Month: November 2024 (Page 2 of 3)

Sunday, November 10, 2024 (Court Day #739)

As I drove off from my house at 8:55 a.m., it was 59°F and sunny with traces of clouds. Fall has arrived. We had the heaters running at work this week for the first time since spring.

I was exhausted yesterday and was asleep shortly before 10:30 p.m., which is early for me. I woke up around 6:30 a.m. and my wife got up but then I managed to fall back asleep until about 7:45 a.m. I needed to catch up on rest!

Brommer

I pulled into a parking spot at Brommer Park at 9:09 a.m.

I asked the two guys on the wall if they wanted to warm up but they were leaving, So I sat alone. At 9:15 a.m., I was still waiting.

Soon, though, I got into a few games partnered with Kim. I wasn’t thrilled with my play, especially the first 2-3 games.

More Games

I got into some stronger games with René against Jay and Paul Winn. (Paul on a Sunday morning at Brommer is very uncommon.) These were closely matched contests. We barely lost the first and won the second. 

The third game I was feeling fatigued for some reason. Out of the blue, René made a comment about feeling really “mellow” about that game. I was falling apart and René was not sharp. We lost 11-4.

A Family Affair

A family was out on a court today with a bunch of little kids. Generally, I don’t care if a group of kids “sit” on a court. Today wasn’t an exception. But I did hear one player complain when the family group wasn’t rotating off like everyone else.

Unexpected Fans

During the last game, Jay was across from me and René was to my right. The court next to us had a group of players that I’d never seen before, and just peripherally, they appeared to be casual recreational players. We had a very long rally. It was probably the best rally of the day and, if not, definitely one of the best ones. Resets off slams, hand battles at the net, dink battles, it was a great long rally. Unfortunately, the ball was coming down fast my forehand, and I was unable to return the ball and it ended up in the net. Once our wild rally was done, we noticed a stray ball had rolled behind our court and they’d been waiting to retrieve it. One of the nearby players, who had been watching, interjected, “So that’s what it’s supposed to look like!” Another chimed in, “We don’t mind waiting for our ball when we get to watch the point like that.” 

That last game wrapped up at 11:40 a.m. I was supposed to be meeting a student 20 minutes early to review class material since it was her first day today—she was replacing a student who dropped out. (It turned out that she appeared about class time and didn’t come early after all. I could have squeezed in another game at Brommer. Oh, well.)

And?

My play today started subpar, got much better, then the last game was crappy. I just made too many mistakes.

As was evident today, I still need to be even more aggressive covering the middle.

I don’t know why I was dragging. I was yawning in the car on my way home after playing this morning. That, indeed, is a rarity! I can’t remember ever doing that before.

---

Friday, November 15, 2024 (No Play)

I spent the first half of this week in on a trip to New Orleans for a trade show. I flew back late Wednesday night. My daughter Charlotte flew in 20 minutes before me from Tucson but she didn’t want to wait for me to get my car from offsite parking so her boyfriend Aidan picked her up instead. My wife Kristen was well asleep by the time I got home. 

Instead of playing at Skypark last night, I had dinner at home with Kristen, Charlotte, and Aidan. Pizza and salad. Between Halloween candy over the last few weeks, the trip, pizza, I weighed in at the highest I’ve ever been. Ugh. I really need to cut calories and increase exercise.

Big Time Pickleball

Genie Bouchard hit an ATP in a tournament and it made ESPN’s SportsCenter Top 10. ATPs happen all the time, but as a high-profile convert from tennis, Genie is a celebrity. Sooo… pickleball on SportsCenter. Not bad for merely an “activity” for “old people”. Take that, haters!!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCCfXCrSePc

Video of The World Cup

I hadn’t seen an footage of play at the recent World Cup, but here is a few rallies:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBpaDzBAGS7
(I believe it’s from the gold medal match, but I’m not completely sure.)

---

Saturday, November 16, 2024 (No Play)

Stolen Storage Box

It seems that our club is not the only one to get a storage bin stolen. A few years ago, the metal bin with all of our gear at Derby Park was ripped off in the middle of the night. A similar thing happened this week in Washington State, unfortunately:
https://www.columbian.com/news/2024/nov/16/were-just-a-target-pickleball-players-call-for-more-security-at-washougal-court-after-theft

Canada Courts Hubbub

In British Columbia, courts were permanently shut down earlier this year. Here are a couple of articles about it. I heard that it’s now going to the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/pickleball-players-boo-north-saanich-council-decision-on-courts-9347597

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/saanich-pickleball-association-says-reasons-for-court-closure-unfounded-1.6991637

---

Sunday, November 17, 2024 (No Play)

With continuing family stuff going on with celebrating my mom’s 80 birthday, I didn’t go play pickleball this morning.

Pickleball Demonstration

That said, I did teach my pickleball classes this afternoon and I will share a story. It’s always embarrassing to be demonstrating a drill or a technique to my class and fumble it. Fortunately, most of the time, it goes well. And today, it went perfect. I was explaining offensive lobs and explained how I was diagonal from my one-time tournament partner with me on the right. I explained that he hit a drop shot and was running in. I told them that I’d lobbed into the far corner and won the rally. I had two students line up as “opponents” and had one crosscourt dink me. I lobbed off the dink and the ball lofted over their heads and dropped perfectly one foot inside the far corner. They were impressed. Could I get that shot most of the time? Probably. Every time that perfect? Nah.

Fight

Ouch. In Mexico, after a match, there was a very brief interaction resulting a player getting kicked in the face and knocked to the ground semi-unconscious:
https://x.com/jordiebarstool/status/1858282121867002034
Seriously. That’s assault.

Pickleball and the NFL?

This evening, I was watching a delayed recording today’s earlier Raiders-Dolphins football game. During the game, the announcers shared some video of themselves out playing pickleball! I took a couple of pictures of the screen with my phone…

Sonic Restaurant Chain with Pickleball Courts?

A Sonic location in Canton, Texas has three pickleball courts that can be reserved using their own phone app.

https://www.dallasites101.com/blog/post/sonic-pickleball-courts-canton-texas

https://www.ketk.com/news/local-news/new-sonic-in-east-texas-becomes-first-in-franchise-with-pickleball-courts

Here’s business-themed podcast video about the Sonic pickleball development. Most of the pickleball related discussion is in the beginning quarter with a brief mention toward the end of the show:

Number of days on a court: 739
Number of total hours: 3,011.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 96.5

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

Friday, November 8, 2024 (Court Day #738)

Tonight was the night that my sister-in-law Liz had invited my son Nicholas and me to join her and her husband Steve at a blacklight pickleball event in the Bay Area.

I left work early at 4:15 p.m. then stopped in Scotts Valley to get badly-needed gasoline. I arrived in Santa Clara to pick up Nicholas a few minutes after 5:30 p.m. From there, we headed together to San Carlos and had dinner with Liz and Steve right after we arrived at 6:15 p.m. (They were ready for us!) Traffic has been heavy in spots as expected for rush-hour. I changed into my pickleball attire. After chili and cornbread, we hopped into their car and drove over to the San Carlos Youth Center and arrived 5 or 10 minutes before the 7 p.m.start time.

The gym had about half a dozen LED blacklights on the floor around the perimeter of the gym and the organizers had battery operated Christmas lights hung over the nets. They were a little bit too frugal with regard to marking out the court lines—from one end of the court to the other, you couldn’t really tell where the baseline was other than from where your opponent was standing.

Originally, based on the instructions that Liz had shared in advance, they had planned for games to go to 8, win by 2. However, at the last minute, they decided to simply limit the games to seven minutes instead using the two large timers mounted high at each end of the gym. And that’s how it went. Seven minutes on, seven minutes off, seven minutes on, etc. over the course of the two hours that we were there.

Each ball had a tiny battery-operated LED light which was mounted into one of the holes. I was expecting the ball to wobble and bound oddly as a result, but the effect was insignificant.

To keep the games the most balanced, I played with Liz against Steve and Nicholas. At one point, Liz suggested that we mix up with other people which I think would have been fun, though Steve wanted to stick together, so we did.

I pointed out to the young staff that the San Carlos Youth Center there has the same initials as the Santa Cruz Yacht Club—SCYC. They were amused. They told me they keep their boats in the attic. They also had some cupcakes out, I helped myself to one!

Nicholas has developed a pretty good reliable deep fast serve. That’s nice to see. He also had a speedup from the kitchen that hit me in the chest. Boy, how to make a dad proud! I did not expect that! Ha ha!

From what I could gather, I didn’t see any players over a 3.0 skill level. That said, I wasn’t watching all the games and playing in the dark does change the equation fair amount. I don’t know if I would have looked like a 4.0 to an observer!

Once done, we headed back to Liz’s for some brownies and milk, then I dropped Nicholas back at his apartment. I was home by 10:45 p.m. 6 1/2 hours start to finish.

It was a fun experience, mostly due to the novelty and the fact that it was with family.

(Given the extra time waiting, I’m going to count the court time as 1 1/2 hours instead of the 2 hours we were there.)

Number of days on a court: 738
Number of total hours: 3,009
Number of paid coaching hours: 90.5

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

Thursday, November 7, 2024 (Court Day #737)

It didn’t feel chilly today, however, is definitely chilly as I drove to Scotts Valley. The temperature had dropped down to 55°F.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be driving to the Bay Area and picking up my son Nicholas in Santa Clara on my way to San Carlos. It’ll be the night of blacklight pickleball. Tonight, however, would just be black night, not black light!

Skypark

I was walking into the courts at exactly 6:40 p.m.

First Game

My first game was with the young fellow named Sam—who I played with before—against Mo and Jax. I went into the game with no warm-up and I definitely was not dialed in, however, my play did improve over the course of the game. We did have some pretty good rallies. There weren’t any dink battles—there were crazy firefights, with overhead slams, drives some midcourt, a lot of hard hits. It was a fun unusual game. Sam and I didn’t win, but we did make a game of it.

Mauricio and I played against Jay and Dr. David. It was a closer game than I was expecting until I started playing really well and Mauricio and I broke the game open and ran away with it.

Jay, Manda, Mauricio

The next three games were Jay and myself against Manda and Mauricio. In my estimation, I would say Jay and I were both the strongest players. And while we did win all three games against Mauricio and Amanda, they kept the game pretty close. Jay and I were making similar errors. For instance, on one rally, I hit the ball wide of the court to the left and a couple rallies later, Jay hit the ball wide to the right. And in another, off a drop shot, Jay dinked the ball into the net. A few rallies later, off of a drop shot, I dinked the ball into the net.

My last game finished up with not enough time for another before the lights clicked off at 8:30 p.m. I started breaking down a nets and Jay joined in.  We took down another and we called it a night. 

Number of days on a court: 737
Number of total hours: 3,007.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 90.5

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