You CAN teach an old dog new tricks

Yes, I am the dog in this story. Since April I’ve discovered two new hobbies/obsessions: gardening and golf.

In April I hired a fabulous landscaping company (Timberline Landscaping) to dig up my entire backyard and put in a brick patio and some landscaping. I spaced them out so I had room to plant my own things. Randomly, I chose red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumber, broccoli and egg plant.

I can’t tell you how thrilling it is each morning to check my plants for new leaves, flowers and vegetables. My iPhone is filled with pictures of my garden. Everything is growing bigger and faster than I ever imagined.

Watering is like a religion especially since we are in a drought. The best advice my landscaping company gave me was to water at the roots rather than use a sprinkler and to water every two to three days. It’s important to let the ground dry out so the roots have to grow stronger as they look for water.

I’m looking forward to eating my first pepper and broccoli in the next week or so!

And my second new hobsession (made that up) is golf. A friend invited me to participate in a five week clinic with three other girls who have been golfing for years. The golf pro was great. She was able to provide simple tips and corrections for all of us even though we were all at different levels. Immediately I saw improvement with my drives. They don’t go far but they generally go straight.

She was adamant about the need to practice, over and over. I took her advice and try to get to the driving range one or two times a week to drive, chip and putt. I love it! It’s fun having something to practice to improve. It’s great exercise. The courses are gorgeous and get you out in nature. And it’s something I can do into retirement.

It’s funny how the universe works. I was recently invited to play in a golf tournament with a vendor…the first time this has ever happened in my career! And we really did talk a lot of business in between shots. What a great time!

So now you know why I haven’t blogged since March. So what are your new hobsessions?

Loved the Apple Episode of Big Bang Theory!

I just received my first iPhone a few days before this episode aired so I am finally beginning to understand the obsession. Raj’s character is so charming and the fact that he can’t speak to a live woman unless he is drunk is always a hilarious plot-line. But the fact that he is able to talk to Siri and begins a ‘relationship’ with her is ridiculously funny! He tells her to call him sexy…come on! How can you not laugh when you hear that? And when he finally ‘meets’ the live, red-headed, smoking hot Siri and he can’t conquer his fear and speak to her…well, your heart just goes out to him...and you laugh out loud at the same time!

My favorite part of the episode was the idea Leonard (and Penny) had for having ‘bug reports’ in the ‘beta test’ of their relationship…so perfect for this show! And now having managed a web team launching new technologies and applications over the past two and half years, I am well-versed in the language of bug reports. Any relationship expert will tout the importance of communication and probably the hardest part is voicing a criticism or complaint. The bug report philosophy is really quite logical…at least for Leonard.

I’m really curious about the level of Apple’s involvement in the episode. Was this a paid product placement? Did Apple pitch the Raj plot concept? Or were they simply consulted? Did the producers need to get permission to use Siri or her voice? Did Apple simply hit the jackpot again by being featured on a top rated show?