New Top Golf Score

My new top golf score is 104. I blew my shot at breaking 100 with some pretty crappy play around the greens.

Almost there.

I Am Such A Good Jew

I went to Shabbat services this past Friday for the first time...ever (or maybe in the last twenty years). I was dragged kicking and screaming to services and a young professionals dinner afterwards by Sarah because she wanted us to spend time with the Rabbi who is going to perform our wedding ceremony. I understood why, but it was definitely not on the top of my list of things to do on a Friday night.

When I went into the services I was grumpy. When I left, I felt better. Maybe it had something to do with feeling like a better Jew. Maybe it had something to do with the services being much more upbeat than I expected and pleasant to attend in general. Maybe it had something to do with feeling good about being able to pray for a Cubs World Series win. Whatever the reason was, I felt better.

The dinner was not that bad either. Met some nice people, ate some delicious food, and got to spend a little time with the Rabbi. Spending time with Jews was pretty cool and I definitely need to eat Jewish food more often. Yummy!

All in all, it was a good Jewish night despite my fears.

New Jobs

Adam, a.k.a. Ducky, recently accepted a position in Chicago and has since moved away. I will miss him because he is fun, and for everything he has done for me both personally and professionally. I will not miss him because he is British and chicks dig that a little too much for my liking. Good luck in Chicago, Adam, and good luck to Melissa (his girlfriend)...he is all yours now!

Congrats and good luck to J.P. (who is going to be my Best Man, by the way) at his new job. His situation at work had to be pretty bad for him to get so riled up. He is usually a rather mild-mannered guy. I sure this new position will turn out better than the last.

I Love My iPod

I love my iPod Mini. Working out is much easier, and almost fun, when I can listen to my favorite tunes. I would recommend an MP3 player to anyone who spends a great deal of time at the gym, or doing any other mindless physical activity. They are worth the money.

Bad Luck With Hard Drives

The PGA Championship is finally over and now I can get on with my life.

For an endless number of hours this weekend, I was stuck inside my apartment watching golf on TV and watching golf scores on my computer. All this golf was giving me a headache, so I had to turn my attention to something else. I thought that watching some episodes of "Buffy" for a few hours would clear my mind of everything golf for the moment...enough to survive the weekend at least. I tune my Comcast DVR to Monday's episode and the picture was all scrambled and the hard drive seemed to be doing more "spinning" than usual. I went to check the other shows I had recorded and they were all the same way. I called up Comcast and they sent someone over to take a look at it and said that it must be a bad hard drive. I found this particularly frustrating since I believe the problem began after they downloaded new software to the box earlier in the week. They swapped my DVR out with a new one and I lost all my previously recorded content. That sucked! Unfortunately, that sent me back to golf.

Over the past few months, I seem to have had extraordinarily bad luck with computer hard drives. Two months ago it was my laptop, last week my secondary hard drive on my PC went bad, and finally, the DVR this past weekend. What an I doing wrong?

Harry and the Potters

A band dedicated to Harry Potter?! I love it! My personal favorite is "Save Ginny Weasley".

Finally Caught Up

With the 2004 PGA Championship on the immediate horizon, I seem to have caught up with the majority of my work. This comes as a big relief due to the number of other commitments I have this week like Adam's going away party (he is moving to Chicago...just in time for the Cubs World Series run) and my final softball game before the playoffs.

Knowing this was going to be a stressful and busy week, I decided to take advantage of my free time this past weekend. I was able to play two rounds of golf with my friend Justin before he goes back to Clemson for grad school. On Saturday I shot a 106 at North Fulton Golf Course and on Sunday I shot a 105 at Bobby Jones...both personal bests. The great thing about the scores were that I still have not played up to my potential during a live round. My putting was horrible. If I could have cut the number of three puts I had in half, I would have broken 100 and maybe even scored in the mid 90's. I am definitely getting better though.

The weekend was a success for other reasons as well. I was finally able to get my hands on an ever elusive blue iPod mini. Well, I did not, but both Robert and Sarah were able to. I could not find one anywhere for months, and then I almost ended up with two. Either way, they both deserve a big thank you for ending my iPod mini drama.

Rockin' Out At Baseball Games

Anybody who has been to or watched a baseball game in recent years will have noticed that players walk from the on-deck circle to the batters box to a personalized theme song...entrance music, if you will. My guess is that this trend started when the popularity of wrestling shot through the roof in the late 90's. Players probably wanted to experience the extra jolt of adrenaline and excitement that occurs when the most popular wrestlers make their way down to the ring: tens of thousands of people screaming for you the second the first note of "your song" plays. It is a very intense few seconds.

That being said, ESPN's Page 3 has compiled a list of at-bat music for a few players on each team. They even give the story behind the selection in some cases.

If I were able to choose an at-bat song for myself for softball, I would probably select a Justin Timberlake or Nelly song.

Late Night

I did not get much sleep last night because I had an allergic reaction to some ice cream that I ate. I had a similar problem the night before and the ice cream was the only things that matched on both nights. The reaction left me with endless itching all over my body, thus making it near impossible to sleep. The ice cream in question: Healthy Choice Chocolate Chocolate Chunk. What the hell is in this stuff?

To make matters worse, I get into work this morning (tired and frustrated obviously) and there is an article on MSN rating 6 top ice creams. Number 5 on the list: Healthy Choice Premium Low-Fat Ice Cream (Vanilla). I know the flavors are not exactly the same, but I am sure the majority of the ingredients are. Insult to injury.

I am going to have to disagree with MSN's evaluation and give Healthy Choice ice cream a thumbs down. Ice cream should not make you lose sleep!