Month: March 2024 (Page 2 of 4)

Sunday, March 17, 2024 (Court Day #638)

I arrived at Derby Park at 8:45 a.m. The sky was mostly clear, but there was a large bank of ominous clouds floating nearby over the ocean. Fortunately, those would burn off and it turned into a gorgeous sunny day.

Bruce

Today, I got games that were more challenging than Sunday last week. There’s a tall guy named Bruce. I’d only previously seen him at Brommer Park, but this morning, he came to Derby Park. Bruce is a good player with a long reach and is a blast to play against. I was able to play 2-3 games against him. Fun stuff. I think think the feeling is mutual. When I added my name below his in the sign up box, I heard an audible sound of approval from him nearby. Unfortunately, one of our group was a 3.0 signing up as an advanced player. Oh, well. It lead to a lopsided game.

Cimeron, John, J.J.

Cimeron and her husband John were there too. My last game was with her against John and J.J. Cimeron and I won that game 11-9. John and J.J. are primarily bangers.

In that last game, Cimeron was to my right and hit a crosscourt dink that went wide enough that J.J. was able to hit an ATP. The good news is that I anticipated his shot and was able to get my paddle on the ball but the ball ended up in the net. My cohorts on the court seemed pretty impressed regardless that I had almost successfully defended J.J.’s shot.

About five minutes later, a similar thing happened but this time John was the one going for the ATP to my backhand. He hit his low ATP and this time I was able to get the ball back over the net. Unfortunately, my return of the ATP was pretty high, and J.J. was able to do an overhead slam at my feet, which I was unable to return. Still, to be able to return a low and wide ATP as a backhand . . . there has to be some satisfaction in that. Cimeron was funny, “I’m tempted to do more of those to see what you can do with them!”

After the game, Cimeron gave me a compliment, “Your soft game is so consistent.” 

And?

I feel my play is continuing to strengthen and get better. I have been able to play four times in five days and that helps a lot.

I left Derby Park at 11:50 a.m. Ted closed for me so that I could go home and have lunch before heading to Willowbrook to teach this afternoon at 1:30 p.m.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, it was St. Patrick’s Day today. There was an atypical amount of green worn by people on the courts today!

Number of days on a court: 638
Number of total hours: 2,755.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 23

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

Friday, March 15, 2024 (Court Day #637)

I woke up this morning with my knee a little bit sore on the inner side and my back was a little tight.

I told my staff that I was going to take the morning off. I had a business meeting with my parents at a corporate attorney at 1 o’clock, so I couldn’t stay the full club session at Brommer Park.

If I’m going to return to my old form, either need to drill or play a lot. Finding time and a partner to drill has been a little difficult, so I’ll take what I can get, so play today it is.

I left my house at 8:35 a.m. I saw on the news last night that in Southern California severe winds knocked over trees and caused other damage. It has been somewhat windy up here as well the last day or two, so I was hopeful that the windscreens at Brommer Park would keep the balls from being too squirrely. It was a sunny morning with no clouds to be seen in the sky and the temperature was very nice 63°F.

Arrival

I pulled into Brommer Park at 8:48 a.m., and there was a boatload of parking. There were a few empty courts. A couple of players were wondering out loud where everyone was.

Play

Today was a dichotomy. I started playing extremely well. Game after game was great play by me. Very few errors. Good shots, good shot selection. It felt awesome. However, I had one last game with Mary Kay against René and Brian. I don’t know what happened to that game but my play imploded. Mary Kay and I were leading 5-1 but end up losing 11–6. I did get all my serves in, those were fine. I was popping up shots or not being quite in the right place on the court, and having balls come right to my feet. René did a couple excellent shots crosscourt at a sharp angle for a winner out of my reach.

René asked if I’d sign up for another game with her, but with my work obligations, I couldn’t and left at 11 o’clock.

And?

If you throw away that one last game, I had a fabulous morning. Top-notch. However, that last game kind of poisoned the session. But it’s been a long time since I had a series of games playing that well. I have to take consolation and hope in that.

I will say that in that last game, Mary Kay and I were on the side of the court with a tree shadows. The ball would go from sun to shadow to sun to shadow to sun to shadow all in the path from one side of the net to the other. I’d like to think it didn’t make any effect on my play, it did, unfortunately. There were probably two or three shots which were affected by me not being able to track the ball properly. Though once we moved to a court with complete sun, my play didn’t improve all that much, so who’s to say?

Players Paddles

I got an email tonight from Players Pickleball:
“Introducing Rogue2 Carbon with Ultra Gel-Core!”

And on their website:
“By adding MORE elastomeric Gel-Core™ material to the honeycomb core of the paddle in strategic locations, we have amplified the key benefits it provides:
Increased Vibration Damping for reduced fatigue and RSI-type injuries
Increased Paddle Stability on Off-Center Hits
Increased Sweet Spot Enlargement“

Sounds like something I might want to try.

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Saturday, March 16, 2024 (No Play)

Pickleball made an unexpected appearance in “good deals” YouTube video about Costco. Remember that Selkirk paddle set that my mom sent me a photo of recently? Yeah. That one. Pickleball is mentioned at 6 minutes and 50 seconds into the video.

Players Paddle

So I swapped some of the reward points I accumulated at Players Pickleball for a “$50 off” code. I was hoping to apply it to the new paddle on sale but when I applied the code in the shopping cart, it eliminated the sale and instead took the $50 off of the regular price, not the sale price. So the code only saves me $9 off the sale price. Hmmm. Save $9? Wait and use it later for something else? I’m going to give it a day or two.

New Class

I have a new group of students starting tomorrow. I used to get anxious about class starting, but this will be my fourth group and now I’m simply excited. I have no doubts that I do a good job teaching.

Pickleball Smash 2 Revisited

This popped up. Highlights from the Agassi/McEnroe rematch. I only saw highlights from the first one and only watched about 10 minutes of this one, but Agassi and McEnroe are getting so much better. This doesn’t quite look like a real pro match, but it’s getting closer.

Entertaining regardless.

Number of days on a court: 637
Number of total hours: 2,752.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 21.5

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

Thursday, March 14, 2024 (Court Day #636)

Today, I saw the social media post on Instagram slamming a pickleball product:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4dW6dNL72G/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D
The post is a “slap down” on Joola paddles. I haven’t heard of problems with them, but based on the comments, some people believe there are.

Coaching Scam?

On Tuesday, I received a message through the PPR website:

“Name
Juliet Briones

Email
[email removed]

Message
“Are you available to coach my son?“

I replied within a few hours with my experience, availability, and hourly rate. Then I received this reply the yesterday:

“Thanks for your email,I’m delighted to know you are available to coach my son with his lessons, he is 17yrs old. We reside in London (Lutton),I’m into Real estate and Hotel Management work here, My son Brian will be relocating temporarily to my sister house in your state, less than two week from this date and I’m hoping the lessons can begin.

What we really want for Brian is to improve on his Skills and strength and he has had a few lessons here in Lutton but nothing too concrete I must say so I guess you will be taking him partly as a beginner too though he picked up interest since he was about 7yrs old thereabout.

I would like the lessons to hold two times a week for 1hr each day of the lessons for a total duration of six weeks.how much would that total to? 

Brian’s time is very open so we would have you plan for lesson days and times that suits you.Thanks again for your email, do get back to me on this and we can proceed on arrangements then and Brian schedule is fully open now so anytime and day work.”

Now, I started getting very suspicious. I performed a few Google searches and could find nothing online about a “Juliet Briones” working in real estate near London. I checked and there’s a Luton that is very close to London, but Lutton is a good 40 minutes outside of London proper. While the grammar isn’t overly bad—some errors—there is some odd capitalization and odd vagueness in the email, such as “in your state” instead of just “California” or more likely “Santa Cruz County”, and also “two week from this date” instead of “end of March” or “first week of April”.

I replied with a very brief message about an hour after she sent it, breaking down the rate and giving the total, followed by my nonsensical trap:
“How long has your sister been here in Nevada?”
I also removed my location from the two email signatures (one from my previous email) that appeared in my message.

Then I waited… and this morning I received her message…

“Hello Andrew 

That Sounds Good.

My sister has been in Nevada all her life but I’m always in and out it there.

I’m delighted to know we are in agreement and I spoke to my husband about your rates and at this point, I’m most delighted to say we have a deal! I am willing to pay your asking price.I will be paying you by wire check as its the only way i can pay you at the moment.

If this is OK, I’ll need you to provide me with your full name as to be written on the payment, your contact address (where the payment will be sent to and your phone number.

Truthfully, I must say Brian is excited about meeting you as he has been telling his friends over the phone about his new coach in the states! and that he will going to the states to meet his new coach OK then have a great one and get back to me and i can make relevant arrangements then ,please extend my greetings to your Family.”

Ah, ha! Trap sprung. I’m not in Nevada. She reached out to me telling me her sister lives in my state, that is, California. SCAM!

Pickleball impacts Golf

It came out this week that 66-year-old two-time Masters golf champion Bernhard Langer had to drop out of his last-ever tournament before retiring, but tore his Achilles tendon going for a lob while playing pickleball.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/03/13/bernhard-langer-pickleball-masters/#
Ouch!

Skypark

I was able to arrive at Skypark at 6:18 p.m., since I had one of my staff close the family business for me. I had to park down the street and around the corner—I knew this was coming with the city restricting parking at the courts.

There was no tennis going, only eight full courts of pickleball players.

There was about an hour of sun after I arrived. It was a nice evening. The wind gusts that had been happening all day had died down, so they was no longer a factor.

Denied

Tim and his son Casey walked out to an empty court that one active foursome hadn’t shifted to. I hadn’t played yet, so I walked out with them. I asked if I could join them, and said in a self-deprecating fashion, “I can subject Casey to me.” Casey paused and looked back across to the waiting area and said, “I thought Sean and Danny were going to play.” I could tell Casey wanted more than an Andrew “warmup” game. I politely left the court and returned to the waiting area. Puzzled, Sean asked me, “What happened?”
“I got booted.”
So, Sean and his brother Danny took my place.

Great Game

But the game I did get into was a blast. I played with Avery against Markus and Oscar. It was a really good one. We had a lot of long rallies with resets, firefights . . . it was great. It was a close game that Avery and I lost by a small amount, but Avery and I shared the blame. This one was far from all on me. That was the game of the night.

Although I was losing end of a lot of games tonight, I felt like I was playing a little bit better tonight. Maybe the rust from last 6 months is starting to come off. I still feel like I’m missing shots that I should be making. On the other hand, I will say my drop shots are getting really reliable.

By about 8:30 p.m., I was dying. I was so tempted to just go home but I ended up playing for another hour. I had packed a protein drink and a snack bar, but I had forgotten to eat them. I downed the protein drink right about 9 o’clock, and, of course, it would take a while for it to kick in, but at least took the edge off of the hunger. Boy, I was dragging. Moving around on the court seemed like a big effort. I noticed myself being out of position after winners hit by the other side. Part of that may just been from the fact that I just didn’t want to make the effort to move.

The lights clicked off about 9:30 p.m. and I headed home.

I took two ibuprofen, put the ice pack on my knee and crawled into bed.

Backpack Quest

While continuing to research my ideal pickleball backpack, this product was mentioned for carrying shoes. It looks pretty good:
https://klitch.co

On Tuesday night, I saw that Binh had a Gearbox backpack. I liked all the pockets. That’s a possibility for me.

Number of days on a court: 636
Number of total hours: 2,750.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 21.5

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