A couple weeks ago, I was playing the red course at Willow Creek's Men's Club with some great dudes.

I wasn't playing well, as I'm in a bit of a slump, but I got my first par of the round on hole 4 - a 180yd downhill par 3. So, we walked up to the next hole - an uphill, dogleg left, par 5. I had honors, so I grabbed my driver, teed my ball up and took a couple practice swings. My buddy, Judson stopped me and said that the group ahead was within my reach... because when my driver's on, it's on. So I stepped back, noticed a bunch of tees laying around the box and said, "I guess I’ll just do a little house cleaning” and started picking up tees. Judson responded, “you could also just stand here and breathe.”

And that statement was the …

Retired folks often say that they somehow become busier after they stop working. This year I got a taste of what that meant.

In April, I quit my job to take a break, reset, and enjoy a summer off with my educator wife. Those planned few months turned into 6+ months of "pretirement" and it was incredible.

I wasn't necessarily busier in pretirement, but I was definitely more active and more productive with my own wants. I got to wake up nearly every day and just wing it. I loved it.

Health

I generally felt way better than I did during my typical desk job life. I easily closed my nerd watch rings daily, maintained a healthier weight and my general mood, outlook, and overall mental health was immensely better.

I unexpectedly found golf …

I grew up playing golf, but fell out of the game for school, work and other priorities. I'd been wanting to get back into it, but kept procrastinating. So, when my friend Ben asked me to join him for 9 holes to celebrate his 40th birthday at Glen Oaks, I thought… here's my chance.

At first, I was a bit apprehensive to have my first round in 8 years be at a fancy country club. I didn't even have clothes to pass dress code, but I figured this would be a great way to dive in head first and get back out there. So, I quickly went shopping and got a few practice swings in at the driving range.

On Ben's birthday, I showed up to find him sipping on a Miami Vice cocktail with his buddy and business partner, Ben Sinclair. This immediately set the …

When I was in High School, 3 foot blowguns were pretty popular with my friends and I - the ones that you blow into and shoot a 4 inch needle out the tip. We all became incredibly good with them, we could hit pop cans from 30 feet away, etc.

One day Nate Sels, Ray Terhune, and I were on the way to play a round of golf at Byron Hills when Ray decided that he needed a new blow gun. So we swung out to Discount Tool in Silvis to pick one up. Discount Tool was a weird place; it's about 1/2 car stereo equipment, 1/4 weapons, and 1/4 tools. So he got a 3 footer, some darts and we went golfing. Upon arrival, Ray was dying to play with his new gun so he took it out and put it in his golf bag - no big deal, there are plenty of trees, benches, …

When I was in High School I was on the golf team. I spent many of my meets golfing with my buddies Jeremy Ludin and Josh Gooch. We've got tons of stories, but there is one in particular that I will never forget.

Josh and I were golfing with 2 kids from another school in this tournament at Golfmohr. We got to #2 which is a par 4, dog leg left with a pond starting in front of the tee box and running along the entire left side. If you really hit your ball and cut the pond with a minor slice the green was possible to drive.

So Josh got up to hit, tried to cut the pond, but hit his ball right into the water. He took his penalty, teed up another and hit it directly into the pond again. He took his second penalty, teed up his 3rd and final …

OK so apparently it's not the hair. I really am a Bam Margera look alike. I was golfing tonight (for the Pioneer golf league) with Rick and Nehru from work. We were joined by this guy from financial that works down town. Anyway after the first hole and the guy is like, "you know, you look like the guy from 'Viva La Bam' ... Bam Margess or something like that." I was all like, "are you serious? I just cut my hair and figured I'd never hear that again." Then he called me Bam the rest of the game.

As far as the round went. Rick bought new clubs and improved his game by 20 strokes, haha. That's so awesome. I started off really really crappy but then halfway through the game I started visualizing things and pulled it all back …