Month: March 2008

Here's a cool game and it's for free. It's called Battle of Wesnoth, and it definitely worth trying out.

I've played it for many hours now and am afraid that I am slowly but surely becoming addicted to it.

Good stuff while commuting on the train and there is nothing else worthwhile to do.

Not everyone is familiar with the idea that in Holland bike paths are everywhere, especially not foreigners. In Amsterdam they are all over the place, which is good because one can pretty much bike easily from one end of the city to the other.

The foreigners are unaware of this and walk along the marked bike paths thinking that they are designated pedestrian walkways.

So I'm walking back to the train station from my work, and this old guy on a bike wings by, ringing his bell in continuous spasms screaming at the top of his lungs:

"Get out of the way, can't you see that this is a bike path, watch out!" And continuing in Dutch he proceeds to cuss and offend kind folks because he's too much of an idiot to understand.

He gives no regard to the poor unknowing pedestrians who are innocently trying to find their way to the nearest place of interest, and almost runs them over. In fact, he glances off of one older person nearly knocking him over into the canal. People run for cover as if some complete maniac is doing who knows what.

I simply continue my way to the train station, knowing that no matter what my opinion is, it doesn't really matter and will not change things. Better to accept those demented bike maniacs and continue on your way.

I would like to become a Buddhist golfer, but first I have to figure what that means exactly.

From inside I feel that I have a relatively good idea, naturally being one with nature, internally controlling ones emotions, and externally making the ball fly straight and into the whole.

Let's start by pursuing the middle path, meaning that I hit the ball consistently right down the middle of the fairway.

The golf ball is actually an illusion, but through it's connectedness with the rest of the golf course, it becomes an expression of my very essence.

Watch out for those nasty sand traps.

In the Sanskrit pratitya samutpada is a direct reference to "dependent origination," or in other words: things do exist in some way but nothing exists on its own, and nothing can be its own cause.

Everything is in some way interdependent with the rest of the world and what the world is trying to achieve with us being around to observe it all in the first place.

The so-called external things can only exist in relation to one another, never in and of themselves.

All visible and invisible characteristics of natural phenomena are defined only through relationships.

One relationship leads to the other giving the appearance of being connected, conditioned and in turn conditioning.

Today marks yet another first in my golf career, namely playing golf in the snow.

At one point the snow was falling so thick I could barely see where the ball was going.

After all these years I finally had another birdie which felt really great.

I had a nice solid drive to the 6th hole, which flew cleanly over the small creek and landed a mere 50 yards to the left of the green. An easy chip bounced twice on the green and landed just short of the pin, slightly uphill.

After checking the lie of the green front and back, I removed various leaves and twigs blocking the way. Holding my ping putter ever so gently, I struck the ball with confidence, watching it roll upwards, before it turned left with a slight hook right into the middle of the hole.

The sound of the ball falling into the cup and bouncing around gave me a fine feeling inside. Birdie!

De Hooge Bergsche

So it's finally my first chance as an official club member to go out and play a round of golf, something which I was eagerly looking forward to the whole week.

Alas, powerful winds from the North Sea are pounding the coast, knocking over trees and power lines, making it impossible to play golf outside.

Oh well, I discovered a huge golfing store in Rotterdam, so I'll be going there with Maarten and look around some.