Back on the road for work, this time to Farmville, Va. It’s another classic small-town that gets an annual 9-month population boost from Longwood University. It’s nice to see the youths out and about.
I didn’t get to the High Bridge Trail State Park this time through, but I’ve been before and it’s awesome.
I made some off-hand remarks about a willingness to drink water from a Stanley cup, so naturally I got a surprise gift from my wife.
Why wouldn’t it be from the Barbie x Stanley Collection?
The Western Ken model is tasteful and classy, like me.
And it blends in seamlessly to the truck’s cupholders.
My hydration situation has been improved immeasurably. And holy shit is this thing heavy when it’s full of water.
In Chicago. Found a spot to watch Liverpool at lunch. Walk in, ask for a table and the match on one of the 12 tvs.
“You can sit anywhere. We’ll put it on that tv, but we’re an Arsenal bar so you won’t get any sound.”
lol
As a long-time advocate of the McDonald’s cheeseburger (and a reluctant convert to the comfort of the Croc), the newest Happy Meal toy promotion is an awkward confluence for me.
I played well in my two Club Challenge matches this weekend with my pal Peter. We always laugh at how nervous we get at the start of these things. Like, legit Waco Kid shaky hands. We did some line shuffling as a team to lock in a favorable lineup so Peter and I were matched against a weaker line from a better team. It didn’t really matter, because we’ve been nice this year and we won the first match 6-4, 6-2.
The nerves and little too much coffee had me bouncing between zones 3 and 4, but we eventually settled down and handled things.
The format for the weekend is two days of play to determine the top 6 (of 12) teams, and then scores reset for Sunday where the top 6 play for the trophy. Our Sunday match was against a better team’s 1st line, and it was a tougher match. It didn’t help that I rolled my ankle pretty badly in the middle of the 2nd set, so I spent the next three games waiting for a pop or a crunch to end my match and season. We won the match 6-4, 5-7, 1-0 in a 3rd set tiebreak.
Once I was confident enough that my ankle wasn’t going to implode things settled down. It was a bit of a marathon match, though, and I’m still sore and tired.
Big Zone 3 energy out there, which is nice. That deep HR dip around 10am was the ankle roll. I had to take a minute to assess the damage and retie my shoe. I was sweating it.
As a first Club Challenge experience, it was a really good time. Probably because I played well and won my matches, but the whole thing was wall-to-wall tennis and watching/laughing/cheering with my tennis friends for 3 straight days. I’m unlikely to move up to 3.5 after this season so I should be in a good spot to make the team again next year. If i don’t make the team, I will 100% make time to go watch as much as I can.
4 stars.
Big, big doings this weekend. I made it on the Westwood Club Challenge team, so I’ve got a bunch of tennis to play and watch this weekend.
A big draw for me is watching the 4.0 and higher players hit. The pace they put on the ball and the smart way they position themselves bounces back and forth between inspiring and discouraging. They’re playing a different game than I am, it seems. This’ll be fun.
Started the day watching some pals play tennis to wrap up one of the many league seasons.
Grabbed a couple of hours at the pool on a surprising (and welcome!) warm afternoon.
And wrapped with a decent sunset.
And that’s really, really the end of summer.
We’ve hit a period where the Mets are playing respectable baseball, buoyed by Francisco Lindor who is having an MVP-caliber season.
This is a picture of him hitting a game-tying HR in the top of the 9th. The Mets scored 5 more in the inning and won 6-2.
He’s been an absolute rock all season.
Today’s tennis was downtown on the Arthur Ashe Jr. Courts at Battery Park, named so because that is where the multiple Grand Slam Champion learned to play. It’s a cool piece of tennis history and the courts were surprisingly nice, given that they’re public and in the city. You can never tell what kind of love they’re going to get in the annual budget, but these were in great shape.
We played well and won 6-4, 6-2. I’ve really enjoyed the combo matches this year. There’s only one more week of matches, but we’re still in the hunt for a playoff spot.
Zone 2 life suits me. It’s a workout, for sure, but I don’t feel completely wrung out at the end.