The rain in Houston...

I was supposed to spend Father's Day on the course, but stalled low pressure system foiled those plans. As I write this (Monday afternoon), the rain continues to fall. We've had so much rain CNN is covering it.

What's worse is that I have not been golfing in over two weeks. I managed to hit the range one evening, but that's about it. Unless you want to count some family room putting and watching some of the US Open. I enjoyed watching the Open. It was sad to see some of the bad shots like Phil hitting a fairway metal out of that heavy rough and only getting a couple of feet out of it (heck, I can do that off of the fairway). On the other hand, it's nice to see those guys are human from time to time.

I'm working on a summary of my first year, but I'm in a bit of a golf enthusiasm slump at the moment and writing a summary with that tone would be just sad. So, I'll put that on the back burner till my attitude perks up a bit.

Sadly, I removed Jamboy's link. I also removed the DTDGH counter. I suppose I should add a DTIGT (Days Till I Go There) counter, but that can wait too.

I'm hoping to get out tomorrow or Thrusday depending on when the weather decides to clear up. I'll be heading to San Jac for at least 18 holes, maybe 27.

The Last Two Weeks (Part Two)...

Yeah, I've slowed down on my posting. Shame on me especially since I know some readers are expecting an update about my round with my Father-in-Law.

So, continuing on from last post that saw my world crumbling under my feet. With a second day of super-high fever we decided to head to the hospital. While I was in the waiting room my fever broke and by the time I was seen my fever had dropped to 103. I was released after a chest xray and some blood work. That was Tuesday night.

I started to feel better Wednesday, but the "better" was interspersed with generally feeling like crap. I was not well enough to pick up the inlaws that evening, so we had a friend take my wife up to Houston International.

Husbands know what their wives go through when you have someone staying with you for several days. It was her folks, but she still wanted everything to be in order. It was no fun for her (or me) to have to do all the cleaning on her own. Being sick, I was of little help. I did try though... I did my best to clean up after the kids, do the dishes, and generally try to keep from losing ground (which is easy to do with kids aged 4 and 5). My efforts to help out (coupled with my mentally willing myself back to health) earned me the idiot of the day award when I tried to move our bedroom TV into the guest room... During one of my feeling better waves I decided to move the TV. We have it on top a highboy dresser. I grabbed it while standing on a stool, stepped off the stool, and tried to put it on the floor... That's when my back brutally objected and I found myself on the floor unable to move for about fifteen minutes.

Now, even if I didn't have acute bronchitis, and even if I hadn't wrenched my back, there still wouldn't be any golfing on Thursday at Tour18 as scheduled because the two solid days of rain had the courses closed.

Over the next few days, I began to recover and by Saturday night I thought I was well enough to play golf. We booked a 9:24 tee time at Southwyck. Southwyck is a Palmergolf managed links style course (Tour18 is also a Plamergolf managed course). The rating and slope are 70.6 and 118 based on the card.

I thought I shot pretty good considering the circumstances posting a 104. My Father-in-Law shot a 101. I had initially posted a 107, but made an error adding up the score (I thought I had 55 on the front, but when I entered the score into my spreadsheet I realized the three-stroke error). Hey, even rocket scientists have math problems from time to time!

The top row is par, the bottom row is my score:

4 5 4 4 3 4 3 5 4 4 3 5 4 5 4 4 3 4
4 7 8 7 4 5 4 7 6 6 4 9 5 5 5 6 5 7

The course was not as impressive as I expected it to be. For the money, I'll take The Battleground any day. The layout was very nice, the fairways were outstanding, and the greens were average. The main problem was finding a yardage marker. This has to be one of the worst marked courses I have played. I had to estimate my yardage often and you can guess how that helped my game.

I managed to lose several balls (at least 6, maybe 8) which was my main problem. Dad lost several too. I had a tough time hitting the fairways and Dad hit most of them. I didn't keep good stats for the round, but through 15 I had hit only 3 fairways where Dad hit 6 of the first 10.

All in all, I had a good time. It was great to play with my Father-in-Law and I'm looking forward to playing a round (or two) when we head up to Wisconsin in August.

Posts have been slow due to my not playing golf much due to skating injuries and the bronchitis episode. Also, work has been very busy as I had my final certification qualification simulation to work in direct support for the Space Shuttle in Mission Control. That was the Monday after the inlaws went home.

Next time I'll post a review of my first year playing the game.

-Greg

The Last Two Weeks (Part One)...

First...

Happy Anniversary to Me :) I played my first round (after only hitting at the range once) a year ago today. A future post will review my progress as a beginner. Now on to the program...

The Perfect Plan...

I patiently waited till I could reserve a Tee time at Tour18 in Houston. I called as soon as they opened and had my choice of times. I took 7:48. That was May 25th. Dad would arrive on the 31st and there was a lot to be done in the week ahead.

My Son's Birthday...

The big 4. A great party for the kids and adults. The miraculous thing was that my wife and kids had finally seemed to overcome a brutal virus that had taken hold of them. As usual, I made it through this sickness unscathed (yes, I do like foreshadowing...).

I rarely get sick. When I do get sick, I get good and sick. The past week was no exception...

I wanted to get a final round in before Dad got here, so I had set up a tee time for Sunday, the ay after my Boy's Birthday party. During the party, I noticed I seemed to have a little scratchy thoat, but I thought it was mostly from all the talking during the party. In the back of my mind, I had a sinking feeling.

I awoke Sunday morning with a little bit of a sore throat, but not to bad. No fever like the rest of my family, so I thought I might have just gotten a little to much conversation in at the party (4-year-olds really seem to enjoy my stories :) ).

By mid-round at The Battleground, I knew I was developing a fever. I had some Tylenol, so I took a couple and finished the round. I shot a 103 by the way.

That night my symptoms got worse. My throat clamped up, my fever fired up, and more flu-like symptoms hammered me into a useless pile. I felt bad because I did not have the strength to help my wife get ready for the inlaws' visit. She worked her butt while I laid in bed. To make things worse, she knew the main reason I wanted to get better was to golf on Thursday.

Well, I got worse, the rains descended on Houston to the tune of 10+ inches over several days. Monday night my temperature hit 105.8 so I was in the Doctor's office the next morning. The Doc told me I should have went in to the hospital with a fever that high. She suspected I had Acute Bronchitis, warned it was likely caused by a virus that would just have to run it's course, but gave me a five-day antibiotic just in case it wasn't.

I took the day 1 dose and tried to rest. My daughter had a rehearsal for her part in Peter Pan that day, so by try to rest, I mean watch my son (and try to rest). We spent the ay inside not because I was sick, but because Houston was entrenched in a rainstorm. During all of this, I continued to take Tylenol and monitor my temperature. I felt very weak, it was hard to breathe, and I had to fight to stay awake. At some point, my temp snuck back up to 101-ish so I took more Tylenol and tried to drink Gatoraid. My Mom called and I told her what was going on. My temp was now creeping up toward 103. I decided to call my Mom every 30 minutes and told her to call me if I didn't. I did not want to fall asleep with my temp going up. And go up it did... 103... 104... At 45 minutes after I took the Tylenol, my Wife stopped in to check on me. She took my temp and it was 105.8 again!!! We were at the hospital fifteen minutes later.

The inlaws are coming in Wednesday in the early evening at IAH across town...

I'm scheduled to play the round I had been preparing for for months...

It's raining cats and dogs and courses are closed all across the city...

Can it get any worse...

To be Continued ---->

-Greg