Thursday, October 30, 2025 (Court Day #868)

So, our family business that I run closes at 6 p.m. Generally, I’ll work until 6:45 or sometimes as late as 7 or 7:15, but tonight I left at 6:15 p.m. and had to one of my staff close.

I stopped by my parents’ house, I needed to pick up some things since my sister and brother have been continuing to help organize and clean. I picked up some art books to take to work plus things to take home, two old Macintosh computers, as well as an assortment of HO scale train paraphernalia. I grabbed a quick bite, making myself a sandwich while I was there. From my parents’ house, I headed towards Scotts Valley.

Skypark

I arrived at Skypark at about 7 p.m. and found two parking spots in the lot. There were a few courts open, but not enough players waiting to play doubles.

Savannah, the tennis coach at La Madrona Athletic Club, was there. I talked to her for a few minutes. She says she isn’t at LMAC as often since she’s taken a job as an assistant tennis coach at UCSC. That explained the blue UCSC sweatshirt and matching cap visor that she was wearing. While we were waiting for a fourth, I got invited into a game with Brandon, Matt Babb, and little Scott and I abandoned Savannah with a quick explanation. I ended up teaming up with Brandon.

Games

Brandon and I were down significantly in the first game. Having not warmed up, I was making a lot of embarrassing errors. But as I hit more and more balls in that game, I started performing better. The score started getting tight but we still lost.

We played a rematch and this time Brandon and I won by a handful of points.

Scott was spinning the ball like crazy. It was annoying—meaning it was a good tactic for him—but you do get used to it.

We played a rubber match and Brandon and I won this one as well by an even wider margin.

We played one more game with the same configuration of players and this time, Brandon and I won 11–2.

You can see the trend in those games as I warmed up and we adjusted to each other’s style of play.

Mix

At this point, we mixed up players and I played with Matt. Matt said that he wanted to subject a new partner to his poor play.

Nonetheless, this was still lopsided win for my team.

Night, Night

It was now 8:26 p.m. and time to call it a night.

As I left, there was still one game going on with David L. and Aaron Hicks, and Mauricio and one additional player trying to finish their game before the lights collected out at 8:30 p.m.

While it was a chilly 57°F, it didn’t feel cold.

One of the things that I am working on is having a positive mindset while playing. Tonight, early on, after a few errors, I started to get hard on myself. I recognized that and I instead told myself that I’m a strong player and I play well. Did it work? I think so. At the very least, I had a better experience.

Friday, October 31, 2025 (No Play)

Pickleball ratings bouncer. I really enjoyed this funny skit about stereotyping:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPgdnQiDWbK

Saturday, November 1, 2025 (No Play)

Teachme.to, a startup based in San Diego, has been petitioning Apple to include a pickleball emoji on the iPhone. Here’s there blog post about it:
https://teachme.to/blog/hey-apple-wheres-our-pickleball-emoji

And here’s a news article covering it:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/san-diego-startup-petitions-apple-it-s-time-for-a-pickleball-emoji/ar-AA1EpKqO

Here’s the sample emoji:

Number of days on a court: 868
Number of total hours: 3,314
Number of paid coaching hours: 179

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