Won my match today 6-2, 6-1 against Ab M, a 4th year med student. I played almost solely with a continental grip for all shots. First time ever did such a thing. Worked just fine against this guy anyway. He wasn't very consistent though. He had a hard time with my serve and he had some trouble with my slices that just skimmed over the net. I really didn't do anything special though. I dinked a lot. Gave him no pace. Afterwards we hit around and I mostly still just hit continental and I'm curious about hitting a flat forehand that way. Seemed like I might still be able to hit it decent and possibly with more consistency than I manage with a western.

This was also the first time I played with my prostaff 6.1 95 28 with TNT2 Tour at 44 pounds instead of the Prince Graphite Classic Longbody with natural gut at 50 pounds. Made no meaningful difference. Still hit some aces. Although all and all my serve might have been a little slower, maybe. Not a big difference though.

This guy wasn't very good though.

Lost the other day 6-0, 6-2 to J Engle. He was excellent at retrieving balls and just pushing them back. I stubbornly stayed back and attempted to rip groundstrokes for winners and hit a bunch of unforced errors. Additionally I didn't even slice on the return of serve. And this was the first match I really tried to stick with the one hand topspin backhand throughout. To win I should have sliced far more and rushed the net a lot. This guy had trouble when he had to generate his own pace and did great when I hit really hard. But I just really didn't want to slice... In the future I'll try to do so though. Want to start hitting a lot more slice and drop shots and coming to the net I guess.

Today took thunderstick (strung at 60 with gamma tnt2), prostaff 6.1 28 (strung at 44? with gamma tnt2 tour) and prince longbody graphite classic (strung at 50 with natural gut) and compared them with the ball machine. Really not much meaningful difference actually. Maybe the natural gut is getting too old but it felt the least forgiving. And otherwise the main difference was I liked how the prostaff felt a bit better I think mainly just because it's strung so loose. The slice felt so much nicer.

As to topspin drives, if I try to put a lot of topspin on them, they can all potentially go wrong. Maybe a prostaff 6.0 85 strung tight would a bit less so.... But here not much difference.

But I am curious to try the thunderstick with a 44 or so tension. Thinking to cut out current strings and put in a nice synthetic.

Looking at dulcimers. Even considered selling my viola to fund buying a nice one. But can't really find any info online about a reasonable price for the viola, so I expect I wouldn't be able to sell it for what it's worth. Do have my eye on a HD that is priced extremely cheap at the moment... Probably should pick up a cheap zither/autoharp too. Still thinking about building my own instrument.

Finished The Troupe by Robert Jackson Bennett. It was OK. But I need a gritty well developed typical fantasy fiction world. Low tech pseudo England in the 14th century with magic, etc. Or write my own. The bad guys were too simplistic to be very interesting here. Wolves/men in suits that eat the world and don't really have personalities or much of anything really. Just not dark enough ultimately.

Also been watching Hannibal. Watched it and Game of Thrones in the last 5, 10 years... Liked season 2 much better but especially when Will was imprisoned. The idea of the hero stuck in a predicament.

Had really started eating a lot of chocolate and seemed a bit stressy and also having energy lows.. So trying to stop eating it. Tonight was really my first day without and I almost succumbed to an overwhelming urge. Literally stood and looked in the window at the chocolate chip cookies. Kept telling myself if I go home and have a beer the urge will pass.

Went to S's halloween thing last night. Her sister (B) was also there whom I play tennis with a few times each month. Her sister is not as smart. Something about her is really attractive. Her slutty german outfit really didn't hurt. Her brother and father are sort of neat too. Just something about them. S is the best though. My fellow INTJ.

B went with her brother and his friend and a few others outside where they were smoking weed. S said B didn't smoke any but considering she then got really sick and was vomiting I think she probably did. Anyway to think of her smoking it bothered me at the time a bit. Almost a lot. I don't really know crap about drugs but I walked by the porch screen door and it almost looked like something beyond weed... Don't think it was but strangely it bothered me to think of her being like that. S says she's all about following the crowd and oh well. B doesn't keep it real like S. Not entirely sure why she wants to play tennis with me.... S is kind of awesome. One of a kind. The only person from working at the hospital that is very interesting. (Maybe that one girl who plays the cello somewhat.)

And so I won 6-3, 6-0 tonight against Art R. Little surprised it was that close but took some time to get used to some very fast balls I hadn't played with before on top of the fast indoor court. And then won the last 9 games.

Despite natural gut at 50 my tennis elbow flared very slightly and think that's because I was bending my elbow too much on my serve. I didn't hit a decent one handed backhand the entire match but this guy wasn't good enough for it to matter. Thinking a ball machine isn't going to be enough to ever hit a good OHBH. Need someone to just hit with. But on these indoor courts slice works really well. And I can even hit a wimpy flat OHBH with my serve grip I guess...

All the running I do (only 30 minutes twice a week lately) also really helps my game. No doubt of that.

I watched Wawrinka on youtube then went to courts with ball machine trying to emulate him. With proper footwork and a straight arm I definitely hit OHBH better. Not too sure about returning a hard serve as it will be hard to have time and also hard to practice it. I guess just wait till the last second when using the ball machine?

Read a bunch of tennis biographies and autobiographies. John McEnroe really didn't impress me. Nor did Jimmy Connors. Seemed like pretty dumb guys. McEnroe was depressing. They both seemed like asses. Pete Sampras also kind of a dumb guy although at least nice. The biography of Lendl was interesting. Always liked him best. Monica Seles is basically brain dead. Now started one on Rafael Nadal. He's far more interesting. Gives more of the details that I want to hear about while the others just randomly report match results slam after slam with a few random events thrown in.

Richard Williams wrote a pretty neat book. Not really a tennis book. More along the lines of Fredrick Douglas except more interesting actually. Seems a very underrated book. He admits to breaking the law and getting away with it quite a bit. Seems owning a business is the way to go in life if you really care about making money. Not that I didn't already know that. I don't care enough I guess.

So I'm an INTJ. My wife is an INFJ. My one sort of close friend (sort of...) is an INTF. My wife's closest friend is an ISTJ. Maybe there's something to Meyers Briggs. Possibly will learn about the other personalities. The ISTJ makes sense (equally and logical ethical but boring). INFJ (almost as logical...)

Won my tennis match today 6-0, 7-6. First time with the new grips (backhand and forehand the same with huge topspin). My forehand was awesome. My backhand was horrendous. I told him he should hit to my backhand in the second set, which he did. It was so bad I'm thinking of going back to the drawing board/changing my grip to something not quite so extreme.

Today was my first match in almost a month (they have a layoff before the indoor season starts). My elbow didn't hurt thankfully. This was with my Prince Graphite Classic Longbody (28inches and 100 square inches) with natural gut strung at 50, but possibly starting to loosen? Didn't check to see today. Ball felt very good coming off of it. Forehand was huge. Court next was some good doubles and they commented a few times to each other about it. (I hit a few ROS winners that were harder than anything Roddick or Sampras did at that exhibition recently.)

Think it was my 7th match in this league. Have won all except the very first.

Serve was good today. Noticed I started throwing the ball ridiculously high and that was actually working. Had a more consistent toss... Also keeping my elbow pretty straight on the serve. For me that seems to be important.

Previously tried a gamma polyester at 31 (in my prostaff 6.0 85) and my elbow started getting tender. So, no polyester. Probably no Ashaway Crossfire either, though it's on its way.

Today I played a german guy getting a PhD in something, previously played a guy from China getting a PhD in Physical Education... also two guys who are engineers and another who's a sociology professor, finally some high ranking guy at the FBI.