Tuesday, August 30, 2022 (Court Day #539)
After work, I practiced bagpipes for 15 minutes, then drove and imposed on my mother to give me a haircut—which she is done my entire life and is quite good at it! (The price is right and we get to visit too.) Fortunately, my parents’ house is on the way to Scotts Valley, so it was a short hop from there to Skypark and I arrived at 7:30 p.m. The parking lot was completely full and even overflow parking was completely wonky … but there was a street spot nearby.
First Game
I jumped into my first game tonight without any warm-up. I was partnered with Charles against Texas Mike and retired firefighter Matt Smith. This was a great game to get into with all pretty good players. Charles and I won handily. At one point we were leading 8-0. They did end up scoring a few points, but the game was never in doubt.
In that first game Charles asked if I got a haircut. I told him he was the only one to notice. Charles said he was sorry that no one else noticed, but I explained that I had my haircut about 15 minutes before he appeared at Skypark.
Mike and Matt wanted to rematch of course, so we did that. This time I didn’t play nearly as well. I hit some of my service returns too deep. I hit my drop shots too high. It was overall not nearly as good. We ended up losing by only a few points, but that was mostly Charles’ stronger play and not me, otherwise it would have been worse.
Ouch
In the second game of Texas Mike and Matt Smith against Charles and myself, Matt hit one of his crazy hard drives and the ball smacked me in the right index finger of my paddle hand. It was hard enough that it broke the skin and caused some bleeding. I didn’t feel like it warranted a Band-Aid, but a few points later blood ended up on my left hand also. Charles asked if I needed to stop for a Band-Aid, but I told him no. After the game is over, however, I did put a Band-Aid on my finger. The downside with the fabric Band-Aid, is that my index finger was now slippery on the handle of my paddle. It was annoying but I still had three fingers and my thumb so things went OK. I don’t think I want to ever play in a tournament tournament like that however!
Easier
Nearly any game would be a step down after those. I played a game with the Hispanic fellow named Mark against TK and his friend Ryan. TK said, ”It been a while since we’ve played together, you need to tell me if I’ve improved.” He was the very first server and promptly served that ball into the net. I kidded TK, ”Nope!” I was the strongest player on the court but it was not enough to make up for Mark. We lost.
More Losses
I played with Darrell against Matt B. and his friend Paul W. Darrell and I were not playing our best, he was tired and I was also tired. We got blown out the first game 11-1 or 11-3 … regardless it was a very lopsided game. Matt and Paul played well. We went on to have a rematch, however that loss was quite a bit closer, 11-9 or 11-8. We played a third game in this one was back to lopsided—I think we lost 11-6 or 11-5. We lost all three games.
For the last game of the night, Paul stepped out at allowed Aaron to get in as Matt’s partner against Darrell and me. Even in this game while it was closer, Darrell and I still lost. I was playing a bit better than Darrell in this one, but still far from stellar. We finished our last game a few minutes before the lights clicked out at 9:30.
“Beer-30”
Matt B. had brought some beers so we share those were talking about pickleball for another 45 minutes.
Wednesday, August 31, 2022 (No Play)
A few years ago, my brother John bought a cabin in Arnold, California, about three hours east of San Francisco in the Sierra foothills. I’ve never been there. My sister went up to stay this week and texted a photo to a few of us this morning. Yep, a pickleball court!
Arnold has a population 2,099. The City of Santa Cruz has a population of 65,000. If Santa Cruz had the same ratio of permanent courts to people, it would have 31 courts. Santa Cruz has 0.
Number of days on a court: 539
Number of total hours: 2,454.5
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