The shot of a lifetime.

I went golfing over the weekend with my 14 year old son Jordan, my brother, Terry and his brother-in-law, Wayne. Here is a recap of the only event that afternoon worth mentioning.

Back 9, 18th hole. 147 yard, Par 3. Last hole of the round.

I’m first in my group to attempt to hit the ball. That’s right, attempt. That’s how good my game was going that day.

I grab my 6 iron. Now, for those that don’t know what this means…if I was any good, a 6 iron should carry my ball about 160-170 yards. And with this shot, I should be using an 8 (130-140 yds) maybe even a 7 iron (140-150 yds). No, I need to use a 6.

I stepped up on the tee box. Set my ball a little higher on the tee than I normally do. Just to get it up in the air a little higher. I figured I would not use all of my 6 iron so I could have better control.

I lined up my feet to the pin, set up the club on the ball and took a deep breath. Looked down the fairway to the pin one last time. Brought my club back and watched the club hit the ball. The hit felt good. I really got the ball on the sweet spot on the club. The ball went sailing down the fairway.

As I watched the ball fly, it wasn’t turning to the right in mid air like it normally does. It was actually going straight! Straight to the flag! The longer I watched it, the farther it seemed to be going. I mean, farther than I normally would have hit it. I must have really gotten a hold of it on the ‘sweet spot’ of the club.

As the ball came down, I seen it hit right in front of the green in line with the flag and bounce up. That was the last I seen of it. It must have gone behind the green. I grab my tee and as I walk off, I ask if anyone seen where it went. Wayne says he thought it went in the hole. Jordan says he heard a noise like it hit the flag. Terry wasn’t sure where it went. Wayne again, tries to assure me it went in the hole. ‘I’m pretty sure you just got a hole in one!” he says. “Don’t do that to me Wayne. Not cool at all!”

As they finish up, Wayne keeps telling me he is pretty sure it went in. We walk down the fairway and I am patiently waiting for the others to finally hit their balls up to the green so I can go look for mine.

As I get to the green, I start looking towards the back of the green by the parking lot for my ball. Nothing. I scan the surrounding rough grass and fringe. Nothing. I continue to look around as I walk up to the flag. Still I see nothing. As I get closer, I see the back side of the inside of the hole behind the flag pole, and no ball. I get up to the hole and look directly in and there sits my ball in the front side of the hole. A hole in one!

I did it. I actually got a hole in one. Un-freaking-believable! My game was over. Didn’t need to get my pitching wedge out. Didn’t need to get my putter out. Didn’t get the disappointment of getting another double boogey on a par 3. I got an eagle! First ever!

So now, I have 2 choices.

1- Hang up the clubs. I’ve done what most will never do in their life time.
2- Keep trying to get another one to see if any skill was involved.

I think I will choose the later. What, am I crazy!? Of course I am. I can’t quit golf! Are you kidding me? Never. I could get a hole in one on every hole and not quit golf. It may get boring, but I’m not quitting!

I have a dream....

What a fun time the forth of July is. Parades, BBQ’s, beers, ice cream, and fireworks. Love the fireworks (and the beer of course). Crowds of people gathering and the many different locations to let off and watch fireworks. Amazing how they get the different colors and shapes to the explosions that are ignited at the beginning of the fuse in each firework we light.

The symbolism of these fireworks are of the rockets and bombs that burst in the air used to fight for our freedom here in the U.S. That’s not to say that is where they are originated from, but it symbolizes defending our country. Very patriotic for a day we celebrate our independence on.

That brings me to my point. The day that we celebrate our independence on.

Now, I’m just as patriotic as the next guy. I’ve hit the parades, ate the hot dogs and burgers, drank the beers, (love the beers), ate the ice cream and done the fireworks with the kids until midnight. Good times. But getting up to go to work the next day is a bitch! Why the hell are we up going full speed 8 hours before we are supposed to be to work? That really sucks! We should be up ALL night celebrating! Letting off fireworks! Getting drunk! Playing card games! Cooking up Brats! Not trying to get to bed so we aren’t dragging ass the next day at work.

Of course this only applies to the forth landing on a week day, Sun-Thur. as apposed to the weekend, Fri-Sat. Because I work blue collar white man hours, Mon-Fri. (see disclaimer).

We have other holidays that we celebrate the night before, so why not the forth? New years day is celebrated right at midnight. Christmas is celebrated in the early morning hours. Not to mention Santa Clauses visit the night before. So why not have the celebration of our independence be celebrated on the very beginning minute on the forth of July? That’s right…12:00 am, July forth!

This can’t be that big of a deal can it? I mean, we are still celebrating on the forth. Just doing it at a different time of the day. This way, we can work all day, get home with the family, load them up in the wagon, and pick that nice spot in the park to watch the fireworks at 10pm, ON THE 3RD, until 10:30ish or so, then go be home and ready to do your own firework show at midnight! Stay up all night with the kids/adults and party your brains out until the wee hours of the morning. Spend all day the 4th recovering, and be ready to hit the keyboard first thing on the 5th.

Not too much to ask is it?

Lets all band together. Spread the word, and get this in the works for next year! (even though it’s on Friday in 2008, we can still do it on the 3rd, Right?)

Thanks for your support!

-L

Sticky Situation

My 13 year old daughter really wanted a pet of her own. I’m not talking a dog, or a cat. We have those. She was thinking something more like a rat or a snake. So, I took her down to the pet store to take a look at some of the snakes and rats and to get an idea on prices for them. After we were done, she was set on the idea of getting a small snake. Simple enough. I told her as soon as she got the tank set up for it, we would go pick it up. We already had a tank and stuff for it, just needed to set it up.

The next day, I get a phone call from her saying she got a snake. Her and her friend found a garter snake somewhere and brought it home. They found the tank I had and assembled it with a heating rock, sand, water dish and light.

Later that night, she calls me downstairs to help her with the snake. I’m thinking maybe she wants to hold it, or clean the water out or something. Maybe, it got out and she needs help finding it and putting it back.

I go downstairs and she tells me she thinks the snake is dead.
“Why would think that?” I said. “What is the snake doing?”.

She says “he is just laying there not moving. He is stuck to the tape.”

“Tape? What tape?” I said.

“The tape I used to cover the hole in the light cover.”

The light is a small fluorescent light for a fish tank. The cover for the light has a large hole in the back for a filter to fit in, maybe 1” wide by 6” long. She says the snake crawled up the cord for the heating rock, and out the hole behind the light. So to fix this, she got some tape out of my tool box (black electrical tape) and put multiple strips of it over the hole until it was all covered so the snake has no hole to get out of.

Putting on my CSI hat, this is my conclusion:

The snake worked its way up the cord and to the top where it got out last time, however, this time it tried to push the tape out of the way with its head, doing this to the under side of the tape (aka: sticky side). Logically, its head became stuck to the tape. (almost as dumb as a cat.)

Without having any arms or legs to use, the snake slithered its body up to the underside of the tape in attempt to pry its head off. In doing this, the entire snake had fallen victim to the stickiness of the tape.

The time of the incident is not known, as my daughter was not keeping an eye on the snake all day. However, it was discovered in the predicament a few short moments before I was notified.

At this point, I knew I had only two options.

1- Attempt to carefully peel the snake off the tape.
2- Ball up the tape with the snake lifelessly attached to it and toss it.

As I investigated the snake, I didn’t see any movement from him indicating any signs of breathing or life itself. However, I couldn’t just let my daughters pet she had put so many meaningful minutes into all be in vain.

So, being the good dad that I am, I put on my “Emergency Response Team” hat and went to work.

Starting with its head, I started to pull it away from the tape. As I did this, the tape held on to the skin of the snake. This was not good. I continued to pull hoping that maybe the tape would eventually let go. This was not the case. I figured the snake sheds its skin anyway, right? So I am just helping it along. Maybe a little pre mature to start shedding, but what do you do? The snake had to come off if it was going to have any chance at all.

Once the snake was completely off, I knew right then and there it was gone. However, I laid the body in the water with its head up on the heating rock and told my daughter to keep an eye on him to see if he moves at all.

After 30 minutes of checking in on him, I pronounced him dead. I figured this would devastate her, however, she is a tough kid and really didn’t have enough time to bond with the poor little sucker anyway. She just took him to the garbage outside and tossed him away like he was an old shoelace.

Since then, she has not mentioned a word about getting another one. Maybe she has had her fill, but I’m not going to ask.

I put my “beer drinking” hat back on and went back to life.

The moral of the story here is, be careful how you solve problems. You could find yourself in some pretty sticky situations if your not careful. (having arms and legs wouldn’t hurt either).

Dear God....

So - there is this really, REALLY, religious guy that works here. Not Catholic or Mormon. Not sure what he is, but it’s not any of the dominant religions. Not that it matters anyway, and he don’t push it on anyone. I didn’t even know until Dalton just told me this story…..

We'll call this guy Jeff. He is working on a project with D and they have a TON of work to do by Friday of next week. Jeff is really concerned how they are going to get all the work done by then. So, as he is in D’s cubicle, he asks D if he would join him in prayer to ask for help to get the work done on time.

D is not a religious man. His wife is Catholic, and she rarely goes to church. But D is not a part of it. He’s not against it, just not a part of it.

So to be nice, D obliges him and Jeff, right there in D’s cubicle (across from the company printer mind you) faces D, kneels down on his knees and grabs D’s hand and starts praying. Out loud. I commend the guy for looking to God for help. I do to, but not at work kneeling in front of a co-worker sitting in his chair and holding his hand.

As this is going on, D can barely contain himself. He is nearly busting out in laughter. Just then, another co-worker walks by…Darrel. He is about 50ish and very quiet with dry since of humor and don’t know D at all. Darrel, without slowing his walking pace down one bit, without missing a beat, grabs his print off the printer, glances over at Jeff kneeling in front of D, holding his hand, praying out loud, and says, “Do your spouses know you two have come out of the closet?”

Well, D lost it. He busted out and apologized to Jeff. Jeff looks up at D, still on his knees, face turning all red, and says, “I better go have a talk with him.”

This place is so damn funny.