To quote a Monty Python movie scene: “I’m not dead yet!”


Busy, busy, busy.

!@(pv1.jpg:R120 http://www.eyeno.net/images/pv1.jpg “frosty”) This morning golf was once again delayed because of a heavy frost. I took the opportunity to wander around the course and grab a few shots. Cold and sunny, it was a perfect November morning.

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!@(pv14.jpg:L120 http://www.eyeno.net/images/pv14.jpg “creek”) The Etobicoke creek winds through the golf course and, when not eating golf balls, is always gurgling a reminder of its existence. It shows up on 5 of the 9 holes and today there were patches of ice forming in the still ponds.

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!@(pv21.jpg:R http://www.eyeno.net/images/pv21.jpg “frost”) In this picture the frost is clearly visible as the white haze on the green. We’re not allowed out until it burns off for fear that we damage the grass which would show as winter kill next year.

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!@(pv4.jpg:L120 http://www.eyeno.net/images/pv4.jpg “sunshine”) Walking up to the elevated 9th green, a number of different grasses have been planted and here one variety allows the sun to play peek-a-boo.

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!@(pv8.jpg:R120 http://www.eyeno.net/images/pv8.jpg “seed”) Peel Village Gof Course is a recognized Audubon conservation area and, whenever possible, the area is allowed to develop naturally. That means you get plenty of weeds once you stray off the course and here a seed pod glows golden brown in the sun.

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(click any picture to elarge)

Today’s offering is “Cavan Pothole” by Sharon Shannon. Sharon is best known for her work with The Waterboys.

Now the accordian is not my favorite instrument, but in Sharon’s hands it becomes a joyful force. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than this infectious piece. I first heard it years ago on a CBC Radio program called “Definitely Not The Opera”. The show got its name because, while it was playing on AM, the FM band was running operas.

It comes from an album called “Common Ground” that is still available.

Give it a listen and, as always, be kind to my bandwidth and download if you would like to listen to it again.

Cavan Pothole

Eugene McCarthy

>“Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important.”

This morning dawned cold and windy. Bright sunshine to lure you outside and a wind chill well below zero to immediately disappoint you. Did this stop me from playing golf? Heck no.

Late fall and winter golf is a tricky sport in a cold climate like Ontario. Taking too deep a divot is akin to grabbing on to a hornet’s nest with your bare hands. Hitting a high approach shot on to a frozen green and expecting it to stop (or, Heaven forbid, spin back) is reserved for those who think it’s possible to throw a marble on to an concrete sidewalk and expect it to come to rest within a foot. Balls roll forever on fairways and stop dead in the frozen rough where they resist every effort to move them forward with even the mightiest iron shot. Putting across greens covered with leaves is best accomplished if you are very familiar with the chaos factor.

After 2 hours in the deepfreeze, I retired home cold, stiff and suffering from a long-standing minor medical condition who’s symptons I dare not describe here for fear that the ladies swoon and the gentlemen respond with an indignant harrummph. Only one cure for this – a bubble bath. Yes, you heard me right – a bubble bath. Hot and steaming, fragrant and perfect. I am man enough to speak of this pleasure. Of course, the chemical concoction used to create this paradise is euphemistically called “foaming bath”. Sounds like something coined by a “Metrosexual”, a term that I hate. It sounds like something Tom Wolfe would dream up in one of his later self-possessed novels that all have plots that go “I’m smarter and wittier than you and for the next 700 pages, I intend to prove it”. You put in the bath and it produces bubbles. Not foam, bubbles.

So hear I sit clean, dry and comfortable. And totally secure in my masculinity thank you very much.

This marks the longest period I’ve gone without a blog entry since I started this darn thing 2 years ago. Like a junkie on the street, I think I’m suffering from withdrawals.

I’ve been so busy at work that I haven’t had a chance to even look at the posting screen. Every so often the people I work for think I should *really* earn my money and this last week has been their best effort yet. Visitors from Europe, new systems to implement, adminstrivia up the ass – you name, they threw it at me. I haven’t even been able to sneak out and play golf!

Most of the fires have been put out so I maybe able to find a few minutes to check the world’s pulse and spew forth my irrelavant comments.

Firefox 1.o is now available. Get it. Immediately! NOW! You still here?

Britney Spears to stop touring for a couple of years

And you thought I was always looking for negative links.

Assorted links that might make you think.

Man commits suicide at World Trade Center site to protest Bush re-election

Gulf War vet sues after being recalled to Iraq 13 years after discharge

Some views from abroad

Bush ready to launch more pre-emptive strikes?