12.12.21
Thoughts from the past week. Here we go…
Golf Update -
Thanks to some unseasonably warm December weather, I was able to sneak out to Skyway Golf Course in Jersey City on Sunday morning for a quick 9 holes. For those unfamiliar, Skyway is a great little 9 holer in the Lincoln Park section of Jersey City. Considering how much play the course gets, it is kept in really good shape and kept open year round, weather permitting. There is a nice variety among the 9 holes, and I love that it features 3 par 3s, 3 par 4s and 3 par 5s. Since I am a Hudson County resident, I can play for 28 bucks, and at 3 miles from my apartment, it’s tough to beat when I need a quick golf fix.
View from the right rough on the par 5 third. Thats the Freedom Tower in the background
I got off to a rough start on 1 - after blading my second shot over the green into a hazard, I failed to get up and down for bogey and dropped two strokes right off the bat. I settled down with 3 straight pars from holes 3-5 and then played bogey golf the rest of the way in to finish with a 43.
Hole of the Day: #5, Par 4 - 436 Yards
This is the toughest hole on the course, as it usually plays dead into the wind (it did today). The fairway pinches in, right in the landing zone with bunkers lining both sides. The second half of the hall opens up to a relatively accessible (and huge green) and the dunes surrounding it create a nice punch bowl effect. I hit my best drive of the day (and maybe the last 3 months) - a bullet that started up the right side, turned over and finished in the middle of the fairway roughly 270 yards from the tee.
My approach shot in on #5
I was left with about 165 yards into the wind so I pulled a 7. I put a pretty good swing on it, but it cut a little more than I intended and ended up pin high just right of the green. They keep the area around the green shaved down pretty tight, so I bumped a pitching wedge up to about 8 feet and drained the putt for 4. A par that felt like a birdie.
Today, I really had only one swing thought - “relax”. I am making a conscious effort to relax my grip and let my arms hang down naturally as I address the ball. The goal is to have as little tension in my body as possible, as this improves my tempo and increases the likelihood of solid contact. Simple but effective.
Overall, it just felt great to be out there, knowing golf will be pretty limited over the next few months. I like to be super active, so most of my golf activities will more resemble what I did on Saturday:
4 mile run with the dog
20 minutes of Yoga, focusing on mobility for golfers, link here (https://youtu.be/MPLYc7qsTI4)
25 minutes of strength training, with an emphasis on core stability.
I’ll probably go into my fitness routine in a later post, but I’m working on increasing my range of motion and core strength in hopes it translates to a wider golf swing with more shoulder and hip turn…
Baby Update:
Julia had her 1 week birthday on Wednesday:
And as of today, its been 11 days since she joined us. Here is what I have learned since last week’s post:
Working from home, with a baby is hard! And not necessarily for the reason you may think. I went back to work (virtually) last week on Wednesday, and my wife Loral has done an amazing job caring for Julia. She is consistently on top of everything - feedings, diapers, laundry, etc, and I am super thankful for that. She has made a space where I can concentrate on my work in a distraction free environment, but the problem is, I can’t concentrate! I’m constantly stepping away from my desk just to watch her sleep or hold her for 5 minutes. I’m sure I will get better with this as time goes on, but for now its hard.
Try and have a routine, but don’t be discouraged when you get off track. We are pretty meticulous about our schedule, in the hopes that we can get Julia on a consistent eating and sleeping routine. We try and plan all this out to best fit into our schedule, but ultimately we only have so much control. Don’t sweat it.
Everyone has also been asking me about how Barkley (our 4 year old mutt) has been handling all of this, and the answer is - really well. He is such a happy go lucky dog, so I do not sense any sort of jealousy - in fact the exact opposite. He shows genuine concern whenever Julia cries. He likes to know where she is at all times, often making the rounds between the couch, her swing and her crib until he locates her. Something that has always fascinated me, is how well dogs sense the fragility of a new born; Barkley is typically a bull in a china shop, but around Julia, he is incredibly delicate.
He is a silent guardian, a watchful protector
And if you ever doubted that caring for a new born is tiring, look no further than Sir Barks. I have noticed his energy levels are a bit lower than normal - I guess its because he’s only sleeping 16 hours a day instead of 18…
What I am hoping to learn this week:
1) Just about all aspects of caring for a baby can be tracked through an app, but is there really any practical application for this data? As someone who religiously tracks his golf scores, logs his workouts and spends hours on sports-reference.com and data golf.com, I personally love it. But I am not sure there is really a ton of value - my parents raised me without knowing exactly how many hours I slept and how many diapers they changed per day, and I turned out ok. So is any of this necessary? Probably not:
Julia’s sleep log for this past Saturday, via the SNOO app.
Weekly log showing average sleep per night
So this technology is super cool. But what exactly are we supposed to do with this information? Am I any less tired in the morning, knowing that she had a max sleep stretch of 2 hours and 46 minutes? No, I’m still exhausted. There’s more:
This one is via the Huckleberry app.
“Julia had pee. 1:10 AM”. Glad we documented that.
Again, via the Huckleberry App
Julia averaging only 4.5 diapers a day - alarming considering this comes on an extended home stretch. Will be interesting to see if her production drops when she goes on the road…
Here is where it gets really interesting:
Via the Elvie pump app.
We are now tracking the number of ounces of breast milk pumped in the last 4 weeks. And not even total, by the individual boob! By they way, we haven’t seen rightly/lefty splits like that since Bernie Williams won the AL batting title back in ‘98. Impressive Loral!
Side note on the Elvie pumps - they actually sit under the shirt, very discretely, except for one LED light directly where the nipple would be. It kinda makes her look like the Terminator of breastfeeding, or a Fem-Bot from Austin Powers:
So I guess my question is, what are we supposed to do with all this information? We aren’t going to significantly change anything we are doing because an app recommends it. That’s what doctors are for. Maybe I’ll make Julia a baseball card…
Odds and Ends:
I love Penn State football so I’ll probably use this blog as a space for my thoughts on the team from time to time. Some pretty big news in the past few weeks, first with Coach James Franklin signing a 10 year extension worth up to $75M. Many were clamoring for CJF to be fired after a lackluster 7-5 2021 regular season and an invitation to the Outback Bowl. Do I think he should have been fired? No, I think he’s done a nice job rebuilding the program and restocking the cupboard with talent. But was the extension deserved? Also no, I don’t think so. I get nervous with the thought that he may still be leading the program when this one is in fourth grade:
I do like the Manny Diaz hire though…
I probably won’t have a ton of golf content over the next few weeks, so I’m also going to use this space to write about what I’m reading, watching, eating, etc. So expect more of that in the coming posts.
I really like writing but I really hate proof-reading. As Loral lovingly pointed out last week, I had a few typos in my last post. I’m not going to fix them, sorry. So just get used to that.
Until next week…
