Month: November 2009

This time of year it is often a race against the clock getting in those last couple of holes before it gets too dark. But what can you do if the darkness is approaching too quickly, and on the ninth hole you are staring down a fairway that you can barely see?

Tee shot from the ninth.

What I try and do is place the ball farther up in my stance, thereby hitting the ball higher so that it appears as a black spot against the sunset sky, arching up and then downwards. This partial segment of the trajectory can be used to extrapolate the rest of the downward arch, providing one with a rough estimate of the location of the landing path. A good ear comes in handy, the distant thump or the crashing of leaves and branches giving a more accurate indication of where best to look for the ball.

After a half decent drive down the right side of the fairway, I hit my approach shot in the general direction of the ninth hole. I hear the familiar sound of the golf ball hitting the surface of the green with a confident thud. Didn't see it fly off of my nine iron, didn't see it come down, but I can imagine perfectly well where the ball has stopped rolling. Time for a daring eagle-eye birdie putt just as the final rays of sunlight disappear altogether.

Watch the ball arch across the sunset sky of the tee shot, hear that suggestive thud of the approach shot, and then the long and winding putt dropping into the cup.

What a pain in the butt. If you own an MSI Wind Notebook, don't rush out there like me and upgrade to Karmic 9.10 without first thinking.

That's exactly what I did, and because I rushed the result was a completely unusable system. One where the monitor flickers endlessly like a maniac, the brightness trembling nervously like the system is about the explode any second.

Turns out that this is a known problem: brightness is broken on MSI WIND U100. I should have been more careful, checked possible problems in advance. So listen to me and be wary.

According to the bug description, there are all kinds of workarounds and possible fixes, e.g. disabling the gnome-power-manager, hitting the Fn+11 key or whatever. However, after spending a good portion of the morning trying them all, nothing works to my satisfaction.

Fortunately there's a relatively easy way to re-install Jaunty Jackalope 9.01 via the USB-stick, but first I needed to backup all of the important stuff under my /home/kiffin/* directory.

I use the Wind Notebook alot in the train, to read my email, to conduct remote maintenance, to do some last-minute programming or simply to surf the Internet aimlessly, so the idea is that I can get it all up and running before tomorrow.

Hopefully in the next update they'll have gotten this problem fixed. Before I jump the gun again and upgrade, I'll make sure to read the release notes and verify that this aggravating problem has been fixed.

I never realized how much a difference new spikes for my golf shoes would make. Not that my game has improved the slightest bit (darn), but just the idea that these brand-new objects are adorning the bottom of my shoes makes me feel better for some reason.

To be fair, they do make me feel like I am slightly taller and my stance seems steadier when I swing the club on soft ground, but then again I could just be imagining that.

In the olden days we actually had metal spikes and they made this fantastic scraping sound when you walked across the parking lot or on the paved pathways.

Now spikes are made of this durable plastic which isn't as nice, but I guess it damages the greens and indoor carpets much less. I'm wearing Nike spikes, wow!

What a pleasant surprise it was to hear from the team captain that I had qualified for the HB3 golf team sponsored by my country club.

This is as good an excuse as any to get real serious and spend more time honing my golf skills, both physical as well as mental (no more procrastinating young man).

My physical game could do with some minor tweaking here and there as my swing etc. is alright in general. However, it is certainly my fragile attitude which requires some serious improvements, e.g. not getting all shook up and disappointed when I shoot a double-bogie, continuing full-speed ahead for the rest of the round as if nothing happened.

Starting now we have much practicing to do in preparation for the important tournaments next year April. Playing more serious golf will help me achieve my next golfing goal which is to acquire a single digit handicap by the end o next year. Go for it.

Sometimes while sitting in the train, it can be quite entertaining watching the strange behavior of your fellow passengers. Especially when it results in an unbroken cycle of this and that which refuses to stop despite the obvious reasons.

Take for instance the overweight guy with a grayish beard who was sitting across from me yesterday evening. He kept trying to read his large hardcover book and stay awake at the same time, but that was too much for him and his tired mind. The book balanced precariously on his protruding belly, teetering back and forth as the train negotiated the various curves and bumpiness of the terrain ahead.

He'd nod his head a couple times, lay his chin on his chest, start snoring and then let his heavy book drop like a rock to the floor. The resounding bang! would startle him back awake, and then realizing that he'd just been reading, he'd bend down and pick up the book. Then he'd have to thumb through the various pages to figure out where he had stopped reading, but I didn't get the impression that he returned to the same page each time.

The cycle repeated itself very predictably. His head would nod a couple times, snoring sounds would occur and then bang! Time to wake up and start reading again. Now where was I?

The bang! would not only startle him awake each time, but also the passengers nearby would jerk from the unexpected strike.

I'm not sure how many times this comical scene repeated itself, but that is not important. What is interesting is that this person was obviously tired and refused to accept that fact, although he kept on nodding off over and over.

Why keep on going and not accept that you are too tired to read? If it were me, I'd simply put the book away and have a good nap. No need risking a giant bang and startling me awake each time.

So how long has it been now that I've been postponing those two simple tasks? Half a year at least, I should think.

I'm still not sure what finally got into me, but this afternoon during a fanciful spark of inspiration, I decided to do them. To replace the outside vent for the dryer, and then to re-attach the metal latch to the window so that it can be kept open properly.

In total the two activities took me about six minutes, maybe less. Six minutes over a period of half a year is not very much. That's merely 0.0023% of total time so-called wasted.

I'm feeling so good about myself having accomplished such trivial matters, that I seriously wonder why I hadn't done them long ago if not sooner.