As you can probably tell, I did not get a chance to upgrade my WordPress install to v1.5 this weekend. In fact, I didn’t spend more than a couple of hours total this weekend on the computer.
Oh, I’m not complaining about it…it was a nice respite.
Instead I spent the entire weekend visiting and playing with my brother and his kids who were in town visiting from Houston.
Friday Night — Dinner
They came in early on Friday evening, and we all went out for a Tex-Mex dinner. My niece (3) and two nephews (4, 6) are getting old enough now to order their own meals when they go out. So nearly everybody has ordered their food, and the waitress gets around to the oldest boy, who is sternly looking over the menu. Finally he says, “I’ll have a salad, with Ranch dressing. Oh, and extra tomatoes, please.” The waitress looks stunned. Everybody else at the table has ordered about 3000 calories of cheesy, sour cream-topped Mexican food each, and this little 6 year old simply orders a salad. Because that’s what most normal 6 year olds order at a restaurant.
The waitress is standing there with her jaw hanging. The little impish hippie waitress instantly fell in love with my nephew. When dinner was over, the two youngest kids ordered the “ice cream surprise” from the kid’s menu for desert. The waitress asked the oldest if he wanted ice cream too, and he nonchalantly replied, “No thanks, I have baseball tryouts next week.”
I thought the waitress was going to cry.
Saturday — Disc Golf and Robotic Dinosaurs
Marty and I headed out to Pease Park to play in the weekly Saturday mini. Despite there being two big sanctioned events this weekend, and despite the drizzling, wet weather, there was a good turnout at the Park. I think we had 15-16 in the Advanced division.
Marty has been kicking my ass lately in the last 4-5 tournaments that we’ve played in together, but on Saturday we were on my home course. I didn’t play particularly well, but played consistently; I played for par on every hole and took the birdies when I could. I ended up shooting -1 for 21 holes, which was good enough for a tie for second place with 15 year old Ian Hovey (I beat Ian on the third hole of our play-off for the second place cash). Ric Johnson, a lifer in the AM division, easily won with a -7—which would have won the Pro Open division too, which was won by Mike Suida at -3.
Marty was 7 strokes back from me at +6.
We got home and showered, packed up the kids, and headed to the Austin Children’s Museum for the opening of a new interactive robotic dinosaur exhibit, Making Tracks. There were no fewer than 10 million kids running amok at the museum. The display was interesting, but a lot of the ‘learning’ experience was lost on the kids, who just wanted to play.
In fact, they spent more time in the Austin City Limits music room than they did in the dinosaur exhibit. The Austin City Limits music room is a recreation of Austin’s famous live music television show. The kids can produce, sing, play instruments, and dance away on stage while watching themselves on numerous monitors around the stage.
Sunday — More Disc Golf
Sunday morning was warm and muggy. So Marty and I took the 6 year old with us for a round of disc golf at Zilker Park (Shannon took Marty’s wife, Tina, and the other two kids to watch Son of the Mask).
Zilker Park is a small disc golf course (only 9 holes), so we knew Nykolas (my nephew) would be able to play and have a good time. We played two rounds (18 holes) and were tied at -3 (Nykolas didn’t really keep his score, as he didn’t completely play every hole…but that kid has a great flick shot for a 6 year old…with many of his drives going 100-150′).
We decided to play a 9-hole playoff. After 9 holes I was up by 2 shots (-4 to -2). Marty, being too competitive to quit, said we were playing 36 holes. So we did. And when it was over, I still had a 2 stroke win.
We ended up playing 9 more holes anyway (45 total for the day), and I beat him by 2 strokes on the final nine.
During the 45 holes I broke in my DX Orc driver, which I had picked out as part of my winnings the day before at Pease. I have been throwing Champion Orcs as my primary driver since they came out last year, and have also recently started throwing the Pro Orcs too. But I fell in love with my DX Orc—it has the grippiness of the Pro Orc, but it’s not as flippy (under stable). It seems to be about as stable as the Champion Orc, but with the grippiness and glide of the Pro Orc. It looks like I’ve found a new primary driver.
