Over a year ago I decided to usher my shaving habits in to the 21st century and purchased one of those new-fangled 5-bladed razors at CostCo. I had been shaving with the same razor, a Gillette Mach III, for over a decade, and figured it was time to upgrade.
Do not trust this razor
Big mistake. The benefits of 5 blades exist solely for the guys writing marketing copy, and are non-existent for me and my face. The big, bulky head of the razor fails to get into that tight little spot under my nose, misses hairs on curves on the jawbone, and takes 5 times as much flesh with it when it decides to bite. I have cursed this razor each and every time I have shaved over the course of the past year.
When shaving with this Hummer of Hair Removal I can only pray that it doesn’t leave embarrassing hairs on my face, or rip pothole sized chunks out of it. And don’t talk to me of the lone, 6th blade stretched across the top of it for those “hard to reach places.” That ill-conceived thing has done more to make my nose bleed than a 7-year wrestling career ever did.
One might be quick to point out that at any time in the past year I could have simply thrown that razor and its blades away and returned to my 3-bladed ways. But I am a stubborn, cheap bastard. If I spend $20.00 on a razor and 20 cartridges then I damn well am going to get my money’s worth, even if it costs me a few new scars and engenders in me a hatred usually reserved for M. Night Shamalamadingdong films.
Farewell, 5-bladed razor, I will not miss you. The year that we spent together is more of a testament to my stubbornness and spend-thrift nature than proof of your value as a razor.
Sunday is a great day to take your kid to see a San Francisco Giants game! The game times are almost always at 1:05pm, and there are a ton of events and activities for families on Sundays.
In the three years that we’ve been taking our son to games, we’ve learned a few things about seeing Giants games with a kid, especially on a Sunday afternoon. After last week’s game, I felt compelled to compile my own little list of tips and tricks for AT&T Park. Even though you can find almost all of this information on your own on the Giants’ website, you need to dig and – more importantly – you need to know what you’re digging for.
Food: You can bring your own food in to AT&T Park. Repeat: You don’t have to spend $70 to feed a family of 3 a bunch of junk food (sorry, Gilroy Garlic Fries) every time you go to the ballpark. You can pack in your own picnic, as long as you don’t bring in any glass containers or alcoholic beverages. We pack a backpack full of Tupperware laden with sandwiches, sliced fruit, pretzels, cookies and anything else we can fit. That way, when we do wind up buying a $6.25 Lemonade it’s refreshing, not budget-breaking.
Seating: Where you sit is entirely dependent upon your personal preference and budget, obviously. If you can afford to sit right behind home plate, that’s where you should always be. If you have to make a choice between View Reserve and the Bleachers, I recommend the bleachers. You’ll run the risk of your kid learning a new profanity or two, but you’ll also have a better chance of watching more of the game. Something about being up so high and so removed from the game that doesn’t work with young children’s minds. Or at least our young child’s mind.
The bleachers also have the best access to the Coca Cola Fan lot (see below).
Ryder, trying to score some signatures on his 2010 World Series pennant
Autographs and batting practice: The Giants have a policy that you can try to get autographs during/after batting practice – as long as you’re not intrusive. On Sundays the Giants don’t always take batting practice, but they do designate it as official autograph day.
This means that the first 120 kids ages 14 & under who line up in the aisle for sections 104/105 and the first 120 kids who line up in the aisle for sections 126/127 get to stand in line and get an autograph from that day’s designated Giant. This past Sunday we accidentally discovered this fact, and had to scramble to get a ticket for Ryder. In turn, he got to meet/get an autograph from Will “The Thrill” Clark, who is currently working in the Giants’ front office. Next Sunday game we’ll try to do it again, and update this with the player who was signing.
They have sharpies for the player, but don’t provide anything for you to get signed. Think ahead: bring a ball or a pennant. Your own Sharpie wouldn’t hurt either, in case you get lucky and catch one of the other players in the right place at the right time.
Elevators: There are elevators that will take you up or down to every level in the ballpark. They have security positioned outside the glass doors to them, and the stickers on the doors make it seem like the elevators are reserved for the disabled or people going to the suites. Whenever we’ve approached the elevators at the Northeast corner of the park, however, they’ve been more than kind in taking us where we wanted to go.
I’ve never asked the exact policy on this, but it seems like they allow those in need on. When my wife, Michele, had just had foot surgery back in 2002 they let her use the elevators each direction as much as she wanted during both of the World Series games we attended. And every time we’ve brought Ryder to the park, they’ve let us use the elevators to get from the View Reserve level down to the slides/Coca Cola Fan Lot. At the end of the day, or even in the 3rd inning, avoiding that winding, 7-story ramp down from View Reserve to the fan lot can be a day-saver.
Coca Cola Fan Lot: Inside of the giant Coke bottle out beyond the left field bleachers are three slides, and just to the North of the slides is the Little Giants Park. Kids must be at least 36″ to ride the lower slides, and over 42″ tall to ride the big slide. Unless there is no line, the slides aren’t worth the wait.
Worth the wait, however, is the Little Giants Park. This is the miniature replica of AT&T Park, where kids 42″ and shorter can smack a Whiffle ball and run the bases. The line for this is huge in the early innings, but usually dies out by about the 6th or 7th inning. They let in 15 – 20 kids at a time, and each kid gets a chance to hit a ball/run the mini-bases and then exit. Once every kid in that “rotation” has had a shot, they let in a new batch of kids from the line.
If you can keep your kid engaged in the game until the later innings, you’ll do right to have them smack a homer in the Little Giants Park. Because from there it is pretty easy to ride it out until the end of the game so they can run the real bases after the game (see below).
Kids Run the Bases: At the conclusion of games on Sundays, kids can run the actual bases in AT&T Park! The line forms along McCovey Cove, outside of the ballpark. Make your way out of the ballpark – preferably by exiting the stairs at the Southeast corner of the park, beyond the Coca Cola fan lot. This puts you on the promenade leading right to the knothole gang free viewing area. You’ll enter through the knothole gang gate in right field.
Running the bases after the game.
The line starts to form early (I’m guessing 8th inning) and gets long. Don’t let that dissuade you: it moves quickly, and there really is nothing like the joy on a kid’s face when they get to run around the bases of a major league park.
The staff who run this operation for the Giants can be a bit gruff, but don’t let that slow you down either. They just have a lot of people to get through in a short period of time. This is sponsored by See’s Candy, so every kid who does it gets a free See’s Lollipop on the way up and out. And on Mother’s day, moms get to run the bases too!
Final note on concessions: the best deals on any Giants merchandise are always to be found in the big Giants Dugout Store. Panda hats were selling for $20 on the upper levels, but were $16 at the dugout store. I bought a fitted hat for $40 at the end of last season, only to find that hats were 2-for-1 in the dugout store.
Today at the bank I found myself explaining my job to the personal banking representative who was helping re-establish the free checking I originally signed up for that had somehow changed in the last few months. They teach feigned interest very well at personal banking representative school, because I found myself sharing more and more information as the conversation went on.
Jonathan and Q, having a great time at the 2011 Cal Shakes gala
I became increasingly cognizant of the fact that I was dressed like a slacker while arguing for a whole lot of free banking. This compelled me to explain that I dress down when I work from home, but at events I dress up. Wear a tux. Wear a tux 50+ times a year. Hell, I’m on my 3rd tux. No, not that they go out of style, I wear them out. I felt even more compelled to try and find a good picture that would back my whole story up.
So I flipped through my phone, looking for the perfect picture, and found a self-portrait of me and Jonathan Moscone, taken at Cal Shakes’ event this past March. “Here, check it out: here’s a shot of me with Jonathan Moscone,” I said, figuring that would get a good response.
“Who? I don’t know who that is…” said the kind, but truly unawares personal banking rep.
“Ever hear of Moscone Center?” I asked. “Yeah, that Moscone. His dad? The Mayor? In the movie Milk? Riiiight.”
Seriously, shouldn’t you have to pass some sort of San Francisco History exam if you’re going to call this place your home? Civic pride, people, civic pride. Sadly, I think I left more depressed by the fact that she didn’t know who Jon was than she was impressed by his family’s impact on this city.
My wife busted me checking the calories on a box of Girl Scouts’ Thin Mint cookies. She has no idea. No idea the depths to which ex-wrestlers are capable of slipping when it comes to the game of weight loss.
Winning!
There is a fine line between “getting in shape” and the game of “watch how much weight I can lose how quickly”. More than 20 years later, I can still take twisted pleasure in seeing the scale dip below where it was the day before. I’ve avoided the scale for the past year, in part because I didn’t want to obsess (but also because it always said the same thing: older and out of shape).
At the beginning of this year I started working out hard, with an eye towards getting into good cardiovascular shape for work. My business partner has lost over 60 pounds in the last year and was in better shape than I was, and I found inspiration (and competition) in that.
But two months into it I injured my shoulder, and couldn’t swim any more. So I jumped on the stationary bike – which has an addictive digital readout built-in. It gives me everything I never knew I needed in working out: miles ridden, RPM, time spent in the saddle, heart rate, and even calories burned. It’s like a video game I play every day, where the high score is getting in shape. And weight loss.
So now I’m trying not to take pleasure in the fact that I’m as light as I’ve been since college. Trying not to calculate what my hour-long spin on the bike today means for anything other than my sense of well-being.
As for the Girl Scout cookies: it’s 160 calories for 4 cookies – or 15 minutes on the bike at 17.8mph.
After more than a year of writing for the Examiner site, I’ve opted to quit writing about golf their way and return to doing what I want when I want here. I know there are exactly zero avid followers out there reading this right now, but somehow it felt more real to put it into writing and put it out there. Like that will somehow bring me back into the fold of writing on a regular basis again.
Writing for someone else was educational, and I quickly learned how to cater my writing style to garner the most clicks. Clicks = pay, and I managed to get over 270,000 clicks last year. Examiner.com bought me new clubs and bought me a new flat-screen TV. In fact, it was pretty much the day that I got said TV that I stopped writing for them.
I quit writing before Thanksgiving, so I missed all of the Tiger Woods meltdown. Thankfully. It was hard enough to watch one of my favorite sports figures fall from grace from a distance, I would have felt dirty profiting heavily from it. And judging from past results, I could have probably gotten a down-payment on a car from his indescretions.
Think of this: there was a tournament where it seemed as if Tiger farted on camera. A link to that video with a catchy headline got me $120.00 in a single day. So very sad. I can only imagine how much scrill I could have cobbled together off of some photos of his porn-star honey. I’m glad I didn’t.
The original goal was to write about golf on my terms: what I like, my own quest to get better, courses I play, etc. I may go pull down some of my equipment and course reviews from Examiner to post here, but more likely I will just keep on keeping on from here. Beautiful thing about the Internet: everything you do stays out here forever. Like herpes.
The weather in San Francisco has been absolutely stunning for the past couple of weeks. If you don’t live in the city, allow me to explain how incredibly rare this is. Our summers consist of fair mornings that give way to windy and foggy afternoons, usually with an afternoon high in the low-60’s or high-50’s. Ten days in a row of fogless, blue skies makes for amazing, unheard-of San Francisco golf weather.
Provided, of course, that you can actually make time to get out and play some golf. I managed to structure the past week-plus so that I had meetings or commitments every day that left only time to hit the range twice. Both times with my three-year old son, Ryder.
My father-in-law got Ryder a set of clubs for the holidays last year, and ever since I’ve been taking Ryder to the range. Up until recently, I would leave my bag at home and focus solely on having a good time with him. We’d go to the driving cage at the nine-hole in Golden Gate Park, where the astroturf slopes downhill from the tees into a net 50 feet away. I wanted him to have fun, feel successful, and not be intimidated by how far other people can hit the ball.
Just a couple of weeks ago this all changed. I announced that I was heading off to the range to hit some balls, and Ryder dropped what he was doing and came running out of his room exclaiming, “I want to hit balls too, Daddy!” This is the stuff golf dads dream of! I mean, I’m no Earl Woods – I respect the man and what he taught his son – but I do hope that Ryder will want to learn the game and that he and I will have the rest of my lifetime to enjoy rounds of golf together.
I instantly said yes, and we grabbed both of our bags and headed to the Presidio, which was closed (Monday afternoons, FYI), so we wound up at GGP, which he was already familiar with. I told him that since we’d both have our clubs, we’d need to either each pick a stall and hit on our own, or take turns hitting from the same tee in the same stall. He opted to share a stall and take turns.
I hadn’t anticipated how much my expectations would shift as soon as I had my clubs in tow. I kept unconciously shifting from father mode – which is extremely patient, forgiving and understanding of the extreme shifts in focus that come with a pre-schooler – to golf training mode – which is impatient, relentless and lacks compassion. I know, none of that bodes well for my golf game, let alone playing golf with Ryder.
If you have a pre-schooler you know that a child’s level of focus can be amazing and extreme…until their interest wanes. Then it is off to the next thing or things, as the case may be. My son loves to hit balls at the range. He also loves to talk about everything he sees while he’s hitting balls at the range. Which is fine and dandy out at Golden Gate Park, where he’s on par with most of the duffers who are taking up the game, and I feel no pressure about containing his wonderful running monologue.
But a week later, when we were out at Harding Park, another dynamic came into play: caring about what other people around us thought, and worrying about his verbosity angering other players.For whatever reason, at Harding Ryder lost his concentration early. He wanted to play a new game, which involved getting every tee out of my bag and sinking it into the astroturf.
He was happy to run around, “matching” up our clubs, so our drivers could meet, lining all of the tees up in little rows, and when it was his turn to hit, he’d just as soon talk about the ball collector as swing his club. In a sport focused so singularly on results, it is tough to disengage and simply have fun. But it is extremely educational.
At first, when it was my turn to swing and Ryder was talking through my entire swing, I’d tighten up and slice to holy hell. I imagined the guys on either side of me getting fed up with having to listen to this youngster blabber on, and slice even more viciously. I took a step back and realized that this if this was how I was going to approach it, this wasn’t going to work out: I’d be forever frustrated, and Ryder would have no fun.
So I encouraged him to keep playing whatever games he enjoyed, even showing him a secret stash of tees in another pocket in my bag. Then I chose to find a new level of concentration that would allow me to focus and enter into golf traning mode long enough to make a good swing, before returning to father mode. Instead of worrying about the guys around me, I chose to see it as an opportunity for them to learn to swing with a whole new level of distraction. Truth is, most of them got a kick out of seeing Ryder swing his little clubs, and probably couldn’t care less.
After the bucket of balls, we went over to the chipping area, and this is where I discovered that the key to enjoyment is to find a game both of us can play. Ryder loves chipping, and we had a little two-ball chipping game for another 15 minutes before he completely burned out. At which point, I made the best discovery of all: he loves raking sand traps as much as I love hitting out of ’em. I almost felt guilty, hitting two shots at a time out of the trap and then handing him the rake to hit, but he completely loved it.
The best part is that the next time I went out to actually play, I was able to achieve an incredible new level of focus and concentration. Members of my group talking during my setup or even in my backswing? People on the clubhouse patio murmering while on the first tee? Ha! That’s nothing compared to what my son can do (I look forward to saying that about his golf game someday, too). If you want to work on your game, we’re available for training sessions for a nominal fee: Ryder likes 2.5″ tees.
Originally posted 8/24/08: Some random thoughts from the last 17 days of Olympic coverage:
How much carbon did that Olympic torch emit over the course of 17 days?
Who holds the patent on the wind-generating flagpole, and where can I get one?
During that first drum performance of the opening ceremonies, I couldn’t help but think: “What’s the name of the game? Thumper! Why do we play it? To get…”
NBC’s insistence upon time delay for the West coast was completely lame.
Handball. No, seriously.
If that is what the air looks like “cleaned up” in Bejing, I would hate to see it dirty
It’s a boarding staircase, not a ladder, jackass
Yao Ming is so tall he can see his house from there, wherever there is
Curse NBC and their time-delay! Just because the entire East Coast has to stay up until midnight to see the finals of every damn swim doesn’t mean we should have to. I’m all for NBC’s coverage, I think this may have been their best Olympics ever, but the unnecessary time delay sucks.
If it’s not live, don’t pretend it is, and don’t keep me up until 1am every night. Seriously. I can’t wait for these games to be over so I can go back to getting more than a few hours of sleep a night
When I found out that the event I was doing in Birmingham was going to be held at Renaissance Ross Bridge Golf Resort and Spa, I started making contingency plans in case my schedule would permit a round of golf. When it all fell into place and I got dropped into an 8:30am threesome on Saturday morning, my last hope was that my shoulder would hold up for a round of golf.
It had been almost three weeks to the day since I over-swam my shoulder, and I was more nervous about how I’d hold up than how I’d play. On the range, my focus was all over the place, and so were my shots. After I calmed down, and sweated some of the coffee out of my system, I was able to get some consistency going. I was amazed by how hot it was at 8am. This did not bode well for the final six holes that we’d be playing between 11:30am and 1pm.
The par-3 fourth hole
The course is a stunner. Part of the Robert Trent Jones Trail, Ross Bridge plays from the tips as the third longest course in the world: an insidious 8,139 yards. I opted to play from the whites, 6,200 yards with a rating of 68.7 and a slope of 118. Over the course of 18 holes there was never a repeat drive, never a repeat hole. The par 3 holes were all extremely memorable, the course a classic RTJ “tough par, easy bogey” risk/reward setup.
Not usually a fan of carts, I was thankful to have one in the Alabama heat. The temperature was 80 by the time we teed off, and was well over 90 by the end of the first nine. My shoulder actually seemed to like the heat, as if playing in a sauna was exactly what it needed. I didn’t feel it once during the round.
I kept track of fun points, but no one else in my group was really into the concept, which took some of the shine off of it. Overall, I hit some good shots, and only had 3 horrific flubs, all of them topped shots. I managed a birdie on a 163 yard par 3, knocking my tee shot to 6 feet and dropping the putt. But I was 7-over on the par-5’s alone: one bogey and three doubles. If there is anything I can take away from the day, it is a need to improve my game on the long holes.
Once again, I ended well. The final hole is a par-4 that plays over water on the tee shot, and then tempts you with another shot over water to reach the green. My tee shot was safe, a little too safe, as it left me 184 yards to the elevated green, 160 of which was carry over water. I buried my approach shot in the hillside, carrying the water but not quite making the putting surface. A chip and two putts and I was home in 99, marking my fourth round in a row under 100, and my sixth round in double-digits ever.
The Day’s Stats
Fairways hit: 6 Greens in Regulation: 1 Ups & Downs: 2 Pars: 0 Birdies: 1 Putts: 33 Fun Points: 28 Handicap before round: 31.4 Handicap after round: 30.8
Summertime always seems to be the time of year when business slows down, the sun stays out later, the opportunity to play more golf becomes a distinct possibility…and I injure myself. Two summers ago we got rear-ended while on vacation in Kauai, and it threw my whole neck and right shoulder out of whack. Just when I thought I was going to really get on a roll on the course, into rehab for my neck go I.
This summer, oddly enough, it was golf that put me on I.R., or at least on the road to the I.R. list. (That sentence alone would be terrifying to me, proof that when I turn 40 next year I’m going to need a walker and a lifetime supply of Advil, if it weren’t for the fact that Tiger is out for a year at age 31 due to excessive golf.) My left shoulder was a little bit sore after a round at Harding, and instead of letting it heal, I opted to swim with it sore.
Three weeks later, and I’m just starting to think about swinging clubs again. I’m sure the healing process would have taken longer, but I have a secret weapon: Active Release Technique (A.R.T.) therapy. A.R.T. was developed by a retired rocket scientist-turned-chiropractor who got tired of seeing his patients come back month after month for the same adjustments. Using external pressure points and in conjunction with movements you perform, A.R.T. breaks up “traps” (scar tissue) that is hindering movement and causing pain, freeing your system up to heal up more efficiently.
The first time I had A.R.T. performed on me was a few months after I found out I have a cracked vertebrae. I had been seeing a physical therapist, but was still limping, still in pain every day. Two treatments later and I was able to start swimming, the limp was gone, and I was on the path to a mostly-normal active life again. My wife always thought I was a little too much of a convert, until she got sciatica in her hips from always carrying our son on the same side. That was when we discovered Dr. Brian Cook, who has an office in the World Gym on De Haro @ 16th Street.
After a couple of treatments, she was calling her father, trying to get him to go in for the arthritis that has crippled his golf game and made his life miserable. Dr. Cook got my car-crash neck fixed up in a couple of visits, and he’s gotten my latest shoulder on the path to recovery as well. I swam for the first time a couple of days ago, and am taking my clubs with me to Alabama for my event there this weekend.
If age and injury are constantly catching up to you, or you simply are recovering from a recent injury, you owe it to yourself to check out A.R.T. Because it’s tough enough to be out on injured reserve for part of the summer; no-one should have to miss all of it.
