Author: andrewlenz (Page 244 of 330)

Friday, March 8, 2019 (Court Day #244)

I was in San Antonio, Texas for a few days starting the last weekend in February for an annual art materials trade show for work. I was visiting a booth in the show when, Rob—a casual acquaintance and the owner of a vendor company based in Illinois—walks across the aisle and asks the woman in the booth, “Do you know what his nickname is?” He paused, then with a big grin, told her, “The Velvet Hammer!”
I was stunned. That’s only in pickleball and not many people use it.
Incredulous, I asked, “How did you know that?” He looked at me, still smiling, “The Pickleball Forum on Facebook. I play pickleball!” Turns out he’s been playing for about a year and is signed up for his first tournament in a few months.

The next day Rob’s wife shared with me that she won’t play against him any more since he’s very competitive and he’ll hit her with the ball to win! “I thought it’d be something fun that we could do together . . . but nooooo!”, obviously both amused and vexed at the same time.

ATP Drop Shot

At the Facebook Pickleball Forum, someone posted a link to a video of a “new shot”. I’m not sure if it’s new enough to warrant a different name or merely a variant of the Around the Post shot:

Finally. Playing!

The rain has been pretty constant this year with outdoor play pretty rare. I arrived at Brommer Park at about 9:10. A few games were already underway. It was chilly enough that I wore a sweatshirt to start—a sign of California winter. While warming up, a shower opened up, leaving heavy drops all over the courts. It was a mix of sun and scary gray clouds. The courts dried out then it had another very brief shower. No one left the courts!

Today, I played every shot—as I have been—left handed. While there were periodic wild shots, my lefty game is improving. I easily made most of my serves, at least 75%. And some were getting deeper. There were some net rallies that I won. I have to say, there’s a real sense of satisfaction and success going toe to toe with an opponent at the net volleying back and forth and still winning even with the disadvantage of playing with the opposite hand. John P. commented that he was impressed that I could even do anything at all with my left hand and that I was especially good at the net.

I was in the car shortly after noon to head home to get ready for work.

I’m so ready to play again right handed but I’m resigned to the possibility that it may be six months or more. Frustrating.

PickleballForums.com

I’m continuing to tweak the setting and features of my forum project. Again, I have no idea if it’ll take off or just be a fruitless fun exercise. But, if I can even get 1 out of every 10,000 players in the USA to be an active participant, that’s 200 people. I’d be happy with that. Maybe I can get folks for other countries. And pickleball is only going to continue to grow. The hard part is both letting people know about it and also getting people to participate. With 0 posts in a section, that’s not going to inspire confidence that it’ll be an active community worth the time to post there. Dunno. We’ll see.

Number of days on a court: 244
Number of total hours: 673.5

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

Monday, February 18, 2019 (Court Day #243)
Presidents Day

On Sunday, as site coordinator I optimistically visited the Derby Park courts with three towels and a broom in tow. As I walked in, the black asphalt walkway in direct sunlight was still wet. I was thinking, “If this is wet . . . this is not good.” Partway up the path, Dave Allenbaugh checked in. “How are the courts looking?” A minute later, I opened the gate. “No way.” There was standing water on the courts. There would be no club play here today!

Sunday. When you can see clear reflections of the trees on the courts, that’s bad!

Today, I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:15. It was sunny and dry though somewhat chilly. I’d be playing left-handed again. Recovery from tennis elbow is slow going. It’s been six weeks since I’ve played right-handed on January 1, and while there is progress, I suspect it’s not even halfway to healing. I can still see this going six months or more.

John K (near) on a court with Wayne across the net at Brommer Park.

Today was a mix of good and bad. Good? Dean yelling across the courts from another game, “That was about the best backhand I’ve ever seen you do!” Partnering with an older man named Steve, he and I bested Janet and Jean 11-0. I was partnered with Kim against Carl and a male partner whom I don’t know well. Kim said, “It’s cool that you can do that [play left handed]. If I were to do that, I’d be a complete spaz.” And in one game, I made all my serves—that’s a first for me playing lefty. But later, I missed about 40% of my serves. I made shots that went completely wild. Early on, my game was rusty and poor, I so desperately wanted to switch to my right hand. It was frustrating.

I was done at 1:05. About a dozen players were still going, but after nearly four hours and losing my last three games with frustrating play, it was time to go.

I had a surprise when I got home. My back hurt! I’ve been playing so little, it harkened back to my early days of playing where my back would be fatigued and ache after a session. Only playing four times in nearly two months is taking its toll. The only other thing of note, was that I tweaked my right ankle a little bit once in the midst of a game, but it was not significant. That ankle is still recovering.

Thursday, February 21, 2019 (No Play)

The Project

So, the last month or so, I’ve been working diligently in my free time on a project. With incessant rain and my injured arm, I’ve had more free time—time that I would have otherwise spent on the courts! On March 21, 2017, about seven weeks after starting to play pickleball, I registered a domain name, pickleballforums.com. It had previously been registered by Chris Allen of The Pickleball Show, but being that it was free for the taking, he must have decided to let it go. I’ve sat on it for nearly two years. (As an aside, in recent months, there haven’t been any new podcast episodes of his show, so he’s either on a long break or has stopped producing them.)

I did some reading, picked a forum software package (phpBB), installed it, waded through hundreds of styles (appearance designs) and many dozens of extensions (additional feature sets) then settled on one style and a handful of extensions. I edited some php/HTML code and tried to bend the forums to my liking. I made a header image and an assortment of icons for each of the forums I’d opted for. I may still add or subtract a forum, but we’ll see. It may be a complete waste of time. But, heck, there are over 2,000,000 players in the USA and it’s growing and the game is expanding into countries where its never been played. I have no dreams of grandeur, but if I can get a sponsor, I can cover the hosting costs. As it stands now, I’ve sunk about $150 into it plus 50-100 hours of time. I enjoy learning new things and am a bit of a tech head. Heck, that’s how I ended up with a university degree in computer science.

So, here’s what the forums look like on a computer screen:

And on a mobile phone:

I let Dave Allenbaugh, the webmaster for the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club website, know about it and he offered to post a forum link on the club website, but he’d have to run it by the steering committee first. The committee happened to meet about a week ago but they are still discussing it.

This past Sunday, I let the cat out of the bag and emailed about 80 local players for whom I had email addresses. As of this moment, 15 people are registered, including myself. Only three people have posted . . . me, Dave, and Terry Long—in that order! (Terry said he registered and posted as a test.) People seem very sheepish to take the lead and post anything. It’s hard for me to work out any kinks with almost no one posting.

Beth Black thought the idea of an online forum was a great one and offered to help put some money toward it but I turned her down. Wayne also asked if I needed financial help. Nope. I’m not looking for money. If it’ll fly, it should survive with some income from banner ads. If not, then I’m just out what little I’ve put in.

Maybe next week, I’ll extend some further invitations. Eventually, I’ll share it’s existence on some of the Facebook pickleball groups. Facebook is very convenient for uploading photos, sharing video, and live streaming. But it’s hard to revisit topics. And topics quickly get lost in the never-ending stream of posts. With an online forum, things are organized and it’s fast to navigate to specific topics of interest.

I just hope it helps some players out there. Like may things, time will tell.

Number of days on a court: 243
Number of total hours: 670.5

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

Wednesday, January 30, 2019 (Court Day #242)

I arrived at Derby Park at 9:07 a.m. Being that it’s Wednesday and not Sunday, Dave Allenbaugh was the site coordinator for the day, so I could afford to show up a few minutes after opening time if I felt like it.

My left pointer finger knuckle is still sore from getting hit dead on with a ball, but other than when I touch it, it feels fine. The big issue is the lingering tennis elbow.

Karl was talking to someone on the bench while I was playing, “Andrew is a lot more fun to play against when he’s playing left handed!”

I missed about half my serves today. I have the hardest time serving left-handed. Last time, it was tolerable, but today was not so great. The good news is that my tennis elbow is gradually improving, but I can see it taking another 3-4 months. Shaking hands with people is still painful. Just not as painful.

A new guy named Jerry came today. He’d never played before. I’d say he’s in the middle ground of starters. He can mostly hit the ball over the net, but isn’t great. Yet. There’s promise there. His biggest issue today was not getting up to the kitchen. He admitted it was his tennis background. Baseline.

In the last game of the day, playing against Karl, the new guy Jerry with Wayne as my partner, midway though, Karl said, “If you keep playing like that left-handed, we’ll have to make you play with your left foot!”

They may be impressed, but I’m feeling cumbersome and frustrated at times. I’m a good sport about it—it’s a game after all and I’m not in a tournament—I do find the humor in all of it, but still I want to play better. In the end, when I do eventually switch back to my right hand, it can’t hurt to have a better developed left hand to switch to as I’ve done here and there in the past.

Project

I’ve been working on a pickleball project. I’m not quite ready to spill the beans, but hopefully soon.

Number of days on a court: 242
Number of total hours: 667

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