Golf Lessons

So I finally broke down and got some golf lessons. These seem to help a lot as a start. But last weekend I went up to the Cliff's at Possom Kingdom. As the name implies there is a lot of trouble on this course! Turns out to not exactly be the best choice of courses to play coming right off lessons that have totally revamped your swing! It was scenic but brutal...

Here is one of the tee boxes. Hard to really appreciate what you see here but that is about a 150+ carry from the box to the fairway (shooting at that trap out there). Anything in between is a 300 foot drop into a ravine! Needless to say I fed the ravine...

This was a cool par 3. Hard to see here as well but the tee box is about 100 feet above the hole. I actually birdied this one!! Best shot of the day, perfect swing and ball rolled up to within 2 feet of the hole.
This par 3 killed everyone. Its a 180 yard carry to the green. Nothing between the tee box and green except ravine. I feed this ravine too :-(

Anyway, it was a fun experience but not recommended as a place to test out the new lessons!

Nostril Minstrel

You must see my son playing his recorder with the nostril...

http://hearthomekids.blogspot.com/

A classic. Happy Monday...

Late?!?!?!?!?


This reminder popped up on my Outlook this morning. I have no idea where this came from! 189 weeks late, I guess I missed that meeting! And good thing its reminding me now... oh that crazy Bill Gates.

Marathon




Two guys from work just got back from running the Boston Marathon. It was on Monday. There are 25,000 runners. You have to qualify to do this by running another marathon and submitting your time. These guys did it in about 3 hours and 45 mintues finishing about 9000th! It is quite an accomplishment. Especially when you consider one of them is 46 years old (ouch). I'm in awe and a bit jealous.

Warm!

Finally its really warm outside. You can feel the change to the summer heat coming. Hopefully we won't have to many more bad storms and can get right into it!

The pool is back in full operation and just waiting for the temp to creep up. The traditional May 1 swim data is looking good.

The yard is in full growth now too, so its back to the weekly yard routine.

It is Jackie Robinson Day!

It was 61 years ago today that Jackie played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hats off to number 42.

Are you kidding me?

It happened this morning. I was on E so I stopped to get gas...

I drive a 2000 Nissan Altima. Its a small 4 door with a 4 cyclinder engine. Since I drive 35 miles each way to work I wanted a commuter car when I bought it 8 years ago. Back then it cost me $15 to fill it up.

I'm waiting and finally the pumper popped. I go to put it back on the pump and there it is. A tank of gas for my car that passes the $50 mark. Unbelievable.


When will the price soaring end and where will it stop?

I can't imagine what people do that drive their suburban's and big SUV's to work everyday.

I have to get my carpool back in action. And I'm thinking I need to have a work from home day.

Crawfish is here!


Finally starting to see crawfish in North Texas at a reasonable price. The first boil was last weekend.




Nothing like sitting on the back patio with friends eating mud bugs. I'm ready to fire the pot up!!

Opening Day

The whole family played hooky yesterday to go to opening day at the ball park! We go there early, grilled in the parking lot then headed in for the game. The weather remained great the whole day. Unfortunately the Rangers didn't deliver :-( But great fun was had by all!

More Hail

This weekend was the clean up after the hail storm. There are tons of twigs and sticks from the trees, chopped up plants, etc. Here is the pool skimmer lid and chlorine floater. The floater was at the bottom of the pool, sunk by the hail.

Spring Time in Texas


The first week of April has had all the signs that spring is really hear in North Texas.





The weather is all over the place, the boy's first baseball game last Friday night was brutally cold. Not sure what the temp was but it was cold! Two days later it was 85 and humidity out the roof! His second baseball game was Wednesday night. It was originally scheduled for Monday but it was rained out with the first major spring storm complete with hail and tornado sirens.

Last night at 3AM we had a hail storm and toronado sirens again. I'm sure the roof is a goner. These are hails stones still in the yard 5 hours later. During these storms the trees get shredded and their fodder is all over.



It's also Nascar weekend. The RV city is here, pictures don't do it justice. Who decide to make this race at this time of year in North Texas was insane. The same weekend last year I was driving home for work and the big racetrack jumbotron said "Take cover immediately"! There was a huge funnel cloud moving up 35W right over the track. Not exactly sure where you take cover in an RV...




On the bight side the blue bonnets are bluming, crawfish has finally arrived in Texas, and opening day at the ballpark is next Tuesday!

Today in History... 35 years ago the world's first mobile call

Matin Cooper was the corporate director of Research and Development for Motorola. Cooper is the inventor named on US patent 3906166 "Radio telephone system" filed on October 17, 1973. He is considered the inventor of the first portable handset and the first person to make a call on a portable cell phone on April 3, 1973, to the bewilderment of passers-by in a New York City street. That first call, placed to his rival Joel Engel, Bell Labs' head of research, caused a fundamental technology and communications market shift toward the person and away from the place. It was the incarnation of his vision for personal wireless communications, distinct from cellular car phones. Cooper later revealed that watching Captain Kirk talking in his communicator on the television show Star Trek inspired him to research the mobile phone.

Love Music Round 2 for 2008

moe. @ Lakewood Theater - March 29


moe., the reigning kings of the jam band scene came to Dallas last weekend. I always see these guys when they come and moe. always delivers. The Lakewood is not a venue in use very often. Its 4 or 5 times bigger than the Granada which moe. has out grown. Musically nobody cranks up the intensity like they can. Plus the shows always have a great light display, not bad for a 'bar' band. This year they stepped that up another notch. There were 18 multi-axes lights in the setup that produced an incredile visual display. moe. threw in some classic jam vehicles like Rebubula, Captian America and Crab Eyes. Plus lots of new stuff and some sandwiched segues into rock classics of Baba O'Reilly and Dear Prudence. A audio visual extravaganza!

An added bonus that I didn't realize until just before show time was the opening act. Jam newcomers Tea Leaf Green opened the show. They have made a mark on the scene as of late and I was glad to catch them. Their show was a bit reduced since it was the opening thing. But it did include a lot of crowd favorites in that short time on stage.

Stupid Phone Company Messages

You know how the phone company has stupid messages when you call incorrectly. Things like you don't have to dial a 1 (then why not just ignore it for me) or you do have to dial a 1, etc.

Well this morning I was trying to connect to a remote computer using my home line. This is some old school methods here but should work for what I needed. The number I'm dialing is to Oklahoma so I did add the 1. The computer starts the call with those customary beeps and then I get a phone company message saying "This call cannot be completed because the number you are dialing from has been disconnected". What???? I get a dial tone, the phone makes calls, all seems normal. What the heck does this mean that my number has been disconnected?

After messing with dial properties and comm programs for an hour I resort to Google. Apparently this is the message you are given when your phone is not allowed to make long distance calls! Well why didn't they just tell me that in the first place? Maybe "This call cannot be completed because you don't have long distance service"??? Frustrating and annoying.

Day 2 of a week that didn't start well!