Tennis party at Hope & Coco’s

Charles Krug’s Generations 2016 is yummy.

The first party at someone’s – the hosts are gracious. It was fun.

It’s not shocking but amusing to watch the relationship between people and food. I hosted enough parties to know …

You would think that people who loves to eat, and eat like xxx would restrain themselves somehow … But many times it wouldn’t be the case. They forego the dessert plate – small, and pile up high with sweets in the large plate that used for main course. They leave used tableware and cups/glasses everywhere, as if they’ve maid at home who picks them up all the time.

 

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Five week pickleball tourney

Today starts the five-week long tournament, with six teams, each team has 7 players.

Bad line calls are prevalent. During our first game, there were two bad calls from my shot to the right side of the line. We lost to them 9-11.

The next game, there was a bad line call again. One of the spectators said it was good. One of the opponents said, it was their call. So the out stayed. A little moment later, my partner called their shot out, the same opponent said that we were event. It didn’t sit with me well. I let go the close calls, always thinking that 99% out is still 100% in. Oh well.

The standings

  Teams Nov 07 Nov 14 Nov 28 Dec 05 Dec 12 Total
 Day Dinkers Nov 7   6  1  5  4  5  21
 Fireballs  2  3  5  4  3  17
 Del Sol Blue Nov 28   0  2  3  5
 Mid Court Crisis Dec 12  4  6  4  4  5  23
 Crushers Nov 14   4  5  3  3  5  20
 Kitchen Crew Dec 5#1  8  7  4  4  3  26

Pickleball five weeks tourney

昨天开始五周长的皮克球比赛
这次是分几个队赛 双打
我们小队有8个人
俺打了三场 只赢了最后一场. 太多好球被对方叫出界 [吐][抓狂]
11-13: 二次
9-11: 一次
11-1

俺修养不够 会不高兴一阵儿[偷笑]
教练常说 好球被对方叫出界 是不可避免的. 完全知道 所以俺通常不叫近线球
… 游泳就不会有这种情况 [偷笑]
🏊🏊

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Pottery #6: glazing again

Today is our final day, of six Mondays session. To conclude it, we’re glazing again, on the pieces we made in the previous sessions.

We got our first session‘s creations back: flowers, turtles, mini plate, etc. My little turtle was broken.

We learnt to pour the glaze into skinny jars where you can’t get to it with a fan brush.

I’m dutifully recording each layer of glaze in the ClayLab app.

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62′ dive @ Blue Grotto – my record

Setting record on my dive isn’t really my goal but it just happened: I went down to 61.9′ with Chris, an instructor @ Blue Grotto Williston, FL. It’s a few minutes north from Devil’s Den, on the other side of the road.

.. more pix n videos on Google Maps

The entrance fee is $55. It’s the first time that I pay for my cylinders, at $12.50 each – they were covered during the training period. Blue Grotto rents out at $11.50 (air & Nitrox). But EAN32Fill is $15.50.

Woods & Water’s t shirt is pretty nice, I wear it everywhere. To manage the weight, I bought a wagon to transport my gears. It’s neat in the bag in the morning, and messy after the dives.

There are many creatures in the water. The most famous are two turtles, Virgil and Turbo. I saw both but only caught one on my video – the sealed case didn’t work well, water got in … fortunately I  saw it and stopped the bleeding – the phone still works.

 

… and the compound

… and my newest handbag: Sherwood ST1000 flash light -:) finely made, that includes the package box.

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My first pickleball lesson

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 卧虎藏龙嘛 – Byron Freso ran our pickleball tournaments, who also ran the one at USTA.

Byron is our pickleball head coach, likes to call me Miss Irene. He gives private lessons, both individually  and with group up to four.

My first lesson with him is fruitful. He’s a good coach, in that, he builds on what you’ve.

“Take your time.”

CAN you imagine, taking time to line up shot in pickleball? Time, is what the sport doesn’t have. All goes quickly and intuitive reaction. But listen to him repeatedly, I do see the point: that, I do have time to pause, see where the ball is coming from and where it would likely to land.

He likes my forehand topspin, “I was never a good tennis player,” he would say. Toward end of the hour, he suggested two paddles. I tried them both and liked them both. He sells at cost. So I’ll have a new paddle … my last tennis racket purchase was a century ago -:)

He was at my first pro pickleball tourney which was held at USTA in 2022. He remembered the Jewish graduation ceremony. “That was the first time. I went there this May again. It’s annual event now.” He’s the chief umpire.

Jack Sock got destroyed …” he said. I last saw Sock playing was this April, at Sarasota Open. How did he degrade into such low state? He was once No. 8 in singles (2017.11.20) and #2 in doubles (on 10 Sept 2018) in tennis.

Although pickleball is easy to get into, but to master it, request the same hard work -:) duh. “The top pros make over $1m and the top 1 or 2 travels with their trainers. … A pro team sells for $5m. Tom Brady, Kim Clijsters, etc. are owners.” According to him, Clijsters lives in Florida with her three children.

After the lesson, he said, “you’re going to play tennis …” Of course I’m -:).

有眼不识泰山🦷

皮克球的风云人物
一堂课下来 累死了

他说 “明天又去打网球🎾…”
俺 “施压”
简直糟蹋他的时间 [偷笑]

6⃣️ 是去年俺第一次看皮克职业赛 … 他是那里大拿 大碗 大大大
“年年都要去…”

他介绍的拍子都非常好用
鸟枪换炮 [偷笑]

周末快乐

 

 

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Utility wagon

After a few dives, I realized that I need a wagon to carry the heavy load of my diving gears, especially after the dives – they become extra heavy due to wetness.

Coincidentally, the day I received my wagon from Amazon, I also got IndiGogo email promoting  the next new thing – Lithely: Electric Utility Wagon with Power Bank. It’s with six purchasing options:

  1. $255 (52% off)
  2. $199 (52% off)
  3. $219 (47% off)
  4. $275 (48% off)
  5. $389 (53% off)
  6. $429 (48% off)

Pretty costly (compares to mine) but only loads up to 132 lb. It looks almost identical to the $52 that loads up to 200 lb. When it folds, it doesn’t look compact to me, looks bulkier than mine.

The new new thing has always been in the eyes of beholders.

Charlie Munger says a lot of venture capitalists screw their investors, per Fortune magazine.

It was 2012, I ‘invested’ $250 on a projector that you could use your laptop to display, bypass a conventional projector. It was by a Beijing team. … of course I didn’t receive anything, and never heard from them again. I understand my risk and could be park with $250. I made no noise, till now -:) Vulture capitalists, as one reader wrote.

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Pottery #5: glaze

Ya, we’re glazing, finally! With so many colors (Amaco), the fun part begins.

It’s the week 5 of our six weeks session. The teacher suggests the app Clay Lab to keep truck of our pieces.

Glazing in pottery, I feel is a part of science and part of art: two shades mixing up will turn into totally different colors, when you apply differently – like this one: the top is obsidian under white, and the bottom under grey. The result is so drastic.

Sax’s color is truer

I glazed three pieces: my flower and mini sauce dish. My turtle is missing a leg and pumpkin was broken into pieces. This pumpkin is made by a classmate who’s not coming back – I’m practicing on it.

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4 strokes of luck

the pretty moon this morning

I often use ‘front crawl’ as the breaststroke. Why? I’ve no idea. Actually, front crawl is freestyle lol

My bad.

Don’t know what I’m talking about.

Butterfly at its peak, is faster than free … but freestyle is an endurance style that can go miles on end.

So, once for all (myself mainly), the four style of strokes of swimming are:

  1. freestyle – also known as front crawl
  2. butterfly stroke
  3. breaststroke –
  4. backstroke

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Speciality diving course: flash lights

Section 6 of Advanced Adventurer is Nigh & Limited Visibility Diving, my second specialty course. Home read would be enough but SSI makes you to go to the hone hour long class and pay.

The content can’t really fill the hour, so we talked about other things.

 

I saw this ad for a small cruise going to Galapagos, when the diver only has a snorkeler.

“It’s a free dive,” the master said. Then he looked closer, and said, “I would fail her: wearing snorkeler is fine but it shouldn’t be in the mouth …”

Ha, one of the misleading advertisements.

Galápagos Islands is part of Ecuador, population 33,000 (2020), in the eastern Pacific Ocean, around the equator. It’s about 5 hour fly from Miami. The normal cruises that offer diving, is during the port time, using the land diving operators.

Diving from the boat, is liveaboard that offered overnight stay, can get in 5 dives a day (of course you can do less …)

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Speciality course: navigation

After Open Water Diver, comes SSI’s continuing education: Advanced Adventurer. They call it specialty course. The reading material for this bundle is 160 pages. It has 12 sections, with overview and quiz but no exam, at the end.

Section 5 Navigation, done in two hours, review and practice of how to use compass. We went outside to practice, counting out steps. A little silly tho… who’d count their kicks in the water?

The shop sells writing pad too – the slates. One of the slates is Saekodive, made by a Taiwan company. Wondering is it as good as Sherwood and Genesis brands?

Not sure how useful a slate can be. I’ve no desire to buy one at the moment.

There was another lesson going on prior to ours. It has only one student. On the table, are many gadgets and the tv screen says Communication

Underwater communication devices
Surface communication devices

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