Golf

Last Saturday it was nice out. The snow is melted and my eight year old son wanted to go out in the yard and play golf.

So we went out. There's an OK green space in my back yard around 25yd where you can hit some short chip shots. My son was just doing regular swings with his junior clubs. He hit it pretty well a few times. I grabbed the 7 iron I use for chips and hit a few with him. First time this year I've had a golf club in my hands.

I've had little success at golf, which has been disappointing. Last year I was motivated to get under 100 at a regular course, or at least under 50 over nine holes. I practiced at the driving range, my yard, and on a putting matt. I didn't quite get there. I played OK at times but could not sustain it over a round.

One time last year at River Oaks south course I was +1 after the first 3 holes. But then things went bad. Another time at the River Oaks north course I had a 37 after 7 holes. I was in great shape to break 100, or at least 50 at the turn. Alas, I finished the front nine with 7-8, and the back nine was a writeoff.

That time at the River Oaks north course was a personal setback for me. I wanted to break 100 and I wasn't able to. Discouraged, I didn't touch a golf club after that in 2005.

For 2006 I am taking a more relaxed approach to golf. I don't have time or money for lessons, so I've given up on getting under 100. I find that liberating in a way so now I can relax more with no expectations.

I'm not going to pursue golf this season. I'm not going to spend time or money on my own on the driving range or practice. If my son wants to go hit in the back yard I'll go out with him but that's about it.

This year I will work on exactly one aspect of my golf game. Keep my head down through the swing. I will not bother at all about grip, stance, swing or anything else. Just keep my head down and hopefully I'll hit it consistently and good things will happen. It seemed to go OK out in the yard concentrating on head down only. If I can achieve that one thing then this season will be considered a success.

I'm not going to organize other people to go and play. If people invite me to play I'll go out for fun, but that's it. My son says he wants to play so I'll take him out once in a while. We'll go to the Fairview Hills pitch and putt to start out. If he's hitting consistently and well then we'll go for the longer Harbour Ridge course.

I don't expect to be writing much more about golf. The next time I write about it will be when I reach the 50/9, 100/18 goal. I still faintly hope it will happen this year but I don't expect it to and I'm not going to be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

Aviator, awesome

I saw The Aviator recently on DVD. That was a great epic movie. I strongly recommend it if you haven't seen it yet. I wish I'd seen it in the theatre as some of the scenes were spectacular. Howard Hughes had a much more interesting life than I'd realized.

Leonardo DiCaprio was great in this film. He's been on good run lately. He was great in Catch Me If You Can. He is a very good actor.

I'm not much of a star watcher. I recognized Alan Alda who put in a solid performance. When they ran the credits at the end I couldn't tell you which character was Alec Baldwin, Gwen Stefani, Jude Law, or Brent Spiner.

Rice it

Rice it is a term I first heard a couple of months ago. This is a separate meaning from the Uncle Ben's commercials.

"Rice it" is when a product is changed to add a lot of flashy luxury features which drive up the price.

A good example of a riced product is the 2006 Honda Civic. Compare the 2006 Civic to the 2005 Civic to see how Honda riced it.

• sensible Dunlop tires in the 2005 are replaced with expensive Goodyear in the 2006
• regular wheels in the 2005 give way to flashy wheels in the 2006 which we now have to worry about being stolen
• regular windshield wipers 2005; funky squeegee windshield wipers 2006
• plain regular design lines 2005; sport car style body 2006
• keyless remote has new buttons in the 2006
• 2006 has added heated side mirrors. An ostentatious feature.
• The 2005 has a very pleasant Google style dashboard. Controls for the heat and radio are basic and obvious how to use. In the 2006 they went with a very busy MSN type interface. Way more buttons and dials. Not obvious just looking at it what everything does.
• Analog speedometer 2005. Digital 2006.
  

The intent of ricing a product is to appeal the product to a younger, more aggressive market. It also can be used to justify sticker price increases.

So if you hear someone say that something has been riced, you'll know what they are talking about. However you should not say it yourself in polite conversation. It is actually a derogatory term. I won't say how it is a slur, but I will say that you're more likely to hear it more out in British Columbia. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to guess why it is derogatory.

Snow shovelling tip

Here's a tip that will help keep your hands warm when you're shovelling snow and extend the life of your expensive gloves.

Wear your regular gloves, but pull work gloves over them when shovelling. The work gloves will keep your hands a bit warmer. They will also keep snow off your warm gloves so keep your hands dry.

Also shovelling really wears out the regular gloves quickly. Work gloves are designed to be used with shovels and will not get ripped as easily from the snow shovel.

Football book and video

Here is some good football media I've enjoyed. These will be interesting to both casual and serious football fans. I dare say people who don't care about football at all would enjoy these because they are entertaining and high quality.

A great football book is The Dark Side of the Game: My Life in the NFL, by Tim Green. This is a really good book about what it's like to be on the inside of the NFL as a middle class player. I much enjoyed it and highly recommend.

My wife got me Monday Night Mayhem for Christmas. This was a really enjoyable DVD about the glory years of Monday Night Football in the 1970s. That was the time when people had bumper stickers that said "My boss never asks me to work Monday night."

Unfortunately for me the Cosell era was a bit before my time. Plus the games don't start until 10 PM in Halifax. I'll watch pieces of MNF today. I'm more likely to watch all of the Sunday night game just because it starts earlier.

The MNF video is based on the book of the same title.

Hockey

Recently my in laws had their annual family holiday party. It was a good time as usual. Lots of good food, that's for sure.

There were a lot of hockey fans among the men. Hockey is their game. They like hockey the way I like football. I like hockey myself. They like to talk about hockey. It was a pretty even split between Montreal Canadiens fans and Toronto Maple Leafs fans.

Welcome back NHL. It's great to see the players back. The new rules have hopefully ended the tedious soccer on ice era and put the emphasis back on skill where it should be. Also it looks like the Canada teams will be able to be more competitive again and bring in quality players.

I realized I don't have a favorite team. Historically I've liked the Maple Leafs going back to when I was young in the 70s. They had some good teams then with Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, and Borje Salming. They had a good run in the early 90s too with Doug Gilmour and Wendel Clark.

In recent years the Leafs just turned me off with dirty play. There's just too much of opponents getting submarined for knee injury, or elbowed in the head for a concussion. I can't stand that type of play or players who play like that. Toronto has kept too many guys like that around for too long.

Although they've had success on the ice, the recent Leafs seem to be kind of bland and dull. They lack the real character players like the guys mentioned above who made it really entertaining.

So I'm not sure. I probably don't follow it closely enough to pick up a new favorite team. I guess I'll just do what many Canadians do which is to wait for the Spring and get behind the Canada team that goes the furthest in the playoffs.