It occurred to me the other day when a friend of mine updated his blog (thanks Johnny), that maybe I should update mine as well. Plus, since my last posting (May of last year), a few things have changed... :) (Drew smiley face)
As all of you know, Joelle and I have moved from Minneapolis to Seattle, WA at the end of 2009. In fact, the first night in our new apartment was New Years Eve. So what did we do? Of course we stayed up until midnight, had a glass of champagne, and kissed as the countdown hit zero...actually, we're so cool, that we were in bed by 10:00... Moving is exhausting. I digress.
So as I was saying, Joelle and I moved to Seattle, WA; the EmeraldCity in the EvergreenState. We visited last summer for our second anniversary and fell in love with the area, and, after a lot of prayer and discussion we decide to give it a shot. On a trip out for an interview we found a great Church, and with Pike's Place Market downtown, Puget Sound, Lake Washington, and the Cascade Mountain range, it’s pretty much all you could ask for from a geographical standpoint. “But what about the weather, doesn’t it rain all the time?” Well, it's no Arizona or Florida in terms of sun, but did you know that Seattle gets less rain per year than New York, Atlanta, and Houston? And it isn't even in the top ten in terms of yearly rainfall. Albeit it can be cloudy, but I can't imagine that there is a more beautiful place to be on a nice day, and I'll take the views here over a few more days of sunny weather any day. I'm not going to lie; I have almost gotten into car accidents while admiring the scenery on the way to work. Plus, it almost never gets below freezing (in the city, the mountains are a different story).
Having experienced many a Minnesota winter, Seattle rain/clouds are nothing; and Joelle and I are taking advantage of it. We have either hiked or skied every weekend since we have been here, except one, and that was to go to Vancouver and check out the Olympics (we HAD to go, it's only about 2.5 hours from Seattle). There's good hiking within a half hour or so of our place, and great skiing within about an hour. Not to mention golf courses, but I'll wait until summer before I get into that (www.chambersbaygolf.com, www.newcastlegolf.com ...whoops).
But it’s not all fun and games.Joelle and I both have new jobs.Joelle is working in the ER at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and I work at The Cobalt Group, a digital marketing company servicing the automotive industry (basically we build websites and help auto manufactures and dealers with digital marketing strategies).Everything is going well with both so far!
Well, I’ve rambled on enough, but just wanted to make sure everyone was caught up.We miss everyone back home, but hope to have more visitors soon!
Nonetheless, I found it necessary to post my thoughts on the Dane Odden Classic (from this point referred to as the DOC, pronounced dŏk). The DOC, for those of you who have been living is a closet for the past 3 years, is an annual golf tournament organized by a bunch of college buddies that simply can not let go of the college years. Yes, the tournament is named after me, but I had very little to do with the creation of this wonderous event. So, before you go wondering, "who in the world names a golf tournament after himself?", read the excerpts below from a recent email chain. (I'll paraphrase where Johnny is blabbing about nothing...)
Email #1 - Brad Hempstead, DOC Board Member "It did happen at Peoples. It was your (referring to me, Dane) senior year, a month or so before graduation. We were standing over by the pool tables, next to the bar on the south side. We probably just got done taking a round of Jager Bombs, and you said that you wanted to put together a golf outing for all of us, so that after we all graduated we would come back to Ames to party. You were going to have it at Veenker. Kegs on all the par 3s. Set it up in a scramble format, then we would grill out that night, then hit up Peoples and Sips that night. PHall and I said that we would help you but this outing together. So when summer came that year, nothing happened, no one even mentioned the name “The DOC.” Then the next year PHall and I took it into our hands, with the help of Adam Fraser to set up with greatest golf outing not on Tour. Yes Dane, you did have some say in certain things, but that first year we threw everything together pretty fast. Fraser lined everything up at the Harv, I ordered those plain “Red” polos, and we had a decent turnout. (to this day I cant remember how many ppl we had at the Inaugural outing.) All I remember is playing #18 as one huge group, then going into the playoff hole and Roth draining a 30+ footer that double broke then all of a sudden everyone on our team took off in a dead sprint, all in different directions. Right then and there the DOC was born to the be the “Greatest Spectacle in the History of Drunken Golf Outings. “"
Email #2 - Johnny Drama, DOC Board Member "It was a Wednesday evening... Brad Hempstead, Terry (tdub) Wurzer, and Johnny Drama Larson, (and possibly Patrick Hall, he is unconfirmed) just got done with a grind session at the infamous Veek National Driving Range. Like most college kids at Iowa State, Drama, Dub, and Hemp, were looking for a cheap dinner and beverage combo. People's Bar and Grill had $.25 wings and 2fer1 beverages; the perfect combination. (There was also a Rock, Paper, Scissors Tournament that night for those that remember)
While waiting for their dinner, the three amigos started talking about college, and how they never wanted it to end. They put their heads together to come up with an idea that would get all members of Da Crew back to their stomping grounds. They developed a plan, to put together a golf gathering and had all of the details worked out, minus the name... The three started throwing out name combinations such as the JLO (Johnny Larson Open), the PBR (Peoples Bar Reunion) and the DCC (Da Crew Classic)... but nothing seemed to flow just right.. But they were on to something.......They were forgetting one member of Da Crew that had graduated.. Dane Odden. The curly, hockey haired, gem, that we had all had the opportunity to know and love. His Name worked perfect. The Dane Odden Classic. From there, the logo was drawn out on a People's Napkin, and the tradition had begun........"
Email #3 - T-Dub, DOC Board Member and coozie creator
"Drama’s story is real close from what I remember.
I do remember sitting at a big table (I think after Dram won the Rock, Paper, Scissors contest and got around 50 free tickets to go to Blades of Glory. Did anybody go to it….NO…haha) looking at a golf book to pick out what shirts we wanted. We all picked out a real nice looking Adidas shirt and Brad stated that his older brother works at Graphic Edge here in Carroll and he was going to get prices.
I also remember B-Rad calling Fraiser down to Peoples to see if we could play the DOC at the Harv. Fraiser inevitably came down to Peoples and joined in on planning one of the best golf outings in the world. Another piece of info is that in the initial planning stages of this, we wanted to put the Harv logo on the sleeve, but for some reason we didn’t follow through with that idea. ‘ The one idea that we did follow through with and it worked out great was the logo. I think I was wearing my white DC hat and as we were trying to think of logos for the “Greatest Spectacle in the History of Drunken Golf Outings and B-Rad looked up at my hat and started drawing the “DC” logo but also added the “O”. The rest is history…."
Regardless of who, where, why, when it was planned, the DOC is a tradition like no other. It's beautiful weather, beer, golf, grandpa swings, Roth making the winning put on the first playoff hole in the first ever DOC, the story of the most dysfuncitional division I golf team (thanks Tuel!), tomfoolery, Bob Ross, etc; and an excuse for friends not to lose touch, and get together once a year to act like college students (despite the fact that I may be the only one to look like a college student for the next 10-15, ok 20 years.)
Have no doubt, there are only great things in store for the DOC. There are already discussions of donating proceeds to charity, doing something good for the community. I'm not sure what is in store for next year, but I'm pretty sure you should be there...
I realize this is ridiculously long, but it had to be done.
the first night in our new apartment was New Years Eve. So what did we do? Of course we stayed up until midnight, had a glass of champagne, and kissed as the countdown hit zero...actually, we're so cool, that we were in bed by 10:00... Moving is exhausting. I digress.
