Wayne Part Two

Part II

“Back in 2016 was when I first met Wayne Arrow. He played with our usual group on Monday mornings. This was not a competitive foursome. Everyone kept their own score if they bothered. Wayne kept his and because of the kind of guy he was, he would keep 4 days' scores on a single card. Most of us just tossed the old ones away unless you were some kind of data nut.”

“Wayne was considerate of things. He wouldn't waste the score card if he could use it again.”

“He would walk the course with his three wheeled push cart and replace not only his divots, but if he found the turf that hadn't been replaced he'd walk back until he found the damaged spot and lovingly replace the divot.”

“He volunteered at the local animal shelter. He was a considerate guy.”

“He was a former technical guy for one of the radiation labs around the valley. He was about 10 years older than I was.”

“But Wayne was troubled. It was not all kittens and ribbons. The friendly shell that wrapped him was not very thick.”

“ He had a fast swing, but his game was erratic.”

“If things got too bad, he'd pick up his ball and leave the hole unfinished. If things got really bad clubs were known to leave his hand and not towards the bag. Yes, Wayne was a thrower.”

“Oh no!” said Billy.

“Yes, a thrower... But that's not why we are talking about Wayne.”

“So Wayne was a lot like you. He shot in the low 90s, but his swing promised more. He was missing the ball just a little and with his swing speed, that took him all over the course. And I must include the dark areas where no one wants to go in that. No pond was exempt. All trees had provided stymies at times.”

“If the greens keepers took too long to mow a fairway while Wayne waited, he'd just pick up and walk the hole. Of course he didn't want to hurt the guy, but he wasn't patient enough to wait the extra minute.”

“We would see Wayne from Spring until winter and then he would take a couple of months off. Was it the weather and a needed rest or was he struggling? We'll never know.”

“Would breaking 90 just once really make you happy, Billy? I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. We have to go back to Wayne's penultimate round. As I mentioned he shot in the middle to low 90s. Sometimes his ball striking would be good and sometimes he'd putt well. Some days the irons were godlike.”

“But one day it all came together. The drives were solid and the irons too. The putter was hot and he found that it was a good day for chipping. To sum it all up, Wayne went out and shot 76.”

“Now Billy, this would delight you and it delighted Wayne too. His playing partners watching it all come together were more reserved. They were expecting Wayne to crater at any moment. But he pulled it off and had a scorecard that would be the envy of most golfers. Wayne went home happy. Happier than he had probably ever been as a golfer.”

“But what's next if something like that happens? When all the putts you should make drop and some of the longer ones too? When the driver and the irons match those on YouTube instructional videos and you can't go wrong.”

“Wayne was as much human as the next guy and probably more so. He probably basked in the glow of it all and looked forward to a new life as a golfer who could hit the greens more than not and make the putts and to whom a sand shot was an easy exercise of precise technique.”

“But golf is a rocky shored sea and all human endeavors have huge error bars. Of course the next round didn't go well with Wayne. His drives didn't soar, the irons looked rusty, and the putts were, at best, nervous jabs with unhappy results. In a short phrase, Wayne was back to normal.”

“Now Billy, you need to know that Wayne never recovered from this. He tossed clubs, he took on the stern grimace that we were used to seeing. Holes weren't finished and a quiet broken man trailed through the parking lot. He loaded his clubs in the car and drove off. We never saw him again.”

“It would have been better if he'd taken that 76, assumed it was the as good as it was going to get and retired. Retirement is stretching the term for a recreational golfer, but a new activity was long called for. Golf might have been Wayne's best game, but his demeanor was not up to the peaks and valley of the sport. Maybe shuffleboard or clarinet would have been better choices.”

“Billy, golf is a process. There is no goal or end game there. Enjoy every round for whatever it might show you of physics or human endurance or the will of the indifferent gods or the company of like minded men, as my father used to call it. Don't look for your life's meaning there. Just enjoy the process.”

I wound down my talk and Billy had that far away look in his eyes. Was he thinking of Wayne or a hot dog across the street?

“But, suppose I take a slightly stronger grip? Do you think that will be useful?” asked Billy.

“Step over to the range. I've got a couple of balls. Let's see what that looks like. Maybe latter we work on your soft pitches,” I replied.

And that's the story of Wayne. A lot of this really happened and Wayne did indeed shoot lights out one day. And he did regress back to his old scores. But so far he has hung in there. He is really a likable guy with a sense of humor. I hope he keeps playing.

Wayne Arrow, Part 1

The Story of Wayne Arrow, Part 1

It is 30 years after Trump the First had revamped all of America. The East Bay area had grown like a cat with too much tuna. Houses and condos covered hills where the cattle used to roam.

There were no more dead end streets, everything was connected. The self driving cars had sort of taken off and the freeways that split the Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore towns had not needed to grow past their 5 lanes in every direction. The traffic noise was still there. The electric car revolution was still 20 years off for the 20^th year. The death of Tesla in 2020 had cooled everyone's interest in them. Of course the state government was using the telemetry of the cars to apply road taxes to the e-cars. Even if they didn't pay gas taxes they were going to pay something.

A midst all of this modernity lay a small jewel in the form of a golf course.

Of course most golf in these days was played in Asia or on line. The property values were such that no one was willing to pass on those kind of riches.

But the city of Livermore found that they had to. As all the land areas got paved over and the run off to the arroyos allowed for no rain to soak in, the spring floods would fill the arroyos and then climb the banks like a toddler with a gleam in his eye would climb a crib. And that's where the golf course came in. It was a couple hundred acres of land that had been flooding forever. Before the natives lived in the area and certainly ever since.

The early missionaries who farmed the valleys never touched the one where the course lay.

It had been a golf course since the 1960s. The tract had been reworked a number of times as the land use around the course changed. Holes dropped, rerouted, the "links" course added, it just went on and on.

There was always a long time player who, still in his 90s, would play every day. The current one, a Jack Smythe, mid 90s, no hair but a bad beard, no longer played but could always be found on the practice chipping area. He would occasionally watch the groups coming off the 18^th green and greet the many players he knew.

Like a lot of old guys he liked to talk and had stories going back over the decades. He had retired in 2010 and played the course three times a week since then. It was a lot of rounds and shoes and balls and tees.

One day recently, while Jack was watching at the 18^th a young man named Billy Bristol came through. He was playing with his usual foursome.

The 18^th is a par 5 with a double dogleg. The second shots would show up between a couple of bunkers about 100 yards out.

Jack watched Billy's approach shot and it landed satisfactorily in the middle of the green.

Billy and his pals showed up and proceeded to putt out.

Billy lined his up and spent some time walking around his lie. This is not something that Billy usually did – Billy was a “just hit it, then hit it again” type putter. Jack's eyebrow, all snowy white and a bit droopy, rose a smidgen at this unusual behavior.

Like most putts from 12 feet this one didn't go in. Billy addressed the heavens and cried out his unhappiness.

“Hmm,” thought Jack.

Billy scraped the ball into the hole and waited for the rest of his group to finish. Hands were shaken and promises of future games announced and then they wandered off the green and moved toward the bridge and parking lot.

Billy waved to Jack and Jack waved him over.

“It must have been an important putt?” asked Jack.

“Yes, it was a chance to break 90. I was so close and then pulled that putt. If I could only break 90 once, I'd be a happy golfer,” Billy replied.

“Hmm, not so fast there, young man,” said Jack. “Have I ever told you the story of Wayne Arrow?”

Billy looked at his watch. Some of there stories can be pretty long and while they could also be interesting, it's not something you want to leap at every time.

To be continued.... 

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A note to the reader...  Yes, I'm going to try some fiction.  I've been going through some of the P.G. Wodehouse with a pencil and I'll see if I can whip up something similar.  No promises mind you.  As one wag put it, being an author is grand, it's just the writing that's such a pain.

Vince Flynn / Mitch Rapp Conclusion

It has been a couple of rainy days and I managed to finish the Vince Flynn book, Last Man.

I liked the writing style in that it moved stuff along at a very fast rate.  But there was that absence of details that you'll get in other authors of this genre of book.

I'd point out the Lee Child Reacher books as erring the other way.  There is so much detail that the action is very slow.

Mitch Rapp is a CIA operative and one of the hard guys in the clandestine world.  In this book we don't have a lot character building going on.  Mitch shows up, glares at some folks and shoots a lot of people.  This is a refreshing change from characters who are worried about the morality of the situation rather than getting the job done.

We can contrast this with the Matt Helm stories of 50 years ago.  Matt is the no nonsense agent and for the most part acts like it.  There are some moments when he doesn't take a hard line, but when push comes to shove, the gun or knife is put to its task.

We see the Matt Helm books from Matt's perspective.  The Flynn books are written in third person.  I'm not sure I like that.

One more contrast and then I'll wrap up!  Take the Spenser books; they are from the first person.  More humor than any of the others mentioned above.  And when he has to, Spencer does some shooting.   But those books are interesting to me for the snappy dialog and humor, not the action.

My first impression of the Flynn books is that there is reasonable action , the characters are ok.  The glimpses we have of the CIA and some of the heads of departments are interesting.  People are pretty bright for the most part.  I'll read some more.  As I mentioned I've got one going in audio format in the car.  While I like the framework and the action, there is a bit of warmth or humor missing.

Also, other things are occurring to me as I write this, probably should start over..., the plot is not as complex as you'll find in the Brian Haig books.  I'd recommend those over Flynn.

Always good to look at a new author.  Thanks to Rich II for the suggestion.

Directions II

The problem with thinking about a new direction for the blog is that it's keeping my mind too busy.  I continuously write stuff in my head and that includes when I wake up at 4:30 or something.  Dropping back to sleep is not that easy with this kind of mental disturbance going on.

So, maybe I'll tell the story of the ice cubes that would not melt and I'll see if I add a bit of humor to this deathly serious inquiry...

<First section, set the scene and introduce the characters.>

We had just finished the first round of  the year.  The day had started with a frost delay.  If you don't play under that condition, let me say that the toes start frozen and so do the fingers.  The ground is crunchy under the feet.  You can hear it, but since the toes are frozen, see above, you can't feel it.

The greens keepers like to keep their greens alive and they make us wait until the sun melts all the frost.  Sometimes you have a place to wait where it is warm and sometimes you are huddled on a side walk.

Hand warmers are quite popular.  They came in chemical models which are "use once and throw them away. " You get them in the handy 40 pack for about $15 at Costco, or about $3 per pair at the local course.  If you are up to the math, that's about $120 for the 40 pack...  A nice markup.  Keep one in each pocket and the hands will stay toasty.

But we get to play and the delay is not too long.

Phil is the member, this is an upscale course, and Sonny and I and Fred tag along to keep him company.  It's more fun to golf with friends.

We play and struggle a bit.  The wind is cool and the sun is hot.  The wind seems to make its presence felt as we play, all in all it's cooler than warmer.  I stay bundled up and pray for the toes to come back.  Reminds me of ice hockey days in my youth.  I've not checked recently, but there was a numb spot on a big toe from getting too cold.  It may still be that way.  It never turned black, so how bad could it be?

We finally end the round.  The sun looks low in sky and it feels like three in the afternoon to me. 

We stow our gear in cars and work our way back to the grill attached to the pro shop.  The grill is easily the size of the pro shop; it might be accurate to say the pro shop is attached to the grill...

We get outside seats.  This is not as bad as it seems as they have plastic drapes around the seating area and there are heaters mounted over head.  It's comfortable and since we've out in the 40 degree weather for 4 hours, this is quite comfortable.  Jackets are loosened and hats come off.

One of the perks of membership is that everyone gets a free glass of wine.  Sonny will only drink a small amount and Fred, well, Fred doesn't drink at all!  So the wine flows from Fred and Sonny to Phil and me.  Let's call them "healthy pours."

It's been a good day, out with "like minded men" and the wine is providing a warming glow through those who are partaking. 

<Now for the crux o' the matter!>

Phil likes his toys and he has brought a Yeti tumbler with him.  He likes to drink ginger juice for health reasons.  I think he said that he has gained 3 pounds by doing so.

Sonny notices the cup.  "I have one of those and I've left an icy drink in one in the car and the next morning there is still ice in the cup.  How does that happen?"

I'm tempted at this point to tell the old joke about the world's greatest invention.  It was the thermos bottle.  Provides cold drinks in the summer and hot in the winter!  How does it know?

But I refrain.  I'm trying to talk less these days.  It's not like the world doesn't need me, but I'm putting them on a knowledge diet.

The next question, hot on the heals of Sonny's is why hot drinks get cooler faster?

<Enthalpy of fusion, introduction and explanation...>

The boys look to me.  I'm kind of the go to guy for things that require useless knowledge.

"Well, ker-hum, it's quite simple.  Let's assume that the ambient temperature is 65 degrees.  A cold drink with ice is 32 degrees.  A hot drink, we know from Liebeck v. McDonald's, is about 180 degrees.  Now if we take the absolute value of the difference between the hot and the ambient and the cold and the ambient, it's clear that a cold drink has just a little less energy than ambient and the hot drink is quite hot -- about 40 degrees and about 115."

"It's obvious when we take into account the Stefan-Boltzmann equations, that the hot drink will lose energy much faster than the cold drink will acquire it.  But then you all knew that."  I look around to some looks that suggest they didn't.  I plunge on.

 "The Stefan-Boltzmann law states that objects radiate energy proportional to their absolute temperature to the 4th power.  In other words things shed heat faster than a golf ball heading for a trap."  I see nods of understanding around the table.  This is good.  I suspect that Al Gore doesn't know this.  How do you stay ahead of a 4th order power law?  Not easily, Al, not easily.

"The last piece of the puzzle is that of the enthalopy of fusion in the ice.  As you no doubt remember from junior high school chemistry, you can have a mixture of water and ice and it will be at 32 degrees.  As you add more heat to the mixture the temperature will not rise until the ice has melted.  In other words, it takes effort/energy to change the state of the ice to a liquid."

"Now Yeti cups and their ilk are dewar containers.  They have a vacuum insulation and were first invented by Jimmy Dewar in 1892.  But you guys all knew that.  Like most things they are not perfect and the heat will either move in or out depending and what it's holding.  Albeit slowly, but it will return to the ambient temperature given enough time."

At this point it seems that most have picked up their wines and even those who don't drink seem to be looking longingly at it.  The eyes have glazed at bit and thoughts of the famous Chipolte burger are intruding in the question of the day.   Thoughts have returned to the late game of golf with its successes and failures.  The sun seems to have settled a bit more and the course looks tired viewed through the wind blown plastic.  No one cares about the ice anymore...

The food comes and we eat in near silence.  No one asks anything else.  What conversation we have has danced over to the mundane.  

I reflect upon my vow of more silence for the year and see that while I've passed on some useful knowledge here, it might have been a bit much.  Perhaps I can lighten the conversation.  "How about those Giants!" I say.

I'm reminded that the baseball season has been over three months.  Well, you can't know everything.

Directions...

It's been a while.  Sorry I've not had that much to talk about.  Golf is on going and I'm working on different things.  Some of which I can do and some of which works.

On the whole it's getting better.  Though the weather is getting colder.  That's been making it more a chore than a joy to be out.  There have been a couple of frost delays.  The new shoes are keeping the feet dry, but I'm thinking that insulated golf shoes may have a market.

The weather is going to change of course; rain not cold.  Rumor is that there will 3 to 5 days of rain starting tomorrow.  That seems like a lot and as Yogi Berra used to say, "prediction is hard, especially about the future."

The local course has dried out quite nicely.  I assumed that they were doing it in preparation for the rains or just to give the grass a rest.  It seems that is not the case.  I was talking to one of the guys (I'm very friendly with them, not just because they do a good job and I appreciate that, but they also find a lot of golf balls and some of those filter to me!) and he mentioned that all the guys who keep the sprinkler systems running are taking their annual vacation in Mexico!  So no water until they come back.  My friend has mentioned that the guys don't mess around with vacations.  There is none of that "a day here and a day there."  They take off for a month.  But it won't matter in re the course due to storms.

I've mentioned to Barb that I was not inspired recently to write the posts.  She suggested making it a humor blog. 

That is a lot more difficult that droning through golf techniques, but I have written some humorous stuff in the past and I think I could do it.  But I'm feeling lazy and I'm not sure I want to work that hard.  Retirement can be that way.

Speaking of funny stuff, I ran across a Youtube channel by a guy called This Old Tony.  He makes things out of metal and his videos talk about technique and equipment and how to do things.  Tony has been doing this for a number of years.  He has 50 odd videos in his channel.  The early ones are a bit boring, but at some point he hit his stride and has incorporated a lot of humor and sight gags in his presentations.  He is very funny and even if you don't want to make a fly cutter, they are worth the watch.

He uses his young child, "Dad, I need a Shword Sword!"  and the family kitten to act as foils.  He is quite clever and amusing.  I'm not sure what his background is.  He is very verbal, knows his way around the gear and has passing knowledge about a lot of other stuff.  He was not a professional machinist.  But I think he was pretty good at whatever it was. 

I've been watching a lot of his videos.  I'm nervous that I'll run through them all.

Rich II, fellow golfer, has mentioned a new author, Vince Flynn.  He has a CIA operative as a protagonist, Mitch Rapp.  I'm listening to one in the car and I'm reading another.  I like the style of writing.  There is a lot of action and it's not over done with jargon.  I can't recommend them yet, but I'm pretty happy with what I've read so far.  A lot of books spin up well, but resolution is another factor.   Not as wordy as the Jack Reacher books, less humor than the Brian Haig books.

I'll know more in a couple of days.  Even sooner if the rains come.

That's all for now.  Barb is right, I need a new direction for this blog.  Humor is a thought and I will mull that over.  There are other blogs already written if you click on my profile, there is a list there.

Until next time...

A Taste of Luxury

As we noted in the previous post, the replacement shoes came the other day.

On occasion in life you run across things that are remarkable in their ability to exude luxury.  I can remember the 25 cubic foot refrigerator that opened new vistas in the harsh arena of cool and cold storage.

Then today I'm out with one of the new pairs of shoes.  It was cold and windy; the dew point was not in play and the course sprinklers had not been run last night.  And I was a bit cold.  Could have used another layer.  But my feet were wrapped in warmth and dry to boot -- hmm, interesting word there!

I cruised around the course and felt warm all the way.  The highest accolade one can have for an article of clothing is that after a bit of time you don't know you are wearing it.   That happened too.

New shoes can break in in a number of ways.  I have experienced shoes that do not crease nicely over the toes.  But the new ones have nicely begun to wear without any toe joint problems.  Another wonderful trait.

To suggest I'm happy would be an understatement.

I also treated myself to some cedar shoe trees this Xmas.  I put the trees into the new shoes.  They seemed happy together.  I intend to rotate the shoes as I use them.

I'm also going to buy some silicone spray that provides some water proofing but it also helps to make the leather more slippery.   That will keep them cleaner even if the water proofing is not helped.

That is the shoe saga for the moment.

I have a couple of days off as the holidays once again interfere with the golfing.  Very sad.

Warranties in a Post Modern World

I'm not sure I know what the post modern world really means.  But it comes up a lot in the climate debate.  I suspect it is not a compliment.

As close readers of the blog and those with whom I play golf will remember that I'm having issues with leaky golf shoes.

Now wet feet are not too bad.  It is getting cold however and then there is the proliferation of animals on the course.  Animals bring with them, or actually leave little bits of themselves all over the course.  Add in some copious sprinkling and I see the course as a large, wet, thinly layered bio sphere.  Probably not one you want to put in the trunk of your car nor bring home with you or, most scarily, bring with you to lunch.

We should probably talk of cross contamination.  When I worked at an unnamed national laboratory, we have a lot of things that you didn't want to spread around.  Cross contamination is the method by which you move material from one place to the next to the third by a intermediate means.  Means might include hands, or gloves or shoes or golf towel.  We didn't have a lot of golf towels at the lab, but we had plenty of other things.

Cross contamination does occur at the course.  And, drawing a bit on bridge, it happens in spades.  Every ball that comes onto a green is usually cleaned before being putted.  The material that gets wiped off the ball goes on the towel.  You handle the towel with your hands.  Clubs are wiped off after every shot and they've been ripping through turf and water and mud and everything else.

When you pull the granola bar out of your bag, you are moving that material to the zipper, the outside of the wrapper on the bar and if you dare to handle the bar on its way to your mouth, then the material is now internal.

Then you finish the day and put your stuff away and wipe stuff off.  Slap the shoes together to remove loose impediments and place them in the trunk.  Grab the door handle, gear shift lever, steering wheel, radio knob, etc.  The icky stuff is everywhere.

We thus have evidence that stuff is not really dangerous since golfers are not dropping like fly and there are no warnings from the CDC on every course with the handy "take along gallon of hand sanitizer" available at no charge.

But if your shoes leak then after a bit there is a certain aroma that can build up in them.  I get nasty looks from Barb as the fragrance migrates to my street shoes off my wet feet.

You can get sprays from Amazon to kill bacteria on athletic wear.  It seems that the one that is popular smells like bubble gum and smells strongly!  I think I'll pass on that one.

But the leaky shoes are a problem.  I've been buying New Balance shoes and their waterproof shoes are made by a third party, Klone Lab.  I contacted New Balnace (NB) and they referred me to the lab and with two emails I have two new pairs of shoes on the way.  They can't get here too soon!  They have a two year waterproof warranty - most useful and generous.

I asked my man, Ricky, at Klone why the shoes are leaking.  He said that leaving them in the trunk where extreme heat can get at them was one reason.  Other than that he had no response.  Now I do leave them in the back of my hatch back, but I don't think it gets that hot.  I've been getting about 9 months out of the shoes and then they leak. 

Last time I sent some shoes back I had to supply invoices and pictures and eventually the shoes.  This time it was just an email with the invoices pasted into the email body.  Nice!

Then, it was a tough week for gear, my golf watch has a fancy charging cable.  The watch is water resistant and the method they have to supplying energy to its internal battery is a clip on cable that interacts with the watch internals vial 4 tiny pins.  The watch has 4 recessed contacts and the spring loaded pins on the cable can extend into the holes and make contact with the pins tightly enough that charging is possible.  One of the pins no longer will extend.  Either the spring broke or something.  It's buried deeply inside a molded cable so I can't look at it. 

I couple of emails and a phone call to Bushnell and a new cable is one way.  I had a nice chat with Kim, ex-navy, and it seems we share some common world views.

There is a third party cable on Amazon for $15.  A reasonable price to play, but feedback suggested that this cable might not be a good solution...  There is talk of a fried watch and just not working.  So kudos to Bushnell for supplying the part gratis.

It's nice to have a couple of manufacturers standing behind and going a bit beyond their duties to back their products.  If they hadn't I would have sought other suppliers, so it's in their long term interest to keep this avid customer happy.

Sadly, I kind of need all this right now, but I have a few days of no golf to allow the powers of the USPS to get things to my door.   I'm looking forward to tossing the old golf shoes away and so is Barb.