Month: September 2007

As it turns out, the Magellanic Clouds are first-time visitors.

I never could have expected that at all. For more than hundreds of years, it has been accepted as common knowledge that these wonderful celestial bodies were nothing more than natural extensions of the home galaxy in which we live.

Almost human thoughts that we could nearly grasp here and now.

Beliefs can be easily shattered by the endless stream of sterile measurements and calculations of science, in its pursuit of acquiring more accurate knowledge of the universe and thereby risking that we slowly but surely dehumanize mother nature.

While growing and learning golf, I had this natural slice that for the life of me I could never shake.

Now that I am much older, I have somehow slightly overcompensated this tendency with a very predictable draw.

Actually I still feel comfortable with fading it to the right rather than drawing it too far left and verging on hooking it out of bounds.

By making sure that I enter at the front of the metro rather than at the back, I figure that I speed up my walk to work by the time it takes to stroll a full metro length, say maybe forty-five seconds. That's a pretty significant win when you think about it.

However, by having to get there in the first place from where I am initially standing, I have to invest at least a full metro length to make it to the front of the metro. Let's avoid fooling ourselves from something that makes perfect sense, and subtract the forty-five seconds, please.

This so-called illusion therefore effectively cancels out any long-term investments by first incurring short-term debt which is never won back. Net result is thus zero. Entering the front or the back does not make any difference.

This is the first year since my father passed away that I somehow forgot to think about him on his birthday (today).

He would have become ninety years old, can you believe that?!

I guess I have successfully taken over the torch from him and am totally independent now.

Here is the really nice driver I just bought. It's made by Callaway, it's called Big Bertha Fusion FT-3, and it looks like this:

Except that mine has a stiff shaft and nine degree loft. Boy, with this baby I can really swat the ball down there 250 yards when I connect.

I took a mighty swing on the driving range and the head of my five iron flew off into the distance tumbling in the air and landing about one hundred yards ahead of me.

I was hoping to put off buying a new set of clubs until I had been able to practice for a couple of months first, but it appears that my thirty year old golf clubs of yore have reached end of life and are breaking up while I hold them in my hands.

Time to save up some extra cash, look around for a good deal, and treat myself to a nice set of clubs.

In need of a spiritual recharge so that I can get myself in a rejuvenated mood of inspiration, I went to the American Book Center and bought myself a copy of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy.

By thinking positive thoughts I can achieve amazing miracles, at least that is what the book claims.

In my younger years, when I was convinced that I was on the verge of becoming some kind of future famous poet, I would spend endless hours arranging this and that trying to perfect the ideal epic poem.

When that didn't work out, I figured why not try and write an amazing novel, similar to Gone With the Wind. Lots of work and concentration, but then again things didn't work out as expected.

Too much work, work, work and too little time. Bummer.

When events prevented me from attaining such a noble goal, I decided to accept life as is and just live day by day. Not much else to do, which in itself is nonetheless still quite a noble goal no matter what.

And that is pretty much why I am currently living a simple life, forgetting the pressures of the past, and just being my self.

Whatever that may mean.

The famous and well-loved Luciano Pavarotti dies at the early age of seventy-one.

Meaning that if I end up living that long I have only a little more than twenty years to go.

Something for me to think about.

I received an email from someone asking me if I was the same Kiffin who sat next to her in Mrs. Hall's third grade class in Stockton.

The amazing coincidence is that I was indeed the very same person.

Hard to believe. Isn't Internet a wonderful technology in that regard?

Although I haven't touched a club in more than two years, I decided once and for all to take up the wonderful sport of golf again (under the recent constant urgings of my wife to go out and do something fun for myself).

The closest golf course is about 15 minutes from here on the way to Rotterdam and it is called Golfbaan de Rottebergen.

Since it is a fairly popular place, the waiting list is about 10 - 11 months. The membership is quite expensive, but the investment is more than worthwhile if it makes me feel better by getting me out in nature and meeting new and interesting fellow golfers.

In the meantime, I will practice, hit balls and see if I can saddle myself up with a nice new set of clubs. The set I have dates back to when I was a kid, so it is time to upgrade to the new technology.

I will keep my good old Ping putter though.