The Great Weight Loss Challenge - 2010

As many people know due to Facebook, I embarked on the challenge of losing a bunch of weight this year. I can't thank everyone enough for all the encouragement as I have posted progress... It truly does mean a lot to me.

Many people have asked 'how did you do it' and said that this little effort has inspired them to work on their weight... So I thought I would capture some thoughts on what got me from 238 pounds on January 2, 2010 to the 188 pounds I tipped the scales at this morning. Partly to answer the questions people have asked and partly as a documentation for me of what a lifestyle change can do, so if I find myself creeping up in weight again, I know that I control my weight, it doesn't control me. That my excuse of my life being 'too busy' or 'too stressful' or 'too - insert excuse here' to maintain a healthy weight is crap, and that if I am willing to be honest about my choices, I control my weight... I control it going up and I control it going down.

December of 2009 I stepped on the scale and saw something I had never seen before... The first number being a '2' was old hat... it'd been that way since my freshman year in college... and while there was one brief moment during one of my 'diet periods' when I had dropped to 190-something, I imagine that moment could have been measured in hours and not days.

The next number was the surprise... and not the 'found $20 in my pocket' surprise. The second number was a '4'... yup... 240. All of a sudden, all the excuses I used to justify my weight melted away and were replaced with what can only be described as a sense of self loathing. All of a sudden I had more proof than looking in the mirror that I had reached an unhealthy weight. There it was in the black and white read out of the digital scale.

Some of my common excuses:
1) I am too busy to work out
2) I am healthy, my doctor tells me so
3) Our lives are too busy to cook healthier
4) I am big boned, I have an athletic build

These were the main/major themes that I always fell back on to justify my ever increasing waist size.

Now, truth be told, I have probably lost 250 pounds in the last 10 years... 10 pounds one year, replaced a few months later with 15... then 20 the next year, replaced a few months later with 25... then 30, 35, 40... I think you understand.

So between the man in the mirror and the black and white on the scale, I knew I had to do something. I knew the justifications for my poor eating habits and poor exercise habits were just excuses to allow myself the easiest route.

I talked with Steph about how bad it had gotten, and asked for her support in making a lifestyle change. I explained that every year I put on a few more pounds than I had lost on whatever diet regime I tried, and that I needed to do something that we could commit to for the rest of our lives so that I could get off the yo-yo. Not only was every year's weight addition a little more than the loss from the year before, it was harder and harder as I got older to get rid of the pounds.

Diets of the past included Atkins, trying to limit portions, playing a lot of basketball, going to the gym for elliptical/treadmill time... all worked as long as I stayed on them... but the problem I had was that I viewed them as short term solutions... not a lifestyle change. So as soon as I stopped doing whatever I was doing, the weight came back.

I needed a sustainable solution.

One of my boundary conditions for getting healthy was the realization that with a full time (plus some in certain weeks) job, 3 kids, a house full of projects, a yard full of work and a nasty golf addiction my ability to consistently work out is limited. Unfortunately, I don't enjoy running... AT ALL. I lost a bunch of weight in the mid-to-late 90s by running nearly every day and eating a VERY low fat diet. I disliked running so much, I knew it just couldn't be part of a permanent lifestyle change. I love playing basketball, and we play at lunch at work in the summer... but it's outdoor and limited by weather. Finally, the Welsh Family Budget trades any money for a gym membership for greens fees (truth be told, the gym would be cheaper). So I needed to find something I could commit to that didn't rely on regular attendance in the gym or regular running.

Stephanie does 90% of the shopping and cooking in the Welsh household, so any solution/decision needed to be joint. It needed to be something we could both commit to, and something the entire family could live with - she couldn't be expected to make a meal for them and something different for me. She graciously agreed to settle on something we could implement for the entire family.

So January 2, 2010 we agreed to start living The South Beach Lifestyle. I am not going to turn this into an infomercial for South Beach. It's what worked for us, but it's not, in my opinion the end all be all in getting to and maintaining a healthy weight. My aunt Patrice is 50-something, eats whatever she wants, drinks what she wants when she wants and runs regularly... she has a lifestyle that keeps her weight and her body healthy. We have friends that do Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, etc... I really believe it comes down to 'what can you commit to doing consistently for the rest of your life'. I think, for us, South Beach is that.

South Beach is one of the many 'low carb' eating styles. High in lean protein and vegetables, it shuns processed flour, sugar and empty carbs. There are plenty of carbs to be eaten, focusing on veggies and whole wheat and whole grains. I like to think of it as a 'kinder, gentler Atkins'. A very good friend used this eating style to get healthy, and showed me that it's completely reasonable to do this forever... not just until the weight is gone, then back to unexamined eating habits.

So we decided on 'how'... but what was the goal? What was I trying to accomplish. I decided that 40 pounds was the goal. That would get me to under 200 pounds... A weight not consistently carried on this frame since high school. It was completely arbitrary. I did a little more research and decided I would like to get to 'normal' on the BMI - I was technically 'obese'. Now I know that there are limitations with BMI, as it's just a ratio of height to weight. I know it doesn't take into account muscle mass, but since I don't go to the gym, I have at best 'average' muscle tone. It seemed a little more scientific... but it also said that 40 pounds was a cop out... a good start. The new goal became 183, which translates to 24.99 BMI, which means for the first time since high school I would be 'normal' and not 'overweight' or 'obese'. Then the goal changed 1 more time. It's now a 180 pound goal. I want to reward myself when I hit my goal with a pizza and beer night. And I don't want to have to really look closely at my weight and adjust eating habits after that reward, so the thought is, get to 180... have my 'za and beers and then still be at or under my 183, where I hope to maintain.

So we started. Stephanie started to shop the outside of the supermarket... veggies, fruits, meats. In January of 2010 I ate more broccoli than I had in the entire rest of my life (all 35 years). This is not an exaggeration. I am a very black and white person, so I was, you could say, fanatical about making sure I adhered to the program. Very restrictive on carbs for the initial phase, slightly relaxed in phase 2, then even more relaxed in phase 3.

The weight indeed did start to melt away... extremely consistently. I averaged about 2 pounds per week from 02 January to 17 June. 23.5 weeks and 50 pounds.

The beginning of April I started an experiment... or I thought I was starting an experiment. One of the criticisms of the South Beach Diet (and other low carb eating plans) is that by cutting out bread and sugar and beer and pasta you are simply reducing calories... that weight loss is simply calories in/calories out. All the glycemic index mumbo jumbo was masking the fact that you were eating less calories. (Side note - it's interesting this is a 'criticism'... a program that lets you eat whenever you are hungry, but still limit calorie intake and lose weight... what's bad in that?)

So, a friend of mine had lost a significant amount of weight simply limiting his calories and working out. 100% a calories in/calories out program. Watch his intake, bump up his calorie burn with swimming and running. He looks great, by the way. He was using an App called 'Lose It' (gratuitous product plug) to set up a goal weight, determine net calories he was 'allowed' to consume and track his exercise. I decided to use the App to see if the reality was simply that the South Beach program was limiting my calories without my realizing it... which I would have been completely fine with.

The plan was to eat exactly how I had from January 2nd to April 3rd, but measure all my portions and track the calories. I learned 2 things during this experiment:

1) I had NO IDEA what a serving size really was. I would load up my salad with cheese and dressing, as they were 'low carb' not realizing I was at least doubling, if not tripling, the serving sizes.
2) When I knew what a serving size was, and knew how many calories were involved, I couldn't keep adding cheese and dressing and stuff to my salad!

So, from April to today I have adopted a hybrid plan. I am eating using South Beach principles. I will use these principles forever. Lean meat, veggies, whole wheat/whole grain breads and pastas. Eliminate sugars where possible. But I have also been using the app to count calories. It's been interesting to learn what a serving size of things really are. I realize how much 'extra food' I was putting in my body.

I cut back on the calories, but eat whenever I am hungry (I think this is where the food choice in South Beach help - the food sticks with me, avoids the 'blood sugar effects' of carbs so I get hungry less). But I see myself eating less volume of food... and I am not hungry... this clearly means I was fueling my body with more food than needed.

Part of why this has worked for me is that I don't require a lot of variety in my diet. I am OK with eating the same or similar things day after day after day (I say as I eat my standard lunch of chicken sausage with artichoke and garlic, cucumber salad with 1 tbsp of Olive Oil and Vinegar Newman's Own Dressing (gratuitous product plug #2). Every day I have 1-2 ounces of dry roasted peanuts. 80% of the mornings I have an Atkins shake for breakfast. I don't get bored or tired of the same or similar things day after day.

But without a doubt the single biggest reason this has worked is the support of my wife. She has changed how she shops and how she cooks. She found the money in the budget for the increased grocery bill (shopping the outside of the store is more expensive than the inside with it's packaged and processed foods). She puts up with my constant measuring (I have brought my scale to the table for dinner and taken it to restaurants to measure portion sizes). She puts up with my nearly daily updates on weight, calories consumed, etc. Without her support and encouragement this would not have been possible... OK, another side note... that paragraph sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech... apologies, but I am not deleting or editing it. She rocks and this was as much because of her help as my discipline.

A common question I have gotten is around enjoying eating. Have I missed anything, have I had to sacrifice anything, am I hungry all the time. The answer is 'I enjoy eating, if I am hungry I eat, and of course I miss stuff!'.

I miss pasta, but not more than I enjoy weighing 50 pounds less.
I miss ice cream, but not more than I enjoy weighing 50 pounds less.
I miss eating an entire dish of 7 layer dip with my friend Brian, but not more than I enjoy weighing 50 pounds less.
I miss an occasional beer, but not more than I enjoy weighing 50 pounds less.

Did I stop drinking? Kind of... I drink less for sure, although I didn't drink that much to begin with. I drink wine and alcohol instead of beer... as can be attested by my friend Matt, who's bottle of Jamison's I polished off half of at his BBQ a few weeks ago. :)

I also found that there are plenty of replacements we have made that lower both the carbs and calories in our diet...

1) Replace ground beef with ground turkey
2) Replace bacon with turkey bacon
3) Replace sausage with either chicken sausage or turkey sausage
4) Replace beer with wine and whiskey
5) Replace sugar filled desserts with sugar free or no sugar added dessert treats... a favorite dessert in the early summer has become strawberries with whipped cream - that was my 20 pounds down treat!
6) Replace starchy side dishes (potatoes/rice) with veggies
7) Replace white bread with whole wheat or whole grain bread
8) Replace white pasta with whole wheat pasta
9) Replace whatever pasta sauce we would normally buy with the sauce with the lowest amount of sugar
10) Replace products containing High Fructose Corn Syrup with those that don't (Note: I don't think HFCS is evil - and agree with the commercial that it's fine in moderation... but it's in EVERYTHING, so how the hell am I supposed to moderate it? And what's 'moderation'?)

No beer in 6 months? No desserts in 6 months? No bread in 6 months? No rice or pasta in 6 months? No, not exactly. I have had treats here and there. I have just been smart about them and not used them as a slippery slope to giving up the lifestyle.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries for birthday dinner. A chocolate chip cookie at Val and Matt's BBQ. A couple thin mints one night on a particularly low calorie day. A dessert treat almost every night (Sugar Free Jello Pudding, or Watchin' Carbs Sugar Free Fudgscicles). Strawberries with COOL WHIP (yum, I love Cool Whip). 1/2 bottle of Jamison's at a friends BBQ (that was bad idea). Copious amounts of wine at the St. C's auction. An occasional 1/2 sandwich with Sourdough or Rye bread. Foot long Turkey Sandwich @ Subway last night on wheat bread (hold the cheese and mayo please). Couple belts of Scotch with the neighbor last night. But admittedly, these have become treats and not regular occurrences.

So I still have some work to do. I'm 50 pounds down with another 5-8 pounds to go... I haven't worked out during this time, so while skinnier, I am still a little jiggly around the edges (sorry for that mental picture)... I have been drinking a lot of diet soda instead of water... But the reality for me is that I can only focus on one thing at a time... so about the middle of July I ought to get to the goal weight... then I'll turn focus from weight loss to improving muscle tone and kicking the diet soda habit... one thing at a time.

If you made it this far into the note, thanks.
If you sent me a note of encouragement, thanks.

Joe, if you are reading this - you must have started making bad decisions again... get back on the wagon. You control your weight, whether it's going up or down, it's your decision.

Having the right to do something does not make it right to do...

Preface: I am not an economist and no expert in public policy. I only know what I know by trying to read a balanced amount of content from the left and the right, knowing that the truth belongs to neither and it lies someplace between each of their respective spin machines.

I know I might be in the minority when I say that I think the auto bailout and the financial industry bailout were the right things to do... Especially in my family and my wife's family which is pretty heavily conservative in political nature.

My reasoning may be so simplistic as to be completely wrong, but it's what I believed at the time and haven't read a lot to change my mind. I also happen to believe that had the GOP won the White House they'd have been forced to do something very similar... It's just politically convenient to scream from the mountain tops about an unpopular yet required infusion of hard earned tax dollars.

My simplistic defense for bailing out auto and finance in the US is this: I am relying on savings and investment to send my kids to college as well as retire. There are A LOT of people out of work today. Imagine the state of the US economy if we had let the auto industry fail... all those living wage jobs gone and all those suppliers shutting down and sending their employees to the welfare offices for checks as well.

Hank Paulson (Republican Treasury Secretary) estimated that without the bank bailout unemployment could have reached 25%. And that's just the financial sector. Add the auto industry and the suppliers to that industry... it's scary to think about the size of the recession or depression the US could have entered.

Call it simplistic, call it selfish. It's both, but it's why I look at the bailouts as a necessary evil.

That being said, I can't believe the marketing decision that GM just made. Many have probably seen the GM commercials talking about paying their loans back in full, with interest and early. This is technically accurate. Based on the research I have done, nothing they said was untrue.

But the reality is that GM was given 2 pots of TARP funds. One was loan money, the other represented the cash investment in the company whereby the US Government owns 60% of the company. This second bucket is where the money came from to pay off the loan.

Now, based on what I have read, and as a shareholder in GM (aren't we all shareholders when our tax dollars are paying to buy 60% of the company) it was the right financial decision. It seems that use of TARP debt came along with a fee that GM would have had to pay soon. If they retired the debt, they avoided the fee - saved money. Absolutely the right thing to do.

Now, for what I am calling them 'having the right to do something that was not right to do'... They chose to advertise that they paid back the loans in full intimating that this was done out of earnings from selling cars... they never said it, but a pretty strong correlation was drawn between 'increased demand for GM cars' and being able to pay the debt portion of the TARP funds back. They absolutely had the right to run an ad that put things in this light. But from my seat in front of the TV it wasn't the right thing to do.

I thought GM was making good progress. They are emerging from bankruptcy, they have some good cars (as measured by 3rd party feature and quality reviews), their advertising campaign talking about 'may the best car win' put the focus on the strides they were making.

Then this... a purposely misleading ad... Again, paying off the loan, even with other TARP funds was their right, AND the right thing to do.... Running the ad was their right, but in my opinion, not the right thing to do.

Hoops Update

So as you can tell, not much time in the schedule for updating family and friends on what's going on in our lives - which is too much!

Here's a quick breakdown on the Scappoose Basketball season. We finished 3rd in our league, which was good enough to host a home playoff game. It was a league playoff game against a team that we had beat twice already this season - Seaside.

One of the hardest things to do in basketball is beat a team 3 times. You have to overcome the cockiness that comes with thinking 'we already beat these guys twice, this'll be no problem'... this is mostly an issue with the kids, as Ryan and I knew these guys could play with us. You also have to overcome the reality that these guys know every thing you run both offensively and defensively. Then, since they know everything you think 'maybe we put in a new wrinkle or two'... but you risk distracting the kids from the stuff we have been doing all year.

So Seaside came to town and played a tough, tough basketball game. We went cold from the free throw line down the stretch, and they hit a couple of shots, and despite their best player getting a wide open look at a 3 point shot to tie the game, we beat them to advance to the next round of playoffs... which is tonight!

It's been 6 years since Scappoose has hosted a state playoff game, and that game is tonight against the Newport Cubs. Ryan and I went and scouted Newport in their league playoff game versus Central High School (in Independence outside Salem). They are more athletic than we are, but they seem to lack discipline both offensively and defensively. They run a couple of things defensively that we haven't seen much of this season (1-2-1-1 three quarter court press and 1-3-1 zone defense in the half court). So we have spent a lot of time in practice the last 2 days working against those defenses.

I think the kids are as prepared as they can be... game is tonight at 7pm at Scappoose High School... come on out if you are in the area and free tonight!

If we win, we advance to the next round of the playoffs and head to North Bend (Coos Bay area on the southern Oregon coast) to play on Saturday.

Wish us luck!

Go Tribe!

Blatant Product Plug

So I hit a home run with Steph on Christmas gift this year. Our camcorder broke before we went to China, which was too bad, as we were not able to capture video of our crazy china experiences or the kids.

Now a new camcorder was out of the budget, but a friend of ours received a 'Flip Camcorder' as an early Christmas present. I was intrigued and started to to look into them... They are pretty slick.

About the size of a compact digital point and shoot camera, you definitely trade off features for size, but what you get in return is worth the trade off for what we will be taking video of these days.

We don't need a very powerful zoom right now, since the kids are not yet playing sports or in dance recitals that need zoom capabilities. We didn't use all of the bells and whistles our last camcorder had, so they are not missed on our tiny Flip Mino.

And the software it comes with is pretty slick too... It's all held on the camera itself, so no need to load anything to your computer! But I think the nicest thing is the ability to create what they call your own 'Flip Channel'. When you move your videos from the camera to the Mac/PC you can do some basic editing (trimming from the beginning and/or end) and then drag and drop them into your 'channel'. The channel allows you to save a set of e-mail addresses so that whenever you drag and drop a new video onto the channel it sends an e-mail out immediately to the distribution list letting them know that a new video has been posted.

It also allows quick and easy uploading to YouTube and Facebook.

If you don't need a lot of capability, but want a very basic camcorder that is VERY small and easily allows saving and sharing of captured memories check out the Flip!

Thank goodness for Congress!

This story broke on ESPN today... Congress is trying to legislate that you can only call a college football game a 'National Championship Game' if it is the result of a playoff.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4727426

I have so many issues with this...

1) This is what Congress chooses to spend their time on... One member of Congress responded that they can 'walk and chew gum at the same time'... indicating that they have plenty of bandwidth to tackle many hard problems at the same time... GREAT - how about: health care, jobs, the national debt, Afghanistan, Bin Laden, etc, etc, etc... I don't see how this issue even makes the top 20 of the critical issues facing our nation?

2) Some people say the action is warranted as the BCS is in anti-trust violation... I am no legal or anti-trust expert, but the way I understand it, anti-trust issues are dealt with through an investigation by the justice department, not legislating what you can or can not call a football game.

3) All this would effectively do is have the BCS rename it's game to 'The BCS Championship Game', removing the 'National' designation. Then the AP votes whoever they want (as they do today) and the Coaches vote the winner of the BCS game. Nothing changes with the exception of the use of the word 'National'. Thank goodness we have 2 houses of Congress working on this.

4) Is this even constitutional? Can Congress limit the freedom of speech to dictate who can and cannot use the term 'National Championship'? Don't I have the first amendment right to call my basketball intramural championship the 'national championship'? People can disagree and people can laugh, but don't I have that right? What harm is being done to the citizens and consumers of the United States such that you can justify the restriction of the first amendment right to freedom of speech?

Now, I feel like for the sake of truth in advertising I should explain that I am not one of the people clamoring for a playoff... I am indifferent to a college playoff. I like the bowl system as it existed before the BCS, I like the bowl system as it exists today and if there was a playoff tomorrow, I'd probably be OK with it. I just can't get that excited about how we decide who is the best set of 18-22 year old football players.

In a different post I might explain how I think that people want a playoff simply because they like playoffs and that it's not really going to accomplish determining 'the best college football team'. :)

Scappoose High School Basketball

Odd post title, huh? Especially considering my oldest is only in first grade, I don't live in Scappoose, and I work at Intel.

Well, as many of you know, my first love was basketball. I fell in love with the game as a kid and played through high school and into college. My playing career (if you would call it that) ended after 2 years of Junior Varsity Basketball at Linfield College. Then I was lucky enough to be offered a position coaching for Larry Doty. I spent a year as an assistant on both the varsity and JV coaching staff. Then my senior year I took over coaching the junior varsity team.

I loved it.

Then reality set in. I was graduating and had student loans I needed to start paying off in 6 months. So I left McMinnville and started a series of jobs that have delivered me to where I am now - a 10 year veteran of Intel Corporation.

Part of the 'when I win the lottery plan' involves going back to coaching.

So why 'Scappoose High School Basketball' post? A very good friend of mine is the first year head coach of the Scappoose boys varsity basketball team. I mentioned to him years ago that when/if he got the gig I would help him out. Well, he got the gig and he called my bluff.

After some intense negotiations between the two of us, and then negotiations between Steph and I, we collectively agreed that I would volunteer as his assistant coach with his varsity squad.

It's been hard on everyone as I try to balance my evenings between time with family and time spent coaching and scouting. It's not been easy, but to this point, I love it... Steph maybe not so much!

Intel is supportive of people volunteering in local schools, but of course my day job is #1, so the basketball team is taking a back seat to my work schedule... So really it's a part time gig as assistant coach.

We have a good group of kids that play hard. We aren't big though. Our tallest guy, while strong as a bull, is only about 6'2" tall!

Our strategy is simple... and only successful if the kids buy in: play hard for 32 minutes, tough full court man to man defense, be in the best shape of any team in our conference and push the ball up the floor every trip.

We played our first game last night at Rainier High School. Rainier was at a disadvantage with a number of their varsity basketball players still playing football as well as their Division I 6'11" center having broken his leg. They played hard given the boys they had available, but even with us only having our football players out for a couple of practices we were able to jump on them early and ran out to a 20-6 first quarter lead on our way to a 67-24 win.

First game of the season so there are plenty of things to work on, but the overall effort was very good. Kids played hard, ran hard and gave good effort... which means they understand how we want to play and are bought in for now. Opponents get better, competition gets tougher starting Saturday when we play at Cascade High School... It should be a good one!

Sabbatical Wrap Up

Many friends have been asking me about my sabbatical and I have replied with the quick answers I assume they have been looking for... Great, Wonderful, Awesome.

I think in reality my response has not been more robust for a lack of the words to describe it. It was, in no uncertain terms, the best 9 week stretch of my life.

Now, if you shrink the time frame to be much shorter, the list of 'best times in my life' would include life changing events like meeting my wife, first date with my wife, wedding day, day each of the girls were born, day The Ohio State University won the National Championship over Miami...

But if you extend the time frame and make it 9 weeks long... this was simply the best.

The first few days included our first 4th of July in Oak Hills. Normally we are with Steph's family at Lake of the Woods in Southern Oregon, which is where our hearts were this year, but having returned to the US so recently, we decided we couldn't handle the trip so soon. The celebration in Oak Hills was great. Steph's mom and step-dad came up to help us unpack boxes and spend time with the kids. The neighborhood had a parade, a BBQ lunch and then the Portland Metro Area famous Oak Hills Fireworks display. We had friends over for dinner and then took in the fireworks... it was so much fun... won't replace LOTW on a regular basis, but it was great!

Then shortly after the 4th of July and after unpacking a few more boxes we headed to the lake for nearly 2 weeks of family time. Days on the beach with the kids and our good friends (the Wing family). Pink foofoos and beers at lunch, golf with Michael and Jerry... Crazy boat rides with the kids... Family in and out the whole time we were there... it was wonderful!

Then the crown jewel of the 9 weeks... my month in Scotland. I flew out of Portland and headed to Edinburgh (via SFO and London-Heathrow). I arrived and met my good friend Ryan and we headed off on the first leg of my golf adventure. He and I moved from Ayrshire in Southeast Scotland to St. Andrews on the East coast of Scotland, then North to Aberdeen.

I dropped Ryan off in Edinburgh the same day I picked up 3 other friends and returned to St. Andrews. We rented an apartment that was perfect for four golfers and I would recommend to anyone going for a trip to St. Andrews with a similar sized group. The company was amazing the golf outstanding and the whiskey (while expensive) was superb... that is enough adjectives to choke a horse and might lead you to believe I am exaggerating, but I assure you I am not.

At the end of the 8 days with the guys I dropped them in Edinburgh and continued my trek North to the highlands and Inverness. Inverness was attractive not only for the golf, but the scenery and the distilleries. It failed to disappoint. Golf courses, while most not as famous as those in Aryshire and St. Andrews were just as challenging and just as beautiful, the people even more friendly (I would not have expected it to be possible) and the distilleries plentiful!

Having been abandoned by friends removed the distractions that kept me from missing Steph and the kids... Being alone in Inverness, even with the golf, pubs, castles and distilleries, made me homesick like never before... So I called United that first night and changed my flight information, cutting off the last city on the itinerary and coming home 4-5 days early. I surprised Steph and the kids, not letting them know until I hit SFO.

I used some miles to send Steph on a trip to Toronto to see a friend from Shanghai that had repatriated before we did, then to North Carolina to see her best friend from high school... my little peace offering for having been gone for nearly a month playing golf. I packed up the kids and headed to Seattle to see some of our good friends.

Then we all reconvened at home and settled in for the return to work and the start of school for the girls!

That's the summary... here are some of the stats on the trip that'll give you a better feel for the experience I had. It should also answer some of the questions people have asked.

Best Golf Course: Tough, tough call, but based on history and nostalgia I'd have to go with the Old Course. I still struggle to put into words the experience of hitting from the first tee, hitting over the hotel on 17 and putting on the 18th green with people surrounding the green watching - hoping you sink that birdie putt...

Best Golf Course Runner Up: Kingsbarns was a BEAUTIFUL track that I played TERRIBLY on. I was horrible, the course tough, but fair and really spectacular.

Toughest Golf Course: Much of the difficulty of the links courses is dictated by the weather. It's the weather that probably made Prestwick Golf Club the hardest course I played. 30 mile an hour winds, gusts to 40+ and lots of blind shots... this was one of the few times I was truly happy to be done with a round of golf. Carnoustie was a close runner up for the toughest course... part to do with the wind, and part to do with just being a tough track!

Best golf value: Western Gailes in Ayrshire. 115 GBP included 18 holes on their beautiful links course and lunch in the clubhouse afterwards.

Worst golf value: Turnberry in Aryshire. It had just hosted the Open Championship the week before, so the stands and leaderboards were still up, which was cool, but at 240 GBP it was overpriced for what you got - which was the golf.

Best golf shot: The 17th at The Castle Course at St. Andrews. 175 yards over the North Sea, into a slight breeze. Hole playing 190ish, I hit a 4 iron to about 8 feet and made the putt for a birdie 2. Runner up includes a 40 foot eagle putt on one of the craziest greens you'll ever see!

Worst round: 100 at Prestwick

Best round: Shot a pair of 77s in the Highlands, the best probably being on Nairn which carries a 136 slope.

Best photo op: Has to be a tie between 3 pictures: 1) Ryan and I in our knickers on the Swilcan Bridge on the Old Course (at the top of this post) 2) The foursome on the first tee at the Old Course (below) 3) Me behind the bar with Mike and Lizzie at the Dunvegan (also below)

Best caddie: John Boyne at the Old Course in St. Andrews. A long time caddie and runs a golf tour business on the side. In between my 2 visits to St. Andrews he headed off to Wales where he caddied for a Scottish woman playing in the Welsh Open.

Worst Caddie: Some lady at Cruden Bay who's name I can't remember that gave bad advice, bad yardages, could not find balls and knew no history about the course.

Best Pub: Without a doubt, the Dunvegan in St. Andrews. A 9 iron from the old course (they actually did this one night, after what I assume was much whiskey), it's a golfers haven in St. Andrews. Visitors to the pub include Open Championship winners and celebrities (as chronicled in photos around the bar) as well as just about every other pint or whiskey loving golfer to pass through St. Andrews. Jack and Sheena (Jack a yank from Texas, and Sheena a Scot) have hired a friendly staff and have a decent menu. Beer is cold and whiskey choices are plentiful.

Great side note about drinking whiskey there one night... We were working on their bottle of Auchentoshen 10 and pretty much drank it all night long... we were sitting in a corner watching golf and playing cards and drinking (a little)... I went to the bar and ordered another round and Lizzie explained that we drank them out of their bottle of Auchentoshen and that normally they would have asked us to drink something else, but given how good of customers we were, they sent someone from the bar staff to the local whiskey shop to buy another bottle for us!

Best new scotch: Auchentoshen Triple Wood; a lowland distillery outside of Glasgow... If you can find it, try it!

Best B&B: The best B&B we stayed in was in Prestwick in Ayrshire. It was Golfview Guest House and was right across from Prestwick Golf Club - home to the first 10 Open Championships. It was clean, friendly and had a large fresh cooked breakfast. All of the B&Bs were nice, but Golfview stood out.

Biggest disappointments:
1) Scotch (which in Scotland is simply called whiskey) is not cheap in Scotland. It's similar to when we were in New Zealand and expected lamb to be cheap. It's plentiful, but not necessarily cheap.
2) Aberdeen... The B&B was not very nice, the gal had lost our reservation and had to put us in a different room than was booked, the city was very commercial and gray compared to the quaint beauty of St. Andrews where we were immediately before.
3) Cruden Bay is a golf course laid out by Tom Morris north of Aberdeen. It is consistently ranked in the top golf courses in the world. I thought it was 16 decent to very good links golf holes, and 2 terrible golf holes that nearly ruined the experience. It also might have had something to do with the worst caddie in Scotland.
4) That we couldn't work it out to have Steph or the whole family join me for part of the trip.
5) I was really excited about visiting a lot of different distilleries... which I did... but after a couple, how many big copper tanks can you see and get excited about? I learned it's not about the number of distilleries you see, but finding the unique distilleries.

The top 3 highlights:
1) The Old Course
2) The Dunvegan
3) Improving my overall golf game and links golf game to reduce my handicap to 8.8

If you know anyone planning a trip to Scotland, have them get in touch with me... I have enough information to choke a horse!