Tennis is tricky -- searching for that spark

Recently, Pete Sampras was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame at Newport Beach. Pretty nice, I guess, if you like that sort of thing. A lot has been made about how he was inspired by his 1992 loss to Stefan Edberg in the US Open final. I lost a match last night. Instead of feeling inspired or sparked or anything cool like that, I just felt pissed off. I was playing a men's open singles match in a tournament against some guy that lives here in Pueblo. He's OK, not a bad player. Good backhand, not much of a forehand, solid spin serve, really damn fast, covers the court well, very unpredictable, makes some amazing gets and shots. So really, since I didn't play my best tennis for more than 20 minutes, I should not be too upset with that loss. It was 4-6 in the third. It was OK. I guess now that I'm typing this I feel that I'm not satisfied with OK, but I'm still more mad than anything else. It's all about a lot of growing up to do, I hope.

I won the first set 6-3 and then got lazy and then got complacent and then started pressing and then I lost. It was annoying. I feel like I should be past that point at my career. I have been playing tennis for a while now. I haven't played much singles lately though...I feel like I am rationalizing to myself. It's an annoying feeling. But oh well. I have two doubles matches tonight and I want to play well.

I couldn't concentrate last night and I think it's because of everything that's going on at my house. I don't feel like complaining about that right now though, so I won't. But I want to be able to concentrate. Oh what do you do when you feel like you should be past something but you're not!? It's very troubling. Some nights you have it and some nights you don't. I'm in repair. I'm not done yet but I'm getting there.

Some more England

I put about 660 pictures on facebook last night and it took me three hours. You all are lucky that I'm not burnt out on uploading pics yet. So here are a couple more. I will put some more pictures of London up soon...I'm pacing myself.

Back home...forget to tell you I left!!

I have been to England. I am now home. You are pretty smart and probably figured that out already. I took a lots of pictures -- 700, to be precise. I am not, however, going to put them all on here. It was more difficult than you might think, picking the best ones to throw on here. One of the first ones is a pic of me and my mates at Wimbledon, which is a whole 'nother story. There are just a couple pics of London up right now because there are too many to choose from and London is a lot bigger than my capability to explain it.

I am still processing everything, and I have been home for exactly one week. God DAMN it was an amazing trip. I think the thing that amazed me the most about England is that it is actually real. The country exists -- it is a place in the world other than Colorado. It's not in the United States. It's not in Pueblo county. It's far away and really unbelivably cool. I wish I was there.

Anyhow, the pics ended up in order exactly opposite the way I intended, so be courteous and start at the bottom. And yes, I will post more in a bit.