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A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

obscure baseball players

Notes from my noodle: August 22 edition

August 22, 2011

I like disc golf.

Seriously, it’s a good time and good exercise. Case in point? By my pedometer’s count, I walked 5.1 miles playing 36 holes in a tournament Sunday afternoon. Anyone who thinks that’s not exercise needs to really define the word. It’s said that 30 minutes of walking per day helps your health. I did that and then some.

But this isn’t about the argument of whether or not disc golf constitutes exercise. This is about how a fun game can turn sour in a hurry.

See, when you are in tournaments, you don’t have control over a lot of things — weather, playing partners etc. You have to go with the flow. Still, the hope is to keep the game fun and entertaining. Without those last two pieces, a tournament — and the game — become dragging and not something I want to do.

So this tournament I played in Sunday…

It’s on a course I really like. I’ve shot well here and though I knew I stood no chance of winning my division, I set a goal of not finishing dead last in the division and the tournament. Anything else would be gravy.

The first round I got paired with three people in a different division. That’s fine, but it was tough because they were playing from the blue (longer) tees and I was playing from the white (shorter) tees. That basically meant that no matter how well I shot, I wasn’t going to get to be first on the tee if I got the lowest score because I was on a different tee.

I didn’t have an issue playing with the guys I was paired with. They were all cool to deal with and good players. But, for someone like me, that’s a little intimidating. They know a lot more. They do a lot more. The score a lot better. It’s tough when paired with people like this because newer players (such as myself) can watch and get lost in it all.

And it can’t be any better for those guys as they shoot 15-20 strokes better than me.

The hardest part was when we walked up to the white tees and sometimes they’d continue on before I’d say something. I don’t blame them either — they are playing from those tees, watching their shots, knowing what they have to do etc.

But for me, it made it harder because I didn’t want to slow them down or “hurt” their game. So I rushed at times, got stupid at others. All because I was worried about other things. The reality was that I wasn’t going to place in my division. Those guys could win theirs. It stunk, to be honest. I felt bad and I played worse. (To be fair, the thunderstorm that rolled through and soaked us didn’t help my misery, either).

I shot an 83 on a course that I hadn’t been out of the 70s on in quite a while.

The second round was a different story. I played with people from my division. People playing from the white tees. We played as quick as we could, had fun and all scored near the same. It was enjoyable. We joked, we chatted and didn’t worry. I wasn’t worried about screwing somebody’s game up. I was loose and enjoyed the round.

End result? A 72.

I truly understand that tournaments are hard to organize, run and do. I’ve done them in many sports. I’ve run leagues and tournaments and all sorts of things. So I can empathize. People who didn’t pre-register can also put a wrench in the spokes. And many tournaments I’ve played in do the same thing in the opening round — mix up players in different divisions. But it seems unfair to put a recreational/novice player with those who are really good. At least put two people playing from the whites in with a couple from the blues. That would make it a little less nerve-racking — for both sets of people.

I don’t know if my play had any effect on the three better players. But I know it did on me because of several factors. It wasn’t the company — I enjoyed the three others. In fact, I think a casual round with the three of them would be fun and educational, in regard to disc golfing. But in a tournament? It was tough.

In the end, it was OK. My 11-stroke differential between rounds earned me a $25 gift card to a sports store for best improvement. So add that to the disc I got for playing and two rounds of competition for my $20 fee, and I can’t complain. But, it’s food for thought.

For those of you who might read the blog and are disc golfers — give me your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. I’d love to hear what you think about these things.

***

As you may know, I’m in the midst of a small personal project on the blog with my research of obscure baseball players.

I’ve picked out a half-dozen or so that I am going to start digging into and getting information on. I’m going to head up to Cooperstown and the National Baseball Hall of Fame to visit its library and find what I can on these players.

I’m hoping I can connect some dots as for some of these players, all I have is what I can find on baseball-reference.com. Hopefully, there will be a few things I can add to the numbers from this trip to the Hall.

***

It’s time for me to come up with a better way of storing memory cards after switching them out of my camera.

I went to the county fair Saturday and took a small memory card full of photos, many of which were really cute photos of a friend’s daughter. When I got home and was ready to move them from the card to my external hard drive, I couldn’t find the card.

Panic set in.

I looked through all of my pockets and everything else. The camera bag, my memory card pouch — everything. And nothing found.

I had put the card in my pocket when switching out and I had no idea what happened. My only thought was that I dropped it at the fair (in one of two places) or in the street at my friend’s house when getting in my car.

He went out and checked at his house. Nothing.

I went searching again and found a bag I had in my pocket. The card somehow ended up in there. My panic ended. That made me realize that I need to come up with a memory card holder to be able to switch out when needed. I don’t ever want to go through that again!

Any of you photographers have any suggestions for a good pocket-sized memory card holder?

***

Speaking of disc golf, as I did earlier in this post, I received an interesting package in the mail.

It was my renewal for my PDGA (Professional Disc Golf Association) membership. What’s odd about that is that I didn’t renew because my membership doesn’t end until Dec. 31, 2011. And if I was going to renew, I would do it after Oct. 1, when it would give credit for next year. Even with that, it wouldn’t make sense. I hadn’t planned on renewing until the end of the year, when it needed to be done.

Last year, when I signed up, I did it after Oct. 1, so it was for the end of 2010 and all of 2011. When I did that, I got all of the perks and membership stuff. It also included the 2010 member card, which showed my membership expiring on Dec. 31, 2011.

Then the package came today.

I didn’t know what had happened. So, I called them.

Turns out that when I signed up in October, I got all of the 2010 items and then would eventually get the 2011 items. Apparently today is that eventually. At least it all makes sense now!

***

I have some things in the works for future blog posts. I have e-mailed Bill Walker — Skywalker in hiking circles — and will be talking to him soon for a post or two on the blog about his adventures in thru-hiking. I have already previewed one of his books on the site and will be reading his second one, soon.

That also gave me an idea.

I have followed several people through their trail journals this year in regard to hiking the Appalachian Trail. Some finished, some didn’t. I am going to reach out to several of them in the hopes of interviewing them for a post on the blog. I’d like to get both sides, too, so it shows why some people need to leave the trail, how hard it is to finish it or not etc.

I’m going to try and correlate them so I can do all of them over a two-week period (including the Walker stories), maybe going every other day or so — that way not going too overboard with the hiking stories! But I think in the end, it will show a compelling picture of what people have to go through on the hikes. It’s my hopes that I’ll be able to get a few photos from each, too, to be able to help all of you paint a picture of what they go through when they do hikes like this.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

Filed Under: Baseball, Cameras, Disc golf, Hiking, My world, Notes from my noodle, Photography Tagged With: appalachian trail, baseball research, bill walker, camera memory cards, disc golf, disc golf tournament, discs, exercise, frisbee golf, frolf, hiking, losing memory cards, memory cards, obscure baseball players, pdge, photos, pictures, professional disc golf association, research, research on baseball, skywalker, thru-hiking, tournament

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Notes from my noodle: August 3 edition

August 3, 2011

Ahhh the world of social networking.

Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. StumbledUpon. Tumblr.

Hash tags. Trending topics.

There is so much out there to digest. And it’s crazy to try and figure it all out. Alas, I’ve taken a jump with the social media for the HooHaa Blog and created a “fan” page. It’s not so much a page for fans, rather a spot where I will post updates for this blog and my photo blog. It’s a nice little spot to keep track of things and all that. I don’t expect anything major out of it, but it’s nice to have.

If you want to like the blog on there, hit up the HooHaa Blog Facebook page.

And now, there’s Google +.

I have accounts at other spots and got an invite for the Google +, so I’m all signed up. I’ve messed around a little with it and am trying to figure it out. Not sure if it’s the next Facebook or what, but it’s interesting.

I’m pretty sure I covered this all in a post not too long ago, but I guess I’ve taken the latest plunges into the social networking world. Well, at least for the blog!

***

Softball season is winding down.

Though it’s always disappointing when softball ends, that means there won’t be the worry of playing every Tuesday and Thursday.

Still, we have at least two games in our Oneonta City League remaining, with the possibility of three.

The championship begins Thursday as we play Miller, the lone team to earn a victory over us this season. It should be a fun series and, of course, I am hoping that we win this series and earn our second straight championship.

We ousted the Fuzzy Dogs in the semifinals, dispatching of them Tuesday for a sweep. Third-seeded Miller swept the Copper Fox (who we beat in last year’s final) to reach the championship.

Currently, we’re 17-1 and hopefully we can win two more and finish with one heck of a wild season.

***

The job hunt is going slow.

I’ve sent out things for jobs, took a workshop on some other things and have been keeping my head up as much as possible. It’s a bit frustrating, however. I have a couple of irons in the fire, so to speak, and hope that one of them catch fire a bit as they are spots I’d really dig. I keep looking and keep applying, though at times it becomes tedious.

Funny story though and it makes me wonder about some other jobs I’ve employed to.

A couple of people pointed me to an interesting job. I saw it on the company website, looked a bit more and it seemed like something I could deal with. Another friend had looked into applying for it at one time and knew the pay scale and all seemed pretty solid.

I looked at what I needed to do and one part included a digital portfolio of sorts to send along to them.

I started looking for things to include and got a few things together. But before I went any further, I figured I should call the company to see to whom I should address a cover letter and if there was anything else I needed to send.

Turns out the job has been filled, but had not been taken off the website.

I’m glad I called ahead as that would have been quite annoying to work on all of that stuff and find out the job wasn’t available any longer.

The job listing is off the website now, though, so that’s a good thing at least.

***

Researching obscure baseball players has been fun.

The thing about some of these baseball players is that they are so obscure that there isn’t much on them. There’s statistics, but not much more.

One of the ball players who I’ve sponsored on Baseball-Reference is buried in nearby Johnson City.

After touching base with the cemetery and finding out where he is buried, we went on a search. Alas, we got to the spot and there’s one headstone for someone else in this family plot, but not the person we were looking for. There were two things that seemed like they could have been bases for former headstones, but there was nothing to show that this person was buried there, other than knowing where he was supposed to be. The one headstone is for someone listed on the cemetery card for this plot, alas wasn’t the person I was hoping to find info on. It’s a shame, too, because some of the dates of his birth and death differ in certain spots.

I’ll keep up the research and will eventually have a post on him.

***

As those of you who read this blog will know, I’m quite interested in reading about, learning and hearing stories about long-distance hiking. It’s fascinating to see people who go through all of this and then see how they react at the end.

I got an e-mail the other day from hiker Skywalker (I’ve read one of his two books and will be reading the second soon), who arrived back in the states after hiking in Spain. It seems he had quite the experience. I’m working on doing an interview with him soon about his experiences, hiking and other things along those lines. If you have any questions you’d like to ask a long-distance hiker, let me know and I’ll put them in that interview.

That made me realize I hadn’t checked the hikers I started reading about at Trail Journals several months ago. Though I knew several people had dropped out of their hike of the Appalachian Trail, I knew several were still at it. Those that I was reading included both genders and ages ranging from recent high-school graduates to senior citizens.

It was sad to see that several of them had dropped out. There were various reasons, but all were valid. Many of them got several hundred miles in, too. A few of them are close to finishing or have already finished. It’s really quite impressive to think that these people will have hiked more than 2,000 miles over varying terrain to finish the AT.

I’m still intrigued by the AT. I’m not saying I will do the hike one day and I’m not saying I won’t. The odds are against it, but it does still intrigue me. It’s a shame I wasn’t better off financially or in better shape as being laid off for all this time would have been the perfect time to try it. We’ll see though. Only time can tell.

To those of you who have done it or finished this year, awesome job and congrats. For those who try it in the future, good luck.

And if you want to ask someone who has done the AT and the Pacific Crest Trail, let me know and I’ll add it to my question sheet!

***

Every year, Binghamton hosts the Spiedie Fest and Balloon Rally. I’ve never gone and have always wanted to as it seems like it would be great photography.

Years ago, when working a summer job as a painter at a local college, a few of us used to listen to a Binghamt0n-area radio station. That year, Eddie Money was a headliner at the Spiedie Fest. Quite often during that summer, you’d hear Money’s song “Take Me Home Tonight” on the radio and them advertising for Spiedie Fest.

And every time the chorus part of the song came on, the announcer would — in a booming voice — say “EDDIE MONEY!”

Ever since then, it’s been a running joke between a few of us.

Eddie Money is back at Spiedie Fest this year. Two of us are going Friday to check out the festival, hopefully see some balloons launch and watch Eddie Money (hopefully) rock the stage. It should be quite fun.

And there better be some good spiedies as they are tasty as can be and will be something I am looking to snack on while down there!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

Filed Under: Baseball, Hiking, Job hunt, My world, Notes from my noodle, softball, Sports Tagged With: appalachian trail, baseball, baseball players, bill walker, binghamton, binghamton ny, concert, eddie money, employment, facebook, facebook fan page, finding work, hiking, hoohaa blog fan page, job, job hunt, long-distance hiking, music, obscure baseball players, oneonta city league softball, oneonta ny, pacific crest trail, research, singing, skywalker, social media, softball, spiedie fest and balloon rally, spiedies, thru-hiking, twitter

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