Tag: dailyprompt

Being retired, I am not sure there are 5 things that I do let alone do well. So let’s get down to basics. As I mentioned in the previous blog, I am good at sleeping. Not a small thing to be good at, but even that may be up for debate. Even though I have no trouble falling asleep, I get about 5 to 7 hours of sleep a night. At best maybe 7.5 hours, but that is rare. To me, this is another example of science trying to lump everybody in one basket. I am not too sure where they came up with 8 hours, but I would never be able to do that. Not before, not now, and not ever. Am I concerned about this? Not at all. I am good at golf. My index is 4.8. I played 166 rounds and have shot my age, 75 or better, 50 times this year. Good for an old fart. I am a good cook. I have been cooking for about 20 years now, and at least I like what I cook and have received many compliments when I cook for other people. Like many things, I read and learn and sometimes go my own way. That’s what I like most about cooking: the experimenting and creativity you can do. I do not always follow the advice of well-known cooks. One example is when I grill salmon. They say to start by putting the flesh side down. I start by putting the skin side down. I only cook it for about 2 minutes. What this does is let the skin release some of its fat onto the grill. Then I flip and cook the flesh for about 5 minutes. With the fat on the grates, it makes removing the salmon a lot easier when it is finished. I put the salmon right on the grill with no barrier. It comes out pretty good, even if I do say so myself. I never follow the directions for baking frozen pizza. Frozen pizza has come a long way. I heat the oven to 475 to 490. I get the pizza out for about 10 to 15 minutes before I put it in the oven. I cook it for about 8 to 10 minutes and turn it about 180 degrees depending on how it looks at the 5-minute mark. Try it the next time you do pizza. I take pretty good care of myself. I am a firm believer in moderation in everything you do. I must be doing a good job because I am 75 years old and on no medication except eye drops for glaucoma. Lastly, I think my blogging has improved to a good state. I have been doing it for 15 years, some years not as much as other years. I have written about golf courses in Western Pennsylvania, golf instruction, meditation, food, and those exasperating Pittsburgh Pirates. I have written about other sports subjects including the Steelers and college football. I have found 5 things. This would have been a much easier blog if it were to name 5 things I’m lousy at: taking care of things, cutting the grass, cleaning up, making money, painting, trimming shrubs, preparing for holidays, predicting sport outcomes, having a good diet, raking leaves, doing laundry, and organizing space. Now that would have been a very long blog.

I am definitely a morning person. I get up early on my own most of the time. I will get up anywhere from 5 to 6:30 in the morning even if I have nothing scheduled to do. However, I do not trust myself totally; if I have to get up early, I will set an alarm. I do practically all of my blogging in the morning and at the very latest in the afternoon. I will rarely write anything after 7:00 PM. When golfing, I prefer an early tee time compared with a later one. I will say this: when I was working, I used to have days when I teed off at the crack of dawn. Those days are over, not so much because I do not want to get up but because you can run into irritating course conditions. Most of the time, the greens have not been cut. There will sometimes be a heavy dew on the greens. The greens get cut when you are playing. You start out with greens being slow and then the speed gets quicker because they are cut and the dew is gone. Another very early tee time problem can be fog. There is nothing worse than not seeing your ball no more than a hundred yards off the tee. In the summer, I like teeing off between 7:30 at the earliest and 9:00 at the latest. There can be exceptions, especially if it is really hot. I do not mind the earlier tee times in the spring and the fall. I know it is chillier and the threat of a frost delay can happen. With the early time, you will still get out closer to your tee time when there is a frost delay. Most days, the temperatures will rise rather quickly. When it gets to 7:00 PM, I usually hit a wall. It is veg time. I watch TV and just chill. I will sometimes read, but I find that can be difficult for me to concentrate in the evening. I wait until I feel sleepy to go to bed. I never have a set time to go to bed. It could be as early as 9:30 and as late as 11:30. Most of the time, it is somewhere in between. I usually get about 6.5 to 7.5 hours of sleep. I have only missed a night’s sleep about 2 or 3 times over the last 50 years. I have been blessed that I can always go to sleep. There is no doubt I am a morning person.

The first is the way people drive. Watching people drive makes me wonder why there are not more accidents. They do not use turn signals. They do not stop at stop signs. They tailgate. What the purpose of tailgating is, I have no idea. On a road with traffic lights, I see no reason to swerve in and out of traffic. I see this all the time. A car moving fast and changing lanes trying to get ahead, and then three traffic lights later, there they are right in front of you. Better yet, they are in a lane that is backed up, and you get about 3 to 4 cars ahead of them in the other lane that is waiting for the light to change. When the light changes, you get to see all the maneuvering again. When trying to make a right or left turn, the person veers out the opposite way they are going to turn. The other one that is really good is the driver that is trying to direct traffic while they are driving. Listen, I understand if traffic is at a standstill and you let somebody out of a parking lot or side street. This will be when traffic is moving, and the car stops to let someone out. They may try and let someone make a left turn in front of them, and maybe someone is walking at that street’s crosswalk. Pulling out in front of oncoming traffic or when coming out of a driveway, it’s like let the world wait; I am not waiting. There are other driving issues, but you get the picture.

The next thing is grocery stores. There are two pet peeves with them: one they could control and one they should control. Why do they move things around? You will go to an area where a particular food item has been for months or even years, and bingo, it is not there anymore. It’s not even in the vicinity. You go ask, and it’s like 3 aisles over and usually in an aisle that you have already been down. They will move things in the produce department. The damn area is not that big to begin with, and they will switch things around. How does any of that make any difference in running the store? The other thing that should be banned is family shopping. Look, I do not expect anybody to have to get a babysitter to go grocery shopping. When I see a mother or a father with 2 or 3 kids in the grocery store, I have no problem with that. However, when I see both parents and the 3 kids cluttering up the store, that’s when I shake my head. What is that? Do they feel that grocery shopping is such torture that they have to have the spouse suffer it along with them? My point is, have one go grocery shopping and the other one stay home and watch the damn kids. Usually, both parents are not paying attention to the kids anyway, and they are handling all the food, screaming and yelling at each other and making the experience just as bad for everyone else as the parents are perceiving it for them. Grocery stores should have a guard at the door, and when they see the family coming, only allow one parent in the store. The kids and the other parent can go back home and pick up the other parent when they are done. No more family grocery shopping. Life would be so much better for everyone concerned, including grocery store employees.

Lastly, is punting in the NFL. There are 32 punters in the NFL. That is all they do. They take two or three steps and kick the football. They may have some other duties like hold for the placekicker on field goals and extra points but that is it. Seven days a week that is all they have to do is kick a football. I am surprised that NFL teams do not hold worldwide tryouts to punt the football. There has to be 32 people in the entire world that can kick a ball at least 70 yards. This has to be the smallest specialty in the world, 32 people. Why is it that they do such a lousy job. Week after week you see NFL punters shank punts, not be able to place the ball within a 10 yard area, hit low line drive punts that are returned for big gains and punted balls that do not go 30 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. Remember that is all they do. They kick the ball. They could do this for 5 to 8 hours a day for 7 days a week. They appear to be trying to disprove the saying that practice makes perfect. With new techniques to strengthen muscles and unlimited practice time there should not be a punter in the NFL that does not kick the ball at least 65 to 70 yards for every kick. Just think if these guys were surgeons, they would be killing people routinely.

What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?

I like June because it is the only month that does not have a holiday. I know there is flag day but I don’t think even the banks close for that one. As you know I hate all holidays real or fake like Halloween. The other reason to like June is the days are long and the nights are short. It is the month I played 54 holes of golf in one day. My second favorite is July. My daughter was born that month and I got 2 holes in one that month, one in 68 and another in 88. I would like September and October but the days are getting noticeably shorter and of course October ends with that pagan holiday Halloween. If I could change one thing I wish there was 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark all year around. I would be willing to give up those long days of light of close to 17 hours. I know this is an impossible wish but what the hell we can all dream. Speaking of months who came up with this shit. I mean some are 30, some are 31 and of course we have stupid February with 28 except every 4 years 29. Why don’t we have 13 months of 28 days each with February having 29 every year. It would be fun naming the 13th month. Then every 4th year we could have the one day month between June and July. I guess a better question would be where do I come up with this shit. See you in June.

What are you most proud of in your life?

I am most proud of the fact that I made my parents feel proud of me. I learned the most about life from my Dad and my Mother kept me on the straight and narrow. I feel the same pride when I think about my daughter and her family. I am proud of the fact that I know what’s important in life and appreciate every day where everyone I care for is happy and healthy. I know we have a fragile existence and it could all end at any moment. You can only hope it all continues.

Well, first you have to work for State Farm. Then you have to be named Jake.

How do you express your gratitude?

I express my gratitude quietly. Once when I get up in the morning and then right before I go to bed. It can be a very difficult world out there. It is hard to believe what some people have to suffer through both physically and spiritually. I am not too sure what that is all about. Losing loved ones is by far the worst thing that can happen to a person. Chronic physical pain is not far behind. Suffering is a part of life and we have all suffered in some way, just by different degrees. Maybe at the end of life it will be all explained. That would be nice.

What are your daily habits?

The definition of habit is an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary. To begin as they happen, my first daily habit is to wake up. It may be the most important. Without that, there are no more habits. After waking up I know I am breathing. Next I move, walking, go to the bathroom, urinate, and go downstairs. Drink coffee, use my I pad, go back upstairs, have a bowel movement, put eye drops in, shave, floss, brush my teeth, take a shower and meditate. I will eat food, do some kind of activity that takes me through the day, which includes being on the desk top computer. I will urinate at other times throughout the day. Eat food, watch TV, put eye drops in, brush my teeth, urinate and go to bed. Those are the things that I know I do every single day. There are many things that I know I do almost every day. That was not the question. Most people think of habits as things they do with the adjective good or bad in front of it. It is hard to develop good habits and difficult to break bad habits. Another way to put it is to say it is easy to get addicted to bad habits and hard to get addicted to good habits. Why is that? Now THAT is a great question. If I only had the answer.

How do you practice self-care?

First off I meditate once daily for 15 to 20 minutes in the morning. I walk anywhere from 3 to 4 miles a day and I swing a short weighted golf club 50 to 100 times per day. I try to eat as healthy as I can but could probably do better because I love food. Meditation is the most useful because it relaxes the mind and the body. The rest of self care is a mental process. You must accept yourself including all of your faults. You must be aware of what is going on around you externally and internally. Trust your instincts and feelings and never second quess decisions. Then appreciate all the things that you have and all the blessings that have been bestowed upon you. That is the way everyday should start and end. If you do that it will be the key to a good nights sleep which is the final but maybe the most important part of self care.

I have been fortunate enough to have many favorite moments in my life. Describing just one would not do the other moments justice. Obviously, there are some moments in your life that are bigger and more important than others, but that does not mean that they did not give you joy and happiness and will be etched into your brain until the day you die. So in chronological order here they are.

Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the bottom of the ninth of game 7 to win the 1960 World Series over the mighty Yankees.

My first hole in one July 31st 1968

My second hole in one June 13th 1970

Franco Harris’s Immaculate Reception December 23, 1972, my Dad’s birthday.

My wedding day December 14, 1974. Even though it ended in 1999, still one of my favorite days.

Graduating from Veterinary School June 1975.

Birth of my daughter July 7th 1977. That’s right 7-7-77. I will remember that date even when I’m senile.

Opening my veterinary practice October 15th 1980

First day of opening new veterinary building that I had built Oct 15th 1983

My third hole in one July 23rd 1988

Taking my daughter to college September 16th 1996

My fourth hole in one November 3rd 2003

My fifth hole in one August 7 2005

The births of all 3 grandchildren May 4, 2007, July 22, 2009, and January 16th, 2015.

Last but certainly not least, an albatross (a 2 on a par 5) May 3, 2018

I would say that this list is not complete, but it covers quite a lot. It has been a great run and hopefully I will have a few more favorite moments to come. If not, this has been quite enough. I am one lucky man.