Hole In One

I had been promising to take the girls mini golfing for a while so today I finally get things done around here so that we had a little free time to go. We went early (right after lunch), and there was practically no one there. Unfortunately, as soon as we walked up, a group of people came out of the clubhouse by the driving range and walked over to the mini golf shack. There were nine people, and there were three little kids with them. When I say little, I mean about 7 years old or less. This really put a crimp in our day as we had to wait for these people at just about every hole. The polite thing would have been to let us play through, but of course, I say it would have been the POLITE thing to do. If you would have seen these people, you would know how absurd it would be to use the word polite with respect to them.

So anyway, we trudged though, which allowed me to actually give Alison a little help. Sarah was way too cool to accept help from her dad. In the end, Sarah beat Alison by three strokes, and all because Ali was rushing her shots on the final hole, and she ended up taking a 9. Sarah took a 3. Game over. I hate to brag but I smoked them both, though even I ended up 4 over par.

One last thing to note... At the end, there is a hole where you shoot your ball up a ramp and over a water hazard onto an island. Getting a hole in one wins a free game. Well, I ended up dropping it in the hole. it really was a thing of beauty. I'll end up letting one of the girls use it. Maybe I'll take them again this weekend after Sarah's football game. This time I'll just observe I think.

Night Out

Kris and I finally had a night out to ourselves. Sarah stayed home babysitting Alison and We drove downtown to see Rick Springfield. I don't know if it is a regular thing for him or not, but the last few years it sure seems like he does a week's worth of shows at the Potawotami Northern Lights Theater.

We had seem him at a free concert eleven years ago when Sarah was a baby. I remember the day well because Sarah threw up in the car and it was almost 100 degrees outside. This time was much different. The Northern Lights Theater was a very intimate setting, very different from where I am accustomed to seeing a concert. It had the feel of a VH1 Storytellers show.

The show was very good. He started with a couple of his hits from the 80s and then played his last album (or rather CD) in its entirety, Venus in Overdrive. He actually wrote several of the songs in a hotel in Milwaukee (Room 804 of the Pfister). If you didn't know it, you would have never guessed the guy is 62 years old. He sounds the same as he did 25 - 30 years ago.

One other thing about Rick Springfield, apparently, no two shows are alike (at least when he does the 5 nights in a row). Kris thinks we should go see him every time he comes back now just because he does different things every time. The night before we had heard was a ½ electric - ½ acoustic show and he was actually taking requests.

The audience was also 95% women. It was funny to just watch all these women swooning over Rick Springfield. At one point, he had removed his shirt and went into the crowd. I was expecting someone to actually faint.

But all in all it was a good night. Something we need to do much more often.