Steel Kaleidoscopes

Quote of the Day

"If you fail to prepare, you're prepared to fail."

— Mark Spitz, Olympic swimmer

The Bachelor Life?

I prefer chaos.

With my wife and daughter enjoying the Florida sunshine with nana, I have the house to myself for a few days.

I have football, golf and baseball on three TVs.

No matter where I roam, I have an update.

I add an extra piece of cheese on my grilled cheese, I overcook my eggs and I eat strawberry ice cream from the container.

I play my music very loud and I'm probably wearing clothes that don't quite match.

I eat Freeze Pops and enjoy a glass of Bordeaux.

But it's eerily quiet. And dark.

There's no conversation, no complaining at bath time and no Noggin.

There's no one to call me "daddy" and no one to ask me how the moon stays in the sky.

I cook my own dinner, make my own lunch and try to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

But it's too peaceful.

And kind of lonely.

I prefer chaos.

Letting Go

Sometimes you just have to toss stuff.

I'm guilty of being a pack rat, meaning I save things that should probably go in the trash.

It's the nostalgic spirit in me, as I often like to reflect on the past and cherish the journey that got me here.

But enough is enough.

The other day, I ventured to the large plastic containers under the basement steps and established four criteria for whether or not I hold onto something or it goes in the trash.

1. Do I want to die with this?

2. Will my daughter be interested in it?

3. Will it help me in my career?

4. Can I sell it?

If the answer was "no" to all four, it got tossed.  

I threw out several hundred Sports Illustrated and Baseball Digest magazines, dating back to the early '70s.

I went through them one by one, enjoying for the last time the SI covers of Cal Ripken, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.

Baseball Digest was my first-ever magazine subscription, so these were a bit harder to part with. Stories about Hank Aaron, Harmon Killebrew, Roberto Clemente, rookie Carlton Fisk and The Big Red Machine took me back to a more innocent time.

But the answer was an emphatic "no" to the four criteria questions, so out they went.

And life just got simpler.

The Economy

Have a good idea.

Build things.

Make money, spend money.

Buy a house, take a vacation.

Have another good idea.

Give a little, take a little.

Take risks, be safe.

Form alliances, start a family, instill good values.

Make money, spend money.

The Pipe Man

So I'm taking a brisk walk yesterday, as I like to do mid-afternoon to clear my head, and I see a tall older gentleman smoking a pipe.

Unfortunately, he's walking ahead of me, puffing on his pipe every 50 feet or so, the waff of tobacco lingering for me to walk through.

Who smokes a pipe in public these days?

What is this, 1957?

People still smoke cigarettes. And you occasionally see idiotic college boys smoking cigars. But who smokes a pipe?

Maybe it was Sherlock Holmes.

It just seems odd.

Quote of the Day

"Today will never happen again. Don't waste it with a false start or no start at all."

— Og Mandino, Salesman/Author

Squeezed on the Golf Course

So my friend Richard and I play golf yesterday, getting a 7:16 a.m. tee time.

It's 38 degrees on the drive to Butternut Farm Golf Club, but the forecast is sunny.

We're enjoying the late-summer morning with a fall feel, the condensation from the night chill meeting the rising sun, the fairways and greens shimmering in fantastic dew-drop light.

That is until we see the group ahead of us.

As we're waiting to tee off on the par-4 third hole, the three guys in front of us have two carts pulled over to the right, a full ball-search exposition in play.

No biggie, we think. They'll punch out and be on their way.

Wrong.

After about five minutes, one of the guys drives his cart to the left side of the fairway and begins searching for his ball. So, yeah, this guy considered it more important to help his playing partners find their ball before he starts looking for his lost ball.

Meanwhile, one of the guys, dressed neatly in khakis and a fall-fashion blue shirt, stops in the middle of the fairway and begins tossing up blades of grass into the breeze-less sky to check wind conditions.

We wait. And wait. And wait.

Meanwhile, the twosome behind us has caught up with us and is lingering in the woods behind the tee box.

So now we're behind the tortoises and with the hares on our heels.

Stuck in a bad place.

Coming off the fifth tee, we get a closer look at the twosome behind us.

It's two women, and one of them looks just like Laura Davies (but it's not).

I say "good morning" to Davies and she grunts something undecipherable.

Whatever.

We have an enjoyable round of golf. We hit some great shots, some good shots and some bad shots. Good conversation. Beautiful day. Slow pace.

We wait for the three guys ahead of us and become more annoyed when we realize, at the 12th tee, that these guys are playing from the blues.  So not only are they slow, but they think they play better than they play.

And the whole while, Davies and her playing partner (who looks like Juli Inkster) are right on our heels.

We hit our tee shots on the short par-4 14th and wait for the green to clear. We turn around and there are Davies and Inkster, standing at the women's tees, watching us.

Over the course of the round, we find we are more annoyed with Davies and  Inkster than we are with the guys in front of us. We don't mind waiting; we don't like being stalked.

The topper is at the par-3 16th green. As I'm lining up a par putt, Davies says something very loud (perhaps to Inkster, perhaps to someone else), and I push my putt right, then miss the bogey putt and settle for a 5.

Annoying.

In the end, it's a beautiful day for golf and both Richard and I play OK.

But it was a morning feeling squeezed, caught in between the tortoises and the hares.

Enough!

Enough with you talking or texting on your cell phone standing in line at Starbucks.

Get your damn coffee, then make your phone call.

And no, it's not multitasking.

It's being an annoying person.

Lyrics of the Day

"I was doing time in the universal mind. I was feeling fine."

— Jim Morrison, 1970

MJ in London

 

While in London two weeks after Michael Jackson's death, phone booths were promoting the "Thriller - Live show" in recognition of the pop star's 50th birthday.

Guess you wouldn't expect promoters to change the creative to recognize his death, but I still found it odd.