The famous golfer Ben Hogan used to say, "The more I practice the luckier I get."

He used to train himself hours on end and hit thousands of balls until his hands blistered and bled, feeling that this was the only true road to golfing perfection.

Lucky for him that he already had developed the right mind, which is most of the work.

One of my favorite scenes in "The Angel's Game" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón is when David finally finds Cristina wandering aimlessly on the frozen lake:

...

I followed the tracks as far as the park that bordered the lake. A full moon burned over the large sheet of ice. That is when I saw her. She was limping over the frozen lake, a line of bloodstained footprints behind her, the nightdress covering her body trembling in the breeze. By the time I reached the shore, Cristina had walked about thirty metres towards the centre of the lake. I shouted her name and she stopped. Slowly she turned and I saw her smile as a cobweb of cracks began to weave itself beneath her feet. I jumped onto the ice, feeling the frozen surface buckle, and ran towards her. Cristina stood still looking at me. The cracks under her feet were expanding into a mesh of black veins. The ice was giving away and I fell flat on my face.

"I love you," I heard her say.

I crawled towards her, but the web of cracks was growing and now encircled her. Barely a few metres separated us when I heard the ice finally break. Black jaws snapped open and swallowed her up in a pool of tar. As soon as she disappeared under the surface, the plates of ice began to join up, sealing the opening through which Cristina had plunged.

...

There's more and it gets better and better, but I don't want to spoil it all for those who want to read this fantastic novel.

This is just one of many gripping parts of the book which takes place in the old, shadowy sections of Barcelona and surroundings. The story is an excellent read, although you will probably want to reread certain sections in order to get the most out of the darker and more mysterious chapters, trying to figure what's real and what's coming from the author's fantastical mind.

That's really weird, it started raining and all of a sudden all of the snow which has been lying around for weeks on end completely disappeared, just like that. Driving in the car with the sun blaring in through the windshield, it almost felt like Spring was coming. I thought great, now I can finally play golf again. So I rush on over to the golf course, but it's closed! The melted snow had flooded most of the greens and fairways, making it unplayable and slushy. Darn it all, better luck next time.

According to a recent global environmental performance index, the Netherlands rates as the 47th greenest nation, whereas the United States is way down the list at number 61. Iceland is easily at the top of the list, and in last place we find Sierra Leona.

At least we're better off here than in the States, but things could be much better if we all put our minds together.

Every once in awhile, I start receiving the following daily email notification from my web server:

newsyslog: can't notify daemon, pid 569: No such process

If I don't do anything, the very same message will keep on arriving in my mailbox every single day for the rest of my life. The solution is probably pretty trivial, but I cannot figure out what is causing this to occur. I've already wasted way too much time digging around in the innards of my FreeBSD box trying to discover something unusual, but to no avail.

Not that such a trivial warning means the end of the world, but it really bugs me for some reason. I'm impatient and easily aggravated by inconsistencies. Just kill everything by rebooting the system and hoping that it will not come back (but it always does).

sudo shutdown -r now

The following email which I received this morning looks really authentic, so should I respond in order to find out more?

I am Captain Ted Anderson of the US Marine Corps (U.S.M.C.) On a Monitoring and Peace-keeping mission in Baghdad-Iraq. Please there is a serious business I have for you. There's a consignment I want you to receive on my behalf. I shall give more information when I hear from you.Thank you and keep it secret.
Regards, Capt Ted Anderson

Well for the time being I'm not really up to any so-called serious business, sorry.

Today I was pleasantly surprised to discover how much "just knowing" that you are gripping the club correctly can improve your confidence. Without changing a thing, I was striking the ball consistently, and except for an occasional draw, I was hitting the ball high and pretty straight.

Worrying that my grip was one of my weaknesses, I've been playing around with variations for about a year without much success. In fact, each new change made things worse and worse. The more I practiced the worse I got. Each new grip made my arms feel like they were bending and extending in an unnatural way.

I've always had a "strong" grip, meaning that my left hand is turned inwards (clockwise) so that the V between my forefinger and thumb points to somewhere between my nose and right eye. The left thumb presses slightly on the side of the grip opposite to the target, and the right hand barely does anything but follow.

During my younger days, the fashion was to adhere to a "neutral" grip where both hands are clapped together at right angles to the target line and grip the club at that position. The left thumb is aligned along the length of the club shaft with the right hand folding right on top with the right thumb also lying along the top of the grip.

(Even in Ben Hogan's book "Five Lessons" the "neutral" grip is taught and the V of the right hand should point to the chin.)

I'm now reading the book "Swing Like a Pro" by Dr. Mann, which is based on years of scientific analyses of the best professional golfers. It presents a bio-mechanical approach to golf, where a model swing is individualized and applied.

In the second chapter of this book, I was pleasantly surprised to read that my natural grip, the one I was born with and used as a kid until I took official lessons, matches closely to the ideal grip as explained in this chapter. The V of the right hand points to the right shoulder.

So I do not have to change anything about my grip (actually, that V of my left hand should be pointing slightly more in the direction of my right ear). Just grab the club naturally with my hands and that's it. Not only does this grip feel the best, just knowing that it is a good grip makes me confident. I am more mentally prepared when I take my stance and address the ball. My arms swing freely and are not obstructed by a grip which feels foreign to me.

Next fundamental is my stance which will be covered in the next chapter.

Nature is pretty skilled at paralyzing modern civilization in more ways than one. She has changed the course of human history using her powers to unleash snowstorms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. Many wars have been won or lost because nature felt the need to meddle in our affairs right then and there.

For the second day in a row, I will have to work from home because of the tons and tons of snow which have been falling everywhere. The trains have been rendered useless and trying to drive a car will get you no further than the end of the block. Even bicycling, the traditional Dutch means of transportation, is not highly recommended. Go out there and slip and slide and break your arm, wrist or ankle, that's alright.

Not that she expects us to worship her like some all powerful goddess, that is the least of her worries right now. Rather, she wants us just to stop and think, look in awe at her beautiful presence, realize that just a simple whim of hers can blow us over with a snap of her fingers.

From my work room in the attic I spy pure whiteness as far as the eye can see and it is a good feeling.

The weatherman predicts that the chances are pretty good that we will be having the first white Christmas in more than ten years. I sure hope so.

A couple weeks ago, a blog reader by the name of Harry Gish sent me the following message:

A rather odd one loaded both with heroism (in the Revolutionary War where the three oldest sons of Matthias and their sons fought with Washington, the middle one being killed in Battle, despite being Dunkard ministers who were supposed to be pacifists), strange Civil war action where my great grandfather had to alter his name and age AFTERWARDS, not before (Matthias was my 6th great grandfather) to the "fee tail male" (oldest surviving son of the oldest surviving son ...) line in Paducah, KY who had a broad spectrum of WWII service, including my father who was the ACTUAL Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy ... all those accounts of "I was in the company when it happened" need to be aware the song was written for an Abbott & Costello movie in 1938-39 whereas Harry Lucien Gish was the star trumpet player in the Will Bradley All-Star Band. The songwriters of the movie wrote most of the Bradley band's boogie woogie hits ...

BTW, Christian Gish I and Christian Gish II served in captain Peebles' Company in the revolutionary war. Next brother was John who was killed in battle in 1783. Next brother Abraham was the great-grandfather of the actresses Lillian and Dorothy. By the war of 1812 both they had settled in the Roanoke, VA area but Christian II had moved on to Muhlenberg County in western Kentucky a decade prior though undoubtedly there were plenty left to have been in the war. I am not aware of any, however.

As the One Great Family Network Christian Gish I family administrator I usually only follow/investigate that line (which numbers possibly as large as 10,000). In addition to James Christopher's unusual participation in the civil war he had a first cousin named Benjamin Franklin Gish who served in the Louisiana Infantry.