Short Bus Musings

Spending time with the kids does not happen as much as I would like it to these days. One of the great challenges as a parent it to keep up with what your kids love, hate, and all the little personality quirks that make them who they are. My oldest son (7) loves to draw stuff and loves mini-golf, and the thing he draws the most is his own mini-golf creations. He has pages and pages of the things. So, I decided that we should harness that power for good (or at least fun), and have some dad/son time in the process.

I have had some extra shelving in the garage for a while, and the thought came to me, we should make our own mini-golf set. It would have to be modular, so that you could store it, plus you would want to be able to reconfigure the hole in different ways so that you aren’t always stuck with the same thing. And, being the guy that I am, this was not going to be some shoddy attempt like a piece of carpet and a plastic ball - no, no - we are going all out! So last Saturday we set out to start our creation. Keep in mind this is a work in progress so there is more to come and I will post the added golf enhancements for your enjoyment.

We decided we should at least start off with the finishing hole, and the place where you would tee off. So, we cut out an octagon area that was about 6 feet in diameter so that you would have plenty of room. We also made a tee off area that was about 3 feet wide - not sure why - just seemed like a good size. Here was our layout:

From there, we hit the Home Depot and picked up some 1x4’s and some very fine outdoor carpet/artificial turf to provide the surface.

Now, gotta keep those golf balls in play, plus the added bonus of a bank shot, put it all together and you end up with a fun little golf hole!! Now, of course my son wants to add a bridge, some tubes that redirect the ball, and prolly a volcano, but we will work on that another day…

Baseball Barry Bonds hit for home run No. 756 to be branded with an asterisk

I love the response from the Hall of Fame - “We’re happy to get it,” he said. “We’re a nonprofit history museum, so this ball wouldn’t be coming to Cooperstown without Marc Ecko buying it from the fan who caught it.”

Here is a fresh mashup for your listening pleasure. DJ Moule does a fantastic job of mashing up Lou Reed, Wax Taylor, and The Rolling Stones in this track. Enjoy!!

Happy Monday to you! Here are some tidbits for you to start the day:

• A surprise Lost podcast posted Friday to celebrate the crash of Oceanic flight 815. To subscribe you can look it up in iTunes, or go to ABC.com.
• Ducks tried to give away a game, but out scored Stanford 31-0 in the second half to win 55-31. Ranked 11th and 12th in various polls, big game against #6 Cal this Saturday.
• Stayed steady at 220 lbs. this week. Logged 17.4 all purpose miles and am doing 50 crunches, 35 pushups, and 45 leg lifties. I actually had some interest in the 5k fun run that the school puts on each year - next year I will do it.
• Oh - and don’t forget that Heroes starts tonight!!!