New irons!

Finally... after waiting patiently for almost a whole year! Srixon finally sent me some new clubs, which thankfully will conform to the new groove rule as well for 2010. I've played with them a couple of times now and so far so good! I really like them! "Magic clubs"... as I would tell Bobby when I hit one close to the pin :-) Now, I'm just waiting for those new Cleveland wedges as well. Hopefully it won't take as long as the new irons!
I also decided to switch back to Titleist golf balls after today. Since Srixon started it's new Player Purchase program, I might as well start experimenting with all the different golf balls that are out there now.
Looking forward to playing in Albany, NY next week! I also have a new little Sun Mountain bag with my name on it. Looks really sharp!

Home sweet home!!!

Finally after a long 6 weeks... I'm finally home! Well, just for a week but it's soooooooo nice to be able to sleep in my own bed again (all day - according to Bob) :-P
Our house had a new look this time on my trip home. We had the house painted last week and it looks great! Well, I was hoping the house color would have more of a contrast to the window trims, but obviously we are not going to have it repainted (according to Bob)! Here are the before and after pictures. And obviously, it looks better in the summer than in the winter too!And here is the back of the house:I'm trying to convince Bobby that it's too white. Maybe paint some black on the window trims, but it's obvious that I may not win that battle (out of many that I do win)!
I also had a chance to change out some of the light fixtures.
Again, here are the before and after pictures. Eventually, we will need to buy a new door as well. It actually still has the name of the previous owners on the door knocker!



On this trip home, I was able to bring home some gifts that were given to me by my housing from Connecticut. They are so cute! I can't wait to use them: a hedgehog vegetable brush, a whale ice-cream scoop, and a mouse cheese grater! Thanks Ann and Rich! :-)

$3.33

That's what I paid for dinner tonight! Actually it would have cost less, but I ended up buying a small pack of coconut Mars chocolate and some Sour Patch kids. Yup, I went to Wal-mart and bought some microwave food - Swedish meatballs. I probably could have just gone with the one package but I just seemed so hungry at that time. I did finish up all the meatballs... does that count?
Only played 11 holes today. We tee-off at 4:45pm and I'm already at 6-over par. Maybe it's because I warmed up one too many times today!
Well, time to start packing. Going to hit the road right after the round tomorrow. Thankfully I have a later flight to catch on Monday. Several players had to change their travel plans because of play on Monday.

Noooo...!!!

12pm - and now I'm back down to tied for 73rd!!! This is killing me!!! Maybe it's not as promising as it seems now... :-s Gotta keep my fingers AND toes crossed!!

I made it!

As of 11:12am, I'm tied for 70th place! Yay!!! Although, these are unofficial scores, but it's looking rather promising :-)
Guess I better get something to eat and get dressed! I hope I won't be missing my flight tomorrow from Newark back to Tulsa! Who knows if and when I'll finish my round today. The sun is out so perhaps there will be more daylight today compared to yesterday.
Woohooo...!! I wonder what I can buy next for the house ;-) Speaking of house, our house just got painted with a new coat of color. Bobby said that it looks really nice. We based the color off a sample house that we saw at Lowe's. According to the painters, our house now looks exactly like the house on the sample card! Haha! Can't wait to see it on Monday!

Exhausted!

Wow... I just woke up a few minutes ago at 10:30am!!! I was probably in bed last night at about 11pm. I was trying to actually stay awake to watch some of the Solheim coverage on TV but started dozing off!
Guess it was an exhausting day yesterday. I was trying to stay hydrated with the humidity and it was quite tiring fighting with those gnats all day too! My housing in Iowa had told me about spraying Vanilla on the bottom rim of the cap to ward off those gnats... NOPE! It doesn't work! I'm going to have to do some research on this! At some point yesterday, I was missing my long hair because I could have used it like a horse's tail to shoo off those gnats from my face!
Ok... The Cutter brand with Deet is suppose to work as a gnat repellent. But hmm... we were just advised by the tour not to spray bug repellent near the grass because it's killing the grass! And we're putting that stuff on our body??? YIKES!
I'm tied for 74th right now at 11:03am. Tee-time for Round 3 is scheduled at 3:15pm, so there is still quite a bit of golf out there. I hope I make it!!!

Crazy weather!!!

Of course, how can we go without bad weather on the Futures Tour..? It's like the green/rain cells are constantly following us where ever we go!
Today, I got 12 holes in and when we all putted out, the rules official blew the horn for bad weather. I thought I could hear thunder in a distance. So we hopped on a cart and headed into the clubhouse. About 5 minutes later... the skies just opened up! You wouldn't believe the amount of rain that came down in that short period of time! And the wind was blowing like crazy and it almost looked like it was starting to swirl too! I'm just so glad we were all in before it all came down!
After a couple of hours of just hanging around, I decided to take a little drive. I found an old mansion at a park, which used to be a fort used by the British to fight off the Indians. Pretty cool! Then, when 2:15pm rolled around, I headed back towards the golf course and weirdly enough, there was a lot of traffic going the opposite way. When I arrived, sure enough, golf for the rest of the day was suspended.
I was going to head home, but a player/friend of mine texted me and asked if I wanted to go to Hershey Park. Who wouldn't for some CHOCOLATE!!! The tour was quite fun. We didn't do the chocolate tasting as it was a $10 admission fee. But instead, I did buy about $10 worth of chocolate and peanut butter syrup. YUM!!!
Well, looks like it will be another early morning tomorrow and a long one too. 80% chance of rain tomorrow!!!

Green card update

We did it! We had our greencard interview this past Tuesday in Oklahoma City and sounds like my greencard should be approved pretty soon here. Yay! The lady that was interviewing was so serious starting out, but she finally cracked a smile halfway through the interview. Probably because Bobby didn't get our wedding year correct! And he forgot to mention the date too. Maybe he was more nervous than I was! Although I was freaking out a little bit when she took away my I-94 card. It's basically my departure card when I travel outside the United States. Right before boarding the plane, the flight attendant will take it away and you will receive a new one when you return into the U.S.. When she took the card, it just felt like... "Oh no, I can't leave the country ever again!!!".
There was a little discrapency about my current P1 visa. She asked about when and where I had left the U.S. to receive my visa and silly me answered "I didn't leave the country". It was only after we had left the interview and was walking back to the car when Bobby said "Yes, you did leave the country. You went to South Africa!". So then, we had to head back into the building, back through the security scan, and requested to see the lady again. Thankfully she was able to see us and after explaining about S. Africa, she thanked us for saving her some investigative time and we waved our good-byes. PHEW!!!
It's back on the road for me now. I'm in Harrisburg, PA with only 1 day of practice. I walked the course yesterday, but only got in 8 holes before the horn blew for lightning. Hopefully I'll be able to see the rest of the course today! We're suppose to have more bad weather today :-(

210K miles!

My car now has 210,022 miles! I didn't even realize it until I was driving through a neighborhood in DC today, on my way to Baltimore/BWI airport.
Knock on wood... so far so good. I've already put in about 20,000 miles during my travels this golf season and thankfully there's only 2 more events left! Hmmm... maybe my little Honda might survive another golf season next year. But then again, we'll see if Bob is going to let me play another year! :-P

Fuzzy hair!

Here's Month #2 since I had my hair buzzed for Pantene Beautiful Lengths. It has definitely grown quite a bit because I can now feel the back of my hair touching the collars of my shirts! I'm still uncertain of what I want (or can!) do with my hair. I did finally buy some hair gel/cream to set it down a little during the Meet The Pros party this past week because every time I get out of the shower, my hair just stands straight up! I should legally be able to change the height in my passport for the added 1" :-)
Here's Irish the dog at my housing this week. What a cute face! They have a cat too... who decided to hiss and scratch me when I was petting her. That's a bad kitty!!

Rookies... Go home!

Haha... ok, I guess I'm the one going home. It's another trunk-slamming Saturday. The cut was at +2 today, which is quite low but then again, as I keep telling people, the standard of golf on the Duramed Futures Tour is getting better and better each season! These new bunch of rookies that just graduated in May have bumped the standard up a notch!
The cut last year was at +4 and that's where I was today. I was 2-under after the first 8 holes and then, ended up in the trees on the 18th (my 9th) hole and ended up with a double bogey there! And then, as if one double bogey wasn't enough, I decided to put my ball in the water hazard on the 6th hole and made double bogey there too! I did manage a birdie on the next hole, but the effort wasn't quite enough.
Nonetheless, I did made some great putts today. I picked up a new putter a.k.a. Tickle me IMO as the RIFE rep would put it. You should see this thing... it's like a spaceship! But it worked really well today, so guess I'll keep it for a little while longer.
Well, back to Tulsa on Monday. Bob and I have our greencard interview on Tuesday. Wish us luck!!! :-)

Funny note

I saw the funniest note this morning when I walked out of my bedroom: No Housekeeper today. Go back to sleep.
Haha! I just had to laugh. I had already missed my practice tee-time the day before because I just could not get myself to get out of bed. I guess the 9-hour road trip from London, KY to Richmond, VA finally caught up to me. And our 5th tournament/week in a row probably has something to do with being exhausted too!
So anyhow, I told my housing the night before that I was going to sleep in again today, but she mentioned that the housekeeper comes in Thursday mornings. But thankfully it was called off, because Rich, her husband, who is a pilot, came home late last night and didn't want to be bothered in the morning. And... can't wait to dig into my dark chocolate that he brought back from Zurich! :-)

Richmond, VA

It was another long day today, but we made really good time. We, because for the first time, I actually had another fellow tour player traveling with me! Kim needed a ride from London, KY to Lexington, KY - to return her rental car - and onwards to Richmond, VA. Since I was able to empty out most of the stuff in my car at my mom-in-law's after Syracuse, I told her that it wouldn't be a problem to ride with me.
Anyhow, before leaving London, Kentucky, I had to take a few pictures. Here's the cow named Buttercups, who was thankfully found and restored after she was vandalized the week before. She belongs to one of our sponsors of the week and obviously can't be missed from the 18th fairway!Then, there's Colonel Sanders. Did you know that the first KFC was located in Corbin, KY at a gas station? "Kentucky" Fried Chicken... get it? Anyhow, the station is now a Cafe & Museum.And finally, there's Cosmo the dog, who jumped into the front side of the car and then proceeded to try and get into the backseat while I was packing to leave! Good thing he didn't end up hiding in the backseat! That would have made the road trip to VA quite interesting!!!

Another missed cut!

Argh! Ok,... the results are not officially in yet, but from the looks of it, I'll probably miss it by 2. And I can think of exactly where I could have saved those 2 (and more!) shots! Ahhh... just have to stay patient. I was close though today. Did make 3 birdies coming in on the back-nine but then again, too many bogeys.
I did have quite an interesting last night/early morning. Guess I'll just let the pictures explain...





And yes, that is my bedroom door at my current housing in London, KY!

Long day...

I dropped Bobby at Newark airport this morning. He had a flight back to Tulsa. I'll see him in a couple of week when I return to Tulsa for our trip to Oklahoma City for our greencard interview!
I started driving out towards London, Kentucky at about 10am and by about 8pm, I was ready to stop, especially after going up and down those valleys in Maryland and West Virginia! My first stop on I-64 west was 0 for 2... all rooms were booked. Then, a few miles down on I-64 west again and 0 for 3!!! By now, my head is starting to feel dizzy from the long day of driving. Thankfully, the receptionist at the Holiday Inn & Suites called another hotel and found a non-smoking room in a near-by town: Huntington, West Virginia. So another few miles in my car again and finally, a key to a room!! It feels so good to kick my shoes off and just relax. Ahh... only 4 more hours to go tomorrow! :-s

And oh, Abang Zubir! So glad to hear from you! Leave me your email addr!

Where's the windmill?

Ok, maybe I'm going a bit overboard, but when I first went out to practice at this new event site in Syracuse, the back-nine almost felt like we were playing mini-golf! There were some severe slope on the greens and a par 5 where we were required to hit driver, wedge, and then wedge again! There was also a downhill par 3 that was severely downhill that was a 3-club difference!
But then again, the leaders are at -9 right now, with still the final round to go. As for me, I was even for both days on the front nine and all of 9 over on the back! Well, if anything, it was nice to have Bob on my bag again. AND... the trips to Wegman's supermarket! I LOVE that place!!!