So I did forget one big part of yesterday’s golf story, even cooler than the 410 yard drive. We played with this very nice guy, David who is friends with Lee Ermey. Oh, you don’t know who that is… YOU USELESS BAG OF MAGGOT SNOT, DROP AND GIVE ME 20! I will ask you very politely now to go out and buy 5 copies of Full Metal Jacket. Then go to www.rleeermey.com and purchase a few motivational figurines. If you ever need to motivate some employees and are at a loss, bush the button and let the Gunney tell it like it is. Man, that figurine never stops being cool.

Gill and I played a little golf today at Crystal Falls up in Leander. It’s a great narrow course with not a single sand trap. Not that it was easy, it wasn’t. My slice is going away, putting is better, even fairway shots are pretty damn good. All in all, I cant complain. Going into the back 9 I managed to pound out a 310 yarder. I don’t often get them out that far but I was in a good way with my swing and my neck which has been hurting for almost 2 months is actually getting much better. Coming into the tee box at 18 I needed an eagle to break 100. I’ve never eagled and birdies are few and far between.

It is an interesting last hole in that it’s an uphill run for about 250-270 yards then its a downhill run for about another 150 yards. Our matchups hit theirs and landed in a nice spot just before the crest of the hill. I walked up to the tee, planted the ball and gave it a very good poke. It went very straight and very far, as it was nearing the ground on a very low and flat trajectory it crested the hill and went out of view.

As we went up the fairway to find our balls I knew I was far beyond the other 2 guys but for the life of me I could not find it. It was a pretty odd ball, an Intech, some ball I found on the 3rd or 4th hole. As everyone hit their next shots, I continued walking up the field, impossibly far up the long par 5, 535 yard long fairway.

As I approached their balls I noticed that there were 4 not 3 balls in the area where their balls had landed. I asked if there was an Intech in there. There was. But it didn’t seem possible. It was 410 yards from the tee. Being 6’5″ and owning a very powerful driver makes it plausible, and I guess physically possible but I was having a very hard time believing it. The other half of the 4some was impressed but didn’t seem to have a problem with it. I finished the hole with a birdie, not bad.

Driving home my wife and I tried to figure out how it wasn’t my ball but it was hard. It was on the same path we saw it fly down, the ball is not common, the other side of the crest is a perfect slope, it could have easily rolled 100 yards. The ground was hard, the wind was in that direction. Tee ball flew very straight and assuming everything we saw and knew was true, it looked very possible that the ball I hit and the ball I hit subsequently were in fact the same one, only 410 yards apart.

I don’t expect to ever hit a ball that far again, I’m always impressed by as good 280 yard poke, but 410, its come and gone. I’ll have a hole in 1 before I put one out that far again. It’s possible that it was an identical ball, in the same path, within 100 yards of where I expected to find it. Possible but not likely. I hit a ball 410 yards today.

It happened a few months ago but I was re-reminded of it recently.

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0%2C1%2C14455%2C00.html

When I lived in LA long long ago back in ’93, I managed to find a very nice little apartment in a Beverly Hills 4plex. It was a very nice space, hardwood floors, real windows, not cheap aluminum crap. Another feature of the place was the presence of a real, live in person, C list celeb. The guy seemed nice enough, a little frenetic but ok. That veneer wore off pretty quick.

Once in a while he invited me to some Hollywood parties. Not shabby ones either. His brother Michael for whatever reason wasn’t completely exhausted of him. I even went to Michael’s birthday party as some posh hotel. Met Arnie and Danny Devito there. I’m not terribly impressed with actors. They seemed all to be in constant need of recognition.

For the academy awards he got my bud and I 2 tickets to a C list party at Chasens right before it was leveled to make way for a Bristol Farms. We saw Weezie from the Jeffersons there. Weird Al too. Yikes.

The downside, and there were many were the moments when Eric became himself. He banged on my door one night needing me to give him a ride to see some friends. Having some experience with this behavior before I was pretty sure what he was up to. Not having much to do I thought it would be fine and guarantee me access to the next C list something. It turned into a meth seeking odyssey from hell. We hit every back alley of WeHo until he found some guy he was looking for to score from. That kind of tipped me off. He seemed to like WeHo a lot.

His famous temper was revealed to me when going to Barney’s Beanery one Friday night. He didn’t want the Valet to park his car and made a big stink about it. Got back in his car, drove it to a spot got out and handed the valet the keys. The valet was also being an ass which just made him more upset. The cops were on their way by the time I managed to get that asshole back in the car.

All in all there were very few redeeming qualities about being friends with Eric. I was pretty sure he was gay or bi but didn’t get any clear indication until a few weeks later when he called me up to help him read through a script. He answered the door naked. What a lame thing to. Some people are the complete jackass package.

Dogs have been humans friend for, oh, what like 10,000 years now? So answer me this, why do dogs STILL, after 10 millennia, still take 6 months of training to get them to understand that shitting in the house is bad? Don’t get me wrong, I love our pups. 14 weeks old and they are the closest thing we’ve had to children and after this little lesson, it may be the closest we get.

I never understood parents who got their knickers in a knot about not being able to do anything, not being able to turn around for a second because that was the moment the little rugrat would set fire to the cat, bite the rat trap, smear feces on the screen door, feed the bulldog mayo, put the liver in the VCR, find the coffee can full of metal shavings and pour it into the slots in the top of the TV. In our case its make a pile of shit somewhere you smell first and have to find, chew the power adapter for a device that isn’t made or supported anymore, chew a hole in the $800 Frette sheet set, piss on the only nice rug in the house, eat the tail off the old dog, dig a hole in the yard, chew the corner molding off, eat cables behind the stereo or get stuck inside the fold-out couch.

Now, I know that pups need to be taught, and it takes patience. I have the patience of a nudie bar bouncer who ran out of meth half way through the shift. My puppy training skills need help. I TRY so hard not to get frustrated. I do. I swear, I love them, but sometimes I tell them terrible things. I don’t yell, I don’t menace, I don’t hit. I just calmly tell them that if they poo in the house again, I’ll use their insides to string a tennis racket. Fortunately they don’t understand. My wife, she has more patience than I do. When she walks them, she takes them nicely down the road. They stop and play, sniff, mess around every 5 feet. When I’ve been on walks with them, I tend to just keep pulling them when they stop, dragging the dog until it gets the idea, drag on the ground or walk. That’s the way I was raised, so it made sense to me. “Honey, don’t drag the puppy” isn’t what I expected to hear.

I don’t do it to be mean, its all I know. I love the dogs, but I want them to know who is boss. When a 9lb puppy stops and makes me stop, I get the sense its telling me what to do and that’s not the deal. Lets not go into some psychological tangent, I know I’m stupid with animals.

Still, in spite of my inability to train a dog properly, Gillian has been a much better coach, hence the constant improvement in their behavior. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they both took magnificent shits in the office today. Open door to the back yard, they opted to go upstairs and leave 2 steaming piles of dog love. I guess they didn’t want to disturb us while we were walking around the back yard, trying not to vomit, picking up about 10 lbs of fecal matter, randomly but evenly spread about.

What did this modern cro-mag learn so far? I don’t know, but I do like the dogs quite a bit and I hope they get the whole house breaking thing. Otherwise, its tennis racket time.