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As earlier reported, I have tons to do today. The last two days have been hectic and this has left me dangerously behind in my work. I have to complete my talk for tonight about The Fiery Furnace, with the ministry skill of overcoming fear.

Plus, I still have to pack to leave for Huntington, finish reading my assignments and take care of golf practice. The bad news is that I don’t have oodles of time to work with. I was so exhausted last night that I crashed on the couch at about 9:30 PM and didn’t move until 7:30 AM. I haven’t done that for quite a while!

On the schooling front. The book I am reading for class is fantastic. Since the class is on student leadership and I just happen to be launching that part of the ministry soon… it’s perfect timing. Things can come right out of the classroom and into practice. Amazing.

The Bulldogs were victorious last night versus their nearby rivals from Eisenhower HS. Varsity golfers Nate Stevens and Chris Capai led the charge with rounds of 36 and 39 at the home course, Romeo Golf & CC. The final tally was 157-165. This put Romeo at 3-2 in the MAC Red division.

In other varsity news, Romeo finished 4th overall at the Evans-Gil Invitational on Monday. Nate was again low round with a 79.

On the JV side, the Bulldogs pounced on Eisenhower 170-177.

A few things that have torqued me off in the past 24 hours. All of which I am handling well and aren’t effecting my life too much. But they still annoy me.

1. We lost to GPN. I can’t explain it, but the head coach just gave up fighting with them and gave it to them. It is now virtually impossible to win the MAC Red.
2. The golf team continues to play like crap. It wouldn’t be so annoying if they were terrible golfers who played really hard and lost. It makes me mad when I see really good golfers slack off, play like crap and not give a rip.
3. Megan’s preschool meeting was an annoyance. I really hated it when the leader said “your child’s teachers are partners with you in raising your children.” That’s BS. They aren’t our partners, they are our employees. We pay them to teach our children because they are experts at teaching, but God has not ordained them to be parents of my children.
4. We had a near coup with my student leadership kids. I know they are frustrated because they want to step up but are lacking instructions… But this is by design. I just can’t wait any longer to start developing them as leaders or they will sour on me. I had to put them in check this morning, I hate that.
5. I’m not getting anywhere with our summer 2005 mission trip. I want it nailed down soon. I know it’s my own fault, but I’m still POed about it!
6. There are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. I’m trying to finish my reading for grad school, I have to prepare a talk on Daniel 3 today, I have to lead the whole golf team this afternoon and get them started on a match with Eisenhower, I have to get this jr high retreat scheduled and I have about 100 e-mails to send out.
7. I had to turn down a ticket to the Ryder Cup! I can’t believe I said no. A parent from the golf team invited me and I was simply booked on that day. I hate being responsible! I could have gone to the opening ceremonies of the biggest golf event of the year.

OK, I feel better now. I vented.

Again, I stand at the top of a tall mountain called my week. There is still lots to do. Thankfully, the past week was very productive and I managed to stay ahead of everything.

Monday: Getting a big jump on my Wed. night talk will help. I’m talking about the fiery furnace found in Daniel 3. Also, need to pound out some serious reading time for my grad school class. I have to complete reading this little book called Contagious Faith. I’d also like to draft a schedule for our Sr. High retreat and put in some calls about our Jr. High retreat. The more I get finalized on that stuff this week, the better. This afternoon I have golf practice at Romeo GC until 5:00 ish as well as a parent’s meeting for Megan’s preschool tonight.

Tuesday: Bible studies at 6:15 AM and 6:15 PM. In the middle continue with leftovers from Monday. In the afternoon I will be in charge of a golf match vs. Eisenhower.

Wednesday: See You at the Pole is at 7:00 AM. We’ll see if that really happens or not. At this point, I think it’s about run it’s course. Finalize my talk. Golf practice. Light Force. Leave for Huntington.

Thursday/Friday: Grad school at Huntington.

Saturday: Off day, watch college football.

Sunday: Normal morning duties, go to Ann Arbor for Lost & Found concert with my adult leaders.

Another killer week. It’s good to be alive!

Apparently I was very subconsciously bothered by the horror that had become my golf game. Today I again landed at a place where I could work on my game. I rolled over to Greystone GC (Romeo was closed for and outing) and they were happy to supply me with unlimited balls since there were tons left over from an outing earlier in the day. I must have hit 300 balls.

I was driving the ball great. I worked a little more on getting my hands perpendicular to the target by training my brain to hold the club back further in the stance. While this feels retarded, it is actually a good alignment. From that point on I was able to feel my hips and hands releasing at impact and ripping the ball again. No more pain. Of course, this radical change to my address is not without it’s problems. Mainly, I now have a tendency to hit the ball a little right with the irons and even a bit of a slice with the driver. However, the ball is flying a lot better. In the middle of the session I had the 7 iron dialed in and was pouncing on the flag at 160 yards. Two strokes in a row I flew it inside 3 feet of the cup, took a big hop and stopped.

I also got back to the 65 yard money shot I had down earlier in the year. I’ve got that flying right on the target line every time and it’s just a matter of lengthening the shot for distance. (I worked on the Ernie Els “nipper” shot a few times and was only able to get it to work 3-4 times. A nipper is a shot that is hit like a very crisp and hard chip. It hits the green with a tremendous amount of backspin, hops once and stops. It’s awesome when it works but it’s like hitting a flop off the fairway. Pretty when it works but ugly if you hit it heavy.) I must have used over 100 balls on the little 65 yard shot alone.

One more day of practice and I’ll be ready to play again on Monday. It seems I’ve gotten past that embarrassment.

IN OTHER NEWS: I received my one book for grad school and have gotten a good run on it. I leave for Huntington in only 5 days.

I just got back from hitting about 150 8 irons at the church. I seem to have some parts put back together. Here is a small list of the things I was doing wrong.

– Grip was closing the face.

– Hooding the club (hands in front of face at address)

– Too narrow at address which leads to natural loss of power

– Left foot squared, but not at 10 o’clock which prevented my hips from clearing at impact

All of this resulted in a closed, hooded shot with my hands well ahead of the clubhead at impact… Thus effectively delivering a massive pull hook every time! I plan on working the long irons and woods tomorrow. More after that.

Not too long ago I would write on my blog that I was unhappy with a 40-41 score. Well, those days are history. For the last several weeks my golf game has officially been on vacation. It seems that perhaps I made too many equipment changes right before the high school season took off. I just cannot depend on my swing right now. It’s either a dead hook, a big push to the right or dead on. The trouble is that I can’t predict which swing will pop up at any given moment.

I’ve played with some friends over the past few weeks and been embarrassed. There just isn’t any other word to describe it. During the summer months, I could plug a tee into the ground and just rip the ball down the fairway. Now, one the first tee I dream of any kind of a fairway. All of the clubs in my bag are failing me. Even my beloved 6 iron got away from me a couple of times today.

I suppose the only way for me to work this out is just plain old fashioned work. The bad news there is that it would take some time which I presently don’t have. I’m hoping to get to the range 2-3 times things weekend. Hoping.

Today was a pretty good day for the Bulldogs. Despite terrible rounds by all of our varsity players [that is, except Nate who carries us on his back] we still managed to hold off a very weak Utica Ford II team 168-169.

On the JV side things were a little easier as they sailed in 173-177. Next week we should be able to pull ahead a little bit from the pack as we have Eisenhower on Tuesday.

Forget all the stuff about Vietnam. Both Kerry and Bush were in some regards idiots the best I can tell. Both were little rich kids with agendas. Neither man should be basing a political campaign on events from 35 years ago anyway. Let the American people note be confused. This election is about major issues.

Here are some thoughts that were brought to light on the YS boards and my “not so politically correct answers.” For the record, though I am not a card carrying republican, it just so happens that they get most of my votes.

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QUOTE

I am voting for Kerry but I still feel that I am voting for lesser evils than the right choice. I hate that! Does anyone else fee the way I feel?

I always feel that way. So I error on the side of being conservative.I know how you feel. I’m not in love with Bush, but John Kerry is the wrong man. If they had John Edwards as the front-runner they would have a chance… but I digress.For me, there is a single issue that dictates my vote. Abortion. I cannot justify voting for anyone who is OK with killing babies. This dictates my vote from local elections on up. Sad, but true.But I will disagree with the stuff about Kerry caring for the middle class. Under Bush I have been freed up tax wise in unprecedented ways. I expect that if Kerry wins I will be paying 2-3 times more taxes within 4 years. His plan will put less money in my pocket, which I don’t like. The health care has nothing to do with Bush. Here’s a little history lesson that Bush would be wise to start looking at. (I used to work for a monster health insurer, I know why these increases are happening.) In 1993 Bill Clinton inacted HIPPA. Now, on the outset HIPPA was a good thing. It ensured that insured people could take their coverage with them anywhere in the country. So, being insured in MI I would get covered if I got hurt while vacationing in FL. This part of HIPPA went into effect in 1998 for all of the BCBS plans and barely raised rates an inch. However, the vast majority of health care cost increases come from HIPPA’s dirty little secret. Hidden inside the bill were privacy laws that have literally ground hospitals and insurers to a hault. Besides the billions of dollars of HIPPA training the federal government forced insurers and providers to pay for (Who do you really think paid for this?) each company had to re-write how they do business. (Who do you think they passed this cost off to?) Now, under these new privacy laws insurers cannot use any personal information as identifiers. (Who do you think pays for this?) If you call about a bill, under HIPPA the hospital may not be able to tell you things about your bill without your doctors permission. (Who do you think pays for this?) HIPPA requires that everything containing medical information not be sent to landfills but be shredded and burned? (Who do you think pays for this?) I could go on and on. All of these privacy laws are bad. Not a single one of them prevents anyone from hacking into computer databases and stealing personal information. But they all prevent insurers from doing their jobs effeciently and cheaply, taking full advantage of technology. They all slow down claims, which raises rates! (Who do you think pays for that!) You may be wondering how a bill that was signed into law in 1993 didn’t effect health insurance rates until Bush’s term. Well, the darned thing was so nasty to understand and train for that no one was ready when it was supposed to go into effect, plus we had to deal with the Y2K fraud, that the federal government delayed inacting the privacy parts of the law until 11/1/00. Long story short, don’t blame Bush for increased health insurance rates. This has everything to do with the Clinton administration… by the way… HIPPA has been good for some people. Computer programmers, document shredders, white collar administrators for hospitals/health insurers. But all of those new facets to the business add another layer of cost to you as the consumer.

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QUOTE (Theresa @ Sep 9 2004, 08:45 AM)

It may be more urgent to get someone into office before the country goes bankrupt. Since the United States economy controls all of the rest of the worlds economy… I don’t think we have to worry about this. I think the tally has gotten to a couple trillion dollars in the early 90s. Besides, who would the federal government file for chapter 11 with? France?PA

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I would like to point out that a huge reason for rising health care costs in our country are trial lawyers like John Edwards who sue and sue and sue, often times in situations where the wrong people are sued for the wrong reasons etc…don’t have time to go into it, but look into that before you’re quick to criticize Bush/Cheney for healthcare costs.

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QUOTE (estall @ Sep 9 2004, 08:58 AM)

No, I do not blame Bush for healthcare. I do blame him for what is happening in Iraq. Therefore, I think he needs to be fired.Ed I think it’s a little funny that you are contradicting yourself. The United States has taken a stand on terrorism. The United States has taken issue with a rogue nation that refused to live under United Nations rulings as they agreed to do. Bottom line is that Sadaam Hussein broke 1441 with the ramifications being his removal of power. Under the Geneva convention, when a nation does this they are responsible for rebuilding the nation… which is what we are doing. So you think it’s wrong that the president took a stand against a man who slaughtered and gassed his own people? Yet at the same time, the bottom of your post says the exact opposite.

QUOTE

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Elie WieselPretty contradictory… don’t you think?John Kerry has promised to “work with other nations” on solving the problem of Iraq. Who? Germany, France and Russia. Three nations that only exist because of American presidents taking a strong stand against oppressors and living up to the statement of Elie Wiesel. Pretty cute.

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I just thought these opinions were worth sharing elsewhere. We shall see how bad I get flamed!

As promised, the trip to Grosse Pointe sucked. Our students played well and it seems as though they have held out for the victory, but it still hangs in the balance. Believe it or not, 24 hours later we are not the official winner. There was a discrepancy with one of the groups on the final hole. As it turns out, their coach initiated a ruling after the foursome had already decided on what to do.

Now that this is in the open we should be declared the winner by a score of 165-166. Let me say this again, I hate going down there.

We look forward to a home match with Ford II tomorrow. This should be an easy victory for the Bulldogs and put us back into our rightful 1st place in the MAC Red.