January 11, 2004 - 8:45 PM

Tennising

The weather here in Southern California has become quite spectacular of late. The sun has shone unmolested, warming up the days to the point where I can walk around in shorts and a tee. In fact, yesterday, after a trip to Costco in the morning with Nick, LDBL, and Mer, we went to the park in North Hollywood to play some tennis and baseball.

My dad is a huge tennis buff. He started Soph, Phil, and me in on tennis when we were all fairly young. If you visit our house in Maryland, you will notice that much of the movable furniture has small arc sections of cut-out old tennis balls on the feet to prevent them from scratching the wood floors. His favorite tennis player is John McEnroe, and I remember the big rivalries from the 80's between McEnroe and Borg, Connors, and Lendl. He was such a big fan, for 10 years he only bought the Dunlop John McEnroe signature series rackets; several for himself, one for each of us. That's actually the racket that I still have and use today.

Behind our house was a small patch of woods with a little creek. Beyond those woods was the local public high school where they had several baseball diamonds, soccer fields, a track, and tennis courts. It was a quick bicycle ride for us to reach the courts so we were able to play several times a week during the summer, and a couple of times a month during the school year. In the winter, we'd drive to Baltimore to play at indoor courts, usually for Korean Association tournaments. Thanks to our constant practicing and our dad's strict lessons, we all became fairly good players. Since High School, though, I've slowed down in my tennis playing (or as we used to call it, "tennising") to once or twice a year, if that. I had just been getting my backhand and my serves under control; now, my shots go all over the place unless I REALLY concentrate, and my serves, while a little more consistent, still fly long out of the box.

Luckily for me, my partners on Saturday weren't seasoned players, so we just volleyed as best we could. I mentioned in an earlier diary entry that I started going to the gym regularly again last week, right? I knew how sore it would make me initially, so I purposely started off my regimen at a moderate pace. Apparently, when I did leg work on Wednesday, I should've gone at a baby-pace because my hamstrings and calves were horrifyingly sore all day Friday and Saturday. I couldn't straighten my legs without feeling like the muscles were all 4 inches too short. I had lumbered around Costco in pain, and the day at the courts started off with much wincing. But after a little warm up jogging, the pain subsided a bit, and I was able to scoot around the court with little impairment.

We moved over to the baseball/softball field after about 45 minutes. We tossed the baseball around for a bit; I pitched batting practice to Nick and LDBL; LDBL hit some flyballs to me and Nick in the outfield. God I love playing baseball. But, I think I ganked my arm a bit, trying to throw too hard from the outfield to home plate a couple times.

After we took showers, Nick cooked up some pork loins with apples and vegetables, and we watched the first episode of the Sci-Fi maxi-series Taken. Color me very interested to see what happens throughout the rest of the show.

Now Listening To : The Cranberries-No Need to Argue
Random Thought : Vlad Guerrero went to the Anaheim Angels, and not the Orioles. Argh!

What I Just Wrote Before - What I'm About to Write

The Five Most Recent Entries

Here's a hand-picked playlist of 40-plus songs for you to listen to: