Sunday, May 09, 2004

Happy Mother's Day! :) 12:44:56 PM    comment []

Golf - Plateau Club - Relax! I played alone at the Plateau Club yesterday -- strange because while there was gorgeous weather there was no one else either in front of, or behind me for the whole 18 holes.  Because of this, I took a chance to try some different shots, try a few different ways of playing some of the holes.  The problem is that just about everything that was going well was also going poorly for part of the day so it was hard to take anything away.  One holes 2, 6 and 17, I hit the green in regulation with some beautiful shots, but then 3 putted for bogey. On other holes, my approach shots were crappy, leaving me way off the green, but then I would sink a long putt to get to my bogey.  16 was a good example.  Drive to the left side of the fairway, second shot not bad but behind a tree to the left of the green, third shot an overzealous bump and run that runs all the way across the green.  Fourth shot a chip that lands about 15 feet from the hole. Sink the putt for bogey.  Sheesh. The final score was 90, though I played enough "try it" shots that it is hard to feel like that is a real score since you really aren't supposed to play two balls, or take any practice shots during a round.  One thing I did start to figure out, though, is that as a round goes on, I get more tense and tension leads to inconsistent shots.  I start trying to control the club too much and then I lose control of the shots.  I started to see this happening yesterday and made a conscious effort to relax and most of the time it made a huge difference.  I took out my 4 iron for my tee shot on the 15th hole and made one of the most relaxed swings ever.  It was a fantastic shot and the ball just took off.  It went about 20 yards past the flag but it was still quite nice to get that feeling.  The same thing happened with some pitch shots where when I relaxed the club just slid under the ball and it was as smooth as silk.  Again, it went way too far but that is because I am figuring distance for a different swing than I am using.  So I need to work on this relaxing thing.  Perhaps I wil go to the range now and try it out. 12:44:28 PM    comment []

Saturday, May 08, 2004

Getting Organized I have a lot of pictures on my computer.  And a lot of music.  Perhaps not compared to some people I work with, but compared with most normal people, I have quite a few.  Over the past six years, I have taken (and kept) 18,500 digital photographs and I have ripped almost my entire CD collection which comprises nearly 600 discs.  The challenges have always been how to quickly and easily get to all of these files from the different computers in my house and how to back them up safely.  In the past, I've kept both collections up on a file server but as they continue to grow, and as applications that use this content continue to count on them always being on the local computer (and have crappy performance when they are not) I've been trying to figure out a better way. So last night, I started using FolderShare to solve this problem.  I organized my folders of photos into years and created FolderShare libraries for each year.  Then I did the same thing for music. Music was a bit tougher since I can't change my folder hierarchy without breaking my in-home music player and FolderShare has a limit of 10,000 files in a library.  By getting rid of WMP's album art files and a bunch of desktop.ini files, I got under the limit though, we'll see how long that lasts....  Then I went to other PCs in the house and started subscribing to those libraries.  On my main desktop machine, I subscribed to all of the photos libraries within the My Pictures folder and it started syncing them.  Then on my Media Center PC, I subscribed to the music library.  Looks like it will be a while before they are done syncing but I am looking forward to being able to work on local files, add new ones locally as well, and then have all of the locations synchronized to the changes I make on the files.  Now I can use Digital Image Suite to tag my photos and all of the copies of those photos will be updated with the metadata.  Windows Media Player can add the levelling and metadata to my music files and it will flow back to my server copies as well.  The syncing continues.. 9:06:02 AM    comment []

Monday, May 03, 2004

10.5 I'm watching 10.5 on NBC.  Wow, this is amazing.  For something as hyped as this it has the worst of everything!  Terrible acting.  Inane script.  The cheesiest special effects in any disaster movie ever.  The silliest science.  This movie makes Airplane! look like a Nova special. My favorite part is that they can travel to any place in the state of California in about 15 minutes.  The scientists go from their command post (where is that?  They can feel every earthquake there!) to Northern California and back in a just a couple of hours.    The governor's daugher and ex husband got from Redding to Barstow in the back of a pickup truck in the biggest traffic jam in history in a few more hours.  An earthquake chased a train up the tracks creating a fault only just wider than the tracks until it ate the train, then it stopped (must have needed more iron).  Fusing a fault line?  Huh?  Dule Hill's character arrives at a tent city large enough to hold Los Angeles and starts calling out for his wife, like she can hear him among the 20 million people around them (he finds them).  Oh yeah, and Bo Duke used to be much better at getting out of a car through the window. It's so bad, I can't stop watching!  10:08 - The FEMA guy is going to climb down the hole!!!  What an ass.  Why don't they send down the guy who fell off the truck? 10:13 - Would his cell phone still work 400 feet below ground in a 4 foot wide hole? 10:14 - Nuclear warheads can be opened without any tools 10:16 - That's gotta hurt.  I guess it was a bad idea for him to send everyone away before climbing down the hole.  10:18 - Hi Zach?  You're not going to believe where I am! 10:20 - Why does anyone think I care about these Nolan guys? 10:21 - They have an amazing ability to keep electricity during earthquakes. 10:22 - Cool, a satellite that shows underground nuclear explosions as fireballs 10:23 - This isn't over yet.  Damn.  It isn't a disaster movie until you've toasted L.A. 10:28 - YAY Washington is saved! 10:29 - Couldn't they just drill another nuke to stabilize it?  Oh my god!  I'm thinking like THEM! 10:32 - Magnetic pull affecting a river?  No.. It's the San Andreas Toilet! 10:39 - Why are they going to Barstow when they can get anywhere in California in that helicopter in 15 minutes?  Why are they wasting 2 doctors on one patient?  10:40 - How does she know "this is it"? 10:41 - Montage of cardboard house destruction 10:42 - OK, why would you put an earthquake evacuation center on the San Andreas fault?  Or is something else rupturing? 10:43 - It's the new Grand Canyon! 10:43 - I'm betting the count gets up to ..oh I don't know... 10.5? 10:48 - Where are they running to?  Crap, now I've lost my own sentence struture..ed..ness 10:50 - hmm... bad planning on that tent city location 10:50 - Ahhhh... soothing music.  Perhaps I'll .... just.... go.....to...slee..... 10:51 - huh?  YAY 10.5!  Almost over! 10:52 - Did they film the shaky scenes by turning a steadicam into reverse? 10:53 - Know what they need right now?  Moses! 10:54 - Oh..wait....  Everything is fine now.  Everyone hug. 10:54 - wow.  that sucked.  10:56 - Local news comes on to tell us that all of this probably won't happen. 10:00:59 PM    comment []

Sunday, May 02, 2004

Golf - Plateau Club Paul and I were joined by a co-worker of mine named Dave today at the Plateau Club.  The day started out kind of rainy, but the weather improved so that by the end, it was a gorgeous day.  My golf, on the other hand, did the opposite starting well, but deteriorating pretty quickly. I have at least 5 reasons why this happened, which most likely means that none of them are true, but it is somewhat comforting to know that I have excuses that can help alleviate the sense that I sucked today :)  I think it all started on the first tee, when Paul told Dave that I have the most amazing luck in the world.  That I will get 9 out of 10 good bounces.  Of course, this jinxed me in a big way and from that point on, I got no good bounces for the rest of the day.  This, by the way, is not one of my five excuses -- though perhaps it should be number six... I got par on the first hole (jinxes take a little time to take effect, I imagine there is paperwork or something).  On the third hole (which is now playing from a new tee box) my second shot draws a bit too much and hits a hill to the left of the green bouncing into the water.  Hmph.  I take my drop and chip the ball to the green and it nearly goes in but nearly isn't enough and I get a bogey here.  Bogey on 5 after a perfect drive to 100 yards away.  This is where it gets nutty.  On the 6th hole, I figure I shouldn't use my driver and I take my 3 wood for a safe shot.  I pull it a little, but it clears the bunker and I see it taking some good bounces.  There is a lot of junk at the end of the fairway at about 225 yards but I've never been in it, until today.  Yes, my 3 wood goes all the way past the fairway and just into the hazard.  The good news is that it is sitting up on a tuft of grass (probably needed just one more signature on the jinx paperwork at this point) and I hit it over the junk into the fairway on the other side.  Flubbed chip, good chip, 2 putts and I'm double bogey.  Clearly by this point, all of the paperwork is signed and I enter the jinx zone, because I double bogey the next six holes.  I snuck in a couple of more pars on the back 9, but everything else was double bogeys from that point onward.  Paul played pretty well, scoring a 79.  He had some great shots, including a nice birdie putt on 5 and a very nice par save on 17 when he thought he had lost his chance to break 80.  I ticked him off when I kept pointing out that he tends to tee the ball up just ahead of the tee markers.  It's not like that gives him any real advantage, and I know he doesn't mean to do it but I tease him about it from time to time.  On the 14th hole, he did it and he got pretty annoyed.  That was the only hole that he ended up with a double bogey so I stopped mentioning it. Heh. Rick, it seems had two great rounds earlier this week at the Plateau Club, shooting an 84 and 85.  I guess it's my turn with the icky game.  I hope it goes away soon :) 9:29:14 PM    comment []

Sunday, April 25, 2004

Golf - Newcastle China Creek The old gang was back at it today at Newcastle.  Rick, Paul, Dan and I got a very early start playing China Creek.  The weather was great, though a little cold early on.  Newcastle had just punched the greens last Monday, so they were a bit sandy and much faster than Plateau's greens were last weekend. Overall I shot a very inconsistent 90.  My irons were rocking on most of the par 3s (I par'd 3 out of 5 of them) including my shot of the day on the second hole where I hit my Taylor Made Rescue 4 iron  to about 7 feet.  Missed the birdie putt of course, but after my double bogey on 1, I was happy to get such a nice par.  My Ignite driver was either spot on, or waaaay right today.  I had probably 4 really good drives with it, but some real stinkers too.  On the 16th hole, I sliced the ball so hard, it crossed the street and hit some people's house.  As we roll up in the carts, the guy is standing in front of his house tossing my ball in the air. Fortunately, it didn't hit any glass or people so they thought it was pretty funny.  He tossed it back into the fairway. That's an outside agent, right? My iron shots are getting much longer now, though it is tough to tell how long a given shot will go anymore.  One one of the par 5s, I hit a good drive to the right side just off the fairway.  I was still 235 yards from the green, so I figured I would just lay up with my 5 iron -- if I hit it well, it should go about 160 or so and I'll have 75 yards in to the green.  I hit that 5 iron perfectly, it was like I didn't hit anything at all.  The ball took off and flew a good 180 yards with a little draw across the fairway.  Wow, that was cool!  Fortunately, there wasn't that much trouble there.  I also hit a couple of great 4 irons shots that flew long and straight.  I think I would have done better today if I had relied more on my irons and less on my driver.  A good plan for the next round if the Ignite does not return to it's traditional booming straight drives. Realistically, I should create a playbook for what to do when certain clubs are hot and when certain clubs are not.  If the woods aren't doing well after the first couple of holes (or on the range) start teeing off with the rescue 3.   When the irons are working (like they did today) go 5i, 5i, 5i on the par 5s.  The main thing I need right now is a good driving range with good practice balls so I can start to map out what my distances are now.  I know they are longer now than they used to be but I don't know exactly what anything is anymore.  My 7 iron used to go 125 yards about a year ago, now it is 140 to 150 but I would really like to know for sure what these shots are going like.  Does anyone know of a good practice facility like this? Heh--- I say that like people who I haven't already asked read this... :) 3:53:49 PM    comment []

Sunday, April 18, 2004

Golf - Plateau Club - 2 Putt Tournament Back from our trip to DC and I was ready for some golf.  It was great watching Phil Mickelson win the Masters last week and I wanted to see if I could make any magic of my own ;) The Plateau Club punched their fairways and greens last week, so the greens were bumpy and sandy.  Because of this, they switched around the club tournament schedule so that the automatic 2 putt tournament was today. The deal is that you only need to count your first two putts and you turn your score in with no more than 2 putts on any hole.  It turns out that I didn't even need that since the sand made the putts roll pretty straight (though quite bouncy) and I never had anything more than a 2 putt the whole day.  Driver was great again and while I only hit 4 of 14 fairways, I was never very far from it and was pretty much always in good shape for my second shot. I still love my irons.  Rick bought a new set and was saying that the Pro Combos are not right for our skill level, but I still love them and hit them better than my old TA5 game improvement irons so I am happy to stick with them.  It is great to be able to pull any iron up to my 4 and feel confident that it will go nice and straight when I hit it 90+% of the time.  The misses are short, and that was what cost me one ball today on #6, but that was as much from choosing the wrong club for that shot as anything. In the end, I shot a 93.  If it weren't for avoidable triple bogeys on holes 2 and 6, I would have an 89.  Generally, my play was very consistent, short game was good, putting was good, driving was good, and recovery shots were good as well.  Oh, and the weather was gorgeous! 6:38:11 PM    comment []

Sunday, April 04, 2004

Golf - Plateau Club Today seemed like a good day to play golf for two reasons.  First, the sun came up, which is one of my prerequisites for a day in general.  The second is today's date is 4/4/04, or as I like to call it, Fore/Fore/Fore.  What better day to play!  Since it has been warm and dry for the last few days, the course was in very good shape.  No splashy mud ball golf today. Since Paul and Rick had been playing for the last few days (or had other engagements) , I was on my own.  I showed up at the club at about 8:00 and got a 9:15 tee time, joining a father/son pair. They are an interesting pair, the son (Kevin) is about 11 or so and plays great for his age.  He can really crush his Taylor Made R540 and has great control of his irons.  He reminds me of Paul (though much shorter) in that he is obsessed with Tiger and Nike.  Nike shirt, bag, glove, TW hat, super soft ball. The only thing that wasn't Nike was his clubs and it sounds like he had been asking his dad for an Ignite driver.  Heh.  I head down to the range to hit some balls, and EVERYTHING is going straight and far. Uh oh... I'm going to use up all the good stuff on the range!  It turns out that is only partially true.  When I head to the first tee, I pull out the Ignite for it's first round at the Plateau and crush a drive about 240 yards down the middle.  Cool!  3i over the junk.  Nice!  Crap up a pitch, but make the next one and start out with a bogey.  Not a bad start.  The funny thing about Kevin was that we kept hitting our Nike balls to about the same place.  On the second hole, we are both in the fairway within 15 feet of each other and our second shots both hit the green near the back within 3 feet of each other.  That actually goes on for several holes. On the fifth hole, a dogleg left, I pull my driver just to see what will happen.  I try to cut the corner over the bunkers and what do you know, it works!  I hit it 220 over the bunker and end up in the fairway with about 100 yards to the pin.  My next shot is a little short, but I still end up with a bogey and I'm feeling pretty good about being +3 after 5 holes. On both par 3s on the front nine, I have excellent tee shots that end up within 12 feet of the hole.  I miss the birdie putts by only a couple of inches and end up with pars.  On 8, I hit my driver 235 yards and it stops just short of the left bunker at the top of the hill.  Then I hit a 7 iron which lands just short of the green on the right side, kicks left and rolls to about 7 feet from the hole.  Another missed birdie putt, but as Charles Barkley says, I am really feelin' it today.  I finish the front 9 with a 43 -- my best ever from the golds, and I'm feeling pretty good going to the back 9. At this point, Kevin and his dad take off but the other member of our foursome (Ryan) and I continue on.  Now since there is just two of us, we really start running into the threesome in front of us.  Bogeys on the next three holes, and then things start getting worse.  My irons shots, which have been right on all day long, start getting looser.  More shots heading left and a bunch of under hit chip shots make me close with 5 double bogeys on the last 6 holes.  Dang, it was going so well.... So in the end, I finish with a 93, not great, not too terrible but there was a point there where it was looking like I would shoot in the upper 80s.  I think it all started to fall apart when I told Ryan, "this game sure is fun when the ball goes where you intend for it to go."  The golf gods will get you for saying things like that.  The other thing they get you for is thinking "hey... I've had the same ball for the last 9 holes!". In summary, I was making great contact with the ball today and until we started slowing down and waiting a bunch, I was hitting a lot of great shots and missing putts by just the smallest margins.  I need to work on my chipping though.  Way too many wimpy chips that didn't get as far as they should have.     3:33:11 PM    comment []

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