Japan

I’ve been going through some accumulated papers, maps, receipts, name cards, foreign currency, the types of things that one typically accumulates during travel, and that at some time must be organized, filed, and purged, as the case may be.

Recently, I’ve been enjoying the delights of air travel. In addition to the scores of flights I’ve taken in economy class, I’ve had the chance to check out the C class service of Thai Airways on their A380, the onboard lounge on the Emirates A380, and the 787 (before the grounding) on a trans-India flight.

{.asset-media-link} After an impressive September in which I went undefeated, I took up my clubs – or in this case, rental clubs – two months later and picked up right where I left off.

I’ve been writing this month, and doing a lot of data analysis, and I’ve also been botanizing. At Ishigaki, Okinawa, and Taketomi Islands, I’ve been walking along the beaches to see what grasses are growing.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=109786 I've been on a bit of a sabbatical this month, working on writing projects and making tremendous progress with my research. Today I took a sabbatical from my sabbatical and studied marine biology for a few hours, before the high irradiance forced me to seek the shade of a palm tree, from whence I am writing this.

You will be aware of my staunch adherence to a vicinal diet, and thus it will be no surprise to find that I have recently enjoyed the new (I think it says new?

I’ll start this series by posing a question: how best to divide one’s time between the full-service noodle bar at the ANA Lounge in the No. 4 Satellite zone of Narita International Airport Terminal 1’s South Wing, and the self-service sake bar at the opposite end of the same lounge?

I went undefeated in September, first winning a nine hole match in Shizuoka and making an incredible birdie that I celebrated first by planking the green and then by performing a crepuscular birdie dance.

What a month! I won four matches to start before losing my fifth and final match of August. Yesterday I was soundly defeated in a high-stakes match at one of Japan’s finest courses.

It has been pointed out from many corners that I have been making a lot of birdie dances recently. I’ll personally take a lot of the credit for that, but I also want to share with you a new philosophy that is helping me to make incredible breakthroughs in my golf and in my turfgrass work.