Tournament

The tournament players.

 The mayor is front row center.  He read a proclamation, made March the Official Pickleball Month in LHC.  He's not a player - yet.  To his right are Tim and Carol; they got PB going here, have donated hundreds of hours to the effort.  Great people!

We had our first annual LHC pickleball tournament this week.  It was a 'fun' type event with only local players - as opposed to a sanctioned 'open' event with people coming from all over.  We only have 4 courts, all indoors, none at all outdoors; would need 10-20 outdoor courts to hold an open tournament.  The city has lots of park space but no outdoor tennis/pickleball courts whatsoever.  Go figure.

The sign in table.

Buy paddles, balls, T-shirts, raffle tickets.

Although not a big fan of tournaments, being one of the regulars, I felt obligated to participate.  If we make enough 'noise' and get enough publicity maybe we'll convince the city to build several outdoor courts.  I played in both men's and mixed doubles but didn't place in either one, didn't play all that well.  My partners did their best but both were new to the game, had only played a few times, lacked the skills and locked-in strategies that only come from spending many hours on the court.  I've been playing off and on for 35 years now and know the game well, have no excuse whatsoever for making dumb-ass mistakes - but make them I do.

The mayor's proclamation and tournament medals.

Partners are paired to even the playing field, to avoid having one highly-skilled team dominate the competition, making the winning team a foregone conclusion.  Thus, we teamed the most highly skilled player with the most lowly skilled, and then worked towards the middle, 2nd highest with 2nd lowest and so on.  Most of the winners were mid-skill pairs.

That guy in the foreground, is he as tall as he appears to be?

Yep: 6' 8".  He's also 15 years younger than most players - and is the best player I've ever seen.  Guess who won men's doubles; he could have won all by himself, didn't really need a partner.

If you want to learn more about the game and find out where you can play, go to usapa.org.  There you'll find the rules, tournament videos and state by state lists of the cities where the game is regularly played.  As we travel this summer, I'll be a drop-in player in several cities along the way.  It's a great way to get exercise, have fun, and meet the local folk.

Ludlum & Clancy

Several years back I was an avid reader of these two authors.  It's been a long time since I've read either one of them and it's unlikely I ever will again.  Both authors crossed the line long since.  My line.  My line isn't really a line per se.  Its very fuzzy, can't draw it in the sand.  Think of it as shades of gray on a piece of paper with white at one end, black at the other, all kinds of grays in between.  You schlock readers, listen up: there are more than 50 shades.

Both writers were, perhaps still are, great story tellers.  Their stories were action-packed thrillers and I loved reading them.  Then, the love died, killed off by excesses in the writing.  In Ludlum's case, it was an excess of characters and places and plots and subplots.  Said I, "Yeah, there's a story in there somewhere but I'm tired of sifting through extraneous crap in search of it.  I'm outta here!"  

In Clancy's case, the excesses were in high tech stuff, political and military organizations, acronyms and superhuman heroes.  Said he, "Story be damned!  I'm famous and wealthy and people will read anything I write so I'm gonna use all these technical terms and acronyms and government agencies and unbelievable characters as much as I damn well please."  Once again, trying to follow the story line through the maze just wasn't worth the effort.

Last night I watched The Bourne Legacy (Ludlum).  The night before, I watched The Sum of All Fears (Clancy).  I read both books years ago: Ludlum was just stepping over the line; Clancy was still well behind it.  I enjoyed aspects of both movies.  Both had excellent casts and great action sequences.  Sum was best by far, was able to follow the story line, no problem.  Bourne, like the book, was over the line, disjointed, skipping and hopping around like a cat on hot tin roof.  Half way through, maybe earlier, I was mostly lost and remained that way for the duration.

My junior year in high school, , inspired by a challenging remark from my history teacher - something about the number of characters and pages - I read War and Peace.  Yeah, it was a struggle.  I certainly wouldn't include Tolstoy in my top ten list of greatest authors.  Not even the top 100.  Seems like Ludlum and Clancy evolved into Tolstoy wannabes.

Is it me?  Have I become a simpleton over the years?  Weigh in here if you will: have you read these guys?  Are you still reading them?  Do you connect at all with what I said above?

Who's Driving?

I've driven lots of buses.  All kinds of buses, big ones, small ones, some in great shape, others so beat up that driving them was a real bitch.  Likewise, the roads varied a lot, most being okay but a few quite rocky and hazardous; a couple times there were no roads at all, not even a track.  Most of my adult life was spent in the driver's seat.  I enjoyed it and I was good at it.  It was a natural fit, square peg in square hole.  Sometimes the passengers requested that I drive; other times I was following orders from above.  No, no, not that far above.

Driving wears on you after awhile.  Nowadays, I'm content to sit back and enjoy the ride, let others do the driving.  That said, I do still enjoy donning the harness occasionally, especially if the bus is going to a fun place, like the houseboat on Lake Powell.

I need to qualify that 'sit back and enjoy the ride' up there.  I don't enjoy the ride if I think the bus is going in the wrong direction, taking a roundabout route, or moving at a rate that's either maddeningly slow or recklessly fast.  In that event, I don't sit back either.  If I can't convince the driver to change whatever needs changing, I'll take over the driving myself - or at least attempt to.  If all else fails, I exit at the first opportunity.  There's lots of good drivers out there, no need to stay with a turkey.

Shit!

1.       Monday AM, I drove home from Apache Junction (east of Phoenix) where I attended the annual Super Bowl/Poker Party/Mini-Reunion with my college fraternity bros.  It’s always fun hanging with these guys but it would have been even more fun if I had won my fair share of poker hands.  Just my fair share, mind you.  After losing nearly every hand for several hours, I tossed the cards to one of the guys, told him to keep them.  Had to be the cards’ fault, right?  I grabbed a new deck, but that didn't help.  Same old, same old.  Shit!  Gave away that deck, too.

2.      Tuesday dawned cool, calm and sunny, perfect for outdoor pickleball, players due at my place at 9 AM.  A while back I’d invited the usual suspects – 10 advanced players - to play here on Saturdays and on weekdays when the indoor courts are unavailable.  I put down fresh chalk lines, set up the net, the backstops on the driveway, chairs, about 1.5 hours to do everything.  Nobody showed; I forgot to send out a reminder notice.  Shit!

3.   “Okay.  I’ll run errands instead.”  Had to hit the bank, library, Kmart.  Hopped into the truck, turned the key: clickety, clickety, click.  As Bones said, over and over, on Star Trek, “It’s dead, Jim.”  Shit!

4.     Grabbed my portable jump starter, hooked it up to the pickup battery, hopped into the cab, turned the key: clickety, clickety, click.  Shit!

5.     Trish is out of town so couldn’t jump start from her car.  Shit! 

6.      I plugged the jump starter into an outlet, hoping it would work after charging up awhile. 4 hours later, I hooked it up again, hopped in, turned the key: no clickety, clickety, click.  The engine started.  Something finally went right!  Went to Auto Zone, bought and installed a new battery, stopped at bank, library, Kmart.  Kmart didn't have the stuff I specifically hoped to find there but did have a few things on the grocery list: pickles, bottled water, AA batteries.   

I checked out (“No, I don’t have a rewards card.  No, I don’t want to apply for a rewards card.”) set the grocery bags in the grocery cart, in that raised area near the handle where toddlers can sit, and headed out.  Crash!  One of the bags fell through the toddler leg hole - the bag with the pickles, of course.  Broken glass, pickles and screaming yellow sticky pickle brine everywhere.  This happened directly in front of 3 check-out lines filled with people.  Know what I said when the pickles exploded on the floor?  Loud and clear so everyone in the front of the store could hear me?  You guessed it: “SHIT!!!”

I had more errands to run but decided not to risk it since my daily shit-tolerance level was already well beyond red line.  Time to boogie on home and pour a strong one.

Turtle Dove

Ever wondered about it, how turtles and doves are related?  Kind of a stretch don't you think?  Doves don't eat turtles; turtles don't eat doves.  Interbreeding seems an extremely remote possibility, don't even want to think about it.  They don't resemble each other in the slightest, don't sound alike, don't live in the same habitat, don't even hang out in the same taverns.  Anyway, they've been called that for ages and everybody
accepts it without question.  Until now.

Actually, the disconnect in the name appeals to my sense of the absurd.  And, since we're talking absurdities, I've come up with some new names for fine feathered friends yet to be discovered.  They're living out their quiet, obscure lives in Amazonian jungles and lesser known regions of Africa and Australia.

Chimpanzee Chickadee
Buffalo Bushtit
Cockroach Cockatoo
Alligator Albatross
Grizzly Grebe
Whale Warbler
Aardvark Auk
Hyena Hummingbird
Platypus Plover

I could go on.  And on.  But, no, I'll wrap this up with one of several theories about the turtle dove name.  Allegedly, this bird's song is a deep, purring 'turrr, turrr' that kinda sorta sounds like 'turtle'.   Hey, don't blame me!  I didn't name the doggone thing!

Buses

Buses by the Bridge is an annual January event in LHC and it's happening now - as is the annual balloon festival.  Yesterday, we did the Buses, after whacking a bucket of balls at the driving range and before whacking a burger and fries at In and Out Burger.  Hey, did we pull out all the stops or what?

Hundreds of buses of the VW persuasion gather in the state park for 3 days along with the owners thereof, groupies, hippies and assorted camp followers.  And I do mean assorted, everything from Rastafarian types in rags and dreadlocks to the swave and deboner.

A few - damn few - buses have been totally refurbished and/or customized and look like a million bucks.  At the other end of the spectrum - the larger end by far - are the beat-to-shit rigs that look like $1.98.  The majority, though, are in the middle somewhere: they run, they look okay, but they're nothing to write home about - or blog about for that matter.

You may detect a hint of sarcasm (Who?  Me?  Nah!) or wonderment in my comments, a bit of "I don't know what kind of weird disease these poor folks have but I darn sure don't want to catch it!"  You see, I'm mystified by car fanatics.  And motorcycle fanatics.  All flavors of motorized vehicle fanatics.  To me, vehicles are tools.  They take you from here to there.  If you take good care of them, they will also bring you back from there.

Granted, vehicles are more useful than your average tool, a hammer for instance.  But - they're still tools.  I love tools, both new and old - but not enough to haul them around the country to tool shows several times a year.  Not enough to spend countless hours swapping tool tales with other tool nuts.  Not enough to join a tool club so I can spend even more time immersed in tool mania and trivia.  I thrive in a much more diversified life style.

It's all a matter of perspective I reckon.  Maybe I'm the oddball, the one with the weird disease, the main symptom being 'the inability to stay focused on any one thing for an extended period.'  Actually, I may not lack the ability but I darn sure lack the desire.

Sunspots

Colors influence moods and feelings.  Red = excitement.  Blue = calm.  Yellow = happy.  Green = envy (just kidding).  Lines and shapes influence us also, although it seems we're less aware of that influence.  Horizontal lines = relaxed.  Jagged lines = excitement.  Diagonal lines = movement.  Dots = buoyant.

One of my how-to art books has a small picture of brightly colored spots.  The picture appealed to me and inspired me to paint Sunspots.  The appeal of the little picture, sort of a feel-good thing, carried over to the painting.  It wasn't until I finished the painting that I fully realized the mysterious appeal of the colors and shapes wasn't really mysterious at all.  Anyway, I'm now more aware of color and shape influence than I used ter was. 

Sunspots

Acrylic on Canvas,  18" x 24"

December, 2012

I'm something of a 2-year old, always asking, 'Why?'  Why the feel-good?  Is it the obvious - they remind me of balloons and lollipops - or is it something much more deeply ingrained?  I'm inclined to think it's the latter, maybe dating back to our hunter-gatherer days when those shapes and colors meant fruits and berries, food that was easy to get and easy to eat.

"What's for dinner tonight, honey?"

"I was thinking either fruit or saber tooth tiger steaks."

"Aw gees, I'm tired, had a long day, just not up to battling one of those nasty, stinking cats.  Then you gotta skin the darn thing, cut it up, pound the living crap out of it until it's chewable, heat the BBQ rock for a couple hours. Let's go with the fruit."