The last couple of posts I was building up to announcing a big surprise for a special HOG reader. I’m now on the plane home at 33,000 feet, albeit a day later than I was supposed to be, from the big surprise.
The big surprise
I alluded to the surprise possibly being a golf club, golf gear, a round of golf at a famous course or a round of golf with a celebrity. The HOG recipient was awarded a few things as his special prize. The lucky winner received an awesome black leather SUMI-G Dormy belt, which I must say looks great on this classy guy. He also received full set of SUMI-G head covers, the ones with a “mechanical enclosure and a rigid exoskeleton.” A high end bottle of limited edition tequila and a beautiful antique liquor decanter rounded off the list of goodies. But none of those were the big surprise.
The big surprise for this special HOG reader was none other than myself. You see, this special reader is my life long best friend Alan. His wife and I covertly arranged a surprise weekend visit by me. It took quite a bit of work to schedule a weekend where Al wasn’t traveling for business and when I was available. Everyone from Al’s family and office were “in the know” and we all managed to keep the secret. He had no clue.
I was sitting in a chair in his living room with a beer in my hand hanging out when he walked into the room. I video taped his reaction, which included a big sigh and then a hug and kiss for his wife.
My best friend Al, is solely responsible for my starting up this blog five years ago. WIthout Al, HOG wouldn’t exist and my life experiences over the last five years would no doubt be drastically different.
One hell of a 48 hours
Five minutes after recovering from the shock of seeing me in his house we were in Al’s car, racing to the golf course to squeeze in nine holes before dark. We made it. On the way there I felt my back tweak slightly. I was worried it would go out again. Fortunately it didn’t. But that had me worried and it was tough to make some swings.
We played 45 holes of golf in 21 hours, walking the whole way. The final 36 was with caddy, which was a great experience on a spectacular course. I shot the two highest rounds of the year, due to my still recovering from my back injury and the difficulty of the course. The numbers meant nothing to me in the end as I was playing golf with my best pal.
It just dawned on me that I owe Al $6.00. His game has improved. He beat me out of $6.00 on the final 18 and I forgot to pay my bet like a schmuck. I’ll be mailing that dough when I get back.
We ate fine meals, drank fine adult beverages, played Tiger Woods PGA 2010, smoked fine cigars. Al showed me his pictures and videos from his recent round at The Old Course in St. Andrews, detailing every hole and vividly describing the nuances of golf’s birthplace. We attended a museum showing of historic “Star Trek Artifacts” and got photos of ourselves sitting on the bridge of the Enterprise. We also browsed a hall containing hundreds of artifacts, notes, gadgets and tools from none other than Galileo. We even checked out one of the only two working telescopes which were owned by Galileo, which was 400 years old.
I had the pleasure of hanging out with Al’s immediate family, which includes wife Kate and their toddler James, not to mention a dog and a cat. James was a blast and and my friend’s family’s hospitality was second to none.
6 minutes equals 20 hours
I can’t wait to get home now though. I’m wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday. I haven’t shaved, or brushed my teeth, or used my antiperspirant. I never eat Pop Tarts, but I just ate two. Why?
I missed the luggage deadline by six minutes for my flight home from Philly to Salt Lake. Despite even offering the Delta ticket guy some cash under the table I had to pay $50 to change flights and catch a plane to Atlanta, then fly home from there. At least I’d get to watch Tiger Woods win the WGC Bridgesone over Padraig Harrington while having a Yinglueng in the bar at the airport.
Unfortunately my flight to Atlanta was delayed 20 minutes. In that span of 20 minutes clouds rolled in and a huge lightning storm hit the airport. They delayed my takeoff for another 30 minutes. If the original Atlanta flight wouldn’t have been delayed we would have left before the storm hit and I would have gotten home 12 hours ago. Not to be.
My flight from Atlanta to SLC was the final flight. Since I was going to miss it, my best choice was to get back off the plane from Philly to ATL and stay in the Marriott in the Philly airport thanks to Al picking up my room with bonus points. I’d have to take my chances in the morning flying standby on the 7:15am flight to SLC. I got off the plane but my bags and golf clubs didn’t. They’re making their own way to SLC via Atlanta, supposedly. I have yet to see if they make it. That’ll be a lot of fun trying to track them down.
By some miracle, and speed at which I didn’t know I still had, I miraculously got on the 7:15am flight to SLC. I raced three ladies across the street from terminal B to A. They were trying to get on the same flight as me and we were all detained by security in B terminal since we didn’t have boarding passes. They too had standby passes, and we knew the flight was overbooked. Someone was going to miss the flight. I beat them by a hair because they all used one ticketing machine for the three of them and I used another.
All told it will take me 20 hours to do what should have taken six. I had to go through airport security three times, which is just thrilling. I haven’t gotten home yet. For all I know someone will get sick on the plane and it will be rerouted to Alaska or something.
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