My cats

I talk about my cats in my blog, but haven't posted many pictures.

Here is a picture of Fred (Princess Winnifred)



And here's a picture of Gordon (that's Flash Gordon to people who don't know him):

Una's a golfing natural

I took Una out to the driving range in Petone now that she's got her nifty new golf clubs.

Because of her yoga, there are so many things I don't have to bother with teaching, like relaxing and good posture. She has stunning posture both before, during and after her swing, and a wicked follow-through.

It's hard for me to pick up on little adjustments because she's a lefty, but there's not much to adjust really.

Speaking of adjustments, I may have to adjust my estimate of when she'll start beating me on the golf course.

She's keen for another trip to the driving range too.

Cartoon Entry in Cartoon challenge

I created a cartoon challenge on the kiwiwriters page.

Here is my entry.



copyright Travis Cottreau, 2007

Dialog font: "Steel City Comic" by John Greyson.

I won a contest

Paperback writer, a blog by Lynn Viehl often holds give aways and various contests, often having her own, signed books as prizes.

One she had recently was called "Last Call" giveaway. It's a good read about how she has been trying to get rid of a large number of professionally printed bookmarks (big mistake) since she started selling novels and she's down to the last one. That, along with the novel of the winner's choice are the prize.

Here's the winning announcement... me, me, me... hahah...

As I said in an earlier musing, I attract books. This still seems to be the case. :-)

Una has golf clubs

Can you believe this? I actually convinced Una to get golf clubs. She suggested it herself actually. This was after following me out for a few rounds just to walk the course. Now, she's decided to ruin her walk by golfing too - but I will never complain.

Now - how long before she starts beating me? I give it 6 months.

Bookstores without a Science-Fiction section

Whenever I go into a bookstore, I almost always end up in the sci-fi/fantasy section. When I don't find a sci-fi section, I end up wondering why.

Is it that they don't think that sci-fi qualifies to be in their bookstore? isn't literature? Something else?

Bookstores like this are usually filled with what other bookstores would put in the "Literature" section, either classic or contemporary.

It makes me think that the bookstore is stuffy, and ruins my browse, even if there are other books that I'm interested in reading.

I hit two bookstores like this during my weekend in Auckland... fortunately, there is always a Borders and a Dymocks there for me to browse.

"Do you have any other pants?"

Golf - it can grind down your determination, it can kill you just a little bit, it can steal your soul one shot at a time. Then, you hit one good drive, one good chip or one good putt, and all of that goes away.

Still - there are apparently some obstacles to get through before even getting on the golf course.

Saturday, noon, I drive out to The Ohariu Valley golf course. There is a club event going on and it's 3 hours before I can get on to play. Ok, there are lots of courses around - piece of cake. I'm off to the Hutt valley - I've never played the Shandon Golf course, I'll play there. Thirty minutes later, I'm walking up to the club house. I walk inside, clubs ready to go and ask, "Can I pay for nine holes?".

The guy behind the counter is young, maybe 20 and packing bottled water into a glass front fridge. He looks me up and down and asks, "Do you have any other pants?". I am somewhat aghast and shake my head and say, "No."

"Well, we've got a dress code here and you can't wear jeans.", meanwhile, every single other person I've seen on the course is wearing shorts. I don't debate the difference in formality between shorts and jeans, I just walk out, swearing all the way to the car. When I have my mind set on something, and have been thinking about it for days, I don't take that kind of thing well.

My wife consoles me by saying that we can head up to Kapiti on Sunday and I can play on the Kapiti course. This calms me down. That was my home course last year and I like playing there. We play mini golf at the Porirua Pirate mini golf place instead. I get my best score ever with a 41, 1 under par for the 18 holes. Michael Campbell has played at this mini golf course, and his best score there is only 37. :)

Sunday arrives and I insist on calling the Kapiti golf club because you never know when they might be closed for a club event. Sure enough - closed to the public until 3:30PM. How about The Ohariu Valley? They were closed Saturday, what's the chance of being closed again today? Well, pretty high, because they are closed to the public until at least 4PM.

Arraaaggghhhh!!! This isn't a golfing weekend at all.

I didn't really want to, but I head off to The Berhampore Golf Club. It isn't that it's a bad course, but man, it's a lot of hill climbing. For the same cost as everywhere else, I get 18 holes instead of 9. Did I mention the hills? It would be hard without carrying the 25kg of golf clubs.

I play really badly for the first 9 holes and get a 53. My best is something like 47, so I've done a lot better. Still, I console myself that I was regularly scoring 60 last summer. AND, it gets better after 9, I get a birdie on the par 5 tenth and par the 12th.

Still - a brutal golfing weekend.