2008 Womens U.S. Open BLOG (from Edina, MN)
Written June 27, 2008
OK, so what the hell are the McGiverns doing at the moment? Believe it or not, some people really care—for sure our kids--so they say; a few pilot friends (active and retarded, I mean retired, like me), folks at Black Diamond Ranch. If you’d rather, simply click on this URL to see most of this whole thing as a video. It’s in three parts, though there are three things at the end, below, that are not on the videos: A trivia quiz and a couple of aircraft videos (and one of a lion, of all things). You may always copy and paste these URLs if the "Click here" doesn't work, as, I understand it depends on your ISP or is just another of those bothersome computer glitches we all get.
Part I: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zSMXIGMDx1w Click here first
Part II: http://youtube.com/watch?v=nRcDY1KzzhE Click here
Part II.5:
Part III: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ml9WT7hLq0g Click here
Part I (written out here. Skip it if you actually saw the video. If not, read it OR NOT)
:
Topics herein: Well, golf is a passion, as it is with many of you. So is aviation--in it’s many forms—sport aviation, great airplane pictures and situations, like funny aviation stories of which there are many and airline items (airlines have gotten a bad name lately for lots of reasons, originally, mostly due to 911; these days, huge fuel costs AND, of course, bad management decisions) .
I generally limit my video BLOGs to those two subjects; along with the occasional “what the hell are Jim and Laney up to at the moment.” I’ve been told that I should limit each subject to just one BLOG at a time, but, hey, this is the way it is for now, so if it really bothers you, “too bad—opt out.”
Part II (written out)…
Taking over from where I get hit by a dodge ball in Part I, while “taping” on our lanai and after “volunteering” to play dodge ball for 5 minutes, with screaming kids in the background. (Hey, priorities rule and they needed another player. Besides the camera battery went dead at that time). So now I’m back home, a couple of days later. Most of this was actually written in northern Iowa, at our time share.
Speaking of volunteering, how about all our Black Diamond members at the course—they get lots of credit for spending sometimes 6-8 hours and more/day at their duties here. How many of you know that Laney volunteers at several other things, as well—like rating golf courses in FL and at a therapeutic horse farm near Ocala, working with physical and learning disabled kids, who love riding horses, etc. (Beth Joens has been doing that for years, as well). I should be jealous that Laney gets to stay in Edina and play Minikahda, Hazeltine and Interlachen when this is all over next week. I get to go home and work on taxes, the car, the golf cart, the garage and the bills. (I guess it’s fair. Of course, I would’ve volunteered, but I wasn’t asked. A little sour grapes there, I guess).
At the time of the Part I video, in case you’re viewing this first, we’re attending the Women’s U.S. Open Championship at Edina, Minnesota, at the famous Interlachen Country Club.
I must apologize for this BLOG being a bit disjointed in present and past tenses and in being in Parts I, II and III, because, as mentioned, I wrote and recorded some at the Open site and some of this when I got back to Black Diamond.
Those who know the following folks I shall briefly mention--snowbirds, who live in Minnesota in the summer and BDR in the winter, call it, “God’s Country”, which it is, have hosted us at parties, with tournament tickets, food, beer and wine, accommodations—you name it. We were obviously having a great time at this venue and our sincere thanks to all of them for all they’ve done, especially the Ragatzes and the Johnsons. It rained a few times, but basically we were blessed with terrific weather.
You may only imagine how pretty Lake Okoboji and Spirit Lake, in northern Iowa, is (on the Minnesota southern border), unless you’ve been here yourself, where the Part I video quit outside on our lanai,. The lakes are unbelievably beautiful, as is Lake Minnetonka, northwest of Minneapolis, where the Ragatzes live.
(At this point, if you're not from Black Diamond, feel free to skip down to the asterixes-"*****").
In the video I show a couple of the great goodies the Black Diamond volunteers got, as well as super food of all kinds. (a promotional drink thermos and a “Mexican” shoulder carry pack, which works well when checking in at the airport, it turns out. The TSAs at the airport don’t even have to open it to see what’s inside. There was a lot of control at the golf course too--mostly to see that no one had cameras or cellphones. You actually get searched at the gate and have to check these items if you have them with you.
At Interlachen, Scott Johnson was in charge of the “hole volunteers” at the tournament and many of our “resident Minnesotan” Black Diamond members were in charge of marshaling specific holes, most notably the 18th—certainly the most popular hole; hence the whole reason for our BDR visiting members marshaling there. What a coup!
Laney and I actually opted to stay a week at a traded time share in Northern Iowa, (the backdrop on that lanai in Part I, is where we stayed near Spirit and Okoboji Lakes—about half way between the Joenses, in Sioux Falls, S.D. and the tournament in Edina—actually a few hours drive away from Edina and Minneapolis. Unfortunately, Bill and Beth missed the tournament and festivities because of a late health development—Beth had recent eye surgery and has had some fairly serious complications with it. She’s a bit better now, as a more effective medication has kicked in, but it was a shame that happened, as we all missed them.
Yesterday, at the time of the Part I video, my wife, Laney, (some of you know her as Elaine, of course), Jennifer P, Gretchen O and Lorraine C and I watched some great practice shots by the likes of Julie Inkster, Patty Shehan, Pat Hurst and a few other pro notables, as we all had a complimentary passes and those girls named--volunteer crowd control volunteers for the tourney--got their blue shirts, credentials and assignment times. Some of you may have seen them this week on TV. I know Laney’s mom and sister saw her on TV, walking with Annika off the 18th tee. These girls are all working on the 18th hole at different times), Jill Ragatz, I believe, is “hole captain” for each day of the event. Bill and Lee Reading, who are staying with the Laukas,’ are also on hole #18, by the way. Other BDR folks marshaling, scoring and performing other related duties were Jay H., Jan T., Katy Anderson and Barb Fordham. Hopefully, I remembered everyone.
Quickly (for those who don’t know these folks and, basically, just for the Black Diamond Ranch members getting this), the several members who belong here at at other area clubs (and forgive me if I miss any names here) are: the Ragatzes, Scott Johnsons, Laukas, Rempfers, Radabaughs, Richards. And the Tanners. I already mentioned the Joenses, who live a few hours away in eastern So. Dakota.
****** Skip to here:
OK, back to video BLOGing and what it may be about here from now on. I mentioned aviation. Doug Sinclair had a great suggestion for me to simply add URL’s with a little explanation of each, so you wouldn’t have to wade through too much written dialog on line. So, herein are at least a few of such URLs for your perusal, if you wish. I’ll do more URLs and, hopefully, less writing in BLOGS to come, so my apologies to Doug for this one which is “still-too-long.” I’ll ramble less in the future and try to stay more “on point.” The YouTube videos were actually my idea. Let me know, by reply, if you like these ideas. (I am just looking at all this while editing, etc. and see Doug’s point. Next: less less boring dialog and more “substance.” Got it!).
Again, my BLOGs will mostly all be of aviation, some golf, golf travel and a few of just general interest. And, you’ll probably have to put up with my ramblings about the inequities of the spate of “so-called financially hurting corporations,” who manage to abrogate the legitimate pensions of their retirees. I put a letter to Obama at the end of this BLOG for information only. I doubt anything will come of it. (He's not necessarily my favorite candidate, but who is? Personally, I wish there were a few great Independents out there somewhere).
The YouTube sites you may go to include several videos--especially if you search for 'Black Diamond Ranch.' Some are fairly “camp,” such as a few uke and guitar songs that my family insist I send and some that I may possibly be practicing for Dick Hrebik’s production of the sequel to Black Diamond’s very popular “Nostalgia Night,” earlier last year. A new “nostalgia night” will happen early in “aught-9,” some time. Those YouTube skits (forward slash “jmcgiv”--okay, I'll write it out: www.youtube.com/jmcgiv ) have had, unbelievably, nearly 19,000 some “hits”—probably because the names, "Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis, Jimmy Durante and Laugh-in" were used as keywords.
A bit of aviation: I am reminded of the questions I always get, after having flown for a major airline for 34, plus, years and some 23,000 (yes, Virginia, proudly I add: accident and incident-free hours). Jennifer Polich asked one of the stock questions the other day at lunch, when I became “pre-retirement, job-identified:”
“Have you had any scary stories?,” she asked. I lead this one off with the standard pilot adage: “Hey, a good pilot has no scary stories.” (I once mentioned that little ditty to my brother, who, as it turns out, had a semi-scary airplane experience with me. His retort was, “Then I should imagine you have plenty of those, eh?” Hmmph, I will ignore that obvious sarcasm!).
Anyway, as it turns out—at lunch, I told of an Air Force incident, when I was a Second Lt. navigator for MATS. The acronym for Military Air Transport Service, or M-A-T-S, so called in those days, was often bastardized as, “Might Arrive Tomorrow Sometime.” A MATS breakfast was a (hope your not eating at the moment) a cigarette and a puke, as we often had 27-hour crew duty times, especially in the middle 60’s when we flew to Viet Nam a lot. We often wore our “dirties,” then our “dirty-dirties.” Suffice it to say, there was no laundry on our aircraft and our flight suits were pretty rank by the time we got home. We often came home with beards, as well. That was frowned upon a little by the “brass desk jockies,” but they generally ignored it when you’ve been shot at and mortared in Ton Son Nhut, Ben Hua or Danang. They gave us medals for that stuff later. We knew we would live forever, so we didn't care. Plus, I knew I wouldn't be making the Air Force a career anyway. (Wish I had done at least "twenty" in the guard or reserve. I could use the retirement pay now. That's for sure!).
I digress: The incident retold the other day, over lunch in Edina was of a particular Air Force flight crossing the English Channel, near the White Cliffs of Dover. We had been struck by lightning. I’ll have to tell you that story in a future BLOG at another time and, perhaps, yet another scary one, during my airline days, so hang in here with my BLOGS—video and written. (Sorry about that, if you really cared at this time).
Eventually, I will put up an “opt-in/opt-out” dialog, so meanwhile, if you are tired of this kind of thing or don't wish it in your e-mail, just leave me a reply, because you will get at least one or two without opting-in. Call, e-mail or holler at me if and when you see me. I promise I will not get my feelings hurt if you wish to opt-out. This is just a hobby for me and I don’t take it too seriously. In actual fact, not at all.
“Enough,” you might say AND (almost) enough for now, here anyway. More like all the above to come if you do hang in there but, again, PLEASE know that you may always opt out of all this kind of thing with that simple reply. Just say something like, “Enough. I can’t take it anymore” and you will be certain to jump right off my e-mail list immediately. Otherwise, stay tuned for more of the same—even hopefully better and more interesting. My problem is having the time to write it (and yours) is having the time to read or watch it all, eh?
At the bottom of all written BLOGs, you may find few great airplane URLs in case you may be into them as I am. And, I am going to give you a little trivia teaser or two, perhaps today only. The “teasers” are one “vegetable, one airline," as you may have gotten your fill of golf--not forgetting that most of my BLOGS will be golf, golf travel and/or aviation oriented, especially if you are not familiar with Black Diamond Ranch. Of course if you would like to become more familiar with the friendliest place on earth, just let me know. Most on my mail list are BDR folks—either members, members’ relatives or others who know about Black Diamond. But if your not one of those, let me sell you a house here (!). HBF (the URL above) gives great service—the best (OK, I’m biased. Sorry about the shameless ad, but real estate sales have been extremely slow, as you no doubt realize) . Reply me!
“TTFN”
The airplane pics I promised:
The DC-6B (about the 14th pic) brings back a flood of memories. I have 6 years and over 5,000 hours on that baby. I flew the military version (C-118, Air Force and R6D, Navy version). We had five ("five each," as they say in the military) squadrons of the two services at McGuire AFB throughout the 60’s. Our primary mission was to fly army guys from Ft. Dix (“next door” to McGuire) to Europe, but when Viet Nam broke out, we were nearly always in the Pacific. Then, in '65, I got out of the Air Force and flew the same machine for UAL (the DC-6B) for nearly two years as a Flight Engineer and co-pilot (mid ‘65-67). It was old home week! UAL instructors could not figure out how I knew more about that machine than they did. I had virtually “lived” on it for nearly five years before! American Airlines has a great 6B at the NASA Air and Space Museum in D.C. I once spent an hour in the cockpit with a pilot enthusiast—a stranger and visitor--showing him what “all them dials and switches” were for and how we used them. He sent me a nice letter of thanks afterwards, saying how much he enjoyed the explanations. An aside: We used to tease folks who came to our cockpit when they'd marvel at "all those dials and switches." I might say to my co-pilot, so they could hear, "Geez, Jack, y'know there was a time when I actually knew what they were all for!" Then we'd laugh like hell and check the faces of our visitors.
Oops, one more thing. I just got this video again that I’d seen about a year ago. It’s about Christian, the lion. If you’ve never seen it, it’s definitely worth the viewing—damn near brings tears of joy to the eyes, I swear:
http://videos.komando.com:80/2008/06/26/christian-the-lion/ Try clicking here
A VEGETABLE and FRUIT trivia quiz: (The video eliminates the following)
Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?
What fruit has its seeds on the outside?
In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?
Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.
Answers at the very end--below.
(One more question: Who was the comic who used to say, “Save it for da end” if anyone applauded before he was through with a bit?).
***
Answers to the vegetable trivia questions above:
You must simply wait for the answers to the airline trivia, but feel free to answer any (and reply for a prize (?)) if you think you know.
Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons: Asparagus and rhubarb.
The fruit with its seeds on the outside: Strawberry.
How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle?
It grew inside the bottle. (The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.)
The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh: Lettuce.
By the way, Dom Deluise was the comic who often exclaimed, “Save it for da end,” (when he'd get “inter-bit” applause).
FYI: Helpful information if you're planning to travel.
updated 18-Jun-2008