Thursday, February 13, 2020 (Court Day #337)

I was debating what I was doing tonight. I had a few options. After a long day at work, I wasn’t too keen on sitting through a meeting, even if it was charity work and not demanding. I told my wife I might just stay home. “Why don’t you go play pickleball?” Well. Why not?

I arrived at Skypark at 7:10 and there was a parking spot right next to the courts. Nice.

The crew in full swing, playing on five courts.

The games were all fun, even if some were with poor players.

I got in three really good games with Mike as my partner against Stuart and Tristan. (Mike was Kristin’s tournament partner at the Cabrillo Tournament last year. He has a slight southern drawl.) Mike and I lost the first two each by 5 or 6 points. Stuart and Tristan are not weak players. It be safe to say I was mostly responsible for our bad showing in the first two games.

Mike and I won the first point in the third game. Then another. Then soon we were up 8-3. Mike then made a number of mistakes. I added a lesser number. We ended up losing 13-11. Fun game though. And I played reasonably well in that game. Dinking is not a weakness in my lefty game. Stuart specifically mentioned that slamming lefty is not a problem. He did say I need to finish my strokes with my paddle face pointing where I want the ball to go and to push through the ball. Good advice when shots are not going where they are supposed to. (Not so good if you are putting spin on the ball though.)

At 8:50 p.m., once we finished the third game, Stuart was done. Janet was waiting to take Tristan home. Kristin asked Janet to close so she could go home. I spent the entire evening wearing a sweatshirt, that’s rare. It was nippy!

Saturday, February 15, 2020 (No Play)

I introduced a new staff member at work, Alain (pronounced “uh-lane”), to the idea of playing pickleball. In the past, he’d played basketball and football. He’s not a tall man, but he’s fit. I invited him to come on Sunday morning and offered for him to try my paddles. I told him his wife could come but he said was would rather stay home and read a book—sounds like my wife!

I got an email today regarding the Golden State Games. Maybe I should count my blessings that I’m injured. They moved the date so it conflicts with the big anniversary event at work. I have to be at work the weekend of the tournament. Hopefully, that won’t be a conflict in future years, but I may never be able to play in that tournament again if it stays on the first weekend in August.

Number of days on a court: 337
Number of total hours: 949.5

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