Sunday

These are pics that I took just a few minutes ago out my front window as some birds were having breakfast of red berries from my ornamental tree. The 70 degree temps probably have these robins confused on their latitude setting for this time of year. (They doubtlessly remain unbothered by Daylight Savings Time, or the "Falling Back" that occurred last night.)

I spent some time this morning trying to effect a download of pictures from my cell phone to my computer. No luck. I was inspired when I discovered that the cord provided for downloads from my new camera to a computer had the same shaped plug-in as the receptacle for my phone's external power source. But the computer queried for a Motorola RAZR program and it looks like you need a license.

A quick Google search suggested some hacking procedures, but since I'll be running for elective office in the future, I didn't want my reputation tarnished. So I took a pass. The pics weren't that good anyway. But I may stop by the phone store and see if there is a legal option available on the cheap. This is definitely getting me out there into the techno culture.

The Saturday Wall Street Journal had a good human interest story on the concept of handicaps for golfers. It was written by a guy who had recently done a weekend boys trip with a bunch of guys and it had struck him in the aftermath that the handicap system had very successfully evened-up whatever teams had been matched up over the weekend. For any of the golf trips that I have been on, we've always used a rough handicap system, and it has usually been reasonably successful for us as well.

A low handicapper is a good golfer, shooting close to par most of the time. A high handicapper is a hack. So if a good golfer is matched in an event against a hack, the hack gets lots of shots. Lots of mulligans. Lots of do-overs. The equivalent of a head start in a foot race. It evens the playing field. If both golfers shoot their handicaps, the match should end in a tie. But as with all things human, handicaps are a function of averages, and on any given day, one golfer usually does better relative to the averages than the other. And, wall-ah! We have a winner.

One of the worst critiques of a golfer's character would be to have the reputation of a "sandbagger". A sandbagger is a golfer who knowingly and intentionally inflates his handicap for the express purpose of receiving more strokes in a match based on handicaps. A cheat. And every club has a few.

Sandbagging terminology has found it's way into the general lexicon. Anyone who under-performs or tries to shade the truth for their own advantage merits the moniker.

I'm going to get out this afternoon and do a little yard work, rinse Margret down and generally enjoy the day. Maybe fire up my new grill. And get a 3+ miler in to start the week.

Have a great day.

BCOT