Unspoiling the Walk, Part II

What an ordeal, learning a new golf swing. Or unlearning the old one, to put a finer point on it. From my high school summers hitting the range every day with Alan and Eddy (and occasionally Russell, whose favorite wood in his bag was his Louisville Slugger) to my Casa CHAnG days hitting the range a few times a week with the housemates, I've spent countless dollars on countless buckets of balls, reinforcing terrible swing habits that are extremely difficult to unlearn now that I'm finally getting real lessons from a competent instructor.

So take it from me; if you want to pick up golf for the first time, don't do it recreationally. You'll save a lot of money and aggravation by ponying up for lessons and learning the correct swing right off the bat, rather than wasting countless cycles at the driving range grooving a flawed swing that will only increase the difficulty and frustration levels of the lessons you inevitably end up taking anyway. Put another way, its easier to build something right the first time than it is to build something wrong, tear it down, and build something right in its place. Just ask the Stanford Stadium guys.

Of course, if you didn't have someone like me giving you such sage advice when you first started, but you've managed to develop a functional swing anyway, the decision to take lessons is more difficult. I'm exhibit A. Through my first three lessons with my instructor Katie, I felt like I had learned an incredible amount from her about the mechanics of the swing, but when I actually put it into practice, everything completely fell apart. Not only did I not have a new and improved swing, but my formerly functional, albeit marginal, swing no longer worked either (just look at my round on Saturday), and I found myself in no-man's land. Let me tell you, it's a shitty place to be, and I can totally understand if you wouldn't want to join me there. If you are happy with your swing and already have fun out on the course, why bother with the hassle that I'm going through? But if you want to raise your game beyond its current level, it's where you have to be willing to go, because it's not going to happen through repeated range visits, which just groove your current swing and make it more consistent, but don't fundamentally improve it. Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice does. :)

The process of overhauling one's swing requires a lot of patience, which isn't my strong suit, but a lot of that comes from faith in the instructor, which I have in spades. Katie is awesome. I trust that my struggles are building towards something positive, and she isn't just ruining my swing. Of course, in my case, there's not a whole lot for her to ruin anyway. It's not like I'm Tiger Woods, who has gone through two major swing overhauls in his short career, despite both times having won multiple majors with the previous one. Now that's gutsy. But still, I managed to have some fun with my old swing, so my faith in Katie's ability to ultimately lead me to a better one helps keep me sane.

It has also helped to have Hubert going through the process with me, struggling in and working our way out of no-man's land together.

I think I saw the first really positive signs of that progess today (lesson #4) when Katie gave me some adjustments to make, and I suddenly found myself hitting the ball more cleanly (instead of slamming the mat, which used to be the norm) and with a square face (as opposed to the consistently open one to which I had long ago adjusted by simply aiming 20 yards left on every shot).

Of course, it's inaccurate to say that it happened suddenly, because this really has been a methodical process, with one or two new pieces to focus on each week. But whereas earlier those pieces were ruining my old swing without any evidence of improvement, I now feel like the pieces are starting to gel into a cohesive swing.

Now when I look back at my old swing, I see a lot of obvious flaws. My new swing still has some of the same issues, because old habits die hard, but at least I recognize them and am finally starting to see how correcting them is leading to improvement. I still seek consistency, but I'm more than happy to hit the range now to achieve it. The light at the end of the tunnel is looking more like open space and less like an oncoming train.

Next week, I get to put my revamped swing to the test as Hubert and I hit the course for a round, with Katie guiding us through the first three holes with instruction and advice before sending us on our way. This ought to be interesting. :) In the meantime, I have my study guide (His body swings his club as if independent from his head!):

Well I'll Be Damned

For all those doubters out there (me, Gerald):



Lebron's official birth certificate, sealed and certified, from the State of Ohio Office of Vital Statistics, consistent with records from the City of Akron Department of Public Health. The guy really is only 21. Good thing I didn't promise to eat my shoe.

Now about Greg Oden...

Fighting the Heat

Jeremy is going through the very brief easy phase of his internship, so he took advantage and paid us a visit for the weekend. And what better time to stay at our un-AC'd house then during a ridiculous heat wave!

So how did we beat the heat? By playing a round of golf, of course! Saturday afternoon, Gerald, Jer, Andrew, and I hit the 9-hole, par-29 Sunken Gardens.



Even setting aside the horrid heat, it was a disgruntling experience for me personally. Golf lessons have been tough on my swing, and while I'm hopeful for improvement, I'm currently pretty lost. The last time I played there, prior to lessons, I shot a 39. This time around, despite much-improved putting (the one part of my lessons that has taken), I shot a 45. It's hard to stomach, but hopefully it'll pay off in the long run. I guess I need to be patient.

Oh well, at least there was some shade along the course to keep temperatures down around 100. :)



Jeremy is swinging well and led the pack with a solid 38, and Andrew finished with a 48 to beat Gerald by one stroke, after they went into the last hole tied. Who knew Andrew was so clutch?

So playing a round of golf isn't exactly the best thing to do when it's triple digits outside. Lesson learned, right? Not for Jer and Ger. The next morning, the two of them went running at the Stanford track! Crazy, I know, but because the WTA's Bank of the West Classic was being held right next door at the tennis center, they got to see some famous faces: Kim Clijsters (current #2 in the world), Chanda Rubin, and Daniela Hantuchova. Jer also ran into his former juniors tennis coach, Mike Nelson, whose daughter Lindsey was competing in the qualifiers later that day (she recently finished runner-up in the NCAA's), so Jer and Ger came home to get me and Andrew, and we headed to Taube to watch her match.

Here she is getting ready for a point, with Mike in the foreground looking on:



The qualifiers don't draw much of a crowd, as you can see below, especially considering the heat, though those stands will certainly be packed for the main draw. All the top-ranked women are competing, and I may try to get back out there for a Maria Sharapova match, though Lindsey certainly fit the bill of the marketable tall blonde leggy player.



Thankfully we were under the covered section of the stands, but that kind of created a sauna effect, so we baked rather than fried.



As you can see in this picture, Lindsey dominated, winning easily 6-2, 6-1 over Whitney Deason of Stanford. I think it's the first time I ever rooted for a Trojan over a Cardinal, but the occasion called for it due to Jer's personal ties. Hubert, she's the same height as you, so this is what you should look like when serving...notice the full extension! :)



After a weekend of dehydrating activities, we finally decided it was time to get out of the sun and find some AC, so we took refuge in the AMC later that day to watch Clerks II. Rosario Dawson was a revelation! Who knew she could act so well? Her previous vehicles haven't exactly showcased her abilities, so I wasn't expecting the stellar performance that she gave. Besides her, the movie was excellent and builds very well on the original, though even if you haven't seen the first one, you don't miss too much, other than a few nods and the nostalgia factor (which, actually, is a pretty significant factor in this movie, but I think it still works for the undoctrinated). Regardless, I highly recommend both parts.

The heat wave is supposed to break by Thursday, so cross your fingers that Sharapova lasts that long in the tournament, because I'm certainly not going back before then!

If you wanna see some more pictures from this weekend, check them out in the ever-growing photo gallery.

The Peaks and Valleys of the Tour

Timeline of Floyd Landis' 2006 Tour de France:

June 30 - Already among the pre-race favorites, Floyd vaults to the front of the pack when scandal hits the tour and removes his top four rivals, a day before the race starts.

July 1 - Gets to the starting gate of the Prologue 8 seconds late due to a slash in his tire, which doesn't get noticed until just prior to his start time. Ends up losing out on the yellow jersey by 9 seconds. Disappointing, but no biggy.

July 4 - Sees his top remaining rival, Alejandro Valverde, crash out of the race with a broken collarbone. The Red Sea is parting.

July 8 - Places second in the first long time trial and first major stage for the general classification (GC) contenders, and is second overall behind only Sergei Honchar, a non-threat to the yellow jersey, thus affirming his position as race favorite. His top remaining rival after the scandals and crashes, fellow American Levi Leipheimer, has a shockingly poor ride, losing 5 minutes to Floyd, and is no longer considered a threat. The Red Sea has officially parted.

July 10 - Reveals in the rest day press conference that he has a degenerative hip from a crash in '03 that will be completely replaced after the race. This is the same injury that ended Bo Jackson's career! Press hails him as a warrior.

July 13 - Puts on the yellow jersey for the first time in his career after finishing third in the first grueling mountain stage in the Pyrénées, further establishing his control of the race. Eight straight American champions is looking like a foregone conclusion.

July 15 - Plays it conservatively and lets a breakaway of seeming non-contenders get away with a 30-minute advantage on the peleton, thus giving up the yellow jersey to Oscar Pereiro, who was trailing him by 28 minutes heading into the stage, rather than putting in the energy of his team to chase. Press criticizes him for not honoring the yellow jersey by acting to defend it, but in the grand scheme of things, this shouldn't be a big deal, because the guys in the breakaway, including Pereiro, aren't true contenders.

July 18 - Reclaims the yellow jersey by 10 seconds over Pereiro after finishing fourth on the stage to Alpe d'Huez, perhaps proving that the break he let get away three days earlier wasn't going to be a factor. Once again gets criticized for racing conservatively and not attacking his rivals on the final climb in an attempt to widen his lead and win the stage. Press declares him an unworthy champion for racing so tactically, without panache. (Panache? -- Yeah, it means flamboyance. -- I know what it means. -- Really? I had to look it up.)

July 19 - Cracks on the final climb of the Alpine stage, stunning literally everyone and losing huge time to Pereiro, who wasn't supposed to even be a real threat. Maybe it wasn't such a great decision to let him get away in that breakway after all. Also loses huge time to previously marginal rivals who now probably have enough of a cushion to keep him off the podium. Drops all the way to 11th place, 8 minutes back of Pereiro. Goes from Moses to Ramses in the span of one climb. The Red Sea is crashing down on him.

July 20 - Has one of the most miraculous stages in Tour history, attacking an unheard of 150km from the finish of the final, brutal Alpine stage, building an early lead of 9 minutes on the main pack and somehow maintaining most of it on a solo ride the rest of the way, with teams of riders working together to try to chase him down but failing. He wins the stage (his first ever) and not only vaults back into contention, but incredibly resumes the role of race favorite. He now sits in third, just 30 seconds behind Pereiro, the same guy he gave 30 minutes to in the long breakaway. The press hails him as a legend for his fierce, gutsy ride. In short, they love his panache.

So how will this end up playing out? There are three stages left, but only one, the long time trial on the 22nd, will determine the champion. Floyd is the best time trialist of the remaining contenders and should easily make up the 30 seconds on Pereiro, as well as the 18 seconds on second place. But after the twists and turns of the most unpredictable Tour in ages, we can't rule out anything. It was never like this with Lance. Dominance is impressive, but it's not this exciting.

In the span of three weeks, Floyd has gone from race contender to race favorite to overwhelming race favorite to gutsy competitor to unpopular race leader to massive disappointment to hero for the ages. Hopefully he caps off this roller coaster ride in the yellow jersey on the Champs Elysée. Go Floyd!

The Movie of the Summer

Not a stellar summer movie season thus far. M:I3 wasn't memorable. X3's concept had promise, but the execution was very disappointing and basically killed the franchise for me, though I'm sure they'll keep going with it anyway (hopefully with a new writer and director, which could revive it, a la Batman Begins). Da Vinci was panned by both critics and audiences, and I still haven't ponied up for it. Superman was decent, but the lack of dialogue really detracted from it. Pirates was pretty marginal on its own, but its quality will ultimately be determined by the quality of the third movie. If the third one sucks, I'll just pretend the last two never happened (a la Die Hard, Matrix, Back to the Future). If it's good, I'll probably perceive the second one as a good bridge movie. Regardless, it's no Empire or Two Towers (though talk about unfair comparisons).

I'm pretty sure the best movie I've seen this summer starred Al freakin' Gore.

But I expect that to change this weekend. My hopes are sky high for Clerks II, and if yours aren't, then I'm guessing you haven't seen the original. Fans of dialogue-driven movies rejoice!

The other day I watched some of the Clerks director's commentary, and I had to laugh when Kevin Smith remarked about a music video that was made with the Clerks characters, "That's the closest we'll ever come to a sequel." Well, I guess the money on the table was substantial, because part 2 is coming Friday.

There haven't been many reviews yet, but one critic made some waves by walking out on a screening earlier this week. Smith had some choice words for the noted critic, Joel Siegel:

A Dick in a Mustache is Still Just a Dick

That blast just makes me want to see this movie more. Do yourself a favor and check out Clerks this week, then join me for the sequel this weekend. If it comes anywhere close to the original, it'll be great.

Exploring Campus

With new camera in tow, I hit campus today to see what it could do. I haven't read up on how to use all the settings, so I left everything on auto. I also kept it on normal quality, which doesn't take full advantage of the camera's megapixels, but I wanted to see if the results were satisfactory at that level, which would mean twice the storage space on my 2GB card.

The early returns are good, but mostly I just love the wide angle zoom on this thing. It allows me to take shots that I couldn't dream of getting with my compact, like this:



I still have a lot to learn, but it was nice to finally get started. I was getting antsy with this thing sitting on my desk unused for two days.

It was also fun to walk through campus again and see things that aren't on the path from Wilbur parking lot to the football stadium. I parked at Cantor Arts Center and the Rodin Sculpture Garden, then worked my way down Palm Drive to the Oval, the Quad, White Plaza, Hoover Tower, Manzanita, and select athletic facilities, like Avery:



If you're nostalgic for the good ol' days, or just want to see how my pictures turned out, check 'em out in my photo gallery.

New Toy

After our recent Grand Canyon trip, I felt it was time for a camera upgrade. It would have been useful to do this before the trip, but my procrastination got the better of me, so on Monday I decided I wasn't waiting any longer, and I started shopping for an SLR.

Of course, that's easier said than done when you know as little as I did about SLRs, but fortunately, Russell (who turns 28 today!) knows a ton, so he guided me through every step of the process. I didn't have to research a single thing! He taught me about wide angle, telephoto, and prime lenses, aperture, flash, circular polarizing, warming, and UV filters...all Greek to me before this week. It made the process very easy, especially since I ended up ordering exactly the same camera that Russell has been using for a year, the Nikon D50:


This camera provides the best bang for the buck at the entry level. The lens is an 18-55mm, which has a very nice wide angle and a decent zoom. At some point I'll upgrade; Russ and I already have our eyes on the Nikon 18-200mm, but it's so damn expensive, and completely back-ordered. Buying a telephoto lens is probably more economical, but I'd like to avoid swapping out lenses as much as possible, even though that's one of the main reasons to get an SLR in the first place.

Thanks to Russ' advice and Amazon's surprisingly quick turnaround (ordered Wednesday, arrived Thursday), I now have all weekend to test out the new toy. First stop, Stanford campus. Should be a great camera playground!

An Inescapable Moral Imperative

An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore tells us, is one we hold "at arm's length, because if we acknowledge it and recognize it, then the moral imperative to make big changes is inescapable." The titular issue of his new movie is global warming, and if you leave the theater unconvinced of its existence, or of our culpability in the matter, then you are probably corrupted by the same money that makes this truth inconvenient for those best positioned to effect change: the politicians. (That, or you take comfort in denial.)

But this movie is not about the politics (even though it is inescapably political). Gore has a genuine passion for and commitment to the issue that comes through in his drive to educate the masses. He has given this presentation thousands of times to hundreds of thousands of people around the world (including Googlers earlier this year), not the kind of effort you put into an issue if your goal is to score cheap political points. This adaptation is simply the culmination of his years of legwork evangelizing this message, dating back to his early days in the Senate. Don't confuse it with recent political hatchet jobs like Fahrenheit 9/11.


Obviously any discussion around global warming must begin with the establishment of its existence, a task that Gore carries out with a sledge hammer. But to me, the most interesting question he addresses isn't whether or not global warming is real, but rather, why have so many people remained skeptical about it to this point?

In keeping with the rest of his presentation, Gore cites a simple study with eye-opening numbers to tell the tale. Among a random sample of 1,000 abstracts on climate change in peer-reviewed scientific journals over the last ten years, exactly zero questioned that we were causing global warming. But over that same timeframe, over 50 percent of a random sample of 600 global warming articles in the popular media (not to mention Michael Crichton's recent best seller State of Fear) questioned our role in global warming. Controversy makes for better copy, and consequently, perception becomes out of whack with reality.

The media's obfuscation of the truth has enabled our politicians to do the same. They can play dumb because their constituents are dumb (or at least confused). And on this issue, our politicians are more than happy to play dumb. As Al Gore quotes Upton Sinclair, "It is hard to get a man to understand something if his living depends on him not understanding it."

The key, then, is to increase understanding among their constituents, and perhaps more importantly, make sure the response to that understanding is constructive. Gore muses that when it comes to global warming, so many people go directly from denial to despair. But rationally, we have not reached the point of despair. People need to not only believe in the existence of global warming, but also in our ability to do something about it. Both are necessary to put pressure on our politicians to take action. Their livings need to depend on it. Gore's presentation is a solid step in that direction. (It's also surprisingly entertaining.)

An apple a day...

I must be eating a lot of apples.

Gerald just got accepted to medical school in St. Louis for the upcoming fall! It's the same school from which Elizabeth (orthopedics) just graduated. Jeremy (ophthalmology) also just graduated and is back in SoCal for an internship, as is Sandy (pediatrics). Gina just started rounds and is helping to deliver babies. Ruth is getting ready for year two, and Hubert is taking pre-med classes so that he can follow suit.

Congratulations to all of you guys! I expect great medical care in the future, and I am happy to see that you are ending up in a diverse set of fields. :)

From a selfish perspective, I am sad to lose another friend from the Bay Area, as well as housemate, golf partner, and fellow Stanford fanatic. But Gerald, I still expect you to be sitting next to me on September 16 for the grand opening vs. Navy. The seat is saved for you, so book your tickets now. You can stay with us.