Lest I Lose My Loyal Readers

Too many days between blogs.....sorry!

Enough Golf To Make Me Puke (Almost, Anyway)

So, I haven't written since my little escapade down to Alabama and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. I travelled down with 4 others the weekend before Veterans' Day, and we proceeded to play 126 holes in 4 days. I learned a valuable lesson on this trip - keep your back elbow down! No, wait, that's one of the 836 golf tips I was having trouble with by the 3rd day. What I learned is that NO ONE should try playing 126 holes in 4 days, particularly when you travel somewhere and play on some of the hardest courses you've ever set foot on.

That being said, the RTJ Golf Trail is a GREAT place for a golf vacation. Practically all of their locations have more than one full course, and each course has a distinct design, so they all legitimately seem different too. I should mention that while playing 126 I never played a single hole twice. Pictures never really do justice to outdoor, 'picturesque' scenes in my opinion, but here are a few of the better ones I snapped between holes.

Before I move on, a short ranking and synopsis of the courses for those couple of readers that are also golfers.

1. Silver Lakes - As you might imagine, the courses feature some lakes (though they aren't actually silver). This place was heavily wooded and the course itself was in immaculate shape. Maybe my new favorite golf course on earth. I'll hafta let that idea simmer for awhile before I make that official ('Pebble Creek' golf course northwest of Cincinnati is the current owner of that title).
2. The Shoals - Silver Lakes is the nicest I've ever played, and The Shoals is the toughest I've ever played. One course was links-style (over 8,000 yards from the back tees!), the other was a 'traditional Alabama course' - i.e. it's in the middle of the woods.
3. Oxmoor Valley - Both courses have been built on top of old mining areas. There were a few holes that actually exposed shale and other signs of mining.
4. Hampton Cove - A distant 4th place. But to be fair, we played this course on the 4th day, and I truly hated golf that day. On the plus side, ZERO bunkers!

Happy Birthday, Oliver!

While I was away playing too much golf, my wonderful dog had his 10th birthday. You only turn 10 once, so I did provide a Nylabone treat upon my return. If I had more time and was cruel (and weird too, probably), I would have stuck a birthday hat on him and snapped a picture. Alas, I've been busy.

My Coaching Debut

One of my friends at work asked if I wanted to help coach an 8th grade basketball team this year (his son is on the team), so I've been dabbling in that for the last few weeks. It's not the official school team; more like rec leagues for little kids. This is a foreign idea to me, but that's what they do around here. We only practice twice a week, and these kids aren't serious about the game at all, so you can imagine we don't have too many complicated plays in our playbook. But we had our 1st game last week, and we won 26-13! This group of kids has historically been pretty bad (read, the doormat of their leagues every year), so they were pretty fired up to start the year with a win. Sadly, we got rocked in our 2nd game, so the jury is still out on whether the season is going to be more like the 1st game or the 2nd.

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Many changes are imminent on the job-front. Things are not looking up there, so I'm probably going to get a little more serious about checking out the job market (even though I'd be stupid to leave the relative safety of federal employment right now). I don't own a gun or anything, so I won't be taking one to work. But it's a good thing I also don't know karate, because I probably would've kicked a couple of people in the face by now....