Tiger and me, dollar ceiling fans, Survivor, more

Tiger Woods and I had something in common this weekend. We each had strings of success broken. Although mine was much shorter and concerns absolutely noone but myself, it still is a parallel. For the first time since the very first tournament Randall and I played together, we missed making the playoffs. It was a disappointing volleyball day.

I got up at 4:30 in the morning for the nearly 3 hour drive to Singer Island. Originally we discussed staying at the ratty Days Inn right next to the tournament site again, since they allowed dogs. I found out they were closed for hurricane damage, whatever that meant. Well when I got there I saw a big pile of sand where the hotel once was. I would guess that the owners took the insurance money, sold the property and now it appears that a big condo tower is going to be erected there. Bummer.

Our first match was a discouraging loss. We played some guy that when he wore his oversized straw hat, looked like a middle aged woman. His partner looked like a smaller version of Andy Reid. This team played very unconventional volleyball. The womanish guy would “set” balls by putting his hands together and bouncing the ball of his hands above his head. It was very odd. He also attacked most balls by just poking at them. By poking at a ball you really had no idea where it was going and more times than not the pokes were landing right inside the boundry lines. Mini-Andy rarely used 3 hits, most of his shots were over on 1 or 2, again an unconventional method that kept us constantly guessing. It was like someone pulled them off the church picnic court. They got repeated breaks and we were unable to adjust to their unconventional style and wound up losing to them by 3 or 4 points. It was emabarrassing.

It cast a shadow on the day right out of the gate. With only 4 games in pool play, losing your first match hurts, especially when you lose it to a team you shouldn’t have. Our next two matches were against 2 younger teams that were physically gifted but seemed like indoor players first, beach players second. They would make some great plays, great hits but then follow it up with 2 mistakes. During those games I made some really good defensive digs, something I rarely do. I dug about half a dozen hard hits into playable balls on our side. We handled both of these teams pretty easily and despite our opening f up, were in position to make the playoffs if we won our last game.

Our last game was going to be our toughest. We were playing the undefeated team. The team also happened to be an old nemesis of mine (even though they probably don’t even remember me) Rich and I played them during our first ever volleyball tournament in Florida. We were playing them in the playoffs and had a big lead. There was a play where we thought the guy had terrible double contact (which after the fact we found it is ok in Florida beach ball) that we stopped playing for and argued loudly about. After the incident, the guys were dicks and we lost our cool and allowed them to come back and win the match. It was about as angry I can ever remember Rich being at another team. This incident has always stuck in my craw and I looked forward to finally getting some revenge after so long. They further fueled my fire when earlier in the day they spent a good 10 minutes working on the net because they thought it was too low, then they wanted to adjust the boundry lines and then finally they unilaterally proclaimed that we should play with the same ball for every match to be consistent. They said 3 of the 5 teams agreed to it. (a vote we were not told about or involved in) Oh yea, it just so happens that the ball they wanted to use was their ball, which was unusually light and was getting blown around quite a bit in the gusty beach wind. Annoying.

The match started out back and forth for about 2 thirds of it. Neither team could generate more than a point or two lead. During the breaks in action, our opponents would huddle up with some buddy of theirs and discuss strategy which was annoying. It’s not the f’in olympics, it’s bb amateuer volleyball. Well apparently the outcome of these strategy talks was to start almost exclusively serving to my partner which proved to be successful. When I don’t get served it frustrates the hell out of me, plus it forces me to try to become a precise setter, something I am not good at. We were unable to make them pay for not serving me and they pulled away for a 6 point victory. The loss sealed our fate and excluded us from the playoffs. It was a double dagger because we lost to a team that I wanted to beat badly. The early elimination meant I got to start my 3 hour drive back sooner than expected. I grumpily motored back across the state. I was extremely drowsy during the drive and decided to combat it by singing out the name and spelling of different vehicles as they went by. It was about as ridiculous a thing as you can imagine but it kept me awake.

On Saturday night we watched Episode 1 of Star Wars. Ali wanted to see the first 2 again in prep to see the new release. She has a thing about wanting to know the storyline of these multi-part movies since after time has passed, she forgets many of the details. I was dozing on and off throughout the movie. Watching what I saw of it again reminded me of how bad it was.

Sunday I had a big list of things I wanted to do even though after driving 6 hours and playing in a depressing vball tournament the day before made me feel less than motivated to accomplish much. Before the chores started, Ali and I took our little more than 4 mile walk to E’s store. It was summer hot and humid on Sunday, making the walk more than a little bit of a challenge. By the time we got back I was feeling it. Then my day started, in no particular order this is what I did from 1pm to 5pm. Went to the neighbors to install memory in her pc, took apart the water cleaning equipment to see why the clock was resetting (found dead small frogs on the circuit board), refilled the fish pond, set up the water tractor to water the front and side lawns, washed the truck and the car, cleaned the bird cages, cleaned up the laundry room, and finally installed the second of the 1 dollar ceiling fan set in our bedroom I got at that flea market months ago. It was a whirlwind.

During the trip over to the neighbors I found out that their house was sold. They got full asking price which floored me. Their sale sets the bar even higher on our property. We are now sitting on top of a staggering amount of equity. (staggering for me at least) Of course to buy anything else in our area requires you to sink that equity right back into another property to afford it, so it is a bit of a catch 22. Anyway, it is sad that they will be moving. They are great neighbors and have been our pet support plan in many cases. It is a shame to lose them but at the same time, financially it really was a necessary move for them.

Last night we stayed up late to watch the Survivor finale. I was happy that Tom won. He busted his ass and performed incredibly well in the challenges. Considering he is over 40 makes it all the more impressive. I would rank him right up there with Colby and Rupert as one of the best all time contestants. The woman he was going up against in the final was a lazy snake who did nothing but ride coat tails the entire game. The final immunity challenge was nothing short of incredible, with Tom and the dutch boy kid hanging up on a buoy with a small disk for their feet for just short of 12 hours, the longest time any challenge has ever gone. Tom just has an iron will. The final vote was a landslide 6-1 win for Tom. He deserved it.

I actually had a successful aerial photography sortie yesterday. I haven’t had a plane in the air forever. The flight was almost a dreadful failure. On the launch toss the plane veered hard left and was heading for the pool cage and trees near by. I quickly pulled up and right and clipped the tree, just barely avoiding a nasty crash. Once I was up in the air it was a juggling act. The plane wanted to constantly pull left, I was wearing flip flops, trying to make sure I didn’t step in fire ants, I was covered in gnats since I forgot to spray down with OFF and then I was trying to flip the switch to fire off the camera in air. Since the plane was so squirrely it was very hard to have much control of what I was shooting, so I just kept firing off pics, figuring I would get some decent ones by luck. I got some decent pics, just none of our house. 🙂 I’ll post the pics soon. I need to tweak the controls to make in air flight a bit more stable.