Student Made Video

Check out this video one of my students made.  Please disregard the poor spelling.  I thought this would be a cool way to see our school.  I make a cameo at about the 1:07 mark.  Please enjoy responsibly.

Giving Back

Volunteering ones time, skills and resources is an important part of life.  JFK knew this when he started the Peace Corp.  Jimmy Carter knew as well when he began Habitat for Humanity.  This summer is was my turn.  That is why I decided to give back by volunteering my time to the United States Golf Association to help out with the 2010 US Open.  What better way to help others than by manning a hospitality tent for obscenely rich corporations.

Before I could lend my helping hand to the elitist everyman game of golf, I made a quick stopover in San Francisco to take in some BASEBALL!  After a night game the day before, Justin Strickland joined me to catch a day game.  It's important to support the home team when visiting a new ballpark...unless its the Yankees.

Sporting some Tim Lincecum wigs. Timmy pitching in the background.

After the game, Justin and I picked up our rental car VAN and picked up the rest of the Man Trip 2010 crew.  We thought it would be a great idea to make a quick stop at the Golden Gate for a beginning of trip picture.  Turns out there is no quick trip to the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour.  A short hour and a half later and we were back on the road.

**Just for reference, Man Trip is a yearly trip of which past exploits include the Indy 500, Kentucky Derby, and the College World Series.**

Jeremy (1st Man Trip), Patrick (3rd MT), Justin (3rd MT), Isaac (4th MT)

Tim (not here yet - 3rd MT) 

Finally it was time to help out those less fortunate than us.  Actually, between the five of us, there were some pretty cool gigs.  Tim and Jeremy were hole marshals on the 2nd hole, which played as the second toughest all week.  Patrick was a player driver, driving players and their caddies from the practice greens to the tee box in a Lexus...which meant that Patrick was slumming it compared to his normal wheels.  Justin and I worked different hospitality tents, which basically amounted to guarding an entrance and putting wrist bands on people...but at least I got to watch golf from my entrance, it was on the 3rd hole.

A few thoughts I had from the Open. 

• The collective golf IQ of a crowed gets exponentially lower the closer Tiger Woods gets, absolutely bottoming out when you get withing 200 yards of him.
• Pebble Beach is beautiful.
• The worlds most obnoxious man always sits within five feet of me everywhere I go in any sport.  (That may say more about my tolerance than anything).
• I would four-putt the majority of the holes at a US Open.  I am not sure I would break par if all I had to do was putt!

One more quick story from this disjointed blog entry.  The first day of the Championship, Tim and I followed around the group of Tim Clark (S. Africa), Mike Wier (Canada), and K.J. Choi (S. Korea).  Two interesting this happened. 

First, I managed to offend at least three Canadians.  Mike Wier left a putt woefully short on the 5th hole and as the crowd collectively groaned, I turned to the group next to me and in one breath said, "Hrumph, Canadians...you guys are Canadians huh?"  They nodded, unamused.  So in my best effort at diplomacy I said, "He should have taken a shot at maple syrup first, that would have helped him get it there!"  And do you know what happened!!!!  Nothing. NOTHING?  Hrumphh, Canadians.

My second unfortunate encounter with Canadians happened when, after Mike Wier actually made a putt, a group proudly turned to Tim and I and asked, "Eh, you guys there from Canada there eh doncha know?"  I immediatly and triumphantly shouted, "No Way!"  Once again, I realized that this was pretty rude and tried to smooth things over with this cool line a few seconds later, "Soooo, uhhhhh, yall are from Canada huh.  Oh, thats cool."  Slowly walk away.  

The final part of of this story happened due to my intimate knowledge of the Korean language.  Following K.J. Choi, I felt that I needed to give him some encouragement.  My first attempt was a simple "Anyong Haseyo" (Hello) as he walk past me off the 2nd tee box.  This was met with a head nod, and I was pleased. A few holes later, I was racking my brain to remember ANY Korean words that might imply a job well done.  The best I could come up with were shouted after a nice drive on the 10 hole.  "Mashitsayo," I shouted.  In English, that was a delicious drive K.J. 

A Korean man next to Tim and I seemed to like this and chuckled to himself.  A few holes later, Choi hit in to a sand trap and Tim and I both said "Ahhh Shiiiiii", basically Crap!  (I was teaching Tim).  The same Korean man was standing next to me again and laughed so, never one to turn down an audience, gave the encore of  "Shibal", which is basically the f-bomb in Korean (sorry Mom).  He thought this was great and asked where I learned such fine Korean.  Turns out, this was K.J. Choi's personal manager.  We ended up chatting for the rest of the round.  So thank you Korean kids for teaching me swear words.  Swearing is the international language of love.

OK, that is all.  Becky and I are sitting in the Seattle airport (Free wifi shoutout!) finally on our way to the Great State of Texas after three weeks of west coast road trip fun.  Hoping to put those pictures and stories up in the next week or so.  

If you are reading this (yeah right) and are in Texas and want to hang out, give us a call on the summer cell. 214-422-5125

Love, iBeck