Monthly Archives: February 2007

Rocket… oops, I mean *Roddy* Ranch

Roddy Ranch on Saturday afternoon. It was cold and overcast, breezy, and occasionally rained but ended quickly. It was a fine Scottish day for golf. Head! Paper! Now!

OK Roddy Ranch. Beautiful golf course set in the Antioch hills. Lots of up and down elevated greens and fairways, doglegs, and bunkers. Not a single home has been built on the course. Standing on the upper tee boxes you could look out across the San Joaquin River valley and the California Delta. Behind us loomed Mt. Diablo.

The fairways were in very, very good condition. The grass was full and very green and just about perfect. The rough was nicely groomed and not at all troublesome.

And then there’s the pesky greens.

Hard as a rock. Lightning fast. Your irons could hit the green, but it would hit ’em like you’d just hit the cart path, bounce and roll off the green. Tap your putt ever so lightly and the ball would rocket past the hole and roll off the green. The greens were painfully, awfully punishing.

I loved everything else about the course, but the greens just plain pissed me off.

Hey look, I snapped some pics!

If Roddy Ranch ever slows those greens down I’d like to play it again.

Click here to read Dave’s account of Sunday’s round of golf at Deer Ridge.

As you'd expect we come correct

Remember what life was like before cell phones, computers, and the Internet? I do, and it sucked.

Of course I had no idea back then what life would be like WITH these things. But looking back now I can’t imagine life without my beloved technology.

(Start Kip Dynamite singing “Always And Forever”)
We met in a chatroom…
Sure the World Wide Web is great…
Yes I love technology…

So yesterday I had a bunch of errands to run. I needed to return some stuff to Old Navy, sell a used video game to GameStop, go to the bank, buy some golf stuff, and I wanted Hawaiian food for lunch. A quick web search revealed that I could accomplish all my tasks in Fremont. Oh hey, I could go to Fry’s too while I’m out there. A quick Google maps search later and I had my course plotted for the most efficient and fast routes. Five minutes of work and I was out the door.

Fifteen years ago I would have had to look everything up in the phone book, make countless phone calls, bust out the map… everything would have taken me at least an hour.

Moving on. Remember what it was like, back in the day, when you wanted to get ahold of someone? You could either call their work or their home phone numbers. If they weren’t there you had to leave a message and, sometimes, wait hours for them to call you back. Now you can just call their cell phone and talk immediately.

All this new technology makes my life so much easier. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like for kids growing up today? Text messaging in class, calling each other’s cell phones constantly, MySpace and YouTube… unreal.

Always and forever… Kip

Goodbye, Cingular

Today I gave Cingular the finger. I canceled my contract, ate the $175 early termination fee, and switched to Verizon Wireless.

Over at Verizon I took my mobile phone number with me, bought a reasonably priced cell phone, and didn’t have to sign any contracts. Once a month I give VZW fifty bucks, and I can cancel whenever I want without any fees (or other butt-fucks that Cingular is famous for).

I learned my lesson, oh yes. Never sign any contracts. Bite the bullet and pay for the phone, rather than signing the two year contract and getting the phone for free (because that phone isn’t really free).

I’ve done my research and I know that Verizon Wireless will be a good fit for me. Yay Verizon Wireless. Boo Cingular.