Passing up a Dream...For Now

There are three golf courses I have vowed to play before I die, unless I die young: Pebble Beach, The Old Course at St. Andrews, and the TPC at Sawgrass.

When my wife informed me of the possibility of playing one of them, the one (Pebble Beach), I was naturally excited.

Here's how it happened: She called me up at work asking me what I would do if I found myself with an unexpected couple grand (yes, dollars). Because she knows one of my lifetime dreams is to play Pebble Beach, she thought I would answer with a round at Pebble Beach.

I didn't really come up with anything clever. Had I been completely honest, I would have said I'd put it to the mortgage.

I would soon learn it wasn't just a hypothetical question. She had learned that her former job, at the company where we met and at which I still work, she was going to get back pay for overtime hours worked on her job that was designated a salaried position, but should have been hourly.

So we talked, and I did some research, and we decided to take that trip to Pebble Beach. We have since changed our minds, or at least put it on hold, but not because of the cost. Our best bet cost-wise is to go this winter. But because the average high in Pebble Beach is 59 this time of year, and my wife is a fair weather golfer, we are shooting for May.

To reserve a tee time at Pebble more than 24 hours in advance, you have to stay at least two nights at one of the Pebble Beach resort lodges. The cheapest one this time of year would be $325/night, thanks to a winter promotion. That would bring the round of golf to $1640 for the two of us. If we wait until, say, May, it will be over $2000, because of higher in-season resort rates. Airfare of course would be extra, and people who know insist a caddie is a must for the complete Pebble experience, at $75/bag plus tip.

Another alternative, which I wanted to do, is to take our chances and get a timeshare in the area by trading a week we have at Lake Carlos Villas through RCI. I have read that, because of the economy, not all tee times are being booked at Pebble, and thus a non-resort guest has a good chance of picking up a tee time within 24-hours of intended play. To fly out and take that chance is a gamble, but right now seems to be a good one, because of the non-prime season and economy. In May, it may not be so easy.

Harvey Mackay once wrote that a dream is a bargain at any price. I tend to agree, if you can afford that price. But I can see my wife's point of view. Even though I don't mind playing golf in the fifties, if you're going to dish out that kind of dough for a once-in-a-lifetime round of golf, you may as well pay a little extra and fully enjoy it.

Here's hoping for economic recovery, but slowly enough so that I can take my chances and get a last-minute tee time at Pebble Beach in May.

A Russian Twist to my Workouts

My wife and I went shopping on Black Friday, and then again on Cyber Monday. We didn't go crazy, and it was all under our budget. But we did buy for ourselves as well as others. We sacrificed the real killer deals in order to avoid the early morning Friday madness.

One of the things I did not get a deal on was a kettlebell. You can Google it, but if you don't know what a kettlebell is, imagine a round purse filled with lead. In my case, 45 pounds of lead.

It's a "Russian Secret" piece of exercise equipment I've been reading about from Pavel Tsatsosomethingorother for quite a few years now. It's becoming more mainstream, but the problem Saturday was that where I found them on sale, Sports Authority, the heaviest weight in stock was 30 pounds. So I paid full price at the Bloomington Dick's Sporting Goods to get a 45-pounder at full price, which was still less than anyplace online.

Why 45 pounds? Ego, of course. In a recent fitness magazine, there were recommended weights for a person's first kettlebell. "Average man" was recommended to get a 35-pounder, "strong man" was 44 pounds, and "strength athlete" was 53 pounds. (I'm not sure why the strange gaps in weights...probably because many companies make these lead purses in metric weights, or something like that.)

I at least showed a little humility in not getting the 53-pounder.

Anyway, I'm still feeling the effects of my first kettlebell workout two nights ago. Four supersets of 10 Sumo lifts and 10 "swings," as recommended for a person's first kettlebell workout in the same magazine. It was aerobic as much as it was anaerobic. I used a few muscles in ways I haven't in quite a while.

Supposedly, when I get "hooked" on kettlebell workouts, I will want to upgrade by adding a 53-pounder to the mix, even reaching 70 pounds some day.

We'll see how it goes. I may opt for a Joey Tribbiani-type man purse instead.

Winter Golf, Computer Style

With the 2009 golf season still several months away, and my most recent round having been played almost two months ago now, I'm getting a little stir crazy.

Fortunately, I have the best golf computer game of all time to keep me buzy, and I'm not talking about Tiger Woods.

My Links 2001 still is much more enjoyable to me than any of the Tiger Woods offerings. I love the realism, with a couple minor exceptions, such as the too-long hang times on full shots.

I also enjoy it because, as a golf game should be, the better you get, the harder the game actually is. That is, the "beginner" settings make it intentionally easy to play. Once you learn, you can raise your own bar to the more difficult Pro and Champion levels.

The Tiger Woods series has it backwards, where your player gets better as your own skills improve, and the game then becomes easier to play, far too easy for a golf purist who is looking for an accurate simulation of the real game.

That said, I have heard the recent version(s) of Tiger Woods has/have the option to play a more difficult, "pure" version of the game. I'm not too fond of easy-to-get, straight, 350-yard drives in a video game. I prefer the 275 yard drives of Links golf (longer with the wind and downhill of course).

I'll have to get the Tiger Woods 2009 for the Wii. I'm encouraged by what I've heard, but I will always be bummed that Links is no longer made or being updated.

Making Up Lost Sleep

I saw something on the news the other night that made me feel quite good: You can actually "make up" lost sleep time.

I'll try to find a link. Basically, this dispells the old wives' tale that you can't make up for it.

I used to argue with my ex-wife about this. If I had a week of little sleep (5-6 hours/night for example), I'd try to sleep in on weekends to make it up. Empirical evidence always told me that it worked...I would feel much better having slept in rather than just getting eight hours on those weekends.

She insisted that you couldn't make up the lost sleep. We didn't have Snopes back then, so urban myths and other common held beliefs were left at that. I'm right again.

I was always "right" in our arguments, which is probably why we are divorced. I'm not right as often with my wife now.

Either I've changed, or I married a smarter woman this time.

(False dilemma: it's actually a bit of both.)

Waste Management Part II

My last post about garbage was about why I was "dumping" Waste Management. This time, it's about how I managed to dump my waste.

I imagine I am not alone in this. If you set your garbage on the curb once a week, and if you live long enough, it will probably happen to you at least once: I backed into and knocked over my garbage yesterday morning.

It was actually the recyclables bin. I don't think any neighbors saw it happen, but at least one drove by while I was cleaning it up.

I'm sure they laughed, which is good. If I can make one person's day every day, I've lived a pretty good life.

This makes me tied with my wife now, as we've both backed into the garbage once.

Paperboy Memories

I was looking at a Wikipedia entry of my old high school, which noted some of its most famous alum. (Richard Dean Anderson and Loni Anderson for example.) I'm not there, yet...

Missing from the list was a classmate of mine, and, coincidentally, fellow Alexandria, MN native, Peter Krause. Peter was a terrific guy to have known in junior high and high school, and even work with for a while after high school at the old Har Mar Cinemas 11.

The Wiki entry was for Roseville Area High School. In fact, I and the three others above went to the former Alexander Ramsey High School, back when Roseville had two high schools, the other being Frank B. Kellogg.

Anyway, also missing was probably the most infamous graduate, Ming Sen Shiue, who kidnapped a former teacher of his, as well as her daughter. He also allegedly murdered a young boy, apparently because he had witnessed the kidnapping. A recollection from Shiue's attorney can be found here.

The two would escape from his Roseville home, which was on my paper route. On the afternoon of their escape, there were news reporters and cop cars around the house. This was back when St. Paul had both a morning and afternoon paper. He wasn't a subscriber.

I recall on a previous day, while hanging out at a nearby friend's house, Shiue and friends were running motorcycles (or maybe just one) very loudly. Other than that, at least in the days leading to the escape, the house seemed almost vacant. We would of course learn why.

Shortly after the incident, his mom moved into the house, and became a subscriber. She was a very sweet lady whom I felt very badly for.

Don McLean wrote the hit song "American Pie" about delivering papers with bad news about the Buddy Holly et al plane crash - "the day the music died." That afternoon jn Roseville was my Don McLean moment.

Perhaps someday I'll write a song about it. Or at least a boring blog entry. Wait...

Are you ready for some...Women's Pro Bowling?

Sticking to my promise of finding better things to do than watch the Vikings, on this rare beautiful day in Minnesota in November, I am...watching women's bowling.

It's the fledgling resurrection of women's pro bowling, and I am rooting for it to succeed. There are two bowlers, neither of whom I know anything about, facing off for the title. One is pretty; the other not so much.

Being the predictable pig of a guy that I am, I am cheering for the pretty one.

In my defense, a sex symbol in women's bowling might help it succeed. But I don't think she's quite that pretty.

My real reason for cheering for her is that her style is more of a "stroker," while her opponent is a "cranker," and I appreciate that style more.

I'm not making that up, sicko. Get your mind out of the gutter and Google it.