I know, I promised...

But I haven't had much of a chance to flesh out my story. I've certainly added to the idea list, however, which is now 7 pages long. Every day I seem to remember something else that I hadn't thought of in years... last night there was a piece on sled hockey on the evening news, and I watched it closely to see if Rick Middleton was still coaching. The piece was about a group of players who are Iraq war vets, though, so it wasn't the Paralympic team. Just weird stuff like that. So I promise: a real post with a chapter next week!

The writing... yeah.. that.

So with multiple people in our house getting the stomach flu this week... the writing has gone by the wayside. So I'm at least one page behind. I added some more detail to my chronological outline today, so now I have 5 pages. Amazing how when I am laying in bed at night, what new memories come flooding back, even when they're not summoned.

Next week, the goal is to finish up the first "incident" story about the trees getting chopped down and get it posted here for your perusal and commentary. Slow but sure finishes the book.

Writing the novel - week 2

So far so good. A page and half of single spaced text--a short chapter, now in progress. Probably one of the only humorous parts of the book, too. It's the story I have told over and over as an example of how moronic my ex was. It's visual and has a lot of detail. It's the story that sticks with me, and easy for me to tell since it's one of the only instances that is not frought with heavy emotion. A good starting point. I'll post it here when it's ready to be seen.

Something's getting written tomorrow!

So today I was supposed to start yoga. Only when I called the gym yesterday to make the commitment, they told me there wasn't enough interest in the 2x/week class so it would just be a Tues. only class and I'd have to be a drop-in. So that's a little more expensive but not bad.

I got a call from day care yesterday that Ethan had a fever and some stomach upset... so back to the dr. again. Only the regular doctor this time instead of an urgent care. The end result was that he was put on some allergy meds, hopefully that will dry him out once and for all. And he's been put on another antibiotic, because his ear infection is not only not healed up yet but it's back in the right ear again too. So I had to leave work early, pick him up, go to the doc, go to CVS for the prescription... then get home.

Scott got up this morning to leave extra early for work and realized he had a flat tire. So he had to take my car and I stayed home w/the kids. Thank God for a flexible employer!

Which means... no yoga, *and* no writing today. But the writing will happen tomorrow, and I will go to yoga next Tuesday.

Sheesh.

So much for Tuesdays

Another 2010 goal of mine is to get back to yoga... I've been saying it now for 2 years and haven't done it. Now, an opportunity for Yogalates class has just presented itself. Not only is it cheap, but it's offered in 1/2 hour increments at my lunch hour across the street from where I work! And a couple of girls from the office are going too. It's a no-brainer.

The only problem? It's Tuesdays and Thursdays! So I'm switching up my "writing day" to Wednesdays now. Which leaves only 2 lunch hours a week to run errands... but I truly need to get some exercise again. I felt so much better overall, and slept better, when I was doing that regularly. I even felt sharper mentally.

Could it be that I get a novel done *and* get myself in shape, all in one year...? Stay tuned.

Writing the novel - Day 1

Today I was able to crank out 4 ds pages of ideas for chapters/stories/situations for the characters. It was all just remembering the crazy stuff that happened. I thought I wouldn't remember much but it was flowing pretty well. One thing led to another, and another. I even was remembering people's names which never happens. So I think it was a pretty successful first day. Baby steps, baby steps. Next week: fleshing out one of the ideas into a page or two of narrative.

I'm realizing today, this is going to be a LONG book.

Back to writing

And not just on here either. I've now designated each Tuesday's lunch hour to writing, so I can finally start on that book that's been in my head for years. I'm hoping that it will be therapeutic for me, and maybe some good writing will show up while I'm purging years of frustration & annoyance from my brain (left over from my previous life). I'm going to monitor my progress via Facebook status updates and on here, so come along with me while I venture down The Memory Highway of Hell and try to tell the story of what happened in my life between 1999 and 2005.

Yes it's sort of cheating to copy & paste something here, but it's cool

Book promotion requires mix of old and new

Kimberly Maul

June 19, 2009

As book coverage in newspapers and magazines shrinks, but hundreds of thousands of new books continue to be published a year, book publicists have an increasingly challenging job. These publicists use a mix of traditional outreach and social media in an attempt to not only spread the word about new books, but also build up the reputation of an author.

"What sets book publicity apart is that we're promoting the books, but we're also promoting the author's career," says Tracy van Straaten, VP of publicity for Scholastic Trade Book Publishing.

Traditional tactics of in-person author events, trade shows like BookExpo America, and SMTs are still popular with publishers, who mostly handle publicity in-house. Publishers get galleys, or advanced reader copies, to send to both print and online reviewers, long-lead media outlets, and other influencers within book publicity, looking to build buzz, get reviews, and set up author interviews.

"We've worked with everyone from Oprah to all of the morning shows to all of the evening talk shows, to general interest magazines to hard-core book reviewers," says Dee Dee DeBartlo, senior director of publicity for William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.

DeBartlo explains that all publicity for a book leads up to the on-sale date, but publicists should start building buzz well in advance of the publication.

Technology, though, continues to change old habits, including the way publishers send out review copies of books. "As the Kindle and other e-book readers proliferate, we're going to see more e-galleys," DeBartlo says.

"Start building a community for your book long before it comes out, up until it does, and even beyond that," adds Susannah Greenberg, president of Susannah Greenberg PR, who works only within the book publishing industry. She mentions several tactics that have increased in popularity in recent years, including creating book videos—sort of like movie trailers, but for books—and blog talk radio.

"Grassroots with books is really important because sometimes you want to go from the inside out and social media is a very large component right now," says Heidi Krupp-Lisiten,CEO of Krupp Kommunications, which started as a strictly book publicity agency and is now a full-service PR firm.

Stuart Applebaum, EVP and spokesman for Random House, encourages publicists to work with the editors of a book, to keep up with the status of the unpublished book and plan ahead with creative ideas.

"Editors keep our publicists well-informed," he says, "so [they] are ready to go with thought-out, constructive ideas utilizing both traditional and new communications tools."

Do

- Start early by building up a community of fans prior to publication, which will help spread the word

- Mix both traditional book publicity strategies, like reviews and author tours, with social media and online tactics

Don't

- Don't confine outreach to book review pages. Look to other sections of the newspaper and position the author and book in ways to attract non-book coverage.

- Don't stop outreach after the on-sale date. Continue to build up the author as a personality or expert, which could pay off for future books and projects.

Kimberly Maul, Reporter

PRWeek http://www.prweek.com

Prank or a real crime?

From Yahoo News this morning:

So far in 2008, Baby Jesus has appeared in several police reports.

At First United Methodist Church in Kittanning, Pa., a baby Jesus was stolen and replaced with a pumpkin. In Eureka Springs, Ark., someone who absconded with a plastic baby Jesus from a public display last week also took the concrete block and chain that was supposed to act as a deterrent.

Previously, stolen Jesus figurines have also been defaced with profanity or Satanic symbols.
The incidents raise a question: Is stealing Baby Jesus harmless juvenile fun, or anti-Christian?
"I suspect most of it is childish pranks," said attorney Mike Johnson of the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal group. "Clearly, there are adults with an agenda to remove Christ from Christmas. But they tend to occupy themselves with the courts and courtroom of public opinion."

Stephen Nissenbaum, a retired history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of "The Battle for Christmas," views the thefts as neither innocent vandalism nor religious hate crimes.

"What it means is that it's OK to go around violating even pretty important norms, as long as real human harm isn't being done," he said. "It could be Christian kids doing it — and on Jan. 2 they become good Christians again."
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This is part of an article about how churches are using GPS devices implanted in their baby Jesus figurines, and other parts of large outdoor nativities, in order to track down the criminals/pranksters who take them year after year. Here's an idea--just chain all the figurines together. And/or permanently fix Baby Jesus into his manger in some way. Ideas for that include Super Glue, 4" galvanized deck screws, lag bolts.

Or just attach an anvil to each figurine; you can order them from ACME. That's what Wile E. Coyote, Genius, would do.

The waste is just incredible

Detroit Police to burn 572 guns

BY TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA
December 5, 2008

In another shot at crime, the Detroit Police Department is burning 572 guns today, part of the more than 4,520 firearms confiscated from the hands of criminals during 2008.

Officers expect to display the guns for the media in the Detroit Police Department's Precinct 1 garage downtown at 8 a.m., then take the weapons to an undisclosed location to burn them.
The burn will be the last one of the year. The remaining weapons will be used as evidence to prosecute those who might have used them.

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Good grief. The least they could do is reuse the metal to build a homeless shelter... or recycle it into steel beams to build a house for Habitat.

Or, here's an idea suggested by another reader via comments on this story: sell each gun to a registered user (a non-criminal) for $500 and make over $2 million for the city! That would help the schools, the libraries... hell, it would pay for 25% of what Kwame spent on shutting up the policemen he fired. I just hope the next mayor of Detroit is not as embrassingly loose with taxpayer money and can at least clean up the mess. Anything more than that would be a true miracle.

Ethan update

I've been remiss on keeping any updates going on this blog about our little guy.

Last weekend the two teeth that have been bothering him finally cut through - bottom lower, in the center. He looks cute with teeth. (OK, he looks cute anyway. :) ) He has taken to chewing on just about everything: his highchair tray, clothing, blankets, stuffed animals, the side of his binky, a finger, your hair... essentially anything he can get his hands on. He reaches out now - mostly with the right hand - to grab things with all four fingers and sort of scratch them toward himself. He's also started sleeping on his side and rolling to his side to play. He still won't sit up by himself but that's only because he wants to stand up instead.

He's also getting more protein now, with Gerber and Beech Nut turkey and chicken "dinners." He doesn't like them alone so I heat them up a little, mix them with any vegetable and then he chows. His eating has been off lately, sometimes he eats so much it's sort of freaky and other times he only wants formula. We've been trying the sippy cup here and there, with apple juice, and he seems to like playing with it. He does get some juice out of it, but not much. So far he's not had any reactions to any foods, which is a relief. He started on barley cereal a couple of days ago and seems to really like it.

He is telling big long stories now, with a lot of "blah blah blah" noises and sometimes singing "lalalalala." Occasionally we can get him laughing REALLY hard, but it's never when the video camera is on, of course. When the camera comes out, he notices it and seems to act differently. Hm, wonder where he got that??

We've had to elevate his head while he sleeps at night because he has been really congested (alternating with a runny nose too). With the mattress elevated, it comes right up to the edge of the crib rail (we keep it down). I think we'll be lowering the crib before the weekend; he'll be pulling himself up soon and don't want any mishaps.

I'm still sorting out some of the 3-6 month clothes, which don't fit, that keep surfacing in the laundry... I've got a huge tub in the basement just about full. He's definitely wearing 6 mo. stuff but there are a couple of 9 mo. size pieces he can wear. Everyone comments about how long he is now. Maybe just because he's so much bigger than he used to be! He and Katie are about the same weight but he is taller. Crazy!

Ben Stein says, don't panic (a year ago)

Reprinted from Fortune.com... Note the date. I bet Ben Stein would say some of the same things today.
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"STUPID" INVESTORS, REJOICE!

Ben Stein. Fortune. New York: Sep 3, 2007. Vol. 156, Iss. 5; pg. 59

Copyright (c) 2007 Time Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be duplicated or redisseminated without permission.

No one is too stupid to make money in the stock market. But there are many who are too smart to make money.

To make money, at least in the postwar world, all you have to do is buy the broad indexes domestically--both in the emerging world and in the developed world--and, to throw in a little certainty about your old age, maybe buy some annuities.

To lose money, pretend you're really, really clever, and that by reading financial journalism and watching CNBC, you can outguess the market day by day. Along with that, you must have absolutely no sense of proportion about money and the world at large.

For example, right now we are stewing over what everyone calls "the subprime mess" and going crazy, mourning all day and into the night--falling over ourselves to get all of the misery right, to paraphrase Evita. I'm writing this on Aug. 13, 2007, and in the past four or five weeks, the markets of the U.S. have lost some 7% of their value, or about $1 trillion.

But read on: The subprime mortgage world is about 15% of all mortgages, or $1.5 trillion worth, very roughly. About 10%--approximately $150 billion--is in arrears. Of that, something like half is in default and will likely be seized in foreclosure and sold. That comes to about $75 billion. Roughly half to two-thirds of that will be realized on liquidation, leaving a loss of maybe $37 billion. Not chump change by any means--but one-thirtieth, more or less, of what has been knocked off the stock market.

The "smart" investor nevertheless reads the papers, bails out, heads for the hills, and stocks up on canned foods. He gets a really big charge out of reading in the press that there are also problems in the mergers and acquisitions market and that some deals will not go through because there are problems raising the funds for the deal. He does not see that the total value of the U.S. major stock markets (the Wilshire 5000) is roughly $18 trillion. The value of the deals that have failed in the private equity world is in the tens of billions or less. The loss to investors--what the merger price was compared with the normalized premerger price--is in the billions. It's real money, and I could buy my wife some nice jewelry with it, but it's pennies in the national or global systems.

The "smart" investor also reads that the Fed has injected, say, $100 billion into the banking system in the last week or ten days, and says, "Aha! The whole country is vaporizing. Look how desperate the system is for money!" What he does not see is that the Fed is always either adding or subtracting liquidity and that recent moves are tiny in the context of a nation with a money supply in the range of $12 trillion. No, the "smart" investor is far too busy looking for reasons to run for cover and thinks he can outsmart long-term trends.

The stupid investor knows only a few basic facts: The economy has not had one real depression since 1941, a span of an amazing 66 years. In the roughly 60 rolling-ten-year periods since the end of World War II, the S&P 500's total return has exceeded the return on "risk-free" Treasury long-term bonds in all but four ten-year periods--the ones ending in 1974, 1977, 1978, and 2002. The first three of these were times of seriously flawed monetary policy that allowed stagflation, and the last one was on the heels of the tech crash and the worst peacetime terrorist attack in the history of the Western world.

The inert, lazy, couch potato investor (to use a phrase from my guru, Phil DeMuth, investment manager and friend par excellence) knows that despite wars, inflation, recession, gasoline shortages, housing crashes in various parts of the nation, riots in the streets, and wage-price controls, the S&P 500, with dividends reinvested, has yielded an average ten-year return of 243%, vs. 86% for the highest-grade bonds. That sounds pretty good to him.

The "smart" investor, in a bunker in the Montana wilderness, keeps his money in gold bullion. After all, he's heard that home prices are falling slightly nationwide and a lot in some areas (he ignores areas of rising prices like San Francisco and New York City). He says that this will discourage the consumer and lead to a severe, bottomless recession. He even has bald people on TV telling him he's right to worry.

The stupid investor, the guy who just lies on his couch, knows that the consumer is always about to stop buying and never quite does. Maybe someone in his bowling club has told him there has only been one year since 1959 when consumer spending fell--and that was barely, in 1980. Somehow, if the consumer could keep spending after the bursting of the tech bubble wiped out $7 trillion or so of wealth, maybe the consumer can keep spending even if the subprime "mess" wipes out roughly half of 1% of that tech-bubble loss and the stock market has a fit. And maybe he knows that, even if there is a recession, recessions rarely last more than two quarters, and the economy and the stock market revive mightily after that--and that buying stocks in a recession is a good idea, not a bad idea.

Now, the alert reader may at this point be saying, "Hey, that 'stupid' guy who's really smart is a long-term investor. That's why he's doing so well." Correctamundo, alert reader. There used to be a saying: "Bulls make money and bears make money, but hogs get slaughtered." I am not sure that was ever true, but it sure ain't now. The real story is that long-term investors who have some sense of proportion make money. Short-term investors who live and die by the sweep-second hand of the $300,000 watch get rich fast and poor fast and sometimes are slaughtered faster. I have no advice for them except that the next train may be bringing in someone a little younger who's a little faster on the draw and a lot hungrier, so they'd better enjoy their Gulfstream while they have it.

For the rest of us, the stock market is cheap on a price-earnings basis, profits are fabulous, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani are far from being socialists and in the long run, both here and abroad, stocks are a lovely place to be. I have no idea what the S&P will be ten days from now, but I am confident it will be a lot higher ten years from now, and for most Americans, that's what we need to think about. The subprime and private equity and hedge fund dogs may bark, but the stock market caravan moves on.

A serious topic

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day: Take Action

October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in the United States. More than 25,000 children are stillborn in the United States every year leaving mothers, entire families and communities devastated. Estimates of the rate of occurrence of stillbirth make it at least as common as autism.

Stillbirth is not an intractable problem. Greater research would likely significantly reduce its incidence, but good research requires good data.

H.R. 5979: Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act is under consideration by Congress. This proposed bill would standardize stillbirth investigation and diagnosis, thus providing more data for the needed research. Better research means fewer children born still.

On October 15th, remember the thousands of unfinished children lost and the families who remain to grieve them. Honor them by taking action. Let's help pass H.R. 5979. Write to your congressman!!

I'm with Gigglechick - an undecided voter

The one blog I read on a regular basis, http://www.gigglechick.com/erin/blog/index.htm, is a personal blog of a woman my age who lives in NJ. She lives with/takes care of her chronically ill mother while also trying to work at home, doing web design for comedians (hence the "giggle" part of her blog's name). She has a pretty interesting and social life, and every day struggles that she is brave enough to post out there for all to see. So maybe I am nosy, bored, or I'm just trying to live vicariously through her single life, I don't know.

Anyway, as I fell asleep last night I thought I had mostly made up my mind about who to vote for. But there are definitely limitations on each of the candidates and what they will actually be able to accomplish in Washington, and I'm not sure I agree on their stands on several issues. (I guess that is how most of the Presidential elections have gone the past few years -- vote the lesser of the two evils and hope for the best.)

So I thought I would check in with the Giggle blog today and see where she stood on this. She's been a pretty fervent Hillary supporter, and I decided a while back that I would just agree to disagree with her politics... up to this point. Surprisingly, today Giggle says this on her blog, and I am in complete agreement:

"I hope that Palin does well tonight, not because I am rooting for her, but, because if she looks like a complete moron and gets devoured by Biden tonight, it just sets women back. I am a woman without a party at the moment."

Palin seems to me, and has from her introduction to the election campaign, a loose cannon. She doesn't know what she doesn't know and that is a dangerous place to be in for a second-in-command political candidate. She can prep all she wants for this debate tonight, but until I hear her respond to a question with a straight answer, and I can tell it's coming from her and not some talking point she memorized, I just can't be impressed. I saw a few minutes of one of her interviews with Katie Couric last night. When Katie asked her to give some examples of Supreme Court decisions besides Roe v. Wade that she disagreed with, her eyes literally GLAZED OVER and you could tell she had no idea what to say. Then her response was some non-answer about how not all the decisions of the Supreme Court are going to be popular with everyone... no shit.

I just hope tonight that she uses her charm and wit and smile as a backdrop for a showcase of some real knowledge and analysis of issues; in other words, I hope she speaks intelligently. Not that that alone would convince me to vote for her ticket. I'd also have to hear some concrete plans on how her administration could get our domestic problems taken care of, and not just in the short-term. I want her to do well tonight because I don't want our gender to be embarrassed. We have finally made some headway as professional women in this country and I hope she doesn't send us back 30 years by talking like a moron in front of 70 million people.

This reminds me of "The Story of Pi" - only a better ending

Riding out Ike on an island, with a lion

By ALLEN G. BREED, AP National Writer Tue Sep 16, 11:52 PM ET

BOLIVAR PENINSULA, Texas - Many years from now, a small group of Hurricane Ike survivors will probably still be telling the story of how, on the night the storm flattened their island, they took sanctuary in a church — with a lion.

The full-grown lion was from a local zoo, and the owner was trying to drive to safety with the animal when he saw cars and trucks stranded in the rising floodwaters. He knew he and the lion were in trouble.

He headed for the church and was met by a group of residents who helped the lion wade inside, where they locked it in a sanctuary as the storm raged. The water crept up to their waists, and two-by-fours came floating through broken windows. But the lion was as calm as a kitten.
When daylight came, everyone was still alive.

"They worked pretty well together, actually," said the lion's owner, Michael Ray Kujawa. "When you have to swim, the lion doesn't care about eating nobody."

At the Baptist church on Bolivar Island where the lion spent the night, Richard Jones, a shrimper, said he wasn't afraid of the beast.

"That little old fella is just as tame as a kitten," Jones said.

After the storm passed, the lion's caretakers fed it pork roast to keep it happy.

National Guardsmen dropping off food and water lined up Tuesday in the choir loft to get a glimpse of the lion, and the soldiers jumped back when the lion looked up from its perch on the altar and snarled.

Jones said he hadn't stepped foot in a church in the 40 years he has lived on this spit of land. And he wasn't ready to call his survival divine intervention. "I drink beer and chase women, gamble, cuss," Jones said. "You can't call that religion. I'm either too good, the devil won't have me, or I'm so bad the Good Lord won't take me. That's a good toss-up."

"Better to be pissed off than pissed on"

OK... This post has been rattling around in my head for a while and I "just can't take no more."

Where has all the bathroom etiquette gone??

The last few days here at the office, when I've gone into our floor's ladies room, EVERY TIME, I have walked into a stall that either has:

1) leftovers in the toilet--EWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
2) residuals in the toilet -- almost as bad as item #1, or
3) a giant wad of toilet paper that didn't flush

Ladies... take a look behind you when you're done flushing. It won't take long -- give 'er a second courtesy flush, for all concerned, if you're in doubt that your "extras" willl go down the pipes. This includes you germaphobes who use the tissue-paper "seat covers." Like those keep you from "getting" anything.

On a related note, wipe off the seat if you leave anything there. You know who you are.

And how have these same people, who can't seem to get the concept of flushing what should not be left for others, need a SECOND garbage can in the vestibule between the bathroom entry doors for their "I don't want to touch the door handle" paper towels? Not only is this ridiculously wasteful - even if we do use 60% post-consumer content hand towels - you're still going to get the same damn germs from passing intercompany mail around, touching the copier buttons, the elevator buttons and all the OTHER door handles in the place. I'm all for washing your hands and that seems to be happening, but really.

As for discussions in the bathroom between stalls... keep it free of swears, evil gossip, details of your child's delivery/any one else's terrible birthing stories, gory descriptions of health issues you or others may be having, etc. We'd all prefer that you just didn't talk at all. Do your thing and get out. Neatly.

(HUH!) Researcher says bigfoot just a rubber gorilla suit

By JUANITA COUSINS, Associated Press Writer Wed Aug 20, 1:22 AM ET

ATLANTA - Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit.

Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice — handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it — was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit.

The revelation comes just days after a much ballyhooed news conference was held in California to proclaim that the remains of the creature found in the North Georgia mountains was the legendary man-ape.

Steve Kulls, executive director of squatchdetective.com and host of Squatchdetective Radio, says in a posting on a Web site run by Bigfoot researcher Tom Biscardi that as the "evidence" was thawed, the claim began to unravel as a giant hoax.

First, the hair sample was burned and "melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair," Kulls said in the posting.

The thawing process was sped up and the exposed head was found to be "unusually hollow in one small section." An hour of thawing later and the feet were exposed — and they were found to be made of rubber.

Uh-huh. "Bigfoot’s press conference reveals possum DNA"

By BOB KEEFE Cox News Service
Friday, August 15, 2008

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Bigfoot lived in North Georgia, and his cousins are still there. That’s what a pair of Clayton County outdoorsmen claim.

But if they have definitive evidence to prove it, it wasn’t presented at a press conference here Friday where they had said they would make believers out of everyone. Dozens of mostly skeptical reporters showed up, lured by a flurry of interest in the story since pictures of the supposed discovery hit the Internet late last month.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer said a second round of DNA testing (on what they claim is a dead 7-foot bigfoot they say they stumbled upon while hiking in June in North Georgia) is still being completed.

Of three samples in a preliminary DNA test, one came back inconclusive, one contained traces of human DNA and one had traces of opossum DNA -- probably from something the creature ate, they said.

They didn’t produce a body -- that’s in a hidden location, they said, after being moved from a freezer that broke down a couple of times. They also wouldn’t say exactly where they found the creature, and where they claimed they saw a band of others watching them. And they won’t let anyone but their own hand-picked scientists examine the body.

And hell is freezing over tomorrow.

Two men in Georgia claim they've found Bigfoot, and are supposedly doing a news conference on it later today. Hey, it could be real. But I liked this article's sarcastic tone.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-15-bigfoot_N.htm?csp=34

Another golf post...can you tell I'm going through withdrawal?

This is pretty cool!

GAYLORD, Mich.

For somebody who'd been playing golf 50 years and never had a hole-in-one, Bob Hickey got the hang of it quickly. The 66-year-old Grayling man used a 7-iron to card his first-ever ace Thursday on the 167-yard 10th hole at Marsh Ridge in Gaylord. Then Hickey used an 8-iron to ace the 147-yard 17th hole.

According to a 2000 Golf Digest article cited by the Traverse City Record-Eagle, the odds of one player making two holes-in-one during the same round are 67 million to 1. Hickey, who finished at 2-over-par 74, says he'd made two eagles but never came close to a hole-in-one before Thursday. The long-haul trucker says he thinks he benefited from "just pure luck."
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Information from: Traverse City Record-Eagle, http://www.record-eagle.com