Clubhouse Grille (*** NO LIV DISCUSSIONS ***) (*** NO POLITICS/RELIGION ***)

[Sean2]

Dang, I forgot all about that. I used to build a lot of models...cars, planes, naval vessels...I wish I had one now! lol

I decided to postpone my trip to TN...we still haven't got a handle on this thing and both my mother and I are in the "high risk" category.

[scotee]

 

[scotee]

A little grumpy today. Our course is closed. It seemed to me to be an entirely safe place to be. Walk or ride in your own cart. Leave the flagstick in. Don't touch anyone's balls or equipment. Sanitize your hands. Enjoy the game in the great outdoors. I don't get it. We can walk on the levy park path down by the river or bike. Going for a drive out in the country. Sure would like to play golf. Hope this passes soon. Stay safe and well friends.

[BIG STU]

I built a lot of model cars and airplanes back in the day. A friend of my old mans his boys built a lot of them and one time he brought me about 100 all assembled since his boys were in college-- I redid a bunch of them--- You also mention the Fairey Firefly I know what they are and saw a real one on display at an aircraft museum in Canada. We have been to a lot of aircraft museums in our travels. Lots of times I seek out the caretaker of a museum usually a vet and learn a lot of information on the aircraft in that museum. My highlight was in Ogden Utah met this guy who was in charge of a B-29 restoration he was actually the flight engineer on that plane in WW2. I got to go up inside it and my wife snapped a pic of me sitting in what was left of the pilot's seat.

[BIG STU]

Trust me they do not float that well--- I built one with the electric motor and all. Put it in the lake at the course with fishing line hooked to a Zebco 202 reel. gave it plenty of slack. it got halfway out and sank but I did reel it in. Of course it ruined the motor and batteries. I think I ended up blowing it up with firecrackers which were illegal in NC in fact still are. But I went to the beach several times a year and stocked up. My old man had no problem with that for some reason

[scomac2002]

Hey STU, you'll laugh, but that Fairy Firefly is at the Canadian Warplane Heritage and I used to live about 10 minutes away from there! Small world, eh?

I've spent many a day there over the years. I play golf with a member that ran the ground crews due to his experience working for Air Canada. My fondest memory from that place occurred many years ago during their annual airshow. This was many years before the Heritage built the new building and they operated out of a pair of hangers that were built during WWII. In fact, my father and uncle helped to build those hangers as they worked their from 1939-42. At any rate, I used to go up the day or two before the airshow because you could get unfettered access to the aircraft and the aircrew. I was admiring the collections B-25 Mitchell and the pilot invited me to go for a ride with him as he ran up the engines and moved the plane to the flight line. I got to sit in the co-pilot's seat as he ran up those awesome Pratt & Whitney Double Wasps and taxied out to the flight line. It was soooo loud and the prop was right beside my ear. With the cockpit side window open you could feel the air literally being sucked out of the cockpit as the engines reved up to operating speed. Thrill of a lifetime is all I can say!

[tolmij]

Both Stu and Sco seem to be in the thick of the exciting stuff, my most exciting memory was standing at the wire fencing at the British Grand Prix watching the great Stirling Moss spin out on a corner. He collected that car and carried on as if nothing had happened. Was 18 at the time and that was when racing cars were loud and sounded twice as fast as they were.?

[Sean2]

I spent an afternoon in Gasoline Alley during the Indy 500. I couldn't believe the tires on those cars and how low to the ground they were. I met Mario Andretti and Al Unser. Dang, feels like another lifetime ago, lol.

[tolmij]

Funny how difficult times changes things, used to Email dad's brother and is wife once a year, they are both 89, this morning I spoke to them via FaceTime, this is our first discussion since we moved to Australia in 1981. Quite a heart rendering episode, now we are going to talk regularly.

[tolmij]

The best I have seen was when I was an apprentice in the motor industry. The Apprentice supervisor was mates with many dealers and distributors, all of them dripping with cash. Their sons came as apprentices and thanks to daddy had really powerful cars, some of those engines were almost suitable for racing. Suffice to say they used to show them off by doing burn outs etc.

[Pigems]

Hey fellas! I think I’m gonna play some golf again this summer if this snow ever goes away. I hope everyone’s doing well in this terrible time that’s going on currently! :)

[scomac2002]

Welcome back @Pigems ! It's been a while since we've seen your smiling face around these parts. How have you been keeping?

[Conrad1953]

Wow. It's been awhile @Pigems. Nice to hear from you broseffy!What have you been up to?

[Pigems]

Hey fellas! Things have been good up here thanks, haven’t hit a golf ball in almost a year now though and I’m finally getting a little itchy for it. Been hardcore into the simulator racing for a while now, especially with everything that’s been going on lately in the world. How have you guys been? I tried to get on a while back but I couldn’t remember my password lol.

[tolmij]

Welcome back home Pigems, but, if America goes anything like Australia not much golf will be played, courses are now being closed down by the government as unnecessary activity. Go for it though, never know your luck.??‍♂️

[Pigems]

They haven’t opened up here yet in order to close, but I assume they will do the same here.

[Michael C.]

Hey Pigems!! Good to hear from you, bro!!

[Conrad1953]

Well, our governor did order all non essential businesses to close effective 5PM tomorrow until April 17th...............................I heard it when I got home

from playing today.............so I called the golf course we have tee times at for Tuesday and Thursday next week.....and they said they WILL be open.....

...................cool. I checked the governor's list and golf courses were not on it............I was thinking..........maybe SHE plays golf, lol................nah, no

governor would be playing during this crisis.............the press would kill them for it.

 

Meanwhile, all sporting goods/golf stores WILL be closed.

[BIG STU]

Glad to hear from you again old buddy.

[Conrad1953]

Our March heat wave is coming to an end. Tomorrow is the last day of near 90F daytime highs. It was friggin' hot on the course today!

[scotee]

@Pigems Nice surprise to have you check in here at the Grille. Hope you are well.
These are crazy days! After some discussion our course manager agreed to open for play today. Club house is closed and you have to check in outside where they give you the "lecture". I heard that the City Manager was not happy about them letting us play but the Idaho governor has said it is ok as long a precautions are taken. They put some foam inserts in the holes that don't let the ball fall in very far. I wipe down the cart and take off my clothes for the wash when I get home. I also took my fabric coin purse and laundered my paper money and bleach washed my coins from our little money game. I have the cleanest money in town. It was really nice to get out again but I realize that the powers that be could shut us down any time. I live on the Washington side of the River but over here on the East side of the state there have not been many cases yet. Hope it stays that way. Played well and not grumpy today.

[tolmij]

Today Saturday the 28th, Queensland against medical advice is still running its local council elections. This means we’ll over one million adults are supposed to turn up to vote as it is compulsory in Australia, any person that is over 70 does not have to vote in council elections so the only one breaking the law in our house in our son. You can postal vote, but we were too late to register, or you can pre vote at a dedicated station and these have been busy, but today the polling stations have been very empty, not much traffic at all, so that should tell the electoral commission something, whether or not they listen is a different story. We will argue against the fine which is $130 per person and some legal firms are giving pro bono service to anyone willing to take them on.

On a better note, the postal service is setting up a free prescription delivery service from pharmacies, once a month per person that meet the guidelines, as we do, being old buggers we shall be taking that up. We are also hoping our doctor will be doing online consultations as my recent immune system failure is a 12 month treatment.

keep on keeping on Grillers, play if you can, all our local courses are now closed.

[BIG STU]

LOL ours is just started--- Thanks for all you fine folks in Alabama for passing it down and sharing it with us

[BIG STU]

I will remind you old buddy that "laundering money" is against state and federal law. Lol could not resist. I will defer to what you did though protection wise after all you are a DMD and are thoroughly trained in sanitation practices.

[BIG STU]

As far as I know we are still playing golf here. Now the one big golf group with 20 courses did shut down 6 of their courses due to no motel package play. Our Gov has told motels not to accept any bookings until the end of April and has told anyone who is not a resident to leave no later than Sunday night. Honestly I do not know how they are going to enforce it. Because a lot of folks especially from NC have and own houses here.

On another front my wife picked up my BP meds yesterday. Now instead of being the normal 30 day supply they did me a 90 day. I called my Doc who is a golf bud and he said that was fine. They are doing that to keep us older folks from being out more often. He told me most Docs are doing that now when the situation warrants

[scomac2002]

Wow! Sounds like things are quite a bit different on a state level than what we are hearing up here with respect to the President's desire to get the economy rolling by Easter. There's fear that we will still be on lockdown and our US neighbours will be running around like nothing happened. Doesn't sound as though there's much chance of that happening based on what you fellas are describing.

Despite having a very broad list of businesses that could remain open under the lockdown order, many have closed anyway that could have stayed open. Mostly it's the big chains that are staying open while the smaller mom and pop shops have closed. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at that.

We've been more or less sheltering in place for two weeks now. I venture out a couple of times a week for supplies, but that's it. DW is working obviously and will be on an eat, sleep, work routine until this is over. Things that I thought might be doable are proving tricky. I just can't readily get what I need to do a project. Online shopping isn't working out so well due to inventory shortages and delayed delivery times. You can only walk around the neighbourhood so many times and I'm finding it's getting busier and busier with more and more pedestrians, not just the dog walkers. This will become extremely trying for any extended period of time. The messaging we're getting is talking months, not weeks.

When I am out and about I see a far bit of paranoia, especially on the part of retail workers. Some just go about their business like normal. Others are walking and talking disinfecting machines, sanitizing their hands every two minutes! Strangers don't talk to each other anymore. Everyone has become decidedly more distant. I think they forgot to tell folks that social distancing is about space, it's not about how we treat each other, but I suppose that's the fear at work where every person you come across could be a potential infector. It's almost like the early stages of the zombie apocalypse.

[Sean2]

A friend of my wife's had the virus is and is recovering comfortably. He was diagnosed, but never spent a day in the hospital. His partner never got the illness.

In a way the world got lucky. No one was really prepared for this kind of pandemic, which is surprising given how quickly an illness can spread from one country to another, from one continent to another. Imagine if this was a hemorrhagic fever? The world has now received its wake up call. Perhaps if something like this happens again we will be much better prepared for it.

[scotee]

 

[scotee]

Stu, I don't know what BP meds you are on but Mrs. scotee takes Lorsartan. Someone gave her a link to a medical article that claimed that it binds to the same site as the Corona virus and in theory will give protection against the virus. Mine is high in the medical office (white coat syndrome) (yeah even dentists don't like to be there) but I am not yet on meds. I confess that I took one of her's for a few days when we traveled. No idea if it works.

[tolmij]

Or not, we as a race are not very bright and seem to forget the essential lessons fairly quickly. Anarchy has started in China where the residents are attacking police trying to keep them isolated to a town, it’s only a matter of time before other idiots start similar things.

This is a total reset for the world but looking at what is happening in some parts of Australia some people have really not got it, they are going to the beach in droves, travelling hundreds of miles to meet up for a party, some backpackers hostels are advertising BBQs on Facebook etc. it makes you wonder if the isolation is really going to work if so many are flouting the rules and spreading the infection, they have no idea having been cosseted all their lives and having mommy and daddy treat them like infants instead of making them grown ups.

The company my son used to work for is owned by a self serving me me person who really does think the world revolves around her. She runs a business that is primarily a teaching establishment, acquiring apprentices, running courses at her own schools for mainly Chinese and Indian students of wealthy people who complete the course, purchase a small business then automatically have Australian citizen status, it’s their way if literally buying their way in.

anyway the point is, she does not believe there is a virus or a pandemic, she is of the opinion the worlds leaders have decided the population need to be controlled better so this has been made up so that more draconian laws can be passed to make us do as they say, no one is sick, no one has died unless they have been killed by the state to give this authenticity. All of her work force have been ordered to attend as normal, they are not allowed to work from home, they are daily in contact with dozens of Chinese and Indian students that are still somehow managing to arrive in Australia. The stupid part is they are complying, no one is leaving her employ, discussing it at home yesterday we agreed better unemployed than dead.

We ARE in uncharted waters, all we can hope is that there are enough clever people in charge to get us though this, our political leaders are not really showing that much intelligence, ours gave a television press conference yesterday where he patted everyone on the head for working together for the good of the country, it was the most condescending speech from a leader I have ever listened to.

Stay safe Grillers, our wine order arrived yesterday, in quarantine for a week then yooooooo hoooooo. Drunk as a skunk.