We Don't Walk Slow

The Most Embarrassing Golf Round I’ve Had

Be smart, don’t be a retard. I unfortunately was the latter. I capped off a liquid weekend with a pitiful performance that I’ll get into later. Where to begin on this 3 day bender.

I met up with Sam and Alex at their place on Thursday, 7/3. I got the quick tour of their new place and we had a few drinks at a local Yunker watering hole shooting cricket. Even with an ominous night brewing, we headed to a Styx / Foreigner concert which was what I thought it would be. Read Sam’s blog to get his take on the night. Negotiating with a hot dog vendor at the concert while Sam was black out drunk was a highlight.
I woke on Friday morning feeling groggy but was able to meet up with Evan and head to DC at an appropriate time for a golf round. I was able to eat an entire quesadilla from Baja Fresh at a rest stop which will be used as a benchmark later on. We met up with Hafe and Stackhouse at 1 o’clock and prepared for a round at Renditions which is a copy of famous holes on various courses. Hafe was playing the round of his life before losing his phone on hole 10 and ended up abandoning 2 holes (while leaving his playing partner without a bag) which I still can’t get over. The round was near 6 hours but on such a beautiful day, I don’t think anyone really was that upset. Playing with music in the background was something I thought would be distracting but proved to be quite fun. Thumbs up to the round. Cruise.
After golf we went to Hafer’s in DC and we started pounding drinks with his Bolivian next door neighbors. The one guy there was calling Evan’s drinking out pretty good which I thought was hilarious. We spent the night in the Clarendon part of the area and even though the night was fairly standard, it was still fun.
Party Hard Het!

Saturday morning was a BBQ for Hetrick’s recent engagement. We watched some World Cup, played pong, Kan Jam, and other normal outdoor activities. The food and company was excellent. Evan and I left at around 8 because I had an early tee time the next day for a 2v2 tournament.

The Round From Hell

I want to make every 30 year old alcoholic aware that drinking 3 days straight is hazardous to your health. I got up at 6:30 on Sunday feeling parched. I sort of knew I wasn’t feeling so hot but with a 2v2 golf match I had to man up. I went to Wawa and drank a coffee and got a Sizzli and here’s the clue in, I couldn’t eat the Sizzli. I took two bites and couldn’t finish it. I picked up Sam L., my playing partner, and we made our way to the driving range. I hit a few balls and was topping everything. As I told the Shee in a previous round a few years ago, it felt like my arms were disconnected from my body.

I stepped up the to first tee box and blasted one up the middle. I hit a PW to about 10 feet and made par on the first hole. Easy game. On hole 2, I hit a drive that went less than 10 feet. I was lucky I even hit the ball. After advancing the ball on my second shot, I MISSED the ball on the 3rd shot. At this point I knew I was in more trouble than I thought. My hands were shaking and my hand eye was so messed up that when I would address the ball, I had this feeling that I couldn’t hit it. I somehow managed to get through a few more holes until hole 8 and 9 where I once again basically missed the ball off of the tee box. Our playing partner was the commissioner of the association and I felt like such a jackass. I finished the front with a 48 and we were 2 back.

At Sam’s advice, I downed a beer at the turn and this amazingly settled me down. As Sam put it, “this isn’t a fix, only a band aid.” Fortunately it worked well enough to have me save face and shoot a 45 on the back for a 93. We lost the match on hole 14 but it was never in question. I was actually relieved when we lost. I know a 93 doesn’t sound like the worst round of my life, but in sheer embarrassment, it topped the cake.

What I look like today.

Getting older does a few things, it allows me to understand why this happens and it’s no secret. Dehydration. Alcohol also impairs reaction time and mental acuity. By the time you are dehydrated, it’s too late to save yourself by pounding water. This may not have been the case when I was 21 but at 30, I still feel dehydrated today. I can’t drink enough water to get back to normal. I’m not complaining either because I do this to myself. I’m just making readers aware because this is factual. If I had to breakdown the amount of alcoholic drinks I consumed over the 3 days vs water I think it would be close to 50 – 3. I remember drinking 3 waters. So there’s a lesson and what happens to the body under these conditions. Fun weekend though.

By Tom Stortz|2016-10-29T13:06:37-04:00July 7th, 2014|My Life|2 Comments

Death of the Salesman

You Can Get a Good Look at a Butcher’s Ass…

Even if you’ve never sold a widget before, I hope you’ll find my sales voyage riveting enough to read past this first line. The simple theme to this post is what worked then, doesn’t work now. 1,282 miles over 2 days gives me some experience on the situation.

We Only Have 42,000 Left

I woke up at 4:30am on Monday, slicked my hair back, and put on my lucky selling shirt and pants. I looked so money, I didn’t even know it (and neither did anyone else). I was traveling to North Carolina and looking to half cold call my way into new sales and half make more sales to existing customers. I’ve made trips all over the surrounding Pennsylvania area and this would be my first visit this far south.

My biggest customer

I got to Raleigh, North Carolina at around 12pm and met up with a business owner who has been involved in the roofing industry for 40+ years. Him and my dad go way back and I’ve grown to admire his vision in creating a company from nothing. We talked about business relationships, products, deals, and past vs future times and I got a good understanding of this man’s journey through life. At the end of our time together, which was about 3 hours, he said, “Don’t take anything too seriously. You only get one shot at life.”

At this point it was near 4pm and salesman knows to quit before 4. I Googled a hotel in the area and found a Best Western for $61 dollars. It was a long day and I caught 2 hours of shut eye before waking at 7pm. I drove 20 minutes to a nearby park and went for a run. I snapped this pic and pondered everything about what I was doing on the road and in my life.

Another Day, Another Dollar

I woke at 6am and got some breakfast and plotted out my course for the day. Being able to plot your route is a necessary skill about being a salesperson. Some tips:

Have an existing customer list and/or potential customers addresses
Have a map of the area
Get your GPS out and put each address in the GPS to know which order you want to visit each business

With seeing a mere single customer the previous day, I had a lot of stops on my plate. I started in Raleigh and found customers in the Duke (Durham), UNC (Chapel Hill), and Wake Forest (Winston-Salem) area along the way. My day concluded with a trip further south to Charlotte. Within the course of the day I had made at least a dozen stops and made one sale for $314. This was discouraging to say the least.

I had the opportunity to stay one more night and do similar visits the next day but I already knew what to expect. I drove 8+ hours home and arrived in my bed at 2:30 am.

Here’s what I learned:

The days of an individual salesman selling for a small business are over.

There is no more door to door. Business is done on a corporate level and smaller mom and pops are rapidly disappearing. If you are small, you flock to the internet. The business model for smaller company’s has to involve the internet or else they will be out of business in 5 years. Involving mobile to do business is truly the future.

The skill of getting in front of people and making sales still exists but the landscape has changed. 50 years ago consumers didn’t know what was happening down the block and now they know what’s happening on the other side of the world. Back then you maybe had 3 options for a product, now you have 300. The goal becomes showing the customer why your product would improve his work / life. If you can’t do that, you can’t sell shit.

By Tom Stortz|2016-10-29T13:05:41-04:00July 2nd, 2014|My Life|2 Comments

Laura Hates These Post’s

Jon, I have no idea whether that title is right or not. I know Laura hates these type of posts where I write about why no one reads my blog, but she is also going to hate this individual post. So “Laura Hates These Posts” would be that she hates every one of these type of posts and “Laura Hates These Post’s” would be that she hates individual posts like this. My best guess is that since the word “these” is used, it has to be the way it is.

On to the main topic. My analytics said that 384 people visited yesterday. That’s a lot of people. This is not saying they reach the home page, but they reach a page on the blog. Direct traffic is about 100 people a day. I think that I can call out the people who read this blog:

Sam & Gourlay – Fellow website owners and blog enthusiasts.
Bud – Long time friend
Laura & Brookes – Family
Evan & Adam – Work readers
Chad & Nikkii – Race buddies
Jon – Editor
Jeff – Brother

These are people who I am in contact with an can ascertain read the blog. This is a sausage party with a weird middle. The other 374 people, where are you coming from?

To also keep Laura happy and produce some content, I went to the Spruce Harbor Park opening last night which is on Spruce and Columbus Blvd. They sold, my guess, 1,000 tickets to this event for 11 bucks each. To the right is a nice picture of a happy group during the event. Only 2 of these people are blog readers.

In other news, I hit this bet last night which shows some uber degenerate coming out in me.

Weekend coming soon.

By Tom Stortz|2016-10-29T13:07:21-04:00June 27th, 2014|My Life|5 Comments

What’s A Busy Summer Schedule?

I don’t feel busy. People ask me to do things and I pretty much automatically accept without any understanding which dates I already have booked. I’m making this post 1) because it’s a post 2) because it helps me understand what I have going on. Calenders are for old people. New age people just agree and deliver.

6/25 – Sales trip around Philadelphia selling paint stores our paint scrapers. When I was younger I used to get a little nervous selling but I’m pretty much a seasoned salesperson. That doesn’t mean I can’t be more polished, but I’m way better than I was.
I’m so good at planning that my day will end up in Doylestown for the Tex Mex 5k with Nikkii and Ck4. It’ll be my first race in my lighter shoes so I’m hoping for a good time. Margaritas afterward.

6/26 – USA game at 12pm and then a party at the Spruce St Harbor Park. I have some German business associates who want to watch the game via Skype but there’s no way I’d give them the satisfaction of watching the game with me if Germany does indeed win.

6/30-7/2 – North Carolina sales trip. Never done it before and it will be a lot of driving. I also intend to golf after visiting companies which will be awesome.

7/3 – Steve Miller, Foreigner, and Styx concert with Sam and Alex. I’m not sure anyone knows what to expect. My first feeling is that we’ll bring the median age down by about 20 years but these are the key groups from the ATHF episode and the Foreigner belt.

7/4 – Drive down to DC to celebrate the engagement of Hetrick. Big Hafe will be in attendance and it should be a good time.

7/6 – 2v2 Better Ball tournament. Sam (not my brother) and I won our first match in 20 holes and I’ve been playing better as of late. Not great, but better. If I can get a few rounds in before, I can play better than my 16 handicap.

7/12 – Phil’s 10k. I’ve been playing more basketball than running so I’m going to have to put in some longer runs to run a competitive time. No expectations at this point.

That’s about everything that I can think of in the next 20 days. It seems like a decent amount but I’m pretty sure I can fit plenty more into that schedule. Any suggestions?

By Tom Stortz|2016-10-29T13:06:16-04:00June 24th, 2014|My Life|1 Comment

Being a Trendsetter

This homeless man has style. I saw this man wearing 3 layers of pants (khakis, gym pants, and mesh shorts) and sporting golf shoes. A woman gave him a dollar outside of D&D and he immediately went inside and bought a small coffee. After he got the coffee he was pretty happy and bee-bopping some ridiculous rhyme and obviously mentally handicapped. Where does he get those fresh golf shoes?

By Tom Stortz|2016-10-29T13:09:48-04:00June 18th, 2014|My Life|4 Comments

A Day in the Life of a Witty Spammer

I get tons of spam comments that get blocked and put in the trash. I get the opportunity to look in the spam folder and see what has gotten blocked. After a quick look through, spammers put more thought than you’d think to get people to read their comments. Almost every one links to a Viagra website so it’s not hard to tell which is which but I want to pick out a few of the better ones that I would have been able to tell without any other clues.

I just hope whoever writes these keeps writing more! – Nobody has ever said this to me. Ever.

Always refreshing to hear a rational answer. – Doubt it.

Wham bam thank you, ma’am, my questions are answered! – David Bowie reads the bl0g?

You mean I don’t have to pay for expert advice like this anymore?! – You can if you want.

Wow I must confess you make some very trenchant points. – Is that good?

This “free sharing” of information seems too good to be true. Like communism. – Is this a reverse comment?

Until I found this I thought I’d have to spend the day inside. – It definitely wasn’t on my latest post where I almost killed someone golfing.

I bow down humbly in the presence of such greatness. – Rnningfool for king!

By Tom Stortz|2014-06-16T08:08:10-04:00June 16th, 2014|My Life|1 Comment

No Thanks, I’m Staying In

Ever since college, my life has been stepping stones to where I am now. I was privileged enough that I didn’t come out of college with student loans and was also able to find a job 1 week out of school. My journey, aka my life, has been pretty by the book by most account. I want to give a macro view of my living situations and financial feelings.

21 years old – I spent the first 2 years living at home and saving money. I had no bills and saved an unbelievable amount of money with no idea how much I actually had.
23 – Next I lived at Summit Park for a year where my rent was $550 bucks a month that included everything. I invested a large amount at the height of the stock market, lost it, and this emotionally scarred me for life about the market
24-28 – I moved to Manayunk with 2 other roommates and our rent was $600 + utilities. The amount of money I was making was right in line with giving me financial freedom to drink at the bars as much as I wanted but I wasn’t able to save money like I was earlier in my life.
29 – I moved into Philadelphia, about 5 minutes from my work, and was paying about 1,000+ utilities. The utilities were quite cheap but the living condition was a loft which was not ideal for 2 people. My income vs living was close to even.
30- I purchased a home by putting a % of the homes value down and borrowing money. My mortgage payment, with 2 people living in the place, is a tad less than what I was paying before but once utilities are included, it is more expensive than the previous year. Not to mention all of the repairs and maintenance that are involved with owning a house. For me, owning a house isn’t the rosy picture that people make it seem. I won’t argue it isn’t better than renting,. but with how front loaded the mortgage is with interest, the buyer isn’t getting an amazing deal.

All that being said, living in Philly can get expensive. Last week I went out on a Wednesday and spent $90 bucks at the bar. I had a fine time but not 90 bucks worth. And this is a Wednesday! Obviously you can say, “well why did you let yourself spend that much,” which is a valid question. The city isn’t Manayunk or the suburbs where you can buy a beer for 2 bucks. The city involves cabbing to a place which costs 10 bucks every time, paying 5 bucks per drink, a buck for tip, and it adds up to numbers that spiral out of control. Combine that with added expenses to live in the city and here I am typing a blog titled that I’m staying in.

So I sit behind my keyboard, in my house, listening to Foreigner with the NBA game on in the background and ask myself, am I enjoying myself? The answer is undoubtedly yes but I’m not doing anything. It’s not that I don’t want to spend money to do something, I just can’t go out every night. But this isn’t life. This is called passing time. I’m not solving the world’s problems or doing something fulfilling, I’m just existing. Except that I’m existing better off than 90% (I made that figure up) than the rest of the world. Sometimes you have to take a step back and ask yourself, what direction am I going? The easiest answer is, I don’t know, does anyone?

By Tom Stortz|2014-06-10T21:53:23-04:00June 10th, 2014|My Life|0 Comments

A Boring Weekend You Don’t Want to Read About

Weekend recap posts are always the lowest on the totem pole but there were a few noteworthy events that happened.

Look familiar Chad?

An 8some went on Saturday for a golf round at Hickory Valley in Gilbertsville. It was a gnat-mare. Sam posted the highest score I’ve ever been a part of carding symbols on the scorecard that I didn’t know were used in golf like question marks and DNF’s. Chad scored an 18 on the last hole sinking at least 5 balls in the water. Nobody played particularly well but it was still fun. Ck4 loves when I write about him in the blog so I’ll also give his long distance putts major credit.
On a whim, I put 10 dollars on Tonalist to win the Belmont Stakes. I went to Evan’s and had an hour to do some research on Tonalist. It turned out he didn’t race the Derby or Preakness and the odds are against a triple crown winner considering it hasn’t happened since 1978 with 12 horses having made attempts. As the research continued, I was getting the feeling that this horse had a shot. I put another 20 bucks on the race and much to my surprise, he actually won. It went off at around 10-1 so I pocketed 300 bucks on a horse race.
With money in my Bovada account, I decided to put money on the Rangers which was extremely exciting to watch but didn’t end up winning. I also put money on Djokovic and watched the finals against Nadal Sunday morning. Then I branched out and bet on the Reds against the Phillies which turned out smart. I think the Heat tonight with the points is wise so that tips off in a half hour. Sorry Sam.
On Saturday night at Time I somehow initiated a dance circle and was getting peer pressured into making moves. I have near 0 dance moves so I busted out a 360 spin except it was only about a 150 and then I started MC hammer dancing. There’s comfort in being uncomfortable.
The tinder conversation was also pretty funny. Straight to it.

By Tom Stortz|2014-06-08T20:42:42-04:00June 8th, 2014|My Life|1 Comment

Meeting of the Minds

Today the 3 amigos got together at Mad Mexico. Who you ask? Sam, Gourlay, and myself are revolutionizing the world with these websites. Gourlay has jumped on board and purchased a domain name which is a committing step. Sam and I talk ideas on what works and what sucks. I’ve always said that the more people that participate, the better.

I think we’ve come a long way. Sam said tonight that looking back at the old posts is laughable. They suck. We obviously haven’t hit that next plateau yet but I think the material being delivered is constantly being upped. We aren’t the smartest people on the planet but we are honest and have an ability to stick with it. Persistence is important in any aspect of life. Life is short but long in the different ways. Something will come of this….I think.

By Tom Stortz|2014-06-06T00:16:10-04:00June 6th, 2014|My Life|8 Comments

Awkward Interactions with Girls

Even spelling awkward is awkward. Laura sent me an email with the subject line “immediately thought of you” with this link. I viewed the site and understood why she would think of me.

Physical contact with other people is difficult. I’m not sure if other people have no problem with it but I’ve had 3 encounters recently that had me shaking my head.

1) I side hugged two people with a sweaty shirt on. I went for a run yesterday and took a shower before I was going out to SIPS (SIPS is a Philadelphia “event” where 80 bars and restaurants pretend to offer specials from 5-7). It was a hot run and after the shower I was still sweating. I was in a bit of a rush to get there and my body was still heated. I dressed as light as I could with a t-shirt and shorts but I hadn’t given it enough time. My back started sweating through and even though it wasn’t ridiculous, I noticed it.

So I get to an outdoor bar and head to a table with Evan and two girls who I knew. I’ve met the girls enough times to know that we are in hugging territory but with this back sweat, I had to be cautious. So when I’m going in for the hug, the entire I’m thinking, “I feel bad you have to hug my sweaty shirt unbeknownst to you.” I side hugged them though trying to make as little contact as possible. The side hug is a weird ass hug to begin with and now my sweat shirt throws a monkey wrench that I have to deal with. Most likely the girls had no idea this even occurred but this post only tells the truth.

2) A bizarre face touch hug – Same person as the sweat hug. She is making goodbye hugs and I’m sitting on a tall bar stool. I wasn’t sure if I should stand up or not to say goodbye. In the few seconds I had to decide whether I should stand up, I decided I should stand up. So I push my chair back and the table is at an awkward angle in regard to how she is coming in for a hug. So she starts the motion forward and this is where I’m not even sure what happened. I must have noticed a tilt to her head so I started turning my head and as the hug got closer, SHE STARTED TURNING HER HEAD. Our faces collided and I started cracking up. I tried to play it off but we both knew that hugs aren’t supposed to work that way.

3) Not remember a name of someone you know you have met a dozen times – I go to a social function and a girl who I recognize, and am Facebook friends with, sees me and says boldly and loudly, HEY TOM! Fuck. The way a computer database scans files is what my brain was doing looking for this name. I came across the name Danielle and said, “hey Danielle.” I said it really softly because I knew I wasn’t 100% on it and I’m not sure she caught it or not. After I few moments of staring at her blankly, I walked away. A few minutes later someone else introduced her to friends as “Amanda.” Welp, Danielle and I aren’t as close as I thought.

By Tom Stortz|2014-06-05T12:06:58-04:00June 5th, 2014|My Life|2 Comments