Back on the road for work, this time to Farmville, Va. It’s another classic small-town that gets an annual 9-month population boost from Longwood University. It’s nice to see the youths out and about.
I didn’t get to the High Bridge Trail State Park this time through, but I’ve been before and it’s awesome.
It was another insane finish to an important ballgame last night. Lindor is a bad, bad man. Alonso had a clutch hit (while in the middle of an awful slump). And starting pitcher David Peterson got the save?!?!
Not sorry, sad Brewers fans.
Now it’s on to the hated Phillies.
These damn Mets pulled off a wild one yesterday to make the postseason for the first time since 2016 (and that was a super-stinker of a time).
Francisco Lindor hit a 2-run home run in the top of the 9th to put the Mets ahead after they gave up a 3-run lead in the bottom of the 8th. It was tremendous, as he has been this whole darn season.
The Mets had to go from Atlanta to Milwaukee after the doubleheader where they’ll start their series tonight. It would be wild to see them get past the Brewers.
I made some off-hand remarks about a willingness to drink water from a Stanley cup, so naturally I got a surprise gift from my wife.
Why wouldn’t it be from the Barbie x Stanley Collection?
The Western Ken model is tasteful and classy, like me.
And it blends in seamlessly to the truck’s cupholders.
My hydration situation has been improved immeasurably. And holy shit is this thing heavy when it’s full of water.
In Chicago. Found a spot to watch Liverpool at lunch. Walk in, ask for a table and the match on one of the 12 tvs.
“You can sit anywhere. We’ll put it on that tv, but we’re an Arsenal bar so you won’t get any sound.”
lol
As a long-time advocate of the McDonald’s cheeseburger (and a reluctant convert to the comfort of the Croc), the newest Happy Meal toy promotion is an awkward confluence for me.
I played well in my two Club Challenge matches this weekend with my pal Peter. We always laugh at how nervous we get at the start of these things. Like, legit Waco Kid shaky hands. We did some line shuffling as a team to lock in a favorable lineup so Peter and I were matched against a weaker line from a better team. It didn’t really matter, because we’ve been nice this year and we won the first match 6-4, 6-2.
The nerves and little too much coffee had me bouncing between zones 3 and 4, but we eventually settled down and handled things.
The format for the weekend is two days of play to determine the top 6 (of 12) teams, and then scores reset for Sunday where the top 6 play for the trophy. Our Sunday match was against a better team’s 1st line, and it was a tougher match. It didn’t help that I rolled my ankle pretty badly in the middle of the 2nd set, so I spent the next three games waiting for a pop or a crunch to end my match and season. We won the match 6-4, 5-7, 1-0 in a 3rd set tiebreak.
Once I was confident enough that my ankle wasn’t going to implode things settled down. It was a bit of a marathon match, though, and I’m still sore and tired.
Big Zone 3 energy out there, which is nice. That deep HR dip around 10am was the ankle roll. I had to take a minute to assess the damage and retie my shoe. I was sweating it.
As a first Club Challenge experience, it was a really good time. Probably because I played well and won my matches, but the whole thing was wall-to-wall tennis and watching/laughing/cheering with my tennis friends for 3 straight days. I’m unlikely to move up to 3.5 after this season so I should be in a good spot to make the team again next year. If i don’t make the team, I will 100% make time to go watch as much as I can.
4 stars.
Big, big doings this weekend. I made it on the Westwood Club Challenge team, so I’ve got a bunch of tennis to play and watch this weekend.
A big draw for me is watching the 4.0 and higher players hit. The pace they put on the ball and the smart way they position themselves bounces back and forth between inspiring and discouraging. They’re playing a different game than I am, it seems. This’ll be fun.
It’s only been out a week, but this new Floating Points album has snuck into my top 10 for the year. That damn Berghain playlist has me all up into some house music. I had forgotten how much I love it.
It’s awesome work and driving music.
