Saturday, July 27, 2013

Aloha, Golf Update


I played only one round of golf in Florida this winter - over 5 weeks!

And I've played only two rounds of golf here in New York in 2013 - warm-ups for my 5 day tournament down on the Jersey Shore....which I did play in back in early June.

But that's it!

No rounds at Eisenhower (get in line at 3am)....no rounds at Bethpage Black either.

I beat a ton of balls at the range in the spring, probably more than ever. My ballstriking is really getting better. But my short game is still, well, an *opportunity*. Screw that, it SUCKS.

The problem is that I still simply have no access to legitimate putting and chipping greens. This is New York. Country clubs cost $$$$$$. And no public courses have decent or available practice areas.

So I'm frustrated that I don't have the resources (time/money) to focus on my short game. But whatever, I can't complain too much. Ultimately I'm sure I'll figure out a way to overcome this obstacle - I always do. A putting green in my backyard??? A few neighbors have them. $5,000???

My wife is planning a trip to Hawaii, a family trip in the winter. She asked what kind of car we should rent and I said, "One of those Sebring convertibles or whatever everyone rents there..."

I said, "The only problem is that they are small and might not have enough room for our suitcases and my golf clubs."

But I was, of course, joking. I had no plans, not even any thoughts about playing golf over there. That's how fast golf is fading on my priority hierarchy.

However I married a fine woman. She declared that I was to bring my clubs (renting a minivan), and I was to play....no matter what the cost ($200-$300 per round).

So I just started Googling Big Island golf courses...

That's where those pics are from.

I still may skip the golf and override my wife. Probably get zinged for extra luggage to the tune of $150...plus the green fees.

We'll see.

The best thing about these trips is never the trips themselves. Getting there is always an anticlimactic bummer.

It's really the hype, the months of anticipation that make them worthwhile, sort of.



Friday, July 26, 2013

I Accidentally Watched This



It depressed me but did the job.

It reminded me why I don't follow all that crap and should keep me away for some time.

I'm still procrastinating on getting the gun my wife wants me to get. (6 month waitlist for a permit in my county!)

Not for nuthin', but you got to try to shoot a *perp* in the leg, first.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

A New Rush!


Over the past year I've done quite a bit of SAT/ACT math prep.

Not for me, but for a bunch of kids who are hopelessly hellbent on the *credentialing* route to life success (i.e. college).

You see every 20-30 points on the math SAT score does indeed make a big difference on one's college prospects.

But how does a student significantly improve a math score that's already 700 (out of 800).

It's not easy to do. A 700 might only be 3-5 questions wrong on the whole exam. And oftentimes these are simply silly mistakes.

Of course I know precisely how a student can do it but quite frankly most kids won't put in the required effort - or they started so late they simply don't have the time.

Nonetheless I wrote this book/problem set of about several hundred Hard SAT questions aimed at this niche market. You see the conventional prep books might only have 5-8 hard questions in them.

(There is only one hardcover book out there, one guy who did something similar. But I can easily out-market him, out-deliver, under-price,...and I have a few other tricks up my sleeve - that is if it seems worth my time to get aggressive.)

The other day a woman who runs one of these enrichment/test prep centers was bugging me for a copy of my book to use in her summer class.

So I stayed up all night editing, emailed it off to a printer, and they should be here in a day or so.

They cost $5 each to print and bind and I will sell them to her, generously, for $15. My first 10-lot will net $100, cash.

No biggie, right?

Oh but it is.

I've never really made and sold anything like this. I've never enjoyed passive income before. I've always had to trade my time for money. (Or gamble in financial markets.)

I was really surprised at how good I feel about it.


Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Still Breathing



The video above is pretty cool.  Unreal dancing!

Apparently the song - which I hear on the radio these days - is 3.5 years old!

Here's the new version:



So what have y'all been doing since I checked out of this blog?

Just watching the financial bubble and the tyranny of American gov't expand, I guess.

There's nothing for an individual to do really. I mean watching and reading other angry people talk about it is a waste of precious time.

Over the last 12 months I've been teaching and tutoring math a lot. Basically Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays on top of occasional weekday nights.

So I'm homeschooling educating my own kids outside the system all week long and then teaching in all my scant spare time on top of it!

Not only have I had no time to blog here on Morons, I've had little time to work on HomeschoolDad.com or, more importantly, the larger scale infoproducts I've been trying to put together.

But I have managed to put out two small ebooks on Kindle - and I'm just about ready to publish another ("Hard SAT Math") which has more potential than the first two.

This week both kids are at camp(day) so I finally have some uninterrupted PC time. The Princess is at a multi-sport camp (only $100 per day!) and the Prince is at a chess camp.

Interestingly, I found the chess camp because some random guy came up to me at a chess tournament and said he recognized my son from the internet - probably from this video.

Anyway the guy was very impressed with my son's math....although not with his chess! He introduced himself as a Russian Grandmaster. We talked about chess teaching philosophies a little and he mentioned he ran a summer camp nearby...

I'll try to check in a few more times this week.