Monday, April 30, 2007

Sigh...

Day one of Finals Week is in the books. I had two tests today and they weren't terrible. That's not to say that they were great, because they were final exams...

The *#&#^!% Nuggets lost tonight, and OMG does that piss me off. It apparently made me angry enough to use "OMG" in a sentence for the first time, and now I want to hurt myself all the more. Someone was playing solid defense on Tim Duncan for a change and since he wasn't getting any calls in the first half I guess the refs felt obligated to spread the fouls back around to everyone on the Nugs squad. Then Robert Horry happened and nothing else mattered. Holy shit. Kill me.

I will be recording the 'Pool game tomorrow. Don't spoil it for me! It's gonna be tough. When Gerrard was walking off the field after the last game, my buddy Mitch said (in his usual I-have-to-say-something-to-sound-soccerish way) "He knows what he has to do." Let's freaking hope so.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Nadal is a ferocious beast, and Until June is pretty decent

I don't think anyone but me could beat Nadal on clay right now. Oh wait.....ya right!! Holy shit!! He is amazing!! He beat Canas 3 and 4 and has now won 72 straight matches on clay. Most people won't win 72 matches in a lifetime -- on any surface. What a man.

Also, check out this band Until June. They are pretty solid. Kind of like Coldplay if they were from California. That's all I got for now, gotta go eat some lasagne.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Light Green

I know I was just here but I think you should read this.

Ever since I picked up my first John Mayer CD, Room For Squares, when I was 14, I knew that he was my favorite artist -- ever. I started downloading all of his unreleased and independent stuff, and then with Heavier Things and Continuum and the Trio I have only fallen more and more in love with his music. And it's not just the songs he writes or the way he plays the guitar. I really can't remember disagreeing with anything he has said. I am perfectly alligned with practically every world view he has. His interviews...amazing...he just has the right type of personality, the right sense of everything to keep him balanced.

His latest blog entry is just another step -- he gets it.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

I want to share this

because it is freaking sick.

So I was finishing up some hw tonight and I was scouring youtube for some fresh music clips and what did I find? Just John Mayer at Abbey Road.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Rafael Nay-Dal

Stupid ESPN ladies. I hope you understand that. Anyhow, ESPN the website actually a pretty nice write up about Rafa. It is one of many articles that have been written (and will be written) about Senor Rafa, but I read it and thought I'd pass it on for no real reason.

Also, fucking Chelsea. They played well, it was about what I expected. Bellamy was a disappointment and then Crouch didn't do shit once he got put in except jump on a guy's back and then act like he couldn't understand why he got flagged. Gerrard's almost-goal was pretty amazing, but Cech came up with the goods on the save. Fuck. I hope they win the next leg...it will be tough, but I will be watching...

Monday, April 23, 2007

My life is empty

I have nothing to do. Nowhere to go. No stories to tell. Well I guess I have a couple of stories, but they are just sad little things. Let me take you back to what happened.

Last Thursday: The last day of practice for the 2006-2007 tennis season. The RMAC tournament was the next day and since we were given no shot to win and advance to regionals, Thursday figured to be the last day of practice. It was. And it was wonderful.

The weather started out horrible (40 mph winds all morning -- I thought the Library building was going to come tumbling down) but it turned amazing somewhere along the way. The perfect spring day. We had a short little practice at the park and then went to a park to play frisbee for about an hour, and then everyone came to my house for a gigantic spaghetti and meatball dinner. After a few solid hours of eating, ping pong, more frisbee, FIFA, and a little more eating, everyone left and I was left with a weird glowing feeling that all was well in the world. It was the best day I could remember. Our coaches had even come to the dinner, and I felt for the first time like everyone on the team was just one big family. I know, I am retarded.

Fast forward to Friday morning. I woke up late. 20 minutes before I was supposed to be across town, in fact, which takes 15 minutes. I slammed some fruit into my tennis bag, forgot half of my warm ups, brushed my teeth, didn't get to take my morning dook, picked up Ricardo at school and made it to the courts a mere 8 minutes late. Not the best start to the morning.

It didn't matter that much though, because Greg and I played some amazing tennis in dubs and won 8-1. We spanked them. Then I lost in singles. And then we lost to Mesa again, 5-4. And then in the huddle afterwards our coach said, "Well guys, this is my swan song." No one said anything for a solid minute. Everyone was just staring at the ground. I looked at him and watched him try to blink away some tears and put his sunglasses back on. He stuck his hand into the middle of the circle and asked for a "team on three," but I could barely understand him. We croaked out a little chant but no one left. We had all been preparing for it since we found out he was getting divorced this winter, but I don't think anyone was expecting it at that moment.

Since then, life has been a slow, springtime spiral. Life is good, and at the same time I am heartbroken. Practice is over and I have nothing to do. I should have tons of time to do homework, but I can't focus on anything at all. I walked the dogs and did errands with my dad around town today instead of playing tennis, and it was nice and all but it didn't feel right at all. Life has no meaning without tennis -- I am sure of that.
And yes, I am very glad that the Nuggets beat the Spurs, but they need to do it again before I get too excited. And no, I cannot wait until the Liverpool - Chelsea Champions League match. I'm going to go temporarily forget my sorrows with a DP and FIFA. You figure it out.

Monday, April 16, 2007

What did I say?

That's right. I said the weather would be horrible and that I was glad I had taken advantage of it while I had the chance. It was windy and rainy and snowy for like five days after that. This weekend the weather was magnificent while we were in Denver and Greeley, but as I speak it is raining -- and has been raining for over four hours now. Joy of joys.

The trip was OK. We whupped up on CCU 9-0, and the good news is that they only have one psychotic person on their team. I find that to be good news because UNC had several of them. Or I guess the better term would be "prick." Or "douchebag." Or "vagina helmet" or even "slapdick." Whatever you want to call them, they were really poorly behaved. My guy hooked the shit out of me when I was serving at 30-40 5-all in the second set; it was the worst I've ever been hooked. Whatever though. I will be over it by the next time we have to play.

This is just a really quick update because I am still trying to wrap my head around life at the moment. I have to shower and figure out my checkbook and then probably do something else before I go to sleep, and I am making that a priority these days.

Oh man, I just found something hilarious. Let me say this much first: our two dubs team started out the season amazing. Mitch and Josh combined to make a really solid team. Then Josh tore that ACL. Kyle and Greg had been playing three dubs, but the teams got split up and moved around. Now Kyle and Mitch are playing 2, and they haven't exactly been grooving. They both kind of hate playing with each other, and the fact that they lost 4 or 5 games or whatever it was to CCU is really kind of funny. Mitch was really pissed at Kyle, in fact. So reading CCU's recap of the day is awesome. Plus, Ricardo hurt his back in singles and just tanked the shit out of the entire match after he got one break of serve anyhow. He Pete Sampras'd his way through the day. Guess that doesn't make as good of a story. Sorry CCU.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Spring for a day

Yesterday I woke up and everything was covered in snow. Today it was 70 degrees and perfect. No joke. Practice was solid, and afterwards I ran around the park because it was a nice day and I wanted to try out the new Nike running shoes. It was a successful venture on both counts. I walked up to school at 5 for a dinner meeting and took a little pic on the way home because the light in Pueblo is best at the end of the day. Wanted to share. Anyhow, it's a good thing that I managed to get maximum enjoyment out of it too because tomorrow the weather is supposed to start sucking again.

Not much going on in the world of professional tennis today. Today was the first day of the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships, and if you want to read about it...well go for it.

I am trying to find a relatively unknown tennis player to stalk when I go to Wimbledon this summer. He (or she, I guess!) would have to be ranked somewhere around 75 to 100 in the world. My boss and I just think that it would be funny for the 82nd ranked player in the world to have two stalkerish superfans for a couple of days. We could go to the players' hotel and rush him for autographs and what not. Man, I am looking forward to this.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Decisions!

So I am hopefully going to England this summer. The trip is June 14-28, and I will hopefully be able to go to Wimbledon for a day. I will get 6 credit hours for school, which is amazing, but I have a problem. There is going to be this amazing concert the day that I would have to leave. Ahhhhhhhh! It is the concert that I have waited my whole life for too! John Mayer with Ben Folds opening for him. Holy shit! Whyyyyyyyyyyy!? The day that I leave!?

I already know what I'm going to do................................buy an international adapter for the iPod.

I can't pass on Wimbledon, and I can't resist the idea of leaving the US for a while. I guess I have a pretty nice life if this kind of thing is a decision that I have to make. Back to reality...

F the USTA

Dear USTA:

I would start out this letter by simply saying, "You suck!" but you probably already know that, so I won't. I would just like to let you know a few things about tennis.

Some people just want to go to the park and play tennis. Some people don't have enough money to pay 40 dollars for a one-year membership to your shitty organization, and surely do not want to part with their hard-earned scranch just for the right to have a piece of shit membership card that says so. Furthermore, your league system sucks, and I think you have some wacked out priorities about the sport in general. Is your goal to promote the sport or to make money? Hmmmmmm...me thinks it's the second one. No one goes through the USTA to do anything unless they live in a big city, and here in Colorado, when someone utters the forbidden phrase "CTA," they are usually met with a sideways glance and a hard snicker. USTA, you are a disgusting tool.

In case you were wondering, USTA, what this rant is all about...I will tell you. The other day, I tried to sign up for a men's 4.5 league that will start playing in May and go through the summer. I had to "self-rate" myself, because in your infinite wisdom, everyone must have a designated skill level. I was halfway through your little self-rating program when I started to realize that I must have mis-read one of the questions, and since there is no way to go back and re-answer a question, I decided to close the window and start over. Then your program locked me out and rated me as a 6.0! What the fuck! In case you have forgotten, POSUSTA, your system ranks players from 1.0 (what is this thing called a racquet!?) all the way up to 7.0 (OMG it feels great to win Wimbledon again!). Most people are in the 3.0 to 4.0 ranks, and playing in a 4.5 league stands as a pretty respectable degree of ability. But 6.0!? What? You bastards. Now I have to appeal my ranking at send it to your office and let your degenerates decide that I am, in fact, not a professional tennis player, but am instead a mildly talented human being.

USTA, in case you didn't notice, I hate you.

Sincerely,

Jamison Parker
(and the real person who wrote this)

****************************************************
Anyhow, there is some real news at the moment. The team is idle right now -- we had an invogorating five matches in four days over the past weekend, so we had a few days off and are enjoying the Easter weekend by doing absolutely nothing. It freaking snowed here today but will be 70 tomorrow...go figure. It's CO. Fuck it. We have a week of practice, two matches, a week of practice, and then the conference tournament. I hope we are all peaking at the right time.
This was a Davis Cup weekend, and it was solid action all around. The US won which was nice. JB played well, Roddick played well, the Bryan bros played well (in singles even too!), so it was a solid effort. Semis now.

I wanted to see the France-Russia singles matches so badly!! Safin is such a bad ass!! He was held out of the first singles rubbers but then comes back and saves the day. What a quote: "It was a pure accident," said Safin, who is 29-18 in the Davis Cup. "I have not been playing for a long time and won quite unexpectedly."
As has been the trend lately, I'm going to go back for another round of Ass Ranger with my homework before some Easter dinner. Stay calm today, and please don't send me any more text messages that say, "Happy Easter, He is risen!" If you do, you're going right up on the big board next to the USTA.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Liverpool d. PSV Eindhoven 3-0

So that was a pretty sick game. A buddy and I devoured some pre-match subs and watched the first half, and then I watched the first half after our match against Metro. The soccer game went well, our match did not. Everyone was tired and a little dinged up after playing 10 times in 4 days, but oh well. We will get healthy and have some days off and get ready to beat that ass at the conference tournament.

Back to Liverpool for a minute. I know PSV was missing some players, but man, Liverpool took it to them very convincingly. The first goal was efficient and exactly what they should have done, the second goal was an amazing bonus, and the third goal was just insulting. I agree with the PSV coach...this series is doneski.

Davis Cup is in just a few days, and Roddick says that he is going to play no matter what. I read that he has been getting "intense ice, laser and other treatments" on his strained hamstring What!? Lasers? As I sit typing this with a bag of ice on my foot, I have to wonder...wouldn't it be nice to play sports for a living? I could have a team of people making sure that my foot feels 100% right now instead of sitting in a computer lab with a bag of stolen ice draped over my foot. Oh well. I like this better.

Monday, April 2, 2007

You wouldn't believe me if I told you...

Life has been insane!! Where to start?

We took a trip down to Silver City, New Mexico to play a match against WNMSU. It sucked. 22 hours in a van round-trip and we got rained out after about 90 mins of play. Mitch and I won in dubs and then I played a set of singles and the rains came. End of story. Good thing we didn't play ENMSU.

We have now had four matches in three days. It is draining. We played CC today and I felt much better after I was done playing than I did at any point during the day. Yesterday we had to play four times (singles and doubles...you get it) and man, tiiiired legs today. We made it with an 8-1 victory though. Oh and I was THIS close to some deer that ran through the Broadmoor today. Yeah. I wish I went to CC and got to play my matches at the freaking Broadmoor. Back to the public park for me...

Tomorrow we play Metro State and it will be difficult. Really difficult. Looking forward to it though.

And pro tennis...Novak Djokovic is sick! He reminds me of a guy around here: robotic type strokes and just all sorts of game. He wants it, too, much more so than a lot of people around that have shit tons of ability but don't have that killer instinct.

The one thing that I already knew but have learned all over again in college is that the game is all about being consistent. All you have to do is be confident that your shots are going to go in and then you can start figuring out how to beat people. It's pretty simple, really. But Djokovic...his match against Canas was a solid example of Consistency vs. Power + Consistency. Power and consistency won. It won't always. There are ways to beat it, but you have to be good enough to take that guy out of his comfort zone, and Canas was not going to wear out Djokovic.

And get off of Federer's back. He has lost twice in two weeks to a guy who is playing out of his gord. Canas is not afraid of anyone, especially now, and especially after beating Fed the first time...

And finally, I guess I should address my lengthy absence from the "blogosphere"...I dare you to not snicker when you say that word seriously. This past week was spring break, and I was doing my best to disappear. Basically I watched a lot of TV and played some tennis and made a few bad decisions that I could not afford to make during the regular school week. The week before that we took the trip to NM and I missed three days of school and work. Then this weekend and week we have 5 matches in four days. I used to have too much time to waste; I still do, except I just waste it more dramatically and without noticing.

I am supposed to pass along some other blogs that I read (it's an assignment) so here are a couple of pretty nice ones. Exhibit A, and Exhibit B. I wish I knew people like this in Pueblo.

On another note, the team made a little spring break trip up to Denver and took in a Nuggets game. They played like shit and lost at the end to the Sonics, but they made up for it by wasting the Sonics right back last night in Seattle. They need to figure their shit out and get a playoff push going so they can play with a little momentum.

There is lots more coming in the next few days; the ATP tour is getting into Davis Cup ties and the clay court season, and the team is getting ready to try to make some noise at the conference tournament in a couple of weeks...and oh yeah, LIVERPOOL is going to dominate...er, hopefully dominate, or win, or show up. Balls.

Now I must unfortunately be getting back to letting school kick my ass and tend to my sick dog...he's not really that sick, but he got a tooth removed today and needs some nursing.