Month: April 2023 (Page 1 of 2)

Sunday, April 30, 2023. (Court Day #591)

It was a beautiful day outside and when I arrived in Derby Park, 10 minutes before 9 a.m., little Barbara had once again set up everything so the courts are ready to go. I told Barb that I felt kind of guilty that she had done all the work. She smiled and told me to not to get used to it because it wouldn’t happen every time.

Advanced Game?

I rotated through a number of weaker games and I didn’t get to sign up in a color-coded Advanced game until close to 10:30. And when we got out on the courts for that first game, I overheard the two women in our group talking about one of them being a beginner. I asked if it was true and turned out that indeed one of them was a brand new player. Given the busy nature of the schedule board and the complexities of trying to correct the error, I told them that we would just go ahead and play with them anyway, which Eric and I did. He went with one player and I went with the other. The game was as you’d expect.

Ah, Advanced.

The good news is that for the following two hours, I was in good games with good players. A nice surprise, Dave Debiasi showed up. That’s fun, Dave plays well and has surprisingly fast hands at the net. Dave said he had come hoping to get in some good games and he was pleased that he got some.

We wrapped our last game about 1 p.m. then I counted the donations and chatted a few minutes with Dan Dewey—we have a lot of “Dans”!—and Charles. Dan talked about his two knee surgeries and he’s going to be having a total knee replacement . . . that’s a very serious surgery! I locked up the SCPC bins and was heading home at 1:20.

Nagging Injuries

The back of my right hand is hurting quite a bit. And I could feel the inside of my right knee. Icing the back of my right hand after play has been a necessity the last couple of months.

Number of days on a court: 591
Number of total hours: 2,609
Number of paid coaching hours: 2

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

Tuesday, April 25, 2023. (Court Day #590)

I was still a little bit sore from my play on Sunday, and my right knee was far from 100%, however, I decided to play tonight in Scotts Valley anyway. I ended up talking to a sales rep for a good chunk of time after closing time at work so I didn’t get to Skypark until 7:15 p.m.

I was easily able to find a parking place. When I walked in there were people hanging out on the bench at one end and people also hanging out on the bench at the other end . . . even with one court open! I quickly got into a game with Mark Dettle and Scott and another player by the name of Andrew—all regular players in Scotts Valley.

I played with Scott against Mark and Andrew, and there is no question who was going to win that game. I believe it was 0-8 before we scored a point. It seemed that Scott was still warming up and was making more errors than I was, though I had far more than I’d like regardless.

Binh

Binh had showed up and I was able to play against him in my second game. I forget who our partners were but they were both easier players. I forget who won that game but the loss was not on Binh and not on me.

My third game was Mark G. and myself against Binh and Scott. It was not my best game, but it was not Mark’s best game either. We lost that one.

Scott and I went on to play in against Casey and his dad Tim. I was not expecting us to win and we didn’t. That was a pretty lopsided game. We went on to have a rubber match and while Scott and I went ahead initially, Casey and Tim came back and won that game.

I went on to play some more games with Matt, his friend Paul, Aaron, and Tim.

In the first game of Matt at myself against Paul and Aaron, it was a fairly close game. However, the next game that was not to be the case has Matt and I decisively won that one.

There were some fun games.

When the last game was finished, I asked Matt the time, and he said was 9:22. Aaron and I were definitely ready to squeeze in another game—or partial game—but Matt was ready for a beer.

Hanging Out

Tim, myself, Paul, Matt, and Aaron, all hung out and talked about paddles for a while. Seems that the Legacy paddle is the new latest thing that everyone wants. Even Tim, who is the Selkirk representative with his demo paddles, was saying that he really likes the gritty face of the Legacy paddle. I just went on for a little while and it was shortly before 10 p.m. when I hopped into the car and headed home to ice my hand.

Rusty

I’m still a little bit rusty as this is only my second outing in nearly a month, but I wasn’t playing horribly. The back of my right hand is still uncomfortable and sometimes painful. But, surprisingly, not as bad as it was on Sunday. My right knee continues to hurt a little bit. I’m really hoping that the surgery in June will take care of it. Binh was saying to expect three months from the time of surgery before I’m out on the court and really playing seriously. “The way we play…” Yeah, it’s not easy for either of us to not be competitive!

Number of days on a court: 590
Number of total hours: 2,605
Number of paid coaching hours: 2

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

Thursday, April 6, 2023. (No Play)

This past Sunday was The Pickleball Slam featuring retired tennis greats playing pickleball. It did pretty well in the TV ratings.

Here’s a link to a supporting article:
“Pickleball Slam on ESPN Beats Out MLB, NHL, NBA in TV Ratings Race“
https://sports.yahoo.com/pickleball-slam-espn-beats-mlb-204453860.html

“Clocking in at just under two hours and 30 minutes, the event averaged 669,000 viewers, peaking at 796,000 during the concluding doubles match. By way of comparison, the audience for ESPN’s lead-out coverage of the XFL’s Battlehawks-Roughnecks game (502,000) was 25% smaller than the pickleball crowd.”

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Sunday, April 23, 2023. (Court Day #589)

I met with my orthopedic surgeon earlier this week and was debating whether to go ahead with surgery on my knee or not. I’ve had a pretty consistent mild pain in my knee when walking, and a bit more intense pain when twisting or turning on my knee in a certain manner. It’s not crippling and it’s also not agonizing. Regardless, my wife and my daughter, Charlotte—who is in medical school—are both recommending me going ahead with the surgery. The doctor thinks that it’s a partially torn meniscus.

Derby

I was very late to Derby Park this morning—for a site coordinator—and was walking in from my car at 9 a.m. sharp. I’ve never been this late to open. And it was not much of a surprise that parking was more difficult since I wasn’t early.

When I neared the courts a couple of minutes later, I saw that the club storage bins were open and all the nets are set up. Little Barb was there. I had told her a month or so ago, “if you beat me to the courts to feel free to open up the bins and set up.” When I asked her today what time she got to the courts, she paused slightly and shared with a sheepish smile that it was around 8 o’clock. (Very early!) There were a couple of games going when I got there.

Today was very slim on good players. I was unquestionably the best player there until Charles and Binh showed up around 11 o’clock to help make make the games more interesting. I never got into a game with all truly advanced level players. The best I got was Binh on one side and me on the other with each of us paired with a weaker level player.

I stopped playing about at 1 p.m., made sure everything was stored, and headed out about 1:20.

By the time I left, my body was sore from exercise fatigue. I wasn’t expecting that. It’s been nearly a month—3 1/2 weeks—since I last played since I’ve been giving both my knee and the back of my right hand time to heal . . . it helped some, but neither are all that great, honestly.

When I got home, I iced my hand, then my knee. I sat down to read a book in my backyard with my legs stretched out with my feet up on another chair. After about 15 minutes, my right knee hurt too much and I had to set my right foot down on the ground. Yep, surgery will likely be the way to go.

Number of days on a court: 589
Number of total hours: 2,603
Number of paid coaching hours: 2

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