Blatant Product Plug

So I hit a home run with Steph on Christmas gift this year. Our camcorder broke before we went to China, which was too bad, as we were not able to capture video of our crazy china experiences or the kids.

Now a new camcorder was out of the budget, but a friend of ours received a 'Flip Camcorder' as an early Christmas present. I was intrigued and started to to look into them... They are pretty slick.

About the size of a compact digital point and shoot camera, you definitely trade off features for size, but what you get in return is worth the trade off for what we will be taking video of these days.

We don't need a very powerful zoom right now, since the kids are not yet playing sports or in dance recitals that need zoom capabilities. We didn't use all of the bells and whistles our last camcorder had, so they are not missed on our tiny Flip Mino.

And the software it comes with is pretty slick too... It's all held on the camera itself, so no need to load anything to your computer! But I think the nicest thing is the ability to create what they call your own 'Flip Channel'. When you move your videos from the camera to the Mac/PC you can do some basic editing (trimming from the beginning and/or end) and then drag and drop them into your 'channel'. The channel allows you to save a set of e-mail addresses so that whenever you drag and drop a new video onto the channel it sends an e-mail out immediately to the distribution list letting them know that a new video has been posted.

It also allows quick and easy uploading to YouTube and Facebook.

If you don't need a lot of capability, but want a very basic camcorder that is VERY small and easily allows saving and sharing of captured memories check out the Flip!

Thank goodness for Congress!

This story broke on ESPN today... Congress is trying to legislate that you can only call a college football game a 'National Championship Game' if it is the result of a playoff.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4727426

I have so many issues with this...

1) This is what Congress chooses to spend their time on... One member of Congress responded that they can 'walk and chew gum at the same time'... indicating that they have plenty of bandwidth to tackle many hard problems at the same time... GREAT - how about: health care, jobs, the national debt, Afghanistan, Bin Laden, etc, etc, etc... I don't see how this issue even makes the top 20 of the critical issues facing our nation?

2) Some people say the action is warranted as the BCS is in anti-trust violation... I am no legal or anti-trust expert, but the way I understand it, anti-trust issues are dealt with through an investigation by the justice department, not legislating what you can or can not call a football game.

3) All this would effectively do is have the BCS rename it's game to 'The BCS Championship Game', removing the 'National' designation. Then the AP votes whoever they want (as they do today) and the Coaches vote the winner of the BCS game. Nothing changes with the exception of the use of the word 'National'. Thank goodness we have 2 houses of Congress working on this.

4) Is this even constitutional? Can Congress limit the freedom of speech to dictate who can and cannot use the term 'National Championship'? Don't I have the first amendment right to call my basketball intramural championship the 'national championship'? People can disagree and people can laugh, but don't I have that right? What harm is being done to the citizens and consumers of the United States such that you can justify the restriction of the first amendment right to freedom of speech?

Now, I feel like for the sake of truth in advertising I should explain that I am not one of the people clamoring for a playoff... I am indifferent to a college playoff. I like the bowl system as it existed before the BCS, I like the bowl system as it exists today and if there was a playoff tomorrow, I'd probably be OK with it. I just can't get that excited about how we decide who is the best set of 18-22 year old football players.

In a different post I might explain how I think that people want a playoff simply because they like playoffs and that it's not really going to accomplish determining 'the best college football team'. :)

Scappoose High School Basketball

Odd post title, huh? Especially considering my oldest is only in first grade, I don't live in Scappoose, and I work at Intel.

Well, as many of you know, my first love was basketball. I fell in love with the game as a kid and played through high school and into college. My playing career (if you would call it that) ended after 2 years of Junior Varsity Basketball at Linfield College. Then I was lucky enough to be offered a position coaching for Larry Doty. I spent a year as an assistant on both the varsity and JV coaching staff. Then my senior year I took over coaching the junior varsity team.

I loved it.

Then reality set in. I was graduating and had student loans I needed to start paying off in 6 months. So I left McMinnville and started a series of jobs that have delivered me to where I am now - a 10 year veteran of Intel Corporation.

Part of the 'when I win the lottery plan' involves going back to coaching.

So why 'Scappoose High School Basketball' post? A very good friend of mine is the first year head coach of the Scappoose boys varsity basketball team. I mentioned to him years ago that when/if he got the gig I would help him out. Well, he got the gig and he called my bluff.

After some intense negotiations between the two of us, and then negotiations between Steph and I, we collectively agreed that I would volunteer as his assistant coach with his varsity squad.

It's been hard on everyone as I try to balance my evenings between time with family and time spent coaching and scouting. It's not been easy, but to this point, I love it... Steph maybe not so much!

Intel is supportive of people volunteering in local schools, but of course my day job is #1, so the basketball team is taking a back seat to my work schedule... So really it's a part time gig as assistant coach.

We have a good group of kids that play hard. We aren't big though. Our tallest guy, while strong as a bull, is only about 6'2" tall!

Our strategy is simple... and only successful if the kids buy in: play hard for 32 minutes, tough full court man to man defense, be in the best shape of any team in our conference and push the ball up the floor every trip.

We played our first game last night at Rainier High School. Rainier was at a disadvantage with a number of their varsity basketball players still playing football as well as their Division I 6'11" center having broken his leg. They played hard given the boys they had available, but even with us only having our football players out for a couple of practices we were able to jump on them early and ran out to a 20-6 first quarter lead on our way to a 67-24 win.

First game of the season so there are plenty of things to work on, but the overall effort was very good. Kids played hard, ran hard and gave good effort... which means they understand how we want to play and are bought in for now. Opponents get better, competition gets tougher starting Saturday when we play at Cascade High School... It should be a good one!

Sabbatical Wrap Up

Many friends have been asking me about my sabbatical and I have replied with the quick answers I assume they have been looking for... Great, Wonderful, Awesome.

I think in reality my response has not been more robust for a lack of the words to describe it. It was, in no uncertain terms, the best 9 week stretch of my life.

Now, if you shrink the time frame to be much shorter, the list of 'best times in my life' would include life changing events like meeting my wife, first date with my wife, wedding day, day each of the girls were born, day The Ohio State University won the National Championship over Miami...

But if you extend the time frame and make it 9 weeks long... this was simply the best.

The first few days included our first 4th of July in Oak Hills. Normally we are with Steph's family at Lake of the Woods in Southern Oregon, which is where our hearts were this year, but having returned to the US so recently, we decided we couldn't handle the trip so soon. The celebration in Oak Hills was great. Steph's mom and step-dad came up to help us unpack boxes and spend time with the kids. The neighborhood had a parade, a BBQ lunch and then the Portland Metro Area famous Oak Hills Fireworks display. We had friends over for dinner and then took in the fireworks... it was so much fun... won't replace LOTW on a regular basis, but it was great!

Then shortly after the 4th of July and after unpacking a few more boxes we headed to the lake for nearly 2 weeks of family time. Days on the beach with the kids and our good friends (the Wing family). Pink foofoos and beers at lunch, golf with Michael and Jerry... Crazy boat rides with the kids... Family in and out the whole time we were there... it was wonderful!

Then the crown jewel of the 9 weeks... my month in Scotland. I flew out of Portland and headed to Edinburgh (via SFO and London-Heathrow). I arrived and met my good friend Ryan and we headed off on the first leg of my golf adventure. He and I moved from Ayrshire in Southeast Scotland to St. Andrews on the East coast of Scotland, then North to Aberdeen.

I dropped Ryan off in Edinburgh the same day I picked up 3 other friends and returned to St. Andrews. We rented an apartment that was perfect for four golfers and I would recommend to anyone going for a trip to St. Andrews with a similar sized group. The company was amazing the golf outstanding and the whiskey (while expensive) was superb... that is enough adjectives to choke a horse and might lead you to believe I am exaggerating, but I assure you I am not.

At the end of the 8 days with the guys I dropped them in Edinburgh and continued my trek North to the highlands and Inverness. Inverness was attractive not only for the golf, but the scenery and the distilleries. It failed to disappoint. Golf courses, while most not as famous as those in Aryshire and St. Andrews were just as challenging and just as beautiful, the people even more friendly (I would not have expected it to be possible) and the distilleries plentiful!

Having been abandoned by friends removed the distractions that kept me from missing Steph and the kids... Being alone in Inverness, even with the golf, pubs, castles and distilleries, made me homesick like never before... So I called United that first night and changed my flight information, cutting off the last city on the itinerary and coming home 4-5 days early. I surprised Steph and the kids, not letting them know until I hit SFO.

I used some miles to send Steph on a trip to Toronto to see a friend from Shanghai that had repatriated before we did, then to North Carolina to see her best friend from high school... my little peace offering for having been gone for nearly a month playing golf. I packed up the kids and headed to Seattle to see some of our good friends.

Then we all reconvened at home and settled in for the return to work and the start of school for the girls!

That's the summary... here are some of the stats on the trip that'll give you a better feel for the experience I had. It should also answer some of the questions people have asked.

Best Golf Course: Tough, tough call, but based on history and nostalgia I'd have to go with the Old Course. I still struggle to put into words the experience of hitting from the first tee, hitting over the hotel on 17 and putting on the 18th green with people surrounding the green watching - hoping you sink that birdie putt...

Best Golf Course Runner Up: Kingsbarns was a BEAUTIFUL track that I played TERRIBLY on. I was horrible, the course tough, but fair and really spectacular.

Toughest Golf Course: Much of the difficulty of the links courses is dictated by the weather. It's the weather that probably made Prestwick Golf Club the hardest course I played. 30 mile an hour winds, gusts to 40+ and lots of blind shots... this was one of the few times I was truly happy to be done with a round of golf. Carnoustie was a close runner up for the toughest course... part to do with the wind, and part to do with just being a tough track!

Best golf value: Western Gailes in Ayrshire. 115 GBP included 18 holes on their beautiful links course and lunch in the clubhouse afterwards.

Worst golf value: Turnberry in Aryshire. It had just hosted the Open Championship the week before, so the stands and leaderboards were still up, which was cool, but at 240 GBP it was overpriced for what you got - which was the golf.

Best golf shot: The 17th at The Castle Course at St. Andrews. 175 yards over the North Sea, into a slight breeze. Hole playing 190ish, I hit a 4 iron to about 8 feet and made the putt for a birdie 2. Runner up includes a 40 foot eagle putt on one of the craziest greens you'll ever see!

Worst round: 100 at Prestwick

Best round: Shot a pair of 77s in the Highlands, the best probably being on Nairn which carries a 136 slope.

Best photo op: Has to be a tie between 3 pictures: 1) Ryan and I in our knickers on the Swilcan Bridge on the Old Course (at the top of this post) 2) The foursome on the first tee at the Old Course (below) 3) Me behind the bar with Mike and Lizzie at the Dunvegan (also below)

Best caddie: John Boyne at the Old Course in St. Andrews. A long time caddie and runs a golf tour business on the side. In between my 2 visits to St. Andrews he headed off to Wales where he caddied for a Scottish woman playing in the Welsh Open.

Worst Caddie: Some lady at Cruden Bay who's name I can't remember that gave bad advice, bad yardages, could not find balls and knew no history about the course.

Best Pub: Without a doubt, the Dunvegan in St. Andrews. A 9 iron from the old course (they actually did this one night, after what I assume was much whiskey), it's a golfers haven in St. Andrews. Visitors to the pub include Open Championship winners and celebrities (as chronicled in photos around the bar) as well as just about every other pint or whiskey loving golfer to pass through St. Andrews. Jack and Sheena (Jack a yank from Texas, and Sheena a Scot) have hired a friendly staff and have a decent menu. Beer is cold and whiskey choices are plentiful.

Great side note about drinking whiskey there one night... We were working on their bottle of Auchentoshen 10 and pretty much drank it all night long... we were sitting in a corner watching golf and playing cards and drinking (a little)... I went to the bar and ordered another round and Lizzie explained that we drank them out of their bottle of Auchentoshen and that normally they would have asked us to drink something else, but given how good of customers we were, they sent someone from the bar staff to the local whiskey shop to buy another bottle for us!

Best new scotch: Auchentoshen Triple Wood; a lowland distillery outside of Glasgow... If you can find it, try it!

Best B&B: The best B&B we stayed in was in Prestwick in Ayrshire. It was Golfview Guest House and was right across from Prestwick Golf Club - home to the first 10 Open Championships. It was clean, friendly and had a large fresh cooked breakfast. All of the B&Bs were nice, but Golfview stood out.

Biggest disappointments:
1) Scotch (which in Scotland is simply called whiskey) is not cheap in Scotland. It's similar to when we were in New Zealand and expected lamb to be cheap. It's plentiful, but not necessarily cheap.
2) Aberdeen... The B&B was not very nice, the gal had lost our reservation and had to put us in a different room than was booked, the city was very commercial and gray compared to the quaint beauty of St. Andrews where we were immediately before.
3) Cruden Bay is a golf course laid out by Tom Morris north of Aberdeen. It is consistently ranked in the top golf courses in the world. I thought it was 16 decent to very good links golf holes, and 2 terrible golf holes that nearly ruined the experience. It also might have had something to do with the worst caddie in Scotland.
4) That we couldn't work it out to have Steph or the whole family join me for part of the trip.
5) I was really excited about visiting a lot of different distilleries... which I did... but after a couple, how many big copper tanks can you see and get excited about? I learned it's not about the number of distilleries you see, but finding the unique distilleries.

The top 3 highlights:
1) The Old Course
2) The Dunvegan
3) Improving my overall golf game and links golf game to reduce my handicap to 8.8

If you know anyone planning a trip to Scotland, have them get in touch with me... I have enough information to choke a horse!

Scotland - First Leg

This very well may be more of a history of this once in a lifetime trip for me to read and remember my trip later than actually be interesting to anyone else... Even my Mother - the sure lone reader of the Joe Welsh blog may draw the line at the golf / Scotland blog...

So I left Oregon emotionally conflicted... Wife and THREE small kids left behind as I chase the dream of the Old Course (and beyond) in Scotland... It's testament to the love and understanding my wife has that she let this boondoggle proceed!

Anyhow - here I am... The mother country of golf. I have chosen to start my stay in Ayrshire - the home county/parish to the first 12 Open Championships, starting in 1860 and run through 1873 (there was no Open on 1871)... Before playing the original Open Course we played the current host of the Open (Turnberry) and a current Open Qualifier (Western Gailes). Then we played the course where it all began - Prestwick! Here are some summary thoughts on this first leg of the trip...


Turnberry - Expensive... Had just hosted The Open Chamionship...beautiful views, but nothing that exceed Pebble Beach (from what I have been told) or Bandon Dunes/Pacific Dunes (which I have played)... And in Scotland the most dramatic
views go to the Castle Course (which I'll write about later) at this point, but it's early...

Turnberry had just hosted the Open and the grandstands were still up... It was weird to play the course with all the stands still in place... I can't imagine the electric vibe that must have surrounded the 18th as Tom Watson's 8 iron settled behind 18 green on the 72 hole of the tournament! I had a great Scottish caddie named Steven... a hard workin' guy with loads of local information... Medium wind and I shoot an 88 from the Trophy Tees (think white tees at your home club) with blue and black still behind (and the Championship tees still behind those!) - still a 71 slope and 125 rating.
For the money I would not play it again - unless it was discounted or included with another round at a discount. At over $300 for the round, I'll take a round and a half at Bandon Dunes or 2 rounds at the next course we played - Western Gailes.

Western Gailes - best value for the money. Wecoming clubhouse and outstanding caddies with charachter. The course was difficult but fair and playing conditions excellent... Winds were mild 15 - 20 MPH... And whe you finished, your lunch was included in the cost of the round...
At this point it was my favorite, ahead of Turnberry! My caddie - Tommy - is 72 years old and still carrying the bag as well as playing 3-4 times a week... A joy of a guy, gave a little playing lesson on how to play links golf... Actually threw balls out in the middle of the round and had me practice a few shots!

The last course we played was Prestwick... The home of the Open, first played in 1860 and host to their last Open in 1925... This course should be easy... Lots of irons off the tee, not a tremendous amount of rough... Alas the winds off the neighboring ocean were fierce the day we played gusting to 50MPH! And the way the course is laid out, there is only one hole that the wind is behind - and it's a completely blind shot on a par 3 over a 50 foot sand dune/washout! Every other hole is either into the wind or a cross wind... The fairways are tight and the rough is penal... It is simply (in the conditions we played) the hardest course I have ever played. Thus the 99 score from the middle tees! I would hesitate to play it again, but would recommend it to every golfer on the pilgrimage to the mother land... Just take a caddy and check your ego at the pro shop!

Next update will be on my first stay in St. Andrews...

On The Ground In Scotland

Flight was uneventful... Was able to get a few hours sleep... GPS with the maps of the UK loaded up got me to Ryan's B&B in Edinburgh and then got us to the Guest House in Prestwick... The 'residents lounge' overlooks the Prestwick Golf Club - home to the first Open Championship (known as The British Open in the US)... The Open was held here the first 10 times (between 1860 and 1870) before starting the rotation among other courses as we are familiar with today... Speaking of Open Championship courses - tomorrow we start this golfing oddessy at Turnberry - host of the Open that just finished up this past weekend... We drove down to the course this evening to be sure of location and drive time, and they still have all the grandstands in place... Wonder how many locals will be sitting in the stands to see Ryan and I hack our way around (and through) the gorse?

I thought driving would be a piece of cake - afterall I piloted a campervan on the 'wrong side of the road' in New Zealand for a couple weeks... Bring on the little cars of Europe, right? What I forgot is that these little cars come almost exclusively in manual transmissions... So not only am I trying to remember to 'keep left' at every intersection and roundabout, but I am trying to do so while shifting with my left hand! More difficult than I imagined... Oh, and never had to parallel park the campervan... That was 5 minutes of our lives that Ryan and I will never get back!

The guest house (Golfview Guest House) is lovely... Allison is a great hostess and we are looking forward to meeting her husband Neil tomorrow.

So far in Scotland - so good.

Cheers,
Joe

The Adventure Begins!

6:17am and I find myself in the Portland airport waiting on my breakfast and eventually my flight to SFO. From SFO I head to London and then connect to Edinburgh... I'll be updating my blog and facebook notes as often as I can, hoping to post pics of the golf courses, castles and distilleries I visit in my month in Scotland.

I explained to Steph last night that leaving for this trip was a huge conflict of emotions for me... On one hand, I am beyond excited about the golf trip I have built, and look forward to catching up with some friends and making new ones... on the other hand - 1 month away from the family is a little depressing. Steph explained that once I hit the ground I'll manage to find ways to deal with the homesickness... I know she is right - which is where the guilt begins... especially as I left for the airport and she was walking the floors of the house trying to get the baby back to sleep - at 4:30am!!!

I know I'll miss the family terribly, but look forward to all the interesting and exciting things I hope this trip - 4 years in the planning - holds for me!

Stay tuned, and say a few extra prayers for my wife and kids! :)

Cheers,
Joe