Home Alone

Hello. I have failed to update for some time now but since I have way too much time on my hands I've finally decided I should bring everyone up to date. My parents are in hot/humid/sticky/sweaty/sunny/did I mention hot?/ Georgia. That means I am on my own. Nothing too exciting has been going on. Rachel and I went to my Grandma's house for dinner the other night. We had a nice visit and now I can get the monkey off my back and say that I've finally taken Rachel to Grandma's house. Once in 16 months is enough, right ? Anyways, yesterday I went golfing with Joel. It was quite fun especially since it cooled down somewhat. Today I decided to cut the grass. I think my old golf course work experience got the better of me since I mowed over the lawn about 3 times until it looked the way I wanted it to. I am amazed at the baseball fields in the major leagues and how the grass is cut. They put all those different designs in them and have perfect lines, I wish I knew the secret to that.

On Sunday I am flying down to Georgia to visit the parents and work on making my skin go from a pale white to well.....anything but that. I'd say a nice bronze color but I have to be honest and say it will turn Red Sox red before it can start to turn into a tan.

What else is there to mention ??? Oh, I'm out of turkey....this poses a problem. I'm gonna have to visit the deli. Grandma bought me a pound and a half the other day and I ate it all in 2 days. Oops. I love turkey, it is by far my favorite lunchmeat. Don't get me wrong, I like the occasional corned beef or roast beef sandwich but turkey takes the gold at the lunchmeat olympics in my eyes.

Next topic: My countdown to age 21 stands at 25 days now. Wow that will be half way to 42.
I asked Rachel the other night if it was possible if anyone could actually forget about their own birthday given that they had a fully functional memory. I guess it could be possible, that would be funny to miss one and then remember it the next year. Would you count it as one year or two. I don't know why I thought of that, I know I can't forget my birthday. It's the day after my cousin Sam's. So if I remember his I pretty much have to remember mine. If I did happen to forget I could just ask Grandpa Cook who has an incredible ability to rattle off family members birthdays and most of the time he even knows the age. My sister can do the same thing only with phone numbers and old license plates I think she can even do social security numbers on good days.

I think that's all I have for now. If I don't update before I leave for Georgia have a great week and someone please go the Monroe county fair and eat one or all of the following for me: an elephant ear, a cup of chili cheese fries, and a fried snickers. Thanks, bye bye.

Catchin' Up

I know I Know, I disappeared from the blogging world for a little bit. I haven't done anything too exciting since my last entry. I've just been hanging out with friends and what not. Rachel has been on vacation and she comes home today. I know there will be plenty of stories from her trip. Hmmmmm what else ??? Well I can't really think of anything. If anything extremely exciting happens I'll let y'all know. Have a nice day.

Good try Pudge

Last night Mom, Dad, and I watched the Home Run Derby on ESPN and Detroit's own Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez made it to the final round but came up a little short to Philadelphia's Bobby Abreu. Abreu set all sorts of records last night though.....1.)Most home runs in a single round (24) 2.) Most home runs in a final round (11) and 3.) Most home runs in a Home run derby (41 !!!) So that was nothing short of amazing and he deserved to win.

I also went golfing for the first time in a long time on a real course yesterday. I went with my friend Joel to Wesburn and we played 18. Took me about 3 holes to get the feel back but I think I found it. I played alright on the front and came away with an unspectacular 43. Then we went to the back nine, this was a little better. Joel chipped in for an eagle on a par 5 from about 35 or 40 yards away. That was pretty exciting. Joel has only been playing golf for a few months or so and he already has more eagles than I do and I've been golfing for almost 8 years now. Anyways, I was doing pretty well on the back nine and I was hanging around 2 under par for a while but then fell back to even and then birdied to go to 1 under again. It was a weird round and I eventually finished even par on the back and shot a 78.....6 over par for the round. I'll gladly take that after not golfing for a few weeks. Joel ended up with an 88 which I think is impressive since he's pretty new to the game. All in all it was fun and I was very happy to be out on the course again.

What else ? Oh, Rachel and I decided to go see "War of the Worlds" this past weekend. It was very action-packed and we both liked it. I wish they gave us headphones in the theather and are own personal volume controls. It was VERY loud. After the movie we went to my friend Jeff's house and played horseshoes for a few hours and then went home. Sunday we went to one of Rachel's friends graduation party. They decided for this party that the entertainment would consist partly of shooting off a rocket. I don't know where they got this rocket or why they wanted to do this but it was rather fun to watch. It went really high into the air, so high that before they set it off they had to make sure there wasn't any airplanes in view. It was connected to a parachute and made it back to the ground without a hitch.

That pretty much sums up the past few days in the life of me. Have a great day.


P.S. Congrats to Uncle Mark and Aunt Joyce on their 35th Wedding Anniversary. Awesome.

Seven 8 oh five

The title would be today's date if anyone failed to catch that.

I haven't done much since returning to Michigan, I've been to a couple doctors both of which told me I was fine and I could slowly start to do the things I enjoy again. I can't wait to golf and run and whatever else I want to do.

Hmmmm what else is there to mention ? I guess there isn't much. I could tell you how fireflies light up but that would be boring. We could also talk about how much I love turkey sandwiches but then again, who wants to hear about that ?

The Fantastic Four movie comes out today. I'm no comic fan/expert/nerd what have you, but I think it looked kind of cool in the previews. Maybe I'll see if Rachel wants to go check that out tonight. I could always go to my trusted back up plan to end all other back up plans......hit golf balls at the driving range. There is nothing quite like spending 2-3 hours of an open friday night working on your golf game at the range. I did it in highschool many many times.

One other often used back up plan that usually never fails is the old "Pass the night by walking through Meijers and Wal-Mart" trick, another weapon in my arsenal of passing time that has provided many hours of entertaining fun. You see all sorts of people in those stores.

Just imagine if I saw a movie, went to the driving range, and walked through Meijers and Wal-Mart. I think my Fun-O-Meter would explode.

Well before I start brewing too many good ideas of what to do tonight I must go. Have a fun Friday night y'all.

"Back" in action ?

Hello readers! As some of you know I've had a few back/hip problems the past couple months. I think I'm finally getting somewhere on this long road to recovery. Today is about the third or fourth consecutive day that my back has not been hurting. As much as I want it to be healed for good, I'll take what I can get. I even tested myself yesterday by hitting a bucket of golf balls at the driving range. It would be nice to be able to do all the things I used to do. Running is a big thing that I miss, I've gained quite a few pounds due to all of the inactivity but we'll get back to that when the time is right.

The recent trek to Chicago was fun. I must apoligize to my sister first of all, I must have made about a million and a half jokes about her in the car over the trip. Thursday night Amanda, Jason, and I went downtown just for something to do. What did we do once we got down there you ask? Amanda bought a root beer. That's it. One single root beer. We then decided to take the "L" back to Midway and go back to the Friday's near our hotel to eat.

Friday we went downtown to shop, my back really hurt. I sometimes look like a penguin when my back gets really bad because I start to get this waddle when I walk. I didn't buy a single thing on the trip downtown, I did look at some 200-300 dollar sunglasses though and somehow managed to find the best deal in Marshall Field's, free samples of cookie by this candy counter type thing. Friday evening we went to the wedding. Congrats to Mike and Sonia. The church was very nice and I was very pleased to see the fans running inside the church since I was informed that it wasn't air conditioned. We then headed back to the hotel and from there we went to the reception. Not wanting to hurt my back in any way, I kept off the dance floor while my Mother, Father, and 89 year old Grandfather picked up the slack for me. Thanks guys!

Saturday we came home and stopped in New Buffalo for lunch. New Buffalo is quite a few inches to the west of us on the map of Michigan. The lunch took a rather long time and Amanda's meat loaf seemed to not agree with those who ate more than a bite of it. After lunch we went down by the water to see Lake Michigan. We didn't get out of the car but we just drove down to see the nice looking homes and the beach and what not. Eventually we rolled back home around 6:30 p.m.

Sunday I didn't do much of anything. Didn't wake up and go to church because I go on Wednesday nights now. I'd much rather attend a 7 p.m. service that I'm wide awake for than an 8:30 or 11 a.m. service that I'm still trying to get awake for. Anyways where were we, Sunday I went with Mom and Dad to look at and purchase the new Jet ski. It's a nice looking jet ski and the guy threw in a bunch of extra stuff too. When we got home from that trip I went to Monroe and had a new golf club re-gripped and went to the driving range to work on my putting and chipping. That's about all I can remember for Sunday.

Monday I went out to lunch with Mom, Dad, Amanda and Jason. We went to Red Robin and we were lucky enough to catch the annual hot dog eating contest that was on ESPN. Nothing like seeing people scarf down close to 50 hot dogs while waiting to eat. All in all I thought it was a good lunch. That afternoon I went and hit golf balls and then went to a picnic with Rachel at her Uncle Steve's house. We had food and played bocce ball and had a nice time.

Today I had a doctor's appointment and told him how I was feeling better and he said that was great and that I should just come back if it started hurting again. I hope I don't have to go back.
I think that wraps up my excitement for the past few days. Have a nice rest of the day.

Windy City Wedding

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.

For those of you who don't understand that line, it's from the blues brothers. Good ol' Jake and Elwood.....my friend Nick has two life sized statues of them in his basement, quite scary if you aren't aware of the fact that they are statues. Anyways, tomorrow my family and I will be heading to Chicago for Mike and Sonia's wedding. To pass the time in the car I think I'll finish my book about golf's four "Major" tournaments cleverly named "The Majors" while also listening to my 11 best cd's. Why 11 ? No clue.

It's odd that I'd be heading to Chicago at this time anyways with or without a wedding. My friend Jeff and I have been attending the Western Open near Chicago for the past few years. The Western Open is the PGA (professional golfers association) tour's event held at Cog Hill Golf Course. I think it's actually in Lemont, IL but that doesn't really matter. This year we are unable to attend, Jeff is interning at some engineering place in Livonia and is not allowed to take two days off. Oh well, maybe next year. We get these special passes to go inside the General Electric courtesy tent and they provide free everything....burgers, chicken, gatorade, lemon chills, ice cream, you name it.

Oh by the way, there are pro golfers there too ! For a guy like me who watches those guys play amazing golf week after week it's very interesting to see them up close. I was even able to snag some autographs two years ago, they included Vijay Singh and David Toms and a few others. Tiger Woods was there last year but it's complete chaos following him. I did get to watch him on a par 5 last year which he felt the need to eagle. (Quick golf lesson: Par 5 means you're supposed to get it in the hole in 5 shots, Eagle means 2 under par.)

Well I suppose I better get some sleep so I'm not totally out of it for tomorrows adventure. I'll see y'all in Chicago.

A little history for ya

Yes, it's true......I Andrew Jacob Cook have started a blog. I'm not quite sure why I have decided to do this but here I go anyways.

So where should we start ? I can't recall a single memory without the help of other family members before the age of 5. Wow, we covered 5 years of my life in one sentence. Maybe I can have a blog and still retain my "man of few words" reputation.

I suppose I started to remember things the day I started school. Counting, coloring, eating paste...all that fun stuff. I learned how to read in the first grade. I don't remember the name of the book but it definitely had cookies in it. Second grade I brought in a crayfish for show and tell and said it wouldn't really hurt if it bit me, well I'm here to tell you that the crayfish put that theory to the test and decided to bite, pinch,claw....whatever it is they do, and it HURT. Lets just say I don't have that crayfish anymore. In the third grade I think I mastered my multiplication and division skills......I remember those sheets of paper with like 100 questions on them and they gave us a time limit to complete it. I think multiplying was my favorite. I'd tell you when I learned English but honestly I hated it and never really got the hang of it, so if you find a mistake or 23 on here, I apologize.

For grades 4 and 5 I switched schools and attended Ritter Elementary. I honestly don't remember much from 4th grade as far as learning goes but I did meet new people so it wasn't all bad. The 5th grade was an excellent year, one of my best I'd say.......I had a male teacher and he would always come out and play basketball or football or whatever it was that we were playing and play with us. Inside the classroom we learned a lot about the explorers and American history......we also read a book called "The Island of the Blue Dolphin" which has no bearing on anything so....that's all for 5th grade.

And just like that my elementary school career is over.

Next up we have Wagar Middle School

When I look back upon my days at Wagar I often wonder how in the world I was so chubby. There is the worst picture of me in my yearbook. I was sitting at a lunch table with what looks to be a chicken nugget in hand and my head appears to be just as wide as it was long and of course in 6th grade I didn't care what I looked like so I had this greasy hair and it was all separated right in front and.......just awful. Thank goodness I got into sports or I might still be that chubby today.

The 6th grade brought many new and different experiences.........new friends, new classes, new teachers, locker combinations to remember........but after a while it seemed to be ok.

The 7th and 8th grades bring back quite a few memories. National Honor Society trips......one to Toronto and one to Chicago, baseball games, basketball games, band concerts. One fond memory of 8th grade was when we got to take a class on money management, and everyone new that at the end of the class there would be this auction and you could buy things with whatever money you had left over. Well we all new the Baby Ruth candy bar was gonna be the most expensive and most coveted item.........well to make a long story short one other girl and myself had so much money left over that the teacher just decided to give us both a candy bar. I would think that was pretty good money management on my part.

And so it goes......another stage of my life has been completed.

Next stop, Airport Highschool.

Way too many memories to think about for this category. Let me see here, while in highschool I tried my hand at many different kinds of sports.........Basketball, baseball, track, golf, and a little bit of cross country but I wasn't allowed to do golf and cross country since they were in the same season so I had to choose golf. I never did anything spectacular in highschool, in fact I was just happy to be on the team most of the time, when I look back now I wish my golf game would've been slightly better but oh well I've improved greatly since I've graduated and that's fine with me.

If we turn to academics I never really did anything spectacular there either. I was 19th in my class and graduated with a 3.8 GPA........it's crazy these days with kids getting 4.5 GPA's. I didn't really enjoy highschool that much. One thing that stands out as an accomplishment for me is getting voted onto Homecoming court, not so much on an individual level but all 5 guys that were voted on were in the same group of friends and not one of us played football. That's quite amazing to me. Anyways back to reality....Classes seemed boring after 3 years and I couldn't wait to get out of there by my senior year. I'm glad I had a crazy bunch of friends who could break the monotony from time to time.

I think I will leave highschool at that........onward and upward !

Since my college career is yet to be completed I won't bore you with that yet, you have to have something to look forward to, right ?

Well I think that shall be enough reading material for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Hello Everyone

This shall go down in history as the first "test" blog I have ever done. 3......2.....1 and POST !