Barb's friend Larry was helping her with her third shot
because he has a ball machine. So he set
up the ball machine to hit her serve returns and then he stood at the net with
his iPhone and videoed her third shots.
Later he loaded the video on Vimeo, so Barb could watch herself on the
internet. He sent her a link to the
website but when Barb went to watch the video, it was sideways. She had to hold her computer on its side to
watch the video properly.
Saturday, 15 April 2017
Streets
Barb was at it again on the Pickleball Forum where they were
sending in street names about pickleball.
One person put up the name Barb Taylor Terrace and another person
entered the name Barb Wire Way. One person couldn't understand how Barb could
come up with so many entries and another lady replied that she must have a huge
book of lists of things related to pickleball.
That is not too far from the truth because Barb has compiled a list of
pickleball specific words and stored them in her notes on her iPod to use to
come up to entries for the forum.
0 for 4
After the previous game, we were sitting around having a few
drinks and the captain of my recreational league team said to the guys that
Ivan is really hitting great right now but I don't want to jinx him. I had been hitting in the number five spot
but had been moved down to the number 10 spot.
I thought it was because I wasn't hitting very well and because I hit
into a lot of double plays. Anyway in
the playoff game, I was batting in the clean up position and I went 0 for
4. I had even come up at a crucial time
with bases loaded and hit a soft ground ball to the shortstop for an easy
out. We had a three run lead in the
bottom of the seventh inning and one of our best outfielders hurt his leg and
we had to get a replacement. The person
we put out in the outfield made two costly errors and we lost by one run. We
were eliminated from the playoffs and I felt bad because I didn't hit
better. Then the next day I was playing
in the Restricted Bat League and I went 4 for 4 in a meaningless game that we
won.
Delay of Game
I was playing in the afternoon in the Restricted Bat
League. Right in the middle of the game,
the sprinklers came on when we were out in the field. No one knew how to turn them off. So we had to move the game to one of the
other diamonds. Fortunately, there was a
free diamond. Sometimes the other
diamonds are being used for team practices.
We went on to win the game which was very exciting because I play for a
terrible team that had only won two games all season and is in last place.
Barb's Followers
Barb has been spending many evenings on the Pickleball Forum
thinking up and entering names of movies, songs, diseases, famous people, and
all sorts of things. She has a large
number of followers who always comment on her entries because they are amazed at
the number and originality of them. When
she gets going everyone on the forum just gives up trying to compete with her
and say she is the best.
Tom's Birthday
It was the birthday of an old basketball friend that I saw
on facebook. I was surprised when I got
a message thanking me for the birthday wishes because I didn't take the time to
wish him a happy birthday. Then I looked
at the link to his message and noticed that some other Ivan had wished him a
happy birthday and when he went to thank him my name came up instead. I didn't
want to reply and say he had the wrong Ivan because then I would have to admit
that I didn't wish him a happy birthday myself.
Best Dressed
The pitcher on my recreational league softball team said
that he had an extra jersey because they spelt his name wrong on it and so he
got another. He said I could have it
since I got picked up half-way through the season and was too late to get a jersey
of my own. He said maybe my wife could sew some fabric over his name and put my
name on it instead. So he brought the jersey
to the next game and I brought it home for Barb to fix. Barb went to the local Jo Anne's Fabric and
wanted to buy some iron on letters but they had to be ordered. They came in the next week and Barb sewed
some of her own purple fabric over his name and ironed on white letters for my
name and then coloured in the letters with yellow highlighter pen to match the
teams lettering and it looked great.
When I wore the jersey to the next game, all the guys were impressed and
one guy said Barb could get a lot of work doing sewing for the guys. I told him that Barb had a few choice swear
words for me when she was trying to get the puckers out of the fabric. Anyway, we didn't have too many more games
until the end of the season but after the season was finished, they gave us the
best dressed team award. I think Barb
helped us win the award.
Pro Show
Some professional pickleball players came to visit The
Villages and they put on some demonstration games for the pickleball players in
the club. They even played some games
with the members. Unfortunately, Barb wasn't a member of the club. So she couldn't play against them but she was
able to get a ticket to go and watch them play.
She misread the ticket that said her time was at 1:30 pm and she got
there at 11:00 am to watch the show at 11:30.
New Couple
One of Barb's friends at pickleball came up to her and said
she should meet these new people because they sound just like her. So Barb went to meet them and it turned out
they were both Canadians. One was from Nova Scotia and the other was from British Columbia. Barb didn't think they had any accent at all.
Whiffle Ball
I use Barb's old broken pickleballs to practice my batting
off my batting tee in the backyard.
Sometimes I pull the ball into the big crab apple tree near our
neighbour's house and sometimes the pickleballs get stuck in the tree and don't
fall to the ground. I have to wait until
it rains or there is a big wind to blow them out of the tree. Barb also likes to use the back patio to
practice her third shot and was out practicing when Gerry's daughter-in-law and
granddaughter were out in the backyard playing.
The daughter-in-law came up to Barb and told her that her daughter had
something to tell her. The little girl
came up to Barb and asked her if she had lost a pickleball because she had
found one in the lawn. Barb asked the
little girl if she wanted to keep the pickleball and the little girl said she
did. So Barb said she could keep the
pickleball but just be careful not to get her fingers stuck in the holes.
Visitors
Barb's friend was going home and she wanted to see Barb one
last time before she left. So her and
another lady came over to the house to visit in the evening after dinner. Barb was showing them around the house and
all the quilts and knitting projects she finished. One of the ladies looked at her crochet
blanket that was in progress and she said that's neat I have never seen a
blanket with big holes in it before. Barb
had to explain that eventually all of the holes will be filled in and it will
be a solid blanket like all other blankets.
Canadian
The Villages has their own radio station and they go out and
about The Villages talking to residents doing recreational stuff. Today they were at Barb's pickleball courts
and the interviewed Barb and some of the other ladies. They asked Barb where she was from and she
said Canada. They said that explains why you are wearing
short sleeves and a tennis skirt in the cold morning weather.
Geckos
There are geckos that seem to always be in between our
bistro window and the bistro screen. We
don't know how or why they always get in there.
Today Barb wanted to check if it had stopped raining. So she opened the door in the bistro and a
gecko fell off the top of the door in front of her and almost landed on her
head.
Lost and Found
Barb uses a small plastic cooler that she brought from home
to carry her drinks when she plays pickleball.
Today she was out in the garage and found another similar cooler. It was a little bigger. Then she realized that the cooler she was
using was not the one from home, it was one she won at a tournament and the one
she found in the garage was the one she brought from home. She looked inside the cooler and found the
cooling towel and three new pickleballs that her partner had given her a while back
and could never find. I guess when she
was cleaning up for the girl's visit at Christmas, she put the towel and balls
in the cooler and put the cooler away in the garage and forgot about it.
Useful Key
I was driving Barb to Sebring for her pickleball tournament
and Barb brought her crochet to do on the drive. She was mad at herself because she forgot to
bring a pair of scissors to cut her wool when she needed to. Then she thought of using the house keys and
I thought how resourceful she was.
Barb's Big Fan
There was a lady at Barb's pickleball tournament who came up
to her and her partner. She said she was
a big fan and that she had watched all of their games at a previous tournament
and she was so honoured to get to play against them. She asked if she could get her picture taken
with them.
Credit Card
I couldn't find my Mastercard in my wallet or in my
briefcase or in any of my desk drawers and clothing drawers. So I paid my System Dynamics Society dues
using my Bank of America Visa card.
However, it wasn't that easy because I hadn't updated my address and I
had to remember my old address. Barb had
bought me a new wallet and I was worried that maybe when I threw out my old
wallet, I had thrown out my Mastercard too. When Barb got home, I told her I
couldn't find my Mastercard. She and I
searched all over the house and couldn't find it. Then Barb asked me if she could look in my
wallet. She looked at my wallet for a
few seconds and quickly found all my cards.
She said my wallet has too many pockets.
Snake
On the way back to the house after picking some oranges,
Barb noticed a snake skin on the grass.
It was very long and very cool.
However, Barb didn't realize that if there is a snake skin on the lawn
there must be a snake living around somewhere. A couple of days later, I was getting dressed
in the bedroom and I saw our neighbour with a shovel chasing a big 4 foot long black
snake. The snake got away by climbing up
the trellis and into our patio roof. I
told Barb about it and she was freaked out.
Later when I was coming home from softball, Gerry was outside and he
came over to whisper to me that he found and chased a big snake and two little
baby snakes up into our roof. He said
that you really shouldn't kill black snakes because they are good at killing
mice. But he said he didn't want to tell
Barb because he knows how women don't like snakes.
Acceptance Speech
Barb won many awards on the pickleball Forum for making up
pickleball names about more and more stuff.
She spends hours and hours thinking up pickleball names for The Forum
and everyone on The Forum is always commenting on her dedicated efforts to find
hundreds of things to relate to pickleball.
So when she won another award, she thought she should make an acceptance
speech. She worked on it for a while and
it was very funny. She started by saying
OMG I should have written a speech. OMG
I never thought I would win. OMG I have so many people to thank. Then she thanked The Academy and her Mom and
Dad and me and all the little people that have helped her.
Crazy Peter
When we were visiting our old park at Crystal Lake, Barb was driving around in
Daphne's golf cart to visit some friends and she ran into my old friend Peter. He asked about me. He said, "Is he still ... tall?" Crazy Peter.
Dave and Dave
Barb's old friend Dave from Crystal Lake was playing with another fellow
that Barb knew. His name was Dave
too. So it was Dave and Dave when they
introduced themselves to the other teams before the games. There was another team of men at the same
tournament who were both named Dave.
Barb thought wouldn't it be funny when they play each other. Dave and Dave against Dave and Dave. Unfortunately, they were in different
divisions.
Bam Bam
Barb and I went to Sebring together for Barb's pickleball
tournament. I sat with her friends and
cheered her on. They were all saying
great shot Bam Bam like the old days when we lived there.
Forum Fun Again
The pickleball forum started another game to name pickleball
songs. Barb went on Google again and
started listing songs like Poocher Face and she was naming so many songs that
people on the list were commenting about her.
One person realized that she had gotten up to W on the list of songs she
found on Google. Her favourite song
title was not one of hers but someone else sent in, Can't Get No Smashing
Action. However, Barb won the prize for
the most song names and won an autographed pickleball magazine.
Famous Wife
Barb found out that her name was in the local paper for
being runner-up in The Villages ladies pickleball tournament. We don't get the paper. So Barb went next door to borrow the paper
from Gerry and read me the article.
Really Dirty Glasses
Often I take off my glasses to read. Anyway, I didn't have my glasses on when I
got up to go to the bathroom. I grabbed what
I thought were my glasses off the counter and put them on on the way to the
bathroom. When I got there I could
barely see myself in the mirror. I
thought boy are these glasses ever dirty.
Then I realized that I had put on Barb's glasses by mistake. When I told Barb about it she was worried
that my big round head might have stretched her glasses but I didn't have them
on very long before I realized my mistake.
Sad News on Facebook
Laura's apartment building caught on fire and we found out
as usual when she posted video from the local news on Facebook. We also got an iMessage from Sarah saying
that Laura had asked her to iMessage us because she can't iMessage using her
Android phone. Laura couldn't get into
her apartment. She had to draw a picture
of her apartment and the firemen would go in and get some of her important
stuff because they thought there might be asbestos in the building. Later they found out there was no asbestos
but because the damage was so bad they would have to tear down the
building. Eventually, Laura was able to
get into her apartment wearing a gas mask and get her stuff but it was covered
in ashes. She would have to spend days and
days washing it all. 2017 starts off
just as bad as 2016 for Laura.
Yahtze Again
Sarah iMessaged Barb and told her that she bought Yahtze for
her and Ali to play. Barb was jealous
because she loves playing Yahtze and I won't play with her. Sarah said that Ali had already had two
Yahtzes in the same game but he had already crossed off his Yahtze.
Neighbourhood League
The captain of my softball team in the recreational league
is named Doug. I got picked up by the
team, the Vikings, part way through the season and was happy to be on his team
and be able to play first base. The
other day I got an email from him saying that I was now on the team he captains
in the neighbourhood league. I thought
that it was a great coincidence. Little
did I know that he actually had to pull some strings to get me on his
team. At my first game, he introduced me
to the other players and said I was a really good first baseman. So I get to play first base on his team in
the neighbourhood league as well.
Chicken Deal
Barb's likes the cooked whole chickens that she is able to
buy at Sam's Club using her friend's Sam's Club card. She says they are really big for cooked
chickens. Also they are really cheap at
$4.99 each. Today she bought a chicken
and as usual she keeps all of her receipts.
She was looking at her receipt after dinner and realized that it said
that she got $4 off her chicken. So it
was only $0.99. She thought that was
crazy and must be some kind of mistake.
Conditional Probability
Julia iMessaged me to ask our phone number because she said
Dillan had a question to ask me about Yahtze.
I got all excited because I thought he wanted me to do some probability
analysis about dice rolling. Later that
night Dillan phoned and asked me a simple question about the conditional
probability of Julia rolling a Yahtze in a game and then him rolling a Yahtze
too. I said that since the rolling of
the dice are completely independent conditional probability didn't apply. I don't think he understood my explanation
and I was disappointed it was not a more difficult question that I could do
some probability analysis on. Julia
later told me that she had already tried to explain it to him but she also said
that I did all her probability and statistics homework when she was in
university.
Mindmapping
We decided to go out for dinner with some of Barb's good
pickleball friends. We drove to the
restaurant in their golf cart in the cold.
The boys sat in the back and the girls sat in the front and drove. The husband was a real talker and was asking
me all kinds of questions about fastball.
Then at the restaurant he asked me all kinds of questions about what I
did for a living. Then we sat across
from each other at the table and we talked about podcasts and books. He said that his son sends him emails with links
to articles to read and then they discuss them on Skype. I said that I send a lot of links to articles
to my friends too and we discuss them on Skype.
He even mentioned that he uses mindmapping. Barb's ears perked up when she read mindmapping. She thought it was so cute that we had
mindmapping and so much other stuff in common.
Silver Valentine's Day Present
Barb and her partner played in The Villages pickleball
tournament on Valentine's Day and won silver.
Later we went out dancing to celebrate at the Market Square. We didn't like the band at the local Market Square so we
went to another Square a little farther away.
We got there between sets and were watching the line dancers dancing to
the DJ music. I said to Barb the my
friend from softball, Chuck, does line dancing.
Barb said that guy in the grey looks like a really good line
dancer. I said that is my friend
Chuck. So Barb went up to talk to
him. Chuck didn't know who she was
because he had only talked to her on the phone.
Then she pointed to me behind the seats and he realized Barb was with
me. Chuck said that the lady who runs
the line dancing club keeps track of the bands that play at the Squares and
picks the good bands that they can line dance to and then she emails everyone
in the club to go out that night to that Square as a group to line dance.
Damn Nissan Again
I had a ball game on Monday.
So I took the Honda and I dropped Barb off at the garage in the morning
to wait for the Nissan to be repaired.
Barb waited at the garage all day.
Then near the end of the day (she was starving because she had nothing
to eat all day), they finally gave her the car.
She started to drive home and the car stalled again on the highway at a
stoplight. Barb couldn't start it. So
some guys in a truck helped her push it off the highway into the Sam's Club
parking lot. Then she got a ride back to
the garage to tell them the car wasn't fixed.
From there she phoned home for a ride but I had come home from softball
and then gone out again to get the printer cable at the Goodwill. She left a message on the machine and when I
got home I never looked at the answering machine but Barb came home soon after
I got home. She got a ride home from
some man at the garage who was going our way.
I had the printer cable but the printer was in the backseat of the
Nissan in the Sam's parking lot.
Banker's Cheque
We were in negotiations to sell our house in Avon Park
for a week or so. The couple that wanted
to buy it were really desperate to get it but they didn't want to pay real
estate fees. They wanted to do something
under the table and they wanted to pay us in Canadian dollars. Of course, we couldn't get out of our real
estate contract and we didn't want to fool around with Canadian-US exchange
rates. Eventually, we reached a deal but
we were not happy because we would lose about $13,000 US from what we bought it
for. So Barb went to the house and took
everything she could find that was good from the house rather than leave it for
them. We met with our real estate agents
and they were not happy about the couple trying to work around them by phoning
us and them directly and not going through their own real estate agent but we
signed the deed over and gave them the keys and took their banker's check. On the way home from Avon Park,
we deposited the banker's cheque in the Bank of America ATM. The ATM slip told us that the cheque would be
put on hold. We thought this was crazy
because it was a banker's cheque that was supposed to be like real money. We almost didn't have enough money in the
account to pay the $3000 real estate fee.
Somehow we squeaked through and after a few days we got some of the
money and then a few days after that we got the rest of the money. Barb was very relieved to have the headache of
a second property off her mind and we no longer have to pay land rent and all
the other expenses we were paying with the vacant house.
Where's Waldo
Barb and her women's partner won bronze and Barb and her
mixed partner won bronze in the Okeechobee tournament. I always tried to find shade to sit to watch
the games. I was often sitting in the
trees or behind the wind screen and Barb could only see my shoes. So Barb said that finding where I was sitting
during her games was like a game of Where's Waldo.
Free Tee Shirt
I went to Barb's pickleball tournament that weekend and met
all of Barb's pickelball friends. One of
Barb's friends has a pickleball accessory business and she made me a free
pickleball tee shirt to wear. Later Barb
wondered if she was really a friend because she and her partner beat Barb and
her partner by hitting lobs which Barb hates.
Barb and her partner got the bronze medal.
Damn Nissan
After softball today, I decided to drive to the Goodwill to
buy a cable for the used HP LaserJet printer that Barb bought me there. I was just turning onto the highway and the battery
light came on and the car stalled. I got
out the car and tried to push the car
out of the way of traffic and signaled the other cars in the turning lane to
drive around the stalled Nissan. Then I
started walking to the gas station to call a tow truck. A couple stopped and asked if I needed help
to push the car off the road. He was a
big black guy and he and I pushed the car partially up the curb. I said it should be okay there. Then the
couple went back to their car and as they were getting in their car a van
pulled over and started handing him money out of the window. I never thought to give him money for helping
me.
I started walking to the gas station and a couple of girls
stopped and asked if I needed a ride because it was a little bit of a walk to
the gas station. So I got in their car
and they drove me to the gas station where I used their phone because I don't
have a cell phone. I also had to use
their phone book which the lady had to blow the dust off because who uses a
phone book these days. I phoned a tow
truck company that I thought was close and after being put on hold for a long
time, the lady on phone told me that they couldn't get me a tow truck until
tomorrow. So I phoned another tow truck
company and after a long time on hold, the lady said that she couldn't get a
tow truck for an hour. I said okay and
that I would wait beside my car.
I walked back to my car and got there just in time for a
police car to drive up. The police man
got out and told me I needed to push the car right off the road. He and I pushed the car up over the curb and
onto the grass beside the highway.
Another policeman stopped and he was impressed that we could push the
car over the curb by ourselves. The
policeman asked me if he should phone a tow truck for me and I said no one was
coming. So they drove away.
Then later, a Villages Security truck stopped and asked me
if I needed any help. I told him that I
had called a tow truck and that I was planning to get them to tow the car to a
Von's garage on Highway 446A and asked him how to get to 446A. He explained how far it was. Then I said that Von's garage was near the Lady Lake
library and he said that was on Highway 446.
The same highway I was already on and not the 446A. It was good that he stopped because I would
have never found the garage by myself.
He phoned in that my car was stalled but off the highway and there was
no traffic jam and drove away.
Later as I was waiting, someone else stopped and asked me, out
their car window, if I needed help and I said no I had called a tow truck and
was just waiting for it to come.
I waited an hour exactly and the tow truck came. It was there just in time because Von's
garage was closing at 5 pm and they lock the gate. So you can't just drop the car off
there. We got to the garage just in time
but unfortunately, it was Thursday night and they are closed on Fridays. So they would not be able to look at it until
Monday morning.
Driving for Nothing
Today I drove to Open Softball Batting Practice and when I
got there I found out it had been cancelled because of the rain last
night. So I drove home. Then in the evening I drove to the Apple
iClub meeting for 6:30 but when I got there I could not find any parking
spot. So I turned around and went
home. All that driving for nothing.
The Forum Begins
Barb joined the Pickleball Forum on Facebook. The founder, named Aspen, started a fun game to get the members
to think up Pickleball Movie Names. Barb
quickly looked up movies on Google and started making name variations on famous
movies. Her best ones, of many, were
When Volley Met Rally, The Dink Panther and The Year of Lobbing Dinkerously. She was up until 3 am playing on the Forum.
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