Time Off For Golf: All Good Things Must End

And so it came to pass that my little stint of time off between jobs had to come to an end. It was a beautiful run, though. Sure, I got a little sick during my time off, but there's nothing to be done about that. Since I last posted here, when I claimed to have the secret to breaking 90, I played 3 rounds, shooting a 98, a 102, and a 97. Sigh. However, I did play all three rounds at somewhat more difficult courses, and none of them were rounds played with one college buddy. So I may still have the secret.

I did set a goal, though. I claimed that I wanted to make a birdie. And make a birdie I did, the very next time I played. In fact, for good measure, I made another one in my last round of retirement golf. That was good, good stuff. That last round started out sort of well, in that I managed to par the first hole I played. That's only sort of good, because a par on the first hole inexplicably almost always leads to a bad round for me. I tried to put that out of my head, though, and I broke completely new ground when I birdied the second hole. I had definitely never been one under through two holes before. I was at even par through three holes when I bogeyed the third. There was pretty much only one way to go from there for me, though, and I limped through the first nine with a 44. I was pretty happy with it, though. That's pretty good for me on a tough course. However, with the sickness I was fighting off, I just didn't have the energy to play while walking the course, and I pretty much stumbled my way through the back nine with a 53, and there's nothing good to say about that.

But hey, I managed to play 11 rounds during my mini, retirement. I broke 100 all but 2 times, and I broke 90 3 times, when my goal was only to break 90 once. My second goal was to get a birdie, and I managed to get two of them. So I'd say there's something to be said for this goal-making thing. That said, in case anyone is paying attention, my goal during the next couple of months is to become fortuitously, inexplicably, and absurdly rich, at which point I'll go back to playing a lot of golf.

So I've come back out of retirement, and today was a day of orientations and meetings. But it was nice, since it was seeing lots of old friends at my new/old company. I'm not going to be too hasty about things, though. So to ease my way back into things, my second day on the job will be at the company golf tournament.

Now that retirement golf is over, I'll probably go back to writing about the normal random garbage that the 2.3 of you reading this originally got used to. Until then, may your drives be long and straight, and may your putts roll true.

Time Off For Golf: I Have the Secret

When I set out to play a lot of golf whilst in between jobs, I hoped to break 90 before it was all said and done. And I started out decently well, breaking 100 2 out of my first three rounds while playing some pretty tough courses. Last Thursday, I headed down to Charlottesville to play a round with my college roomie. We played a very short, easy course. Plus, it was only a part 70, whereas the courses I had played before had been pars 71 and 72. I had played it before a few times, but the best I had shot was a 91. Last Thursday, though, despite not being able to drive the ball or do much of anything very well, I managed to shoot an 87. I even left quite a few strokes in the bag. I was pretty happy with that round, though. I wasn't as happy as I was on Sunday, when I played another short course with another college friend and shot another 87. That one wasn't long, but it wasn't quite easy, either, and I was completely ecstatic with that one. I played again with the same college buddy on Monday, on another short course, but I put up a 47 on the front. However, I put together a personal best string of 6 consecutive 4's to finish of the back 9 and ended up with an 89. So that was 3 rounds in a row in the 80's. I rule!

I took Tuesday off from golf due to some other plans, but I got back out today and walked the course I shot a 95 or 96 on last week. After waiting on 4 holes to start out, the slow foursome in front of me finally waved me through, and it was smooth sailing from there on. However, I only managed to put together a 95.

So it would seem that the secret to breaking 90 is 1) play with a college buddy and 2) play a short course. We'll see if we have a chance to test that before I go back to work.

The main goal now is to get a birdie. I haven't had one in a long time, and I'd like to think I'm due. I've had at least 5 birdie putts lip out in my last two round, so maybe I'm getting dialed in.

Change of Pace/ Fore!

Things have been shaken up a bit for the Kid lately. See, I'm changing jobs. My old company encouraged me to come back and join them, and I've decided to do so. I've had a good run at my current company, but this was a good opportunity that I just couldn't pass up.

In my thoroughly extensive experience with accepting job offers (this is the third time I've done it), the new company always wants you to start right away. Things are happening. We need you to get in here and hit the ground running. The world is going to explode in 24 hours, and ONLY YOU CAN STOP IT! You know what I'm talking about. And, while you may be Jack Bauer, I am not, and I think the urgency, by and large, is a bunch of hooey. Since I got out of college last century, I haven't been off of work for more than a week in one stretch. OK, maybe about 10 calendar days. Either way, it's not a very long time, and I want a break. So, what with some vacation time at my current job and not starting right away at the new/old company, I'm not going to start until the 17th. I'm VERY excited about that.

People keep asking me what I'm going to do with my time off, and the question is positively pregnant with expectations. Am I going to travel the world? Build an addition on the house? Finally solve the mystery that is Amelia Earhart's disappearance? In a word, no, no, no. (Yes, that's one word. It's just repeated three times.) What I am going to do is relax. I don't want to go on trips or do anything particularly strenuous. I'm staying at home and chilling out.

I do have one thing I want to do with my time, though. I'm going to try to play golf at least every weekday until I start the new gig unless my body can't handle that much golf in such a concentrated dose. Or unless I just decide that I want to stay in bed or something. I broke 90 for the second time ever earlier this year, and I'm hoping that I might manage to do it one more time during the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted. Seriously, I will. I've decided that I'm going to write something about all the rounds I play before I start the new job. So if your eyes glaze over and you end up face down and drooling on your keyboard when I start talking about golf, you might want to stay away for a while. Otherwise, I'll be talking at you again soon.

Providing a marvelous segue (Look at that word. Don't you just love to see it in print? I certainly do. It's very cool, as far as words go. "Segue." There it is again! But I digress.) between working and my golf-filled time off, my last "working" day at the current gig was playing a round of golf in an outing that I had set up with the clients. It was marvelous, and we even played at a course that is one that I would almost never pay to play because it is too expensive. We played at Westfields. I had played there once before when I first started playing, and I shot a 75. On the front 9. So you could say that I got my money's worth if you think of it in terms of dollars per stroke. But I loved the course, which is just lovely, if quite challenging. So I was excited to play there again. This time I shot a 95 for all 18 holes. My normally wild driver did a good job of keeping the ball on the course off the tee, and I had three blow up holes that kept me from breaking 90. It was a marvelous Fall day, and ... well ... I'm looking forward to getting back out on the links tomorrow.

Have a great Monday. Hit 'em straight.

P.S. If you'd like to join me for a round in the next couple of weeks, let me know. I'm probably up for it.

Go Team!

I've been meaning to post about this for a while, but I didn't manage to pull the pictures off of my phone until now. It turns out that I'm not the only one who felt the need to evaluate things and set some goals at the beginning of this year. In fact, I guess it's pretty normal. Two days a week or so, I travel to the offices of a big company to do work there, rather than tooling from home in a virtual kind of way. Early in January, I found the evidence that someone in the big company had done some evaluation and wanted to set some goals. However, as is often the case in a big company, this evaluator couldn't achieve this goal alone. To solicit help, this person posted a nicely printed, laminated sign in all the kitchens. (Really, I only know that it was posted in one kitchen, as I didn't check any of the others, but it would really not make sense to put it the others. So we'll just assume it was put all over the place.) Here's a picture of the sign they posted:

Now, I think we can probably agree that this message conveys a serious, noble, and worthwhile message. Using fewer napkins seems somehow eco-friendly, and it's pretty easy for most people to get behind eco-friendly. However, it's even easier for me to get behind funny, and I enjoyed seeing that there are other people who think funny beats most things, including eco-friendly. This funny person posted a sign in response:

I love it! And I'm glad I snapped some pics, as the second sign was removed quite speedily. The first one remains, though. I still chuckle when I see it, just thinking of the second one.

GO TEAM!

I Sit Resolved

Well, what the hell ... I'll go ahead and stand resolved, although that sounds like a lot of work. Besides, it fits better with the year ahead (more on that later).

While I haven't yet written a by-the-numbers (or any other) type of look back at 2006 (but I likely will), I wanted to go ahead and talk about 2007. As I've mentioned before, in general, I'm against making resolutions to start the new year. Maybe it's because everyone does it, and I think I'm unique and counter-cultural and such (says the Kid in his friggin' blog). Maybe it's because it's exhausting to hear people talk about them. Maybe it's because it's harder to fail to live to up to resolutions you don't make. Maybe it's because I think they're for namby-pamby, touchy-feely types who decide they're going to be funnier (they aren't) or happier (it's a 50-50 shot) or smarter (no chance) or better to the environment (possibly). (Remind me to tell you more about that environment one another time.) But maybe, just maybe my real issue here is with the connotation I've attached to the word "resolution." So I've decided to not make any resolutions for 2007.

I can make some goals, though. That would clearly be a very different thing. Goals are good, right? Everyone needs goals. So without more of this nomadic preamble, I present to you Abs's Major Initiatives 2007.

Because, dammit!
This cleverly-named initiative could more clearly be called "Procrastinate Less," But I like cleverly-named things, and "Be Less Annoyingly Snarky and Obtuse" didn't make the cut this year. The truth is that the ability to procrastinate runs strong in my family. My granny had it. (Perhaps that's the real reason that her ashes are still attending Christmas gatherings.) My father has it. My mother has it. My brother has it. And I have it.

In college, a couple of guys in my dorm and I considered ourselves to be the Pillars of the Dorm Procrastination Team. Any one of the three who actually tried to study was absolutely ridiculed by the other two. Twisting the Nike catch phrase of the day, our slogan was "Why Do It?" Amazingly, we all managed to stick around and graduate, but we never stopped mildly reveling in our tendency and ability to put things off. And that's fine, but I'm hoping to do it less this year.

In case you're wondering whether I see the irony in stating my goal to procrastinate less this year at the beginning of the second month of the year, I do. And I think you should shut the hell up about it. First, this isn't your post. More importantly, I said I was going to do it less, not eliminate it entirely.

More than anything, though, I think this goal feeds directly into the second initiative ...

Clean Apartment 2007
My apartment is generally a mess. It's not a crazy mess that you can't walk through or see table tops or get attacked by mutant killer bacteria or anything, but it is generally cluttered and just messy. I honestly like the apartment better when it's clean, but I don't at all like cleaning it. Really, it's just that I put off things like putting away clean clothes, putting books back on the shelves, putting dirty clothes in the laundry nook, taking the trash or recycling out, dealing with my mail, and generally getting rid of the dead bodies. So you see that procrastination plays a big part here. Really, I'm thinking the "Because, dammit!" initiative will mostly take care of this one. That way, I get two goals for the price of one, and that's just good sense.

Neither of these really have much to do with the third and most important initiative ...

Find a Better Hiding Place
No, I don't have a bunch of jam-handed, ankle-biting youngsters around who are better at playing Hide and Seek than I am. This is another obscurely but perhaps cleverly named initiative. The one I'm playing Hide and Seek with is Death. He's "it," though.

The key here is to be healthier. My family tree shows many a wound from heart attacks and strokes and diabetes and loquacity. (At least it would if someone put together my family tree. And if family trees had wounds from the entrants' health and other problems.) Since I'm not likely to do anything about the wordiness, I thought I'd concentrate more on the health problems. At this point, I haven't really suffered from anything worse than some allergies and bad ankles, but I reckon I have to try to get out of the way of those more major issues now rather than when they come knocking on the door because they keep you from finding good hiding places. Having one of those things is akin to hiding in the middle of a brightly lit room. That robe-wearin', scythe-carryin' bitch called Death has no trouble at all finding those types of people. I reckon being healthier helps one find a better hiding place.

If you want a more entertaining explanation of the reasoning behind such an initiative, take a gander at Kevin Smith's blog. I share several of his reasons, and he writes them better. Besides, Silent Bob speaking is a good thing.

How do I plan on being healthier? By the magic plan of eating things I don't love and doing things I'd rather not do. Don't eat pizza or chips and queso quite as often. Eat some damned vegatables. Get off the couch and go to the gym once in a while. Eat better and exercise more. I heard somewhere that it's good for you.

Still, that's a bunch of hand waving. In this particular case, I need to be able to quantify things. So, recognizing that this ought to be a long-haul type of goal, I'm setting the relatively modest aim of weighing 10% less than I do now on December 31, 2007. Really, it's 10% less than when I actively started this initiative, which was two whole days ago, but you get the idea. I don't know if that sounds like a lot to you, but I think it's pretty daggone modest when you look at what some people do.

That's about it. I could have come up with more, but I think that I have quite enough to be going on with this year. Besides, I can do those others next year.