Monday, March 13, 2023

What a Racket

In other news, I made the yearly trip out to Palm Springs for the BNP Paribas Tennis tournament, something I enjoy doing annually.  It ends up being a very long day, getting up around 7:30am and then getting home at 1:30am, but it's usually worth it.  This year was particularly interesting since rain was in the forecast, and as promised, a short rain storm stopped play for about 2 hours on the grounds around 3pm.  The interesting part was that on Stadium 4, where Shapovalov was playing Humbert, the grounds keeper guy brought a bunch of rollers in order to dry off the court and a bunch of people from the stands were so enthusiastic to get back to the match that they jumped out of their seats, grabbed a roller, and promptly started working to dry the court.  Here's a pic of a couple of them in action, and I'm fairly sure this made the news reel:


You'd think that the people running the tournament would have been overjoyed; instead, they were being jokingly critical and showing the fans how to roll the court correctly.  It was rather memorable, to say the least.

Later that night, I also got to see Medvedev and then Giorgi on the big stadium for the evening session, Stadium 1.  It ended up being a very late night, and even though the rain blew about 2 hours plus of time, it'll be a year that I certainly remember well.  The seats were great for Stadium 1, and here's a great shot of Giorgi vs. Pegula (unfortunately Giorgi lost after winning a strong first set):


Ah, DST...  Don't get me started.  I did finally play a bit of guitar today, and it's murder on my left hand after not playing for a couple of weeks.  I realized by looking at the calendar that Memorial Day isn't that far off, and since I plan to start the recording sessions for the new Jazz Machine album during that week, well, I better get my sh*t together.