How It All Began

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com. She said unto Abraham, her husband, “Why doth thou travel far from town to town with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?”

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, “How, Dear?” And Dot replied, “I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath the best price and the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah’s Pony Stable (UPS)

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. The drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever moving from his tent.

But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside Abraham’s drum and was accused of insider trading. And the young man did take to Dot Com’s trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to horse flesh. and, before very long, there were many others and They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites, or NERDS for short.

And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums.that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would work only with Brother Gates’ drumheads and drumsticks.

Dot did say, “Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others.” And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel,(or as it came to be known “eBay” ) he said, “we need a name that reflects what we are,” and Dot replied, “Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators.” “YAHOO”, said Abraham. And that is how it all began, It wasn’t Al Gore after all.

Thanks to my friend Gayle for this one.

Golf!

• You hit down to make the ball go up.
• You swing left and the ball goes right.
• The lowest score wins, on top of that, the winner buys the drinks.
• It is harder than baseball – In Golf; you have to play your foul balls.
• If you find you do not mind playing Golf in the rain, the snow, even during a hurricane, here’s a valuable tip …….. your life is in trouble.
• Golfers who try to make everything perfect before taking the shot rarely make a perfect shot.
• A ‘gimme’ can best be defined as an agreement between two golfers…neither of whom can putt very well.
• An interesting thing about Golf is that no matter how badly you play, it is always possible to get worse.
• Golf’s a hard game to figure. One day you’ll go out and slice it and shank it, hit into all the traps and miss every green. The next day you go out and for no reason at all you really stink.
• If your best shots are the practice swing and the ‘gimme putt’, you might wish to reconsider this game.
• Golf is the only sport where the most feared opponent is you.
• Golf is like marriage, if you take yourself too seriously it won’t work, and both are expensive.
• The best wood in most amateurs’ bags is the pencil.

Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies followed by a good bottle of beer.

Golf isn’t life – it’s more important than that!

What is a mulligan called in Ireland?  Three.

When is our tee time!! – Have a Great Day.

Thanks to Pat Echelbarger for the following. The “I hit my Drive 270 Yards” section really lends credence to the “Tee it Forward” initiative championed by Barney Adams that I discussed in my post on March 28, 2012.

The Wall Street Journal’s John Paul Newport offers an interesting read in a recent Sunday column titled “Golf’s Biggest Delusions: Nine Things People Say About the Game That Aren’t True—and One That Is”. Armed with recent data results from PGA Tour ShotLink and Pelz Golf Institute joint studies, Dave Pelz helps him clear up two of those misconceptions. Newport writes:

“I hit my drives 270 yards.”
Hah! Maybe once, with the wind behind you, on a rock-hard fairway, when the ball bounced off a cart path and a squirrel advanced it an extra 10 yards. On no subject are golfers, especially male golfers, more deluded than on the distance they hit their drives, with the possible exception of their attractiveness to beverage-cart personnel. Here are the brutal facts, accumulated by Dave Pelz over several years of monitoring thousands of players at amateur tournaments. He used the same ShotLink equipment used by the PGA Tour to determine that, in 2011, the world’s best players averaged 291 yards off the tee. Male amateurs who play to a 30 handicap average drives of 166 yards; 20-handicappers average 183 yards; 10-handicappers average 214 yards; scratch amateurs average 235 yards. So dream on.

The biggest difference between Tour pros and amateurs is how far the pros hit.
Despite the pros’ prodigious length, their most compelling advantage compared with amateurs is their prowess in getting up and down from 30 yards. The pros manage to do so 46% of the time, while 10-handicap amateurs succeed only 11% and 30-handicappers less than 3%. “The short, partial-swing wedge is the high-handicap amateur’s worst shot,” Pelz said. Part of the problem is a poor feel for distance due to lack of practice. Even worse is hitting the ball fat or thin. Given the delicacy of the half swing, a fat hit might advance the ball only a few feet while a scull could shoot the ball 30 yards over the green. Even once they reach the green, amateurs could face their second-worst shot: long lag putting.

Other “delusions” Newport tackles in the article, which can be found here, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577241550813907764.html, include “In Scotland, golfers never take longer than three hours to play a round”, “Ben Hogan’s ‘secret’ went to the grave with him” and “A 10-handicapper should shoot 10 over par.”

Golf Ethics question

What if you were playing in the club championship tournament finals and the match was halved at the end of 17 holes. You had the honor and hit your ball a modest two hundred fifty yards to the middle of the fairway, leaving a simple six iron to the pin.

Your opponent then hits his ball, lofting it deep into the woods to the right of the fairway. Being the golfing gentleman that you are, you help your opponent look for his ball.

Just before the permitted five minute search period ends, your opponent says: “Go ahead and hit your second shot and if I don’t find it in time, I’ll concede the match.”

You hit your ball, landing it on the green, stopping about ten feet from the pin.

About the time your ball comes to rest, you hear your opponent exclaim from deep in the woods: “I found it!”

The second sound you hear is a click, the sound of a club striking a ball and the ball comes sailing out of the woods and lands on the green, stopping no more than six inches from the hole.

Now here is the ethical dilemma: Do you pull the cheating bastard’s ball out of your pocket and confront him with it or do you keep your mouth shut?

Thanks to Scott and Jerry for today’s item.

As one who for years flew 100K to 125K miles annually and now flys as few as three or four times per year it was comforting today as we flew from Phoenix to Boise Idaho to see that little if anything has changed. Leaving from Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor Airport we worked our way through TSA security – not much of an issue for me but my wife with her new stainless steel knee gets the full monty.  As a practical matter we allow at least one-half hour for the process.  While many airports have upgraded the food options that transition has not made it to the section of C concourse where our gate was located.  In that area the options were Burger King and Pizza Hut.  Gourmet dining at its best. Today we are flying Southwest so get in line and on to the aircraft.  Grab a seat and the fun begins.  I prefer aisle seats so the dodge-em game begins – me hoping to dodge my head away from the assorted items passengers bring on the plane and swing around with abandon.  Successful until someone wants the window seat and has a backpack that will not fit in either the overhead bin or under the seat in front of him.  Twice he hits me in the head with this overloaded missile and after attempting to hold it on his lap and stuff it under the seat (it would not even get between his seat and the seat back in front of him) the flight attendant mercifully took the bag from him – again narrowly missing my head – and checked it to Boise.  As the gentleman slid by me it became painfully obvious that soap and a shower were not high on his agenda.  We are set to go but evidently there is a passenger that checked luggage that has not boarded and we spent about 15 or more minutes while this was resolved.  During our wait we were serenaded by our gate agent with his “Southwest” versions of a couple of songs.  He was quite good.

We are all settled in and shortly after takeoff the “screaming baby” chorus begins and continues for about 45 minutes – one-half row behind and across the aisle from me.  Finally mom got up and walked the infant and quiet ensued.  The balance of the flight was uneventful – landed only about 5 minutes late and luggage arrived quickly.  My guess is that any of you who fly could have written this post with only minor differences at least and quite probably would have more issues that we faced.  Bon Voyage!

Well I have been using my “New” iPad for a couple of weeks and am very pleased with it.  For starters I have not noticed any heating issues that have been referenced by others.  For full disclosure I am probably a typical user – email, web browsing, composing letters and emails, some spreadsheet work but I am not a gamer so do not push it hard.  By the way, I still love the Belkin keyboard case.  The keyboard is detachable which allows for a variety of ways to type when you are not on a flat surface and having the “right shift key” makes touch-typing realistic.  Having said that, I have used the “New” iPad to watch live broadcasts and some short subjects.  Battery life seems comparable with my original iPad – I did not have the iPad 2 – and have not witnessed any issues with the battery lasting the full day and often times more than that.

The new retina display is gorgeous with everything sharp – a noticeable improvement over my original iPad – again I did not have the iPad 2.  Due to increased battery size, the “New” iPad weighs more than the iPad 2 but is still lighter than the original iPad so to me there is no issue here.  Having said that my guess is that the small increase in weight over the iPad 2 is negligible and probably not noticeable unless you have one in each hand.  But the real kicker is the 4G LTE connection.  Today, I had my first opportunity to use the “New” iPad in a 4G LTE area (here in Tonto Verde we only have 3G) and the difference is nothing short of amazing.  For instance, there were 7 app updates for the iPad and 4 for my iPhone.  I started the iPhone updates first but the seven updates for the iPad were completed a number of minutes – I did not time it but it was over 5 minutes more – before the 4 for the iPhone running on 3G!  As a matter of fact the connection speed was noticeably faster than what I have at home on my wireless network and a guaranteed 12 meg connection from Cox. Hard to believe. Can’t wait for the new iPhone which is rumored to have 4G LTE.

So why would one purchase the “New” iPad?  For those with the iPad 2 I suppose it is a tough call unless you are in a 4G LTE area and routinely do things where the speed increase really pays off.  But for those of us that have, or had, the original iPad I think the additional features are worth the upgrade.  Additionally, as I noted in an earlier post there is a market for your current iPad which helps offset the cost of acquiring the new one. I had another reason to upgrade.  My original iPad was on AT&T that does not have the coverage or speed that one can acquire from Verizon – my “New” iPad is on Verizon.

As I am writing this post, I received a review by Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal tech writer, about the new Nokia phone and in it he highlighted the differences between 4G LTE service for AT&T and Verizon.  Here is Walt’s comparison.  While Walt’s comparison is on a phone I suspect that the same hold true for iPads.

And if LTE—which I consider the only true 4G network in the U.S.—matters to you, bear in mind that AT&T offers that service in just 31 markets, versus 203 for Verizon. In most places, the Lumia, like other AT&T phones, including the AT&T version of the iPhone, delivers a slower version of 4G, which is really just a souped-up version of 3G.

In the end, your own circumstances will drive whether or not the “New” iPad is worth the jump but if you do I doubt that you will be disappointed.