Monday

Snow day in The Quackers. I'm guessing that we received about three inches this afternoon. Maybe more on the way, and then we go into the deep freeze for a few days. I think that I saw where the low one day will be -12. Ouch.

The good news: my Perfect Neighbor shoveled my sidewalk and driveway all the way back to my garage.

Sorry for not adding much to the blog over the last week. The time in Arizona and the two travel days didn't present a lot of time for creativity. From the pics, you can see that we had great weather, and the golf courses were all high grade tracks. The Grayhawk Raptor course that we played on Saturday had been the site of a two-day pro event on Thursday-Friday (won by Mark Calcavechia at 23 under!), and the set-up was humbling. Rocco Mediate (who took Tiger to a play-off in the US Open last year) was on the putting green when we came in from playing the slightly lesser Talon course on Thursday. He didn't request any advice from me.

We stayed at a Hampton Inn & Suites right across the street from the course where they play the FBR Open in two weeks. The TPC at Scottsdale. The Stadium course. The par 3 17th at that course is known as the loudest, most raucous hole on the Tour all year long.

The surrounding commercial area is very high-brow. We couldn't find a Walgreen's anywhere close, and there are any number of exclusive resorts near-by that cater to the visiting golfers and conference-goers.

Private air travel is pretty sweet. The plane was not a jet, but rather a twin-engine turbo-prop. But relatively new and very well-appointed inside. There were six of us as passengers, but there were spots for five others, so we had plenty of room. Plenty of food and drink on board. And there was a DVD system with small screens for each set of seats. They watched a Bourne movie on the way down, and multiple episodes of a previous season of 24 on the return flight. I did crosswords.

One of the little extras on the return trip was that they let the hotel shuttle drive out onto the tarmac and drop us and our baggage at the aircraft rather than lug it through the private terminal and out to plane. Very Pretty Woman-ish.

The bad news upon my return was a flat tire on the Taurus in the Davenport airport parking lot. At 8 o'clock on Saturday night. In the cold and wind. My pal Ron had waited to make sure I was on my way, so he helped me do a NASCAR pit stop, single-tire change inside of 10 minutes. I need to get him a bottle of Scotch in thanks.

The more severe bad news received on Sunday when I went to Tires Plus for tire repair was that it was more than just the tire. As it turned out, a coil spring had broken, which had then punctured the tire. Then when they tried to install the new springs (can't buy just one, you know), they figured out that the struts (which the springs go around) were also done. Long story short: my one flat tire cost north of $700 to fix. Your classic case of the used car going bad. I hope that thing about bad things coming in three's is not applicable here.

I did the Sunday 10 AM spin class, and the 0545 class this morning. There's a little extra bad shrimp from Arizona to get out of the system this week. (We didn't spend the entire time on the course.)

In that vein, we ate one night at a restaurant that had an attached wine shop. If you didn't like the wine on their list, you could literally go across the room and pick a bottle off the shelves for drinking with dinner. Which I did. Basic retail pricing (the J. Lohr was $15+) and a corking fee of $10-20 depending on the bottle. They had a great selection, from the modest to the expensive, and a very glib owner who helped me choose a couple of bottles upgraded from the J. Lohr. Cool.

Finally, I think that my 60th birthday party is over. The staff had one last laugh, decorating my office with over-the-hill and old-fart stuff for my return today. That made the party train last in excess of two weeks. I'm even tired of the yea-hoos. But it was fun while it lasted. Thanks to all who participated.

So have a great evening/day.

BCOT