Belated wrap up

Let’s see how far I can get with this.

I was nervous Friday night about the tournament on Saturday.  I had no idea how it would go, it’s been almost a full year since my first real tournament action.  I went through my night before ritual.  I pulled out my big volleyball bag and got everything ready.  I cleaned my decade old M-frames, I got my food supply together which consisted of some nutrigrain bars and a few slices of apples.  My hydration would consist of gatorade and red bull.  I packed towels, extra white socks (not for me, for people that never heard of sand socks) and enough changes of clothes for an entire weekend.

I actually woke up without the alarm Saturday morning at 5:15, guess I was ready to go.  I quickly slammed down a power breakfast consisting of chocolate fudge pop tarts, a zone bar and a glass of skim milk and then quickly whizzed through the normal morning routine.  I was on the road by 6:15.  The tournament was in Deerfield Beach which is north of Fort Lauderdale.  Even though I didn’t have any traffic issues, I didn’t arrive to the site until almost 8:30, it was a long haul.

I walked up to the beach and took a survey.  Deerfield Beach is nice, I had been there once or twice before.  They have a long fishing pier like Naples, except this one you have to pay to go out onto.  There is sort of a mini-boardwalk in front of the beach, minus the boards.  Instead it is a strip of bricks in front of a number of open air eating places.  Anyway, I quickly saw a couple familiar faces.  I didn’t see Randall however so I sat my stuff down.  I got out my sunblock and started applying it, something that is a must anymore since I have had two chunks cut out of my head now.  I spotted Jeremy and shortly after that, Randall walking down the sidewalk towards us.  I still had my shirt off from putting sunscreen on.  Both of them knew about my 300 workout thing and both of them who haven’t seen me since January said they noticed a transformation.   I was surprised they noticed anything but at the same time thought it was cool that the fruits of my labor in the gym are actually producing visual results.  It gives me good motivation to keep pushing.

Anyway, Randall and I caught up a bit and lugged our junk down to the far end where the lowly BB players play.  I pulled out my quickly deteriorating vintage XFL black football and we threw it around for awhile.  Randall has taken to a few of the weird volleyball tips/habits I have come up with over the years which I appreciate.  We set up his pop up shelter and got ready for the day of battle.  Earlier I was able to find one of the few vioxx pills I had left which I took to minimize swelling I was sure to encounter throughout the day in my knees.  It had an expiration date in 2004, I didn’t care.

The one team playing in our pool consisted of a guy from Poland and another guy that I had seen on the tournament message board but never met before.  I had posted a link on the message board linking to my list of over 200 funny volleyball tips.  I was surprised to hear that some of the guys took the time to read all of them, cool.

We played in the first match and it was against my least favorite type of team, kids.  Well they weren’t little kids but I doubt either of them was much over 16.  Playing a team where I am older than their combined age always bums me out.  They were both lanky kids with lots of energy.  They plain wore us out.  Even though it was the first game, the combination of blazing heat reflecting off the hot sand and trying to out scramble these kids had both Randall and I sucking wind.  We had a number of back and forth scrambles and the kids seemed to come out on top each time.  We wound up losing the game something like 21-15 or 21-16. 

Even though we lost, overall we didn’t play bad and physically I didn’t feel too bad.  The net on our court was a bit low and the sand wasn’t overly deep so I was able to actually do some hitting which felt real good.  After the match I didn’t do any sulking, I was just happy to be there.   I was on the beach playing ball and enjoying it, there was nothing to complain about.

Our second match was against the guys I described earlier, the polish guy and Tabby.  They have much less experience than Randall and I and we were able to win that game pretty easily.  Again I had some nice hits, even one that went off the guy’s chest. We were in the winning column.

Somewhere around that time a woman showed up that we assumed was Mac, the polish guy’s girlfriend.  We later found out they were just friends.  Her name was Magda and she was from Poland as well.  She has only been in the US for a couple years and her accent is very heavy.  However she had a great personality and cheered on Mac’s team as well as ours the rest of the day.  She was really cool.

Our third match was against Jeremy and his partner.  They had only played together once before but had good results when they did play.  However, today they weren’t having much success and we continued that trend beating them without much drama.  Ironically during the last two matches I felt less tired than the first one.  The sun was hiding behind some clouds now and then which cut us a bit of a break.  So now we were 2-1, our last match was against yet another young team that was undefeated.  We were already in the playoffs, even if we lost this last game.  Randall did some figuring before the match and said if we won the game and held them to 13 points or less we would take 1st off the net and also earn a first round playoff bye.  I thought that would be nice but didn’t hold out much hope of it becoming a reality.  These kids took care of everyone they played. 

Well the match started and we played good ball.  We started getting more hustle/scramble points and made very few unforced errors.  We somehow had them down like 19-11 or something like that.  Wow, we could actually do it.  We had a bit of a let down but still won easily, 21-14 but I thought that our dreams of 1st off the net had passed.  It turned out that Randall miscalculated and we still took first off the net, sweet!

Pool play had started to take it’s toll on me a bit.  My knees were feeling a bit sore but not bad enough to have a severe affect on my game.  The sand was scorching hot.  I had my sand socks on early, the second game.  Randall has sensitive feet and borrowed one of the pairs of white socks to wear under his sand socks.  I loaned out my other pair of white socks to Jeremy’s partner whom didn’t have any sand socks.

It had been a great day at the beach so far.  Our volleyball results had been good and the beach was full of activity and was good for people watching.  I had a funny thing going on with two women that were maybe 30 feet behind the court.  During the one match a ball rolled over and hit them, doing no harm, just startling them.  I went over and retrieved the ball and said “Sorry bout that..”  They said it was fine but I owed them a beer with a laugh and smiles.  I laughed back and said no problem, just playing along.  Later another ball came their way and they told me I was up to two beers, when it happened a third time it was up to a six pack.  Of course I never delivered any alcohol to their location but I knew the direction they were leading me to.  It was fun to at least play the role.

We referee’d the first playoff round.  After doing so it was our turn to play the winner’s of one of the matches. Of course it was yet another set of high school kids.  These kids were annoying.  For some reason they expected us to come up and play on their net.  Randall and I immediately corrected them and said they play on our net since we were the higher playoff seed.  They then went into a whine-fest complaining about our net, they wanted to play on theirs.  Again we firmly reiterated that we were playing on our net, that is how it works.   Randall even resorted to doing comparisons with pro sports scenarios to drive the point home.  Then after all of this explanation, the kid says “Ok Ok, but let me ask you this, why don’t you want to play on our net??” like he wasn’t even listening to what we just said.  Now I was angry and angrily said once again that the match was on our net.  Finally they begrudgingly complied and came down to our net.  While they warmed up they were laughing at how the net was low and how they could hit over it without jumping.  What had been a totally good natured day of volleyball had now in my mind flipped into a grudge match.  I wanted to beat these f’rs bad. And guess what, we did.

It was a tough back and forth match but in the end we nudged ahead and stayed there, winning by two or three points.  Of course as I slapped hands with them and said “good game” I internally was very smug and felt like saying “damn you couldn’t beat us old guys on a low net even….”  Back to school…

So now we were in the finals.  And once again, we are playing yet another team of high school kids! This time we were the lower seed so we had to go to one of their nets and unfortunately they picked the worst of the bunch.  It was one of the permanent courts that was severely bowled out and had a high net.  Both Randall and I were rather pooped out from our prior match against the smart ass kids.  Running up hill for every approach was not exactly what we were looking for at that point.  Well we gave it a go.

We got down a bit early.  Unlike earlier matches, we made more unforced errors. Between Randall and I, i think we hit 5 or 6 serves out.  The higher net and bowled out court also resulted in several hits into the net for both of us.  Even so, we battled back to near even several times throughout the match.  At the end we were serving, down 20-15 and I got a big block on the taller kid, rejecting it with authority.  On the next play, again he got the set, I went up again, unwilling to allow him to swing away on us, and this time he wimped out and dinked over me, out of Randall’s reach for the win.  It was a tough match but these kids were good.  For second place Randall and I received luxurious FBVT visors along with 20 dollar gift cards to some beach shop.

Through out the day I employed various tips from my list.  Each match I changed something about my appearance, different shirt, no shirt, baseball hat, visor, I had more costume changes than a showgirl.  Randall and I huddled up and acted like we were talking strategy when in reality we just mumbled and pointed.  I would ask for blocking calls and act surprised even though it would be the same thing that was called all day.  I was even considering putting in my fake earring.

After the match we hung out for a little while, enjoying the fruits of our efforts.  It was a good day of volleyball, something I had not had for quite a long time.  I was tired and a bit sore but certainly not devastated like I was after the Rumble.    Randall was going to a U of Miami baseball game that night so we packed up and shoved off.

Ideally, it would be nice if I was able to throw an ice pack on my knee right away to cut down on swelling.  Instead I sat in one position more or less for the 2 hour drive across the state which makes for stiff joints.  When I got home one of my first orders of business was to ice up.  Ali was proud of me for doing well after not playing for so long.  I was too.  I still got it, at least some of it.

My Sunday was low key.  Both my knees were cracking every time I stood up but they didn’t hurt terribly so I suppose that is a good thing.  I had a small list of things to get done, Ali had already did a good chunk of the housework during the day Saturday.  Later in the day I watched Hope Floats with Ali.  I downloaded it for her after I deleted it off the old Tivo prior to her watching it.  She had no intentions of me watching it with her since it is a hardcore chick flick.  However I offered to sit through it.  Ali certainly sits through enough movies with me.  Wow this certainly was not a very happy movie, it’s about an ugly divorce, adultery, dying, old age and other obstacles to happiness.  Sure they turn up the happy meter in the end but geez….  Ali cried several times throughout, I did not.  I guess it would get a B-.  

Over the weekend, I think it was Saturday night, I was awakened early in the AM by the joyous sounds of buttons heaving.  Instinctively I quickly reached around looking for a suitable projectile to throw in the direction of the sound but found none.  Buttons heard the movement in the bed and ran out of the room, but not before adding to the hundreds of stains on our carpet.  A few days later, one of the cats was nice enough to leave yet another pile of half digested food under my computer chair.  God I hate them.

On Monday, I was hoping to get another 300 workout in since I missed last Friday.  My knees were still cracking and my leg muscles were still very tired feeling from Saturday.  Initially I wrote it off and figured there was no way I could do it. As lunch time approached, I talked myself into trying it anyway.  I will give it a try and if I can’t do certain things, I can’t do them.  It was probably the toughest session yet.  The first leg/knee test were the deadlifts.  After the initial crack on the first trip down, my knees quieted down after that.  The box jumps were a very long road.  I managed 25 reps but that was with lots of pauses for the last 10-12.  Some exercises I stayed the same, I did one fewer wiper than the last time.  When it was all done I managed to break the 200 rep barrier, amassing 202 total reps.   I was so damn tired afterwards.

I was so tired Monday night that I didn’t even stay up to watch Heroes.  I saw it on Tivo last night.  It was f’ing awesome.  The writers on the show have just done an incredible job of writing a plot that is so compelling that the viewer laments the passing of each hour episode and craves the next one.  Last night’s episode put the timeline 5 years into the future.  This episode answered a lot of questions about a lot of things and opened up a whole lot more.  This may be the first show I would actually consider buying on DVD.

The NFL draft was this weekend.  I, like everyone else could not believe the Eagles picked a QB with thier first pick.  It didn’t make a lot of sense unless they know something we don’t regarding Donovan.  I never heard of any of the other draft picks either although supposedly, draft experts say they are decent.  It certainly didn’t excite me at all.

I know there were various other things that I was going to blog about, I can’t remember them.  Work is hellishly busy right now and will be for a good period of time to come.