Month: April 2012

In his book "How to Play Your Best Golf All the Time", Tommy Armour provides alot of sound advice for improving your game.

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.

For many weeks maybe even months, I was having lots of problems with a very slow wifi connection, and it was driving me crazy. A couple times I slammed my fist so hard on the table top that I nearly broke my hand.

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.

The so-called real world is infinitely chaotic. Yet we are driven by a never-ending struggle to try and discover some facsimile of structure. No matter how fleeting and nebulous it first appears, and then it disappears in a blink of the eye.

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.

On our last day we drove down to Big Sur.

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.