When:  Beautiful day for a walk, 1/29/2018
Weather: Mid 50’s with sun
Observations/Thoughts

I didn’t think I was going to get a walk in today.  I stalled for a bit after getting home from work.  Then, I had the expectation I would drop the car off to get its new tires tomorrow.  I just expected it to be too busy and crowded.  Fortunately, they were slow.  This gave me the opportunity to wait.  Should I have left the car and picked it up tomorrow, I would not have witnessed the actual time being nearly double the estimated time.  My wife was able to continue her best efforts to work from home.  If I have a book (a Kindle definitely counts), I can usually fend for myself pretty well.

• Boomerang:  The darn sidewalk construction continues to create encounters I might not otherwise have the pleasure of experiencing.  As I walked toward the most recent construction addition, a couple plodded along ahead of me.  I was nearing a “passing” range when they hit the construction.  Not wanting to risk walking the construction zone, they turned around and headed back at me.  Shortly after, I did a similar turnaround.  My stride was long and rapid.  I caught them pretty quickly.  As I came upon their left, I gave them the courtesy “On your left” so they would know I was not attempting to startle them.  The husband acknowledged me in a friendly way.  I replied, “Kind of a boomerang walk with the path being closed.”  His reply recognized my stride was a little quicker than he and his wife.  My response was a little tragic, “It is not my intent to walk so fast, but maybe that is why my wife doesn’t walk with me.”
• Fore:  The other boomerang part of my walk took me toward the closed park.  As I neared the orange warning fence, a couple young men with clubs were on my right–golf clubs.  They didn’t invite me into a conversation. I just decided I wanted to.  They had 15 – 20 golf balls in front of them.  They hit the balls straight ahead over the trees.  They let me know they never seem to hit the ball very well when anyone else is watching.  While I was watching and when I walked away, I saw a whiff, and I heard a couple balls that appeared to be grass burners.  (Or, maybe reed burners–they didn’t have much air under them.)  The guy (he claimed to be a swimmer) who had the whiff said, “It is my job to make him [the other guy] look good.”  I replied to him in what I hope was a friendly way, “You are going to have to try harder to be bad enough to make him look good.”    I enjoyed the conversation.  I am not sure if they did.  They did claim they recovered 80-90% of the balls each time they hit into the trees/dried-up-swampy area.  Based on what I was seeing, the recover ratio might be a little less with the most recent set of balls.