just plain tired

It is a good time of year for basketball fans. College and High School are hitting the playoffs and even the pros are attempting to make their 'sport' entertaining.

My tennis season is coming to the playoffs as well. My body is sore all the time and I love it. It is nice to feel that I have improved over the last two years. My maturity on court is improved as I can focus more on the point I am playing and less on the point I just played.
For as crappy as I played last Saturday; missing over-heads, volleys in the net and serve returns into the ground at my feet...and a singles player for my partner...I managed to stay focused enough to help my team win.
It was a tough match. One of our opponents won the club championship several times before some medical set-backs and the other is very strong in his game. My usual partner got called away by a death in the family and we had to default our singles match. So, our usual singles player played doubles with me.
Singles players don't play doubles the way doubles players do. So we had many mis-communications on court and our movement (as a team) was atrocious.
With my terrible first set play we lost down a break and most of the faults (!) lay with me. The second set we needed to recover from down a break to win the set in a tie-breaker. Due to the length of the match being already 2 hours (2 hours allotted per match) we began a super tie-breaker, first to ten points win by 2.
Here our athleticism helped win the day for us. My partner is very fit and we can both run down lots of shots. We played much smarter and more sound tennis. Hitting the ball in front of our opponents and moving them around allowed us to dominate the next and we won easily 10-5.

What I took away from the match: If I continue to use the proper form and continue to play the ball in front of me I still have a chance to win. When I get lazy and DON'T WATCH THE BALL it is very hard for good things to happen. Movement is a key to my game. By being quick to the net and at the same time covering court for lobs I can be a nightmare for the opposition.

nothing to do with busy

My good friend is struggling with posting on his blog.

I can understand.

I think my biggest problem with 'blogging' is that, to me (duh), it feels a lot like busy work.

If I am going to write something, it isn't usually about events which concern the world. I write "stuff that pops into my head" style. So, most of what I write is more personal than political or commercial.

Yes, I think there are problems with and I do make reference to the 'real world' but it's not the focus of my writing.

BUT, in an effort to help my friend out, I will take two minutes out of my BUSY !!!! day and write.

The tops of the trees far above provided a quiet shade to the afternoon. The sun, bright and high kept me warm. I heard the birds and the squirrels and the insects talking to each other not concerned I was there. The big world held me in its womb and I languished in contentment of youth. I knew that people close to my heart couldn't be far away. But they were. As far as could be. Alone with my thoughts of warmth and breathing tree filled air I sat in cool grass.

Snow is falling

As my nuts retract into their warm winter pocket, I am forced to look outward through that covered hole in my wall.
I'm not a big fan of cold. I like snow when I can use it. But, mostly, here it's just cold.
Fortunately my e-mail address has won 4.2 million dollars from the UK Lottery Online. I hope it enjoys its spoils and remembers me with a nice gift. AND, two new singles want to talk to me !!!! How I love e-mail.

so, some gems I heard this past weekend...
"finish to the end"
"follow the leader" [think hard on this one]
"It's one of a kind unique"
"called her on the phone"

sigh, only in america ?

So, I am reading the box of pasta as the noodles boil away...

"cooking instructions
1. Boil water (3 quarts per 3/4 lb of pasta)"

ok, I say to myself...just because I'm sure I know the answer, let's look at the box to find out a little about this particular product...

"NET WT 12 OZ (340g)"

Fine, I say to myself...I'm sure that I know how many OZ are in one LB and go out on a limb and say one box is 3/4 LB of pasta.
Does this strike anyone else as odd? I like things simple, I guess. '3' and '3/4' seem to me to be unusual numbers insofar as we don't use either one of them very often if we (read, I) can avoid it. "I'll take 3/4 of a dollar worth please...or...It's 3/4 after the hour." No.

OK OK. How about let's round it up a bit...and say, "4 quarts per pound of pasta"
four to one seems a much simpler ration than 3 to 3/4.

Or, in the alternative, how bout, you know, say "3 quarts of water per box"...?
I can handle 3 to 1 ...can you ?

Or, baring that, how bout...you know, let's say, "NET WT. 3/4 of one LB"?

I guess, by law, they included the "340g" in the weight but neglected to include directions for 34 % of one kilogram. 3 quarts...oh crap, lemme convert for y'all...US or Imperial?...I'll just say 3 Litres
SO,
1. Boil Water (3 L per 1/3 Kilo of pasta)

More 3s ! and now a 1/3...fabulous

/end ramble

"Lunchtime, doubly so."

The cold of November has finally arrived. The worst week of the year has finally passed. Fall back, setting the clocks back an hour (time is now STANDARD), has got to be one of mankind's worst inventions. If one could call an idea an invention. Inventive...
Alas, the need for people to have their winter daylight spent at the office what have you, seems to outweigh going to work in the dark. Yes, I understand we needed to get away from the sun as a time telling mechanism. NO, I don't have to like it.
Maybe I am just spoiled as I get up when my children do and haven't used an alarm clock, well, crap, in a long while.

Speaking of being out of doors...?...Yesterday, after 4 days of 70 degree weather, no I'm not going to use celsius [OK I've spelled that word like 10 different ways and still can't get comfortable with it]....so, Yesterday, my daughter and I were outside in the moist and rainy day. The humidity felt high...ugh...the air was wet and the wind was a blowin'. I checked my weather rock, so I'm spot on. While she played digging in the dirt, I sat and lamented the rain in that I couldn't read a book or do anything to hide myself from involvement. So we went walking around in the drizzle having a silly time trying to find leaves to do some rubbings.

That's how I used my standard time.

P.S. Don't ever burn broccoli

the first repetitious redundancy, pt 1

So, I had a few minutes, I thought I might get started by explaining my position.

There are a few people who(m) will know redundancy as "superfluous repetition", see definition ,which in itself is perhaps the definition of 'ironic' as well...hmm...I mean, I guess there is such a thing as 'an appropriate amount of repetition'? Right?

I will open this by example of what might fall under the purview of my...we'll say...my point...as I develop this idea it might turn out I just believe in streamlining our stupid language.

"when I was younger I [insert past tense verb]..."

but NOT
"on last tuesday I [insert past tense verb]..."

To the point of streamlining, I am always reminded of my days in Korea...Let's say that me and my friends decide to go out for some wings. So, the wings are presented to us and the first fool jumps in (figuratively, hopefully)(maybe we are on our first beer yet) and says, "wow! That's HOT"!!!!!
I will let you all (at time of writing, me) imagine how the conversation goes...anyone? What's the next question? It's usually a two part question, isn't it? 'HOT HOT'? or 'Spicy HOT'?
Not the least bit efficient, eh?
The Koreans have a word, Mae Woe (imagine long A and Long O with silent e...isn't English cool!) which is used to describe something which, when you eat it makes your tongue scream for some relief because the object is hot like pepper. Not hot like licking a grill. Which is to say, spicy hot.

I will be doing my best to bump this, if these blog things work in a similar fashion to forums. Else, there will be spamalot of new posts referencing this very topic. /sigh

It's only Thursday

Hi and welcome to Chris'sssss adventures in asdf [space] jkl; [space]

Hopefully, as I do this more frequently I will be able to get over the 30 wpm hump.

I've started to blog !

My intentions are the same as all other PEOPLE who feel the need to open some part of their (my) interior to ...well, effectively 20 % of the worlds population... [not qft, nor checked for accuracy]

As I become more familiar with the program and its ins and outs, hopefully the presentation will go much smoother.

Now, My good and longtime friend, csf has allowed me to read his thoughts in the 'blogosphere', "his" words, not mine...so I thought maybe I could use this place as a sounding board as well.

First, the election has passed and America was forced to choose something unprecedented. A non-white president or a female VP. Very exciting. Maybe the US is starting to grow up, neh? Then again, with GBush at the head now, government is still dipping its hands into...well, things it shouldn't be, imo. I will not go into rant mode as yet.

I like beer. And irish whiskey and scotch. And golf...don't ask why. I hate the game, but always seem to have fun playing it. Beer is a pleasant way to spend a few days...what? Sorry. And I play tennis. I still play video games. My parents bought the original PONG back...oh, a while ago and I've spent about the last 30 years with gaming still hooked into my veins.

note to self, turn on javascript embeds for this website

I am particularly fond of my memories. Maybe, I will share them sometime(s). Because, what else do (I) really have? I originally had, "we" instead of "I", but that really made no sense.

I think I will post about redundancy next time.. It will be an ongoing, if that's possible, post...bumped up constantly as new ones pop into mind.

Enjoy the day
be safe, drive carefully, the roads are slick and there's lots of crazy people out there. [one more now]