Masters’ Schwag

Donna and I don’t golf. We really don’t even like the sport. The only thing we do like about it, is one day we might live on a golf course (just so we have someone else take care of our backyard.) We don’t follow golf except for one little tournament, for four days during the first week in April the TV is tuned to coverage of the Masters.

We moved to Aiken in May of 1989 and in the spring of the following year we attended a Masters’ practice round. In those days practice round tickets were unlimited, you walked up to the gate on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and $5 got you in. This went on for 2 or 3 years and in an attempt to mellow out the rowdy Par 3 crowd and reduce the traffic surrounding the course the Masters organization decided to limit the attendance each day to some super-secret number. The use a lottery system to dole out the tickets, Donna and I got tickets for the next two years and have been shut-out ever since.

In one of those first visits I bought a really nice ball cap. A perfectly shaped brushed twill that had a dark green body and a navy bill with the word Masters in script embroidered in white on it. I wore that thing out. Well figuratively at least. Every year I hope anxiously that we will get an invite to the ball, so I can get a new hat and every year the wicked step mom denies us.

There is a little gift shop by the main gate that you can buy official merchandise at, but there is a very limited selection of stuff to choose from. I’ve been holding out on getting an exact replacement, so I left that option off the table, until now. This morning I could stand it no longer. Donna and I drove over to Augusta, parked about a mile from the National in a Kroger parking lot and walked over to buy me a hat.

The selection was so small I almost didn’t want to buy any of the available hats. But, we came all this way, so I grabbed a black ball cap with a small Masters’ logo in yellow and a tiny little green embroidered “Masters.” It won’t become the hat that sits on my head every time I leave the house, but it will make it into heavy rotation.

Mmmm…Pizza

Mmmm?PizzaWe were supposed to go up to Kershaw, SC today to see fellow MMC member John Haff race POS in the SCCA Solo I & II event there, but we didn’t make the trip. The weather was listed as iffy all week and this morning we checked the radar and figured that we were going to have a very rainy day and that Kershaw probably would too. I’m sure John, who with his wife Carol were already up there, got in some laps because it looked like they didn’t get wet until a little after noon time. A couple other couples from the Club were also planning on going, but I don’t know if they made the wet drive up or not.

We mostly hung around the house and listened to the rain hit the roof. I sorted through nearly all of 4,000 photos in the My Pictures directory and renamed, resorted and arranged in directories. I still have about 350 in the “Photo Dump” directory that need sorting or more like deleting. While I worked on the digital pictures Donna sorted through a bunch more of the old photos in the Big Box of Morrison Memories. Included in there was another blast from from the Miata past. About a month after picking up our first Miata, a 1990 Mariner Blue A package, we drove down to New Orleans for Christmas. I don’t remember what I got for a present that year (if you don’t count the new car), but the Miata got a cracked windshield on I-20/59 in Alabama.

After the rains cleared here this evening Donna and I went downtown to get some pizza at Ferrando’s. While not the pinnacle of the pizza peak, the pie from Ferrando’s is right up there past the tree line and there is none better in Aiken.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 101

Kind Of Like Bankers Hours, Only Better

After our first consult with the Oncologist last week he outlined a course of treatment to rid Donna of any cancer. First up is systemic treatment with 4 rounds of adriamycin & cytoxin 3 weeks apart. After that it is localized treatment consisting of 6 weeks of radiation blasted at her breast.

Both of the chemo drugs list hair loss as a side effect, so to get prepared for that eventuality we visited the little boutique at the Cancer Center on Thursday. We had a about three hours to kill while waiting for the radioactive tracer to get distributed throughout her body for a bone scan test. With the help of the nice lady that runs the place, Donna tried on a whole bunch of styles of turbans, scarves, hats and such. We picked out two neat turbans, two more dressier hat/bonnets for work, a nice little cotton beanie for sleeping and under ball caps. Although Donna liked the scarf option they seemed a little tricky to get looking right. The last item we picked out was a small hair piece 6″ wide with about 4″ of hair to simulate bangs that give a more natural look to the other items.

The shop keeper took a copy of Donna’s insurance card and said she’d call and see if our items would be covered. We when back to the hospital and finished up the bone scan, etc. We then went home and had lunch. The woman called shortly thereafter to say that our insurance didn’t cover those kinds of things. We told her we still wanted to buy the items and would come over later to pick them up.

Donna called at about 4 o’clock to see how late they were open and was told the store was closing. Oh, well, no problem we’ll come over and get them tomorrow she told the woman. Tomorrow was today, so we took a lunchtime ride over and guess what? Right, the store closed at noon on Friday. The woman at the front desk had our stuff in a bag for us, but couldn’t take a charge card.

I guess we’ll try again Monday at lunch. We will call before we drive over though, as with our luck, the place is probably only open in the afternoons on Monday…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 98

More MLB.com

The FRS have the night off, but I thought I might see if I had issues with any other baseball broadcasts (not that I expected to, as everyone I tried last year worked fine.) When I logged on with my email and password I was dumped to a page that said to access that content I would have to subscribe by paying $14.95.

I guess someone at MLB.com got my email requesting cancellation. They haven’t yet acknowledged it and of course, they have not yet credited my charge card.

38,000 Calories

The monthly meeting of the MMC was held tonight at the local Red Lobstah. I had two refills of sweet iced tea, 1-1/2 cheese biscuits, a garden salad with 1/2 portion of blue cheese dressing and a main course of Salmon New Orleans (Pan-seared fresh Atlantic or King Salmon & shrimp seasoned with Cajun spices in a rich lemon butter sauce. Served with a side salad, seasonal vegetables & your choice of side.) This is about 38,000 calories, but I can’t be sure because the Red Lobster web site does not have a nutrition guide. Thirty eight thousand is coincidentally the same number the wounded Emperor’s odometer passed through on the way to the meeting.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 98

MLB.com Revisted

After rereading the blurb from the email:

MLB.com will honor any refund request for a seasonal subscription made within 10 days of the purchase for the current season or at any time before the subsequent season begins.

I haven’t missed my opportunity to get a refund, now is the time. My credit card was charged on Monday, so I have until the 13th to request my money back.

They’ve got it covered though, take the phone off the hook. I tried calling them 4 separate times today and all I got was a busy signal. I’m sure the phone is not off the hook, but their lines are overloaded by folks like me trying to get their money back.

Now I’m not so sure I want it back. While listening to tonight’s broadcast it was fine up until the 6th inning or so, then it started to break up. At the half inning I shut down the player, cleared IE’s cache, closed and restarted the browser, restarted the player and it has been fine ever since. Once is just anecdotal evidence, more experimentation is required.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 98

MLB.com, Here We Go Again

I pretty much ignore pre-season baseball, because well, it doesn’t count. Friday night I received an email from MLB.com reminding me that my Gameday Audio subscription was going to be automatically renewed. After last year’s experience I thought it might be a good idea to tun into the last preseason Red Sox game playing right then. Guess what? That’s right, the same issue I had with the WEEI broadcasts last year, annoying sound gaps, were present again. So I turned it off in disgust and fired off a reply to that email telling them that I wished to cancel my subscription.

MLB.com will honor any refund request for a seasonal subscription made within 10 days of the purchase for the current season or at any time before the subsequent season begins.

By Saturday afternoon I hadn’t received a reply to the email and time was running out. I dialed the 1-800 number in the email. After drilling down through the voice mail prompts to get where I needed to be, I was informed that I should call back during their normal working hours, Monday through Friday 9 AM to 8 PM and Saturday from 12 noon to 6 PM, then automatically disconnected. Wait a minute it is 4 PM eastern time, unless their phone support is in Hawaii, I was calling in their “normal working hours.” Very convenient, Sunday is the start of the season, so they have pretty much guaranteed that I won’t be able to get a refund.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 98