Guelph Dad Sweater Seen in Barrhaven

When I got back from Florida, I enjoyed walking around Barrhaven in the afternoon.

Sarah would get a text from her friend Lauren when Lauren saw me walking.  Lauren texted that I was always wearing my bright red Guelph Dad sweater.   She even took a picture of me walking to the library.

One day I was walking around the box stores. Lauren texted Sarah to tell her I was out walking.  Lauren said that her mother was at the box stores wearing her Guelph Mom sweater.  

Slice

One of the reasons that I didn’t want to play golf in the park was because I can’t hit the ball straight. The course goes in between the homes and has very narrow fairways.

I went out to the driving range with my brother-in-law.  I consistently sliced my shots onto the road.

Barb told her friend’s granddaughter about my problem hitting the ball straight.  She said I needed to shorten my backswing.

I went out again to the driving range with my sister.  I tried using a shorter backswing.  I was amazed when all my shots went straight down the range.

Barb told her friend's granddaughter. She was very happy for me.  She said that now I can enjoy the great game of golf.

That encouraged me to actually try out the park course.  I went out one afternoon with my sister and her husband.

I used my newly shortened backswing and kept the ball on the fairway all afternoon.

Then on the last hole with houses on the right, I thought, "I have to hit the ball straight to not hit the houses".  I took my short backswing and sliced the ball.  There was a big bang when the ball hit a house.  One of the neighbours came out to see what made the noise.  We couldn’t find the ball and the owner of the house that I hit didn’t seem to be home.  I thought the ball had gone right across the street and into a house a long way from the fairway.

On the drive home, we looked for my ball.    We found the ball not too far off the fairway.  The house that I hit had obviously been hit many times because there were dents all over the siding.

I didn’t feel like playing again.

Blue

I did play golf with my sister and her husband once before I left Florida.  Barb decided to come out to watch us when she finished with her stitching group.

She drove around on the golf cart.  She drove past the people who we bought our place from.  They asked where she was going.  She said she was looking for me on the golf course.

They said, "Is that him in the blue shirt?"  Barb said, "Yes that’s him".  They said, “Does he where blue shirts all the time?”

When we got back to Canada, Barb went out and bought me some golf shirts in other colours.

Guessing

Sarah phoned to tell us how hard her bio-chem exam was.  There were 30 multiple choice questions with four possible answers for each.

She asked me to calculate the probability of passing the exam if she guessed at all the questions.

I quickly wrote a simulation.  I simulated 100 exams of 30 questions with a chance of 25% of getting the right answer on any question.

There were no cases in which the results were over 15 correct.

I calculated the number of cases with more than 10 correct answers.  There were 10 cases.  There were 80 cases of more than 5 correct answers.

I realized I could use the binomial probability distribution to calculate the exact values.  The binomial distribution confirmed the results of my simulation.

I developed a graph of the probability of having X of more correct answers in a 30 question exam.

I asked Sarah if she wanted me to email her the graph.  She said, ‘No’.

But she said she didn’t mind me blogging about it.

 

Pay As You Go

When we got back to Canada, Barb realized that we hadn't renewed our pay-as-you-go cellphone.

Barb and I share a cellphone. It is a deal with Rogers that allows us to pay only when you use it.

We almost never use the cellphone.  It is good to have when we are travelling in case of emergency. I also use it in the summer if I have to make calls from the softball diamond.

So Barb phoned Rogers and pleaded with them to renew her cellphone. They let her renew it.

I was at a fastball meeting last week. One of the guys asked me what my cellphone number was. I didn't have the cellphone with me. The guys laughed when I couldn't remember my number.

We were at a bar with wifi. So I got my iPod hooked in and emailed Barb at home. She emailed me back the cellphone number.  So I told the guys.

The next time I left the house I brought the cellphone.

Fun with FORTRAN

The fastball season was coming quickly.  I had to get back into my fastball administration. I found out about the player draft for my fastball league in Glen Cairn.

I had the schedule for the Greater Ottawa Fastball League.

 

I got out the FORTRAN scheduling program that I wrote last year. It tried to minimize the number of conflicts for the Glen Cairn league by working around the GOFL.

Unfortunately, my compiler in Windows didn't work anymore. So I got a FORTRAN compiler for Linux and copied my program over to it.  It was old-fashioned but worked fine.

I revised my FORTRAN program and made it even better than last year. I was able to get a schedule that had just one conflict for each team in Glen Cairn.

My team captain had  asked to play most of his games on Monday. I was able to schedule 10 of the his 17 games on Monday.

Then I ran the FORTRAN program again with my Trend Arlington league. Myself and another guy played in Glen Cairn. So I de-conflicted the Trend Arlington league with Glen Cairn.

As I expected, I had scheduled 10 Monday nights in which I would be playing a game at 6:30 in one league and a 8:30 game in the other league.

Designated Hitter

In the Glen Cairn Men's Fastball League, there is an equalization draft. The captains are allowed to protect 6 players from the previous year. The other players go into the draft. The last place team from the previous year has the first pick in the draft.

I got an email from my team captain. He wanted to tell me that he wasn't protecting me. He was getting a friend into the league who only played first base. So he didn't need me. He said that he appreciated me helping him manage the team. He said that I was one of the most consistent hitters on the team.  But he just didn't have anywhere for me to play because I was only a first baseman.

I said that if I was still available, he could draft me. I would be a designated player who didn't play defence but only batted.

Being on the executive, I was sent the team lists after the draft. I was picked by my last year's team captain. I guess I will be a designated hitter this year.