Tuesday, March 15, 2022 (Court Day #476)
Tonight at 8 p.m., there was a scheduled district ambassador meeting. Given than I usually play pickleball on Tuesday nights, I arranged to leave work an hour earlier than I usually do. As such, I arrived at Skypark at 5:30 p.m. Parking was easy. Disturbingly easy. There were two unfamiliar couples playing doubles on one court and Tim and Sam playing/drilling on another. Just six people before me? Wow.
2 on 1
Soon, it was Tim and me against Sam. Sam said he wanted to cover his whole side of the court. I just shrugged. Ok. We beat 11-1 or 11-2.
We played again, this time having Sam only cover half of his side of the court, the side he received the serve on. Surprisingly, resulting score was about the same, 11-2. It didn’t help that Tim and I are both stronger players than Sam!
Conventional Games
Mark Dettle showed up, followed by Judy, then Sharyl. More conventional games followed.
It was a crazy quiet night, No tennis players and only and handful of pickleball players. It was eerie. Where was everyone? Had Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine taken a devastating nuclear turn? Was there some big news we had missed? I still don’t know. Sure, it was the first evening after the time change, but this change made it lighter later, not darker earlier.
I called over to Paul W. asking the time and got back “7:30!” We finished that game and then I was on the road home for the USA Pickleball Zoom meeting.
I went home feeling pretty good about my play. But while I was playing with solid players, points were over a bit two quickly . . . whether it was my partner or my opponents. Playing against stronger players challenges me and could have sent me home depressed but pushed to grow . . . that was not tonight.
Ambassador Meeting
I was home and set up just in time for the 8 p.m. Zoom meeting. Steve Sutton was leading the group. There were only about half a dozen of on the meeting. Steve said it had been decided that skinny singles would soon be an officially recognized tournament event. Also that the background checks required of USAP Ambassadors is part of the drive to make pickleball an Olympic event . . . existing Olympic organizations make background checks mandatory for those involved in running the organization. Steve also talked about funding, retreats, and some other topics before opening up meeting for updates/questions regarding pickleball in the various cities represented. Steve asked everyone but me, but I’m a relative newbie as far as Ambassadors go.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022 (No Play)
We had a funny event at work. Our youngest staff member (19) spaced out and put his instant soup in the microwave for lunch without adding any water. The result was a whole lot of smoke which set off the smoke detector and the fire department was dispatched! We had Engine 3112 pull up and I had to explain that one of my staff was a dork. The coincidental thing was today was the 20th anniversary of a several alarm fire which occurred under business and shut us down for nearly 2 weeks. It made our building sell like smoke for 9 months! Looking back at an old photo, on scene near the entrance 20 years ago was Engine 3112. (That rig was replaced in the last 20 years, but sports the same number.) It’s not that weird that 3112 was on scene, there were about 6 engines fighting our fire back then . . . though 3112 was parked in almost exactly the same spot.
Pickleball on TV
So, CBS thinks it would be good viewing to see a celebrity pickleball tournament fundraiser on their network. It’ll be a 2-hour TV special named “Pickled”.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/stephen-colbert-funny-or-die-primetime-pickleball-cbs-1235111617/
And Deadline:
https://deadline.com/2022/03/celebrity-pickleball-special-cbs-stephen-colbert-funny-or-die-1234978928/
It’ll be interesting to learn more about it over the coming months.
Number of days on a court: 476
Number of total hours: 2,260.5
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