Thursday, January 26, 2006

Progress


There are guys on the roof. That means there is a roof, or at least parts of one, on top of what will someday be my townhome. "Someday" might soon have an actual date attached to it.


This is a shot of the back of the building. And if you look closely, you'll see that it offers more than one rear view. Oops! I hadn't noticed that at the time.

Duffer

Golf was not the usual exercise in frustration today. My dad, my brother Jim and I went out and I, for reasons still unknown, absolutely hammered the ball at times. I hit the green on a par 5 in only two shots, the second a mere 5-iron after blasting a mammoth drive. Facing a treacherous 12-foot downhill put for eagle, I managed not to roll it too far past the hole and I made the 5-footer coming back for birdie, my first ever on a par 5. The 5-iron felt even better than the drive because I got to see it. If I hit a good drive it goes out of my sight, which is more of a comment on my visual acuity than it is the strength of my golf swing.


The 5-iron shot pictured above, unfortunately, was not the one worth remembering. Officials are still trying to determine if the ball landed in a neighbor's yard or in a neighboring area code to the one in which we were playing. Still love the follow through, though. Nice balanced finish.

Which I am sure is tremendous consolation to the homeowner with the "golf course view" who realized too late that his abode would become a frequent, if inadvertent, target for golf shots whose authors thought they were aiming at the putting green. At least we think it was unintentional vandalism.


Now this shot -- again for reasons yet to be explained -- actually went in the direction I hoped it would. It landed on the green from where I two-putted for my par. Almost like I knew what I was doing.

The luck didn't last and I ended up shooting a 98. Sort of. I only broke 100 because of a charitable score on a hole on which I lost one ball in the water and hit two others out of bounds. With all the penalty strokes, I ran out of fingers trying to count up my score but Dad wrote an 8 on the official scorecard.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Hirsute

She liked my beard. Not a compliment I get often. Of course, I have rarely sported facial hair during my lifetime and grew it recently with the idea that it would be a temporary appearance change. It's not terribly attractive, despite this one woman's opinion to the contrary. Since growing the hair on my head only emphasizes the spaces where there isn't any, I grew the hair on my face instead. It chafes and scratches and generally doesn't look or feel like me.



Yet now that I have it I'm reluctant to shave it off. It's not a part of me the same way, say, my fingers are but I'm oddly reluctant to part with it even as I can't wait to feel the hair clipper buzz its way through the thicket.