Dora Candy Land

I like to play poker, bet the ponies, and get in a jackpot or two. But the most fun I have is playing Erin and Jill Dora Candy Land for $20 a game!

Picks for the week

I'm in a jackpot at Toyota. Each week we must pick 5 winners, against the spread. We have a choice of about 20 college games and all the pro games for the week. These are my picks this week. In case you were wanting to make a bundle on my picks, this is week 13 and I haven't won a week yet!

Rutgers to win at home giving Army 17.5
LSU to win at home giving Ole Miss 5.5

KC Chiefs to win at home getting 4.5 from Buffalo
Tenn Titans vs NY Jets - Over 40.5 points to be scored in the game
Miami Dolphins vs New England Pats - Over 42.5 points to be scored in the game.

The Jackpot is usually worth around $90 with carryovers. Someone won last week so this week will be worth $90.

Kentucky's Death Row

I promised not to get into political or religious opinions in this blog. So I'm not going to render an opinion on this case. I'll just present the facts and let you decide whether Marco Allen Chapman should be executed for his crimes, in case you haven't read up on the case. This is a gruesome detail, so if you don't want to read further, quit now.
Currently, Kentucky has 37 people on Death Row. These inmates have been on Death Row an average of almost 15 years each! While, you and I, the taxpayers pay for their upkeep.
Marco Allen Chapman was convicted of murder, 2 counts; attempted murder, 2 counts, rape I; burglary I, robbery I and PFO ( Persistant Felony Offender) II. He was formally sentenced to death on 12-14-2004. In the early morning of August 23, 2002, Marco Chapman murdered a 7-year old girl and a 6-year old boy in their home in Warsaw, Kentucky (Galletin County). Both the children's throats had been slit and they had multiple lacerations and stab wounds on their bodies. Their 10-year old sister played dead after being stabbed several times. The children's mother's hands were bound with duct tape and she was tied to a bed frame. She was raped and stabbed in the chest with a knife that broke off in her chest. She was later stabbed with a larger knife and left for dead. After stabbing the victims, Chapman burglarized the home and left the scene. He was arrested later the same day by state police in West Virginia.
Marco Chapman wants to pay for this crime. He resisted all appeals and wants the sentence to be carried out. The execution is scheduled for early tomorrow morning.

Erin and Jill's Pre-School Thanksgiving Lunch

Jill loves her cupcakes!

Erin Loves to lick the icing off her cupcake before eating it.
Erin and Jill both love those muffins!

Erin's class with her Teacher Miss Kathy.

Everybody but me! Somebody had to take the picture.

Erin and Jill's Pre-School had their pre-Thanksgiving Lunch today. It was very nice. The food was good and plenty of it. Erin and Jill were both dressed in their Indian, er, Native American shirts they made. They were also wearing the necklace they made out of stringed pasta.

The table decorations were also made by the girls. A potato turkey and a bag painted to look like a pumpkin. I wish I'd gotten close up pictures of those, because just saying what they were doesn't do them justice! They were cute! Just like my little girls!

Oh Deer!

I forgot to add this to the Shawnee GC entry. I saw a deer on the course. It's the first time I've seen a deer on Shawnee GC. I've seen deer on many others courses I've played, but of all the times I've played Shawnee, I'd never seen one there. It was a young buck, with a pretty good rack, and slowly walked across #1 fairway towards the river. It stopped and watched us several times, then slowly walked accross #8 fairway and on down to the river. We didn't seem to bother him at all. I guess he could tell the difference between golf clubs and guns.

Snow on Shawnee GC

I played Shawnee GC today. It was 28 degrees when we teed off at 10:20a.m., and had gotten all the way up to 36 degrees by the time we finished. When we started, there was some snow on the ground in the shaded areas. The sun was shining the whole round, so it really didn't feel that cold. I shot a 42-44...86. That's about my average for the past 8 months. I think my game is coming back around. I still waste a few shots during the round and haven't been able to capitalize on good chip shots by making the putt. But, I am making some good chip shots and just starting to get used to the new clubs. I hit several good shots today right at the pin, but a little to long or a little to short. I've been getting off the tee well, but pulling a lot of fairway shots. I'm getting that under control. So....you'd better get me now because it won't be long before I'm back on top my game!

Part of a round...

I played Shawnee GC yesterday. I played with J.R. Harris and beat him by 2 strokes. If you know J.R., you know I played bad. We only played 14 holes. We went their with the intention of playing the front 9 and 3 holes on the back, just to get some golf in and some excercise. Rain was forecast to start mid-afternoon. On the first tee we got behind a group of 4 guys who made us look like teenagers. The youngest looked to be mid-70's, he walked carrying his bag, the others looked to be mid-80's, one pulling a cart the the other 2 riding. They were as slow as any group I've ever played behind. I love to see old guys out playing, but I sure don't like being behind them when they play that slow. They moved slow, took 4 or 5 practice swings before each shot, and I don't think "gimme" was in their vocabulary. We knew we were in trouble when waiting in the fairway on the first hole for 10 minutes while they putted out, 1 guy stayed behind when the other 3 left the green to practice his putting. He evidently missed a 5 foot putt and kept trying to make it 5 or 6 times. He never did.
Anyway, we abandoned our plans to play the front 9 and skipped holes 4&5 to get around the old geezers. When we got to the 10th hole, it was backed up, too. So, we skipped over to #12 and played the back nine from there. So we missed 4-5-10-11. I shot a 68! I can shoot good scores if I just don't play so many holes!

Golf Balls, Golf Balls

What do you do with used golf balls? I have new balls I play with, about 6 dozen, and a shag bag with 50 golf balls in it, which is all I need for that. But, I have 15 dozen shag balls that I don't know what to do with. Most of these balls are either old and starting to yellow, or fairly new with a cart path mark to two on them. Not terrible balls, but not what you'd want to use on the golf course. So....anybody got any ideas?

Attacking slow play on the Golf Course

I've played golf with a lot of people in my life. I've played with very slow people and.... Bobby Flood. Bobby is the fastest player I've ever played with. If you've just birdied a hole, don't expect to have honors if you don't get to the next tee first. That's Bobby. He plays ready golf and he's always ready! I like playing golf with people like that.
Some people are just deliberate golfers. I don't have a problem with that. That's what makes them feel comfortable then I'm fine with it. There's a difference between playing slow and playng deliberate.
One thing I notice with almost everyone I play with causes slow play. I'm talking about when riding a cart. When you hit a shot, get in the cart with your club and go to the ball. Put your club away when you get out the next club you want. When you leave the green, get in the cart with your putter in hand and drive to the next tee. Put your putter away when getting out your driver. This would save so much time, but almost nobody does it.
I'll probably bring up other ways to speed you up on the golf course in future posts. But, in the meanwhile, the next time you play in a cart, try the above tip on speeding up play. It may take a while for it to become habit, but it will held speed things up for everyone without rushing your golf game. Thanks!

Oldest Poker Club in America

This is our "Once a Month" Poker Club. Missing from the picture is Frank Krider. Mark Wagner is our newest member. He's been playing for a little over 2 years now. We started playing at least 15 years ago. Then, we played the 1st Saturday of every month, from 7:00 - midnight. After about 10 years, we shortened it to 7:00 - 11:00 pm. Then, about 3 years ago, we started playing 2 months, off 2 months. Our schedule runs Feb-Mar, off, Jun-Jul, off, Oct-Nov,off. That way we leave out Derby time, and Christmas/New Years times, which were hard to get scheduled when everyone could make it.

L to R: Mark, Kevin, Chuck, Bob, Jack, Herman. I don't think we've been around longer than any other club, but I think our combined ages might qualify us as the oldest. The way things are going, in several years we'll probably all vote to get together once a year, instead of 6 times a year. You can tell by looking at the picture we might need to start recruiting some new young blood. It's been fun!

More bad golf

Well, I played Quail Chase GC today and shot 48 - 48 ---96. I got off the tee well and putted pretty well, but I guess the rest of the game kinda sucked. Today was the first day the leaves started to fall in earnest. It was tough putting on the greens with all the leaves and finding balls out of the fairway was time consuming and slowed us down a lot. I'm a pretty fast player, and I hate slow play. It seemed like we were constantly looking for balls. I found out a couple of weeks ago that my average drives only go around 180-185 yards. So par 4's of 380 yards or more I just can't reach in 2.
I didnt' play to well today but I won all the money! I guess the level of competion helped.
Bob 96
J. R. 108
Harold 98
Buddy 89
We played the Poker Chip game. Brian is familiar with it. I only ended up with one chip, and it was a good chip, (Sugar). Nobody birdied or chipped one in all day, so those chips were never used.
It was fun. Looks like today may be the last nice day for awhile.

The million dollar driveway

The house next door had their driveway widened. It required removing two concrete retaining walls and a concrete driveway. Then rebuilding two new retaining walls with these blocks and pouring a new driveway. The overall results still don't seem to give much room in the driveway. I think I would have to invest in some plastic door proctectors for my car doors. Oh, and they had the little sidewalk installed in front of the house so when they park their other car in the street, they can open the door on the passenger side. I find this interesting because, well, this whole procedure cost them $29,000! I know I couldn't afford it! That's twice as much as I paid for my house.

I'm here and I'm loving it!

This is really going to be the start of something big. I can tell. My plans are to keep up to date information on my golf scores, my granddaughters, and other exciting events in my day to day life. I don't plan to voice my religious or political opinions here. I would doubt that anyone would be interested in that.
This will be a work in progress. I'll need to learn how to post pictures, music, and/or videos that I find amusing. Also, I just might post a couple of racing tips that I'm sure my readers could make a lot of money on if they have a mind to.
Just as a start. I played Shawnee Golf Course yesterday and shot an 88 from the senior tees. I have been shooting in the low 80's pretty consistantly so an 88 is not very good. I am going to play Quail Chase GC Thursday and I'll let you know how I do. The past 4 weeks or so my game has not been very good, so I'm not looking for it to improve tomorrow.