Ah, 2011, it's a new year, I wonder what it holds in store for me. Well first, there are several trips to the hospital, culminating in the birth of my first grandchild.

Then I am called to jury duty in the worst neighborhood, I get picked for a 4 day murder trial, and on the last day just when I think this is finally over, aww man, the elevator gets stuck between floors for an hour, and the firemen have to pry open the ceiling of the cabin and lower skinny ladders down to us, and boost us out to the door opening 5 feet above the ceiling one person at a time. The only thing to look forward to after that was an late hour one hour drive home thru bad neighborhoods.

Then comes one of the worst snowstorms in our city's history, could not get to work but, aww man, I had my computer with remote access to our company's network so I worked all day anyway from home, besides shoveling out to get to work the next day.

When I get back the next day, aww man, I get tasked with creating a labor budget file to cross reference dozens of projects with dozens of resource categories to see how many specific types of resources are needed for each project (around 150 linked worksheets in a single Excel file, a piece of cake).

Then I have to travel to Tennessee on business for 4 days, and after that, aww man, my expense report hits me with a $39 late charge due to the approval process taking too long, not my fault, but still my expense due to policy.

March finally arrives and with great anticipation I drive to my first golf course of the year, Rolling Knolls, which I have enjoyed for 20 years because it is uncrowded and inexpensive, and never closes for the winter. What's this? No cars in the lot and windows are boarded up? Aww man, out of business, a sign of the times.

Oh well, I can always look forward to the softball season, another kick in the gut, our Mavericks manager Don Sokolowski has just passed away. Nobody else wants the job, aww man, so I guess I'm it.

Oh well at least I can enjoy the opening day of softball season, but 15 minutes before our Grumpies game it starts raining, aww man, game canceled. What next? The following week our stellar defense kicks the ball around like the Brazilian soccer team. In honor of that our offense puts up a soccer score while the opposing offense puts up a football score.

Then the wife and I take a cruise on the largest ship ever, the Allure of the Seas, an astounding experience. Big deal, so I miss one softball game against a team that only won one game last year. When I get back, I learned, aww man, they beat us. But I don't care, the cruise was fantastic. In fact everything in life is fantastic, setbacks just add spice to the good times.

Looking forward to the annual 6 County Senior Olympics, first event is golf at Highland Park. With 12 months of pent up anticipation I make the hour long drive, sign in, load the clubs onto the cart and just before we head for the tee, aww man, a sudden thunderstorm cancels the event. The next day, our Mavericks make it to the gold medal game against the winner of the game between the Barons, a team that already beat us in our league, and a glove-wearing team from Huntley who ended up clobbering the Barons. Aww man, this means we have no chance, but let's just play the game one pitch at a time, and yeah man, we won the gold medal.

Next Olympic event was 9 hole golf at Tam in Niles. Good round except for one really bad hole, aww man a snowman, but yeah man, they picked that hole for Peoria handicap which subtracts that hole from your score, so I won the gold anyway.

Next was track and field in Park Ridge. I was confident I would win the 50 meter dash but aww man I stumbled and finished 3rd. No problem I still think I can win the high jump and long jump because I spent all last night drinking Foster's Australian beer to make me jump like a kangaroo, but aww man, those events got canceled by a thunderstorm.

Elbow gets seriously inflamed, pain with every touch or movement. Aww man, no more softball or golf for awhile. Wife claims it is due to golf elbow, I claim it is bingo elbow. Survived Septemberfest bingo only because I did not get many numbers.

The young lean mean and highly athletic stud muffins at work invited me to play basketball every Friday, so I tried it because I needed the exercise. I quickly saw that I have lost a step or two. Okay maybe 3 or 4. But some of my moves still work, like faking a shot and watching superman fly overhead while I dribble to the basket and miss the layup. Another move was when I was the only defender back against a 2 on 1 fast break, so I faked like I was anticipating a pass, and the dribbler fell for it and went for the layup just as I went back to him and blocked his shot. I got high fives all around for that. The other youngster's psyche is ruined forever, with the stigma of having been rejected by a 65 year old man. Aww man, I forgot I could have made it worse by wagging the finger like Dikembe Mutumbo.

Saw a Matthew Kelly presentation in person at our church, and he was so inspirational that he challenged us to read a page of the Bible each day. Mary and I decided to do that and we are enjoying it, answering each other's questions along the way. Another challenge was to keep a Journal for each Mass we attended, writing down just one idea for each Mass. Now my attention span is usually terrible, but now that I have this Journal, I am forcing myself to pay attention to see whether the one idea comes from the readings or from the Sermon. This guy is a genius.

We decided to get our kitchen remodeled. Aww man, we had no idea the demolition stage would banish us to our bedrooms upstairs for a month. Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners will have to be elsewhere. On top of that, aww man, the walls we wanted removed happen to load bearing walls that have heating ducts between the studs, so the remodeler is stumped on how to deal with this. Since the new cabinetry has already been built, there can be no Plan B. However the ducts were successfully rerouted, and all progress is recorded on Photobucket.com, search on the name golfwithjoey, album named kitchen. Happy new year.