Month: September 2019 (Page 2 of 4)

Sunday, September 15, 2019 (Court Day #308)

67th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow. (With some righty.)

Last night, my wife’s mom, Bonnie—known as “Grammy” by my kids—said she’d like to come see pickleball. When I asked my son Nicholas, he said it’d be good for him to get out. I told them we should leave the house by 8:15. My insoles have been slipping in my Costco athletic shoes—I didn’t glue this last pair—but I bought a separate pair of insoles. I installed those last night. Fingers crossed.

Pickleball Time

My elbow was feeling almost normal. I was thinking of playing right-handed, but after I woke up and I tried to raise the fingers on my right hand under my pillow palm down—essentially trying to raise the pillow—that hurt a bit. Not totally healed yet.

This morning, Nicholas opted to sleep in, but Bonnie was up. Once she put on her shoes, we were ready. She followed me in her car so that she could leave when she wished. Bonnie lived in San Diego since the mid-70s up until my wife’s dad (and Bonnie’s husband) Ron passed away. (He’s been mentioned in this blog before.) A few months after he died, the family home was sold and Bonnie moved up to Northern California to be closer to her two daughters. She’s been down visiting us the past few days.

We go to the courts a little before 8:30. It was overcast, but it’d burn off to be a beautiful day. Bonnie and I started off with dinking. A woman appeared who had never played at Derby before but had played at Willowbrook in Aptos. I forget her name, it’s something not super common. Janet appeared and offered to blow off the courts, I took her up on it so that I could continue with Bonnie. Bonnie had played tennis some decades ago. Bonnie is 75, but she’s a very fit 75, she still goes jogging. She did pretty well, that hand-eye coordination was solid.

After another 5-10 minutes, I went to assist setting up nets and getting things ready. I left Bonnie with a group to continue hitting a ball around. I came back and she was sitting on the bench. There was the newbie woman warming up on a court with Janet, Adrian, and a man. I encouraged Bonnie to play, but she was hesitant. I called to Adrian, “Hey, Adrian, come play with me over here!” And he did, making space for Bonnie. I later found out that Bonnie ended up playing a couple games with them.

Bonnie left mid-morning, maybe around 10, I don’t know, but she liked it enough to consider doing it again according to my wife.

Ted (red) and Patty on the far side of the near court, playing against George (nearest) and Grita.

I played probably half a dozen games left-handed. Grita and I played a game against Ted and Art and lost 11-0. (Ted and Art signed up in red—goes to show the “advanced” category is a bit flexible at Derby!) I made a surprising of mistakes, and Grita made more than her normal share. Sometimes this just happens. A weird collapse.

As I sat on the bench between games, I pondered my elbow. It’s been getting better. I have that appointment with Chris Yoder’s “witch doctor” in 11 days. What if my elbow is healed and I don’t need the appointment? Should I cancel?

Playing with the Big Boys

Beth and David Black were signed up in a box in red along with Cal. They had no fourth. I asked Beth, “Can I sign up with you in your box?” Noncommittally, she replied, “It’s up to you. Do what you’d like.” This is one of those nebulous answers. Now, Beth is super nice. But after I lost 11-0 with Grita, I was a bit hesitant to subject any partner to that again. I debated for a minute. There weren’t too many on the courts who were better players than me, even with me playing left-handed. I made a decision. I’d join that box. And I’d play right-handed to put this somewhat recovered elbow to the test. Crazy, right?

So Cal and I played a game against David and Beth. It was great game. Cal must have told me “nice serve!” at least 3-4 times in this game before he got tired of saying it. Serving right-handed is a completely different story for me. I was serving low and fast and deep. A few serves with spin. (Though one attempt at a spin serve sailed a few feet wide of the service court! Rusty.) On one point, David attempted to lob me. I jumped up backward and slammed the ball into his chest. Woops. “Sorry, David!” A touch embarrassed and courteous, smiling, he replied, “I deserved that!” Cal and I won 11-9. He and I made about the same number of errors. I made very few errors and Cal made very few errors. Walking off, Cal exclaimed, “Andrew is back!” I replied, “We’ll see…ask me after tonight!”

I went on to play right-handed the rest of the session. It was great.

Art and I played against Tristan and Cal. Lost 11-6. Good game though. A handful of points into the game after I’d won a rally at the net against him, Tristan said, “Can you switch back to your left hand?” Funny!

It was 1:40 by the time I left. I asked Janet to lock up after her game was done. Cal was doing yet another class but that didn’t involve us.

Later

As I watched the Oakland Raiders give up a 10-0 lead on their way to a 28-10 loss, I iced my right elbow. About six hours later, I did it again. My elbow hurts when I straighten my arm. As always, time will tell.

Wednesday, September 18, 2019 (No Play)

No pickleball today. I had to conduct an interview for work. (It went well, we hired him!)

My right elbow was hurting by Sunday night and still continues to hurt now, several days later. It’s less in the forearm and more at the elbow bone.

Monday night, one of my upper teeth was hurting while eating. No big deal, often things like that just go away. Tuesday morning, it was the same or even worse. Mid-afternoon Tuesday, I called the dentist. They saw me right away. An X-ray later, abscess tooth. Drat. They sent me for antibiotics then to endodontist. A CT scan later, it might be a crack in the tooth and might need “extraction”—yeah, pulled out. They called this afternoon and I have a Friday 7:45 appointment to make the determination and treat appropriately—fix or send me off to the oral surgeon for yanking the tooth out. *sigh* I doubt I’ll be playing pickleball Friday morning. And tomorrow night is in doubt since I have a board meeting at 6 p.m. The universe is conspiring against me!

Saturday, September 21, 2019 (No Play)

My 7:45 a.m. DDS appointment yesterday got bumped to 10 a.m. They drilled through my crown, drained the infection, added medication and temporarily closed it up. She gave me a prescription for strong pain meds, but I doubt I’ll fill the prescription. The last thing I want to be is loopy. I’ll get by with over-the-counter painkillers. It’s hard enough remembering to take the foul-tasting penicillin pills four times a day.

My elbow bone is a still a bit sore, but it’s not bad. As of tomorrow morning, it will have been a full week between playing. Too much work to play.

Number of days on a court: 308
Number of total hours: 856.5

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Thursday, September 12, 2019 (Court Day #307)

66th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.

Work ran late. It was quite hot today and was still over 80° when I arrived at Skypark at 7:15. The fall equinox is coming up soon so it’s getting noticeably darker earlier. It used to be light until around 9 p.m. Now, sunset is around the time I arrived.

Even the heat didn’t slow things down at Scotts Valley!

It didn’t occur to me until now, but I think about half the players there were people who started playing after I did. It’s funny to be part of the “old guard” after just two and a half years. A sign of a growing sport!

My right knee didn’t bother me, so four days of recovery just about did the trick. Though my left wrist (paddle hand for the last nine months) did bother me enough for me to notice it during one game. The wrist gets a tiny bit sore now and then, but it’s not enough for me to even mention it before now.

My serving is still miserable. I missed a few tonight with wild serves. One particularly inauspicious serve came when I was playing against Stuart and Gregg (“3G”). My partner was newbie Caroline. Stuart knew I’d been serving short and took two steps into the court. I tried, I really did, to get the ball deep—Stuart was giving me a golden opportunity!—but still it dropped softly no deeper than halfway in the service court.

Friday, September 13, 2019 (No Play)

I woke up two or three times last night with leg cramps. It might have been a consequence of the hot temperatures. I didn’t seem any worse for the wear however.

About a month ago, I decided to lose some weight. After starting to play pickleball, I got a bit sloppy in terms of watching what I eat . . . “hey, I’m getting exercise, I can eat whatever I want!” I put on 15-20 pounds. Not good. This morning I weighed in 8 pounds lighter. It’ll be better for my knees and ankles too. Hopefully, I can keep it up!

Number of days on a court: 307
Number of total hours: 851.5

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Sunday, September 8, 2019 (Court Day #306)

65th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.

I arrived early at Derby, about 8:45. It was already sunny. I was the first one there. The second ones there were two new players whom had never played during Derby’s club play before. Scott and Allison. They said they’d played on their own so they knew the basic rules. They offered to help, so I asked them to grab four nets out of the bins and the next thing I knew, Scott was carrying two bags with his right arm and another two with is left! And there are those who complain about the weight of just one net! Nothing wimpy about Scott!

I blew off the courts (and ran out of battery, even with it fully charged) then I helped finish setting up a net or two.

Newbie Training

I took Scott and Allison under my wing and warmed up with them. I played two games with them and a newish woman named Marie—I’ve seen her a few times. (Not the Marie who plays in Scotts Valley all the time.) Marie’s skills weren’t much advanced beyond Scott’s and Allison’s and Marie would occasionally line up in the wrong place . . . like being at the net as part of the service team. Occasionally between points, I’d stop the game and explain some tidbit of strategy, court etiquette, some rule, or pass along other information. We finished up about 10:15, so they got about an hour and fifteen minute lesson. Scott and Allison were super appreciative and said that it was instructive and fun. Marie came to me later on in the morning and also thanked me for the lesson.

Overview of the courts.

Between Scott and Allison and three others, we had five newbies today. One was Caesar who obviously knew Grita since she greeted him with a kiss on the cheek! I didn’t play with the three others, just Scott and Allison. The “village” must have taken care of the others.

There was a good game against Terry and Grita with Joe D. as my partner. We won 11-9. Joe made the most errors for us in that one. I played pretty well.

I tweaked my right knee in a game. For a change, I knew exactly how and when I did it. I was doing a “fencing attack” move when I was really stretching to reach a shot across my body for a lefty backhand. I could feel it and felt it afterward. It wasn’t bad enough to stop playing, but I could feel it on the inside of my right knee.

The last three games were Deshen and Art against me and Joe D. Joe and I won the first two but lost the last one by a small margin.

Overall, I played better today. It was a good day. Not too many frustrating moments.

Sound Meter

Midway though the morning, about 10:30, I used the iPhone app that I’d downloaded to take some dB readings of noise at the courts. From the bench inside the fence right next to the active courts, the reading was an average of 66dB which the app said was akin to “Traffic”.

I blocked out the misleading 79dB maximum reading since I figured out that that’s what ended up there every time I took a screenshot . . . the screenshot sound from the phone read in the app as a loud external noise! Later I learned to reset the app after each screenshot!

One online chart showed 60dB as “conversation, dishwasher” and 70db as “car, alarm clock, city traffic”. (A different chart showed alarm clock as 80dB or twice as loud  as 70dB.)

I then walked to the knoll to the right of the walkway into the park. As I faced the courts, about 10 feet behind me was the fence to the closest house to the courts. I took another reading. That averaged 44dB and the app kept flipping between a comparison of “Quiet street” and “Quiet library”. Both are not exactly known for loud and unlivable noise levels!

The reading from the knoll.

One online chart showed 50dB as “moderate rainfall”—another said “quiet office”—and 40db as “refrigerator”.

Jeff’s Arm Device

After 1 p.m. when everything was stowed, Jeff told me he’d bought a device he’d talked about that his rock climber friends use to treat sore arm muscles. It’s called “Armaid” and sell for about $70. Jeff showed me how to use it and and offered to let me keep it for a couple of weeks. Yes, please! The balls are used to apply pressure to the forearm tendon.

Arm torture device?

Monday, September 9, 2019 (No Play) 

This afternoon was the big meeting at the 4 p.m. meeting of the City of Santa Cruz Parks & Rec Commission. It was held at the City Council chambers downtown, they discussed converting Derby Park to six permanent pickleball courts. I walked in about 4:30 p.m. Melody turned around to me and said, “Good timing!” We had a strong turnout of pickleball players. Maybe thirty. Aside from the gallery and the commission itself, there were a handful of Parks & Rec city staffers sitting on either side of the room between us and the commission.

Most of the players were to my right, so this makes the gallery appear more sparse than it was. The five nearest players are all Derby regulars.

The courts portion of the meeting that we were interested in started with the staff providing background for their recommendation for the conversion. The number of players they observed over a 55-day video study of the courts were 218 pickleball players and 88 tennis players.

One of the commissioners asked how many pickleball players using Derby Park are city residents. One man in the gallery (“Andy”) clapped at the question and blurted out, “None!” (This was complete nonsense, I’m a city resident and play there and I know there are other residents too!)

The chairman, JM Brown, limited public input to one minute per speaker and asked people only to speak if they had something new to add to the discussion. He added that we were not allowed to interrupt or directly address any speaker.

Speakers

The speakers lined up in random order against the windows. In the end, five of the speakers were against the conversion. Most lived nearby. A couple of those brought up parking. One of those five was a neighbor—Andy, the blurter earlier—who got up and complained about the noise and demonstrated this noise by slamming a pickleball across the floor violently with a paddle—he also hit the podium when he swung, though I doubt this was intentional. (He was the same man that JM Brown had to remind numerous times during the meeting that outbursts and interruptions were not allowed.)

About ten got up to speak for the conversion and/or at least, a dedicated place to play pickleball. Karen Long looked around from near the front of the line, pointed at me, and nodded. Not wanting to stand for a longer than necessary, I walked over and sat at the end of a bench next to the line. After another few speakers, Dave Allenbaugh said something to Karen, Karen was looking for me in the line. When I saw that, I got up and added myself to the end of the line. I had my prepared sheet ready.

Andrew Speaking

When it was my turn, I passed several sheets of my diagram to one of the P&R staff who seemed to be collecting any support materials.

At the podium, I said that I was a 4th generation Santa Cruz resident. I said we have a wide range of players from a 16 or 17-year-old who shows up regularly to players in their 70s. I shared that we signed up five new players on Sunday and that this happens all the time. I went on to my main point, that I’d done a sound test on Sunday and that right behind the nearest house the peak sound—when a ball hits a paddle—was 54dB which is between “moderate rainfall” and “conversation, dishwasher”. I went on that with the school going in next door, that’ll make the pickleball courts seem like nothing. I closed by asking them to consider giving pickleball a real home.

As I turned and left the podium, the blurter growled at me, “You don’t have to live with it and listen to it…” Chairman Brown immediate interceded and sternly reminded the man that he was not allowed to address other speakers directly.

More Speakers

After a few more speakers, the chairman said the next speaker was the last one. Still, another PB player got up to add himself to the line but was silently waved off by the chairman.

Commissioner Questions

The chairman asked Dave Allenbaugh to come back up to the podium to answer some questions. Dave invited Karen up since “she is the president of the club.” Dave was asked how many club members were city residents. He went on to explain that the club doesn’t ask for addresses of members, so that information was not available. Karen added that not all players at Derby are club members, so polling only the paying club members would only give part of the picture.

What?!? Crazy!

One commissioner made a motion to remove the pickleball lines from one of the two tennis courts—effectively reducing the number of useable pickleball courts from six to two. We were horrified! What?!? What was this woman thinking? I think she had no idea what she was really asking for. Fortunately, this motion died for a lack of a second. This horrible suggestion made the status quo seem awesome!

Result

Well, it was a good show at the meeting, but alas, no dice. The commission voted to take the $55,000 that was set aside for Derby improvements and instead hold it in reserve for a dedicated pickleball court . . . location and year of construction undetermined. Dave thinks this was a step backward since we have cracks and flaking in the court surface at Derby.

Realistically, it appears that any dedicated pickleball courts may have to be a brand new venue somewhere that doesn’t eliminate existing mixed use courts.

I wasn’t and still am not 100% convinced about taking away the tennis courts at Derby was the best solution. Dual use serves the most people. I gave my facts and asked for a permanent place for pickleball. As for what the commissioners decided was the best course of action was up to them.

My worry is that it’ll be years or maybe a decade or two before we see a permanent facility for pickleball in the City of Santa Cruz . . . and that would be a shame.

Even without a dedicated place as the outcome, I believe our showing continues to grow the seed planted that our sport does need a “home” within the city limits.

After the decision by the commission, nearly all of the gallery got up and filed out of the room. Shawnte gave me a verbal pat on the back saying, “You sure shut down his noise argument!” Us pickleballers chatted among ourselves for another five or ten minutes then went our separate ways.

Knee

Yep. I tweaked my knee. When moving my leg while lying in bed there’s a pain on the inside of my right knee. Hopefully, it’ll heal quickly.

Wednesday, September 11, 2019 (No Play) 

Too much work to do. No Wednesday play for me today. It may be better for my knee anyway to give it a bit more rest.

Number of days on a court: 306
Number of total hours: 849.5

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