Joe's Place

Well here he is world. Possibly the cutest grandbaby boy on the planet and he’s named after me. He doesn’t look a whole lot like me, but the genes are there.

He weighed in at eight pounds, thirteen ounces and twenty-one and a quarter inches long. Papa and mama are a little tired but doing just fine and Grandpa couldn’t be prouder.

UPDATE: 4/14/10 If you’d like to see more photos of Baby Joseph, my son’s blog now has many more and the whole story.

Anita and I are so very excited to announce the arrival of the latest addition to the Renaud clan. My oldest son Josh and his lovely wife Yoli are blessed today by the birth of their new baby boy Joseph Martin Renaud. I’m very proud that they chose Baby Joseph to be my namesake and we look so very forward to seeing him in person at the hospital later.

However, after spending most of the day with them, I can assure you that his older sisters are even more excited than I am to see him. We showed them Josh’s most recent post on his blog with pictures of the new baby. They couldn’t be happier. Jump over there yourself to see baby Joseph and Mama. They both look great.

Even though this is grandchild number six, this kind of thing just doesn’t get old. It is very humbling to experience indeed.

Here’s a hearty salute to Phil Mickelson on winning the 2010 Masters tournament and getting his third green jacket. (Nice news story here.) I can’t think of anyone more deserving than him particularly after a very tough personal time last year. Anyone that saw Phil and his wife Amy embracing shortly after finishing his round and later after signing his scorecard could see the culmination of a whole lot of emotion.

Very touching moments indeed, thank you CBS.

By the way, have you ever seen anyone so fearless on the back nine in a final round at Augusta? Who hits a six iron 205 yards off pine needles and in between trees to a water-guarded pin on #13 and sticks it to three feet? (I would have missed the eagle putt too, because I’d still be shaking from the approach shot.) An incredible final round to be sure.

I’ve been a self-taught golfer for my whole golfing life. Mostly because of limited financial resources while raising a family but also due to having some success in golf relative to the amount of effort expended. I always attributed this to being one of those people just born with the natural ability or skill. Now role the tape forward.

Over the past eighteen months or so, that so-called ability has just not materialized into a whole lot more, in spite of the fact I play more now than in prior years. In fact I have felt my game going the other way, worse rather than better. I’ve lost approximately a club to a club and a half in distance and just am not striking the ball as solidly as I used to. So with the beginning of a new golf season, I decided it was time to change my ways and seek professional golf help. Yes, I said it – professional help!

So yesterday evening I went for my very first, paid golf swing evaluation. I went to a place called Golftec to see if some of the same tools that the pros use would help with my game.

They are running a promotion on their 90 minute swing analysis and describe it as a fact-based diagnosis, motion measurement and a proprietary tour player database. Sure enough, they attached a bunch of sensors to me and recorded video of my swings with a 5-iron. Seeing yourself in a video is quite revealing. You don’t look like what you think you do. Here I am.

See what I mean?

The high-tech lesson actually lasted the whole 90 minutes and was very informative and comprehensive. A number of suspect areas in my swing were identified complete with side-by-side comparison with tour pros and an audio critique. Pretty cool. A “lesson plan” was created at the end to help me with practice to correct those items. The program also includes a web site that you can visit to re-view the video and commentary, and lesson as well other useful tools.

All in all, it was a very valuable experience. Although the value will need to demonstrate itself in the form of results. And to make sure I give myself a reasonable chance of improving, I went to the driving range to work on a couple of things right away. I can’t tell you that there were immediate positive results, but I’ll stick with the advice and give it a chance.

In his first public interview after a practice round at The Masters yesterday Tiger Woods appeared calm, cool and well-coached in front of the cameras. As for his golf game, he looked ready to contend.

And in my golf league debut last night I was anything but calm, cool and well-coached or ready to contend. Actually I stunk the place up pretty good. That must be why Tiger gets the big bucks.

The sports world eagerly anticipates two major events this week. One of them is the opening night of the start of the Christian Fellowship Golf League on Monday which involves yours truly, but unfortunately the other news event begins later in the week in Augusta, Georgia and involves a slightly better known golfer named Tiger.

Yes, Tiger Woods will again be the news centerpiece after a long and somewhat sordid absence from the game. This will be a huge sports news story with world coverage, but unfortunately that likely means that the cameras will be absent from the other event which for the first time will be held weekly at The Falls Golf Club in O’Fallon, Missouri.

With all that Tiger has on his plate, it just astounds me that he could even contemplate his return to golf and in the process steal away the major media coverage from our opening night of our league. But while you may not hear much about sixteen men hacking and slashing their way through those nine holes on morning news shows Tuesday morning, if anything even remotely newsworthy occurs, you can read about it here.

We’re in for some mighty good weather this week. We might even hit 80 by Friday. I think old man winter has finally moved on to the southern hemisphere or somewhere else. See ya!

I imagine that there will be a few folks sad to see him go but that’s why it’s called a season. I too will miss it and do you know what I’ll miss most about winter? Two things. Cold water always coming out of the faucet to drink and the beautiful clear blue skies without any haze. (Yeah I know I need my head examined.)

But the good news is that it’s time to pull out the sandbags and snow survival gear out of the trunk and put the golf clubs in! Yes friends I believe golf season has now arrived!

The grandsons were over today and we with the weather being decent (by March standards) we decided to make a trip to the park. There’s nothing like the excitement of little boys engaging the playground equipment. The local park has a very nice playground set and it is just like a magnet the minute it appears on the little ones’ radar screen. Watching their fascination with all the ladders and slides and colors is a place that we all remember. I appreciate the entertainment with the simple things at their ages knowing that it may not last very much longer. So while it does, I’ll gratefully take it all in.

Here are a couple of videos of the boys’ mastery of the twisty slide because this is what grandpas do.

Keaton_on_slide

Hayden_on_slide

Getting the motivation to blog is not easy. You’re putting your personal thoughts out on the wild wild west and you may embarrass yourself. Plus, who has the time these days? It’s tough to make it a priority. Especially if you’re a procrastinator and a perfectionist.

I’ve been putting off posting to this new blog until I got the appearance of my new home page and blog site the way that I want it. Well today I decided that just isn’t going to happen. Getting the appearance right that is.

So it’s time to write a post and I’m sure a few of you would say it’s long overdue. Yes, I’ve been very tardy. Now the problem is what to write about. Wait a minute, isn’t this technically a post? So there, I did it. See that wasn’t so hard.