Golf tourney in honor of a great friend.  

Gayle Cordle

You will be missed!

Birthday Weekend did more work on my Chevelle

Got to actually installing patch panels on the rear window area.

Did a test fit of the package tray to truck replacement panel.

Its crazy to see the gaping hole covered up.  I will have to take more pictures of the patches around the window channel.  Getting closer.... it exciting to see progress on the car after so long.

Wow life has been speeding along

Since my last post my daughter has been playing high school varsity golf. Will need to work on more updates.

Fred E. Lietz Obituary: View Fred Lietz's Obituary by Orlando Sentinel

Fred E. Lietz Obituary: View Fred Lietz's Obituary by Orlando Sentinel

My Grandfather passed away last Thursday.

Spring right around the corner.

What a great winter we have had this year. Been really mild do in part to the La Nina in the Pacific keeping the Jetsteam at bay. Cece played basketball again and I was assistant coach again. This was the first year her team won enough games to be over .500. I am excited for them. Their year end party is this upcoming Sunday. Should be a good time as it's girls against the coaches in a cage deathmatch brawl. Cece is now moving onto golf and has been working on her game. The plan is to do a series of lessons and drills to get her ready for some local tourneys this summer. That is around swim team of course. My game is starting to really come together as I have started to get my mechanics put back together after a rough fall and winter of little golf and zero practice time. Can't wait for tourney time this year!

Holidays over. Great time!

Another holiday season has passed. I have just about got all of the Christmas decorations down and stored away for next year. Had a great time saw bunches of family and consumed too much decadent food and drink. Ain't life grand! Wishing you and your family a Happy New Year!

Holiday's are here!

Can't believe that Christmas is just a few days away. Weather has been great but busy with family and work so I haven't been on the links much at all lately. Will be getting out there on Saturday to try to enjoy some golf before it gets cold. That means low 60's.

Wow I haven't posted in quite some time. I haven't been golfing much as of late due to family and work constraints. A few things that have been going on. I got in on the HP Touchpad deal and what a deal it is. My daughter's summer swim team went undefeated in their summer swim league and took the city championship for the first time! I have gotten my Chevelle over to my house and have started working on a few more issues. Rust around the back window is holding up my completion and getting back on the road. Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas and Happy Channukah!

Third Member Guest Tourney

This one is at my home course Coosaw Creek Country Club. Unlike the previous two this is stroke play best ball. Had long time friend Kevin Harley as my partner. We were 4th team in the second flight. I hadn't golfed with Kevin in a couple of years and my game has changed quite a bit since then. First day out we spent most of the time talking trash, reliving glory days and not playing great golf. We were fourth in the standings.

Second day out I wanted to focus more and play better than my 89 on Saturday. We started on hole thirteen for the second day. I birdied it with an aggressive 25' off the back of the hole putt. Played decent all day except for 3 holes. I was four over for fifteen holes and 8 over on those three. Shot an 83 team score was 79 and we came in 2nd net for our flight.

Great time, great food.

2nd Member guest tourney

This time I am back in Mt. Pleasant, SC over at Dunes West Country Club. Playing with a long time friend Tom Parker who just became a golf member at Dunes West.

Tourney is huge, 48 teams tons of prizes given away and raffles for more.

We are a combined 34 handicap and it puts us in the 7th flight. We again do a team matchplay format with a twist. It is a combined scores for each player on each hole. We end up 3rd in our flight.

Shootout takes for ever as it starts with 16 teams with each guy playing his own ball.

Great food, tons of drinks... great time!

First Member Guest tourney of the year.

This one is hosted at Rivertowne Country Club in Mt. Pleasant, SC. My brother in law Mike has invited me back this year. Our combined handicap for the tourney is 17. He has played 1 round this year so it should be fun.

We are flighted in the first flight. It has 6 team flights and you play match play versus the other flights. First day we go 7 out of 10 and in the other two we go 7.5 out of ten and we hold a 2.5 point lead.

Sunday we play the team that is in second place first. We win the match 6 to 4 and only need 2 points to win our flight in the last match. We had a lot of fun as we are just waiting for the shootout to begin.

Shootout! We have to wait for 10 tee shots before we get to go. Stood up on my drive and lost it way right. Mike pulls his left in the water we are done.

Had a great time, ate a ton of food. Paramutal betting doesn't pay off for crap as there was plenty of bets on us.

Now time to get ready for next weekends tourney.

Wow haven't posted in a long time.

Been busy with work and running my daughter around to basketball, golf and now swimming and haven't had much in the way of free time.

Happy New Year!

Been busy with work and family things and haven't done much posting lately. Had a great Christmas and New Year.

Here's to you hoping that you to had a great holiday season.

Ouch hurt my back

Hurt my back during the week and tried to golf this weekend. I was only able to make a half swing with a flip at the end. I was struggling to get off the tee box. The only thing that was working was chipping and putting. I did discover on hole twelve that if I set up with an open stance and swing I was able to get all the way through and get my hands up behind my head. So I started playing for a fade and was able to finish the round with much less pain.

It also didn't help much with the 95* heat and+90% humidity. I lost like 12 pounds walking 18.

So much for putting problems. 79 today.

I was invited to play Charleston National with a friend from church who had a couple of passes. Had to do some work on my laptop on the front nine. Had 4 bogeys and a triple where I was trying to do something stupid and hit it in the water. Finished the front nine with a birdie on 9 for a 6 over. One the back nine had a bogey on a misread putt and realized on 17 that if I parred out I would have an 80. Had a good up and down for par on 17 and 18 is a par 3. I said step up and birdie this one for a 79. From the tee box it was playing about 140 with a bunker behind the green and marsh in front. I didn't want to go long so I put a smooth swing on my PW it left about 10' straight up the hill for birdie. When I hit the ball the group I was with got excited. I drained the putt and finished with a 79. Been a long struggle back after posting a couple of 79's last year. Overall it was a so-so day from the tee box. Not so great on my approach shots but a great day chipping and putting. I only missed 1 chip shot and not many putts all day.

Putter / Putting problems

Man right now it is killing me. I am over analytical on my putting on the course. I can have fun and make decent putts on the practice green but getting on the course I tense up and can't read a break. Oh well back at it again this weekend.

Hit them straight.

Ok so after doing some more research....

One underground fence controller, one smoke detector, one Intel Atom pc, one mini itx hulu box, one HTPC in living room, one GFCI and one regular outlet in garage.

Rough day. Got some work to do it looks like.

Mother Nature's Fury on Display

A tree in my neighbors yard just got hit by lighting as I happen to be looking out the window. Only loss at this point seems to be the control box for the invisible fence for the dogs and a smoke detector.

Just checking mobile blogging feature so I can update on the go.

Another Birthday.... I can't believe I am 42!

Well yesterday was my birthday again. Got a bunch of cards, played some golf and had a small stressful event. The battery went out in our Fusion yesterday and Dani had issues locating one to replace it. I found one and had it installed so now the world is back to normal.

Shot even Par

Golf game has been terrible lately but on Wednesday night I hit a milestone. I play in a after work blitz playing a modified stableford system. I had a decent night of playing fairway to green. Had a better night with some up and downs with great par saving putts. I almost eagled #6 a par 3 which was playing about 171 into a slight wind. I again just missed eagle on #8 which is a 475 yard par 5 that I had a 12' straight uphill putt and left it a few inches short. My only disaster was an a double bogie on hole 7. I hit a great drive had about 68 yards to an uphill green and caught it high on the face and didn't get there. Almost felt like hole 14 at this years US Open. :) OK maybe not that bad. After I finished with our nine holes. I shook the hands of my fellow golfers and ran to hole 10 trying to get all 18 in before dark. I finished 3 over on 13 when the sprinklers came on and chased me back to the clubhouse for beer.

Rivertowne CC Member Guest Tournament

Played in the Rivertowne Country Club Member Guest tournament. I was invited by my brother-in-law to participate. I was excited to get a chance to play as Mike has played in my tournament (Coosaw Creek CC) before. Rivertowne's has always been held in October and there have been other commitments preventing us from competing. It is a Friday & Saturday match play versus other teams in your flight. We were a combined 22 handicap and the total difference in handicap from the first time in our flight 21.7 to 22.9 was very close. We played 3 9 hole matches on Friday. We ended the day with 19 1/2 points to lead the fourth flight by a 1/2 point. We played the team that was in third place first on Saturday winning 6 and 4 which gave us a 2 1/2 point lead going into the last match against the second place team. We split that match-up to take the flight and participate in the 3 hole shootout. Mike and I were the fourth team in a draw for tee position. We scrambled for par on the par 5 16th hole to move on (2 teams eliminated). Mike's tee shot on 17 was the only one on the green. We tied two other teams with par to move to a chip off to see which two went onto 18. Mike put us second closes to the hole and on to 18 we went. With it being alternate tee shots I tee'd off on 18 and lost it a little right into a fairway bunker. The opposing team did the same but about a foot behind us. They then hit their approach shot straight into the hazard left of the fairway. Mike also found trouble just missing the green right and ended up in the hazard. They were 85 yards out and lost their next shot right and long into a green side bunker. After confirming where to drop with the club pro I had 65 in and hit it in the center of the green. They didn't get out of the bunker with their first attempt and then two putted the hole for a triple bogey. Mike hit our putt about 2' past the hole trying to make it and I sank the comeback putt for double bogey to win the hole and the shootout.

Here we are on the cover of South Carolina Amateur Golf Magazine

Healthcare passed??????????

I want to take the time to disagree with our president and congress.

2700 pages??? 1 Trillion dollars to cover 12 to 15 million people??? Really???

If this were truly just an overhaul of the Health care system in America then what the heck is all student loans for college now managed by our government doing in there? They want to control not only who goes to college on student loans but dictate to universities their curriculum. IRS is now in charge of health care.

Back to the debate.
If we use 2 existing models for reform Texas and Massachusetts

In Texas:

In an Op-Ed published in the San Francisco Examiner earlier this month, Texas Governor Perry points out that in 2003 the state implemented laws that shielded health care providers from trial lawyers "anxious to make a quick buck."

"We capped noneconomic damages at $250,000 per defendant, or up to $750,000 per incident, while placing no cap on more easily determined economic damages, such as lost wages or costs of medical care due to injury.

"We ended the practice of allowing baseless but expensive lawsuits to drag on indefinitely, requiring plaintiffs to provide expert witness reports to support their claims within four months of filing suit or drop the case...

"Changes were seen immediately, and continue to be felt. All major liability insurers cut their rates upon passage of our reforms, with most of those cuts ranging in the double-digits. More than 10 new insurance carriers entered the Texas market, increasing competition and further lowering costs.

"As a result, Texas doctors have seen their insurance rates decline by an average of 27 percent.

"The number of doctors applying to practice medicine in Texas has skyrocketed by 57 percent."


In Massachusetts:

Massachusetts health program, model for Obama’s reform, strains state budget
By Peter Suderman 01/10/10 at 8:00 PM

In 2006, the state of Massachusetts passed a sweeping overhaul of the state’s health-care system. The system, which influenced the Obama administration’s plans for national reform, has since faced unexpected and unchecked growth in costs, both to the government and individuals, forcing the government to cut benefits and raise taxes. Now analysts say that without significant policy changes, the program’s long-term viability is in doubt.

State officials have successfully increased health insurance coverage in the state: With only 2.6 percent of the population now lacking health insurance, its insurance rate is the highest in the nation. But high coverage levels have been achieved at a substantial price, and one that is expected to increase over time.

For the state’s policymakers, rapidly rising health-care costs are the central problem with the plan. Since 2006, the cost of the state’s insurance program has increased by 42 percent, or almost $600 million. According to an analysis by the Rand Corporation, “in the absence of policy change, health care spending in Massachusetts is projected to nearly double to $123 billion in 2020, increasing 8 percent faster than the state’s gross domestic product (GDP).”

Meanwhile, the cost of insurance premiums in the state is the highest in the nation, and double-digit rate hikes are expected again in 2010.

The worry, shared across the political spectrum, is that the state’s health-care spending will overwhelm the state’s budget. Already, it has forced service cuts that have irked those on both sides of the aisle.

Physicians for a National Health Plan, a doctor’s group that supports a fully socialized, single-payer health-care system, warned in a February 2009 report that the new system had failed to reduce medical spending, and has subsequently drawn funding away from crucial health resources such as emergency room care.

Michael Tanner, a health policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute notes that huge deficits and skyrocketing public expenses already have resulted an increased cigarette tax of $1 a pack, as well as $89 million in new fees on the health-care industry.

And in summer 2009, the state announced plans to drop coverage for 30,000 legal immigrants with a goal of cutting $130 million in health-care expenses.

One problem the state has faced is that it failed to accurately anticipate the true cost of the program. At the time the program was signed into law, estimates indicated that the cost of Commonwealth Care, which is responsible for the program’s biggest single cost, its health insurance subsidies, would be about $725 million per year. But by 2008, those projections had been revised. New estimates indicated that the plan was to cost $869 million in 2009 and $880 million 2010, an upwards increase of nearly 20 percent.

Massachusetts would not be the first state to face a budget crisis due to unexpected cost spikes after instituting policies designed to increase insurance coverage. In 1994, Tennessee launched TennCare. The program successfully cut the state’s uninsured rate to about 6 percent. But in 2005, the state was forced to scale back significantly, slashing 170,000 people from the rolls after the program’s rapidly increasing costs threatened to send the state into bankruptcy.

Some of the program’s critics have argued that the state’s $5 billion budget deficit is a result of health care costs. Defenders of the Massachusetts system note that the deficit is a result of decreasing tax revenues and long-term effects of policy changes in the 1990s. The state would likely be facing budget deficits even without the 2006 program.

Others say budgetary concerns have been blown out of proportion. A November 2009 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example, notes that the cost to the state’s general fund has not been unmanageable.

But should costs continue to rise apace, they could easily dip further into the general fund in the future. And the report’s authors agree that the “high cost of care in Massachusetts is causing major strains,” and that now, “tackling costs has risen to the top of the agenda.”



Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/01/10/massachusetts-health-program-a-model-for-obamas-national-reform-strains-state-budget/#ixzz0ixPkkCdO


Being a libertarian leaning towards anarchist I would like to see more of the first option versus the second. Where the majority of the health care debate has missed the target. We should have first put together a list of what truly is wrong like a disease and treat it not symptoms of the problem. The media of course did its best to take direction from those is charge in Washington DC. Would I like health care reform you betcha. Do I want this one NO FREAKING WAY!

#1 Tort Reform
#2 Drop group coverage models and have it based on individuals.
#3 Deregulate state mandates and let every insurance company compete over state lines. There are 1300+ companies but because of controls in place you get to choose from less that 5 normally.
#4 No one loses insurance due to illness, disease or job changes you get insurance for life upon initial purchase. You still have to pay for your own coverage.
#5 Get the government programs out of the way of our health care. The state currently dictates to Docs, Hospitals, drug companies, medial device companies on what the payout for their services is going to be. The insurance company follows their coding guidelines that are released every year. Let the market dictate charges and payments. If some companies what to be cheap and not pay certain Doc fees then either the patient has to find a new doctor to take what they have or they can change companies. Normal supply and demand market principles.
#6 Kids are covered and can't be dropped and fall under their folks policy until 26 is fine.


Now this can go on for ever but these are few key items that should have been addressed with real reform.

Winter just won't leave

I am tired of the cold. It is still getting down around freezing and highs barely into the 50's. That is 10+ degrees cooler than normal. Attention Global Warming Zealots can you please adjust the thermostat in South Carolina higher as it isn't fun golfing in this cold.

Snow... we got 4+ inches of snow

You can tell in the Picasa link that we got a ton of snow. Haven't seen this much snow since 2007 when we went up to Madison Wisconsin for Christmas.

Superbowl in two weeks.

Watched some football Sunday and the NFC championship game was great! As a Bears fan don't mind that fact that Farve didn't get back to the Superbowl.

Good New Years Eve

Went to the local fireworks supermarket and loaded up on mortars and a few large boxes. Started shooting off fireworks with the neighbors and family about 7:00. Kids had a good time. It was colder than any other New Years fireworks but toughed it out.