Bye bye Sprint (Embarq), 300less, swan song?
My home number finally swapped over to Vonage yesterday. That means I was finally able to sever the cord from Sprint (now known as Embarq) It feels good. Ever since I moved to Florida, Sprint local telephone service has been a thorn in my side. It’s nice to not be financially contributing to their ineptitude any more. Now instead of an answering machine we have voice mail for our home number. If we get a message it gets emailed to us as a wav file which we can retrieve and listen to wirelessly on our Treo’s, ultra-geek.
Since I am playing volleyball tomorrow I decided it would be wise to not do a 300 workout the day before. I am a bit bummed about missing a day, especially since I am only two reps away from 200. Hopefully I won’t be too beat up to resume on Monday.
I am both excited and apprehensive about returning to the volleyball court. I really enjoy playing, I enjoy the people that play, enjoy competing and enjoy the whole feel of a tournament. I don’t enjoy getting hurt. I am crossing my fingers that whatever has been nagging me deep inside my knees has healed. Unlike the last time I played months ago, I haven’t been running to pile on the wear and tear. This will be the first tournament I have played since last June in the Rumble, 10 months, wow. Of course I have no false expectations of me playing anywhere near well. This is more of a science experiment to see if I am physically able to get through a tournament at this point.
The days of me staking my short term emotional happiness on the result of that weekend’s volleyball tournament are long gone. Playing volleyball used to be a big part of how I defined myself. From my late 20’s to early 30’s it was probably the primary focus in my life. Even though I was never a great player, I took it seriously.
I remember the one summer, Rich and I were on a tear. I think during that stretch we lost only a handful of games while winning 30 or more. We always clicked together well, but that year we clicked like never before. Rich was a perfect compliment to me as a player. I was more of the one dimensional player that tried to hit and serve hard. Rich was more well rounded plus had the ability to scramble and chase down balls like few others. The fact that we were both lefties used to confuse a lot of opponents. However probably the best part of our time playing together was the time off the court when we would just be observing, joking and making nicknames for the other players on the court. Our years of playing also resulted in a huge list of satirical volleyball “tips” that would make even a person that never played the game laugh. Since Rich stopped playing I have tried to keep adding to the nickname and tips list, but my heart just isn’t into it. It’s not the same.
Oh well, the point of this long diatribe is this weekend may be finally closing the book on 15 years of volleyball memories or perhaps extending it for just a little longer.
I had yet another big virtual achievement. When they released the expansion pack to WoW, they raised the maximum level a player could reach from 60 to 70. Well I got my first character to 70 earlier in the week. Reaching 70 allows you to buy a new form of transportation, a FLYING mount. Up until 70 you are relegated to only flying on locked in, pre-defined routes between different areas in the game. But now you can fly anywhere, well anywhere in the expansion areas. You can not fly in the original areas of WoW, which sucks.
Well the ability to fly is definitely cool. It allows you to reach areas that would be impossible otherwise. Plus you have the advantage of straight line travel between points instead of having to follow twisting roads while avoiding bad guys. Right now I only have the standard flying mount which is rather slow. There is a super fast model that costs about 6000 gold. In real world terms, compare it to saving for a Hyundai versus a Ferrari. It takes a long time to amass 6000 gold. I’m working on it though. I have been leveling various characters simultaneously so I should have two more level 70 characters shortly. Impressive, huh?