Golf Weekend!

Wow, I can't leave for a few days without the riff raff heh?

Those that know me, know my love for the great outdoors. Normally, the summer consists of a week long trek into the Boundary Waters. This year, the boys created a weeklong extravaganza of Boundary Waters and Golf Weekend!

Brilliant!

I ended up bailing on the Boundary Waters side of the trip, too much going on with the family and work to pull away for 10 whole days, but I did make the Golf Weekend trip.

We have a pretty interesting group, a bunch of classmates and friends from Annandale High School and their college friends. A fun group of guys, with a wide range of political views. It's nice though, we may disagree on politics, but we have a lot of fun together and I cherish the time I get to spend with this group.

Wednesday was a travel and get organized sort of day. Left the Twin Cities somewhat early and made our way up to the Grand Rapids area. After a several hour trek with numerous pit stops for assorted needs and goodies, we hit Amen Lake, about 25 minutes north of Grand Rapids.

The rustic cabin is up against the Chippewa National Forest. No power, no running water. Just charcoal, propane and an outhouse!

In fact, there are no roads on the cabin side of the lake. We parked and had to take a pontoon across the lake to get to the cabin.

Thursday we had a great breakfast in town, a little place called Dotties. We made our way out to Sugarbrooke for 18 holes of fun. I was able to golf with both Junior and Senior, which was pretty nice. Both are very good golfers and were able to provide me with some good feedback. The 18th hole at Sugarbrooke is a stunning hole! A slightly elevated tee box provides you a great look at a relatively open green and an even better view of the lake.

I hit a 106 on Thursday with a pretty strong finish!

Friday brought us to Wendigo, where I was teamed up with Senior again, as well as Manea and Bernie. Wendigo is the toughest course I have ever played. It's a pretty tight front 9, which I proved by losing 5 balls.

I hit a 108 on Friday, taking a 9 on 17 and an 8 on 18. I almost drove the green on 18, but chipped into a deep bunker in front of the green. It was not a pretty sight!

Saturday took us to Pokegama. I teamed up with Schmidty, Bernie and Manea for this fun filled round of 18.

We got a little bit of a later start with the golf as busloads of soldiers returning from Iraq made their way with an escort through Grand Rapids. As an old Infantryman, it was a moving experience seeing these warriors make their way home. While it was an impromptu stop, it was an important one for this Vet.

My putting game started to come around on Saturday and I was able to card a 105, with a pretty strong performance on the back 9.

Saturday night also brought some bad weather in the area. We were all lounging in the water after a long day in the hot sun when we saw the front move in. Within 15 minutes, we were struck by some severe straight line winds, marble sized hail, and a lot of rain. It swept through in about an hour, but it was a pretty exciting storm to watch come in.

Sunday is the annual Golf Weekend scramble. I paired up with Mehr for this final round. We're the Gilligan and Skipper of the group. Mehr, about 6-2 nearly 300 lbs, was an offensive lineman for Moorhead State back in the day. Imagine Mehr and I in the same canoe together for a week! It's a fun sight.

At the turn, Mehr and I were in last place, carding a 46 on the front 9. We pulled it together on the back 9 carding a 40 and taking 2nd in the scramble. Losing to Schmidty and Manea by 2 strokes.

Limited cell coverage and a lack of a charger hindered by ability to remain connected to the "real world" the entire weekend, which was fine by me. 5 days and 4 nights with this crew was exactly what I needed. We didn't worry about much over this time. Lots of laughs and shenanigans!

I guess King Banion doesn't like me...

I hear he savaged me on the 5,000 watt flamethrower, AM 1280 this weekend. In fact, he called me a coward for not calling into the show. He also called for my mom to dial the phone for me.

For the record, the only cowardly thing I did this weekend was to not go for the green on 8 at Wendigo.

Stay classy King Banion...

Good stuff really. He had a typical conservative meltdown and completely misses the point on the controversy surrounding Luke Hellier's MnSCU Board of Trustee nomination.

Poor old Luke Hellier. He works the crowd at parades and partisan functions, videotaping those that oppose his candidate. He writes about his desire to ensure keep "liberal professors and students on the defensive". He has no background at all in public college student advocacy.

If I were attacking conservatives, I would have hit Adam Weigold and Michael Boulton pretty hard as well. However, they have strong track records for supporting students, unlike Hellier.

But King and his merry men simply do not want to understand that.

Progressive bloggers hit a jackpot here, and the conservative bloggers are in damage control mode now.

When I left on Wednesday, I had worried about this story dying.

Seriously, I did.

Thanks to King Banion and MDE, they kept this thing on the radar for at least another week.

BTW, anyone else feel the irony of King Banion, a professor at St Cloud State, savaging a student from St Cloud State on the 5,000 watt flamethrower they call AM 1280?

If a liberal professor had said those things about a conservative student, righty bloggers and the academic freedom folk would be calling for that professor's resignation...

Thanks again for keeping the controversy going guys!