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It Begins

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Of the public courses around Des Moines, I like the Legacy the best for tuning up my game. The private clubs are waiting for the course to drain of residual snow, but the Legacy will let you play about two to three weeks earlier. Bless them!

There were 15mph winds gusting to 25, and it was drizzling. Temperatures were a Scottish 40 degrees. Nae wind, nae rain, nae golf. The ground was sodden and this took twenty yards off every club. The greens were like the fake grass welcome mats. There was snow in the bunkers. Still I loved every minute of my nine holes.

I shot 48 with a 1.9 putting average, 5 of 8 fairways from the tips. My circle of certitude was the green. The approaches were all muddled -my most effective shot with this wind usually into the face was a punch-draw with my 7 iron -I did get pin high on 3 holes, but was in a bunker or off the green at pitch length. I’ll have to work on my irons, but I also credit the soggy fairways. I also counted two penalty strokes for ball in water (meltwater -would this be casual water and not subject to penalty -will have to review).

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My Daily Bread

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In my quest to master the basics of post-industrial cooking, bread has been a bit of a mystery. I grew up with rice and can tell the basic qualities and provenances of rice with ease, but bread I just like to eat. I think the difference is that I never saw my mother bake bread, and therefore, it is mysterious.

I used a simple no-knead recipe from the NY Times(link here). This is my second try -my first was a gooey mess. The results above are my second effort, and it looks really edible. The crust cracks fiercely and there is wonderful topography to this bread. It took very little effort, and I think this is how we’ll make our bread from here on.

The crust is wonderfuly crisp and the center is fluffy and chewy. It is bread heaven.

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What does Bowie’s Major Tom mean?

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The David Bowie song has taken a lifetime to decipher. When I first heard it, I though it was a groovy song tuned to the psychedelic times -this is the most common interpretation that I got on the internet. Here are the lyrics.

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God’s love be with you
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five,
Four, Three, Two, One, Liftoff
This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You’ve really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare
“This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I’m stepping through the door
And I’m floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do
Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles
I’m feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much she knows”
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you….
“Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do.”

It’s after the passage of 42 years that I understand the true meaning of the song. The song has to do with transformation. The hero is an astronaut. In that era, astronauts were the straightest of straight arrows. Buzzcut illuminati of American manhood, these men were walking statues of virtue, and for Bowie, an easy group to symbolize as the American Everyman, who worked for a large corporation, drove an American car out to a suburb, with a pretty wife and cute children.

The disembodied voice of Houston is in fact the voice of society and her expectations. It is also the voice of authority. When Major Tom leaves his government-issued cocoon, he undergoes a transformation. He’s floating in a most peculiar way, and the stars look different today. It is the awakening of the man, and he understands he can’t go back to the way things were. This happens to some men after they reach the top of the hill and look back and then look forward. Some can’t help themselves and decide to go sideways. The middle-aged man is typically at the height of his powers, but is in essence impotent in the face of the inexorable passage of time, the enormity of the universe, and unbearable blueness of the Earth.

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Dreaming in PBS

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I dreamt a strange dream tonight. it was my first dream in PBS. I was seeing a documentary play on TV. It featured Yvalisse Sondag, a Brazilian scientist who discovered a parasitic frog (pictured).

translated,

I was walking to my laboratory and it began to rain. I felt a big drop fall on my back and I didn’t pay attention because I was running to the bathroom. in the bathroom I felt something strange between my legs and it dropped into the commode. it was a small green frog but it swam away into the plumbing. I noticed something on myself, a tiny red egg which I recognized as a frogs egg. It was on me.

narrator’s voice
Yvalisse is a professor of vertebrate biology. She placed the egg in a controlled environment. She had a hunch that thus was no ordinary tree frog. the egg was kept in a moist environment at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Yvalisse translated
The feeling of a raindrop on my back that day did not feel like the rain we were getting at that moment. I suspected that it was the frog that landed on my back. I found the frog as I was wiping myself. I incubated the egg in the conditions found in a vaginal canal and it hatched a very strange looking tadpole that didn’t survive long.

pan to picture of tadpole with no visible eyes, row of very sharp teeth.

narrator
Dr. Sondag thought she was onto something -a parasitic vertebrate. She postulated that the frog is a short lived adult form whose purpose is to mate, and then jump onto the backs of females and deposit the egg in the vagina. on hatching, the tadpole swims up the canal and bites down and forms vascular attachments to the host, deriving it’s nutrients. When the time came it would complete it’s development and exit to lay eggs on other hosts.

Dr. Sondag, translated
The key was finding the host. There are native tapirs in the forests around the university and we captured several. for a long time, we came up with nothing but last year we found a young female.

narrator
A fiberoptic camera was inserted and revealed a clutch of tadpoles attached to the cervix. Serial images show the deveopment of these into a small green frog with small orange spots. It is the first instance of parasitism involving vertebrates as host and parasite.

Dr. Sondag, translated
we have discovered the frog secretes a topical anesthetic – that’s why it felt like a rain drop. We’re developing the chemical it secretes as a pharmaceutical.

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The right side of history

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It is the right thing to do -to get health care available to those with pre-existing conditions, to avoid the situation of modern indentured servitude for the sake of healthcare, to avoid bankruptcies in the name of healthcare, to bring order to what is a patchwork of coverage, to bring science to bear. Health care is like clean public tap water -we chose to offer the clean water to all, and those who wish to, can pay for bottled. A nation is held together by its institutions, and healthcare has always been absent as a force compared to defense, agriculture, and commerce. The promise of a healthy life is part of the bounty that we are compelled to share if we are to call ourselves a United States of America.

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America’s LARGEST Tuition Increases in PUBLIC Schools (PHOTOS)

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The end of prosperity means a return to the economics of the 19th century with college reserved for those who can pay and subsistence agriculture or manufacturing for the rest. This collapse of the middle class will have repercussions beyond just tea parties which will swell with more disaffected former middle class types who now can’t afford the plastic luxuries of Walmart. Perhaps the stresses will bring about needed change in our education system (education reform anyone?). The gap between public schools in poor areas and richer areas is too great. The gap between private prep schools and public schools is too great. Most colleges waste a lot of time teaching students how to read and write. The concept of college level work is lost when said college level textbooks have to be dumbed down to a 7th grade reading level for freshmen to understand. Nope, the muggles are not going to be happy in the coming years and they will mistakenly blame the most handy scapegoats -black president, minorities, Jews, and people who still own homes. Any effort to cushion the blow with wealth redistribution -fuhgeddaboudit. The people forming militias are just following an instinct to gather round the fire to ward off an oncoming night. Get to know your neighbors well, be kind to them, and take care of them, because they are your tribe.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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my life, my shoes, my style. docpark style.

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the docpark OR shoe

As the winter drags on, I find myself now dabbling in fashion design. I have decided to release a line of lifestyle related sneakers. Actually, you too can launch your own blingy shoe line at http://www.zazzle.com.

And why not. Why is it that celebrity athletes get to get on cereal boxes. Why do they get the shoes? Why aren’t we supporting the mail carrier, the school teacher, the soccer mom, and the hospital nurse in the same way? Where are our priorities?

This guy will no longer wear other people’s labels. You are welcome to buy mine.

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The Circle of Certitude

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The circle of certitude is the area defined by the radius within which you have a 90% chance of making it into the cup within 2 shots. For the average bogey golfer, this is about 10 feet. For the single handicapper, this is anywhere near the fringe. For a tournament pro, this circle is out at the wedges. To win major tournaments, this circle spans the 150 yard marker.

In daily life, we have many such circles of certitude where results are likely to occur. It may be only as far as the arm’s reach, or the driveway. Careful cultivation of friends and communication skills brings this circle out to across town, state, nation, and globe.

Cast your circle of certitude wide. Live with no doubt.