As you might have gathered if you’re a regular reader, I’m in the process of moving from Dallas to San Antonio.  So today I’m working on one of the thousands of closets I needed to pack, and I came across something I thought I’d lost years ago.  It’s a baseball signed by Hank Aaron.  It was given to me by a co-worker almost 10 years ago who had gotten it at some corporate function, yet wasn’t a baseball fan.  He recognized what Hank Aaron meant to me, a baseball fan, though, so he passed it on.

I can tell you, I was thrilled today, even at 47 years old, to hold a baseball that had been in the hands of Hank Aaron.  I feel like I’m 14 again.  I’ve got goosebumps as I write this, and I get goosebumps reading about Hank’s chase of the Babe’s record.  I get goosebumps thinking about Hank’s triumph.  Which tells me that I still love baseball, really, deeply, no matter how much apathy I have for it at the moment.

I put that baseball back in the sock it was in, and I stuffed it deep in a box that I hope I can identify later, because I want to give that baseball to my grandson, and maybe talk to him about some of the great ballplayers I’ve seen in my life.  That would be really good.

That would be golfing.  When it was last mentioned here, I was on eBay searching for a Taylor Made R7 10.5 Ultraquad driver.  That was a failure, an enormous failure, even though I gave it three days.  At the end of the three days, I pulled out my jungle wedge, and dug through all my various points accounts, and found a 1-3-5 freaking-enormous metal woods set on offer from Marriott Rewards.  I grabbed it, purely because of the name: the Nike Sasquatch Sumo.

Seriously…how could I go wrong? It’s like they were made for me, or named for me, minimum.  If I, a sasquatch of the first order, and on track for the senior sumo circuit, can’t make these work, they never will.  The coolest part of the transaction was talking on the phone today to Bubba at the Rewards pro shop, wanting to make sure they fit me.  I should have them by mid-next-week, and then I’m going to have to go play 18.  I worry a little bit that a stiff shaft is more than I can manage, but I console myself by counseling the eternal need for a stiff shaft.

That was juvenile, but eff it.

Day 1A has already started. Here’s where to go for the best typing into the internet about the whole shebang:

Just to be clear, I am NOT an HST fanboy. I think Thompson’s way over-rated and very definitely over-celebrated by the dopeheads, and I mean by about a factor of five. That said, Pauly approaches the sincerely good rating that I do give the good doctor, and that’s more than enough for me. I’ll never write that good, and few do. Take the next couple of weeks and stick with Pauly and enjoy the ride…you won’t regret it, even if you never played for more than matchsticks at the kitchen table with your grandma.

My favorite poker writer, and my favorite poker player…these two are at my Heaven Table.

It’s a road trip everybody should make. The Genesis - The Plan - Day 1.

How sad is it that the Austin hotel desk clerk recommended the County Line for BBQ?

Next we went over to County Line. Nice place for a graduation party, retirement or for lunch with the gang from the office, but it has no place on the world tour. When you walk in you don’t smell smoke, you don’t smell meat. Nope, what assaults your olfactory senses is the smell of a liberally applied tomatoey sauce that accompanies all plates put in front of diners.

When we left Green Mesquite we could smell our the smoke on our shirts.

Still can.

Sure, it’s a home-town hero, and I give customers County Line gift certificates since they’ll ship via Fedex and it makes for a nice office party. Nice, if you’re not from Texas, that is, where you can get outstanding BBQ easily vs. merely serviceable. Heck, Ironworks would have been a more appropriate recommendation. That guy behind the desk must have been from Idaho or something.

Anyhoo, another blogging success — I found Green Mesquite thru this cat, liked it a lot, and therefore recommended it to Pursuit, who likes it a lot, too. I’m eagerly awaiting the results from the rest of the trip.

I don’t really expect Texas BBQ to “win.” I’ve found that our preference for pure smoked brisket doesn’t necessarily translate well — there’s always lots of talk about sauces and toppings and rubs and marinades and brines over the rest of the BBQ world. Most Texans can eat a pound of brisket and not even touch the sauce bottle (though I will take about a tablespoon of it if it’s spicy.) Nope, it’s the beef and the smoke that makes brisket The King of BBQ, and some don’t care for that Spartan approach. But, Texas is cattle country, so it’ll always* be about the beef.

Though, really, I expect that to change…our youth, and heck, a lot of my generation, are yardbird-eaters. It’s got too much fat, they whine, not realizing I guess that a) fat is what flavors everything, and b) you can trim that off.