I can't believe it's been a week since my last post.
I can go hot and cold with this stuff.
Some updates:
The Sleep Apnea issue remains interesting. I had another sleep test last night that required me to spend the night hooked up to the same dizzying array of cords, and doohickeys that would monitor my every breath, heartbeat, eye movement, and leg twitch. This time, I also had a mask strapped to my face that helped me to breath through my nose.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale Exhale. All through the nose....if I got greedy or lazy and tried to breath through my mouth, then the system would crash and the technician would scramble into my room muttering things like, "You have to breath through YOUR NOSE!" As if I knew exacty how the hell I was breathing WHILE SLEEP in the first place?
At 3am we tried a full face mask that covered up my nose and mouth. No matter how I breathed, this mask would help me. I looked like a fighter pilot and had a horrible time even turning from side to side. You have to make sure the mask stays flush on your face or else air leaks out and we're back to square one. I also sounded like Darth Vader when I tried to talk. I TRIED to sound like Lord Vader which didn't help either. I am able to sustain my sense of humor even under duress in the middle of the night. I swtiched back to a nose unit about 4am for the remainder of the night. I think I did okay - we'll see when I get my report back next week.
To get my cholesterol down, Doc Eells told me to have some red yeast rice each night. After 3 grocery stores, Janae decided to ASK someone where this stuff was.....It is a dietary supplement and can be found in the vitamin aisle....not in the pasta section. Ooops. Our bad. We don't cook much.
My golf game is on the rocks however I must get it back in shape and soon. I am going to Pebble Beach in two weeks, then Valhalla the week after. Valhalla is the sight of a former PGA Championship. It's in Kentucky and is supposed to be a great track. When traveling for golf, I always ask the starter what the course record is, and my brother-in-law Wade chirps in, "Safe." We do this at all the top courses we play. WE CRACK OURSELVES UP. The assistant pros in these shops are all in their late 20's. All are super serious. Few have a sense of humor, and most make around 45 grand a year.... where does their attitude come from? Lighten up guys.
Jake is doing GREAT in Ecuador. He had his first Baptism a few weeks ago. He is struggling with eating the fresh seafood that comes from the Golfo de Guayaquil. Tuna,Shrimp.....he hates this stuff but has to eat it or else starve. I guess they don't have any "Farm Basket's" or "Macayo's" down there?
Janae and I took my mom to see "Jersey Boys" last weekend. It was a lot of fun. The music was great and the story was entertaining. Some people will complain about the language and want to storm out, but that's the way they talk back in Jersey. Get over it. Just remember: Those people will go to hell, not you.
The Kite Runner is an incredible film. It is also a heartbreaker....if you are going to watch this movie, bring some tissue along. Yeah, even you tough guys will need some.
American Idol? Archuleta will win, David "Big Noggin'" Cook will take 2nd, and Brook White 3rd.....Castro leaves tonight, Seesha leaves next week... And you have an opinion on this? BRING IT.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The O Bar
I sped off at lunchtime Tuesday in search of an oxygen bar.
I found one up on the NE corner of Durango and Charleston. It's actually a tanning salon that has an oxygen bar. I asked the girl (who was like 18) if inhaling their oxygen would be good for a guy with sleep apnea. She said, "Oh, yes. Definitely."
I wonder where she got her medical degree?
I quipped to her, "Here's another thing that we used to get for free and now have to pay for. When I was a kid we drank water out of the hose."
"Huh, what was that?" She didn't look up.
And so for $13 bucks, I was tethered to this oxygen contraption (probably some vacuum cleaner in the back flipped to blow instead of suck) for 1/2 an hour. I actually felt stupid when people walked in the door for their tanning appointments. Everyone who came in was a female and all had that embarrassed look that ALL people have when going to the tanning salon. Equally shamed, no one made any eye contact.
Keith's take on the O Bar? Worthless.
My day got more infinitely more exciting when I met Chris from Leak Detectors in my backyard. Chris was trying to help me find out why I was losing 3 inches a day out of one of the pools in the backyard (the chiquita [or baby] pool). Since Chris was by himself, and all the pumps and stuff are way on the other side of the yard, I was enlisted to help turn dials on the CO2 tank, and be on the lookout for bubbles.
I believe when I told Chris I had been to an oxygen bar earlier in the day, he knew I could handle any sort of compressed gas task with alacrity. This guy gets $325 bucks just to show up with his gear since HE KNOWS if you are the unlucky soul calling him you are seriously SOL. This ain't rocket science. I've seen Alec's math and physics books and THAT stuff really is rocket science (props to Alec for getting one of the 4 Dean's Scholarships next year that the U's science department hands out). After listening to me recite all the stuff I did and didn't do over the past few weeks in my feeble effort to locate the leak (Memo to all: Sticking your head in the sand and praying that it will fix itself is not an option), he said he was sure the leak wasn't in ANY of the lines and that it was a structural problem. Silently I scoffed at him....as if he knew my pool. Structural?!?!? Dollar signs. Yikes.
Chris slithered around the pool as I turned knobs and closed my eyes hopeful that nothing would explode. He/We located the suspected leak.....STRUCTURAL. Big crack in the spillway easily patched up. Damn. I hate being wrong. I was SURE it was a pipe. It was a $10 fix versus digging up my yard. Lady Luck smiling upon me.
Or so one would think.
1/2 hour later and I look outside: My pool is down 12 inches, water is pouring over the spillway flooding the chiquita pool and overflowing into my yard. It was like Katrina. Water everywhere. The one thing that can't happen with this pump system HAPPENED. Suction from the pool and return to the spa. This is a recipe for disaster. Seriously, this event needed to be on film.
The only thing that was missing was me accidentally electrocuting myself.
I found one up on the NE corner of Durango and Charleston. It's actually a tanning salon that has an oxygen bar. I asked the girl (who was like 18) if inhaling their oxygen would be good for a guy with sleep apnea. She said, "Oh, yes. Definitely."
I wonder where she got her medical degree?
I quipped to her, "Here's another thing that we used to get for free and now have to pay for. When I was a kid we drank water out of the hose."
"Huh, what was that?" She didn't look up.
And so for $13 bucks, I was tethered to this oxygen contraption (probably some vacuum cleaner in the back flipped to blow instead of suck) for 1/2 an hour. I actually felt stupid when people walked in the door for their tanning appointments. Everyone who came in was a female and all had that embarrassed look that ALL people have when going to the tanning salon. Equally shamed, no one made any eye contact.
Keith's take on the O Bar? Worthless.
My day got more infinitely more exciting when I met Chris from Leak Detectors in my backyard. Chris was trying to help me find out why I was losing 3 inches a day out of one of the pools in the backyard (the chiquita [or baby] pool). Since Chris was by himself, and all the pumps and stuff are way on the other side of the yard, I was enlisted to help turn dials on the CO2 tank, and be on the lookout for bubbles.
I believe when I told Chris I had been to an oxygen bar earlier in the day, he knew I could handle any sort of compressed gas task with alacrity. This guy gets $325 bucks just to show up with his gear since HE KNOWS if you are the unlucky soul calling him you are seriously SOL. This ain't rocket science. I've seen Alec's math and physics books and THAT stuff really is rocket science (props to Alec for getting one of the 4 Dean's Scholarships next year that the U's science department hands out). After listening to me recite all the stuff I did and didn't do over the past few weeks in my feeble effort to locate the leak (Memo to all: Sticking your head in the sand and praying that it will fix itself is not an option), he said he was sure the leak wasn't in ANY of the lines and that it was a structural problem. Silently I scoffed at him....as if he knew my pool. Structural?!?!? Dollar signs. Yikes.
Chris slithered around the pool as I turned knobs and closed my eyes hopeful that nothing would explode. He/We located the suspected leak.....STRUCTURAL. Big crack in the spillway easily patched up. Damn. I hate being wrong. I was SURE it was a pipe. It was a $10 fix versus digging up my yard. Lady Luck smiling upon me.
Or so one would think.
1/2 hour later and I look outside: My pool is down 12 inches, water is pouring over the spillway flooding the chiquita pool and overflowing into my yard. It was like Katrina. Water everywhere. The one thing that can't happen with this pump system HAPPENED. Suction from the pool and return to the spa. This is a recipe for disaster. Seriously, this event needed to be on film.
The only thing that was missing was me accidentally electrocuting myself.
Monday, April 21, 2008
4th Dog In
Alec and Tiffany were down over the weekend and brought their little doggie with them.
Riggins is about 5 months old. He is a Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix. This means he goes about 4 pounds soaking wet and has oversized ears that stand straight up and make him look like a baby fox. He quivers too....can't stop him.
As with all small dogs, he has a motor that DOES NOT STOP. I suspect this dog will probably need a daily dose of valium - like 2 grains - as it gets older in order to slow it down.
I have a theory that all dogs think they are the same size....or rather perhaps, size has no bearing on the fight in the dog. I submit "The Dog Park" as an example:
At the dog park,confrontation lurks everywhere. It's all about dominating the other guy. Little dogs puff out their rat-sized ribcages at the big dogs and the large breeds often just slip their tail between their legs and slink off. Laughable. And what is the deal with the CONSTANT butt sniffing? Fortunately we humans opt to shake hands, high five, knuckle it, kiss or hug each other. The whole sniffing thing is far too personal.
Riggins was constantly chasing around our other dogs that outweighed him by 4,40 and 50+ pounds respectively. No matter, he wanted a piece of them and I'm not just talking in a fighting sense.
Riggins (I generally use "Gangsta" spelling: Riggnz)would speed around the backyard so fast that I was afraid we'd lose him in one of Buddy's rather large discharges. A shitty way to go...to be sure. Buddy poops more than any dog I have ever had or have ever seen. Thankfully for us, it took the Budster about a week to be fully potty trained once we brought him home. I believe this is a record. Look it up.
The 4th Dog In is like that chemistry experiment we all did in high school that nearly blew up the lab. Riggins was only one dog and he upped the in-house litter to 4 for a few days, but took the energy level of the dog pack to a new height. Hail Riggins.
Woof
Riggins is about 5 months old. He is a Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix. This means he goes about 4 pounds soaking wet and has oversized ears that stand straight up and make him look like a baby fox. He quivers too....can't stop him.
As with all small dogs, he has a motor that DOES NOT STOP. I suspect this dog will probably need a daily dose of valium - like 2 grains - as it gets older in order to slow it down.
I have a theory that all dogs think they are the same size....or rather perhaps, size has no bearing on the fight in the dog. I submit "The Dog Park" as an example:
At the dog park,confrontation lurks everywhere. It's all about dominating the other guy. Little dogs puff out their rat-sized ribcages at the big dogs and the large breeds often just slip their tail between their legs and slink off. Laughable. And what is the deal with the CONSTANT butt sniffing? Fortunately we humans opt to shake hands, high five, knuckle it, kiss or hug each other. The whole sniffing thing is far too personal.
Riggins was constantly chasing around our other dogs that outweighed him by 4,40 and 50+ pounds respectively. No matter, he wanted a piece of them and I'm not just talking in a fighting sense.
Riggins (I generally use "Gangsta" spelling: Riggnz)would speed around the backyard so fast that I was afraid we'd lose him in one of Buddy's rather large discharges. A shitty way to go...to be sure. Buddy poops more than any dog I have ever had or have ever seen. Thankfully for us, it took the Budster about a week to be fully potty trained once we brought him home. I believe this is a record. Look it up.
The 4th Dog In is like that chemistry experiment we all did in high school that nearly blew up the lab. Riggins was only one dog and he upped the in-house litter to 4 for a few days, but took the energy level of the dog pack to a new height. Hail Riggins.
Woof
It's All About The Records......Man
Okay...sleep test came back today...interesting....very interesting....
Apparently I had 32.8 "events" per hour which is, well, bad....world class even. Diagnosis: Severe Central Sleep Apnea. This differs from obstructive apnea where muscles in the throat relax...in my case, my brain is misfiring. Yikes.
As Doc Eells was reading the statistical summary to me, I was actually laughing out loud. I mean what else was I supposed to do? When he was done spitting out all the facts, some of it in a language I had yet to understand, I looked at him and said,
"Well, is that a record?"
He laughed. Whew. Good crowd.
I was able to get a grand total of 32 minutes of REM sleep and could hold my breath for 40+ seconds on several occasions. This is quite a feat since I don't think I could hold my breath for that long if I tried to do this while wide awake and in the middle of the day.
There was all sorts of other gibberish and what not on the report about Sleep Scores, REM, Slow Sleep Wave (a new Bose product?) and Oxygen Percentage Levels that were alarmingly low. He looked at me and said, "I can't even believe you are awake right now."
I retorted, "Are you kidding, I am operating some heavy machinery later today at the airport." More laughter. I'm thinking of putting a gig together.
So I slink out of Eells office wondering just how all this is going to play out. Today, tomorrow, next month, a year from now...for the rest of my life.
I'm not gonna lie, if a dive shop were open, I'd be hooked up to a scuba tank right now inhaling oxygen...nothing like taking control of the situation. Maybe one of those oxygen chambers that Wacko-Jacko slept in? Hey, if they are comfy, why not?
Next step is going back to the sleep center to have 'em hook me up to an Auto SV Titration system (cpap?) and see how many times I can rock that joint even with oxygen.
For me, it's all about records.
Apparently I had 32.8 "events" per hour which is, well, bad....world class even. Diagnosis: Severe Central Sleep Apnea. This differs from obstructive apnea where muscles in the throat relax...in my case, my brain is misfiring. Yikes.
As Doc Eells was reading the statistical summary to me, I was actually laughing out loud. I mean what else was I supposed to do? When he was done spitting out all the facts, some of it in a language I had yet to understand, I looked at him and said,
"Well, is that a record?"
He laughed. Whew. Good crowd.
I was able to get a grand total of 32 minutes of REM sleep and could hold my breath for 40+ seconds on several occasions. This is quite a feat since I don't think I could hold my breath for that long if I tried to do this while wide awake and in the middle of the day.
There was all sorts of other gibberish and what not on the report about Sleep Scores, REM, Slow Sleep Wave (a new Bose product?) and Oxygen Percentage Levels that were alarmingly low. He looked at me and said, "I can't even believe you are awake right now."
I retorted, "Are you kidding, I am operating some heavy machinery later today at the airport." More laughter. I'm thinking of putting a gig together.
So I slink out of Eells office wondering just how all this is going to play out. Today, tomorrow, next month, a year from now...for the rest of my life.
I'm not gonna lie, if a dive shop were open, I'd be hooked up to a scuba tank right now inhaling oxygen...nothing like taking control of the situation. Maybe one of those oxygen chambers that Wacko-Jacko slept in? Hey, if they are comfy, why not?
Next step is going back to the sleep center to have 'em hook me up to an Auto SV Titration system (cpap?) and see how many times I can rock that joint even with oxygen.
For me, it's all about records.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Hit by a Truck
I have been down in bed the past few days which doesn't sit well with me at all. I like doing stuff...golf, tinkering, yard-rambo, playing with my dogs and what not. I'm not good at being stuck at home....I get cabin fever.
Whatever bug I have, it has indeed hit me like the proverbial truck - an 18 wheeler heading downhill loaded with bricks with the wind at it's back in my case. No brakes either.
I believe we can all agree that men and women react differently to sickness. Women quietly endure most of life's minor ailments and go about their life - they generally have no choice: house, kids, husband, and in some cases a job on top of all the family stuff require their attention. I make this statement: Women don't get any days off. Men? We are laughable creatures. We completely overreact to every little cough, hiccup, ache, pain, soreness, or cramp. If anyone disagrees, I welcome your argument.
Knowing I had not been feeling well, my mom raced over today with a thermometer to check on me and uttered the following lines in succession:
"You feel warm," as she felt my forehead. I rolled my eyes. Duh.
"Have you been drinking juice?" I nod affirmatively.
"Have you been eating." The last think I want to do.
"You should go to Quick Care." As if I want to sit in that hellhole of a place with germs practically visable in the air and sit there with 20 other people wheezing and coughing. There isn't enough Germ-X in the world to get me in there.
Doc Eells? I may have Janae call him tomorrow if I'm not feeling better.....perhaps a morphine and soda to kill the pain. Kidding. Sort of.
After her diagnosis, mom just sighed.....with that worried "mom" look. I am 47 years old and my mom had to see me....I couldn't stop her. I'm not gonna lie, it did cheer me up though. I am grateful for the relationship I have with my mom, and the one I had with my dad before he died in 1994. I'm lucky - we always got along....fabulously, lovingly, and usually were laughing a helluva lot.
My physical results came today in the mail and other than the sleep issue, and the fact I need to lose 10 pounds, okay 15, I'm in excellent health. This is what the doc tells me. This is what all of the bloodwork and tests tell him. So.....why does it feel like I have cancer today? I don't even know what cancer feels like, but my body aches so bad that it could give an aspirin a headache.
To top it off, Alec and Tiffany came down this weekend from SLC for a visit and I've been asleep for most of their time here. Sorry guys.
Whatever bug I have, it has indeed hit me like the proverbial truck - an 18 wheeler heading downhill loaded with bricks with the wind at it's back in my case. No brakes either.
I believe we can all agree that men and women react differently to sickness. Women quietly endure most of life's minor ailments and go about their life - they generally have no choice: house, kids, husband, and in some cases a job on top of all the family stuff require their attention. I make this statement: Women don't get any days off. Men? We are laughable creatures. We completely overreact to every little cough, hiccup, ache, pain, soreness, or cramp. If anyone disagrees, I welcome your argument.
Knowing I had not been feeling well, my mom raced over today with a thermometer to check on me and uttered the following lines in succession:
"You feel warm," as she felt my forehead. I rolled my eyes. Duh.
"Have you been drinking juice?" I nod affirmatively.
"Have you been eating." The last think I want to do.
"You should go to Quick Care." As if I want to sit in that hellhole of a place with germs practically visable in the air and sit there with 20 other people wheezing and coughing. There isn't enough Germ-X in the world to get me in there.
Doc Eells? I may have Janae call him tomorrow if I'm not feeling better.....perhaps a morphine and soda to kill the pain. Kidding. Sort of.
After her diagnosis, mom just sighed.....with that worried "mom" look. I am 47 years old and my mom had to see me....I couldn't stop her. I'm not gonna lie, it did cheer me up though. I am grateful for the relationship I have with my mom, and the one I had with my dad before he died in 1994. I'm lucky - we always got along....fabulously, lovingly, and usually were laughing a helluva lot.
My physical results came today in the mail and other than the sleep issue, and the fact I need to lose 10 pounds, okay 15, I'm in excellent health. This is what the doc tells me. This is what all of the bloodwork and tests tell him. So.....why does it feel like I have cancer today? I don't even know what cancer feels like, but my body aches so bad that it could give an aspirin a headache.
To top it off, Alec and Tiffany came down this weekend from SLC for a visit and I've been asleep for most of their time here. Sorry guys.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Sleep...Don't Take it For Granted
I used to sleep great. Now, not so much. In fact, a few years ago I could have fallen asleep on the tarmac of an airport with jet engines going off and a metal briefcase for a pillow and I would have grabbed 8, maybe 9 hours and felt great. Now? Sleep ain't so good.
I had my regular physical last month and my doc decided to send me to a Sleep Diagnostic Center since I've been tired too much lately even after 8 hours of slumber with 1000 count sheets, a goose down comforter, at least 6 pillows to strategically use to build a "sleep fort" and a fan to keep me cool at night.
A Sleep Center certainly isn't something my father's generation would understand. I guess I can't blame them - "The Greatest Generation" learned to sleep in foxholes, on battleships, in jungles, under the ocean in a submarine, smoked cigs without filters, drank black coffee and came back with tattoos of naked ladies on their forearms after kicking not on Hitler ass but the Japs too. These guys are and always have been the coolest dudes around. It's pathetic that I have to get tested for a sleep disorder compared to those guys.
Okay, for those of you who don't know what a sleep center is all about, you are going to find out right now.
A technician hooks up about 16 doohickeys to one's body. 4 on the head, 1 on your index finger, 2 on the face near the eyes, one on the jugular vein area, some on the chest, upper and lower legs, and way too much stuff around ones nose and mouth. This is to measure breathing and whether or not you breathe more through you mouth or nose. It takes about a half hour to get all the wires and diodes connected. I looked at the guy and quipped, "hey, I feel like an astronaut." He didn't laugh. Tough crowd.
The rooms are equipped with a single twin bed - it's a normal doctors office during the day, and the bed folds up into a wall. For some reason, before going, I envisioned row after row of bleary eye fat guys living dormitory style for a single night in a big gym wathcing a movie before dozing off. Nope. We all get our own crib. Me? I need a night light but not for the boogeyman. If I wake in a strange place in the middle of the night and can't make out up or down or where the hell I am, I usually panic like a whore in church. I pulled the blinds up a titch and got a nice beam from the sodium vapor lights in the next door parking lot.
Now all the wires sort of gather near the back of one's head to be plugged into a larger contraption that fortunately isn't manufactured by Acme (Wiley Coyote's preferred vendor). Once plugged in, the tech goes, "Okay, buzz if you need anything." Falling asleep was a tad more difficult than at home but I managed to do it. I woke up a number of times having pulled all sorts of wires out only to be scolded to keep them on. Like I know what I'm doing when I'm asleep? Once I called out because baby needed water. LOL
5am rolled around and I'm out of there. Some 815 pages of data was compiled - I don't know if that's good or bad? I got home at 530am and went back to bed. I get my results next week. I may have sleep apnea - if I do I would need to wear a mask that hooks up to an oxygen machine to make sure my body gets enough O during the night. The video camera in the room isn't for the sleep test, it's too keep everyone honest and ensure no hanky panky goes on....with a twin bed in a sleep center? What is the world coming to?
So....to those of you who don't sleep well, or snore and keep your partner awake, nightime can be difficult, stressful, and sleepless.
I gotta go take a nap now.
I had my regular physical last month and my doc decided to send me to a Sleep Diagnostic Center since I've been tired too much lately even after 8 hours of slumber with 1000 count sheets, a goose down comforter, at least 6 pillows to strategically use to build a "sleep fort" and a fan to keep me cool at night.
A Sleep Center certainly isn't something my father's generation would understand. I guess I can't blame them - "The Greatest Generation" learned to sleep in foxholes, on battleships, in jungles, under the ocean in a submarine, smoked cigs without filters, drank black coffee and came back with tattoos of naked ladies on their forearms after kicking not on Hitler ass but the Japs too. These guys are and always have been the coolest dudes around. It's pathetic that I have to get tested for a sleep disorder compared to those guys.
Okay, for those of you who don't know what a sleep center is all about, you are going to find out right now.
A technician hooks up about 16 doohickeys to one's body. 4 on the head, 1 on your index finger, 2 on the face near the eyes, one on the jugular vein area, some on the chest, upper and lower legs, and way too much stuff around ones nose and mouth. This is to measure breathing and whether or not you breathe more through you mouth or nose. It takes about a half hour to get all the wires and diodes connected. I looked at the guy and quipped, "hey, I feel like an astronaut." He didn't laugh. Tough crowd.
The rooms are equipped with a single twin bed - it's a normal doctors office during the day, and the bed folds up into a wall. For some reason, before going, I envisioned row after row of bleary eye fat guys living dormitory style for a single night in a big gym wathcing a movie before dozing off. Nope. We all get our own crib. Me? I need a night light but not for the boogeyman. If I wake in a strange place in the middle of the night and can't make out up or down or where the hell I am, I usually panic like a whore in church. I pulled the blinds up a titch and got a nice beam from the sodium vapor lights in the next door parking lot.
Now all the wires sort of gather near the back of one's head to be plugged into a larger contraption that fortunately isn't manufactured by Acme (Wiley Coyote's preferred vendor). Once plugged in, the tech goes, "Okay, buzz if you need anything." Falling asleep was a tad more difficult than at home but I managed to do it. I woke up a number of times having pulled all sorts of wires out only to be scolded to keep them on. Like I know what I'm doing when I'm asleep? Once I called out because baby needed water. LOL
5am rolled around and I'm out of there. Some 815 pages of data was compiled - I don't know if that's good or bad? I got home at 530am and went back to bed. I get my results next week. I may have sleep apnea - if I do I would need to wear a mask that hooks up to an oxygen machine to make sure my body gets enough O during the night. The video camera in the room isn't for the sleep test, it's too keep everyone honest and ensure no hanky panky goes on....with a twin bed in a sleep center? What is the world coming to?
So....to those of you who don't sleep well, or snore and keep your partner awake, nightime can be difficult, stressful, and sleepless.
I gotta go take a nap now.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Train Wreck at TPC Summerlin
I love to play golf. I love to play golf in all sorts of weather. I can play in the chilly days of January and Febuary. I can play golf on the 3 days of the year that it rains here in Las Vegas. I have played with snow on the ground in Utah. I have trekked the links in Vail during a nasty hailstorm with my late and dear, dear friend Mark Neis (Each time I think of Mark, it just makes me cry and I'll blog about his beautiful big heart and the children he and his wife adopted from Russia only to see his life cut short by cancer at 41 at a later time), and I love to play in the blistering heat of Southern Nevada in the summer months when the temperature exceeds 110 degrees.....I actually love summertime since no one is on the course in the afternoon and we can easily get in 27 if we tee off as late as 4pm. The one thing I don't like to play in his the wind. Hawaiian wind, Nevada wind, California wind, Texas wind.. the wind gets in my head and I start overcompensating...overthinking, overswinging....I'm a basket case. The wind is worse than playing golf early in the morning. Why anyone would want to be "first off" at 6am utterly confounds me. I played that early a handful of times, and frankly, I sleepwalk through the entire round....don't even remember it later in the day. Rivals will make morning tee-times just to throw me off since I usually don't hit the sack until 1am or later.
So....I have been staring out my window at work all week waiting for the wind to die down. At times it actually howled in my office so I knew that wasn't the sign I was looking for. So my golf pals and I decided to just do it anyway.....the wind be damned and play at 3pm today. Ha! Old Man Bill was the starter at the club and he's like a hundred years old and by the late afternoon, he is one sip of coffee away from pissing his pants. Frankly, I don't know how he finds he way out of the parking lot at night. He is a very nice guy though, but the wind had him thoroughly messed up too. He asked us to start on the back nine. Uh oh. That NEVER works for me. I need to start at #1 since that where my brain says we should start. Starting at 10 really screws me up. We've dubbed holes, 10 through 12 as Amen Corner since they will eat you alive on a calm day, let alone trying to play in a tornado and taking our first hacks of the day/week. I got rocked like J Guth in his first start of the year for the Orioles....I took a quadruple bogey on 10. This means I shot an 8 on a par 4. My previous worst ever on this hole had been a 6, best was a 4 so an 8 was sort of like getting kicked in the balls right off the bat(I actually had this done to me one other time this week (hypothetically speaking)on Monday by a breach of loyalty by someone that pissed me off so much that I did the whole jewish thing and tore my shirt to signify this person is dead to me [I think that's what the jews do or else I ruined a perfectly good E. Zegna dress shirt]. I digress. I also overreact but in comedic folly that is actually pretty entertaining.
So the torturous round today ended when I carded a 95. I have shot a 77 on this course and should be between that number and an 82. There were several times I felt like throwing my entire bag of clubs into one of the several ponds. Actually the pond on # 12 has a wedge at the bottom, the water on #16 has a 2 iron rusting beneath the surface. My old club, Canyon Gate easily has a set of clubs littered throughout their pond system. Good thing I have toned it down A LOT over the past decade.
So here I sit....tired... my lips are chapped, my face red from windburn, my golf ego is in shambles....
Janae...hurry home.
P.S. Acknowedgement: Steve beat me by one shot....another dagger in my back. More blood loss.
So....I have been staring out my window at work all week waiting for the wind to die down. At times it actually howled in my office so I knew that wasn't the sign I was looking for. So my golf pals and I decided to just do it anyway.....the wind be damned and play at 3pm today. Ha! Old Man Bill was the starter at the club and he's like a hundred years old and by the late afternoon, he is one sip of coffee away from pissing his pants. Frankly, I don't know how he finds he way out of the parking lot at night. He is a very nice guy though, but the wind had him thoroughly messed up too. He asked us to start on the back nine. Uh oh. That NEVER works for me. I need to start at #1 since that where my brain says we should start. Starting at 10 really screws me up. We've dubbed holes, 10 through 12 as Amen Corner since they will eat you alive on a calm day, let alone trying to play in a tornado and taking our first hacks of the day/week. I got rocked like J Guth in his first start of the year for the Orioles....I took a quadruple bogey on 10. This means I shot an 8 on a par 4. My previous worst ever on this hole had been a 6, best was a 4 so an 8 was sort of like getting kicked in the balls right off the bat(I actually had this done to me one other time this week (hypothetically speaking)on Monday by a breach of loyalty by someone that pissed me off so much that I did the whole jewish thing and tore my shirt to signify this person is dead to me [I think that's what the jews do or else I ruined a perfectly good E. Zegna dress shirt]. I digress. I also overreact but in comedic folly that is actually pretty entertaining.
So the torturous round today ended when I carded a 95. I have shot a 77 on this course and should be between that number and an 82. There were several times I felt like throwing my entire bag of clubs into one of the several ponds. Actually the pond on # 12 has a wedge at the bottom, the water on #16 has a 2 iron rusting beneath the surface. My old club, Canyon Gate easily has a set of clubs littered throughout their pond system. Good thing I have toned it down A LOT over the past decade.
So here I sit....tired... my lips are chapped, my face red from windburn, my golf ego is in shambles....
Janae...hurry home.
P.S. Acknowedgement: Steve beat me by one shot....another dagger in my back. More blood loss.
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