Rat Droppings

Birdies and Bogeys!
181

Speaking of old things…and something I’ve always known to be true, I received this e-mail the other day:

[b]
New Direction for any war: Send Service Vets over 60!

I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I’m too old to track down terrorists. You can’t be older than 42 to join the military. They’ve got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn’t be able to join a military unit until you’re at least 35.

For starters, researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven’t lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. ‘My back hurts! I can’t sleep, I’m tired and hungry.’ We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for awhile…

An 18-year-old doesn’t even like to get up before 10am. Old guys always get up early to pee, so what the hell. Besides, like I said, I’m tired and can’t sleep and since I’m already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical son-of-a-bitch.

If captured we couldn’t spill the beans because we’d forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.

Boot camp would be easier for old guys… We’re used to getting screamed and yelled at and we’re used to soft food. We’ve also developed an appreciation for guns. We’ve been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however… I’ve been in combat and never saw a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too… I’ve never seen anyone outrun a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He’s still learning to shave, to start a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn’t figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm’s way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons, who know that their best years are already behind them.[/b]

This is me all the way…sign me up…I may not be able to run a 4 minute mile anymore, but I can damn sure sit on the back of a Jeep with a 50-caliber and light it up with the best of them, and when I’m done it’s time for a well deserved nap! :laughing:

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RR,
Lot of truth in all that…and funny, made me laugh…a lot of that stuff rings a bell. But I know war is serious business.

I’d want to be in your platoon. They got any golf courses over there?

183

Not sure, but a practice firing range would be an easy conversion to a driving range :laughing: …and we probably have our share of heavy-duty earth moving equipment already there so why not a challenging layout…I think desert greens are called brownies.

Sure…only one rule and one rule only for engagement:

Sizzling steaks and pan fried trout for jobs well done. :slight_smile:

184

Hahaha,

youtu.be/KZwr4xLajfA

older armed golfers are exceptionally dangerous it seems …

185

Wow I thought I was kurmudgeonly… FYI there’s a full 18 hole course, apparently a pretty nice one less than a mile from Osama’s crib, walking distance away. I’d guess a Pizza Hut too but can’t confirm.

186

Wow…a heated discussion going on at the range between Rat and some other range rats that are frequent flyers at the range all of whom are pure swingers…with plane sticks on the ground, checking backswing positions, insisting that a full roll release is absolutely necessary in order to square things up.

These guys just don’t get it. I haven’t been too revealing about things because they are so argumentative, so have given some cryptic clues along the way but they still don’t get it. It’s not what they are doing is wrong, it’s just that they don’t see that there can be alternative to timing in a strict in-line sense at impact.

It is pretty amazing to me that things we do naturally in everyday life, and that has loads of physics involved instead of geometry, are simply not fully recognized by some…and it is right there in front of their eyes if they pay attention to what is really going on.

I gave the most fervent doubter a raw steel shaft and said to pretend it was a tree branch that you were going to snap in half. Told him to grab it at both ends and do what he needed to do in order for the shaft to snap in the middle. He did so flawlessly, but when I asked him what and HOW he did that, all he could eventually say , after analyzing the process for many minutes, was that he was applying pressure downwards and inwards.

I kept pressing but he couldn’t narrow in to what was really happening. The oppositional forces at play: the right hand pressuring down and in clockwise and the left hand pressuring down and in counter-clockwise.

He’ll have to figure that out for himself. You can take a horse to the water, but can’t force it to drink.

Having some fun with where low point actually is and how it helps save right arm…but again, the questioning eyes of others will be quick to point out that the process will inhibit the ability to “roll” through the zone.

Oh well… :smiley:

187

This slipped by almost unnoticed. Must be old age, but this is really a good way to view things. Leaving the line, like you mentioned some time ago, and letting the flight happen as a result of that process is real important. I see it as tangential acceleration resulting from leaving the “line”. Difficult concept for some to comprehend, and difficult to explain to others that not trying to hit the ball straight linear based on what we “see” is what makes it go straight, Now for a Bommism:

From the curve comes the straight.

Great stuff as always Bom. :slight_smile:

188

Nongolf…but of old school rock interest …

Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Richie Furay) has some members reuniting near LA now, and in a few days at Bannaroo in Tennessee. June 11th. That’d be a good one to catch I bet. Watch out for the red pills though.

189

This is pretty cool. Less than 2 years ago a couple baby Canadian geese were abondoned in a nearby marsh area. We don’t know what happed to their mother goose, but they seemed to be struggling for survival, so we took them in and placed them in the chicken coop with the other hens and roosters.

The geese and chickens became good friends and were like family. The ducklings grew up with the chickens and we weren’t sure how they learned to fly, but one day they simply left with a flock of geese we presume because they were simply gone! In our area we have many geese that land on the range property and a nearby golf course. When the 2 geese left we were happy to know that they had found a home.

Day before yesterday a flock of geese passed over the range heading to the golf course and two geese peeled off the flock and headed toward the chicken coop. We can’t be sure if those were the two geese or not, but you tell me. Here are two geese in the backyard of a rental property that has a chicken coop. 2 geese jumped into the coop and start eating from the chicken feeder. The roosters and hens took it all in stride. If there was any stress involved the roosters would have been flapping their wings and going crazy.

Coolest thing I think I ever saw. Maybe you had to be there to appreciate what happened, but while the rest of the flock continued on it’s way to the golf course to eat some grass, 2 canadian geese returned to home and feasted on some fine, grade A chicken feed…we think.

They stuck around for about an hour to eat and visit…then left to find their flock. I hope they don’t tell their geese buddies about where the free food is…could be expensive!

Just goes to show you…home is where the heart is. :slight_smile:

190

There was a side-by-side of Hogan’s logo and a German swastika a few pages back that seems to be gone…or at least I couldn’t find it. Was it deleted or was it moved elsewhere :question:

191

Mystery solved. Received a PM from a forum member who found the post offensive.

Funny how emotional curtains work…just when we think we have them under control and open for objective analysis that stretches the realm of possibility, we soon find out our curtains are really partially closed.

Enough said.

192

Movie recommendation…nongolf…but plenty of laughs.

Borrowing RR’s thread for this. Apologies for not being golf relevant, but a good shallow comic movie is hard to beat.

“Mr Popper’s Penguins” with Jim Carrey. He’s a complete fool, and there is a relevant Father’s Day theme.

193

Here’s a picture showing one of the grass tee areas. The old white house in the background is where we keep all the heavy equipment. This house is rented by our mechanic…he’s real good with wrenches.

The owner of the range, who still works it daily, is 92 years old and is the strongest, most active, man for his age one will ever see. He grew up on this property and lived in the white house as a child farming the land. Nothing gives him more enjoyment riding the tractors picking up balls and washing them.

I sometimes kid him that when he is out on the back 40 picking up balls he is reliving his childhood imagining he is plowing corn rows instead of picking up balls…he just gives me a warm smile in return. A great man.

The house, btw, is pretty old. It was built in the late 1800’s and still to this day has carbide gas lines in the walls. Back in the day gas lamps inside the house was used for lighting.
house.jpg

Guess who…me sitting in my “corporate office” lounging a little. Check out “those guns” :laughing: …but they work!
rat.jpg

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Thanks for those pix RR. Nice background info too and a great set up there. Looking forward to your future posts.

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Yep. Good pix RR. Can you plant some azaleas around there?

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The front counter… and some of our more profitable delicacies: Slim Jims and Beef Jerky.

Slim Jims are 3 for a buck, and the Jerky is 79 cents each…we will ship if needed only for ABS members. :laughing:
counter.jpg

197

Looks like there is a nice blade in that bin!

198

Blades? Yes we have a few here and there and some persimmons too. Irons are free to use and persimmons cost a buck to rent. I recall mentioning when I first found the forum that we have “classic” gear that customers bang away on. That was until I understood how “classic” is defined. I thought it simply meant “old stuff”. Old gear we have, classic in the real sense of the word is seldom seen around our parts. A few people still come to the range with persimmons and blades, but they are certainly not classic- but we do see a few on occasion.

Even the ones I sometimes use to practice with at the range—Tourney irons ( the cheaper version ) and Hagen Center Weighted laminates…aren’t really classic models. But I do like hitting them again.

We have boatloads of metal woods that we buy for a buck at a local show for customers that don’t have their own gear.

It is amazing how much damage a customer can do to a metal wood. Some hit everypart of the club…crown included…and think nothing of it. I’ll have to get some pictures up showing the condition the wood is in when returned to us. The kids…well we had to include rule #8 on our sign after a few injuries happened.
sign.jpg

Saw this one day years ago while sitting in my corporate office. This guy brings his friend to the range to learn golf. :open_mouth: The friend never swung a golf club in his life according to the guy afterwards. So the friend is on the mat ( check the picture to see the white metal fencing that separates the mats ) and the guy tells him to just put the ball on the tee and hit it as hard as you can. The friend is a big guy, big arms, etc. No problems so far while taking a few warm up swings.

Puts the ball on the tee…had a waggle of sorts…fully braced…ready to hit the ball over Mt. Fugi…and just takes a massive pass at the ball.

He might have caught it off the toe as the ball immediately careened into the fence and ricocheted back in nanoseconds and hit him straight between the lookers. He had no idea what hit him, feel to his knees instantly and dropped face down into the mat. He was unconscious for a few moments…blood all over the place…and things were just cuckoo for a spell.

Got him sitting on the mat eventually…all cleaned up the best we could…and he tells the guy something like…you can have this game, I’m done! :laughing:

They leave…one and done…never saw them again. :slight_smile:

199

A few more pictures…

…looking down the stairs toward the front door.
stair1.jpg

…looking up the stairs to our “Executive Dining” area complete with donut crumbs on the floor.
stair2.jpg

…light work area.
wkarea.jpg

200

hey RR…you hire out for club RepaiR?