A forewarning for my readers today: this is a sad post upcoming. If you're not in the mood to read about tragedy, then I ask that you come back another time, or later when I'm back to posting about positive content.
I'd like to take a moment to write about my friend Pamela who was involved in a terrible accident last month and did not survive. Pamela is the wife of one of my best friends, Matt, and you may recognize their names from their blog that's linked on the right over there at Hesselblogger. Ironically, it was Pamela who got either Matt or myself into blogging to begin with.
I don't really know where to start or what is appropriate to say. I'm just going to start talking about my feelings. I guess my goal is to reflect on the fond memories and amazing character that was Pamela, one of the most remarkable women anyone could ever have the pleasure of meeting. Maybe someday Matt's kids will read this when they're older.
I met Pamela a couple years after I met Matt while I was attending the University of Arizona. Matt is an attractive man, so it was no surprise that the girls he dated in college were also attractive, and Pamela was easily the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen him with. I believe Matt started dating Pamela around our senior year of college and while it wasn't as serious yet, I remember her being around for some of the big parties my friends Richard, Justin, Shahruq, Sam, Chris, Eric, and Marty would throw. It wasn't until after I graduated from the U of A that I learned Matt would be sticking around in Tucson at Raytheon, so we begun to hang out often, sharing in that brand-new after-college lifestyle. Matt had been seriously dating Pamela for a while now, so I befriended Pamela and drew closer to the two as years passed in Tucson.
So many fun memories with both of them. Going out to "the Risky Cactus for some Moon Business" and watching Pamela be selected as a winner of $100 in the DJ's picks for best dancers of the night. Countless nights of playing video games over at Matt's house or partying at Pamela's apartment. It was Pamela that even got me into watching Grey's Anatomy, which I'm sure she had abandoned after the first few seasons but is still a show I watch to this very day. Pamela also came up huge and would help drive me to physical therapy, months after I had surgery to repair the torn ACL in my right knee. After a few years of watching Matt and Pamela together, I would joke about how perfect their relationship was and I was so proud and happy for Matt when he finally decided to marry her, making the best decision of his life. I was honored to be a part of their wedding, which I still remember memorizing Frankie Valli's song "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" to sing for Pamela at the reception.
It became a little more difficult to hang out with Matt and Pamela when they eventually moved to Phoenix, but since my parents live in Scottsdale, I'd still try and visit them occasionally throughout the year when I was in town. Also memorable are the trip to Cabo they planned and invited me along, multiple wakeboarding weekends to Apache Lake, cabin trips to Payson, 2010 New Year's eve at Angels and Outlaws and 2012 in Las Vegas just a couple years later. While we lived in different cities, our friendship remained just as strong by keeping in touch throughout the many years. Matt and Pamela gave birth to two wonderful children: their first-born Ryan and their daughter Audrey a couple years later. Honestly, there's only a few friends of mine who I can say I was truly jealous of their great life and family, which makes what comes next one of the most depressing things I've ever experienced.
On the night of Saturday, November 12th, I received a phone call from Jon, a mutual friend I met through Matt. When he first told me the news, I was simply in shock. I didn't believe it was true and kept saying out loud, "no way, this is not real." Moments later, for the first time in about a decade, I cried for an hour, realizing that she just wasn't going to be around anymore. I've been pretty fortunate in my lifetime so far, and up until this point, I've never been close to anyone who died early for unnatural reasons.
I got a chance after a couple days to see Matt while his kids were recuperating at the hospital. Pamela came from a huge family and everyone was really helpful getting Matt through the process, spending time with Ryan and watching over Audrey. I didn't really know how to help or what to do when I was there, I guess I just wanted to be there and to see him.
A couple weeks have passed and I hear that Ryan is doing much better, walking around and playing again, living like a normal 3-year-old should. It seems like he'll be just fine. Audrey has awakened from a coma and has been moved out of intensive care, but I still worry about her overall recovery, since she took a big blow to the head during the accident. Matt remains hopeful, and fortunately for both kids, he is one of the strongest, most responsible, intelligent, and caring fathers anyone could ever have. The kids will be alright...
In one dark moment, this family's life was completely changed forever. It's depressing and no matter how I think about, it just sucks. I guess my take-away from all of this, is that you really do need to appreciate the preciousness of life and the relationships you have with others, because who knows at what point any or all of that can be taken away from you in this world.
Rest in peace Pamela, you will be forever missed.
In loving memory of Pamela Anne (Kieran) Hesselbacher, 1985-2016.
Thursday, December 8, 2016
Monday, October 31, 2016
Quick October Updates
Not a whole lot of excitement going on these days, so I'll just give some quick updates on my extracurriculars and routines.
Mondays:
This year for Raytheon basketball we are 5-2 so far in the B league. We had to forfeit a couple weeks ago when I was out traveling to Colorado Springs for SNIA. Last week, we played shorthanded (5 guys made it, no subs) and lost to a very good team. It's been harder this year than previous years as there are a lot of byes due to having 11 teams (so 1 team is always sitting each week), forfeits, and holiday schedules (like no games on Halloween today). Regardless, it's fun to play with my fellow IBMers and we remain one of the teams (if not the team) to beat!
After basketball league, I sometimes go to Fox and the Hound to play 9-ball, since my team is still playing on Mondays. I can usually get there by 8 or 9pm after my basketball game, so it's not too bad. I just go straight from the Sporting Chance Center and play in my gym clothes. Our team is doing alright and I'm currently 3-1 on the year. Still a 4-speed in 9-ball.
Tuesdays:
Still got 8-ball league on Tuesdays, also at Fox and the Hound. Our team has struggled in recent sessions, but I've had a lot of roster changes to deal with and players moving up in skill. We're currently in 3rd place this session and I'm 3-3 on the year. Still a 5-speed in 8-ball.
Wednesdays:
My one true "night off" of the week is Wednesday. I have almost nothing ever planned on Wednesdays and will use this day to get in time at the gym or play video games. Some games I've been playing recently are: Left 4 Dead on PC with some combination of Wes, Ryan, Tyler, Johnathan, and Beth; Division on PS4 with Jeff; or Dragon Quest Builders on PS4. I still play Diablo 3 when the new season is out and I haven't been playing much StarCraft 2.
Thursdays:
We're about 8 weeks into the bowling season. We lost Tony this year (he's raising a new child), so we have two girls rotating weekly as our 4th player. We are off to a slow start, as both myself and Chris are below our expected averages. It's been hard to bowl big games this year for me, I wonder if all the additional extracurricular activities are affecting my game. *shrug* If I want to be a top athlete in all the sports I participate, I need to adjust and increase my endurance. And I'm sure most of it is mental.
Weekends:
Friday through Saturday have been pretty consistent for me. I still find to hit the gym, go out with friends, and play a round or two of golf on one of the days. There's NFL to watch on Sundays and the NBA season has also started!
Life is going well and I'm keeping busy. No out-of-town trips planned for the rest of the year. 'Til next post, take care and thanks for stopping by!
Mondays:
This year for Raytheon basketball we are 5-2 so far in the B league. We had to forfeit a couple weeks ago when I was out traveling to Colorado Springs for SNIA. Last week, we played shorthanded (5 guys made it, no subs) and lost to a very good team. It's been harder this year than previous years as there are a lot of byes due to having 11 teams (so 1 team is always sitting each week), forfeits, and holiday schedules (like no games on Halloween today). Regardless, it's fun to play with my fellow IBMers and we remain one of the teams (if not the team) to beat!
After basketball league, I sometimes go to Fox and the Hound to play 9-ball, since my team is still playing on Mondays. I can usually get there by 8 or 9pm after my basketball game, so it's not too bad. I just go straight from the Sporting Chance Center and play in my gym clothes. Our team is doing alright and I'm currently 3-1 on the year. Still a 4-speed in 9-ball.
Tuesdays:
Still got 8-ball league on Tuesdays, also at Fox and the Hound. Our team has struggled in recent sessions, but I've had a lot of roster changes to deal with and players moving up in skill. We're currently in 3rd place this session and I'm 3-3 on the year. Still a 5-speed in 8-ball.
Wednesdays:
My one true "night off" of the week is Wednesday. I have almost nothing ever planned on Wednesdays and will use this day to get in time at the gym or play video games. Some games I've been playing recently are: Left 4 Dead on PC with some combination of Wes, Ryan, Tyler, Johnathan, and Beth; Division on PS4 with Jeff; or Dragon Quest Builders on PS4. I still play Diablo 3 when the new season is out and I haven't been playing much StarCraft 2.
Thursdays:
We're about 8 weeks into the bowling season. We lost Tony this year (he's raising a new child), so we have two girls rotating weekly as our 4th player. We are off to a slow start, as both myself and Chris are below our expected averages. It's been hard to bowl big games this year for me, I wonder if all the additional extracurricular activities are affecting my game. *shrug* If I want to be a top athlete in all the sports I participate, I need to adjust and increase my endurance. And I'm sure most of it is mental.
Weekends:
Friday through Saturday have been pretty consistent for me. I still find to hit the gym, go out with friends, and play a round or two of golf on one of the days. There's NFL to watch on Sundays and the NBA season has also started!
Life is going well and I'm keeping busy. No out-of-town trips planned for the rest of the year. 'Til next post, take care and thanks for stopping by!
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Getting into.....GOLF!?!?
Anyone who's ever played golf with me knows one fact: I am really bad at golf.
However, my friend Anthony works as a financial manager at JW Marriott at Starr Pass here in Tucson and is encouraged to take advantage of the resort's golf course. He's allowed to invite up to three others to join him for free, which is an amazing perk to have as part of his job! Since late 2015, we've been going almost every weekend to take advantage of free golf and I'm very lucky to be invited. Anthony had never really golfed before he got this job, so it was nice that we both started out around the same level.
The golf course at Starr Pass is arguably the most challenging in Tucson. There are 27 holes (3 sets of 9 where you'll play 2 of the sets in a round) and the course spans through several mountains and washes so there are many chances to go out-of-bounds if you have a bad hit.
Because I've been going almost every week (even during the hot summer days and yes, I'll actually get up early if it's to go play golf), I have an innate desire to want to be better at any sport I'm playing regularly. I had a set of old Powerbolts that my friend Matt gave me as a groomsman's gift some 7 years ago. They were an entry-level set of clubs, rightfully so because a bad golfer doesn't need good golf clubs nor was I using them that much. My first step in getting into golf was to invest in a new set of nicer clubs. There's a TaylorMade Outlet Store that just opened up in Tucson where Anthony purchased his clubs. They run older models from a few years ago, but everything is still brand new. I was able to trial a few of their irons and ended up liking the Speedblade set. The set of irons (includes 4I, 5I, 6I, 7I, 8I, 9I, PW, AW) ran for $300 new. I also picked up an SLDR Driver and a Daytona 12 Putter. Because the outlet store is new since 2015, they were running a special where almost everything in the store was 25% off. They also had an additional promotion for "buy one club, get one half off." Altogether, my first purchase was in June for $440.
I would continue to play every Sunday, not really improving my game, but at least I had some fancy new clubs to swing with! I also had bought some new golf shoes to go with my TPC Jasna Polana shirt and shorts that I got from being a groomsman in Chris's wedding. For the most part, whenever we went to Starr Pass, we'd do a 2vs2 best ball. Sometimes we'd take individual scores and for the most part I would hit around a 112. Anthony can break 100 occasionally and Tyler averages in the mid 90's.
As I continued to play, I realized that my irons would not go far enough on some of these holes. The internet says a 4-iron should on average go 170 yards and I could actually hit maybe 20 yards less than that. However, some of these fairways still had 200+ yards to go to the pin. Tyler and Anthony suggested that I invest in a fairway wood and hybrid, and after picking the brains of my elite golfing friends Matt and Chris, I decided to purchase 4 more clubs for my birthday in August: a 3-wood, a 3-hybrid, and a couple 56° and 60° wedges. The promotion for "buy one, get one half off" plus an additional 25% off was still running, so I got the 4 clubs for $260. Altogether, I now own a 14-club set of brand new TaylorMades and if you count the bag as well, everything ran me $800. Matt claims this is the first sign of golfer's addiction, which is spending a pretty penny on a new set of clubs!
So now that I had the equipment, it was time to start learning to play the game properly. Growing up, I had never learned how to play golf. My dad never played and when I rarely played with my friends, I was not serious enough to learn the fundamentals. While Anthony and Tyler are better than me, I wasn't sure if they actually knew how to play the right way. I figured it was time to consult friends who were more educated or been playing for a lot longer than me.
Over Labor Day weekend, Matt met me at Top Golf in Scottsdale while I visited Lucky (who now works there) to help give me some instructions on posture and address. I am a firm believer in the fundamentals of any sport. I know from experience from other sports (e.g. basketball, bowling, and pool) that proper mechanics is very important if you want to improve the performance of your game. Matt has been playing for 20 years and is really good golfer, so I tried to absorb every ounce of advice he gave me. I've only tried my newly correctly swing a couple rounds out, but already I can feel a difference. As you can see from the picture below, I' still have a lot of work to do, but before the lessons I would stand straight up and have my arms fully extended, which I now know is incorrect.
My goal is to get out there every weekend with Anthony and then every other week I'll try and play another course a second day in the week. So we're looking at maybe 6 rounds of golf a month. I've also been watching more YouTube videos and golf channel, watching what others do and their approach to what is a very difficult game.
I've definitely gotten really into golf lately. Now that we're in the fall season, there'll be cloudy days where the weather is a cool 70-80° out and all I'll be thinking is "man, it'd be such a good day to go golfing." Another sign that I'm getting addicted. Hopefully if keep it up enough, I'll see improvement and not be so embarrassed to be out on the course with guys like Matt and Chris! :)
However, my friend Anthony works as a financial manager at JW Marriott at Starr Pass here in Tucson and is encouraged to take advantage of the resort's golf course. He's allowed to invite up to three others to join him for free, which is an amazing perk to have as part of his job! Since late 2015, we've been going almost every weekend to take advantage of free golf and I'm very lucky to be invited. Anthony had never really golfed before he got this job, so it was nice that we both started out around the same level.
The golf course at Starr Pass is arguably the most challenging in Tucson. There are 27 holes (3 sets of 9 where you'll play 2 of the sets in a round) and the course spans through several mountains and washes so there are many chances to go out-of-bounds if you have a bad hit.
As I continued to play, I realized that my irons would not go far enough on some of these holes. The internet says a 4-iron should on average go 170 yards and I could actually hit maybe 20 yards less than that. However, some of these fairways still had 200+ yards to go to the pin. Tyler and Anthony suggested that I invest in a fairway wood and hybrid, and after picking the brains of my elite golfing friends Matt and Chris, I decided to purchase 4 more clubs for my birthday in August: a 3-wood, a 3-hybrid, and a couple 56° and 60° wedges. The promotion for "buy one, get one half off" plus an additional 25% off was still running, so I got the 4 clubs for $260. Altogether, I now own a 14-club set of brand new TaylorMades and if you count the bag as well, everything ran me $800. Matt claims this is the first sign of golfer's addiction, which is spending a pretty penny on a new set of clubs!
Over Labor Day weekend, Matt met me at Top Golf in Scottsdale while I visited Lucky (who now works there) to help give me some instructions on posture and address. I am a firm believer in the fundamentals of any sport. I know from experience from other sports (e.g. basketball, bowling, and pool) that proper mechanics is very important if you want to improve the performance of your game. Matt has been playing for 20 years and is really good golfer, so I tried to absorb every ounce of advice he gave me. I've only tried my newly correctly swing a couple rounds out, but already I can feel a difference. As you can see from the picture below, I' still have a lot of work to do, but before the lessons I would stand straight up and have my arms fully extended, which I now know is incorrect.
I've definitely gotten really into golf lately. Now that we're in the fall season, there'll be cloudy days where the weather is a cool 70-80° out and all I'll be thinking is "man, it'd be such a good day to go golfing." Another sign that I'm getting addicted. Hopefully if keep it up enough, I'll see improvement and not be so embarrassed to be out on the course with guys like Matt and Chris! :)
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
Work Travel: Portland
You may recall in my May blog entry that I accepted an additional job responsibility at IBM that now requires me to travel quarterly for work. Last month, they sent me to Portland, OR, a city I've been wanting to see for a while now.
I arrived on a Saturday evening to get some extra time to see the city and hang out with my friend Chapin who lives in Hillsboro. On Sunday we played some disc golf and got drinks at a nearby Pokemon stop - err at local bar for Sasquatch Brewing Co.
On Monday I had to be up for an all-day conference at the Marriott in downtown Portland. Those are always long days but they definitely fed us well...a little too well. There was a buffet breakfast at 8am, buffet lunch at 12pm, and buffet snacks and desserts at 3pm, lol. Later that night, I met up with Chapin again for some drinks at Fat Head Brewery.
I was pretty much done with the conference after Monday, but I decided to stay for the social dinner event Tuesday night. I've been getting into golf lately (that'll be a blog topic for another day), so I decided to play a course while out in Oregon. I woke up early on Tuesday and drove out to Lake Oswego to play a short par-3 walking course. The weather was perfect: 65 degrees, overcast. Such a nice day to play and it was a great opportunity to work on just my irons game.
On Tuesday night, the first part of the social event was a beer and cheese pairing at The Upper Lip for an hour. They had 5 cheeses that they paired with 5 beers. Man, I loooove cheese and I loooove beer, so this was a perfect start for me. Then we walked over to an Asian-fusion restaurant called Saucebox. The dinner was set up family-style, where they brought out dishes that everyone shared. There were 4 appetizers, 5 entrees, and a couple desserts that everyone got to try from.
Needless to say, I definitely eat (and drink) very well when traveling for work. My next trip for work will be back to Colorado Springs in October on which I will visit Denver in the meantime!
I was pretty much done with the conference after Monday, but I decided to stay for the social dinner event Tuesday night. I've been getting into golf lately (that'll be a blog topic for another day), so I decided to play a course while out in Oregon. I woke up early on Tuesday and drove out to Lake Oswego to play a short par-3 walking course. The weather was perfect: 65 degrees, overcast. Such a nice day to play and it was a great opportunity to work on just my irons game.
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