Update on Position / Glencoe Country Club

To the members of Glencoe Country Club and the greater Glencoe community:

It has not been a secret that I have had disagreements with the management of Glencoe Country Club (GCC) and dominant personalities within the Club. I am writing to provide an update on my position toward GCC.

In 2003, I published a review of the golf course at Epinions.com. In early 2004, this review caused a stir within the GCC community, particularly with its management, board of directors, and certain members. The review was received harshly because the arguments I made and the positions I took toward the course and the Club were unfavorable. I acknowledge that the review was primarily negative, citing a poor course design from the early 90s when it expanded to 18 holes from 9, the management style of the Club, and prevailing attitudes of some dominant personalities on the golf course.

The bottom line is that I have not played on this golf course since 2004 and I no longer have personal insight to the operations of the Club or experience playing on the golf course in nearly four years. As is the case, I no longer feel my review at Epinions is relevant, because it is dated and addresses problems that were realized leading up to 2003. For all I know, things have changed for the better. The course layout has not. Beyond that, I don't know how the Club is being managed, what it looks like (how the grounds are cared for), and don't know if the same negative experiences exist with certain members. As with any golf Club, there is turnover at GCC. I don't know the new members and am no longer familiar with the general culture and atmosphere of the Club/course.

Since that is the case, I took down my review of Glencoe Country Club from Epinions.com. Any other comments about GCC that I made publicly should be judged the same as those that were contained in the review at Epinions. If anybody wants a copy of the review, it is available upon request (it is archived).

Glencoe Country Club moved to ban me from playing on the golf course in either 2004 or 2005, in an official manner. I was informally banned from the club in early 2004. The reason cited for the ban was the Epinions review.

I appealed to the board in early 2006 to have the ban lifted, but the appeal was denied. I asked for certain conditions to be met at the Club and offered to take down the review at that time as part of a negotiated truce. This effort was rejected. As far as I know, the ban is still in effect.

My current position is one of indifference. Most of the people I used to regularly play golf with at the club are no longer members. I still do not appreciate the course layout and don't find it particularly enjoyable to play. I am a regular golfer and hold a dual membership at Shadowbrooke Golf Course and Whispering Pines golf course, both since 2004. In addition, I play many area golf courses and for that matter, courses around Minnesota and outside of the state.

I grew up and still reside in Helen Township, which is adjacent to Glencoe and enjoy many friendships and relationships with the wonderful people of the area - McLeod County. Naturally, I would like to at least have the option of playing at Glencoe Country Club, if only for convenience when somebody local calls and wants to play. It disheartens me to some extent that I have this negative relationship with an institution of the Glencoe community. But the intent of the review was to affect positive change, despite the interpretations of the Club management, board of directors, or members at the Club. It's your golf club; run it as you wish. You understand the consequences of poor management. You saw one of them in my review and public comments and you see it at the till when competing with area golf courses. I hope things have changed for the better. I hope that someday, somebody or a private firm acquires the Club and invests capital to reconfigure the golf course. Those are my wishes for GCC.

To conclude, I wish no further ill will toward GCC and offer the gesture of taking down the public review of the Club from Epinions. I imagine that someday I will again play on the course and I hope it will be a positive experience. Until then, best wishes to everybody involved with Glencoe Country Club.

Sincerely,

Brad Engelmann

No School Board Run

The Glencoe-Silver Lake School Board is holding an election this year of three of the five seats on its board. After careful consideration, I have decided not to run in this year's election.

I have been involved in Glencoe-area politics for several years now, mostly in the form of editorials and commentary. I have voiced my opinions about issues pertaining to Glencoe and its greater community. I have also published opinions about Glencoe institutions, such as the Glencoe Country Club.

I have been a vocal critic of the GSL school board for some time, some of it quite biting in nature. My hopes have always been to encourage change in the ways things are done. This goes for any of my published comments regarding anything Glencoe.

I've been a life-long resident of rural Glencoe/Plato, and although I have taken an interest in its affairs in the past, I feel that at this time, it is best for me to step back and let Glencoe take care of itself.

As things stand, as of this post, it does not appear that this year's election will result in a change of leadership. This is unfortunate. Because I have strong differences of opinion with those on the current board, perhaps it is wise that I take a step back and take another look when the next election comes around. I do not have confidence in the current superintendent and the current administration. Since this superintendent intends to retire at the end of the upcoming school year, I am optimistic that at least in this regard, things may change for the positive, once the current administration is out of power.

Since I am not running in this election and will not serve on this board, I do not feel that further public commentary is warranted from me, because if I am to criticize, then I should try to be part of the solution, instead of lobbing pot shots. Therefore, I am withdrawing myself from Glencoe-related issues and will not be issuing editorials or publishing commentary about Glencoe-area politics for the foreseeable future.

I wish the citizens of Glencoe, Silver Lake, Plato, New Auburn, Biscay, and rural townships only the best in the coming years.

I plan to focus my political activism on Minnesota state-wide issues, American domestic issues, and American foreign policy.

I contribute regular editorials on the latter mentioned issues at my website at Epinions.com, and you can access my website at that location by clicking on the link in the right pane of this blog.

It is my hope that the public comments that I have made over the past few years will encourage change for those in positions of power in Glencoe, whether they serve on the GSL school board, the Glencoe city council, the Glencoe Country Club board of directors, or the McLeod County board of commissioners.

I can be reached by email by clicking on the "email Brad" link in the right pane of this blog. Any comments are welcome. If you wish for your comments to be pubic, you may log them on this post (see "comments" at the end of this post).

Sincerely,

Brad Engelmann

Not Impressed...Apple's release of updated Mac Minis

I wrote a post at Yahoo! in response to the following article:

Apple Unveils Intel-powered Mac Minis

Here's my post:

"Apple raises the price to $600 as its base model. That's the first problem.

2) it uses a 1.50 ghz chip versus a 1.25 G4 chip. How much faster is this chip, especially considering it is sharing system RAM? I would bet that gains are minimal.

3) This machine needed a real boost in power while keeping the base prices intact. They failed.

They substracted system-wide RAM due to the integrated chipset. The hard drive still runs at 5400 RPM, so it's not blazing any trails as is.

The Core Duo model with a gig of RAM is probably a great machine. But after those upgrades, we're talking about a $900 machine. That's far, far from the "$499 Mac" that was touted when this model was released.

The fundamental issue for the Mini was its affordability while providing good value with a relatively powerful machine.

Well, it's no longer an inexpensive machine and with these changes, I'm not sure how much the base model has improved, in terms of performance.

In sum, I give this move an F. I would wait for Apple to make another revision and see a price cut. Because I don't think this move with this model will be popular."

Fresh postings at Epinions.com

I have been making editorial-type contributions at Epinions.com. I will likely continue to post most of my personal opinions at Epinions. The exceptions will be local news. State of MN news, metro news, and news of McLeod County will remain posted at this blog.

Otherwise, if you want the juicy stuff, visit my material at Epinions.com.

Thanks, Brad.

ADHD/ADD a Joke?

Here's an article that tells about how well drugs are selling for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Previous to this article, I had only known it as Attention Deficit Disorder.

I don't believe in any of this. The article says common symptoms are: "trouble concentrating, disorganization, procrastination, implusivity, and hyperactivity."

Could these symptoms be more attributed to the person's environment? I mean, doesn't it make sense that people would experience these symptoms if they work in front of computers in stationary desks for 40-50 hours per week? I wonder how many carpenters have this problem.

Could it be that people work in stale corporate environments? Dry, politically-charged enrivonments that curtail the expression of honest feelings?

How about the growing services sector? With more and more people working at Big Box stores such as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowe's, Office Max, and the like, is it a wonder that these employees would suffer from concentration problems?

And what abou the latter two symptoms? Isn't hyperactivity a counter to procrastination? I don't get it.

I think this is all a big joke. I see ads on TV all the time for this supposedly exploding new condition that adults have - Attention Deficit Disorder.

I'm sure pharmaceutical companies are doing their best to come out with clinical studies that somehow prove that a fair amount of people CLAIM they are feeling better because of taking pills. Are these studies valid? Do they really mean anything?

I don't believe it. This culture that we're nurturing here in America that everybody has a problem that can be solved with a pill is beyond ridiculous.

I'm sorry, but at the moment, I have a little sympathy for the supposed Tom Cruise arguments.

CBS Skimming on HD/SDTV Simulcasting?

Most HD programming is simulcast along with its SDTV (standard definition TV) signal. Or at least, this is the trend I've noticed.

It was particularly glaring on CBS this weekend.

First off, I need to put this into perspective. CBS and other major networks generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues. Most of them make millions of dollars in profit. And I will grant that these HD productions and telecasts cost the networks a great deal of money. No matter the HD format - 720, 1080.

But what is bothering me here is that basically what CBS did this weekend, and mind you I have not confirmed this, but it was incredibly obvious to me - was that they were broadcasting the US Open and NFL and other major events in HD and simply cropping the HD or shrinking it to SDTV.

How do I know this? Did anybody who watched, notice that the fonts were incredibly blurry? Now I don't know about you, but I know for certain that my folks' thousands-dollar Mitsubishi TV used to put on the best of the best TV images. And my Sony Wega from three years ago is no antique, either. Both TVs presented the same image. And that was one of blurry fonts and generally poor quality signal. I receive this signal from Directv, so there isn't an issue of signal degredation.

Did you notice the "Fox Box" scores? Anything scrolling along the bottom? Did you notice that they were blurry and generally of poor quality?

Listen, this is a joke. It used to be that these people - those that run these networks - cared that the product they put out be the best it could be. That they didn't skimp when it came to the small stuff.

CBS is trying to save what amounts to pocket change to them, by simply recording in one signal and then rendering it into something that resembles a medium-low quality SDTV picture.

I think it's appalling.

At least one person noticed.

Letter to George W. Bush...

I wrote and sent the following letter to George W. Bush, in protest of his administration's handling of the Katrina disaster relief.

"Dear George W. Bush,

I am disappointed with the way your administration reacted to the Katrina disaster. Personally, I saw and read alerts on TV and on the Web that indicated a major hurricane was going to hit Louisiana and Mississippi, at least two days before it hit those areas. More general alerts that a major storm might hit those areas were public knowledge upwards of a week in advance.

Still, federal troops and emergency officials were not available to these people when the storm hit and as importantly, the following days of the disaster.

This is inexcusable!

Our federal government, in particular our executive branch, ought to have the muscle to cut through red tape and get people in position to mitigate a natural disaster.

Your administration has been an embarrassment to the American people for its inability to function in our nation's time of dire need.

Please make available as many federal employees as possible to make this relief effort a success from this point forward.

Thank you, Brad Engelmann."