Golfing = Tired

Wow, I didn't think golf could make me this tired, but it has.

I went out for my third round this year. It was a Texas scramble, and was for an association my company belongs to. So, free golf and me get along rather well together it seems.

We did alright, ending -1 for the round. Now as from my previous posts, I am by no means a professional, or even close. But I played well today, had a few questionable shots, but did ok for the most part. I seem to be hitting my irons really well, especially my pitching wedge. Full stroke with that club will get me a nice 140 yards, so I like laying up and hitting onto the green from 100-140 yards out....it just feels good to know I can make that shot 90% of the time.

But since this game has wiped me out, and need to rest for 10 hours now.

Going to sleep.

Take care all.

Robin Williams - Golf


Laterz.
AH

Is Anybody Out There?

As a new blogger, I am likely going through what every other blogger has gone through in their own beginnings. Start posting things, try to hone your skills a little, start to your groove with the blogging, and ultimately wonder whether there is anybody out there reading your blog.

I find blogging very relaxing. And since my blog is about anything that strikes me at the time, it doesn't really fall into any particular niche of blogs. Personal blog I suppose would be the category, but since I blog anonymously, it's sometimes hard to personalize it enough. I think I've done an alright of it though so far.

Today I woke up, checked my blog (as I always do) to see if anyone left comments ( I also get a report from Sitemeter each morning of how many people visited my site).

So I looked at the little "comments" link below my last blog, and saw there was a number 2.

I blinked.

Rubbed my eyes.

I blinked again. And slowly realized there were comments. And I was really happy to find out there was comments from people other than friends of mine in real life (not that internet friends aren't real, but seeing comments from people over the internet is so great).

Now I know some of you who read this will be thinking I am crazy for being so happy someone left a comment on my blog, but it really is a milestone in the blogosphere.

Think back to when you received your first comments from people on your blog. It's pretty exciting!

So I wanted to take the time today to tell keshi and rodrigo how much I appreciate their comments.

And, for the sake of drumming up traffic, if you liked my past posts, please tell your friends to swing by as well (there's always time to make a shameless plug for my blog. :P).

Everyone is welcome in The Pumpkin Patch!

So to end this post, I leave you with my personal thank you to keshi and rodrigo, you both have made my day a happy one, even this early in the morning for me.

Thanks again!



Laterz
AH

I have how many pairs of shoes?!

Something on tv set my mind thinking of how many pairs of shoes I owned.

I thought about it, and started to count on my fingers, thinking I would stop at or around 5.

Nope, didn't stop.

I went on to my second hand, and thought it would end there.

Nope, didn't stop there either.

All told, I own 14 pairs of shoes, boots, sandals and slippers. I figure for the sake of argument I will call them all shoes.



Now if I own 14 pairs of shoes, how many pairs must other people own?

Admittedly, and quite possibly perpetuating a stereotype, a lot of women claim to own a vast amount of shoes. I actually know a few women who buy shoes on a regular basis. And by regular, I mean 1 pair a week. That's a lot of shoes!



I was thinking 14 pairs of shoes was a lot, but have nothing to compare it against at the moment. I will start asking friends how many pairs they own so I can find out whether I have a normal amount.

Here are some pictures of my shoes (1 pair of winter boots are missing from the picture).

How many pairs do you own?




Laterz
AH

The Pogues

Tonight I watched the finale of American Idol.

Jordin won, but I was pulling for Blake. Ah well, your pony can't always bring it home I suppose.
Cheers to Jordin though, she is a solid singer.

While watching the show, I somehow got to thinking about The Pogues (don't ask me how it happened, but it did).
For those youngsters out there, The Pogues were an Irish band which played Irish folk songs, with a punk influence.
The Pogues formed in the early 80's, and are still around today in some form or another.
The did fire the lead singer, and front man for the original band, Shane MacGowan in 1996 (he was heavy into drugs and alcohol and was a total wreck.....and still is).
In my opinion, they may have become more stable after firing Shane, but the vibe was never the same. Shane embodied the spirit of that band, and they lost a lot of fans afterwards.

But, as I was thinking about their music, I got the itch to hunt around for some clips on YouTube (as usual).

These may not be the best clips, but it brought back some memories for all the same.

Enjoy!

The Pogues & The Dubliners - The Irish Rover


The Pogues - Sally MacLennane


the pogues - fairytale of new york


Katie Melua and The Pogues: Fairytale of New York


POGUES St. Patricks Day 1990 - singing White City, and Body Of An American



Laterz
AH

The Art Of Valentina

Since I am off work for a week at the moment (took a week of vacation time), I have been doing quite a lot of surfing. Specifically I am trolling around YouTube, LiveVideo, FaceBook etc.

There are people out there who don't care for the internet for various reasons. And admittedly, the internet is chalk full of scammers, porn, and other sewer level sites and characters. I think it's part and parcel of how the internet is made. It's something that will likely not change for a long time, and will likely not change for the better entirely.

In the future, there will be laws passed to protect the innocent, and regulate what we can see or post, but even then I'm not sure to what extent "they" will be able to control everything.

Time will tell.


But today I found something very refreshing while surfing around!

Amidst the plethora of garbage on YouTube (a place I have been frequenting lately), I found someone who is genuinely honest and upbeat. Someone who is a pleasure to listen to, and seems to have a zest for life. Someone who is doing what she has a passion for, and wants others to share in that passion.

Meet Valentina.

Val has a web site entitled valsartdiary and can be found at http://www.valsartdiary.com

Val is a painter, and creates vlogs of her life as such. She videos herself creating her paintings, and even gives away one painting every week to one of her subscribers (she has a YouTube and LiveVideo account where she gets her subscribers from).

Initially, you will see the things which attract people to her channels and web site - she's pretty, has a cute accent, she is energetic, and she edits her vlogs with flare and style.

But once you get to watching a few of the videos, you become enthralled in the things she is creating. All the while she is talking about quite a few different things, she is also discretely talking about her painting, and it draws you in, and you cannot stop watching.

Well, at least that's how I perceived it anyway.

It is very nice to find a gem like Val in a sea of idiocy. I would recommend everyone to check out her videos on YouTube, LiveVideo, or her web site.

I will leave you with a couple of her videos, and you can judge for yourself:








Laterz
AH

Quality Pictures

I was surfing around earlier tonight, and found some great pictures from yesteryear.

The quality on these pictures is surprisingly good, and I wanted to show them to anyone stopping by.

Enjoy!








Laterz
AH

The Manitoba Social

Like most Manitobans, we've all been to a social at one time or another.

Those of you who are not from Manitoba, there is a reference in the Wikipedia under the term "social" with the heading "Regional Uses". This explains fairly good what in fact a social is to us Manitobans.

Here is the excerpt from that article:
"Regional uses -
There is a peculiar use of "social" in some parts of the world. In the Canadian province of Manitoba, a "social" is a fund raising party (for a wedding, non-profit organization, charity, or some other worthy cause). It is also known as a Manitoba Social. Typically, they will include music (current popular music for the youth and "oldies" music older adults), dancing, food, raffles (and other fund raising games). When held in support of a wedding, often they are used as a way to shake down some details of the wedding (e.g., letting the bride try a hair style, practicing dancing, etc.)"

That sums it up pretty good.

The reason I am posting about socials tonight, is I am heading out to attend one tonight. It's in honor a friend of mine getting married in June.

Should be a good time.

I hope the phenomenon of socials will be around for a long time, it's one of the things which set this region of the world apart from others. And I realize it may be a small, unimportant thing to think about, but we all define ourselves somehow, and the social is just another thing we can be proud of when we say we are Manitobans, and Canadians.

Here is the only wedding social video I could find. Seems people here in Manitoba don't post a lot of video's of socials on the 'net.




Laterz.
AH

Caddy Lake

Myself and some fellow employees volunteered to help a Girl Guide camp site get ready for the upcoming season. We cleared debris, set up tents and cots, repaired a dock, built a ramp to another dock, and lots of other odds and ends.
My company does this every year, but this was the first time I have gone. It was great!
The weather was a little cool, but I wore shorts to spite it, and we all ended up having a great time.
The camp staff cooked us great meals throughout the day, and we took lots of pictures.
I will definitely be going back next year.

This video was taken on the way home in my friends civic. The video doesn't really do the drive justice though. It is extremely beautiful out there, and the road was a little narrow, very winding, and we were going faster than we should have. It was like an amusement ride to tell you the truth. The road also pitched up and down, and was very rough. But at least I got a little video of it.

Driving Home From The Lake


Also, here are a few pictures from the outing today:

X-Ray Glasses

The Man Show was always good for a few laughs.

Here's a classic with Jimmy using some X-Ray Glasses:

http://www.vidmax.com/index.php/videos/view/1509

Laterz
AH

Golfed out!

Wow, that was a long game of golf.

With taking a short break after 9 holes to eat some fries and grab a few more beers for the cart, we timed in at just under 7 hours to play the full round of 18 holes.

Yipes!

For anyone who golfs, you know how ridiculous that length is for a round of golf.

But it honestly didn't feel like it was taking a long time to play. We even had carts!

Luckily, since it was a weekday and about an hours drive out of town, there were maybe 2 other foursomes out there, and a few individuals. We didn't see anyone waiting behind us at the tee boxes, so we knew we weren't in jeopardy of holding up someone elses game. We played normally, and still took almost 7 hours!

I really can't explain it.

The course we went to was a 5 start gold course. One of, if not the best, in our area. It was beautiful, scenic with rivers, ponds, and lots of trees. I even saw a deer in the brush while looking for one of my golf balls.

I'm pretty wiped now though. There was a crazy wind out there today, which also kept us cooler than normal. But the wind really takes a lot out of you. You tend to try hitting the ball harder to compensate, and get fatigued quicker.

I have next week off work (just took a week off to relax and some work around the house), so I plan on playing a couple rounds, and maybe hit the driving range a few times. Looking forward to it.

That's all for today. I'll leave you with a video though of course:

UFC Fighting Compilation

Golf!

I am taking the day off with other managers tomorrow, and going golfing.

Now I know right from the start, I am not the worlds best golfer. But, I also know I have a natural ability for sports, and take to any sport rather quickly.

I normally go golfing twice a year, at most. This year I will be heading out for my second game tomorrow. So already I am at par with my best golf year. I think my plan will be to golf 2 or 3 times a month this year. That shouldn't be too much, and should allow me to get marginally better throughout the season hopefully.

The first game this year I shot 118. I have no idea whether that is good for me, since I haven't kept track of previous games and scores. I will endeavor to keep track this year, and see if I improve. I also want to get golf shoes, which "they" say takes 4 strokes off your game right off the bat. Sweet!!!
I also might look into some of those fancy hybrid clubs for the fairways. I have borrowed them before in previous years, and they seemed to be pretty comfortable to use. We'll see.

And of course, I'll leave you all with a gold related video to watch:

Sexy Golf

Friendly Sunburn....

On Saturday I went with my neighbor to help clear some brush and stumps out at his uncle's farm.
Currently, my neighbor has a 42' by 46 quansit shed where he and his brother store some of their cars (they fix up old cars, drive them for a couple years, then park them here). They have run out of room in this storage space, and are getting another 46' extension in June. In order to do this we needed to clear all the brush and old stumps to make way for this new addition.
Now I'm not the most athletically challenged person person around, but I've not been exercising like I should be I suppose. My jogging curriculum has gone down the tubes.
So we went out there on Saturday, thinking it would be a 3 or 4 hour job.

How wrong we were.

We got out there about 10 AM, and by the time we were ready to go home, it was 8 PM. And, we still had what looked like a full days worth of work to get all the brush and stumps cleared.

Now not thinking it would be a whole day job, I didn't take along any sunscreen or hat.

Bad idea.

The sunburn on my head (which is close shaved) was fairly intense. I put some lotion on it, and figured the next day it would start to heal nicely into a tan.

It didn't.

2nd degree burns are what I got for being a good friend. minor blistering, stuff oozing, not a pretty sight.

So today I stayed home form work to heal more, and get the burn under control. So far all is well.
I will go to work tomorrow, probably in time for the skin to start peeling. Yay.

Did I learn my lesson? I suppose so. But in all fairness, I wasn't expecting to spend as much time out there as I did. Had I known we would be out there for that many hours, I may well have taken some precautionary measures.

That's all for now.

I'll leave you with an 11 second clip from Family Guy:

What the uvula is going on?

Woke up this morning, and something was amiss.

My uvula was crazy big! I mean the kind of big that when you swallow you would likely swallow the uvula if were not attached to the roof of your mouth.

Along with this soft palette protuberance, was the hint of a sore throat.

Now, I ain't not big city doctor, but this smelled suspiciously like a cold or flu on it's way.

Luckily, the uvula eventually went back to normal size after a few hours of discomfort. I have, however, continued to have what appears to be a sore throat. At the moment, it is worse than this morning. I fear a cold coming. Damn.

I am tired also. very tired. And it's only just after 5 PM. I can't go to sleep right now, because that would disrupt my sleep routine, which would make me sleepy for work tomorrow.

So I think I will be forcing myself to stay up, so I will be at least well rested for work tomorrow. I may feel like crap, but I will be well rested.

I do apologize for the mundaneness of this post. I get it, this is not that interesting. But quite honestly this is the best I can do in the condition I am in.

So I will now post a video for your pleasure, and sign off for what will likely be the longest 4 or 5 more hours of my life, as I wait for the appropriate time to go to sleep.

Here's the video.

Robot Chicken - Giraffe


Laterz
AH

Might as well JUMP....erm, I mean....Parkour?

Ever think about jumping from your third story balcony to the parking garage below? Sure, we all have. But have you actually ever tried it? Unless you're reading this from your hospital bed, probably not.

A phenomenon known as "parkour" has swept our athletically gifted, and often intellectually challenged youth into trying grandiose feats of jumping and flipping off of things (I'm not sure how else to describe it, until you watch the videos).

For those who excel at this new "sport", I tip my hat. Some of the acrobatics involved are quite amazing. I sometimes have the thought of attempting some of these outrageous tricks, but then remember I am a thirty-something not-in-quite-as-good-of-shape-as-I-used-to-be manager-type person, and the thought expires.

I first came across a video of some guys jumping around a set of staircases about a year ago. But from what I remember, there was no tag or name associated with the behavior. Now it seem these videos are everywhere.

I doubt this will ever make it into the legitimate sporting world. But maybe one day we will see an X Games version.

You never know.

I will leave you will a few videos on the subject, as well as a special parody video called Pour Quoi. That parody is spot on, I've watched it several times.

Sit back and enjoy!

parkour


Parkour and FreeRunning


Parkour - David Belle - Yamakasi


Extreme Parkour Ahhhhh!!


Parkour


Crash Parkour 2



Laterz
AH

To geek or not to geek.....

Heading out today for a LAN party. Not sure if the word "party" is appropriate, as all of the participants are well past puberty, but a fun time will be had none the less.

This event, for myself, will be easier to achieve simply because of my new monitor. Flat screen LCD monitors are much easier to cart around than CRT monitors. Yay me!

Maybe I will have some interesting story to write about afterwards. Maybe not. We will see.

And here's a video I found very amusing, I hope you do to.



Laterz
AH

New Everything!

I had a great last few days in terms of getting what I wanted:

- Client Services Manager bowed down to my superior arguments
- Approved for car loan and picked up the car today (2002 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24)
- Pre-approved for Gold Mastercard, and loan officer at credit union sent off the application today.
- Initial number crunching from loan officer at credit union produced an "all systems go" for a mortgage to purchase a new house.
- Purchased a new 19" LCD Widescreen Monitor.

I almost purchased a recordable dvd player for my living room tonight as well, but thought a widescreen monitor and recordable dvd player would be too much excitement for one night. I will spread it out over the next couple of weeks, and prolong my happiness.

Coca Cola Happiness Factory


Shirley Temple "Come And Get Your Happiness"



Laterz
AH

Life is good

Sometimes you just end of having a fantastic day!

Yup, just had one.

Started off not very good though, with me getting extremely upset and agitated about an issue at work. My direct reports were getting shafted with a certain something, and I was taking it personally. Likely because I care about them, but I won't admit that very often. Well, that's not true, I would readily admit that. So never mind.

But, later this afternoon, I spoke to the loan's officer at my credit union. Good things come in three's they say, so here's to "they" being correct.
The loans officer approved my car loan, pre-approved me for a credit card over the phone, and did some initial number crunching and let me know my new mortgage (a combined mortgage of my existing house and a new house I want to buy) should be no problem to accomplish.

Wow! Now that's what I call a good phone call!

Anybody want to try beating that? (And I will not accept "seeing the birth of my first born", or "my wedding day" as ammunition. Not any of those usual examples).

I hope all of you have a great day as well!



Laterz
AH

The Office

I recently started browsing the internet trying to find tv shows and movies to watch through streaming video. They are out there, but you often have to look pretty hard, and get varying results when you do find them.
One of my friends had passed along a URL to me a few months ago, to a web site which was said to have tv, movie, cartoons, anime, music videos, and funny commercials available to watch online.

The above information seems to be true.

I swung by there a while back, and gave it a cursory glance. It looked to good to be true. All sorts of links to streaming video, and quite a good selection to choose from.

So 2 days ago I went back to the site, and started watching The Office, the British version. Funny stuff. I am now spending my waking hours trying to find the rest of the episodes (the web site didn't have them all unfortunately).

I suppose the reason then for this post is to extol the virtues of this web site. I like it a lot, and you should too.

With that, I will end abruptly.

Laterz.
AH