Great Day

The weather today was just perfect. With the temp sitting around +25 and just a wee bit of a breeze, what more could a guy want? Especially when I was able to get out on the golf course today for a nice leisurely round with my son and my niece.

Sure I didn't have one of my best rounds, but the company was great and the weather was just the best and as a bonus, my niece improved her game quite a bit on only her second attempt at the game called golf. I sure would like to thank Larry for letting us borrow his clubs so the niece could play today.

Even without golfing today I would have walked around the course just for the exercise on any day that we had weather as nice as today.

As I told Sam after golf today, 'Wednesday the weather is supposed to be even better than today so we are definitely going to go around the course again tomorrow'.

After all, who knows how many more times I'll be able to swat that little white ball around for the rest of the year before there is cover of white all over the ground?

New Past-time

All winter long, my friends in the curling league kept bugging me that I needed something to do in the summer leisure hours. Of course to them that meant golf. My thoughts were that golf was just about on par as watching 'paint dry'. It is just something that had never interested me in my whole life.

Along came spring and those glorious days of early summer. James convinced me that I should at least take 'a walk-a-bout' of the golf course and give it a whirl. After a lot of convincing on James part, I finally relented and said that I would give it a try.

James and I are both left handed golfers, so I was able to borrow his clubs. The long and short of it was that he 'kicked my ass' on the course, but he did plant the seed that this might be something that I might like. Craig came out of the city and once again convinced me to give it a try out on the links. Once again, Craig also is a left shot, so we were good to go and we headed out and gave it another go. Once again I got my assed kicked as I was such a horrible new golfer. However, I do believe the seed was planted and I really did enjoy 'walking about' on the course and just generally being outside.

After numerous outings (many, many, by myself), I now feel a bit more comfortable out on the course. Of course Tiger Woods definitely has nothing to worry about from me, but at least I'm not making a fool of myself.

This past weekend, I headed out on the course with James and then tonite I was out again with Craig. I'm satisfied that I at least made my goal for the year in that I surpassed both of my 'teachers' in a round.




Now granted both James and Craig probably had a 'crappy day/game' on the day of these rounds, but to me the important thing is that I didn't have to hang my head after I got my ass kicked one more time. We all have bad games, but for both of these games/rounds at least I had a better score than my teachers.

I'm sure James or Craig will have a better score than me in the future rounds, but at least in my mind I know I can hold my own. As I said above, I know Tiger et al have nothing to fear from me, but I at least have nothing to be ashamed about when I hit the links with my family and/or friends.

With that being said, yesterday (September 16th), Craig and I took Shar-Lee out for a round of golf. Like myself, Shar-Lee had never golfed in her life and was a bit apprehensive of 'giving it a try'. Being that this is only my first year, I certainly knew her feeling well and attempted to alleviate her apprehensions. On her first go at the course, Shar-Lee had an 82. Certainly not a course record, but I personally know people that are higher than that and have been golfing for many years. As we went around the holes, I could see that Shar-Lee was getting better and better with her strokes. She has great form and with a bit of practice I know she'll be able to have some respectable scores and give Craig, James or I a run for our money.

The nice part of living in a small town is that our golf course is not crowded and there is not a lot of pressure from oncoming golfers to 'get on with it'. You can take your time and try to ensure you are ready to hit the ball to the best of your ability. For a grand total of $5.00 a round or $45.00 for the year, there just is no better place to learn the game of golf. Sure we don't have grass greens, but at least you can learn the basics and when you do get a bit more experience you can then attempt the more ambitious courses that the cities have.

However, for a beginner, there just is nothing better than a small town course in my estimation. . .

Free File Hosting Service

I just received an email regarding a 'File Hosting' service that is just starting up. This new service is called "File Savr" and can be located at:

File Savr

If you create an account prior to September 15th, 2008 you will receive a 'Free' account for life. This allows you to upload and store 250 gigs for free for life.

This is sort of neat if you ever want to save a file and then download it from another computer (music, docs, pics, etc). The sign up is as easy as creating a 'user name', a password and an email address (a GMail or Hotmail works just fine). You never know when this might come in handy.... But hurry as the freeby is only until the 15th.

The price is sure right :)

Still Speeding

With the most recent trip to the city (and onto the lake) and return, my count is now at 106 trips into/out of the city since we purchased the car. The sad part is that my count of visuals on a marked police unit on the highway is still sitting at 6 sightings. So that should come out to about a 94.34% chance you will not see a police unit on the highway from town into the city or return.

A quick little calculation about the number of vehicles passing me to the number of vehicles I passed gave me a figure of approx 90% of the vehicles are speeding. I set my cruise on 111 kmph and watched 9 out of 10 vehicles passing my. Some were just over the 111 mark whereas others had the landing gear out and flying low. The sad part was there just was no one out on the highways to watch/catch the speeders. Of course for the most part this is during daylight hours and not a normal time for Detachment members to be out and about fighting crime.

Them police cars are getting about as scarce as VW bugs out on the highways and byways . . . The sad part is with all the retirements and what not, it is probably going to get a lot worse before it gets any better :(

Now We'll Get Nice Weather

On Wednesday Craig and I travelled north to the cabin with the intent on closing it up for the winter. James was up on the weekend and had most everything stowed away, however, I still needed to blow out the water lines and a few other things.

The plan was to head north right after I finished my papers, pick up Craig at 9 and then 'truck on' north. I got my papers done and headed out and arrived at Craig's at about 8:45 a.m. (a bit early, but about normal for me). I parked and waited, and waited, and waited. I was getting a bit antsy, but about 9:10 a.m. Craig did stroll out. Like normal he had slept in a bit. No real problem as we had the whole day to 'do our thing'.

One quick stop at Canadian Tire to pick up mouse bait and moth balls and we were heading north. As we travelled the day got nicer and nicer with the temperature getting into the 'nice level'.

We had a quick stop in PA for a 'Tim's' break and then continued on. When we stepped out of the car at the lake the weather was just gorgeous. Just one of those days you could sit around outside and just do nothing. No bugs to worry about, no wind and lots of sun. But of course we had a few things to do.

Within a couple hours we had it all done and were ready to head back south. I remarked to Craig that with the weather at present we could just stay and just have a nice day. But then we figured we'd better not as someone would get crabby, so we packed up the car and started for home.

The traffic was about normal with no weekend idiots out on the byways, so we were able to travel along with no stress. Once we got to Toon Town we decided we should have some lunch/dinner. I suggested Gibson's and Craig agreed. We arrived a the restaurant at about 3:45 pm so it certainly wasn't busy. A nice cold Coors and some great 'fish and chips' and lunch was done.

I then dropped Craig off and headed southbound for home. A bit tired from being up so early for the papers, but at least we had everything done at the lake and the joint should be tucked in for the upcoming winter months.

Seeing how the 'cabin' is all closed up now, I'm sure we'll get some great fall weather. It never fails. Case in point, Sandra and I went golfing this afternoon (I golfed, Sandra spotted). The temperature was about 24 - 25 C and just a great round (weather wise). It was a bit windy, but nothing too bad. I won't comment on the golf as it wasn't one of my best rounds. I haven't been out for a while so I was a little rusty. Still all in all it was great to be able to get out and walk around the course.

I sure am hoping that there is plenty of nice weather left so I can get lots more golfing in this year. After all, it is a long winter and so I'll get rusty as all get out. But then in a month or so the curling starts, so I'll be happy once again.

I'll take golf and the outdoors over curling any day, but they both are great past times. . . Also I then get a bit of the exercise that I everyone needs.