Masters

A Tradition Like No Other

I’ve had nine previous posts here on LoB on this subject and pretty much everyone of them starts out with me saying that we don’t play golf1 and really only watch one golf tournament a year and the Masters is that one.

This is because we have actually trod the hallowed grounds of Augusta National. We moved to Aiken, SC in May of 1989 and when we found out that you could pay a measly $5 and get in to see a practice round2 in the first full week in April of 1990 we took that Monday off and went over. We got there early, walked the whole course, ate a $1.00 palmetto cheese sandwich and drove home. That weekend we watched, just to see where we had been and it has become a tradition like no other ever since.

We did go back over a few times over few years until they instituted a lottery and we stopped getting picked. One year my brother (who does golf) came down to visit and he was fun to walk around with. He could tell us the names of the pros (and some of their history at the course) we would see as we wondered about. Another year my sister came down with her husband (who also golfs) and wanted to camp at at certain locations to watch as the players golfed through. That was in 1995 and I know that because that is when the photo above was taken.

And the only reason I still have that photo is because it is in one of five directories that are remnants of the Seattle FilmWorks era when you would get prints back and for a small fee, a copy in that new fangled digit format, in a staggering 640 x 480 pixel size. As you can see, the images leave a lot to be desired, but it was whiz-bang back in the day.

Here is another one to gaze at in wonder,
me in front of the famous scoreboard:

Hey, Where Ya Been?

I’ve been here, just one part busy, one part watching TV and one part not feeling like writing anything.

Turns out I wasn’t the savior the Red Sox needed. I watched half a game on ESPN then listened to the other half a game and they lost. I listened to a game and they won. I didn’t listen to two games and they won one and lost the other. Since the last time I posted they have played .500 ball, which if that trend continues probably won’t get them in the playoffs, but it may keep them from finishing last.

I have been re-watching some of my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks. Not because I’m anxiously awaiting the next Avengers movie, but more because everyone is talking about them. There are a ton of lists online how to watch all of them in order to prepare yourself to watch Avengers: Endgame. There are 21 movies released so far and I was surprised to realize that I had copies of more than half of them. Growing up I was a fan of both the Iron Man and Captain America comic books, so I have the movies with those guys in the titles. I was a casual Thor reader too, so I have those three flicks. The first Ant Man movies struck the right cord with me, so I got the second one too. Never knew of the Guardians of the Galaxy but the first movie was fun, so I picked up the second one as well. I haven’t re-watched it yet and I may not because if I recall correctly I didn’t like it as much as the first. But then again, I am a sucker for origin stories and so far I have liked the first movie of the hero’s series more than any of the followups.

Not just watching movies either. I went back and re-binge watched Season 1 of Killing Eve because Season 2 started last Sunday night and I wanted to remember what went on. I also re-binge watched Season 1 of Fleabag because Season 2 is coming to America soon.

Add on top of that, Donna and I spent nearly 32 hours over 4 days this past weekend sitting on the screened porch watching golf on TV. Neither one of us golfs and we don’t watch it any other time of the year, but, because we have actually trod the hallowed grounds of Augusta National, every year for the first week of April we become fans and watch The Masters. Thank heaven for masters.com where you can watch practically the whole tournament commercial free. You just need to select “featured groups” and they follow 2 groups over the whole 18 holes and when they finish you get 2 more groupings.

We also managed to sneak in a couple of short Moss Motoring Challenge trips locally. We snagged 5 on Saturday morning and 3 yesterday afternoon.

4 Years Later

McLeod Museum

We took a drive on Saturday to scout a route for a future MMC event, but we didn’t take the Miata, it was just a little too cold (and windy) for a convertible drive. The picture above is from the destination, the McLeod Farms Antique Museum.

It was even colder today. We got up this morning for our usual Sunday morning breakfast bike ride. Our first stop was downtown at the ATM because we didn’t have any cash and after were going to go another dozen miles or so before eating. The temps were in the upper 30s with the wind chill near freezing. We both felt uncomfortably cold in the 15° below normal, so after the ATM we just rode home and got in the car to drive for breakfast. Post breakfast we did the weekly grocery shopping and we have not been outside since.

This afternoon we sat glued to the couch watching the only golf tournament we ever watch, the Masters.

I have been seeing Dr. PCP twice a year forever for him to run my cholesterol numbers and I can’t believe it has been 4 years since I put up the numbers…Maybe because they looked pretty much like this latest batch of results, cholesterol & LDL within limits and my triglycerides too high with my HDL not high enough.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal 80-199 40-110 30-130 30-150
03/31/16 170 37 95 180
10/10/12 196 36 128 160
04/10/12 193 39 121 166
10/10/11 162 43 88 155
04/04/11 155 38 96 107
12/06/10 176 41 114 105
05/18/10 151 38 91 109
12/15/08 167 41 92 171
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

Practice Pratice Practice

Back in April the fine folks at the Augusta National opened up a lottery allowing the hoi polloi a chance at actual tournament badges for the 2012 Masters. What the heck, we have been extremely unlucky in the lottery for practice round tickets the last decade or more, maybe we will have a chance at seeing the real thing. While we were there we also took another shot at a couple practice round tickets too.

About a month ago we got an email telling us to log on to masters.com and see if we were selected for a daily tournament badge. All excited about the possibility, we logged on, only to have our hopes crushed. We didn’t get in.

Today we got the second email from the Masters organization telling us to log in and see if we were selected for practice rounds tickets. We were not really expecting much, so it made for a pleasant surprise that we were granted the privilege of attending Tuesday’s practice round next year.

When I say privilege, I mean privilege, because the cost of one ticket for one practice round is $50, or a 1000% higher than they were when we first went 21 years ago.

Saturday in North Augusta

We started out trying to find a spot for the MMC to breakfast next Saturday. It is our turn to take the troops to someplace for breakfast and we thought we had a spot that would work well, until we went inside. It failed on so many levels that we didn’t even breakfast here. We ended up at Burger King at Exit 5 of I-20. We split their Ultimate Breakfast (not really all that ultimate), read the Augusta Chronicle and watched the golf fans eat before they headed over to Augusta National.

Next year we may join them. For the first time in, I don’t know, like forever (47 years), you can apply for a chance to buy daily tournament tickets. At the risk of lowering my already very narrow chance of getting tickets, you can go and apply too. You can register to get your name thrown in a hat for the right to buy Practice Round tickets, four per day ($50 each) or two Daily Tournament tickets ($75 each.) The last time we entered in the “lottery” for practice round tickets an got them was 1993 or 1994. We figure we are about due.

After breakfast we headed over to the North Augusta Greeneway (photo above) to try and find the 3 new Green Lion hides and to attempt one of his that we failed to find, twice, but now had a solid hint for. We did manage to find those four and four more around town before shopping for some new blouses for work for Donna and consuming a gi-normous lunch at Ruby Tuesday.

We came home and spent the afternoon watching the one golf tournament we watch all year.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 991

LOB Now Turbocharged

This “button” has been sitting here in the upper right corner of my WordPress admin page for the longest time. Tonight I clicked it and it installed something called Google Gears. I’m not sure if it is supposed to speed up the blog for me or you, but I do know if it keeps asking to connect to the Google mothership it is coming out.

The trunk on the Miata looks like someone dusted for prints using yellow instead of black powder,there are yellow tire tracks on my garage floor when I back out in the morning and Tiger Woods’ Green Jacket is now a neon lime green. Pine pollen season and the Masters are in town.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 580

Well Holed

North, South CarolinaSeeing as we are vacationing in the northeast next week and the temperatures there probably won’t get as high as the mid-fifties, we were not going to let the cold weather here stop us from having a nice day outdoors. Note to would be burglars: Our neighbor’s 75 lb pit bull is spending the week at our house and we are only leaving him two days worth of food.

Our excursion began with lunch out at the Stoplight Deli in downtown Aiken. We both had a cup of chili to start. Then we split a Rachel sandwich (corned beef, ham, swiss cheese, cole slaw, russian dressing on wheat.) We both finished off the meal with a cookie, oatmeal raisin for her, peanut butter for him. The usual water was to drink.

Meal Cost: $11.87
Tip: None
Spent Today: $11.87
Year to Date: $851.36

After lunch we drove to Ridge Spring’s Nut House to pick up a gift sampler for our Easter dinner hosts. While we out we headed over towards Columbia to fill in a Post Office hole. Gaston and Swansea were first and then we were headed to two towns that I originally marked with red dots (meaning no PO) on the map, North and Norway. Between the two pairs of towns, I spotted a sign directing folks to a Post Office in the town of Neeses, so I followed it. We ended up getting photos of five places even though according to my map there should have only been two.

Please tell me why two people who don’t golf (unless you count a bi-annual stab at putt-putt), aren’t really interested in golf and probably can’t name 5 current golfers, will spend 4 evenings at the end of the first week in April glued to the tube watching the Masters?

While I’m asking questions, why in the world would the History Channel be showing The Planet of the Apes?

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 116