Holy Golf-Lover's Dream! Last week I was one of the game's luckiest spectators as I stepped foot onto the hallowed grounds of Augusta National - the most beautiful course in the world.

Ten years ago my Dad and two Uncles went with my Grandpa when one of my Uncle's won the lottery for a chance to purchase four Masters practice round tickets. In 2005, my Grandpa, the one responsible for the Grayson boys' love of golf, passed away peacefully in his home just a few yards away from the 16^th green where I practiced many putts as a child. Last year my Uncle won the ticket lottery again and I was asked by them to complete the foursome in my Grandpa's honor. A new chapter in my life has begun.

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Last week was Spring Break here in Austin, TX. For me that usually meant working more shifts to make extra cash from the South by Southwest festival people who flooded the streets of downtown Austin and the surrounding clubs and restaurants. One year when I was much younger, unmarried and without kids, some friends and I made the rite of passage trip to South Padre Island. Those days, however, are just a distant memory now that we have two children and many more responsibilities.

Then came Spring Break 2008! As most of you probably know, we here at Quirkee Media and our friends from Quack!Media co-hosted a party on 6^th Street last Thursday (Image Gallery ). The day before is when my kids went to my parents' house for the weekend. This was the first time ever that we have both been away from our kids at the same time. I had visions of them waking up in the middle of the night screaming, "Mama! Daddy!" Of course, that never happened. My parents informed us that they slept all through the nights without any trouble.

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Pat Glennon is annoyingly boring. He really is! He writes a blog called Annoyingly Boring? and honestly, he's quite the opposite. Pat is another dad I met online through DadStaysHome.com and he is also wildly popular on the new cre8Buzz site with his page here. He comes from a large family and I don't mean tall (he is 6' 5", though) but I mean he has five brothers and one sister. Pat is a native of Boston and looks forward to his swim in the harbor every New Year's Day - because he's crazy like that. He had a lot to say when he came into the Daddyshack and none of it was annoyingly boring.

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Remember when the world communicated only in person or on the telephone? Our facial expressions and voices relayed our feelings without any worry of miscommunication. If you were angry or making a joke it would be obvious by the tone of your voice or the laughter that would follow.

Then along came email, online forums, and chat boxes. All of the sudden people didn't have to really talk to each other using their voices. Forums and chat boxes proved to be useful tools to have conversations with multiple people at once. Sending emails is a major way of communicating in many workplaces or with friends and relatives. All of the sudden everybody became so impersonal.

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Discovering funny and interesting dads for this interview series has become somewhat of an addiction. I belong to quite a few networking sites and forums and continue to stumble upon some really great candidates to interrogate here in the Daddyshack.

Joe Schatz is one of the dads I met on a new site, cre8Buzz.com, and he has created quite a following of readers on his website, joeprah.com . Joe's site even caught the attention of Kathleen Deveny of Newsweek who wrote this article about throwing away your kid's artwork and mentioned his blog post from earlier this year on the same subject. When you get a chance you should stop by his blog and read some of the funny stuff he writes on a daily basis. For now, sit back with some hot coffee or a tasty beverage and read more about Joe as he takes his turn in the Daddyshack.

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On New Year's Eve nine years ago my wife and I were married. Not long after that my mother-in-law emailed us a comparison of our astrological signs showing how we are a great match. I'm not the kind of person that reads their horoscope every day, but I know what the stars say about Virgos and they pretty much dead-on describe my personality and traits. I could say the same for my wife, a Capricorn, and apparently the stars say we work well together. When she emailed this comparison I immediately printed it out and put it on the refrigerator next to our wedding photo where it remains to this day.

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Before you all get excited that I am about to go into graphic detail about the parts of my body, let me assure you that kind of information is not what this article is about. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Yesterday I went up to the new health club for my Graphical Summary and Body Age Analysis. This a free session with a personal trainer that you schedule when you join the club and pay them money...

So it's not really free, I guess, but it didn't cost extra!

Now I'm just as curious as the next guy as to what my "body age" really is compared to how many years I've actually been alive and kicking around the planet. I made my appointment for the second day at the club so I could find out how "old" I am before I start exercising on a regular schedule. The session was to last about an hour, which I figured out to be just about the length of time I could take the humiliation I was to receive in front of the entire workout floor.

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Dennis is one of the many dads I have virtually met in the DadStaysHome.com forum. After the birth of my first child I joined the forum back in 2003 but never really got connected with the other dads. I then went back to work part-time away from home so dropped off the site until earlier this year. It was then that I realized what I had been missing for the last couple of years. It's not all about bottle feeding vs. breast feeding or the best way to get poop stains out of your kid's clothes. It's about dads having someone to hang out with and have conversations about beer, cars, bar-b-que, the occasional (mostly) good-natured debates, sports, advice on parenting, and the weekly poker games after the kids are asleep.

Thanks to Don-Dad for starting the site back in 2000 when he began staying home with his kids. Maybe I can get The Don here in the Daddyshack for an interview someday in the future.

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