Showing posts with label tennis Herb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tennis Herb. Show all posts

Friday, May 25, 2007

New Car

Name this location and win a new car!



A very excellent day in May. I didn't have time to bike, but I got in my daily dose of tennis - today at St. Clair Playground tennis courts. There was no wind, the sun mainly obscured by clouds and a temp of 67. Nice.

The last time I talked to the assistant English teacher, she told me that this blog is not funny enough. I tried to retell the G.W. Bush story about the three Brazilians that were killed in Afghanistan, an event that George thought was a terrible tragedy, but was forced to ask "How many are a brazillion?" - but we started to talk about rumbas and other dances of Brazil and the moment was lost.

I visited the Japanese Garden at Como park with my Unky Herb. It's a very nice Japanese style garden, including rocks, and trees and a series of pools filled with large, colorful carp. It's dedicated to St Paul's sister city relationship with Nagasaki, Japan, the place where the second Atomic bomb was used in anger. Herb spent a year and a half just outside of Hiroshima - the other place. It was a peaceful day, but Como was full of kids on field trips, and there was significant hurly-burly. It reminded me of Vonnegut for some reason. Maybe because Memorial Day is Monday.

The draw has been done at Roland Garros and the regular part of the event starts Saturday, although the qualifiers have been hacking away for almost a week. Rafael Nadal is seeded number 2 (behind Federer), but has a tough clay courter in the first round, Juan Del Potro of Argentina. Amelie Mauresmo is seeded 5th and meets Laura Granville in the first round. She is judged to have a fairly easy draw for the first week. My girl, Milagros Sequera, is unseeded (68th in the world WTA rankings) and first plays Virginia Razzano of France (61st in WTA rankings). If Milagros wins she'll likely meet the "bootylicious" Serena Williams in the second round. Not an auspiciously good draw.

Rubber side down.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Unky Herb Rides

Unky Herb rode the old blue Schwinn to work today - 15 miles each way. His regular bike is at Boehm's getting a tune up. The Schwinn is at least 10 years old and heavy and it was windy all day. It's nice to be 27 years old.



I planned some tennis playing today, but the wind was swirling, it was 59 degrees and Dennis wasn't up for it. So my activity of the day consisted of a morning walk over to Linwood Park to check on the native plant garden there, and to see if I could spot any black eyed susans in the places I had "disposed" of the seeds from Pster's garden. No sign yet.

This afternoon I drove over to Dodge Nature Center in Mendota Heights and walked around the premises. They have rescued raptors there, including an American Eagle with mean looking talons, and a couple of owls recovering from some injury or another. They were in cages so I was able to get pretty close. Very handsome birds. I hadn't ever been to Dodge before. It's pretty large, with a lot of walking trails, but not a place for cycles. It's about 5-6 miles away and the route there is bikeable. I should have biked today, since Herb proved the going was good enough, but it only got to 61 degrees today and I let it slide.

Gas was $3.249 at SuperAmerica on Grand Avenue. There was a gas buying boycott scheduled for today, but I haven't heard how it went or even if it had an effect. I, for one, put off any gas purchases until tomorrow.

Twelve days until Roland Garros. Excitement builds.