Today’s Scooter Sunday is brought to you by: Golf, BBQ Hamburger and Mojitos.

This one’s being posted way late, as I had a very busy weekend, between a project at work, golf, planning for a BBQ, yard work, etc… etc… etc… But as they say, better late then never.

“Would someone shut off this rain and ride me… please?”
 

As I normally complain about the weather, this last week gave me enough reasons. It rained for four days straight and didn’t let up until mid-morning on Saturday. My lonely scooter sat in the shed far too long. Thank goodness Sunday was nicer, which meant it was time for a ride. I rode past the Murray Golf Course, which was packed, then down through a few side streets and back up to my house. Not a very long ride, as it was only in the high 60′s. It’s supposed to be in the mid 80′s this next weekend, so I will definitely plan for a much longer ride.

I Hate the Dentist

On top of the endless rain, I had a dentist appointment to get two crowns. Since my earliest memories, I have never liked the dentist. I don’t think I’m alone in this, but you would think 40 years later, I would get better at dealing with the visits… I admit I’m a big pussy when it comes to the dentist. And this visit was no exception. These were my first two crowns, so I was naturally more nervous than I usually get. It’s not so much the pain that bothers me, but having to sit in the chair with my mouth open for over two hours while my teeth get drilled into.

And I get to go back in three weeks to get my permanent crowns (these are just the temporary ones). Yeah for me.

Golf

A good friend of mine loves to golf. When he lived in Utah, we golfed a lot. He now lives in Florida, but is here visiting for the next couple of weeks. Which means I’m playing a lot of golf. We went twice this weekend. I didn’t do as well as I wanted to (my game was going well, but fell apart on the last hole both games), but I still enjoyed myself, as evidenced by the two pictures below. Yes, that’s me smoking on the last picture, but it’s just a Prime Time cherry flavored cigar [I quit smoking cigarettes over five years ago, but have the occasional Prime Time]

putting for a birdie on the 9th hole

Smokin’
 
 
And that’s all he wrote

That’s all I’ve got for now, since it’s way past Sunday (actually mid-Monday when this was posted).

Ok. This is the first Scooter Sunday where I did NOT ride my scooter…. shockingly true. And I can tell you it won’t be the last time I will have a Scooter Sunday post that doesn’t include a ride on the scooter. But it doesn’t mean there won’t be some scooter talk, as well as other stuff that happened since last week.

I get asked…

The weather was nice enough this last week to ride my scooter to work three out of the five days. It was cold enough in the morning to need my windbreaker, but warm enough to ride home without the coat.

One of my rides home, I was stopped by two people at stop signs, who rolled down their windows in their cars and asked how much I paid for my scooter and how many miles to the gallon I get. The popularity of these two-wheeled vehicles are mostly based on the current price of gas (which is at $3.59 here in Salt Lake). I can’t blame people for wanting to cut back on gas consumption. And with the 100 mpg I get on my 2006 Honda Metro, who wouldn’t want to park the car and liberate themselves from a larger gas hog. Of course, I can’t help but smile since I’ve had mine over a year now, being ahead of the game and leading the popularity pack.

 
 
Golf

My first bogey of the day
 

Last week was not only Mother’s Day, but also a weekend without golfing. Now I’m not a fanatic about the game, but I do like to golf. Even the worst game golfing was better than not getting the clubs out. My short game is a lot better than my driving and fairway play. As a right-handed golfer, I have a wicked slice that affects how I drive the ball. I know it’s how my stance is, but because I’ve played so long with my current stance, it’s hard to change without a lot of practice. So for now, I compensate for it by hitting more to the left. This increases my desire to get out more often, so I can work on my driving skills. I really do want to fix this because I know once I do, my game will improve greatly.

 
 
A Legal Win

A legal victory, but it’s not over yet
 

Most people know some of my political positions. I share how I feel about various issues and political stances with a good number of my friends and family. For the most part, I have been and continue to be very liberal in my views. One of these views is same-sex marriage. Since this societal issue has been debated, I’ve always been in favor of same-sex marriage. I see nothing wrong with it. Every working adult (and some non-working) that is alive today in this country pays taxes: straight, gay, old, young, poor, wealthy (well, the wealthy seem to find ways to pay less taxes, but they are just as obligated to pay as every other US citizen). And as tax-paying citizens of this country, certain rights and privileges should be afforded to them, based completely on their living in this country and paying taxes. And I feel that marriage is one of these rights.

Of course, there are many that disagree with me on this, mostly based on religious reasons. One the main arguments I hear against same-sex marriage is: God created marriage and it should only be between one man and one woman. I also get told that marriage is ordained of God. And that the bible says homosexuality is a sin. And the list goes on and on and on.

So my first question is this: if marriage is directly tied to religion and God, how can someone that has no belief is God enter into a marriage? Are the couple forced into some church, placed in front of an ordained minister while he proclaims how “God is part of this union” and various other religious statements? Of course not. Atheist couples can marry. And I’ve not heard any outrage from any “believers” trying to pass laws or put to a vote to make it illegal for atheists to marry.

So why the outrage with two men or two women wanting to marry? Why do people feel it’s ok to put to vote any human rights? It wasn’t done in 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education, even though I’m sure there were enough people prejudiced against the black population that would have been willing to vote in favor of keeping segregation. The correct procedure was done, which was a decision by the Supreme Court.

And the correct decision was once again made in California this last week by members of the California Supreme Court. The fight is not over, because there are enough people that don’t see the bigger picture. They see things only from a religious point of view, forgetting that not everyone in this country is religious. They see things only from a prejudiced point of view, because they can’t live with the fact that there are other humans that are different than they are.

There are so many other arguments for and against, and paying taxes is not my only reason for supporting same-sex marriage. But it’s one of the logical reasons to support it. And I hope those that look at this logically will have their voices heard and extend this right to those that deserve it.

Shopping

Speaking of marriage, my fiance and I have a wedding coming up on June 21st, in Lake Tahoe. And part of the planning involves finding the right outfits, what matches and what will look good. We have decided to get married on the beach of the lake. This involves finding shirts, pants, dresses and shoes that will look good on the sand. So this past weekend, we spent a lot of time looking, buying a few things here and there and getting closer to having everything in place for the big day. It is exciting, even more so for my fiance. I like the casual styles we have picked out, too. It’s something that will be remembered for many years and we want it all to be as close to perfect as we can get.

Until next week (which is Memorial Day weekend and have me back on a scooter), comment as you wish. I think I’ve loaded this post with something to talk about.

Getting to this quite late, but it’s been a full day.

Another short ride today, but it was still fun. Rode it to check the air in my tires at the local Sinclair gas station down the road. As you can see from the photo, I ride with a helmet, even though Utah law does not require a helmet for any two-wheeled vehicle. I prefer not to be an “organ donor”, as my friend that rides motorcycles prefers to call people that ride without one. I understand there are times when it may hinder a ride, but with the ratio of cars, trucks, diesels and SUVs much higher than scooters and motorcycles, it’s a safety issue. At least that’s how I see it.

Golf

For the last 12 years, I’ve taken up golf as my sport of choice. And even after that long, I’m still not all that good. But I enjoy it. It’s a challenge to me and one that I really like. Yes, I swear when my ball goes in the water or when I have way too many triple bogeys in a 9-hole game. But that’s all part of the challenge, or so many golfers have told me.

Today was my first game of the season. Last year at this time, I had already played five rounds of 9-holes. But this year, as you’ve seen in some of my posts, the weather has been extra shitty cold and not very golfer-friendly. Today was no wind, high 60′s – low 70′s and just a great day. And I wasn’t about to piss it away by not getting out the clubs.

So how’d I do? Not bad, for the first game of the season. Pared one hole, single bogey on two holes and multiple bogeys on the rest. But the “fucks” and “dammits” didn’t flow quite as much. It helped that my friend and I were paired up with a 50-something couple and I didn’t feel like blaring obscenities around them. Plus, I was just plain happy to be out hitting the tees, chipping on the fairway and putting the ball into the cup. What’s not to love?

IRON MAN

But that’s not all of my day. My fiance and I went to the 7:30pm showing of Iron Man. What a kick ass movie. I knew the story from the Marvel comic book series, but that didn’t matter. The movie (albeit changed somewhat from the comic book version) stood on it’s own. Robert Downey Jr. was very well cast in the role of Tony Stark. The effects were non-stop and not cheesy or over the top. I can’t say enough good things about this film. Check it out, even if you are not part of the geekdom world that read comic books as a kid. And stay to the end, past the credits.

So that’s it for today. I’ll post again this week. Thanks for reading and sticking with me.

The rest of the blogging community has their official Sunday posts. Dave2 has “Bullet Sunday” … Hilly has “Snackie Sunday” … so in order not to feel left out of this week-ending post, I needed to have an official Sunday post. And since the weather is starting to turn nice and I love to get out and ride my Honda Metro as much as I can, I decided to officially tag my Sunday posts as Scooter Sunday.

Today’s ride was a morning ride. It hadn’t reached the high of 65 yet, so in order not to freeze too much, I threw on my blue windbreaker and rode over Virg’s, a local eatery that serves an awesome array of breakfast choices, even though my “creature of habit” selection of biscuits and gravy is what I normally order.

After breakfast, I came back home and decided to not waste anymore of the day. I parked my scooter, went into the house, grabbed my golf clubs and headed down the road to Murray City Golf Course to hit a couple buckets of balls. I wanted to get out and golf before now, but between the shitty-ass coldness we’ve had here, plus working when it was nice, it just hadn’t happened yet.

Stiffness Sets In

Since this was my first golf outing for this year, I didn’t have much time to stretch out and get limber. Which means that I’m going to feel all that unprepared swinging later on tonight. Next weekend, I’m planning to get out for at least nine holes (and will have pictures as well).

Little Scooter Envy

Before I called it a day, I got my scooter back out for another ride down the road. My fiance’s grand daughter has been wanting to ride, but since we don’t have a helmet for her, we only let her sit on the scooter in the yard. So I give you Ayla, a future scooter rider: