Quick Update

Heading into the final day of AI-XVIII -
GOLF:  after a sterling front nine navigated in 40 strokes - Heimsch finished ahead of the pack after Day 1 with net 73, 3 clear of Gordon, 6 clear of Stan and 9 ahead of Paze.  Given today's handicaps, Gordon leads by 3 heading into the final 18.

LOS was completed - results TBA

The inaugural Lip Sync contest was a rousing success with everything from Eminem to Taylor Swift to LMFAO to Sonny & Cher featured at one point or another.

There is approximately 27 pounds of barbecue remaining for anyone still hungry.

More later.

Friday Recap

The first full day was a typically busy one at AI-XVIII, chock full of excitement, sweat, hail, salt and beer.  When Gordon arrived at Bay Hill this morning, the field was complete and we were ready for the beginning of golf action.  The temperature/humidity combination of late June in Orlando sent the Heat Index soaring over the 100 degree mark but the players soldiered on, refusing to yield to the often oppressive conditions.   Gordon & Stan jumped out to a 1 up lead right out of the shoot when Stan drained a par putt on #1 and it looked to all as if this would be just another steam roller match for Gordon,  the nonpareil and often non-compos-mentis 4-Ball Champion. The lead stayed at 1 until Paze & Heimsch were gifted the 4th hole.  But when, Paze & Heimsch won 8 & 9, the lead was 2 up at the turn.  Play sharpened up quite a bit on the back, with both Heimsch & Stan shooting 40 and Paze adding a 42.  Gordon's par on 10 and birdie on 11 quickly brought his team back to even with the interlopers from Pennsylvania and Tejas.  Heimsch's par on 12 gave his squad a lead they would hold until both he and his partner 3-putted 17 and suddenly we were all even with 1 hole to go.  All the players hit serviceable drives, however both Heimsch & Paze ended up in the greenside bunkers while Gordon lofted high onto the hill left of the green.  Stan meanwhile stroked a 9-iron to about 20' above the cup. Heimsch hit a magnificent sand shot to about 5 feet and when he holed out for 4 after Stan had already done so, the result was the 2nd tie in AI 4-Ball History.  One need to go all the way back to the very first event, played at MetroWest where Jim and Gordon tied Mitch and Nick in a 9-hole match.  Given the heat index, and the looming first day of Lack of Skills, there was a unanimous vote to enter the air-conditioned Men's Locker Room for 30 minutes to drink beer, eat goldfish and nuts and not move.  Then just as the players' and Jim's body temperatures had dipped below critical levels, KT Marinari arrived ready for action in LOS.  So off we went.

We had 3 different winners in the first 3 categories as Kathi won the Long Drive, Rich the 70 yard shot and Wally the chip/pitch shot.  Gordon, wilting in the intense heat of both the Orlando summer and the pressure of the AI, finished last in all 3 events.  The standings after Day 1 have Kathi & Rich tied at the top with 12 points, Wally next with 10, followed by Stan with 8 and Gordon trailing the field with 3.  The putting, sand play and 40 yard shot remain.

Bowling For Sotweeds went to Kings Bowl America for the first time.  There were lights, but not the kind that help you see anything, huge video screens, loud music, lots of food and beer and some bowling.  Paze opted out pleading a fragile back; Gordon fought through an injured knee for 1 game but took himself out of the competition for Game 2.  The results?  Same as it ever was (almost):  Reef won the Boys Side and Edie the Girls BUT with her stirring performance and Reef's advancing age, Edie came within 4 pins of toppling Reef for the overall crown and family bragging rights at the upcoming STIFF weekend in a couple of weeks.  There will be crowing nonetheless.

A few more music videos, a vain attempt at Rickles and Seinfeld thwarted by a balky network, and one by one the group shuffled off to sleep with dreams of Day 2 and the beginning of the AI Championship on their minds.  More importantly, everyone was prepping for the highly anticipated debut of AI-Lip Sync.  Can anyone other than Sean, Kate and Emma remember the words to their songs?

And that's the way it was on Day 1 of AI-XVIII.

Important Wardrobe Information for Bowling For Sotweeds

The AI Bowling For Sotweeds Committee calls your attention to the following Dress Code in place for tonight's action.  This is an obvious attempt to limit groups such as ours from patronizing this establishment, but we shall persevere nevertheless.

Dress Code

• No excessively baggy clothing of any kind
• No work style boots
• No baseball caps
• No bandanas/doo rags
• No sleeveless shirts
• No bluetooth devices
• No oversized chains or pendants
• Persons wearing torn or soiled clothing may only be admitted at the discretion of Management
• No hats, clothing, jewelry or visible tattoos with profanity or objectionable art
• Sunglasses may not be worn on the premises
• All back packs and/or bags are subject to be searched by Kings staff

Kings reserves the right to modify the dress code guidelines for any reason, including or due to local or seasonal conditions or special events.

It Is Time

Miracle On Eyes

For many of us in AI-world, the idea of waking in the morning and gazing at one's bedside clock to check the time is as involuntary and unthinking a process as breathing.  For others however, this simple task requires a quite voluntary and active process.  Many of you are aware of what the inside of your shower stall looks like - again, for others of us, the tile pattern, letters on the faucet, where the soap dish is, are all part of life's mysteries.  Packing bags for traveling requires forethought for all of us, but for some it also requires several pairs of prescription glasses along with a few boxes of contact lenses, many bottles of solutions, 3 oz. or less lest the gendarmes at Heathrow or elsewhere take them from you, and then the reading and sunglasses we all carry.  Plus, these must be in the carry on.  They simply cannot be lost, for if they are the next stop will be for a cane.  Most of you can tell the difference between a bowl of sugar and a bowl of milk with your naked eye.  Some of us get our fingers wet trying to figure it out.  I could go on, but you get the idea.

Recently, AI-XVII Champion Rich Heimsch decided to take the leap and have his cataract afflicted lenses replaced with brand spanking new plastic lenses.  Not only would they be unobstructed by cloudy, blurry spots but they would also be of the prescription that would allow him to see 20/20 without glasses or contacts.  It worked.  His reaction, "wow!"

Then about 3 weeks ago, after much much gnashing of teeth & consultation with Mr. Heimsch and several other friends along with umpteen visits to the ophthalmologist, your bloviating blogger also took the plunge.  There were no cataracts for this reporter, so the surgery, known as RLE, was 'elective.'  Confident that nothing could possibly go wrong after obsessing over the 17 pages of warnings and remotely possible side effects and sending myriad question-laden emails to my surgeon's office,  I, too, allowed a doctor wielding a laser and 10mg of valium to blast my existing unfocused lenses to smithereens with ultrasound, suction out the detritus and insert brand new ones.

It's a revelation.  For the first time since my kindergarten teacher told me she didn't really care if I could see or not but I better shut up, I can see unaided. 

I notice the shower stall needs some caulk.....

Running to the AI

This past weekend saw the two youngest members of the AI cult jog, run, trot, wheeze and gasp their way across 13.1 miles of Connecticut and complete their first competitive half-marathon in AI record time of 2:21:10!  An amazing performance from Kate and Sean.

This makes them the second and third members of the AI to complete such a grueling competition.  The first, of course, is Gordon; who completed a full marathon in Hawaii many moons ago.  Upon completing the race, Gordon announced his intention to take some time off from training to let his aching muscles and broken toe nails heal.

We anxiously await that return.

AI-I Champ in the News

For reasons that have escaped us [although it has provided hours of material] since the inaugural AI when Gordon declared victory after 27 holes and fled Orlando to 'play' softball, there is a softball league in which a person can simply stand around for hours on end, intermittently wave a bat at a ball pitched at 5 or 6 mph and consider that he has 'played' a game.  Admittedly, this league is in Sarasota, where someone is considered young if they can wait until 6pm to eat dinner.  Hours that could have been spent doing more productive things such as rearranging the spice rack, cleaning the grout in the shower or watching reruns of "The Munsters" were instead spent in an activity presaging recreation hour in a nursing home.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the New College Bones Softball Team.  A team of inclusion.  Anyone is welcome: toddlers, relics, men, women, the tall, the short and some who can actually still kneel - and more importantly, get back up.

On another note, Gordon continues to exploit his faithful companion Sam as a way to pad his bona fides as a scientist.  Gordon is a major player in one of the more pressing controversies facing modern academia:  should students be allowed to have pets on campus?  This, along with trigger warnings prior to teaching a particular book or topic in order to protect fragile students' psyches and the dangers of gluten are the defining issues facing today's college educators and Gordon, too.  See this photo from the Sarasota Herald Tribune featuring Sam and sycophantic companion.

It's Official

Well, the final handicap revision has been made by the GHIN system and we now know exactly where the players stand as we careen towards AI-XVIII.

Two major moves have occurred since the last revision.  First, two-time Champion Paze is apparently starting to see results from his intensive 6 week instructional program at Bay Hill earlier this year as his index plummeted 2.4 points leaving him firmly atop the final ratings.  Second, Gordon managed to cleverly play enough rounds to have his previous best round drop out of his last 20 rounds and therefore send his index up by nearly 2 points.  Stan saw no change to his index, while Heimsch had a mild uptick that will not affect his course handicap.

Herewith the final numbers.  A note about the Combo Tees handicaps:  those numbers are correct only if everyone plays from the that tee box.  Should a player or players opt to play from the Yellow tees, players choosing to play from the Combos will lose two shots off of their handicap.


                     INDEX     YELLOW     COMBO

PAZE               5.7            7               7
MFB                9.3           11             11
HEIMSCH        11            13             13
GORDON         16            19             19

It's Pronounced How?

We bring you the following announcement from the AI-I Champion:

 

 

Gordon and the Draft

For years, AI insiders have pooh-poohed, and occasionally har-harred, at Gordon's refusal to retire from the diamond.  His participation on his team reduced to slightly more than that of lurker; his physical exertion in the range of the average WalMart customer riding around in a motorized cart; Gordon has soldiered on.  The scorn heaped upon him and his fellow teammates by the opposition has done nothing to lessen their compulsion to pantomime a real team.

Yet, sipping this morning's coffee whilst perusing the daily paper, this startling headline re yesterday's MLB draft verily leapt from the page.

What are we to believe?  In the mangled syntax of our 43rd President, have we been misunderestimating him?

Likely not, but.....

Will This Get Reef Back on the Golf Course??

As most of us are aware, the game of golf is going through a difficult time.  The cost, difficulty of the game, aging of the country club set, physical breakdown of Tiger, and most importantly, the retirement of James B. Reifsnyder are conspiring to reduce the numbers of people playing the game, buying equipment and watching the typically glacial 'action' on the telly.

But wait!  Come now a way to play that combines the ennui of golf with the insightfulness of Cheech and Chong.  A way to play that allows golf to stay au courant with our evolving cultural climate (applies only to parts of the country that actually embrace evolution and understand the difference between a theory and a hypothesis).

Come Back Reef

it is June

And so we enter the month of AI-XVIII.  With little more than 3 weeks remaining before the date-shifted annual gathering, we bring you a few reports from AI-HQ.

First, the penultimate handicap report shows that Paze has reestablished his dominance atop the field, while Heimsch draws ever closer to MFB and Gordon lurks at the back of the pack.

                     INDEX     YELLOW     COMBO

PAZE              8.1             10               9
MFB                9.3             11              11
HEIMSCH       10.7             13              12
GORDON        14.3*           18              17

Gordon gets an (*) because apparently someone was nice enough to post a low score for him that he did not shoot on a golf course he did not play.  The AI has contacted Edward Snowden to get to the bottom of this nefarious behavior.

Second, we would like to remind everyone, as in everyone, that their participation in the Saturday night AI Lip Sync Battle is mandatory.  Everyone shall prepare and perform a 60 seconds long lip sync to a song of their choice.  Please refer to our previous post for instructions or contact AI-HQ with any questions.