Tuesday, October 17, 2006

West Virginia Makes 31

My quest to play disc golf in all 50 states took a step forward last weekend as I managed to shoot a round at Rotary Park in Huntington, West Virginia to increase my total to 31 states.

I had begun to wonder whether or not West Virginia was going to become a thorn in my side. I lived in Harrisonburg, VA for two years, and I was unable to get to the Woodshed, a private course in WV, despite several plans to do so. It always seemed as though something would come up at work, the weather would turn sour, or a car would break down.

Later, I had planned to stop at Seth Burton Memorial DGC in Fairmont on the way to a job interview in Pennsylvania when an early Spring snow storm changed my plans.

Even this time almost didn't happen.

I had some kind of stomach flu on Thursday that had me throwing up pretty much every half hour for most of the day. By Friday, my stomach and back muscles were aching from convulsions and I was tired and weak.

Nevertheless, Cindy and I had already rented a weekend cabin to stay with our friends Todd and Sherry Truffin, so I poured myself into the car and let Cindy do the driving. I sipped Gatorade, caught up on my reading (150 pages of Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here), and found myself in front of a toasty fireplace and amongst dear friends by evening.

The Saturday was windy and cold, and I still hadn't eaten much in last two days, but now that I live in NC, I didn't figure to let another WV opportunity slip by the boards. Todd, Cindy and I had a round of Wolf (a Skins game variant)that allowed us to enjoy the round even though the combination of wind and being at a new course made it hard to shoot a good round every hole.

I'm still trying to get my comprehensive list of Disc Golf Courses uploaded to my website. I thought I had it solved, but apparently a file I made was too big...but, for the time being, I'm happy to report I have 31 states down and only 19 to go. (Getting to Alaska is going to be a bear, I think, but that's why we have life goals, to give us plenty of time...we hope!)

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Shame on DeepDiscountDVD

So I got a "check" in the mail today for $5 from DeepDiscountDVD.

Odd...I hadn't remembered ordering anything from them recently, but maybe this was a late rebate from a previous order.

Nope, the fine print on the back of the check said that endorsing it and cashing it constituted an enrollment agreement for some service to provide rebates on gas and such for $119 per year.

Do I think a lot of people will be fooled into cashing the check without reading it? Perhaps not. But since I recently called out Peerflix for bad customer service, I thought I'd mention this deceptive practice from DeepDiscount.

It always saddens me when a company tries to win my business not by offering me a product they think I want or could use but by hoping to trick me into buying a product that they apparently KNOW I would not buy otherwise.

Which is what they are doing...and you can't tell me they don't know it.

Shame on you, DeepDiscountDVD.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

New Best at Kentwood

So having finally shaved that elusive stroke off my Buckhorn score, I've said that one advantage is to get a few new courses and starting points in the rotation. So I decided to stop and play Kentwood on the way to the airport this morning, and wouldn't you know...

Once again, this wasn't the way I expected to post a good score. I usually expect to get a hot start and hang on. Instead, I bogeyed eight to go -2, and then it was birdies for 9, 11, 12, and 13. Getting hot in the middle holes. I suppose one advantage of playing a longer course is that you get better at driving rather than just putting, so you don't have to make ALL the short ones.

Kentwood
2-3-3 2-3-2 3-4-2 (24) OUT
3-2-2 2-3-3 2-3-3 (23) IN 47

And I missed a short putt for par on 8 and a medium putt (straight to the basket) on 15.