Our Anniversary
Our 5th wedding anniversary was on Friday. We had taken a cruise a few months ago which was partly our anniversary gift to ourselves. I still got Dana some flowers from a vendor at the farmers' market in Charlotte.
Golfing at Tanglewood
I really like to golf, however I'm not very good at it. My handicap rating is probably on par with the speed limit on the local interstate - which is to say, "I don't really keep score."
I enjoy being outdoors and on the golf course so I try to play as much as I can. Golfing has now become something my father in law and I do to "bond" so we usually wind up playing courses in the Florida Panhandle (where they live), North Carolina (there I live), and Atlanta (near a friend's house, approximately half way).
So Dana's folks were in town for the Easter weekend and I was going to get reservations to play at The Grandover. I'd played there once before and enjoyed myself - especially the GPS systems in the golf carts that tells your exact distance to the front of the green and to the pole. I called too late and they only had an outrageously early tee time available. So I decided to try Tanglewood Championship course in Clemmons, NC.
It was great getting up early to this beautiful sunrise. I knew it was going to be a great day!
First things first: you shouldn't have to pay a $2 park entrance fee if you're going to spend money on golf at a municipal course... especially when you're a county resident.
Now that I've got that off my chest, the course was beautiful! For this time of year, I understand the roughs being a little brown, but the tee boxes, fairways and greens were all beautifully green and very playable. The only issue I had was that they had just aerated the greens, so there were divots that slowed down the ball and sometimes jolted its course. But again, I don't really keep score so if you're close, it's "in" in my book.
There were all sorts of Canadian Geese on the course and I actually hit one with a golf ball. I was actually trying not to hit it which, again, tells you how good of a golfer I am. The trees were in full bloom!
And with it being springtime, there is pollen everywhere. Had I not known better, I would have thought some of the water on the course was polluted, but the pollen (which wreaks havoc on my wife's sinuses) created a beautiful series of concentric rings on the surface of the water.
Over all, I had a great time golfing. The weather was beautiful, the course was great, and I only lost 3 balls! I think the ball-loss was substantially under normal because this course featured sand traps and very few water hazards. I'm used to losing 20 balls a game at courses on the coast of Florida that have a water feature on every hole.
Okay, okay... if you want to make fun of me, here's my scorecard (with Phil's column blurred out to protect his ego... but I'll tell you that I beat him, even if by just a little).
Seen While Geocaching
Took some photos of a few cool things this weekend (Saturday, March 27, 2010). I love how Geocaching takes me to places I would normally not go. It gives me the opportunity to see some pretty unique things.
This was one of the more conspicuous cache containers I've found before. I was on a fence to a cell phone tower restricted area. It was the first container I've found that required a screwdriver to get into and I was hesitant to do that simply because of the placement (padlocks are a different story). This would go on my list of places NOT to place a geocache.
Cool sticker on a payphone that said "THIS PHONE IS TAPPED. Your conversation is being monitored by the U.S. government courtesy of the US Patriot Act of 2001. Sec. 216 of which permits all phone calls to be recorded without a warrant or notification." More info here.
Cool entrance to a large underground sewer system in Winston-Salem. Found with @JoshuaDCombs. I would have explored it, but the bars kind of hindered that... probably there because it was near a bank.
My New Ride
I finally bit the bullet and got rid of my old clunker 2001 Daewoo Nubira. It was pretty bad but it got me from point A to point B.
After about a week of searching and my wife getting sick and tired of me looking, I finally bought a new (to me) car. I settled on a 2008 Dodge Magnum. It's smaller than an SUV but larger than a standard car. That way I get better gas mileage than a large vehicle, but still have a decent amount of space in the vehicle.
My previous method of determining when I needed to cut my mohawk was when it hit the ceiling of my Daewoo. Looks like I'm going to have to change my criteria for the length I let my mohawk get because of all the headroom! We'll have to see about that.
Anyways, here are some photos. I didn't purchase the rims and wheels, so I'm going into the dealer to get them switched out for regular rims and wheels but for now I've got the *bling*. Those rims were $1,750 and I wasn't willing to add that to the total price of the car so that I could look (in some peoples' opinion) "cool".
Thank You, Netflix!
They royally screwed up and were "man" enough to admit it. Thanks for loving your customers, Netflix!
From an email I just received:
We Are Keeping Netflix Profiles
Dear Mark,
You spoke, and we listened. We are keeping Profiles. Thank you for all the calls and emails telling us how important Profiles are.
We are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused. We hope the next time you hear from us we will delight, and not disappoint, you.
-Your friends at Netflix
I'm glad to see that there's at least ONE company that still cares about its customers. Netflix, you've renewed my faith in great customer service. (But I'm still mad at you for making me so upset)
Previously: "WTF, Netflix?"
Delta Airlines is 0-2 At getting Our Luggage to Greensboro
I know they have the terrorist watch lists at airports, but I'm beginning to wonder if I've been placed on the "constantly loose bags" list by Delta.
I'm not a very good traveler and usually have to take Dramamine® in order to not loose my lunch on the descent when flying. My guess is that it has something to do with the size of the plane and the seating row I'm in since I seem to be more susceptible in smaller aircraft and towards the front.
Our first flight out of Indianapolis was pretty bad. There was a kid crying and screeching almost the whole flight. The mother and father of the little devil made absolutely no attempt to console, hush, or otherwise quiet the child. And this was no ordinary shriek... it was like Lucifer himself was channeling the highest, shrillest voices of his demons through this child. My ear drum survived but I may have permanent partial hearing loss.
Cincinnati has a pretty nice airport. The place is clean, comfortable seating, LCD TV's with the football game on, nice restaurants and shops... and lost luggage. Somewhere between Indianapolis and Greensboro our luggage was transported to no-man's land. You get on a plane with every expectation that your luggage will arrive intact and maybe you get lucky enough to get a little "love letter" from the TSA saying they'd rummaged through your unmentionables and nick-knacks you'd bought on your trip.
We deplaned in Greensboro after suffocating on the tarmac because the plane didn't have A/C when on the ground. We went down the escalators and waited till the conveyor had only one piece of luggage on it... we had three they weren't there. What I don't understand was that our layover in Cincinnati was over an hour! The luggage had plenty of time to make it to our final destination.
I've been through the procedure before at Greensboro. They lost my luggage when I flew up for a job interview... had to go to Walmart at 7am to buy a whole new business outfit.
I was told that the luggage was "probably" on the next plane that would arrive at 8:20 and I would receive a phone call when they were out for delivery to my house. At 9:45 i called their automated service and found out that they had come in and were in the care of the delivery service. I got a phone call at 11:45pm saying they'd be there before 1:30am.
Guess when they got there?
You guessed it: 1:30am. So much for a professional delivery... the guy was driving a civic or something. I heard it coming up the street about 1/2 mile away, it was that loud.
Luckily, all of our stuff was there.
Badcock Lives Up to the First Part of its Name – BAD
I've been putting off purchasing a dining room suite since I moved form Florida to North Carolina about 5 months ago. So that room, just to the right of the front door to our house, has sat empty for too long.
WeMy wife finally decided to get the ball rolling and searched online for the style/look we wanted for our formal dining room. The only thing that was even close to the Pottery Barn set Dana liked was at Badcock (& More!).
Last Saturday we went down to the Greensboro store (according to Google: 19.6 mi – about 23 mins). We searched through the surprisingly large showroom but couldn't find the piece we were looking for. So I asked an associate for help. The store was severely understaffed for a Saturday afternoon but we were soon helped and told that they didn't have that set in the store, but would use their computer systems to look up other stores in the area that did.
My wife and I were informed that the store in Burlington had it out on the showroom floor and they called to verify that, yes, they did have it in the store.
After a bit of deliberation because of the distance, we drove from Greensboro to the Burlington Badcock (21.8 mi – about 26 mins). Instead of looking around we headed straight to the customer service desk to talk to "Chris" who had told the Greensboro store employee they had the furniture set.
I can't begin to tell you the agony I felt when "Chris" said he "misheard" the woman on the phone and mistakenly though we were looking for a living room set with a similar name. They look it up in their computer... they indeed have two of the chairs so the manager goes into the back to look for the chairs.
Luckily Badcock sells big screen TVs so my wife sat down and watched about 45 minutes of Shrek 2 while I was busy sorting this out... yes, 45 minutes. It turns out that the chairs were in inventory but had been ordered by a customer and never picked up from the warehouse which was then applied back to that store's inventory list even though it wasn't in the store. Great.
I'll never buy anything from Badcock because to add insult to injury, the store manager was trying to convince me that I was having a "great" day because there was not a lot of traffic. "It's good traffic as long as you're not standing still" and "What a beautiful day for a drive" were some of stupid phrases I heard come out of this man's mouth.
I drove 79.6 miles on Saturday (43.6 of them were for absolutely nothing). On the way home on a whim we stopped at Ashley Furniture and bought a dining room set with more pieces, that we liked better, and that cost less than the one at Badcock.
EAT IT, BADCOCK.
Our New Addition: Tomini “Flame Fin” Tang (Ctenochaetus tominiensis)
He's come out of quarantine and has been added to the main display tank as of yesterday. The Sailfin tang was harassing him pretty bad last night when we put him in there and I was worried that he was going to get beat up. I think our Sailfin was just mad that the Tomini was in his cave where he normally sleeps.
It was kind of fun seeing them be territorial... the sailfin was backing into the Tomini (I assume to try and slash at him with his spikes).
This morning he was looking a bit rough. His tail was a bit "nibbled up" but throughout the day today he has gotten progressively bolder in the tank, exploring a bit more and standing his ground with the Sailfin... heck, the quarantine tank he was the big-dog, sharing 30 gallons with only a few blue-green chromis.
Here are some photos of him. I think we've named him "Bonno" to keep with out musicians/celebrity naming scheme in the tank. Bonno joins the tank with Elvis (midas blenny), Sonny and Cher (perc clown pair), Mr. T. (pacific sailfin), and John Deere (lawnmower blenny), among others.
Recommended Reading
- Free Demo Version of Epic Citadel
- General Web Content: CAPTCHArt
- I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This…
- Steve Jobs was right, Flash fails on Android
- Things are About to Get Awkward on the Enterprise
Nike+ Running Stats
- Total runs: 175
- Total distance: 305.50mi
- Total time: 89hr 23min 36sec
- Total calories: 40,864
- Avg pace per mi: 17'33"
- Avg distance per run: 1.75mi
- Avg calories per run: 233.51
My Records
- Farthest Run: 6.43mi
- Fastest Mile: 8'40"
- Fastest 5K: 32'10"
- Fastest 10K:2hr 16min 12sec
My Recent Runs
- August 25, 2010, 11:06pm
- Distance: 0.46mi
- Duration: 31' 22"
- Calories: 61
- August 25, 2010, 6:02pm
- Distance: 1.20mi
- Duration: 21' 6"
- Calories: 159
- August 24, 2010, 4:39pm
- Distance: 1.12mi
- Duration: 19' 58"
- Calories: 148
