I’d like to blame the wind, but 2 other guys in my division shot under par and another shot par. The truth is that I made some poor decisions, and my mid-range game totally abandoned me.

Interestingly, on the one hole that proved to be the most challenging (and to my mind basically pointless), I shot par on the first round and a bogey on the second. Better than some others. It’s small comfort.

• Champion/candy plastic is the only way to go. The white discs I had were still too opaque to be useful.
• Be sure the park you’re at is actually, you know, dark. Playing in the dark is challenging; constantly being blinded by night glare then having to navigate in the night is just not fun.
• Never play alone. Apart from the security concerns about roaming through woods at night (which is why the park was practically flooded with light), once your disc goes horizontal in flight, you’re not going to be able to see it no matter what lighting method you use.
• Those little LEDs sure look cool, but for the money, the glow ropes are A-OK.

On going to the zoo:

• Get the membership. Apart from admission from your local zoo, how can you go wrong getting reciprocal admission to zoos across the nation.
• Don’t go on days that are hot and crowded. The animals aren’t having fun, and neither will you.

On using MS-Word’s Indexing feature

• Ctrl-C anc Ctrl-V are your very bestest friends.
• “Mark All” is a wildly dangerous tool.
• Wow. This is cool.

On September

• Yey! It’s brewing season.
• Boo. The basement is still too warm, and I’ve still got a list of chores the length of my arm to complete the Reorganization of Chez Truffin.
• Yey! School started.
• Boo. I would never in my life want to be 16 again.

On Reading
After I started reading my third Patrick O’Brian novel since she’s been here, Stephanie asked if he was my favorite author. She didn’t appear to trust me when I said, “No.”

In the heat of the afternoon, Bob, Chris, and I headed out to the Arroyo Chamisos Disc Golf Course for what turned out to be the best disc golf experience I’ve had in New Mexico. The course meanders through a dry river bed/wash–well, and arroyo. The course designers have made good use of the scrub junipers, brush, and elevation changes to provide interesting holes. The installers and maintainers of the course have marked the course very clearly with three tee lengths. Unlike the St. John’s course, it’s always pretty easy to find where you’re headed and at what you’re shooting.

We played from the red Rec tees, which actually were a bit too short for me. I ended up with a -4 but 4 bogeys due to the winds and overthrowing some shorter baskets. (Imagine overthrowing a hole with a Roc.) I should be happy with the 8 deuces. I also ended up throwing way more “hammer” shots than I think is polite.

After dinner, Jeffrey O, Bob, Chris, and I headed into town for a “guy’s night out” only to be confounded by the lack of parking. We ended up on a patio near Bob and Chris’s room chatting until it was time for worship.

Later in the evening, I noticed Laura L-M and her friend Cullen from SFBC sitting out in the upper dorm patio area. I sauntered over and was quickly enlisted to learn a dice game called “Farkle”. It’s a nice easy dice game that is good for socializing.

Heading into the last day of the conference, I had another rich, full day.

I’ll let you imagine the finer points of playing 144 holes of disc golf in under 14 hours. Here are some random observations:

• Two themes emerged on the day:
  1. What do we play? Team Golf. Throughout the day, Ken and I complemented each other’s weaknesses nicely. When I’d throw a drive into a tree, Ken’d have a nice clean shot. When Ken yanked a putt, I might put one in. Neither one of us had to carry the other for long, and both of us needed carrying at points.
  2. Long putt for two makes a tip-in for three. We quickly established a pattern of having 15-20 foot putts for 2. As long as one of us kept it close the other could run at it. We didn’t always get the deuce, but we gave ourselves chances.
• I was surprised at how NOT tired I was late in the day. It wasn’t until the 7th course that I started feeling some fatigue. I chalk this up to constant intake of water, gatorade, and Clif energy gel. Also, the drives between courses provided enough time to rest without getting stiff.
• I’m very glad I started working out at the Y. We had to sprint the last four holes, and there’s no way I could have finished without the working out. Not that I’m in the finest shape, you understand, but the cardio work made the difference.
• Positive talk will save the day. At any number of times–say when the skies opened and rained on us for four holes–it would have been easy to get negative, which would have slowed us down further. But Ken kept talking positive things (even when I knew his thoughts were quite the opposite). It’s amazing what a difference that makes.
• God bless the creators of UnderArmour.
• God bless the creators of Gold Bond Medicated Foot Powder.
• SHOCKING development of the day: I won a putting contest! While waiting for scores to be tabulated, the organizers held a “Ring of Fire” putting competition. 30 guys put at a basket simultaneously until only one person makes the putt. I won a nice Innova Starter Bag and a disc. That’ll never happen again!
• GPS units are wonderful. Ken and I were able to split the driving, and he could relax even though I didn’t know the way to the courses thanks to the nifty Garmin.

Results

• Number of Discs Lost: 3 (Ken)
• Number of Consecutive bogeys: 0
• Number of Trees Todd Hit on Tee Drives: Too numerous to count
• Number of Holes set straight through tight trees with a slight anhyzer bend: Same as number of Trees I hit
• Number of Participants: 46
• Number of Doubles Teams: 21
• Number of Intermediate Doubles Teams: 12
• Ken and Todd’s score: 402 (-35)
• Ken and Todd’s place in Intermediate Doubles: 3rd
• Number of gallons of Gatorade G2 I drank: 1
• Number of 1 liter bottles of water I drank: 8 or 9
• Pairs of socks used: 4

So there it is, we didn’t die, we finished, we placed. I call it a successful event.