Sunday, November 2, 2025 (Court Day #869)

I arrived at Derby Park at 8:15 a.m. Today, we had an Aireo paddle fundraiser day for the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club. I was bringing a table and chairs and a canopy for the Aireo rep, Andrea.

I got into a throwaway game before the official start of club time at 9 a.m. So they wouldn’t be surprised, I had warned my game partners on the court that I would need to step out when Andrea arrived. When Andrea walked through the gate, I grabbed someone to take over my spot in the game and went and introduced myself to her since I’d never met her in person before.

She helped me set up the canopy and I watched her things as she went and grabbed paddles out of her car.

By 9:30 a.m., I was in a regular rotations of games. The first hour is mixed a skill play, so you never know who you’ll end up with as a partner. There are no games today where I felt that I was anything other than the best player on the court.

The waits were pretty long between games so those gave me plenty of time to talk to Andrea. A while later, Matthias arrived along with his foreign exchange high school student from Germany. Later, I noticed that Matthias got himself into some games too.

Minori came to the courts with her partner David L. and I got to see their new baby, Miles. Cute, as you’d expect!

My last game of the day, sometime after 1:30 p.m., was with Andrea from Aireo as my partner against a tall Derby regular named David and a young woman who I didn’t know. David was coming right off of a game and I was coming off a 20 minute or more wait, so it took me about half the game to get warmed back up. Plus I was getting stiff!

After one rally that we had won, Andrea complimented me, saying, “Good job! Way to move him around!”

I left Derby just about 2 p.m.

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Monday, November 3, 2025 (No Play)

After three years of residents petitioning their legislature with thousands of signatures, Washington State is offering pickleball-themed specialty license plates.

The initial cost is between roughly $150-$200, depending on if you want the plate to be personalized or not.

https://dol.wa.gov/vehicles-and-boats/license-plates/get-custom-plates/special-design-plates/state-sport-pickleball

The pickleball plates will raise funds to build and maintain courts in the state.

The Seattle Metro Pickleball Association held an auction of the first 25 plates.
“Net proceeds from the License Plate Bash fundraiser and online auction will go toward special plate setup and implementation costs, allowing court building and maintenance funds to be available earlier, the SMPA said.”
https://komonews.com/news/local/pickleball-state-license-plates-raffle-auction-washington-state-legislature-washington-state-department-of-licensing-dol-seattle

The auction event raised $7,790, with the plate “PB00002” going for $840.
https://seattlemetropickleball.com/wa_license_plate

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Friday, November 7, 2025 (No Play)

Today, I’m flying back from a trade show. I’ve spent the last four days in New Orleans working. I caught a cold on this trip.

New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart is a pickleball player, and says he hates to lose!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DQurrwjEtzx

Average DUPR?

The Dink shared this:
“We asked our friends behind the algorithm for the global average DUPR score. Turns out, a 3.35 is the happy medium.”

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Sunday, November 9, 2025 (No Play)

I’m still fighting a cold. I didn’t return to work yesterday. Today, I have class and after all the canceling that has been going on, I don’t want to do that. I didn’t play this morning, but I did head to Skypark for my 1:30 p.m. class. and teach for three hours.

I asked my brother John to fill in for one of my beginner students, but it turned out that that beginner student was just late significantly but didn’t miss the class. Since I asked my brother John to fill in it didn’t feel right to just have him stand after the side once my student arrived, so I drilled with him some.

By the time my Advanced Beginner class ended at 4:30 p.m., the sun was setting behind the mountains. As long as it doesn’t get rained out, I do have one more class next week. If it does get postponed for rain, I may need to move both my classes up half an hour, otherwise it’s going to be too dark.

The Blacks

David and Beth Black happened to arrive midway through my second class to drill off on a court. After my classes were done, I walked over and said “hello” and told them that they were very fortunate that they have a partner always available to drill. (A spouse!) David asked if I wanted to drill with them. I agreed and Beth and I played some two-on-one 7–11 with David at the baseline. We only played about six or seven minutes before a friend of theirs appeared at the gate while walking with their grandkids. They talked a few minutes and then when David came back to the court, he wanted to do something different. David and Beth played against me, with me having covering half the court. I beat them 11-1. I needed to get home, so I couldn’t stay. Beth kindheartedly complained, “You are going to beat us like that and just leave?”

Comedy?

Another comedian making fun of pickleball. I found this routine more annoying than funny, but some people in the comments thought it was hilarious.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOQ3F7GjYUu

Number of days on a court: 869
Number of total hours: 3,319
Number of paid coaching hours: 182

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

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.

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Friday, October 31, 2025 (No Play)

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

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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

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

Tuesday, October 28, 2025 (Court Day #867)

I left work and headed to my parents house. My sister and my brother have been working on clearing out parts in my parents house. It’s getting a little harder for my elderly parents to get around, so they’ve been working on widening passageways for them.

I loaded some work-related items into my car, including a couple of portable easels—one brand new—some old sketch pads with no artwork still in them, some old computer, peripherals, an old rotary paper cutter, and some other items.

After about half an hour, I headed to Scotts Valley did to try and squeeze in at least a little bit of pickleball.

Skypark

It was dark, but still 63°F when I arrived at Skypark. I figured that pulling in at 7:29 p.m., my odds of finding a parking space would be pretty good, and I was right, there were there was one parking spot open for me.

I had to wait about 10 minutes to get into a game. But once I did, it was fun.

Daniel, Daniel, Adam

I paired up with lefty Adam Raley against the two tall hard driving Daniels, Daniel Townsend and a Daniel Borlean. (It would be the two ‘A’s versus the two ‘D’s.)

For having not warmed up at all, they played pretty well in my first game. I made a few errors, but Adam was having a really hard time handling their power. It was a lopsided game with Adam and I losing something like 2–11 or maybe 4–11.

Rematch

I wanted to rematch and everyone agreed. But this time I suggested to Adam that we stack. Truth be told, we only did a half stack, that is, only stacking when we were serving. I took my cue from Adam for what he was comfortable with in terms of stacking.

That second game was night and day compared to the first game. Adam and I were leading 10–0 for before they even scored one point. They did go on a bit of a run, scoring, a couple of points, then a sideout, and scoring a couple more points, but we wrapped up the game and won 11-8.

That second game took a long time. It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody told me that it took 25 minutes.

Third Game

They suggested a rubber match, and Adam and I continued to stack. We were up 5–0 before they scored a point. Adam and I went on a couple of runs and we ended up winning 11–4.

At this point, it was 8:25 p.m. and the lights would be clicking off in five minutes, so there was no point in playing another game.

And?

It was quite obvious that in the last couple of games that they were targeting Adam. There were a few rallies where I didn’t even touch the ball once.

Daniel B. turned to the other Daniel T. with a smile on his face and said, “OK, no more hitting hard to Andrew.” This was immediately after he had hit a hard drive down the right sideline and I returned it hard and low to his toes for a winner.

Both Daniels can hit rockets. But I did pretty well tonight handling the speed. I distinctly remember several months ago, maybe it was even 6 to 9 months ago, and playing against the two Daniels, I having a hard time coping with their hard drives. But not tonight.

Pickleball with Elon Musk

Elon Musk has opened $1/hour pickleball courts Bastrop County, Texas near Spacex headquarters as part of community hub called Hyperloop Plaza. The story goes that the courts aren’t much more than concrete and lines, but more courts are more courts!
https://www.msn.com/en-in/autos/news/from-rockets-to-rackets-elon-musk-s-boring-company-opens-1-pickleball-court-in-texas/ar-AA1PUmuq

Number of days on a court: 867
Number of total hours: 3,312.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 179

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