limeblawg

just felt my first earthquake.

I'm at an outdoor cafe right now, and a minute ago I felt someone shaking the back of my chair... I looked behind me and saw no one. It lasted about five seconds. The guy at the table across from me confirmed that I didn't imagine it. There have been several earthquakes in the six years I've lived here, but I've slept through most of them, and never felt the others.

time flies.

I had lunch with my former boss yesterday, which made me think about the fact that I've been unemployed for three months.

Two days ago I was coming out of the building of my doctor's office and saw I guy I recognized, and as we exchanged a "what's up" in unison I realized it was Anthony Kiedis. That made me think of high school, when I listened to Mother's Milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik every day. DAMN IT, that was fifteen years ago.

This past Monday, Professor Contracts brought our attention to the fact that we are past the halfway point of the semester. Holy Christ, how did that happen?

LIME BREAKS 80!!!!!!!!!!

Balboa Golf Course, 9/15/04

70 par
75!!!! score
08 fairways hit (out of 15)
09 greens hit (out of 18)
30!!! putts (with only one 3-putt)

I am truly stoked. For no particular reason, I had my game on yesterday. As much as I wanted to stop thinking about it for fear of screwing it up, I kept thinking about how great I was playing.

I got off to a slow start with two unimpressive bogeys. Found my swing on the third hole for par. Then on #4, a 200 yard par 3 into the wind, I hit a 3-iron that didn't draw like I expected and landed on the back fringe for a 30 foot putt. But it was one of the best swings I've made in a long time, and I found the sweet spot on the club face. I play forged blade irons which have ridiculously small sweet spots, so finding it is a big deal. I bogeyed the next hole due to a bad drive. Then on #6, I hit another pure 5-iron from 190 yards right over the flagstick, and made a downhill birdie putt from 25 feet. Went bogey-par-bogey to finish the front side in 4 over par.

I felt good about my swing and my putting stroke, and knew that I could have a really good back nine. Sure enough, back to back birdies on #10 and #11. Then a string of bogeys: a bad chip on #12, and a mishit 8-iron on #13. On #14, I pushed my drive into another fairway, pitched over trees, hit my approach fat, chipped to 4 feet, and made a clutch putt to save bogey. That putt was a confidence booster because I was able to avoid a big number on my worst played hole. So on #15, I hit wedge from 125 yards right over the flagstick and sunk a 10 footer for birdie. The next hole, I made a kind of ridiculous birdie putt -- 30 feet, downhill and sidehill, which broke about 18 inches to the left. Bogeyed #17. At the tee on #18, I went ahead and made the announcement to the group (dad, plus 2 guys we were paired with): "All right guys. I have never broken 80. Right now, I'm at 4 over par. If I don't 'Van de Welde' this hole, I'm buying beers for everyone." For those unfamiliar, a few years back a golfer by the name of Jean Van de Welde had a 3 shot lead going into the last hole of the British Open, one of the most prestigious professional golf tournaments in the world. Millions watched as he self-destructed in a painfully spectacular fashion on #18, making a triple-bogey which allowed two other golfers into a playoff with him for the championship. Not surprisingly, he lost.

I hit my tee shot on #18 and because the hole was playing into the sun, I didn't see it. Well, it wound up directly behind a tree. A guy we were playing with was funny: "Since I have a vested interest in this... did anyone bring a chainsaw?" My pitch-out was too hard and went through the fairway, into the rough. Luckily it worked to my advantage because my angle to the green was such that I didn't have to look directly into the sun. With 65 yards to the center of the green, a back pin placement, a front bunker, and a squishy lie in the rough with which to contend, I decided to hit lob wedge with a little extra juice. It landed about 20 feet past the hole, and I two-putted for bogey. 5 over par and a round of 75.

I made five birdies and only one 3-putt on my way to 30 total putts, which is utterly ridiculous --- that's five fewer than I've ever had in a round. But I think the biggest reason I putted so well was the several very make-able birdie chances I gave myself with my iron approach shots. Although my iron play was solid, I still hit a handful of bad ones -- missing that sweet spot -- which directly resulted in bogeys. In fact, only two of my 10 bogeys were directly due to bad tee shots, and the rest were due to bad irons (followed by mediocre to bad chips, another area in need of improvement). So you see where I'm headed: With more forgiving irons, I think I have a shot at consistently shooting in the 70s, and very close to even par.

I'm thoroughly enjoying this achievement, but I must admit it's really bizarre. It's been almost three months since my last 18-hole round, which I wrote about here (and coincidentally, you can read about my total Van de Weldeian experience on the last hole of that round). With just a few 9-hole rounds and one practice session since then, I had nothing remotely resembling the practice regimen I thought I needed in order to break 80. I might also add Balboa, a municipal golf course measuring 6125 yards from the white tees (74.7 rating, 122 slope), isn't the most challenging layout. But whatever -- it's no less of an accomplishment. I'll feel the pressure on the first hole of my next round. Until then, WOOHOO!!

kinda funny.

I would like to direct your attention to the limecam where, if you hadn't noticed, there is a somewhat amusing picture. It's a sign on a driveway gate down the street. Clearly this is a concoction of an attorney for the garage door company -- and/or maybe a landlord -- and a largely ineffective graphic designer. Anyways, so a child happens to be playing near the gate and sees this sign. Someone thinks this sign would actually compel a child to play elsewhere? Could the illustration be deemed anything but humorous? I mean, does the parent see the sign and say, "Timmy, see this picture? No kickball here, OK?"

Coming soon is a picture from the elevator at school. It's a sign for what to do in the event that the elevator stops suddenly. The light in the elevator isn't conducive to picture taking, and I can't help but to spoil it anyway... The first two lines caught my eye:

1. Please do not be alarmed. (emphasis mine)
2. Please press the button on the panel marked "ALARM."

I kid you not.

movie update.

I'm kind of watching Bend It Like Beckham right now, while browsing the web. This movie is funny. The Indian stuff would be even funnier if I were more familiar. Keira Knightley is not so bad looking.

Watched Bourne Supremacy the other night. Really good.

Still haven't watched the Wilco documentary yet.

LMFAO.

Oh my gaw, this movie is freaking hilarious. I finally saw it last night. I haven't laughed that hard in a very long time.

m-a-r-s, mars, bitches!

Watched the Chappelle Show tonight. "Black Bush" had me rolling. Never really watched this show, though I'd always heard he was very funny. I set the TiVo season pass so I'm straight now.

encino, august 2.

Too bad we got a late start; we only got to play nine holes. I played very well, finishing the front in 2 over par. The putter was working. I made several putts from 5, 8, and 10 feet. It failed me twice: once from 3 feet for a par, and once from about 18 inches for a birdie. Obviously, those short ones cost me an even par front side but I can't complain. My swing was mediocre to bad, but the short game saved me. I've only spent a few hours practicing my chips and putts, so it could be a fluke. I hope it isn't. I feel like I'm getting close to breaking 80.

sometimes, smart people have more fun.

I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday and bought two books, one for my wife and this one for myself. It was a page turner; I read most of it last night, and finished it this morning. I had heard the gist of the story somewhere -- a bunch of M.I.T. folks came up with a blackjack card-counting strategy that made them millions of dollars. They would fly from Boston to Vegas on a Friday night with cash and chips strapped under their clothes, gamble all weekend in teams, and come back on Sunday night (or Monday morning) with massive winnings.

Blackjack is a beatable game because "it has a memory." Each card dealt influences the next hand dealt because there's a finite number of that type of card in a deck (or decks). These brilliant people built upon a card-counting system developed in the '60s by an M.I.T. professor named Thorp. It's based in research showing that higher cards (Ace through 10) favor the player and lower cards (2 through 6) do not. Thorp's idea was to assign a value of +1 for every negative card dealt, and -1 for every higher card dealt (7 through 9 were neutral). Therefore, in a high positive count, more Aces, face cards, and 10s are to come, meaning the chances of winning are greater. This illustrates that the trick is not necessarily to count each and every type of card, but to assess the probability of favorable hands (specifically, hands that would beat the house's hand) based on the number of low cards and high cards left in the "shoe", or stack of decks.

These folks refined the "high-low" point system developed by the M.I.T. professor, accounting for several other factors. Among them, the probabilities are higher and lower depending on how far into the shoe you are. For example, in a six-deck shoe (312 cards), a +9 count is much more favorable when there are only 50 cards left in the shoe, as opposed to 150 cards left. They also devised a betting strategy based on other mathematical probabilities, so they knew precisely how much to bet for their projected return on investment. Finally, the idea that makes you grin and mutter an expletive when you think about how brilliant they are: they devised a system for killing multiple blackjack tables for even more money by working in teams, and having serious money (hundreds of thousands) to gamble with by getting bankrolled. "Spotters" hit the tables, place minimum bets, and count the cards. When the cards get favorable, they signal the "gorilla" to come to the table. This person acts the part of a drunken idiot who bets recklessly, looking like an extremely lucky fool in the process. All the while, they're communicating with each other with ingenious verbal and physical signals. The "Big Player" plays the part of the high roller, doing it all alone. The BP bets the lion's share of the capital while counting cards, makes friends with the casinos, and lives the life. They're a team of secret agent rock stars, checking into more than one hotel using an array of assumed identities, the whole bit. After the weekend's work, everyone parties like rock stars, then pack it up and go home with a crapload of loot stuffed in bags and saran-wrapped to their legs and backs and chests, only to do it again a weekend or two later. You come to learn that card-counting and the team concept has been around for a while, and is still practiced today. Some do it for sport, and others do it as a profession.

Card counting doesn't influence the outcome of the game, and their method did not involve a mechanical device that gave them an edge; so it was therefore legal by Nevada state law. However, Nevada casinos have the right to kick them out and ban them permanently. Sometimes the manner in which they (and casinos in other states or countries) do so can be very "old school."

It's way more interesting and complicated, but the story is told extremely well. The author himself is a pretty smart guy. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, and got the story from a person he knew socially in Boston (alias "Kevin Lewis"). Little did he know that one day, Kevin Lewis would corner the author at a party to reveal that he was more than just an M.I.T. nerd. For research, the author did recon in Vegas for three months, and even put the system to work for himself under the tutelage of Mr. Lewis. The Kevin Lewis character actually has a short essay at the end of the book that summarizes how he and his team did it.

Awesome light reading.

the going away party.

Just got back from the going away party given for me in the office. It was incredibly strange. Good, but just weird.

I have so much work to do. Tomorrow's my last day. Probably won't get it all done. Not the end of the world. Just not the way I wanted to leave. Oh well. I think the feelings of guilt are suppressing the nerves at this point. After all, tomorrow's my last day....