Speaking WITH Limbs

I started the whole "ten blogs" thing because, as I mentioned, I was without a computer for a week and had to make up for not writing one.  It was suggested to me that I should do it on my phone.  There's no way that I was going to type out a bunch of meaningless bullshit on my phone.  It's bad enough that I even take the time to do it on a keyboard.

Someone then furthered the suggestion by implying that my phone was antiquated and that I should upgrade to something with "talk-to-text" technology.  Well, I've never tried but I'm sure my phone has that ability.  I've never actually tried though because that technology is as worthless as any of these blogs.

Let me get this straight:  I speak into a device which then translates what I say into words for the person receiving them.  Then that person repeats this action and sends a word message back to me by using their voice.  So instead of just picking up the phone and talking to someone, I'm going to have them turn their sound emissions into letters and characters?

That's the problem with everyone today.  We have no idea what we want.

Here's the timeline:
- "Oooh house phones"
- "I got a new cordless phone.  Now I can walk all over the house and talk to people."
- "Just page me and I'll find a phone so I can call you and talk to you."
- "I love cellphones.  Now I can talk to anyone I want whenever I want."
- "Texting rules.  This is superior communication.  Now I don't actually have to talk to anyone."
- "Now I can talk into my phone and it turns it into words for you to read.  Then you just read it to      
    yourself in my voice.  You probably do my voice better than I do anyway."

We all want to be heard yet no one wants to make a phone call.  We don't really want a voice, we just want to send our words so that other people can read them in the voice they think we have.  People don't even leave voicemails anymore because if they did NO ONE WOULD LISTEN TO THEM!

I can't write a blog by speaking. I can't write anything by speaking.  If you pen a speech and don't ever present it out loud, is it still a speech?  I vote no.

This is not an invitation to call me on the phone either.  I've succumbed to the ways of technology to some extent and now I too hate talking on the phone.  It's for that very same reason that I refuse to use the "talk-to-text" technology.  I'd still be talking on the phone.  Not to mention, have you ever been next to someone using this platform?  Does it not sound completely foolish to hear someone say "QUESTION MARK" at the end of a sentence?

The word in the title of the blog is "cathartic."  It's the most important part of the title to me.  It's the whole reason I do it.  When I write jokes for stand up, it's always with a pen in a notebook, never typed on a computer.  I don't know why but it's the way I like to do it.  The only reason I type this on a computer is because I haven't figured out how to manifest a hand-written blog yet.  I'm pretty sure that blogs are exclusive to typing.  A hand-written blog is just a journal.  No one would hear it, no one would read it.  That would be like using talk-to-text and then the message just never sends.

Ok that's it.  I'm cutting ten blogs down to five.  I sentenced myself to ten but I'm getting off at five for good behavior.

"SIRI - END OF SENTENCE"
"PERIOD"
"SEND"
"NO NOT THAT FRANK, THE OTHER FRANK"
"YOU KNOW WHAT, FORGET IT, SIRI.  JUST FORGET IT."

The Ten Dumbandments

"What was I thinking"

I said it to myself when I woke up this morning.  I woke up 2 hours earlier than I normally would so I could write 10 blogs before I go to work.  That gives me exactly 12 minutes per blog except I hit the snooze button and had to make a cup of coffee.  I'm down to eight minutes and change now.  I couldn't even remember why my alarm was going off when it happened.  Then I remembered "Oh yeah, you have to write ten blogs this morning."

So what was I thinking?  That's a question people usually blurt out but never actually answer, despite being the sole keeper of the answer.

I missed two blogs.  One week I was just lazy or unmotivated or a combination of the two.  The week after that I didn't have a computer.  Could I have written it out by hand and typed it somewhere else?  Yes.  I could have done a lot of things. I, in fact, DID do a lot of things but none of them were that.

What I was thinking was that this would be a punishment for my not following through on a weekly blog.  A punishment to myself and likely whoever decides to read one or all of these.  This is my attempt to be a better boss to myself by handing down some motherfucking discipline.  This blog is entirely self-motivated and if I'm not disciplined about getting it done every Wednesday, I need to be disciplined.

That's what I was thinking.

Then someone said "How about one short blog?" as if I should take it easy on myself (or anyone reading.)  I took their idea to the next level, so as to make it an actual punishment again.  Ten short blogs.  The punishment far exceeds the crime but we'll see if I fuck that up again, won't we?

Speaking Of Limbs...

As I was backing my car out of a spot at the casino last night, I noticed the truck parked behind me had a bumper sticker that read "Gun control means using both hands."

To be honest, I'm not sure what gun control even is though I've advocated for it in the past.

Just to be clear, I've advocated just as far as posting "We gotta do something!" on Facebook in more or less words than that.  That is the extent of my advocacy.  I support it.  I don't know what it means in realistic terms but I'm still behind it anyway.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that gun control is NOT "using two hands."  Is this to mean that one-armed marksman are out of control?  Is that really the breaking point of gun control?

"This dude takes 35 anti-depressants a day but he takes 'em with two hands, so give him a Glock and some window clings for his pickup!"

"Steve, I'm really sorry that you lost your arm in the war but....you know what this means. Rules are rules.  Hand it over."

I'm pretty sure blind people have won marksmanship awards, so I'm calling your bluff, Toyota Tacoma bumper.

Night Terrors

Did you know that if you don't rake your leaves, sometimes at night you can hear creatures in your yard that aren't actually there?

I'd like to say that I don't believe in boogeymen but the honest reality of it is I do.  I do believe something is out there and is going to kill me.  I don't know if it's a sneaky, slimy snake or a majestic lion-type beast ready to pounce me but for a split-second on any given evening, I am 100% certain it is going to end my life.

It is completely irrational.  It's the middle of October in a somewhat urban upstate New York neighborhood where neither anacondas nor tigers roam.

Do snakes "roam?"  I'm not sure if that's the proper terminology.  I feel like they should still be able to roam even though they don't have limbs.  Do they have one limb?  Is there body also a limb or is it just a body?

I'll even get further down my delusion as I get detached from reality.  Sometimes in my backyard at night, I'll hear a sound and I'll imagine dragons.  Not the shitty band, ACTUAL FUCKING DRAGONS.

I know the simple solution is to stop smoking so that I'll have no need to be in the backyard after dark.  I'll look into that but I'm certain the beasts would just follow me anywhere.  I might not hear them in the backyard anymore but I know they'll just lurk under the bed or in a closet inside somewhere.  I'm sure they'll never leave my side.  They're just waiting for the right time to strike.

The Useless Twin

I like having a simple name.  I was born James, grew up Jimmy, landed back on James part-time and now I've shortened it to Jim for comedy.  I don't know, for some reason I thought that a three-syllable name with three letters in the first would be luckier for comedy.

That's actually entirely untrue.  I'm not sure why I decided to go with "Jim" on stage aside from it being one of the given nicknames of "James."  Now that I mention the "3s" thing though, I think I might be on to something.  Am I following a pattern that I'm unaware of?

::lights three candles::

My biggest gripe is that I only get the other "m" if I also add a "y" at the end. I don't know who made the rules but this seems unfair.  Maybe I want to be "Jimm" and not "Jim" or "Jimmy."

"Jimmy" is someone's unruly child, rearranging soup cans at the grocery store and pissing on the toilet seat....at that same grocery store.

"Jim" is the straight-laced, straight-faced father of that kid, chasing and chastising him around the store.  Sometimes barking "STAAAAP" through gritted teeth and sometimes just giving that disapproving dad look to get his point across.

...but JIMM!  Who is Jimm?!  I want to know what he's like!  I want to know what it's like living as a person with an extra, erroneous consonant at the end of their name.  I'm sure I'm not alone on this.  I'm sure there are people that want to know a life without that useless twin of a consonant dangling at the end of their address.

I'm talking to you, Brett, Jill, Matt, Scott, Bill.  Let's trade and get a taste of the other life.  I have a feeling two "M"s at the end of my name is going to wear me out after a while but I'd like to try.  I feel like there's a certain expectation of Jimm.  I'm not sure what that is but I'd like to find out and then not fulfill that expectation.

Water. Big Water. Ocean Water.

I was a lot more fearless as a child.  Not just physically but mentally.  Nothing bad could happen to me when I was in the single digits so I didn't give much a second thought.  I'd moon a police car passing by, drink the juice of a jar of hot peppers and I'd just mosey right into the ocean like I belonged there.  I don't belong there.

I've been to both oceans in my lifetime.  Yes, I realize there are four oceans but I said "both" because I live in America and there are really only two oceans we give a shit about - The Atlantic and the other one that is going to swallow California somewhere in the next 10 years or something.  I dunno about that last part; I heard about it in a Tool song.

I like going to the Ocean but not into the ocean. The reason is simple - I don't belong there.  I am not properly equipped as a human being to withstand the climate of the ocean, both biologically and politically.  If something is out of place on land, it is referred to as a "fish out of water" and the flipside equivalent of that would be "human in the Ocean." 

I can't explain to a bunch of marine life what I'm trying to accomplish by wading around their environment.

"You guys have cool creatures and stuff.  I'm just here to look at the neat shit and maybe touch some weird-feeling things before retiring back to my towel for pretzels and seltzer."

They'd then respond by zapping, snapping, clipping and biting me, as they should.  I've said a hundred times, if I see a shark just chilling on the sidewalk, I will walk right up to it and punch it square in the fucking face with all my might.  It has no place on land and it knows this.  You can tell sharks are aware of this because YOU NEVER SEE THEM ON LAND.  They are smarter than humans.  When I see these articles about people being in the ocean and being eaten by sharks it makes 100% sense to me.

I watched a documentary about a guy named Wild Bill Tregle who lived on a houseboat and wrangled alligators in Louisiana.  He seemed to live a pretty simple yet beautiful life.  The things he'd say were so simple that it blew my mind.  This one always stuck with me...

"Course I been bit. Ya mess with alligators, you gon get bit.  That's jus' a fact."

We're just insatiable beings.  We have this vast land and the ability to stand upright and explore any bit of that land we can walk to.  We've become so bored of this that we're strapping air tanks on to dive hundreds of feet down into an ocean we don't belong in to make friends with things that basically just see us as nutrition.  We're tethering ourselves into caves; squeezing through openings we're clearly too shapely for.  We're building helicopters and flying them into volcanoes.

For what?!  We have plenty to work with where we are.  If you can't walk there, probably don't go there.  If you can't breath sustainably in an environment, you probably weren't meant to be there.  If a mountain is basically vomiting fire everywhere, it doesn't need you to hold its hair back.  It means "GET AWAY FROM ME. I'M FIRE MOUNTAIN MOTHERFUCKER. YOU WILL DIE AND I WILL LIVE FOREVER."

I like going to the beach but mostly because I'm lazy.  No one questions me for doing nothing at the beach because that's what you're supposed to do.  I lay down a blanket on sand and then take a nap for 15 minutes per side.  It's enough for me to just stare at the ocean and be amazed by how much I don't know about it.  I won't know more by going in it, except for maybe its feelings about me.  I already have a pretty good idea it hates me though.

I'm not a child anymore.  I have exponentially more fear than I did when I was a child.  That is not a coincidence.  I was taught that fear and have survived this long because of those fears.  That fear tells me that as fun as it may be to go boogie-boarding in Cape Cod, it's not worth being halved by a narwhal or whatever the fuck lives in there.  Even a small chance is a chance.

By the way, what the fuck is "boogie boarding" anyway?  That shit looks stupid, stop.  If you're going to be maimed by a sea monster, at least be surfing.  You want everyone knowing your white geek ass died from a salad-tossing by a pirannha WHILE BOOGIE BOARDING?  Have some self-respect.

30,000 Deleted Emails

I feel a lot of pressure every time I open my e-mail.  I try to never give out my address but it's very hard nowadays.  If you want to use certain apps or visit certain websites, you HAVE to give them your e-mail address.

Since I post these through Blogger, I have to sign in to my Gmail account which is why I was reminded of this nightmare which will now become the topic.

In the last three minutes, which are still within my first ten minutes of waking up....(Yes, I write these almost immediately after waking up.  It's called "Worthless Cathartic Writings" but that doesn't mean I don't serve them fresh,)  I've come to realize that I have:

A "credit card statement ready" - Why do they word it like that?  They make it seem as if they are JUST NOW ready to take my money and no sooner.  Mind you, I pay it every two weeks, well more than the minimum and always early.  I know I owe you the money.  At no point did I think it was just free money.  I'm 34 and I've had this, my first credit card, for about 3 months now.  If I was under the impression that this was free money, I'd have had 30 of them fifteen years ago.  I'd have used my free money to buy a credit card company and I'd be sending YOU a bill, Capital One.  Relax.

Some shit from Turbotax - Dude, fucking stop.  I file my taxes once a year.  There is no need for any other correspondence. Single, Zero Kids, I don't own anything nor do I run a business.  No services you have other than "tell me how much I overpaid for working in America" are applicable to me.  Taxing my fucking inbox smdh

"35 RECOMMENDED HOMES FOR YOU" - Hi, what's your name again? Zillow?  Oh yeah, we met a few weeks ago when I was toying around with the idea of SOMEDAY buying a house.  I remember specifying a geographical location in your search bar and NOTHING ELSE.  How is it that you think THIRTY-FIVE different houses all fall under the blanket of me wanting to live in them?  Three of the houses are literally unlivable and four others are not even for sale!

I want a house someday, I think.  I don't know though, renting is kinda nice.
"Hey, here's money.  I'm gonna live here and you just gotta make sure all the stuff works always.  Also, the grass is looking a little tall in the back. *winks* I'll have your money for you a week early every month, no need to prepare a statement like those assholes at Mastercard. Thanks."

I do want a house though, hence the searching on Zillow but I'm very picky.  It needs to be in the middle of the woods.  I don't mean like "lots of trees in a quiet neighborhood," I mean like NO NEIGHBORHOOD.  Just a house surrounded by trees.  That's what "middle" means.  There's a house in the center and no visibility through the trees on any side of it.  None of those old ass broken trees either.  I don't need them falling on my shit and fucking up my brand new roof (every house for sale has a new roof).

I'd give my address to very few people.  I don't want politicians at my doorstep with their parade of bullshit pamphlets.  Just a couple of friends and on the off-chance that there is a business that delivers food out to my home in the middle of the woods, they too can have my address.  My e-mail address is already ruined but I have to draw the line somewhere.

Ok that's enough for today.  I have to go a write a rent check, pay my credit card bill and.....OH!  Would you look at that!  AIRBNB WANTS ME TO GO ON ANOTHER VACATION AND THEY HAVE COMPILED SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR ME!

Faking Boregasms

After a quick vote, one person responded and requested "coffee" as my topic today.  This actually has little to do with coffee but I'll get into that.

I prefer to save my complaining for here or the stage.  I generally don't like "speaking to the manager" because I'm a manager.  I rarely have a complaint that warrants speaking to a manager and unlike a lot of people, I know the difference.

I just wanted some ice cream. My girlfriend and I rarely have dates and when we do, they're often small jaunts to get some kind of food.  I don't really like going to the movies because I always fall asleep and generally nothing of interest is showing that we both can agree on.

Yeah, I fall asleep.  They dim the room and that giant screen just becomes a giant nightlight to me.  It doesn't matter what time of day or whether or not I've had my nap yet, I WILL FALL ASLEEP.

Anyway, we passed the movie theater and stopped in the coffee house next door that I frequent often, (always for coffee and never for ice cream.)  I'd not tried their ice cream yet.  I get unreasonably excited about ice cream because it, along with coffee, is one of the few pleasures in life I still fill my fat head with.  I've even largely given up dairy in my diet because I'm liar about being healthy.  I usually opt for the dairy-free Ben and Jerry's and eat it on my couch with no pants on.  That last part seems like a gratuitous detail and it is but I'm painting a fucking picture here.  A good painter evokes emotion and I'm sure you just had one reading that.

I just wanted some ice cream this night though.  Some real ice cream, made with that authentic cow-teat nectar we've all grown to love.  I'd always seen the signs for their ice cream when I'd stopped in for my morning coffee. It's the ice cream you'd imagine a coffee shop in 2017 would have - free-range, organic, anti-depressant free blah blah blah

This is getting really long-winded. Basically, it was all ruined quickly.  Shit attitudes on the other side of the cold showcase ruined the experience.  I wanted them to be as happy as I was to get the ice cream.  We were perplexed.  Had we done something wrong?  We were greeted as though we'd just killed their parents and came out to celebrate with some peanut butter swirl.

I may have been speaking to the manager a few days later.  I'm not sure, I didn't ask.  I just grabbed the ear of a much more pleasant person.  I explained to them that I know what it's like to have a shit day and also work retail.  I've done it plenty of times.  I still do it every day and I've gotten really good at making people think they and their experiences are unique when they are so tragically ordinary and boring.

 I'm so busy faking interest and smiles on the clock that I'm generally unpleasant for all the other hours of the day.  Anyone who knows me can attest to this.

"Jim hates everything," they say.  This is not entirely true but my excitement is generally so weak from all the faking I get paid to do.  I enjoy many things, I just don't have the energy in my face to show it.

In conclusion, I regret it.  I regret ever saying anything to the person-who-may-or-may-not-have-been-the-manager.  I think they went back and told them and now they're nice to me.  Not normal nice but outrageously nice and interested in my presence.  I think they are literally trying to kill me with kindness when I go in there now.

If you are that person and you are reading this (you're not) YOU WIN!  I give up.  I know what you're doing and I'm begging you to PLEASE STOP!  Go back to your misanthropic steaming of lattes and begrudged scooping of ice cream.  I just want you to be happy again.

Surprises ruin everything

I've spent too much time writing about things I like.  Even if they're masked in disappointment like "losing money at a casino" or "taking 14 swings to get through one hole of golf," I'm still describing things I like to do.

I'd like to take a minute to talk about something I don't like.  And I'm serious, I'm only taking a minute to talk about this; not because I don't want to dwell in the negativity of things I don't like. I actually do enjoy that and could spend all day doing it but I have to get ready for work in a minute.

"I hate surprises" - we hear people say it all the time and that's because LITERALLY EVERYONE HATES SURPRISES.  The only surprise we're ever cool with is a surprise party.  Even then it can get a little dicey.  We had a surprise party for my mom this summer and I'd be lying if I told you I didn't think there was a chance she might have a heart attack.  That was a little frightening.

Surprises are almost always bad though:
You got laid off today - SURPRISE!
You peed on that stick and now you're pregnant - SURPRISE!
You left your dome light on in your car and now it won't start - SURPRISE!
You wake up from a coma - SURPRISE!

You get the picture.

My least favorite surprises, as of late, have been the tacky pamphlets of local politicians. Every day I come home and SURPRISE! HERE'S ELEVEN MORE OF THE SAME SHIT I LEFT AT YOUR DOOR YESTERDAY!  I'm not going to mention any names as I don't really know much about these people.  I still assume (despite their campaign of punk-rock postering my fucking front door for the past month) that they are decent people.  There's also not one particular person at fault either.  There's a few and I have a plan for them that's more community-driven than public shaming.  Public shaming isn't nice.

Now, as luck would have it, listed online is all of their addresses, none of which are very far from me.  The elections were yesterday and all I have to do is wait to see who won.  I'm not 13 so no, I'm not going to egg their houses or tp their lawns or do anything illegal.  I just have questions that need answering.  I'm compiling a list of things that the community needs to know.

And yeah, you guessed it, right at the top of that list is "DO YOU LIKE SURPRISES?"
Then I'm just gonna shower their homes with my business cards.  I get it, they bought all these campaign materials and it's not good for anything after the campaign so they have to use it all up.  Well, I too have 600 business cards with outdated information on them that I desperately need to unload so.....one hand washes the other.  That's how community works. We'll wade through this waste of paper as a team.

Twenty-One Jump Ship

Counting cards isn't very difficult but I'm pretty sure I'm doing it wrong.  I get two, the dealer gets two and that's it.  If that was what counting cards entailed, I'd win every time.  Sadly, that's not the way it goes.

I don't know what it is that thrills me about things that cost money.  I think it's losing.  I've never really won big at a casino so my perspective is limited to my experience.  What I do know is that I keep coming back for more regardless of the previous outcome.  I always have some wild new moxie when I return too.  It is beyond the textbook definition of "insanity."

"If I get double aces, I'll split em" (1 out of 221 probability)
"I'll go half my bank on the first deal so I'll have more money to play with when I win that hand.  Even MORE if I get a blackjack on that first hand" (Absolute zero probability)

It's even worse with those god forsaken slot machines.  The bells and whistles rev up as the machine gets darker and the wheels light up.

BONUS.....("ahhh shit!")......BONUS......("oh fuck yeah, this is it!")........BON-HAHA JUST KIDDING! YOU SUCK! TRY AGAIN THOUGH! DEFINITELY TRY AGAIN! DO "MAX BET" TOO, YOU FUCKING FOOL! YOU HAVE TO WIN THE JACKPOT EVENTUALLY, RIGHT?!

I wish the games were different.  If I had a casino, it would be riddled with such games as "Cee Lo" or "Who wore it better?" and "Which hand is it in?" or "Are you smarter than a phone?"

Absolutely no one would win at my casino, mainly because most of those games aren't real.  My mom and a few of my friends might win a few times but other than that I'm keeping all the money.  I'm a businessman and this is America. If you don't like it, take your ass over to the scratch-off ticket machine or Denmark or wherever.

As far as actual casinos go, I've only one bit of unfinished business.  I haven't summoned the berries to sit down at a poker table yet but that's mostly because I can't keep a straight face.  That's pretty much the entire game right there.  It's ok to get a boner when I have a straight flush because we're all seated adults at the poker table. I have to make sure I don't involuntarily make the accompanying bonerface though or my cover will be blown.

"Sure, I'm bluffing with this hand but you should see what's in the other one!" he says with a wink while being ejected.

I'm nearing the end of my gambling phase.  I've gotten wrapped up in a "there's a way to win" mentality and I laugh at myself when I even have that thought because it's absurdly untrue.  The truth is, I don't need the money I'd win.  I need the money I'm gambling!  And no, I'm not that out of hand nor have I done anything devastating enough that I need to fake some kind of ailment and start a gofundme.  I just need to accept that I'm a loser. It's not as sad as it sounds. Most people are losers. I'm in good company.  By being losers, we all win.

Hey, there's another title for a book I'll talk about and probably never write!

"By being losers, we all win!" by Jim Felter.

I'm gonna need some startup cash.

Green in too many

I don't know why I started playing golf.  I was at a bachelor party, away for the weekend with some friends in Vermont.  They had decided that one of the great events of the weekend would be playing 9 holes at some country club none of us had ever been to.

(Speaking of bachelor party events in Burlington, Vermont...did you know that there are zero strip clubs within any reasonable distance and it's illegal to hire strippers in the city of Burlington?  You know that now.  You're welcome.)

"Do you want in?"

Without any hesitation I said, "Yeah of course I want to do that."  Even after having known me for over 20 years they still weren't sure if that answer was sarcastic.  I fooled them, though and it turns out I fooled myself as well.  After all, what was I gonna sit in the golf lodge and drink Arnold Palmers while watching golf on tv?  I barely cared about golf enough to do that.  That's for the real golf enthusiasts.

I love Arnold Palmers, by the way.  Iced Tea and Lemonade MIXED TOGETHER?! Whoever thought of that was a genius.

I borrowed my friend's shirt; since this was neither a wedding nor a funeral, I hadn't packed my one shirt that has a collar.  I wanted a cigar but when I got to the pro shop they didn't have any.  I don't even know that I like cigars but at some point I just decided, I'm a golfer now.  I didn't even have clubs.  You're supposed to rent them and not share but fuck that, I totally shared.  I was a golfer and I was already turning the rules of golf upside down.  Between my shunning of their antiquated traditions and my inability to actually send the ball anywhere without mailing a hunk of Earth behind it, I was breaking ground in this sport.

What was my score?  It doesn't matter.  I've yet to keep score.  When you see all these people getting their proverbial wood in a knot about how frustrating this game is, it's because they're keeping score. WHY?!  Why would you keep score?  You're up against no one.  My score is "Most of the time I made it to the green."  That's a pretty good score.  I'd like to see you do better.

Anyway, my friends were pretty impressed so they asked me to play again the next week.  Not bragging or anything but they obviously saw how I was en route to change this game forever.  I figured since it was my second time out ever in my life, I had better invest in some clubs.  I bought a set off a woman on Craigslist for $75 with a bag. They were men's clubs, relax.  He wasn't home at the time which was "too bad because he could've told you more about them." 

Were they a good brand?  Were they in good shape?  How the fuck was I supposed to know?!  I could have asked her and regardless the answer, I'd have had to take it to be the truth!  I know nothing!  Even IF her husband was there, any information he would've given me would have been erroneous.

I didn't even take them out of the bag. I touched the top of a few of them and said "These look like a full set of golf clubs.  Other than that, I have no idea what I'm looking at so here is your $75." I stopped at the store for a cigar on the way to the links (that's what we call it in the biz) because the lady that sold me the golf clubs was "fresh out" - I sensed some sarcasm.  I was again in a position where I had no knowledge of what I was buying. "This looks like a cigar, here is your eight dollars" I said, walking out in my new collared shirt.  

The rest is history.  Three rounds of golf and 48 lost balls later and I'm hooked. There should be an app and balls with tracking devices also.  I'm developing that; it's my idea, don't steal it.  Just another example of how I'm breaking ground in this sport.

The summer is coming to an end.  It's one of my last few weekends off and the weather is shit.  This story is shit too, I realize that.  Regardless of both, I'm going to play golf today and I'm really only writing this to see if anyone wants to join me.  Am I good?  That depends on who's keeping score.  If it's me, I'm pretty good.  I make it to the green on almost every hole.