Matt Holthe's Fleeting Thoughts

It has now been over 2 months since my last airplane trip. And 2 months since I've stayed in a hotel. (Technically, I had a vacation in early July, but we drove and stayed in a condo). So where I was ahead of the game in my 2011 Second Quarter Travel Update , I am now back behind schedule. I'll need to pick things up the last few months of the year to maintain my hotel and airline status. Hopefully things WILL pick up - I can only do so much on my own to get these trips planned.

A couple years ago, it was pretty easy to say that Tiger Woods was going to break Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major victories. Now, it's not as easy to say that for sure with the way Tiger has been playing. So I thought I'd revisit where each player was at this point in their careers. Conveniently, you can compare both age and number of majors played and get an equal comparison. On January 21, 1976, Jack turned 36 years old and had played in 56 major tournaments as a professional. On December 30 of this year, Tiger will turn 36 and has played in 56 majors as a pro. Here's the comparison through 56 majors played as a pro: Player   Wins     2nd's     Top 3's     Top 5's     Top 10's   Jack Nicklaus   14 11 32 37 42 Tiger Woods   14 6 23 29 35 Exactly the same number of wins, but Jack was in contention more. When did Jack get his 15th major victory? It wasn't until the 1978 Open Championship (then called the British Open...

Another major, another first-time winner. Let's recap the last XX major champion winners: 2011 PGA - Keegan Bradley 2011 Open Championship - Darren Clarke 2011 US Open - Rory McIlroy 2011 Masters - Charl Schwartzel 2010 PGA - Martin Kaymer 2010 Open Championship - Louis Oosthuizen 2010 US Open - Graeme McDowell 2010 Masters - Phil Mickelson (4th major championship) 2009 PGA - Y.E. Yang 2009 Open Championship - Stewart Cink 2009 US Open - Lucas Glover 2009 Masters - Angel Cabrera (2nd major championship) Going back the last 3 years (12 majors) we have had 10 first time major winners. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing for golf. From the real golf fans, it's a good thing to have an "anybody can win" mentality. But from the casual golf fans (which are the vast majority), it's probably better to have a few names always up there to keep them interested.

It's been a few days into the Redbook Residency . I have 9 sub-chapters on my assignment list, plus one extra where I'm a co-author. I've given myself 3 sub-chapters to write per week (Wednesday due dates). The estimate was 20 hours per week, but I'm guessing that will be low. That's about 6 hours per sub-chapter. Some will be easier than others, but that is still a limited amount of time to write a sub-chapter. We'll see how the next three weeks go. Hopefully I don't get too far behind...

From what I've played and gathered up, here are the "cheats" for Wii Carnival Games: Fortune Way Area: Main area - Click on the monkey that comes out of the barrel Collection Plate game - land a coin on the plate that sparkles (which plate sparkles is random) Great Swami game - Get the winning card (random) Alley Ball game - score 100 three times in a row (Note - a "cheat" of its own on this game... if you move the direction arrow to the left or right a few clicks, then you can throw the ball pretty hard and bounce it off the roof and right into the 100 point spot - it's actually fairly easy once you figure out the direction to point) Super Hoops game - score 24 or more points in the game (Note - to unlock the Super Hoops game, win two large prizes in either Collection Plate or Hoops and then trade the two large prizes into the grand prize) Claw Alley Area: Main area - click on the UFO that flies in the sky Prize Claw game - grab the pink head...

August 4th is the first time I played this entire year. That's pretty pathetic. And my golf game really showed it - I was very inconsistent and my short game was downright horrible. I don't know how much more I'll play this year - maybe twice more. It's easier to play on the weekends, but that's the case with most everyone. So playing on the weekend is really slow. I don't want to take that much time out of my weekend. During the week, I have to take a day off (like I did yesterday). I can afford to do that only so many times - my vacation days are limited.

My wife and I bought a Wii a couple years ago. But now that our daughter is 2, I decided to see if she would be interested in it. Wii Carnival Games has a game (frog leap) that she can play right now - no buttons need pushing, no coordination needed, just pull the remote down. She played it, but ended up being more interested in watching me play. (She loved clapping every time I threw a dart and popped a balloon). As a side effect, I got hooked into playing it. My wife and I had played competition mode before with friends/relatives, but I don't know if I had played "single player" mode at any point. There are tons of hidden things in there and stuff to unlock - it got me hooked. I think I've unlocked most of the secret things, except for some of the "high score in game xxxx" where I still need to practice.