Ernold Same awoke from the same dream

in the same bed, at the same time
Looked in the same mirror, made the same frown
and felt the same way as he did every day
- Blur, Ernold Same

Hmm. It's one of those days. Monday. Neither a very good nor a very bad day. It was just there. Going through the motions at work. Like a clown at a birthday party or a choir boy during the ceremonies at mass. Sticking with the routine. I don't know. I can't explain what makes this day different than all the others. Or more the same than all the others?

Enough wallowing - I had a good weekend... I played a round of golf on Saturday - the first one in about a year. My co-workers Jason, Amit, Sai and I got a 9:20 AM tee time at McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale only a few miles north of Old Town. It's a nice course - most places around here are desert courses where you have to contend with cactii, brush and dirt as soon as you miss the fairway, but this is a more traditional course. Ten water holes and the one on the right - the par 3 #8 - is one of the more scenic ones.

Normally we try to get out earlier in the morning to beat the heat, but we didn't plan ahead well so we had to take what was available. The first nine weren't bad - we'd brought plenty of water and the morning isn't quite as hot- but the back nine was pretty brutal. In 110-degree (43 Celsius) heat it doesn't matter how much you stay in the shade - it's hot! But I played pretty well and posted a 95, and any day I go below triple-digits is a good day for me.

Next weekend I'm taking Friday off to make it a four-day weekend. We have Monday off for Labor Day. I'm planning to drive out to Palm Springs and hang out with my friend Mike Donofrio. His wife works for Toll Brothers (the construction company) and every year Mike and Angela get to stay at one of their properties for a week. (Last year they came to Scottsdale.)

Palm Springs is a desert community in California (on the way from Phoenix to Los Angeles) mostly known as a resort destination for the retired, rich and famous: five-star hotels, restaurants, golf courses, high-end boutique shopping, etc.

It is also the setting for Douglas Coupland's excellent book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture (which popularized the term Generation X.) It tells the story of three friends who are disillusioned with modern society and decide to escape the rat-race and move away from it all into the Mojave Desert. There, forced to work as bartenders (described as McJobs - another term popularized by the book) their existence and outlook grow bleaker, and much of their free time is spent telling each other stories about their lives. A postmodern answer to The Decameron, with commercialization substituting for the plague, if you will. Anyway, hard to make the book justice, but it's a great (and easy) read - recommended for all!