Everyone knows the Phoenix metropolitan area is a fantastic location for golf and we have some of the best courses in the nation (world?).

Those courses are out of my league. :)

I just started playing this summer and realized what a great opportunity Central Phoenix provides to beginning golfers.

I began playing every Monday afternoon at the Encanto executive 9 hole course on 17th Avenue and Encanto. If it isn’t the most unpretentious golf course in the metro area it has to be close. Our foursome usually plays a round in about an hour; a single golfer or a quick pair can play it in 45 minutes. Where else could I take a break from work to play golf in the afternoon?

Summer rates are under $9 for a round and you can replay the course all day for free. It’s a great place for kids and anyone, like myself, doesn’t have the kind of game or the time to justify drop $80 on a round of golf.

Here are some pictures from another blogger.

What’s new with me? My roof!

Remember the storm at the end of last August? Those 85 mile-per-hour winds removed the roof of both my office and parts of my house.

But it may have been for the better. The storm did damage to the roof and the inside of the house. I was already planning on re-carpeting my the living room and replacing the 70’s style wood planning in the large room at the back of my house.

Some of the damage to the room with wood paneling:

Sample of wood paneling:

Because my contractor could not match the 70’s style wood paneling with anything from the 21st century, I’m getting a break on replacing the wood paneling in the entire room! Goodbye 1976!

I’d like to recommend my contractors and insurance adjuster on Metblogs but I’d like to ask their permission first. Both were fantastic, especially considering how busy they were following the storm. I did use a tool online which gave me a pretty good perspective as to the quotes I would be receiving from contractors. Build Centric gave me free online quotes for both the interior paint job I’ll need completed and carpet installation.

The beauty of living here lies in all the great opportunities for hiking. Unfortunately I’m not willing to brave the heat or wake up at the crack of dawn to do it so you won’t find me on the trails until cool weather hits. I’m preparing to hike the Grand Canyon in March and am significantly out of shape. The last 3 weekends I’ve gone to Piestewa - not to hike the peak but the surrounding trails. Today there was a cool breeze - it was lovely.

If you are a beginner or out of shape I would suggest the Mohave trail. It has a nice incline and the summitt has a nice view of the city. It’s a relatively easy climb but the feeling of accomplishment when I finished it was good. Up and back is just under a mile. I vow there will be pictures - I keep forgetting to take my camera. But maybe that will just encourage you to go yourself…

Hiking is the quintessential Phoenix outdoor pastime. The views are amazing and the weather is right. So, get out there!

We need more help, though. Reply to the original post and come join us. The water is fine. I see, hear, and experience things everyday that I would love to blog about, but I run out of time.

The Valley is a great place to live. It frustrates me that we don’t seem to have the cohesive identity or pride of home that I see in other cities. We have things to do and places to go that are very much unique to the desert, and this is an opportunity to highlight some.

So what would you, the reader, like to see? Leave us a comment and we will make an effort!

Lake Pleasant in June by Chris Seggerman

The quote that caught my eye? Unrefinery.com had this to say about the recognition:

We hesitate to even call Phoenix a city; the decentralized home turf of Allied Waste would be best described as a 400-square-mile monument to sprawl, water waste, traffic bottlenecks, and crystal meth. Urban planning sometimes seems esoteric, but Phoenix offers a real-world reminder of why we need it.

Thoughts?

What is the event that has people so interested? Not politics, not the economy, but…
Rain!

Other desert regions may be similar, but in my experience Phoenicians reaction to the promise of rainy days is fairly unique.

Rain is rare enough that we take pictures

People go hiking, take walks, and dance in the rain. The children run outside and play. Phoenicians tend to appreciate rain, except when mother nature gives a year’s worth in one storm. The tendency of the desert to brew storms like that is why Arizona has a “Stupid Motorist’s Law“.

The “Stupid Motorist Law”, which corresponds to section 28-910 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, states that any motorist who drives around barricades to enter a flooded stretch of roadway may be charged for the cost of his/her rescue.

Example of why the law is needed:

The odds are not so good for Phoenix getting wet this weekend, but we can hope. At very least it will cool down. Since the Monsoon is officially over, I guess that will have to do.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I do not expect free water, but when the temperature is over 100 degrees out, I expect it to be reasonably priced. We ended up not drinking nearly enough, and all told, we calculated that we spent $100 of the $150 we had with us on water and ice. I would love to know how many people they had to treat for dehydration. The Dos Gringos booth had $2 waters for a while, and we bought those until they ran out and started selling the $4 waters. I think my best investment was a $3 iced spray bottle from a vendor. Unfortunately I lost it during the Gogol Bordello show when a crowd surfer fell on me. The joys of an excellent punk show.

We did have a lot of fun, but we learned some things. One of the main things is to not take a slightly geeky 14-year-old near the front of a Flogging Molly concert. Between the mosh pit that started up next to us and the crowd surfers, we could not keep him safe and ended up having to push out of the crowd and escape. The crowd was restless after the shows were delayed by a thunderstorm rolling through. In true Phoenician style, I welcomed the wind and was sad it brought no rain to cool things off.

Resting in the shade tent around noon

Also resting in the shade tent- the white is suncreen dripping off in the heat

One way to cool off- Konal at the waterpark

Rapid buses look a little different than the average city street bus: Almost all the seats face forward, two to a row on either side of the center aisle. Two benchlike seats that can each hold about three people face towards the center aisle by the rear door. These can be folded up for wheelchair mounting. Behind that, there’s a little elevated area with more forward-facing seats. There are about six seats along the very back of the bus.

But that’s it. I don’t think they expected people standing in the center aisle. But we do!

I have seen crowds so large people take to the rear elevated portion at the back of the bus. I have stood at the front well past the line federal regulations say I’m not supposed to stand past, holding on to the rail that protects the fare box, staring straight out the windshield. Valley Metro added a few more buses to the route, but at certain times of the day– right around quitting time– the bus will arrive at the stop crowded with people in the aisle already.

I haven’t found too many good places to hang on to. The luggage racks have elastic bands to keep stuff from flying out, but they have too much give. The tubular ridge at the base of the luggage rack isn’t angled the right way, and the seams between rack compartments are rough enough to scrape the skin.

I hope these handstraps help out with holding on, but it looks like a temporary solution that a few more buses would fix. I don’t think gas prices will be going down any time soon, and the more– preferably less crowded– mass transit options we have, the better.

 It is a sad state of affairs when an average American cannot afford to buy a beer at a community event. I actually watched as one man walked up to the booth with hope in his eyes and asked, “How much for a beer?” and the woman behind the counter replied, “Seven dollars.” The poor man simply shook his head and walked away.

I was at the show working a booth for my employer, talking to people about ways to conserve energy and decrease their electric bill. There were not that many people at the event. I haven’t seen exact figures of attendance but I would be surprised if it was anywhere near the number of people who attended last year. Someone mentioned they had wanted to buy a large outdoor grill but that they weren’t able to finance it. Scary stuff. It’s one thing when these issues are a national problem and can be viewed from a distance. It’s another thing to see the effects of the economic crisis when it shows up at your front door.

Maintenance crews took the statue the following weekend, but returned it September 22 with a new coat of varnish. They also sawed off the dangerous branch.

The statue and base had previously been knocked down by a drunk driver early New Year’s Day in 1963, when it was closer to 17th Avenue and Washington went straight west, instead of diverting to Adams as it now does.