The Second Half

Obi Wan

Outta the house today at 5:50 and on down to meet my Obi Wan Kenobi….71 year old Mr. Cristall – spelled dangerously close to every rapper’s favorite champagne, and the parallel is that this guy loves the good stuff a la Cristal and Dom. But he’s confident enough to order chicken wings with either one.

Obi Wan taught me how to wield a racquetball racquet ten years ago. Before I met him I was a hard hitting goofball with no technique other than ‘crush the ball’. Part of that description – the goofball part – will probably never go away. He’s undergone some surgery lately so he wasn’t at his best, but he sure didn’t have surgery on his vocal cords. He had no problem verbally correcting my footwork, chastising my faded hand-eye coordination and lack of flexibility since all I do is ride bikes. This is our third year going through this, and he seems to enjoy barking, giving tips, and reminding me how stupid I am to quit playing every year and then try to pick back up where I left off. He didn’t have to remind me to play easy today, don’t overstretch on shots, and only lob serves because it hurts like hell the next two days if you go hard on day #1. I’m thanking him right now as I feel stretched, but not stretched out, and my arm is just a very dull throbbing appendage. Obi Wan morphed my game into one that relies on placement and finesse – with the occasional type-A male Dodge Ram Truck driving cannon shot just so I don’t start to grow man boobs and talking about feelings on the court. I still wanna kill the motherf*ckers I play. So – for the next four months we’ll meet every other Wednesday in Sedona and I don’t foresee a day when I won’t learn something from the ol’ Kenobi.

Team night ride tonight @ 8:00pm with bright-ass night lights…..the Small Town D-Bags part II will be hammering the crap outta each other on one of those notorious “Oh, I haven’t been training much, let’s just take it easy tonight” rides. Yeah, right. Somebody will throttle it and then….well, it all goes to hell.

Where does work fit in today? Between 9pm and 6pm and between blog posts and fantasy football updates. Just kidding – I better get on it.