Category: Personal

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Weekly Post 8/19/2019

Highlights

  • Actually went for a run
  • Visit with an Old Friend

Lowlights

  • Still working like a crazy man

The weather was pretty nice this week and suddenly had the urge to go for a run. only went for a little under 2 miles. It was nice to get outside and do something active. I performed a lot better than I expected so I should keep try and keep up jogging especially now that the temperature isn’t in the high 90s anymore. We’ll see if I can stick with it. My heart Montier also just kinda gave out in the middle of my run so that was a big bummer as I like to look back and evaluate my effort and to see if I’ve made any progress on the fitness side of things.
Had a great time on catching up with a long-time friend on a Sunday BBQ. keeping up with high school friends that move away after college can be tough some times but we always try and sneak in some hang out time with golf trips or other excursions but mostly it always comes down to sneaking in a few hours during the holidays in between family parties. It always feels a bit rushed but, not this visit. We had almost 4 hours to catch up and watch some golf on the couch for what felt like the whole afternoon. We already started to plan our next golf trip. time to break out the golf trip spreadsheet and get planning.
Just feels like I’m putting in a billion hours of work every week and its starting to wear on me. Especially getting up early to go for work cuts into the time I would like to be with my family. Before the kid, my mindest would be to just work as many hours as possible but now that mental math of how much it’s it worth to spend time with family or make another hour pay is a real struggle sometimes

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Weekly Post 8/12/2019

High Lights:

  • Decent Range Session

Low Lights:

  • 7 day of work in a row
  • Car Trouble

The car trouble has reached a new level as the winding and grinding sound has increased in volume and also my anxiety that this is something way more than a loose pulley or belt issue so I had to pull a hot route and drop it off at the dealer on Sunday after work. It wasn’t too bad of job dropping the car off. it was close to the red line and was also able to score a mocha right before I jumped on the train to head home.

I also put in some serious hours of work this week. Working 7 days in a row only means that ultimately I will end up working at least 13 days in a row maybe even 14! I will do my best to keep these days to the smallest amount possible because I do not like working this much even if it means earning that massive overtime pay.

I was made it out the Jackson Park Driving range for an hour and a half range session which I was able to bring the GoPro and get a down the line recording of.

I will be cutting a video of this practice session but I am going to switch editing software but haven’t decided which one I would like to move forward with. There will be a learning curve with any choice I make so I will need to do some due diligence to make the right choice. I would like to start making more higher-level production videos with titles and such. This should also enhance the content of this blog as well.

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Weekly Post 8/5/2019

High Lights:

  • Golf League

Low Lights:

  • Car Trouble
  • Sun Burn

For the first time in a long time, my skin got so burnt that it has actually started to peel off. Now it’s not what you think as I did liberally put on sunscreen, but there was a section on my back just below my shoulder blades that my hands couldn’t reach. I did ask for help applying the lotion. Yet, I was a bigtime idiot and told my helper that I had already covered that area. well after something like 9 hours in the sun playing in the sand and waves of Lake Michigan the strip of exposed skin fried like a piece of chicken at KFC.

But at least my sunburn will heal back. In other news, my car has started to make an awful noise from 0 mph all the way to 25 mph. I think it has something to do with a belt or pulley when both the electric motor and gas engine are working in tandem to get up to speed. After having some friends take a look at the car and see if they could help diagnose the issue. They all agreed it was something with the belt system or a shaky pulley. I tried to book some shop time with the dealer since the car is still under the 60,000-mile drive train warranty. But, alas the earliest they could get me in was August 21st. This was a problem because I was several hundred miles over 59,000 was getting dangerously close to having my warranty expired. I wasn’t to too worried though since I was pretty sure it was something small but you can’t be too careful when it comes to these manufacturers warranty because they will not touch your car if it’s even a 1/10th of a mile over that magic number. For now, I’ll try and keep my car in the garage and conserve as many miles as I can to make it all the way to the 21st.

Was nice to get back out on the course and play a league round with the group. even though it was 4 club challenge day I still was able to carry over some of the stuff I learned on the golf clinic I had just gone to.

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Weekly Post 7/22/2019

High Lights:

Low Lights:

  • Missed league night

Finally actually made some time to start learning to code in Python. I created an account on Udemy and purchased a course called “Automate the Boring Stuff with Python Programming”  I did some quick research and found on a couple different forums that this course was mentioned everywhere as a great place to start cold without any type of programming knowledge.  I’m only about 90 minutes into this course and still excited to complete it.  It is a lot of new information for me so I will have to pace myself to be able to comprehend all of it and hopefully put it to good use in the near future.

I finished the book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain-John J. Ratey, Eric Hagerman   This was a fast data packed book, The audiobook length was just over 8 hours. The main theme of the book is how exercises/physical activity increase the quality of life thought your whole life.  It even goes into detail about how exercise will help the deteration of your brain by actually growing it in you later years.  I Might do a full book review on this one in the future.

I got invited pretty last minute to play in a golf outing at Cog Hill with the Disabled Patriots Fund This was a pretty fun outing that had a bunch of fun event holes along with the usuals like Longest Drive and closet to the pin competition. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate all day.  It was a 9 am Shotgun and it drizzled all the way until the 12th hole and the sky’s opened up and dumped a bigtime downpour for the next 5 holes. We tried to play through it but at one point the everybody that was still on the course and to get cover under trees for about 18 minutes.  This was kind of fun as we had about 9 carts all huddled under 4 huge oak trees.  After the big down pour then sun cam out for the rest of the wholes but everybody was soaking wet and with hot sun and what felt like 100% humidity the rest of the round was kind of uncomfortably swing and walking in super damp clothes.  It did get to smoke a great cigar while we played though and hey if you can’t golf in the rain your cutting your golf season even shorter.

AVO cigar on the 8th hole on course #3 at Cog Hill
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Weekly Post 7/15/2019

High Lights:

  • Downloaded a Stretching App
  • League Night
  • Biked Home From Work
  • Graduation Party In the Burbs

Low Lights:

  • My diet

Its time for me to start eating better.  Ive have been ona fast food and take out diet for the past 6 weeks.  Going to subscribe to one of those pre packaged meals services.  avoiding the the trips to the grocery store and and trying to manage the quantity of food needed is the main advantage of these meal servies.  Havibg all of the ingredients measured and ready to go like a cooking show will allow for a faster perp to table time.  Faster cook times will also help gain a couple moinutes of sleep each night with should pay divideds all around. 

My car also got a nail in the driver side rear tire which was a bummer but Costoco was able to plug for less than $20 dollars #Lovethatplace  This causeed me to Divvy(bike) the 4 miles home form work one day it was also the hoyest day of the year so far so I promblty counted that a workout first one also in 6 weeks.  I’m going to trying a bike more to and from work to get some light cardio in to get some fitness back in my life.  On this same note I downalaed a strecthing app to help meet one of my new yeers resoultions goals. If work settles down just a bit i shuld be ablke to carve out 15 minutes in the office to strech it out.

I also noticed that if I bring my own breafast I am not craving a mocha so the Mocah coutn for this week is down. Two thumbs up..we’ll see if it lasts lol.

Capped the week of with a rainy Sunday evening in the burbs to celebrate the gradulation of Highscool. Always fun to head out to the burns and walk barefoot in the grass without fear of stepping in grass and dogpoo. A few beers and some good tacos and old friends really hit the spot. 

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Weekly Post 7/8/2019

High Lights:

Low Lights:

  • Staring to really feel exausted all the time
  • Missed most of the fireworks

Now that I’m 100% in full work mode sleep is, even more, a premium than I’ve been stating in my earlier posts. With the 4th of July festivities, I missed out some opportunities to catch on some sleep, which I paid for later in the week. I guess that is just got to get used to this new lifestyle.

I only was able to catch the last quarter part of the Navy Pier Fireworks show. Good counter pint to missing out on most of the fireworks was that I basically walked in on the grand finale so glass half full thinking here for sure.

Was able to get on the course twice this week, both of the rounds were at Jackson Park. First-round was with the league, showed some improvement from the first week. Full recap available here

Second round the week was last minute. My brother texted around 7:30 am on Sunday just as I was trying to figure out if I had time to hit the range and get some practice in while the family was taking their morning laps. We were able to make a 9:15 tee time and were coupled with a couple of good guys there were out there with the same mindset – golfing with a few beers and couple laughs. I shot another 107 for the second time this week. Definitely jacked up for next weeks league because I can feel my course management is starting to match my gameplay which should shave a few strokes even when my swing isn’t playing nice.

The shot of the day came on the last tee shot where I was able to drive the green on the 18th hole. The drive left me about 18 feet from the hole. Yes, I three-putted for par on that hole.

1st shot of the 18th Hole rolled up to the green

Hopefully, I can keep playing and improve at this pace for the rest of the season. Would really make this season that much more enjoyable and help with the staying on task during this offseason.

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Weekly Post 7/1/2019

High Lights:

Low Lights:

  • Nothing to bad

The workweek felt like an eternity waiting for the clock to hit quitting time on Friday so we could head up to the lake and take advantage of this summer heat that finally had come.  The usual 90 min drive took almost 3 hours with a baby pit stop and heavy traffic because I think everybody else had the same idea as us.

Fell asleep on the couch way before bedtime and after I finally made it to the bedroom I got a pretty decent amount of sleep compared to the nights earlier in the week. While breakfast was being cooked some of the fams and I decided to try out the new coffee shop in town.

441 Mill St, Fontana-On-Geneva Lake, WI 53125
Coffee @ the Lake

I ordered my usual Iced Mocha and see how it would compare to my favorite Mocha back in Chicago. It was a decent drink that I would give 3.5 stars out of 5, It did taste a little watery and which lead to a lack of flavor profile in the chocolate and expresso departments. But at the end of the day, this is review with only 1 drink tasted and due to its proximity to the house I will be going back here for my Mochas so it passes will I drink here again test and that s the one that really matters.

Iced Mocha from the Coffee Mill

On to the golf portion of the weekend. My brother was able to bring his clubs up so we found a tee time that would fit with our schedule at the Grand Geneva (Highlands) I might do a full course review in another post, which hopefully I will put a link here in the future.

It was fun to play with my brother this weekend vacation. It was 8 AM tee time to help us deal with the heat and humidity and not play when it was the hottest. My only real knock on this place was that the recent rain had made the driving range so muddy that they had to limit shots to 150 yards and less.

Grand Geneva Driving Range To wet to hit balls over 150 yards.

Bummer because that is my 9i and wedges. Not giving me a chance to swing my driver and long irons, luckily we chose to play the Highlands course which has the larger fairways of the 2 course st this golf resort. I needed every square inch of those fairways as I sprayed my drives all over the place, mostly out of bounds. Hot some nice long Iron shoots and put ok to score a 100+ scorecard Beers were drunk and bogeys were plentiful to make it a usual fun round of golf.

Brother on the fourth hole fairway
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Weekly Post 6/24/2019

High Lights:

  • Good range session

Low Lights:

  • Back to Work

It was a tough week having to go back to work.  Sleep is at a premium now and having to be away from home for 9 hours and taking over 17,000 steps really took its toll with me. I’m finding that I’m catnapping any chance I can when I’m home on the couch.  The lack of sleep and 40 hour work week at this rate will be hard to sustain. I’m hoping to catch up on sleep this weekend.

I am not planning to play a round of golf this weekend, but I was itching to get out there and at least swing a club again.

This could be a wild experience since I haven’t been thinking about golf at all this whole month.  I wanted to get to a range and see where my swing was after this forced break.  I knew that the swing was going to need some work and I had envisioned that there will be a good chance in the future to get a few 90 minutes sessions to hit a bucket of balls and work on my swing.  If I can commit that time to work on my swing I should get my game to the best it ever been.

It was a hot day it was in the low 90s with direct sun on me the whole time with the humidity in the air just made it that extra special kinda spicy hot.

The  new wrist hinge movement is gonna need to be re-drilled into my muscle memory, the rest of my swing is at decently playable but if I miss that hinge movement its becomes not a fun game to play,  As soon as I get tired that is the first thing to go on the course which leads to balls going push left,  and the bummer part is they fly so far that they always travel out of bounds causing a lot of lost ball penalties.

This is exactly what happened in the heat the first 30 balls were actually struck pretty well and very balanced.  after the 30 balls, my tempo started to shorten and the balls started hooking and slicing no matter what the club.  I’ll save you some reading about the last 60 balls I hit. They were that bad, but this was the first time back and know I know I need to get back home and get back to my drills to help my body swing the club naturally.  Lots of work and learning to do. I’m motivated to get after it.

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Weekly Post 6/18/2019

High Lights:

  • Baby is Home!

Low Lights:

  • None this week

Super elated to say that the baby was released from the ICN and is home now.  Now the real game starts.  up until now the nurses and doctors were always there to care for the child.  There is no backup squad anymore it’s up to us now. There have already been some long nights and lots of diaper and lots of crying but We will all get better at this new situation.  Everything is so new and once we can get into a routine I’m sure life be a little less chaotic and gain a little more order(fingers crossed).

I will have to head back to work soon and I am not looking forward to leaving the baby at home with Mom.  The baby is a lot of work and I wouldn’t like to be there and help as much as I can.  10-12 diapers a day and consistent feeding really do take a toll especially if you mix in that lack of sleep. that a tough go for a one person team.

The lack of sleep has increased my Mocha intake. I haven’t been counting but I’m at least up to 1.25 a day average.  I’ve even been asking for an extra shot of espresso in there as well #yikes  Will need to keep an eye out for that caffeine intake but right now I just got me up and alert for both Mom and the Baby plus they taste so good…

Time to get back to the Eat-Sleep-Shit-Mocha routine.  #loveit

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Weekly Post 6/10/2019

High Lights:

  • A new addition to the Family

Low Lights:

  • Very little sleep

Pretty monumental week for me and my Family. On  June 3rd, 2019 my wife gave birth to our first child.  Happy to report that both the baby and my wife are happy and healthy.  The baby is spending some time in the NICU and ICN but all tests and results are trending the right way and are looking to bring the little guy home soon.

Sleep has been nonexistent.  But wow is it wild to hold YOUR brand new baby.  So light, fragile, and mushy lol very hard to explain the barrage of waves of emotions I have experienced in the past week.  A switch has been turned on inside me and “Dad Mode” has been engaged.

I’m going to try and keep the baby off the blog and stay away from including him into the social media for as long as I can.  When I Started this blog it was about my journey to enjoy the game of golf and my life around it and how they intermixed.  I still plan to stay to the framework but I expect my free time to practice and play golf as much as I did before but for right now I’m ok with that.