Splittus Interruptus

Sets 417-418:

Stuart v. R. at Westlake High. Winner: Split. 6-2 (Stuart), 3-6 (R).

My Mojo: Tough But Slipping.

I started off playing a strong game. My footwork was excellent throughout most of the match and I was getting to shots that surprised even me when I got to them. Much of the stuff I was returning off the tip of my racquet I was able to hurl back solidly and with decent placement. At the beginning of the match, I was hitting powerful, deep strokes that allowed me to take charge of the carnival. My opponent tried to throw me off balance by hitting me some weak serves and drop shots, but I got to most of them, and I was able to turn the tables on him by playing a strong net game from where I ended up. I even dabbled in his strategy by hitting the occasional dink shot, just for amusement. It seemed to me that my opponent didn't handle most of the unexpected strategically weak balls nearly as well as I had done. So I felt like I won the first set pretty easily.

But in the second set, R, started surging back with strong shots and good strategy. My footwork was still strong, but I failed to maintain the focus on foot and body placement that I had previously had. He started playing good set-up shots for a net game, and then he was playing the net well when he got there. There's a doubles player's strategy for you. To top it off, many of my attempted lobs went embarassingly short, and that allowed him to dominate the net area and slam them down the court like bullets. Many of the second set's games were close, but he edged me out. I still felt like my energy was excellent, and I think I could have brought my focus into play again.

I was ready to play a third set, but he wanted to leave it where it was. There's a cognitive dissonance when the symphony is unresolved; I'd rather go belly up playing the oboe solo than walk away with the power chord hanging in the air waiting for closure. Oh well, next time I play a close contest like this, hopefully it'll be with someone who follows the sheet music all the way to the last trembling movement.

Windsurfing

Sets 415-416:

Stuart v. J. at Northwest Park. Winner: Stuart 6-3, 6-3.

My Mojo: Lucky Wind Blowing My Way.

I wish I could say that I won this match with absolutely brilliant play, but actually, I felt like I just kind of fumbled my way into a win. It was very windy, and there were gusts that would come up suddenly and even change direction occasionally. I think that I just got the lucky end of the stick with respect to playing in the wind.

My serve was not working the way I wanted it to at all. So I started experimenting with ultra-spin against the wind, and I alternated freakishly overspun serves (both spinning to the right and to the left) with hard, flat serves. Somehow, these seemed to get in the box. I can't say that they were doing what I wanted them to do, but the wind was cooperating to get them over the net. Also, I tried to play to my opponent's placement. Sometimes he would move in, so I would go for a slam serve to a difficult place to reach in the box. Then he would move back, and I would slice the crap out of it, or shoot a reverse slice. Not all of these worked, but it seemed like more of them did than didn't.

I think my opponent was having a much harder time with his serve. His groundstrokes were very solid with a lot of topspin, but once again, the wind was catching them in weird ways so he was getting a lot of shots either long or in the net. When he got in a good, deep, well-placed topspin groundstroke, it either put me on the serious defensive, or it whizzed by as a winner. My groundstrokes just seemed to get a little more lucky. I can't say it was completely luck on my part, because I did close some points really well, and I surged at the end of each set, but it was also in part due to my opponent's errors and possibly his frustration at having the wind take his shots apart. Heck, I'm used to my play in general taking my shots apart, so what's new...I just followed my usual pattern of trying to get one more shot over the net. I did get some good placements in some points. But I couldn't even begin to get anything approaching good footwork with the unpredictability of where the ball would fall, and I was returning a lot of shots late.

A Slow Dropoff

Sets 413-414:

Stuart v. E. at Travis Country.  Winner: E.  6-3, 6-2.

My Mojo:  Solid At First, But The Balloon Slowly Leaked Air.

It was just about perfect weather for playing tennis tonight.  It was just a smidge on the cool side, so that when I got moving, it felt like optimal exercise weather.  When I started this match, I was in a great mindset, and I was moving really well.  I had ample time before the match to center my mental gravity, though having a well-toned mindset just didn't seem to be enough as the match progressed.  

My strategy felt really good at the beginning of the first set.  My serve was not working as well as I would have liked, but it was decent, though I did double-fault two or three times in the first set.  My opponent was playing really well, and seemed to get more energetic as time went on.  My energy didn't appear to diminish, but my focus and rhythm seemed to slowly deflate.  So by the middle of the first set, I was not getting winning combinations in as much as I had been.  It wasn't so much that I was not keeping pace, but I just was not closing the points well, and I also saw my errors creeping up.  So at the end of the first set, I was just not getting the games in, though we were having really good and energetic points.  

When the second set started, I briefly revitalized and recalibrated, and I was able to get some aggressive strategy going.  Also, my serve flared up for a few games and I was getting some well-placed, solid serves in the box with good spin control.  That was helping me keep control during the points, though most of my game was baseline play.  But once again, the balloon started slowly deflating.  Plus, my opponent was getting much better net play than I was.  I just couldn't seem to get good approach shots in that would get me to the net, whereas E. was getting there much more and getting some great putaway shots through the domination of the points she was getting by making solid approaches to the net.  Also, I was getting to a lot of "impossible" shots just a tiny bit late, and shooting the ball off into the seventh circle of oblivion from the tip of my racquet.  One good thing that I had going for me throughout the match was that my mental state was good enough to still feel competitive, even when I was down, and I never did get into that dejected funk that seems to keep a player from putting on a decent three-ring circus.  My rhythm was just a a thimble-full off, though, and that put me under the bleachers for the last half of the match.  And because of this, my footwork was not happening as well as it had been when the rodeo started.  Those factors in my play, combined with the fact that E. seemed to be playing more solidly as the match progressed, just etched the epitaph on my tombstone as I gracefully exited to stage left, leaving the awards for another day.  

Unanticipated Fortune And Then A Good Match

Sets 410-412:

Stuart v. J. at Hunter's Chase.  Winner: Stuart 4-6, 6-4, 7-5.

My Mojo: Tenacious And Steady.

Yesterday I had gone to a group lesson at Pharr, and I think I had had the worst tennis day I had since I started this blog.  I played like a three-legged frog in a field full of excited hillbillies.  And my mental attitude was so melted that I knew a half hour into the lesson that I had no business being there.  But, for some reason, I went through the motions anyway, though I was mostly playing worse and worse.  And, surprisingly, I got a couple of near-perfect winner shots in.  I guess in the scheme of things, it's not too surprising to have two good shots in an hour and a half.  But that's how bad I had been playing; I played so poorly that I pretty much gave up.  So I went home and went to bed early and comforted myself with the thought that after a good night's sleep and a day's rest, I HAD to do better than I had done at the lesson.

Today when I got up, I felt much better, and figured I would play better tonight.  I was right, but I'll get to that later.  Strike two happened when I went home for lunch, and on my way back to work, I got in a wreck in my car.  It was definitely not my fault at all.  Some lady turned left in front of me from the lane to my RIGHT as I was approaching to pass her on the left.  She was stopped in her lane, and I started to pass cautiously and slowly, because I had no idea what she was going to do.  Then I saw her left turn light come on, and I thought, "Oh, crap!"  I slammed on my brake and came to a complete stop, and I thought she was going to change lanes.  If she had just changed lanes, she might have cleared my car, but she actually turned left, and the back of her car clipped the front of mine.  I tried to hit my horn, and I briefly thought of trying to go into reverse, but I didn't have time to do either of these things.  I heard a sickening crunch, and I thought it was going to be worse than it was.  Once, when I was in a city bus, I felt an impact that felt about the same as this one, and the car that hit the bus from behind had its front end totally crumpled in.  So I prepared for ugliness.  But we both pulled over, and amazingly enough, there was only some lightly scratched paint on my car and a panel that was moved inward about a quarter to a half an inch, but I don't think it was dented.  There was some denting on her car, but not a lot.  She admitted it was her fault, and agreed to work it out with me after we traded insurance info and I called the police.  Well, if she doesn't come through, I don't anticipate the repair will be that expensive anyway, but I've got the facts on my side, that's for sure.  Man, did I luck out.  I mean, to have gotten into a wreck on a major thoroughfare with two cars pointed in different directional vectors, I almost could not have asked for a better outcome outside of not impacting at all.  I was just amazed that it was such a good outcome, and thank Mithras that I was defensive and paying attention.

So now to the match.  I got there late because traffic was terrible and my opponent told me to get off at an exit that didn't exist.  So I overshot it, and then started panicking, because I was not familiar with this end of town at all, and had no idea where to go.  Luckily, I backtracked and found it mostly serendipitously.  So I was only about seven minutes late; no big deal, really, since I had had many opponents be later than that and I had taken it gracefully.  So karma owed me, and besides, I was late because of the directions my opponent gave me.

In the first set, he was hitting some well-placed power shots that were forcing me not only to play very defensively, but just barely be able to return the ball and not place it well.  I felt like I was in a box for a while, but slowly started adapting to his game, and relaxing into my responses.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen before the first set was over.  Still, the first set was very close, with long games and drawn-out points.

In the second set, I strengthened my play in mid-set (but not before I was down 4-1).  I caught up, and then won the set by hitting more solid returns and playing for position more.  Still, when I caught one of his bullet train shots late and did a barely-return, he usually managed to slam them down my gullet decisively.  I benefitted in this set in a few points from rallies that consisted of his whopping power shot, then my weak return, then his well-placed cannonball, then my minimal return from a position that probably both of us thought I would never get to, then an error by him on an attempted put-away.  Shots like that probably gave him the edge in this set, and that's really nothing for me to be proud of.  But I did win, and it was a solid close.  He had this monster serve on ad court that whizzed near the mid-line that he aced me on several times, but I got more and more used to that, and by the end of the second set I was getting most of those rather than missing them.  Also, I was hitting a lot of shots on the frame of my racquet, mostly from badly reading the spin he put on the ball.

The third set is when I really shone.  My play was getting better and better, and was very low in unforced errors as the end grew nearer.  Plus, in the third set, my serve was getting me great advantages, and I was dominating more points on my serve.  My returns were also getting more solid and aggressive.  I actually felt my energy growing rather than draining.  To top it off, I was hitting less shots on the frame as I got better readings on his spin and ball speed, and I was guiding the ball into the sweet spot of my racquet better.  When we were at 2-2, I thought my plan would be to keep pace with him and then surge at the close, and that was pretty much what happened.  And "keeping pace" is an understatement for what happened; I think we had some of the most drawn-out, nail-biting games of the whole match in the last set.  Of course, I would have liked to take a lead early, too, but I figured his serve would give him too much of an advantage at first (which it did), and I would be better positioned to pull out the last-minute burst of energy than he would  I think I might have dropped a game or two as his power shots briefly made a triumphant return, but then I played a tough, consistent game to tie it at 5-5, and won the next two games solidly, both breaking his serve, and taking the game I served through power on the serve.  My movement and placement strategy had also been getting better throughout the third set, and in the last two games, my strategy was working better than it had the whole match.  Another thing that I think helped my game in the third set was that I didn't get tired and frustrated, and I had a lot of patience.  I was able to plan things out well, and more often than not, my plans worked.  And I was ready for a long, dug-in, close contest.

When the match was over, I felt like I was still ready to play more.  I even thought briefly about trying to see if he wanted to play another set just for fun, but I just didn't think he would want to at that point, so I didn't ask.  I thought he might be at the point that I was at a half-hour into my lesson last night (discouraged and tired), and if that was the case, what good would playing more do either of us?

Soft Doubles and Hard Singles

Sets 408-409:

Stuart v. T. at Hill Country Middle School.  Winner: Stuart 6-0, 6-3.

My Mojo:  Squishy For Doubles, Solid For Singles.

I started out playing doubles, but it was weird doubles.  There were five people, and we would rotate one person out and one person in after each game.  So after four games, each of us found ourselves on a different team.  I don't mind that for practice, but as competition it is just about useless to keep the game score.  So we didn't keep score of how many games were won or lost, we just kept the point scores in the games.  

After several games of this, I peeled off one of the players to play singles with me, and the other three played two-on-one.  At least I guess they did.  There weren't any courts open at Westlake High, so we moved to Hill Country Middle School down the street.  So I don't actually know what the people we left behind at Westlake did.

When I had been playing doubles, I was very tentative.  I didn't feel like I was playing that well, though the games that I served, whatever team I was on won fairly easily and we were able to grab the offense easily and keep it throughout the game.  So I guess I must have been doing something right.  But I didn't feel like I was very tuned in for doubles, and most of the games that I played the team I was on lost.  Of course, once again, it was stupid to think of it in terms of winning or losing since the teams shuffled around every game, but I guess I just can't help compartmentalizing things in that way.

When T. and I started paying singles, it was like the curtain rose and the scales fell from my eyes.  I was playing solidly, and in the first set I was able to maintain a pretty good offensive game.  My serve didn't seem to be giving me as much of an advantage as it had during doubles, but everything every other facet of my game was really well-congealed, and things fell into place easily.  And my serve was not bad, either.  For the first set, I took every game, and it seemed almost effortless.  I think we had one or two games that were contested, but I was able to close those without too many problems.

In the second set, his game stepped up, and mine loosened a little.  For the first six games, we each won our serve so the score was tied at 3-3.  The sixth game was also the most challenging game of the match as we went back and forth from deuce to ad a lot and also had long nailbiting points with many surprises.  Then I broke his serve, and from then on, I was able to win the rest of the games.

My New Year's Letter

Here is my New Year's letter that I sent out to close friends and family:

Happy New Year to all of you, and as we enter another new year, each of us grateful to be still alive and kicking, here are some of my thoughts about the passing of time:

The 60s are as far away from our present time as the 20s were from the 60s. My kids like to listen to the Beatles and one of my daughters has said that she likes David Bowie. Isn't that comparable to a child in the 60s being into Rudy Vallee or Sophie Tucker? My 12-year old daughter made a phone call to me this year to tell me that she was excited that she was
actually using a rotary telephone at a friend's house, and that she had for the first time dialed a phone number using the rotary dial! And I heard my other daughter talk about how she liked to watch "old movies" (she was referring to movies like "Pretty in Pink" and "The Breakfast Club" from the 80s).

Anyone who is between 70 and 80 years of age has been around for about 1/3 of the time that the United States has been a nation. People in their 40s have lasted through about 1/5 of the tenure of this country.

Though there is nobody alive who remembers the French Revolution or the American Revolution, there are people around who remember the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia, the imprisonment of Eugene V. Debs, each of the World Wars, the Great Depression, men walking on the moon, and the first resignation of an American president. And many of us also vividly recall the assassinations of John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John Lennon, Indira Gandhi, Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin, and recently, Benazir Bhutto.

There is at least one widow of a Civil War veteran who is still alive (or at least was as of September of 2007). Check this link:
http://www.footnote.com/page/1882/maudie-acklin-cantrell-hopkins-last . And just as amazing, check out this article about Revolutionary War widows who were alive in 1920:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9802E6D9173AE532A25757C2A9669D946195D6CF&oref=slogin . Yes, there are multiple veterans still alive from World War One (not a lot, but still there are more
that you might expect): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surviving_veterans_of_World_War_I .

So many of the things that we take for granted and that are central to the way we live have only been around for a miniscule fraction of the history of humanity: oil, television, the Internet, telephones, computers, automobiles, electricity, microwave ovens...each of these items are used by many of us on a daily basis, but for long stretches of time, people lived without them. Yet one cannot say that the majority of people throughout time lived without them because our planet is so populated that a vast majority of the people who have existed throughout
human history have lived in the last 150 years, well within the domain of time covered by one of these listed inventions. With the population growing and the stores of fossil fuels dwindling, who knows how much longer we will use some of these things?

Also, take into account the number of things that have become virtually extinct, or almost so, by the path of rapid technological change: the telegraph, phone booths, computer bulletin board systems (BBSs), computer punch cards, drive-in movies, the slide rule, the stock ticker, laser disks...I'm sure many of you can think of other things that have become obsolete in the last few years.

Think about your ancestors--you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, expanding by a factor of two as you go back, so when you go back
twenty generations (which could be anywhere between three hundred and a thousand years, depending on the average age of each generation as they had children), you have over a million ancestors! What a paradox this appears to be considering that the human population is growing at an exponential rate, yet as you go backwards, you have more and more people in
your ancestry each generation. Of course, the further you go back, the more you see duplication of the same people in your ancestral lines, so this number may be somewhat (though not completely) illusory. Maybe this helps explain the song, "I'm My Own Grandpa!":
http://www.ziplo.com/grandpa.htm .

Feliz Año Nuevo! Just don't spell it without the tilde or you are talking about a rectal transplant.  Feel free to pass these thoughts along to another gaggle of unwitting victims...or not...