Quinn earns his Bear Badge...

I got a text from my son last night telling me that my grandson, Quinn, had earned his Bear Badge in Cub Scouts.  That is quite an accomplishment and we are very proud of him. 

I am so glad he took up scouting and has stayed with it.  I have always been a big outdoor enthusiast and am so glad to see that he has taken an interest in scouting, which will lead to an enjoyment of the great outdoors.  Perhaps one of these days, he and I (and maybe his dad and brother Heath) will be able to go camping somewhere.  That would be super.  I think it is good for young boys to learn a sense of fieldcraft at an early age.  Probably not going to be a mountain man, but those skills come in handy and the respect one comes to have for nature and things outdoors really helps to round out one's development. They are things one remembers all through their life.

I won't start packing up the tents and poles right away; my wife might think I am getting a bit close to the edge.  But all that stuff is out in the barn and I know right where all of it is.  Probably wouldn't take more than an hour to gather it all up and load it in the Jeep.  Wonder what Quinn and Doug would think of trap shooting. Hmmmmm.

I still remember the entire Boy Scout motto. I don't remember the serial number of my gun in the army. I don't remember the number of my locker in school. But I remember that Boy Scout code. Tommy Lasorda
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tommylasor610903.html?src=t_scout

I still remember the entire Scout motto. I don't remember the entire serial number of my rifle in the Army.  I don't remember the number of my locker in school.  But I remember that Scout Code.  (Tommy Lasorda)

Hooah

I still remember the entire Boy Scout motto. I don't remember the serial number of my gun in the army. I don't remember the number of my locker in school. But I remember that Boy Scout code.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tommylasor610903.html?src=t_scout

I still remember the entire Boy Scout motto. I don't remember the serial number of my gun in the army. I don't remember the number of my locker in school. But I remember that Boy Scout code. Tommy Lasorda
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tommylasor610903.html?src=t_scout

I still remember the entire Boy Scout motto. I don't remember the serial number of my gun in the army. I don't remember the number of my locker in school. But I remember that Boy Scout code. Tommy Lasorda
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/tommylasor610903.html?src=t_scout

More about my latest hobby...

I think I mentioned a while back that I took up the sport of trap shooting.  Well, things have been going well and I have really had fun doing it.

Recently, Larry (a friend of mine) and I went up to the shooting club and went after it again.  It was just the two of us, but we put some shot down range.  We fired in 10-round groups -- I used my 20-guage and Larry was using his 12-guage.  Both of us did pretty well, considering how relatively new we both are to this sport.  We're not quite in the 100 hits out of 100 shots category, but being that good is expensive and we're just in it for the fun (no -- we're not too cheap!).

My score breakdown was:  7/10, 7/10, 9/10, 8/10, 4/5.  35/45 isn't really "too" bad.  Kinda like that whole "beauty is in the eye of the beholder (shooter)" thing.  I really like using that 20-guage.  It just fits my shoulder really well and the barrel does not feel heavy.  Larry went 28/40  with his 12-guage, and then borrowed my gun (ran out of his shells) and went 5/5 with it.  Think he might be looking at buying a "20."

Just like any sport you get into, there are lots of "sayings" thrown around by the old hands.  These guys and gals have thrown more shot downrange than most armies, and they usually come up with some pretty good one-liners regarding their ability.  One that I recently heard was:  "They aren't hard to hit...it's just that they're so easily missed."  That one was quickly followed by this one:
"They all broke, even the ones I missed"

Since most sports have a lot in common, that last quote quickly reminded me of Rule #1 from our recent golf trip...
"I didn't miss the putt.  I made the putt...the ball just missed the hole."

Hooah

Do these look familiar...?

I was actually cleaning out my Army room the last couple of weeks, much to the delight and surprise of my wife who will tell you that I have not even scratched the surface.  In the process, I came across some of these old things.  Some of you will remember them.  They were coins used in Iraq and Afghanistan in the PX stores.  Made out of cardboard, they are light and easy to carry in your uniform pockets. 

Contrary to popular opinion that they were introduced into the system because they could easily be thrown away, lost or not taken seriously (a.k.a. Monopoly money), their actual value to the logistics guys was they didn't weigh much in bulk -- at least not as much as the equivalent value of real metal coins.  Remember how much a roll of pennies or quarters actually weighed?  Do you actually remember what a roll of coins was?  So imagine rolls and rolls of coins going back and forth to the theaters, stores and banks.  That cut down weight loads on planes that would be traveling to those countries, and would allow the more valuable cargo quantities like "bullets and butter" (remember that old saying?) to be increased.

Check these out:

 I suppose they are still good at the PX.  Might have to check that out some day.  Regardless, the idea must have worked -- I still have a few dollars wroth of them.  I gave some of these to my grand kids, and still have some left over.

Probably won't throw these out.  I can find a place to hide them that won't take up too much room.

Used to be that a penny saved was a penny earned.  Today, it's all about the Benjamins.
Hooah

"Man Trip" 2017 -- what can I say ? What a trip!

Yes, Man Trip 2017 was quite an outing.  All the things that make for a good trip were there -- 12 good guys who all get along with each other, great weather (despite the predictions the week before the trip), very nice courses (more about that later), good food (more about that later), nice hotel facilities (they throw in a hospitality room for us for free), and some pretty good scores (yep -- more about that later too).  Can't really ask for much more than that.

First of all, let me present to you the guys who went on the trip:

Pretty good looking group of old golfers.  Each of them adds a unique flavor to the mix.  They are funny, they all enjoy the game and play pretty well, and when they don't they are not dip sticks about it.Nobody gets excited about their score.  It's just fun to get out and be with the guys.

I have found over the years that the measure of how well the golf is being played relates directly to how many pictures were taken of the players on the course. 

Believe it or not, these were the only ones I took during the whole trip.  I guess I was having too much fun playing and talking.  When my game is going "OK to Well", I get in a zone and pretty soon the holes just zip by.  I also find myself really enjoying the scenery, especially on new courses. Although I like my home courses, I really like to travel and play different courses with unknown-to-know challenges.   And I am not talking about only playing wimpy courses when we are on the road.  The scores might be good, but there was no challenge, and those rounds do not improve your overall game.

Oh, yeah, speaking of improving one's game -- my brother-in-law, Chuck must have really been out practicing prior to the trip.  On the second day out, he hit a hole-in-one on a par-3.  Fortunately, Dave had his phone with him so he could take a picture of the event.  Way to go Chuck! 

 That is his first ace.  He is in his 70s.  Not bad.  I Googled the odds of an average golfer having a hole in one:  "Actuaries at such companies have calculated the chance of an average golfer making a hole in one at  approximately 12,500 to 1, and the odds of a tour professional at 2,500 to 1."

Following each of the day's golf, we focused on having a pretty nice dinner and a relaxing evening.  No trip to the Winston-Salem area would be complete without chow at Little Richard's Bar-B-Q.  The food is really good and they treat you right, even if we are Yankees and we don't all drink sweet tea with our hush puppies.  Dave tried to bail us out by ordering half sweet and half unsweetened tea which they had obviously heard of before.  And some of us ordered our beers two at a time (saved on the waitress running back and forth so many times). They had heard of that too and it was highly encouraged!  On the second day, we went to a nice dinner club, just down from the motel.  They were having three specials that night:  a shrimp dish, a blackened salmon dish, and an oyster entree.  Some had the shrimp, I had the blackened salmon (very good), but nobody wanted to try the oysters.  One of our guys ordered up some Ouzo after dinner and passed it around.  Oompah!

And then, came the dinner on the third night...our steak cook-out.  The menu consisted of char-coaled steaks, baked potatoes with all the fixings, salads, french bread, wine, beer, and cherry and apple poes for dessert..  Sounds good, right.  Well, that doesn't tell all the story.

I go shopping that afternoon and buy all the fixings.  I managed to get the motel to do the baked potatoes for us (they included the sour cream and butter too) (That place is very accommodating and really is a great place for golf groups like ours.).  We also bought a small charcoal grill and cooked the steaks out back of the motel near the pool.

What this picture doesn't show is how windy it was that day.  It seems that one of the guys was standing by one of the doors to the motel, holding it open and a big gust of wind came along and blew a bunch of smoke into the motel which, in turn, set off all the smoke alarms.  All the fire alarms went off, the doors all shut and the fire department was alerted.  Fortunately, the front desk was able to get the big trucks stopped before they got to the motel, but one of the little ones was already there.

This falls into the category of "No harm, no foul."  the fireman just asked us to move the grill out farther away from the motel which we gladly did.  It was all pretty exciting and gave us a lot to talk about for a couple of days.  The motel manager said that this happens several times a year when people cook out.  Maybe they should have a designated area where patrons can do this.

This was the final outcome for the evening.  They look like they are having a good time don't they.  Again, thanks to the motel for the room and taking such good care of us.

So ---- that one is under our belts.  Looking forward to the next one, hoping everyone is still around and able to go.

Every one of hundreds of thousands of cities has a special course, unique tourist attractions, some claim to fame, and generally it is worth going there, if only once, to see these things.  But it is so much better when you have friends with you, and you might only be there to watch the sun go down.

Hooah 

Better late than never...

How many articles have I written over the years with that lead-in?  Hmmmmmmm.

Well, this one will just have to be another one in the series.  Today, tonight, and tomorrow the talking heads of local and national TV stations are predicting the end of the earth.  It seems that a snow storm, not unlike the ones of our youth, is poised to hit the east coast.  Some of the extreme prognosticators are calling it the storm of the century.  Don't know that it is much different from the one by the same name last year, but that's how they make their money and ratings so let's drive on.

Daylight savings time just took place this past Sunday, and now Spring is only 7 days away. Don't know why it waited till now to come, but maybe this late season snow is something we really need.  Seems any time I get around my farmer friends, they say we really need some snow to build the ground water table a bit. OK.  I know the ski lodge guy at Mad River is really diggin' on another blast, especially since his business has been up and down (get it) the last few years. So, given all that and more, I guess a late snow should have been anticipated.  All I know is it really was fun being around here today.

Snow started around 3 p.m.  My wife told me that most of the stores had sold out of everything on the shelves by then (we're only expecting less than 3 inches).  As it proceeded to snow a bit harder, I sat in the pentagon room and watched it.  The bird feeders were full, so we had quite a bunch of hungry flappers out there.  The whiter it got, the brighter the birds showed up against the background.  We had a large assortment of wrens, brilliant cardinals and their mates, scores of morning doves, woodpeckers, red-winged blackbirds, fat robins, and some that were passing through that I didn't get a chanced to look up in the bird book.  The last couple of weeks, we have been having a couple of mallard ducks stopping by for a morning swim.  We also have rabbits who live between the underside of our deck and the woodpile by the "waterfront cottage (a.k.a.the shed by the pond).  They run around, chasing each other -- wonder what they are up to?  Today, we had two of our owls flying on hunt over the field just behind our house.  Those are majestic birds when they are soaring on the winds.  And, of course, there is always the red tail hawks that swing in occasionally for the possibility of a meal, which could be fish or fowl.

So, even though it was/is snowing, and it is getting too close to golf season for this stuff to hang around, I don't mind it that much.  I have the luxury of staying in the house if I want.  So a day or two won't hurt.  I'll just keep reading, talking on the ham radio every once in a while, and maybe, just maybe, taking a nap if the spirit moves me.

Man trip in two weeks.  Can hardly wait.  Knee is about 95% now.

 Snow and a bad day on the golf course are the only things that "go away" if you ignore them long enough.

Hooah

Boy does this bring back memories...

The annual Pinewood Derby was held in Brooklyn last week.  Thought you might want to see my grandson, Quinn, winning one of his races.  I bet a lot of you have done this in the past.  Great memories.

The coolest thing is that the other guys all cheer for each other, and the memories often last into adulthood.

"When I was in Cub Scouts, I got stuck on Webelos for three years because I kept losing the Pinewood Derby."  (George Costanza)

Hooah

March comes in like a lion...

For the last two days, we have had some pretty cold weather.  Add to that, we have also had tornado watches, 12-15 m.p.h. steady winds all throughout the last three days with gusts up to 40 m.p.h.  And yesterday, we had snow squalls throughout the day and night -- of course, it is sunny and all melted now.  Sounds pretty much  like typical weather for the first of March here in McCartyville.  I tell my friends from Troy, where we used to live, that this is the land of 100 m.p.h. winds everyday of the year.

So I was up early this morning, getting ready to go to Columbus for a meeting for committee work I do, and happened to look out one of our windows overlooking the pond.  There were lots of birds out there, all huddled up, down on the ground, trying to stay out of the wind.  Might have also been waiting for the wind to blow the snow cover off the seed on the ground.  After all, it was breakfast time.  I think birds eat breakfast -- it seems they eat all the time.

Anyway, I thought I could hear one of the robins up in the tree saying, "I can't believe I left Florida for this."  Guess they're paying the price for the trick Mother Nature played on all of us the last couple of weeks.  Can't wait for my brother-in-law and his wife to get back from Southern Florida where they have been hanging out for the last week or so.  Boy are they going to be in for a shock!!

Oh well, the man-trip is only 3 weeks away and we'll be playing golf in the sunny, warm North Carolina countryside.  I hope.  We've had some pretty bad trips down there too.

So, since all my golfing buddies except Dave, have been playing already for at least 15 rounds this year, and I have not because I had my knee scoped and had to plan it out so I would be able to go on this trip, I thought I had better come up with some good one-liners to use on the course just in case this doesn't go as planned.  So here goes:

1.  I didn't miss the putt.  I made the putt.  The ball just missed the hole.

2.  (This is a take-off of the XX beer guy).  I don't always one-putt.  But when I do, it is usually for a double bogey.

3.  I was one under today.  One under a tree, one under a bush, and one under the water.

4.  May the fade be with you.

5.  Should I look where I think it is, or where I hope it is?

6.  (Pre-round prayer): God, grant me the serenity to accept the shots I miss; the courage to try, try, try again; and the wisdom not to throw my clubs in the dag-gone lake.

7.  (If, by chance, I lose a ball):  Just remember -- golf balls are like eggs -- they are white, they are sold by the dozen, and you usually have to buy more next week.

8.  Life is short.  Go for it in two!!

9.  (For all the environmentalists I might happen to play with): Save the earth.  It's the only planet with golf courses.

And, last but not least...

10.  (Back to the XX Beer guy):  I don't always make birdies.  But when I do, the next hole is always a double bogey.

Any of you golfers out there can certainly feel free to use these as the need arises.  Our plan on this trip is to play 4 solid days of golf.  However, if that doesn't work out, well, there is always Crosby's Lounge and the free drink coupons.  I figure these sayings might get worn out by the end of the week.  More to come in April in this matter.

Hooah