My Aching Back

After a couple of weeks of gradual progress with my back healing, this past weekend it took a turn for the worse. I decided to go into urgent care, and the good news is no surgery is needed.

I may have stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, but I'll leave the medical diagnoses to the professionals from now on. Based on my symptoms and some random anecdotes I'd read and heard, I was certain something was much more wrong than a little misalignment.

Imagine the disks as toy blocks, each separated by a small gap. They should all be square/parallel with each other. The X-Rays showed that one of mine, the one where all of my pain originates, was just a little off square. Physical Therapy is what the doctor prescribed, as well as some potent pain killers. No chiropractic, no surgery.

The bad news is no heavy lifting either, for a while at least, even in exercises where I don't feel my back at all, such as the bench press. My wife warned me about that, telling me I shouldnt' be lifting while it's hurting, and the doc confirmed it when I asked him.

I hate it when she's right.

My No-Show at the 2011 Minnesota State Mid Amateur Golf Tournament

For the first time in five years, I did not compete in the Minnesota State Mid Amateur golf tournament. Open to 240 golfers, with the top 60 (and ties) making the cut to the third and final round, it's a tournament I've come to look forward to every September.

This year, however, due to lack of consistency in playing frequency, which led to inconsistency in playing quality, I decided to pass. Plus, it was at a couple courses that I wasn't too excited to play - Dellwood Hills and Tanners Brook. I've only played Dellwood, a private course, once, and that was nearly 30 years ago. I've never played the other. Still, from word of mouth, I was OK with missing out. Not to mention I would have had to withdraw because of my back injury (which is still healing well, thanks).

Apparently, I wasn't alone. There were no fewer than 200 entries in the past four State Mid-Ams, but this year, unless I'm reading it wrong, there were only about 160, and several of them no-showed. It looks like a lot of the scores are missing from the first two rounds, but the cut line was a two-day total of 161, which happens to be one stroke higher than my lowest two-day total of the four times I've entered. So you're telling me I had a chance.... (Final Results here)

It's sad to see the drop in competitors, but I'm used to this kind of disappointment. The same thing has happened in bowling and softball locally. The state championship I was so proud to share in just ten years ago no longer even exists. The local Central Bowler's Alliance, which 20 years ago saw about 100 or more of the top scratch bowlers in the state (and some from surrounding states) compete every month. Nowadays, it's typically around 45 during "peak" season.

I'm sincerely hoping this year's drop in interest was for much the same reason I skipped it: apathy about the specific courses, and their less-than-exciting-or-convenient locations.

Next year's tournament will be hosted by Midland Hills and Town and Country. Midland is the home course of my high school alma mater, Alexander Ramsey (now Roseville Area), and the other is where my Vice President at work is a member. So I'll be looking forward to that one, and will try to train weeks in advance in a serious attempt to make the cut.

Both are centrally located, private courses, so there's no reason to expect the same apathy as this year from Minnesota's elite 30-and-over amateur golfers. But as Yogi Berra once said, if people don't want to come out to the golf course, how are you gonna stop them? (He actually said "ball park.")

If they don't come out, at least I'll have a better chance to make the cut, and the free round on a private course that would come with doing so.

"Just hop on my back...no wait, don't!"

It's been a roller coaster past few days for me. I was unable to fix our water softener, so I planned on taking it apart to give it one more try. "After the golf tournament, Dear, I promise!"

The golf tournament was Saturday. On Friday, I achieved a 24-yr-or-so goal of bench pressing 315 pounds - "three wheels" as my old lifting buddies and I would call it, because it represents three 45-lb. plates on each side of the lifting bar. A nice aside, I thought to myself, was that my joints and tendons felt terrific compared to the last time I got close to doing 315.

It was fairly short-lived, however. Oh, Saturday went great. My playing partner and I won the two-man best-ball tournament at Troy Burne Golf Club. I shot a plus-three 39 on the front nine, which included a triple bogey on hole 2.

By the ninth hole, my already iffy lower back started to hurt. I barely made through the round and didn't say a thing to my partner, not wanting to make excuses. I shot a plus-eleven 46 on the back. Thankfully, he shot 37, good enough to carry us to victory, like Kirby Puckett in Game 6 of the '91 Series. The old joke in such situations is to tell the guy who carried the team, "I sure hope your back doesn't hurt." Oh, but I wish I could say that mine did only figuratively.

While my back was hurting bad when we putted out, and I was looking forward to relaxing at home. But by the time I was done relaxing, my back hurt so bad, Felix Unger would've said, "Man, I'm sure glad I'm not you!"

Thankfully, it's getting better, although I did have to postpone my start to the 2011-12 bowling season. For a while Saturday, I was seriously wondering if I'd ever play any sports even semi-competitively again, including bowling. Ironic because I started lifting years ago to improve my softball power.

I'm still a bit down about it all, so to cheer myself up a bit, I'll post last year's league bowling results. I kept more complete stats, even frame-by-frame, but for now, I'll keep it simple below. I never got around to it this past spring, and then summer league went horribly (after a decent start), so I've been pretty down on bowling as well.

It was a good season last year, here's hoping my back, wrist, and fingers all get to nearly 100% by the time I get to start this season.

My Golf and Bowling Wishes/Fantasies

I played some golf this Labor Day Weekend in Alexandria, Minnesota. If I could only play one course the rest of my life, I might just pick the Alexandria Golf Club.

Speaking of impossible, hypothetical scenarios, I was reading the new issue of Golf Magazine, which has a reader survey full of such questions. One is, "Which Golf Superpower would you most like to possess?"

Here are the reader survey results:

1. Split every fairway with a 270-yard drive - 41%
2. Win every match you ever play - 27%
3. Make every 3-footer for the rest of your life - 26%
4. The ability to execute one hole-out every round - 6%

I would have to go with #3; that would leave the game's fun challenges left to the learning process, while adding the confidence needed to improve on them (imagine how confident you would swing the club knowing you'll never miss a 3-footer!).

Similarly, if I had one bowling superpower to pick from, it would be to never miss another single-pin spare again. Heck, I'd even settle for narrowing it down to the 10-pin. Same reasoning as the 3-foot putt fantasy.

If anyone is still reading this blog, I'd be curious to know what you would pick, and why?

A Dress Code Even a Bowling Shirt Would Fail

If any of my kids ever got in trouble at school over policy that I disagreed with, I would hope I would stand up for them. My ex-wife once got into a heated argument with a school official for defending our son for pushing a kid in the snow - a kid who had been picking on our daughter, if I recall correctly. She showed more gall than I would have, but I doubt either of us would go anywhere near where the parent in this story did: http://www.kcra.com/news/29018987/detail.html

From the article, the parent, Pami Gibbs, was "accused of making references to ethnicity during the attack on Fillmore Elementary Principal Evangelina Ramos. Gibbs is white, and Ramos is a Latina.

"Assistant Superintendent Dan Wright said Gibbs became upset Monday morning when Ramos said the 29-year-old woman's son couldn't wear a T-shirt with skulls on it. According to witnesses, Gibbs suddenly began punching Ramos in the face."

Racial slurs, nope. Punches, nope. But is it a silly rule? You betcha (in my best Minnesota Nice), at least if it's one of those "zero tolerance" rules.

I haven't read Minnesota School District 196's bylaws yet, but when my son enters Kindergarten a week from today, I'm not sure I'll be dressing him up in the bowling shirt (yes, bowling shirt) I bought him in Reno this past May.

Here he is yesterday, proudly wearing it. Destined to become a hoodlum, no?













You know, now that I think of it, I wouldn't put it past either my ex- or current wife for doing what that one parent allegedly did, depending on the circumstances.

Bully for me

Bullies and bullying are more at the center of our society's conscience than I can ever remember. I read a very interesting bulletin board discussion the other day on the topic. What was fascinating to me was the variety of stories the posters shared of them being bullied.

I found several other things interesting, such as the differences in their stories and my own experiences. I was an easy target, and got treated meanly by many people. I wouldn't wish some of that on anyone, except for three people perhaps; the only three whom I really consider to be bullies of mine in my younger years (two from Junior High, one actually from when I was 18). Oh, there were plenty of mean things done by many, and some real jerks whom I won't soon forget. But nothing like these three, even if they really don't deserve my ire today.

I found it interesting how many posters to the thread knew the whereabouts, and in many cases, the stories of the demise of their personal bullies. It almost made me wonder if they weren't making up the stories to create their own happy endings. I have no idea what happened to my bullies. None are on Facebook, as far as I can tell. One still lives in the Twin Cities I think.

Of all the meanness I experienced, I harbor almost no resentment to the majority of the individuals who caused it. There are only these three exceptions. It goes against so much of what I stand for, but if I met any of them today, and I had at least a couple of beers in me, I might just pick a fight.

No, I wouldn't. But I might try to intimidate just to see how they'd react. They'd either show a newly found respect, seeing how I'd grown up physically and am no longer at a disadvantage, or they'd throw the first punch. I don't know how I'd respond to the latter, being that I wouldn't want to lose a job (or a lawsuit) over a grudge fight. Perhaps I'd pull a Felix Unger and say, "Look, let's settle this like gentleman. Let's meet at a boxing gym, and spar three rounds; may the better man win." Yeah, that's what I'd probably do...seriously. (Remember that Odd Couple episode?)

All that said, the picking on even these bullies gave me paled in comparison to some of the stories I read on that bulletin board. Perhaps I should consider myself lucky that I grew up in a relatively tame environment. Perhaps not, if it's the bullying that contributed some to what I am today.

Bruce Springsteen once said (paraphrasing from memory), "The first time I could even stand looking at myself was when I held a guitar." I can relate a little, only mine is after I started putting on a little muscle tone. I have no doubt the bullying had something to do with that, and while I currently have a spare tire to take care of after I hit a few lifting goals, I know that will always be somewhat true.

As long as I am physically able, I will be hitting the iron, even though the bullies become even further away in my past.

Snide Remarks a la Reader's Digest

Good heavens, it's been a while since I've posted. There are so many things about which I could write a complete post, some on subject matters about which I have previously written, and others not, but knowing that I probably won't get around to writing about every one of them, I'll "bulletize" as we like to say excessively in the corporate world.

• My trek to a 315-lb. bench press is still on schedule, as on my most recent workout last Friday, I did 12 reps of 225 lbs., which according to at least one of many sources, equates to a maximum one-rep press of 312 (http://www.muscleandstrength.com/tools/bench-press-calculator.html).


• I am now able to close the 150# hand gripper with either hand (I'm not sure if I said I could do this before; if I did, I was lying).


• Michelle Bachmann is as guano crazy as ever.


• I haven't been too rough on umpires this year (it gets old), but I saw a horrible balls-and-strikes umpire at the Little League World Series qualifying game between Northern and Southern California the other day. I would be surprised if you couldn't find him on YouTube by now.


• I once learned, I think, that you are not supposed to put a period at the end of a bulleted thought. Well, sometimes your bulleted thought needs more than one sentence, and thus really should have the second sentence end with one. So for the sake of consistency, I use periods, unless every one of my bullet points is merely a phrase, and not a complete sentence.


• With my wife, today I finalized my first-ever new car purchase, a 2011 Honda Odyssey EX-L. I'm a "Get me from Point A to Point B" kind of guy when it comes to cars, so this was out of character for me. But the .9% financing, plus the fact that my wife got a nice raise with her new job, made for only a slightly ill stomach on my ride home. I'll be much more at ease after the 60 months are up.


• My wife's new job is at Thomson Reuters, where we met, and where she left to pursue her dream job in Radiology. That makes two of us who left T-R to pursue dream jobs in a field that starts with "Radio," only to return to the perceived security at 610 Opperman Drive.


• More than ever, I'm getting bitter about not having stuck it out in Radio. Hearing 75% of the announcers involved in Minnesota Twins broadcasts does nothing to cure my bitterness. Being involved in Twins broadcasts was my dream job of all dream jobs.


• I'm pretty proud of my oldest son for passing his driver's test on the first try. That's one thing he can always say he did better than his old man.


• Pretty cool reaction tonight by the Detroit Tigers' fans after Jim Thome's 600th career home run.


• See, that last bullet was not a complete sentence, and thus probably did not need a period, but for all of these other complete sentences.