The Shailesh-tival

I spent the past weekend in Chicagoland. On Saturday, I played golf with Darren, Bova and Gartley. The course was Crane’s Landing in Lincolnshire. Anyways, as we got ready to tee off the golf course ranger comes up to us and starts explaining the rules of the course. He also tells us that the pace for the course is 2 hours on the front nine and 2:20 on the back nine.

The GPS unit on the golf cart is also nice enough to keep time for you, so it warns you about how you are doing relative to the course pace.

Anyways, we get to the 9th teebox and some guy from a charity accosts us and starts asking us to donate. We listen to his spiel for 5 minutes and finally tee off. As we are standing on the 9th green, the almighty ranger walks up to us and tells us we are running 10 minutes behind.

We explain that half of that time was lost due to the charity guy that the course gave permission to harass on the golf course.

He just shrugged his shoulders.

Anyways, we finish the hole and I’m still walking back to the cart when Darren gets in and yells, “Hey I don’t know where he got 10 minutes. The cart only says we’re 5 minutes behind.”

I yelled back, “Maybe he added our 5 minutes to the other carts 5 to get 10.”

The ranger was standing about 50 feet away. Oops.

Anyways, we teed off on the 10th and another ranger comes by and starts harassing us. We tell him we’ll try to hurry up but mostly ignore him.

We continue to play at the EXACT same pace and at the 11th hole, the first ranger drives up to us and thanks us for hurrying up.

For the record we finished the course 4 minutes ahead of pace.

After the golf course, Darren and I headed to Wrigley for the Cubs-Cardinals game with Tim and Paul. I, of course, was decked out in my Cardinals regalia — jersey and hat. The Cubs won the game and we actually ended up leaving early, in the 8th inning.

On the way out, I wanted a picture of the four of us, so I asked the usher to take one. He tried to take it, but I hadn’t set the time on the camera so it wouldn’t take a picture. The Wrigley crowd started yelling at us, “Who knows if that thing works, dude, it’s a freakin’ Cardinal camera!!!”

True, but I’ll guarantee one thing: It works in October.

Anyways, I came to a big realization on my drive back to Detroit today: The Washington Redskins have won more championships at Wrigley Field than the Chicago Cubs.

It was August, 1998. I was about a week and a half from beginning my freshman year of college. Ninad and I went to Redskins training camp for fan appreciation day.

We were sitting in the bleachers at Frostburg St. when one of the Redskins came over and stretched out near the fans. I went over to take a picture.

“What do you know about Illinois,” he asked me, commenting on my Illini hat.

“Oh nothing really, I’m starting school there in a couple of weeks.”

“You know … I went to Illinois,” he said. “What are you studying.”

“Electrical Engineering.”

“Then that’s the place to be.”

The player in question was Scott Turner. He was cut from the team that training camp, but he continued to have a successful career with the San Diego Chargers, and spent another year with the Denver Broncos.

Anyways, as it turns out he’s running for congress in San Diego and FightingIllini.com has an article about him.

He also has his own campaign website, at http://www.turnerforcongress.com/.

Anyways, it’s kind of a pointless story, but I thought it was pretty cool. Especially, since he seemed like a pretty decent guy the one time I met him.

As a sidenote, I tried to take a picture of the Redskins third string quarterback too. Right as I took the picture, an ambulance drove by right behind him and he gave me a little grief for jinxing his career. Later that season, starter Gus Frerotte got injured and that 3rd stringer became the starter.

That third stringer was Trent Green, who started for the Rams for a year, and has started every game for the Chiefs the past 5 seasons. So much for me jinxing him …