Icewind's Ramblings

The Masters started today in Augusta and with it a return of two great champions, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer for the honorary first tee shots.  We are off for a great weekend of chasing that little white ball around the hallowed grounds that is Augusta National Golf Club. Yesterday before the competition started and the hoopla of a returning Tiger Woods there was the usual press conference from the Masters chairman but it was not the normal talk with little meaning as Billy Payne did the right and necessary thing for all of those who love the game, the traditions, and keep The Masters what it is. For all his brilliance and leadership as the man in charge of the Masters, it is unlikely Billy Payne will ever do anything as masterful, as blunt and certainly as necessary as what he did Wednesday afternoon on the eve of the 74th edition of The Masters. In what was a stunning and rare departure for a Masters chairman, he not only admonished one of the players in the field for...

Birthdays are good for you; the more you have, the longer you live. As one approaches sixty it’s funny the things you think about as the day approaches for the next birthday. I was blessed to be born on my mama’s birthday and with it came a special bond between us even across the miles in our lives.  Happy Birthday Mama, I love and miss you big bunches.  I spoke with her and my sister this afternoon and my daughter called me this morning from Iraq just before we had a 4.6 earthquake just north of Anchorage near Palmer.  A little five second shake to start the morning. I did not think I would see snow on my birthday but it happened this year Anchorage got about 3 inches yesterday and another inch or so early this morning but by late afternoon the sun was out and things were melting again.  We had gone through breakup over the last couple of weeks and most of the snow had melted before this latest dump. Work was busy but productive today and when I came home d...