The book contains instructions that at first glance may appear to be pretty basic for us so-called more experienced players. Much of the book may have originally been geared more towards beginner and average golfers. However, on closer inspection the reader discovers that even the seemingly basic stuff contains hidden jewels of wisdom. What you notice is a flow of well thought out ideas which form a fundamental basis that is absolutely necessary if you want to play golf well.

Here are my favorite quips:

• Action before thought is the ruin of most of your shots.
• When you miss a shot, never think of what you did wrong. Come up to the next shot thinking of what you must do right.
• Make up your mind before your backswing starts, then let your muscles do the work.

None of the other laptops in the house were having any problems, but they're all Windows machines and I'm using Ubuntu.

There I was complaining all the time, for once Windows was actually out performing Linux which when you think about it is impossible. What could be wrong?

Googled around and found it fairly quickly. To think that after all the misery and stress, I could solve this ornery issue by using the following simple command:

sudo echo "options ath5k nohwcrypt=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/ath5k.conf

You might need to change the '5' to a '9' if you have the newer driver installed. But I'm still using Ubuntu 10.10 and haven't built up enough courage to do an upgrade.

Now my wifi connection is really buzzing along and it feels great, like I've been liberated somehow.

There it is over there. No I guess not, where did it go? Over there again ...

Rather than accept the chaotic nature that surrounds us, there is some inner instinct that refuses to let us be consumed by it. Stay alive or end up dying.

It's that will to survive which all living things share that drives us on and on and on. We the many human beings that wander aimlessly across the earth are lucky because we are conscious of this dichotomy.

Try and understand things. Things that were never intended to be understood in the first place. Get confused for a second and then understand them again.

We can understand or at least we can think that we understand, which seem different but are exactly the same thing.

Thea and I had a really great time in California seeing the family and friends, driving around and visiting interesting places. We went to Monterey, Carmel, Pacific Grive and Big Sur. We saw San Francisco, crossed the Golden Gate bridge to Napa and Sonoma Valley, the Redwoods, Bodega Bay and Oakland. I even managed to get in four rounds of fantastic golf, eat real Mexican food, and for the first time in more than thirty-five years go up and down the high-speed glass elevators at the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square in San Francisco.

At first there's so much to look forward to and tons of fun activities to do. You're so excited and happy. Then all of a sudden it's two weeks later, it's time to say goodbye, and you feel really sad. Before you realize it, you're back home again so far away from the ones you love.

In order to experience life to its fullest, you must sometimes make difficult decisions. These choices result in long lasting consequences that you must come to accept and embrace in order to survive.

The advantages are balanced with the disadvantages. You learn more about yourself and acquire unique insights into nature and existence, and where you fit in the overall puzzle called life.

On average I've been three-putting five to six holes a round, and once even had a four putt from only ten feet away, ouch. The last round I played at my home course, the greens were rough and bumpy, requiring large sweeps of the putter to get the ball barely to the hole. Sometimes I'd whack the ball so hard and it would stop way short of the hole, even downhill putts.

Another difference is that all of the distances are in yards instead of meters. Not that that is such a big deal, one yard being about 0.9 meters, but over longer distances this can mean a whole club less. Just yesterday, with the wind at my back I hit a hard seven iron to the back of the green on a 165 yard par 3 hole, which is about 150 yards, my usual seven iron distance. This might seem at first like a slight adjustment, hitting merely one club less, but psychologically the effect is much greater. I have this feeling at the back of my mind that I have to hit the ball much harder, as 165 yards sounds and/or feels much further than 150 yards, which can mess up my swing.

Now I need to re-adjust, but that will not be easy. I've played twice and barely broke eighty both times: 79 + 79. If I could only putt more gently, stop three putting and switching between meters and yards, my scores would be much better.

Putting more gently would not be enough, however. A slower velocity means that the ball will be affected by the break much more. There are alot of curvy greens here, some bevelled in such a way that balls hit too far will roll off the side of the green, past the fringe and into the high grass. Several times I've somehow managed to kiss the ball just right, only to see it curve outside the lip at the last couple inches. Putt with confidence and watch the ball drop in the heart of the hole, they always told me.

Oh well, no one promised that golf would be easy. That's why I like it so much. Now it's time to prove myself in the home country, thirty plus years later, pretending and enjoying it all at the same time. Who cares about the occasional three putt and double bogie, when I can laugh and shake it off, getting that valuable birdie once in awhile.

As it turns out, old mother nature has decided to tease me by bringing along rain and cooler temperatures, but I'm not about to let that get me down. Californians are pretty spoiled when it comes to the weather, and although for Dutch standards these are typical days that I'm very used to back in my home country of Holland, my friends and family here are complaining about how lousy the weather is.

When it comes to golf, nothing keeps me away from my eighteen hole fix, and that is also the case for the little drizzle and cloudy skies. Who cares? Ironically, since no one dares play during these conditions, alot of tee times are open, and I can easily book prime times and have the whole golf course to myself.

This afternoon I'll be hacking around the Laguna Seca Golf Ranch with an old High School buddy from the past. Hopefully I can get a bunch of pars, not too many double-bogies and a even birdie or two.

Unfortunately, the US authorities would not allow Thea to board the plane, because of some minor anomaly with Thea's passport that Interpol had tagged as suspicious. This was a very traumatic moment, especially since I had to leave her hastily to catch the flight, giving her a quick kiss and emotional hug. Hopefully she can get the situation rectified and join me later next week. Welcome to the land of freedom!

From beginning to end, I travelled a total of five thousand plus miles in nineteen and a half hours. My mom thawed out some frozen raviolli and that was my dinner. Crashed in bed at eight and managed to sleep until five in the morning, whereupon I sat downstairs in the sitting room and read my book. So the jetlag is fairly minimal.

Cannot wait to go out and play some golf, although for the next week they've predicted cloudy weather and occasional rain showers. It's good that I brought four pairs of golfing shorts with me. Also would like to head on over to a couple golf stores and buy lots of fun stuff: fairway woods, flop wedge, golfing caps, towels, ad infinitum.

After a long hard day at work, it's time to turn my back to the office building, get in my car and drive back home. Tomorrow it's off to the other side of the world, California here I come. I will probably not be missed.

Pushing against the elements is alot like life. You live day by day and move forward, sometimes with the wind at your back and other times in your face. If the wind is not blowing at all, that's the nicest and makes you feel the most relaxed. But that's also very rare and should be cherished whenever it occurs.

You push a little bit harder and when the running loop has been completed, you feel that much better. Tomorrow will bring yet another loop to finish, and be sure to appreciate it as well as the rest.

In those days you had a number of ruthless heroes. For example, Sir Francis Drake was a notorious pirate who attacked many ships. His specialty was harassing Spanish shipping and ports and capturing gold treasures for Queen Elizabeth.

Sir Francis Drake, El Draque "the Dragon"

Protocol back then meant that when your ship was attacked, you had two choices. Either you surrendered immediately and you and your men were taken prisoner, or you fought back. If you fought back and lost, then every person captured would be killed, sometimes in excruciatingly gruesome ways. This was accepted practice, so you can imagine how worried you might be when the battle started.

One common practice was to flay the prisoners alive, and then hang the bodies upside down from the masts. It was better to be killed outright, rather than being merely wounded and later skinned alive. This was a warning to other ships, making them reconsider entering a fight with this person the Spanish referred to as El Draque "the Dragon" who was sent by the devil.

Another interesting fact about the defeat of the Spanish Armada was that the tactics of sea battle were changed drastically. Since ancient days, fighting at sea was done just like on land. The only difference was that the two ships would approach each loaded with soldiers, the goal being to get close enough and grapple together, allowing the attackers to jump on the defending ship and initiate battle there.

What led to the defeat of the Spanish was that the English had faster ships which could maneuver to a safe distance from the enemy and open fire with cannons and other artillery, sinking or immobilizing the enemy.

Borrowed from Wikipedia, Spanish Armada

This was very frustrating to the Spanish and caught them completely off guard. It was completely against all accepted rules of war. The poor Spanish would be cursing and yelling at this unfair way of waging war, as the poor souls sank to the bottom of the English Channel.

We definitely have control over our own thoughts which means that we are masters of our own moods. Own moods result directly from thoughts, the way that other thoughts interact with each other. At least logically that makes sense.

I guess that what I am trying to say is that we create the world around us. The environment is nothing more than an infinite collection of energy and movements. It is influenced by the objects moving around within it and the way those objects interact with each other. These are contained and constrained by the laws of nature, many of which can be described using simple mathematical formulae, others to a lesser degree.

People are also objects, complicated and unpredictable I agree. We might not be able to control completely the actions and interactions of others, but we can influence them in a positive way. Even minor actions on our part can result in a chain reaction of complicated events, feeding back on us and improving us for the better.

Think positively about yourself. Have confidence in your actions, and expect the best of all possible worlds, even if disaster may strike you down once in awhile. Find a path through the world of interacting objects which does justice to your beliefs, desires and ever-changing moods.

Next year is full of new opportunities. My challenge at least will be to make the best of things and remain positive at all times.

An interesting book:
Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel By Changing the Way You Think

Recently I purchased two books about this amazing programming language, Clojure in Action and The Joy of Clojure, and although I've read about a fourth of each book, I have not had enough time to study it as deeply as I would like to.

Here's a very simple example of how elegantly an otherwise difficult to program algorithm can be expressed in a single code statement:

(reduce + (range 1 1001))

Basically, this one-liner takes a range of numbers and adds them all together giving the total of one through one thousand and one. Show me another programming language which can express this more simpler.

Very interesting is the fact that this language is based on Lisp which is one of the earliest (functional) programming languages and is many decades old. The pendulum swings back and forth and now it is time to return to our roots. We will have to turn our linear programming mindset inside out in order to move forward.

So with that in mind, it's now time for me to go out for my daily run in the freezing cold and warm up my body and mind by philosophizing about programming computers and the true significance of simulating/stimulating human thought processes.

The book has all kinds of interesting discussions about running development teams, based mostly on the idea that you can inspire them best by empowering the team members to take more control of their own environment.

However, in order to trust the team with such a heavy responsibility, one has to be able to trust oneself. You can only trust others of you trust yourself. This makes alot of sense, the essence of which is contained in the following quotation which I've taken from the chapter about respect for each other:

You must believe in yourself and stay true to your own reason and common sense, even when others disagree with you. You should only change your mind when new insights have convinced you, not when other people have pressured you to reconsider. Because doing something that you don't believe in is an act against the trust in yourself. A self-reliant person has confidence in himself, while still allowing new information to change his mind.

The last point is just as important as the rest. You want to avoid the situation of becoming too hardened to resist change and thereby becoming an unnatural obstacle to moving forward. That's why it's also imperative that you regularly listen well and try to empathize, even though your course might be set in a given direction.

Here are some links that might also be interesting:

• Management 3.0 Homepage
• Jurgen's Blog
• Agile Alliance

The next thing you realize is that it is the next day just one minute before the alarm is about to go off.

You wonder how that's possible, whether it is just a coincidence, something which can be explained by thorough scientific investigation, or simply some intuitive twist of the subconscious mind which is trying to trick you.

In the meantime, you have completely forgotten that last moment right before you fall asleep when your mind empties and all thought becomes nothing.

The next time you go to bed and wait long enough, you will remember it again, just a fleeting instant before the alarm is about to go off, that same cycle.

The repeating cycle that defines the fine line between what you think you are doing when awake and what you think you are dreaming when asleep.

Then you wake up and realize that all of the above was simply stuff you had been thinking within a strangely convoluted dream.