where to begin...

Alright peeps, i'm lying in bed w/ no shirt on (that's for all the ladies, er, except for any family), listening to some 38-Special (for Diddy), DJ Sammy (Utterback), E-Money (everyone, because we all love Eddie Money), some Akon (Buell), Coldplay (Scotty & Sara) and even some back-to-back Neil songs have creeped up (see, even something for you Dad). It's definitely bloggin time!

JFC, a lot has happened in the past 8 days. Where to begin.... let me take you back to the US Senior Wednesday practice round. So this was Day 2 of me heading out there. This time Dr Scott Cline accompanied me. Two highlights for the day, besides the obvious highlight of being out at such a beautiful course surrounded by great golfers. First, of course Scott and I had to hit up the golf simulator and tackle the Par 3 160yd 14th hole at Bethpage Black. You get 3 shots at it...unfortunately I didn't hit a hole in one or anything, i think my best shot was 35ish feet from the cup, but it was good enough to dominate Scott, so that's the important thing. Second highlight was Scott and I walking down the par-4 4th hole, which is kind of in a secluded part of the course, so not many people were around. Naturally we were holding hands since we were on Scott's dream man-date so I had to make him feel good, but we quickly were distracted by a golf ball that was hit in our general direction and came to rest in the left rough underneath a tree. Now the reason there was really no one else around besides us is because it was John Ward's foursome. For those of you who don't know who John Ward, don't feel bad, we didn't either...but he's probably the coolest golfer out of the Denver, Colorado area. How many of you have your own golf website?? And to further cement himself into greatness, he invented his own putting system.... So what if he didn't make the cut because he shot an 81 in Round 2... Anyway, back to why I bring up Mr. Ward. Scotty and I were interrupted from our romantic walk down #4 fairway by his ball coming to rest on the left side of the tree trunk. In the practice rounds, typically the pros would just move their ball back out to the rough/fairway and hit a normal shot in since they don't really keep score. However, as he came over, we said that he should play the shot? He then looked back at us and asked what type of shot he should hit along w/ club selection. Now, with my girth of caddie experience I gained caddying for Austin in the qualifying round of the 2003 Indiana Amateur, I knew he was about 200 yds out and could run his ball up near the right side of the green, so I calmly said, "see that window, you can punch a 3-iron through it and run your ball up to the right side of the green. His response, "Aw, what the hell, let's give it a try." Sure enough he pulled the shot off, nestled it up within a few yards of the green, about holed out his birdie chip and had a tap-in par. At that point he told his caddie he was fired and told me to get on the bag. Of course he was joking, but it made our day...yes, Scott said a few things too, but Johnny Ward obviously knew I had some caddie experience which is why I got the nod over Scott.

Scott and I went back out to round #2 on Friday as well and had Pepsi Suite/Tent tickets, so we had free food/beer, which was awesome. I once again dominated Scott on the par-3 14th hole @ Bethpage on the golf simulator. Unfortunately for Scotty, I put one within 10 feet and at that point of the day was 8th place for all contestants for the day. We ended up following our favorite Senior PGA golfer Johnny around a little bit on Friday, even saw him birdie his first hole of the day, which at that time cemented him as a darkhorse shot to win, but then he proceeded to shoot 10-over the rest of the way....so much for John Ward. Friday was a great day at the course. Norman and Funk were putting up awesome scores and the galleries were pretty big following them. Great day!

So the city championships for my 4.5 tennis league is this upcoming sunday, so I've been playing a lot of doubles recently w/ my team in preparation. For those non-tennis people, there are basically two "levels" above the level I play at, and then the level after that is basically considered a low-level professional. I think my team has a good shot of winning. If we win, we advance to the state finals up in Fort Wayne the following weekend. After that we would move onto the Midwest tourney against the state champs from the surrounding states. I've never made into the post-season before, so this is very exciting for me. 10:30 at IRC-Dean Rd on Sunday morning if anyone wants to watch a has-been play some dubs.

Got a new sofa and chaise chair thingy for my family room. It's kind of like a light chocolate color and actually matches the room fairly well. I was a little worried about that at the store because, well, basically I'm a straight guy, so matching furniture w/ other colors and pieces of furniture isn't a skill that I have in my repertoire (I dare any of you to try and work in "repertoire" into normal conversation, but since I'm such a skilled writer it just comes naturally to me.)

Hmmm, went to the Cubs/Reds game in Cincy this past Monday. Cubs won 4-2, but the frickin bullpen made it interesting again in the 8th/9th. However, they are tied w/ the Cards for first place in August...life isn't all bad for the north-siders.

Marko and Jenny are due in September (Marko is my old college roommate/teammate for those who don't know him.) Well they are having a "couples" baby shower and of course I'm invited. Unfortunately i'm like the only single guy on the list of invitees....seriously, what the hell am I supposed to do at this thing? Fortunately i don't have to pick out my own gift as the hosts are organizing a big gift from the whole party. So I just have to pay my share of the gift, so I dodged a bullet there. Laramore, the other single guy invited, better go....in fact, I may go kidnap him and force him to go w/ me.

And last but not least, i have some potential good news on the way. Even though living by myself is great, it isn't as financially rewarding as say having two roommates pay my mortgage for me. Since I'm the luckiest guy I know, of course a roommate has magically fallen into my lap. So I think I'll have a new roommate in the next month or two....nothing official yet, but it seems promising. Vegas, here I come! Mom, if I win some money at the tables, I may even be able to afford to buy you an X-mas present!

Video of the Week - it's long (10 minutes), but very funny and comes to you via Andy Roddick's twitter account. If you don't like tennis and don't have a sense for how fast a 145 serve would be to hit, then don't waste your time... I feel if me or one of my buddies made it big, we'd do stupid videos like this weekly...it'd be in our unwritten/understood entourage contract!