in between.

We as a family group celebrate all milestones such as holes in one. When I got word from John of his first I  gave him the congratulations he was due. He told me he regretted leaving me as the last without.

I have had close calls. In the past year on #13 of Roy Kizer GC here in Austin, my shot finished a mere inch away. On the day of the above picture I had a shot from about 170 yards out on the first hole, a par 4, stop about 2 inches out. So I still have game.

A fear I have is that I will ace a hole on a little 9 hole course I sometimes go to. It has 6 par 3's, all decent length but this significantly increases one's chances over a regular course. Or that I will score one without having a witness.

On the radio recently I heard talk of a golfer getting his first ace at the age of 75, and then seven holes later he had his second!

Gotta keep giving myself chances.

Ah, a nice dream remembered

I go through periods of a week or two where at night I dream vivid, often incoherent dreams. At some point in the night my dog will wake me to be let out, or I wake me to let myself out, and I can clearly remember everything about the dream.

At the time I think, there is no way I am going to forget this dream, its so clear, remarkable, and easy to remember. Then in the morning nothing, barely a recollection that I dreamed at all. During one of these bursts of dreams I kept a notepad nearby the bed to scrawl something that would key my memory, but mostly I couldn't read my own handwriting from 3AM.

This week I remembered one of the dreams. Not right away in the morning though, but later in the day. Its one of the better ones that I've ever remembered and I am glad it came back. One note before the dream, I have 3 children: my two oldest sons are now 24 and 21, and my daughter is 18.

The dream:  I am watching a family video tape on a smaller TV that we used long ago. On the screen one of our former cars is approaching the camera - the camera appears to be moving in the same direction as the car - and the perspective changes smoothly throughout the dream. My two sons are hanging out the back driver side window and they appear to be the same age, about four to five years old, and they are laughing and waving at the camera. The car rolls alongside the camera for a distance, and looking in the driver's window my daughter is seen. She looks four to five years in age and it appears as if she is driving the car. She too is laughing and waving at the camera. The camera moves closer at this point and then you see that I am in the car too, the driver seat is fully reclined, and that I am lying on it with my daughter seated on my lap, and I am in fact driving the car. The car eases past the camera so that the back of the car is seen, my two sons continue to laugh and wave at the camera. Fade to black - the end.

This is one of my warmest dreams in recent memory. Lots I can't explain about it. Namely how could my two boys both be hanging out the same window, especially if the driver seat and dad is reclining right in their way.  But other things too - why are they all about the same age? Why is daughter the fake driver? On and on.

I can now replay the dream at will in my brain. Its very pleasant and enjoyable. I think I will put it on a loop for a few days.

Froot Loops

I watched my son Tory fill a stainless steel quart size mixing bowl with Froot Loops, pour in about a pint of milk just to float those things around, and then wolf them down - all at 10:30PM last night. Why? B/C he's hungry. And he wonders how he can't sleep at night.

Handwritten letters fading

Written a letter lately? Me neither. I wasn't much of a letter writer in the past. Fewer and fewer are opting to communicate with pen and paper apparently. Writing a letter is hard work. Emails are easy and fast. Letters have a much greater probability of lasting a long time, emails not so much and even less for text messages.

I admire the Permanence of letters. Due to some remodeling around the house, I had to move some stuff out of closets, and found an old letter written to my wife and I from my spouse's grandmother. Her hand was far from smooth, but was legible. The letter did not contain news of daily life around her house but applauded our recent marriage and offered her advice to us for life. Its likely the only thing we have from her.

On an episode of TV show MASH, Hawkeye is writing a long letter to his father. There were a lot of letters written and received in that series. There is a huge thick book of letters written by CS Lewis - but somebody valued and kept all those letters, and then rounded them up. As the above article cites, Napoleon's letters to Josephine are still around and still pretty steamy. Much is made of John Adams' letters to Abigail, and hers to him. There is great value in these items.

Letters are meant to communicate very important thoughts and feelings. There is a lasting connection between sender and the receiver. Here is a blog post by someone celebrating the receipt of a handwritten letter, altho he somehow can't return the favor and write back, but instead settles for a phone call - he admits he is no longer in the habit and considers himself a victim of email ease. Greeting card companies now exist to relieve the tension of writing or saying just the right thing I suppose.

Go create some hand written memories - somewhere, either as letters or grocery lists. It will give someone warm memories when they remodel the house.

PS Another lamenting the loss of the habit of writing. (from the year 2000, so this erosion has be ongoing for some time.)

Happy Birthday Tory!

How did I forget this? 18 years today. Born with a smile on his face and didn't cry until some mean nurse provoked him. Celebrations will have to be late tonight as I have two meetings to go to after work tonight.

CBS Radio Mystery Theater

Watching an old Twilight Zone episode, I heard some background music which jarred loose a memory. The memory being that of driving from Bryan TX to Lake Charles LA in the evening, somewhere between Conroe and Orange TX and hearing the CBS Radio Mystery Theater on the AM radio.

At night, over that stretch of state highway 105 and IH35, it is radio no man's land. Except on one trip I tuned in the show on some distant station not knowing what it was. The signal faded in for about 3 or 4 minutes, and then static and noise would creep in for a minute or so (hopefully during the commercials) and then the cycle repeated. Everyone else in the car was a bit irritated at the coming and going of the reception but I stuck with it. Blame for my affection of radio can now be laid at the feet of this radio show.

I don't remember that show, or much of the others I might have heard on other nights later. The draw to them must be the sci-fi, Twilight Zone -light nature of the stories, the sound effects, dialogue, and E.G. Marshall putting in his two bits introducing the acts and pointing out the chilling irony of the proceedings. It was fun for an hour or so.

Recently I located a website that has mp3 files of some of the shows - not nearly all 1399 episodes but a decent collection. The first few sound like they were taped right off the air. News casts from the top of the hour are included - news of Nixon and Watergate, sports reports with ABA basketball scores. Budweiser "when you say Bud, you've said it all" ads, Special K cereal, and PSAs from the broadcast are left in. Its a mini time capsule. They also had that late night sound of AM radio - the station is tuned in, but there is another station or a whistle or light static bleeding over the reception, threatening to wash out the dialogue so you have to listen closely.

Another I listened to had Kim Hunter voicing one of the main characters. She portrayed one of my favorite movie characters - Zira, the chimpanzee scientist who helped Charlton Heston in Planet Of The Apes - one of my favorite all time movies.

Not all the episodes are radio gold. Probably most are just average fare, maybe laughable. I don't mind too much. Its fun - a good memory.

Snow In Austin

I need to record this somewhere. Snow fell here in Austin on 12/9/8. Late in the evening around 11 PM after a bit of sleeting, flakes of snow began blowing all around the house. A bit wet, and it didn't accumulate whatsoever, except maybe on the roof of the house and cars. But it sure did look nice and peaceful, especially being illuminated by the Christmas lights on the house.

Krackers the cat escaped into the backyard, and ran under the nearby bushes getting fairly muddy. Samantha had to retrieve him.

I can't remember any snow here in Austin this time of year over the past 24 years.

Thanksgiving Turkey Means Breaking A Few Eggs

What a "shock"! If you are going to eat turkey for Thanksgiving, you have to kill a few turkeys. Sarah Palin is interviewed in front of some turkey-farmer preparing a few birds for shipping and hilarity ensues.



My grandfather, who ran a dairy farm for years, raised calves for beef as well. One calf my brothers and I played with when we were kids and affectionately named Bruno. However, one dinner during a visit to my grandparents house my grandfather asked us if we recognized Bruno as he was being served for dinner. Forks collectively dropped and hit plates.

Librarian's Patron Saint

My mom, being a retired librarian, might appreciate knowing who the patron saint of librarians is. I didn't know, but I am not a librarian. But as an avid user of libraries anywhere I wouldn't mind an invite to a feast for St. Jerome.

Spirit Of AggieLand

Samantha and I went over to College Station for the A and M v. Army football game on the last weekend of September. It was an 11:30 a.m. kickoff so we had to leave Austin early. We got our tickets from some friends here and met them at Rudy's BBQ in Round Rock. After a few breakfast tacos we drove over to AggieLand.

We arrived in plenty of time. In fact I had to walk back to the car twice forgetting once the camera and then our notepaper with phone numbers and such of the people we were to meet over the day. Our seats were 3 rows up from the field, behind the north end zone. Actually a great place to see all the events of the day, but most of the football we saw on the jumbo-tron.

We were in our seats in plenty of time for the National Anthem, Texas Our Texas, The Spirit of AggieLand, and the Aggie War Hymm. Sam and I sawed the horns off with 80,000 plus other Aggies there. It was awesome to see the entire statium, and it was nearly full, all sawing and singing.

It was "Armed Forces Appreciation Day" so there was a helicopter flyover and four paratroopers dropped into Kyle Field before the start. The Aggie band played all of the military marches from each branch of service, and the Singing Cadets sang America.

After the game we went and took our pictures on the 50 yard line and in the end zones. Next we walked across the campus visiting some old favorites of mine, my old dorm, the All Faiths Chapel where my parents were married 50 years ago. Then we met some fraternity buddies I haven't seen in over 25 years and they were cooking fajitas, so we had a few bites to eat and visited. Next we walked thru the Bonfire Memorial and the headed back to our car and left campus.

We headed into Bryan to visit my cousin Susan and her dad my uncle Bubba. A nice visit of about 30 minutes and then we started our drive back to Austin.

Sam and I had a grand time.

Ice, Ice baby

Here is someone blogging about a hot topic at our house. Ice cubes to drink ratio in a glass.

Here are the comments I left there ...

Ice to drink ratio is dependent on 3 variables: the temperature of the drink being cooled, the size of the ice cubes, and the drink glass size. As an example - freshly brewed tea is hot, but I need a drink. I have a large glass. If my wife has made ice (we use trays) the ice will be small, a whole tray will be used, and the ice will melt almost completely away, and I'll have no more left to cool it down further. If I filled the ice tray the cubes will likely be twice the size and I will use half as much initially. After melting I will still have some ice left to cool the drink to the desired temp, and a much more pleasing drink, provided I use the right amount of sweetener.

I also recommend using a straw. You can put the end in the drink right next to or in between the ice cubes and the drink will be colder. Its also easier to drink ice tea from a straw while in the car.

The straw is a key component as well. Potential drink stirrer, and it helps identify your glass from among similar drinks.

Theft!

Evan's car was broken into overnight. His stereo was taken and there's a bit of damage to the rear passenger door and window. Also an acoustic guitar was taken out of the trunk - the one Uncle John had a long time ago - sorry about that J. The car was parked on the street which is probably a mistake but its been parked there often with no incident. I guess we played those odds too long.

Not much to do at this point except call the police and have the car repaired.The back passenger window was broken in. Once inside all doors can be unlocked and there is a trunk release just inside front driver door. It is ironic the very day I wax poetic about the neighbors not getting vandalized, we get hit instead.

I blame it on fake hurricane Eduordo. We got nothing here - except a serious allergy headache. If maybe some serious rain had blown in our car might've been left alone.

I told Evan to try Homer's strategy by claiming there was a Picasso in the back seat too.

Beauty And The Beast

Here are some photos taken at a performance of Beauty And The Beast we attended Friday night the 18th, at Zilker Hillside Theater, with some of Samantha's classmates. We saw the show with my brother Dave, Joan, Sydney, and Ben earlier in the summer, but it was enjoyable again. As you can see, Gaston is a sight. Performed outdoors at night, not too hot, a little breezy - good times. Oh, and cold root beers and orange crushes. Girls had fun.

Einsteins

Tory has started the summer session here at Austin Community College. His class is a MW evening class from 5:30 pm to 7:10. The campus is fairly close but we want Tory to get home on the bus, its only 50 cents. Yesterday he gets on the wrong bus and ends up at a transit station north of our house and further away than ACC. Plus he had to get off since it was the end of the line, and had no money to get on another to get back home. I had to go get him.

After picking him up I needed to get a few items at Walmart. Tory and I go in and get our needed items. As we're getting ready to check out I discover I don't have my wallet, and can't pay. Luckily I have $19.75 in my pocket. So we put back most of what was in the basket. The final item, a big bag of chips, didn't make the cut. Why, oh why, did we need that aluminum foil?

Dinner was served just after 9 and there were some grumpy diners.

Father's Day and Golf

A pretty good Father's Day this year. Bagels and coffee with friends after church. Back home for a light lunch, a 30 minute nap, a glass of iced tea, and out to Morris Williams GC for a round of golf.

I teed off at 3:15, and the club house thermometer showed 98 degrees. Whew. The heat was somewhat mitigated by light breezes, and I tried to walk a good bit in the shades of trees. Promptly double bogeyed first hole.

I played the first 11 holes as a single, and waited not once to hit. I caught the fellow in front of me at the 12th tee and we played the remaining 7 together waiting occasionally on the twosome in front of us, and they did not appear to be to serious about golf hitting 2 or 3 shots from nearly every place. The entire round was just over 3 hours, a land speed record for me at this course. Overall score was 82 going 42 - 40 on the nines.

The problem with playing solo is no one sees your greatness. My greatness this day was off the tee. I was hitting some of my best drives ever. Unfortunately this greatness was offset by poor play from the fairway and on the green. The main theme of the day seemed to be having the ball below my feet on a thin lie. Also many times I'd be a full to half wedge away from the green and fail to get the ball on the green, often missing badly. Putting is also very unreliable. I hit all four par 3's in regulation, and had 11 putts. I did finally get on the birdie quest on the 11th hole, a par 5 sinking a 2 footer.

After teeing off at #5, I saw very bright blue bluebird. The feral parrots appear to have been run off as I neither saw nor heard any all day.

Later that night a family game of Scrabble. Tory passed off "nuke", which scored him about 6 points. "Thugs" and "jail" were in the same line together, and "ozone" made everyone giddy. Sean won this tense competition.

Rush Concert

The band Rush was here in Austin and Tory, Justin (one of Tory's buddies), Evan, and I were in the crowd for the show. Tory and Justin were in the lower floor seating, and Evan and I were in the upper arena seating, but I was pleased with our view.

Rush put on a good show. Somehow these three guys have managed to avoid getting frozen in time over the past 30 years of playing together. I can imagine that having to play "Spirit Of Radio" or "Tom Sawyer" every show for, well, ever might get stale. But I believe the very talented trio manages to keep their music fresh because they love the music, they love performing it, they aren't afraid to try anything new, and they keep moving forward by composing new music.

I have to admit that when Rush launched into some of their newer songs of the most recent "Snakes and Arrows" most of the crowd had blank faces. Tory told me he wasn't exactly taken with the new music on the cd, but hearing it live was much better. I like the songs and material, but didn't find it memorable ( a bit like a Simon Cowell might say ).

Rush did not stay away from their old hits tho. They launched the show with "Limelight", a great start, and dropped in "Freewill", "Red Barchetta", "Tom Sawyer" through out. Those are the titles I remember. I am not a devoted fan of theirs and don't carry around a Rush rolodex in my head. The guy sitting next to me was sending text messages of the set list out on his cell phone all night.

A very impressive presentation of a light show, videos, pyrotechnics, and terrific musicianship made for an enjoyable night. I will admit that I slipped in some ear plugs midway through the show and didn't miss a note. Thankfully they helped me avoid that Popsicle headache that often accompany a night after a concert. I was able to sleep without any ear ringing at all.

Chupa Chups

Here is a little tune that has been stuck in my head off and on over the past week. It comes from the Chupa Chups website. What is a Chupa Chup? It looks like a Tootsie Pop except it's fabrique en Mexico. I got two of them from a hotel lobby recently - a chocolate ice cream flavored and and orange cream flavored pop. The chocolate one wasn't bad, and I've been too afraid to try the orange.

The website features some flash animation depicting various pop culture scenes from recent decades. Stick around to the end, if not just to have the tune burn into your subconscious.

Rush tickets

This morning we won some tickets from a local radio startion to see Rush in Austin next week on the 23rd.

We went through a little comedy on the way. I originally made the call to the radio station and got through. I was telling Sean that I was going to get to play for the tickets when Tory walked in and overheard. He comes up to me and says "gimme the phone!" He was right - he's knows Rush better than I do, but we have to leave for school. So we pile into the car, turn off the radio, wait for the ads, and then the person ahead of us is up. All this is going on while we're driving to school, and I am fretting that the cell will give out or that we'll lose connection like on of the ads on TV. Tory hears the song clip and says "Freewill!" a split second later. After the first caller fails, I hear Tory connect and go on the air. He says, "I don't need to hear the clip, its 'Freewill'!" He wins. High fives all around in the car. Lots of banter with the radio guys ensues.

Tory is a big Rush fan, several DVD's of concerts, so we know what to expect, but he's never seen them live.

We roll up at the school just as he's finishing. His birthday was yesterday and the call screener saying to him "you should've said something!" I think he may have barely avoided a tardy today, but it was worth it.

Good times. BTW I won a Valentine Day package a little over a year ago from the same station identifying "Love Hurts" on the radio.

Now to decide who uses the tickets. Since we had 2 already, purchased as a present for Tory's birthday, Evan, Sean, and I will be stabbing each other in the back to go.

Happy Birthday Tory!

Here's Tory pictured in Boot Canyon at Big Bend National Park. He'll be going to see a Rush concert next week here in Austin as part of his birthday.

This birthday is going to cost me tho because he is now 17, and no longer can be used on the Child Credit for tax purposes. I am considering billing him for the difference this year.

Unplugged

I was listening to Laura Ingraham's radio show yesterday as I took the end of the week off for Spring Break. She was talking about "unplugging" from the electronic connected world, if not for a short a period of time to cleanse and rejuvenate the brain. She also spoke with Jon Mattleman (link from Technorati) about programs he uses with middle schoolers and why unplugging is a good thing.

This topic is constantly lurking about our house. As our kids use the internet more for email, chatting, and stuff, we are battling to limit the time spent online. But our kids don't come close to the hundreds of minutes a day online either - but on occaission they can come close.

How difficult is it for us to unplug? In my opinion we're not in too deep. Only one computer in the house, well except for Evan's and nobody wants to go into his room and he doesn't want to come out, and as a result demand far outstrips supply as far as online time goes. Only one family cell phone with no text messaging and I have a business cell phone - no texting. Cable TV is only the basic of basics. We get 12 channels maybe and several are the community access stations which are jokes. Everyone now has a personal mp3 player too, except Evan recently had his stolen and is using Sam's. Beyond that we're relatively free of technology, and yet we feel its tidal pull. Email must be checked, Facebook page maintained, mp3 players managed, research for school (something actually productive!), and checking the blog reader. Homework on the computer is accompanied by Instant Messages, and other chatter and distractions.

Unplugging is a conscious effort, hard work most of the time met with resistence. We took a trip last October to Big Bend National Park as part of unplugging, but an mp3 player or 2 went along, and all the pre-trip planning happened online. It was successful but we were swept back into the tech current as we returned home.

I can't argue against a regular respite from the information superhighway, on a family basis too, but its a planned, announced event.