Month: September 2022 (Page 5 of 6)

Monday, September 5, 2022. Labor Day. (Court Day #543)

Today was in the high 90s. It was a miserably hot day. I had originally arranged to meet with Binh, Charles, and Jason at 3 p.m., but Binh suggested that 4 or 5 p.m. might be better. The group settled on 4:30 p.m. which is the latest time I said I’d want to start.

After having trouble locating my portable net—my wife had moved it to a new place in the garage—I was five minutes late to Derby for our arranged time. My net was not needed, since we were the only ones there. (That would change, a large family showed up around 5 p.m. and took two courts.) It was still pretty warm, but the temperature was dropping. The nice thing about Santa Cruz is that it always cools down in the evening.

Jason and I paired up for the entire time.

I recorded our games, here’s the first game:

Jason shared that wanted to leave at 6 p.m. since he had to get up for work very early the next day, but we convinced him to stay for one more game.

Right before I left, I took the five “SCPC” balls that I’d slowly been accumulating over the past few months and put them in one of the two club bins. (I never use them for personal play, people just find them at the courts give them to me.)

It was good for us to get out and play. Jason and I have that tournament coming up this Saturday.

Number of days on a court: 543
Number of total hours: 2,465

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Sunday, September 4, 2022 (Court Day #542)

Yesterday, I went to the annual highland games held in Pleasanton. I usually go with Jay Salter who taught me how to play bagpipes and is my mentor and friend. He had students competing in the various events at the games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but felt that three days was too many for him. He asked me to tune up one of his students, Brian, who was competing in his first event at 9 a.m. I left my house about 7:30 and arrived in Pleasanton at about 8:30 which gave me about 20-25 minutes to tune Brian up. This was his very first bagpipe competition so I gave him advice based on my own competition experience—telling him to relax and enjoy playing and not stress over it too much. He was very appreciative of the time that I spent tuning and also helping him with his mental preparation.

Brian placed in the middle of the pack at the competition which is pretty good for a first time out, I definitely have to give him some credit. A lot of people never get out to compete in the first place due to the stress, expense, time, and fear of failure. I spent the rest of the day meeting old friends and listening to pipe bands perform. It was a long hot day. I got home about 6 p.m. then headed to a friend’s party with my wife.

Bleh

There occasionally days when you feel a lack of motivation, today was one of those days where just didn’t really feel like going to play pickleball. If I was not a site coordinator I might’ve either given it in a miss or arrived late at 10 a.m. instead of early to prepare for a 9 a.m. opening time.

A nice surprise today was Tim F. walking in. I can’t remember if I’ve seen him anywhere other than Skypark in Scotts Valley. He said that his son Casey wanted to try out Derby on a Sunday and then he’ll be coming shortly.

Casey and Tim took on me and Hugh. During the game, Tim told me, “You are playing like a beast today, Andrew.” Maybe part of that was proper lighting. I much prefer to play during the day than under lights at night.

Hugh’s Gift

So, yes, Hugh was there with his dog Groot and—as he had offered on Friday at Brummer Park—he gave me a T-shirt that he had made up for some of his buddies.

Annoyed

Eric and I started an advanced box and two intermediates added their names under ours. I was annoyed. But the crowd was thinning, and I wasn’t going to be overly picky. It was a uneventful game of very short rallies.

Home

I got out my gift “Brommer Street Bangers” T-shirt and took a photo to share:

Number of days on a court: 542
Number of total hours: 2,463

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Friday, September 2, 2022 (Court Day #541)

One of my staff called in sick this morning, the one who usually opens the store, so I had to quickly arrange someone else to open so I could go to pickleball. It took a little finagling but I was able to get someone and though it still made me a few minutes late Brommer Park. Parking was easy early on for those like me, but later on there were 57 pickleball players.

Jason

As I was hanging up my backpack on the chain link fence, Jason walked over. He said he had been in a game but got someone to take over for him so he could play with me. We went on to spend the next three and a half hours as partners in preparation for our tournament a week from tomorrow.

Mistakes or Strategy

Earlier, Jason and I were playing a game and against Dave Cox and Hugh. We were ahead something like 6-3 or 7-3, but then we imploded. We missed a series of our serves in sequence and hit a number of our service returns out … essentially handing points to Dave and Hugh. We lost that game due to all the unforced errors. After the game, Dave was insisting that the reason we lost the game was their strategy change. After I drove an early winner at Dave, Dave told Hue to target Jason instead of me. Dave is claiming that I had overshown my hand with that early shot and they had adjusted accordingly and therefore won the game. Maybe Dave is right, but I’m of the opinion that he’s mistaken. I really believe it was our series of unforced errors that handed the game away.

Dave said he’s playing in 4.0 next weekend at the Chamisal tournament. I don’t believe that’s the right rating for him. But maybe 60+ will make it easier.

Uh, Nope. Not Yet!

Jason and I signed up on the court reservation board and a man named Richard added his name after ours. I’d never played with Richard and I’d never seen him sign up in red before. I was a little concerned so I walked over and asked him what his rating was in tournaments And he replied that he doesn’t play in tournaments but that he was tired and playing in games where other players couldn’t get the ball back over the net. I told him I understand because the novice players sign up as intermediate, and the immediates sign up at advanced as a result.
Wai rounded out our foursome. The game was very far from challenging. I think they might’ve scored one point but that was it is extremely lopsided in favor of Jason and myself. He and I were a bit more careful signing up in later games. Afterward Richard apologized to me for not giving us a challenging game, but I told him, ”Hey, sometimes you have to try it to know.”

Club Shirts

Jackie was there selling pre-ordered club  shirts. I asked if mine was there. The volunteer site coordinators get virtually no perks or rewards for all the hours and headaches we deal with. But the board decided to reward us with free club shirts. “Four years and all I get is this lousy T-shirt!” Kidding. Far from that. Truth be told, I appreciate the thought and the shirt! She dug out the shirt labeled for me. Thumbs up!

Tighten Up That Game!

The most educational games of the day were Jason and myself playing against Nolan—who arrived late in the session—and Matt who lives in Seattle but who’s going through a divorce and owns a home in La Selva Beach nearby. (I’d never met Matt before. Super nice. A big African American dude.) Nolan is a solid 4.0 player. Easily. He very rarely missed a shot, has good power, and good placement. Jason and I lost the first game 11-1, lost second game 11-2, and then changed our strategy a little bit and made it much more of a game, We still lost the last game but it was 11-7 and not a total blowout. The key was utilizing the soft game far better and not speeding up the ball at Nolan who has very quick hands and can handle a quick shot.

Blog Discovered

As I mentioned above, Hugh was there today with his dog Groot. Hugh said he discovered my (this) blog. He was excited and said it really good, he even went back a year and read all the entries. Hugh said he writes local articles for a living—the Good Times, the Register Pajaronian, and others. He asked if I had professional writing experience. Nah, but high praise coming from someone who writes for a living!

And…Out!

At 12:45 I was in my car and heading home to shower, change, eat lunch, and then head to work.

Toe

In one game, my right big toe got quite painful with certain motions. That toenail is experiencing some issue. I’m not sure what it is, but I should get it checked out by a doctor sooner or later. When I got home, I trimmed the nail really short, that should help.

Highland Games

I’m heading to the annual Highland games held in Pleasanton tomorrow. It’ll be fun to connect with old friends and enjoy some music and some fish and chips!

Number of days on a court: 541
Number of total hours: 2,459

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.