2008 News

12/01/08 Proud to Announce Matthew Joseph Delgado
Things went a lot smoother with Matthew than they did with Jason. Everything went by the numbers and pretty much the Doctors' had all time they needed to get Matthew out safely and comfortably. He weights about 6 lbs. 13 oz. and came into the world crying at the top of his lungs. Seems so little compared to Jason and it's hard to think Jason was ever that small, but he's here and Mommy is doing fine too. Going to take Jason to see his younger brother and Mommy tomorrow and I'm going to get some sleep.

I enjoyed the moments after Matt was born more than I did with Jason. I think I was more in shock and abject terror than anything else the first time around. Now I can look at the moment and think at the wonder that life is instead of thinking how the hell am I going to take care of this baby. More pics now on Facebook.

10/18/08 The Jersey Splat, NJAR Newsletter
The NJAR posted their first newsletter with a couple of Board Members contributing articles and pictures from the event. The best article was from Aimee Ruiz who wrote about "Doubles -- Choosing the Right Partner." Aimee is an awesome Open Doubles player has a ton of accolades to proove it. Guess the only problem with the article...it was kind of short. Very insightful, but short. Looking forward to more articles and resources. Nice job.

10/7/08 New Jersey State Doubles (Edited Again, 10/9/08)
10/9/08, Jon Panno brought another correction to my attention. Looks like Wayne "The Dreamer" Storch was on the wrong end of those 15-0, 15-2 scores he told me about. I was a big enough sap to believe him. Perhaps Wayne was beaten to the Bizarro World or something.

10/8/08, Aimee was quick to point out that she was not made short work of. Sorry Aimee it was a very close game I wished I watched completely. It's nice to see some new Open Level players. Usually the same people win year after year, so it was nice to see some new blood.

What a nice way to kick off the season! NJ State Doubles was a lot of fun and Jon Clay and Aimee Ruiz did a great job organizing the event. Joe Camiolo and Gloria Fidecaro ran the tournament desk all day and night. Jon Panno and Tina Davitt took care of all the food, and Carolyn Becker kept the draws updated on R2. So things were great. Also sure other board members worked with Sponsors and other things. I'm sure Panno won't let me forget my own contribution...the Gatorade was handled by your's truly with my NJAR board member hat in place.

Jon Clay turned the tables on me and put me on the other side of the lens this time. It was nice to be taped instead of always being the taper. I was surprised how little I actually cared that the camera was running. There were some new kids on the block, sorry for the pun, that were really incredible for 16 and 17 years old. Actually they are Junior National Doubles Champions who won in straight games (14,12) over Aimee Ruiz and Anthony DeFusto. I saw Aimee and Sanjay LaForest in the hallway and offered that they needed each other this time. They couldn't reach each other in time for State Doubles and took different partners.

Jon Clay had a pretty interesting booth for his Rollout Racquetball including one of those stand up banners and a mannequin like thing to show off some shirts.

Wayne "The Weapon" Storch told me he beat one of the "kids" 15-0, 15-2, and to write that on my blog! Well I'll do one better, you get page one. Mike Grab already asked where's my synopsis is...the only thing I wanted was my bed after States. I'll go into my own story in the blog.

9/28/08 New Article: Quick Start Racquetball
Over the years, I've seen people do some strange things on a racquetball court. I basically wanted to write a short primer on racquetball and offer a link to the official rules on the USA Racquetball site. Most People want to play and don't want to sit around and read a bunch of boring rules, so hopefully this helps get the ball rolling. More in Articles.

9/24/08 Fall Brawl Tournament at Hillsborough
I know, I know old news by now. Since DLC Sports and Rollout Racquetball already put out the word, but I promised Gloria I'll help. I've also missed getting the word out on State Doubles and the AMPro Certification class in Woodbridge this weekend. What can I can say been busy with a few things and been a little fed up with doing things the old fashioned way around my site. I can tolerate the RSS feed for right now.

09/21/08 Jason Starts Racquetball!
After working on my yard and all the other stuff recently I pretty much wanted to relax and normally not even racquetball would have got me out of the house, but when my wife asked Jason if he wanted to play racquetball with Daddy and I saw my kid's face light up. I took a quick shower and packed my bag, took the can of balls that I've been saving since before Jason was born and we were off to Bicentennial Park in East Brunswick. Finally it was time to play racquetball with my son.

He's a righty--regretfully. He had such fun running around after the ball. I got him to stand square to the side lines and take a few practice swings on his forehand side. I even tried to toss the ball in there. I made a big deal every time his shot bounced to the front wall.

Anyway Karen said I was glowing on the way to the park. More in Blog.

09/06/08 It's Here! Head Amp 185!
I pulled a double shift last night, went to Rutgers and played a couple of games. Talked to a lot of new students just starting with racquetball. So hopefully next Friday I can show some new people the game and have fun. A little before 7 PM, I went to Hillsborough to play doubles with Tina. I caught up with Ben, Diane, Gloria, Joe, Mark, and some of the other crew. Joe and Tina had their AMPs and I didn't. :-( Came home to a Head box. It was like Christmas.

I wanted a little lighter and I got it. The feel of the racquet seems similar to what I'm used to with the Extreme. The AMP Pro Glove doesn't have those pain-in-the-ass diving pads. More in Blog.

07/30/08 New Article: Dumb and Dumber Moves in Racquetball
A slightly longer article about dumb and dumber rule exploits in racquetball. Think we've all done a ceiling return over someone's head when they are standing right in front of us. Well here's a article about why we shouldn't do it. It's dumb to exploit a rule. It's dumber to allow it to happen.

07/26/08 My Mission Statement
My Blog has been all over the place except for Racquetball. I can't bring myself to work on my Racquet Service page either. So I need something to focus on, a Mission. My friend, Marv, was right that my racquet service page needs to be separate. It kind of fits, but it doesn't. So I wrote the mission statement for me to focus on my audience and focus on racquetball.

07/16/08 Fran Davis Camp at Woodbridge Next Weekend
Still time to sign-up for Fran Davis' Building your Racquetball Dreamhouse Camp at Woodbridge next weekend. I write about it every year and I don't want to sound like a broken record, but the camp works. Well it works if you keep an open mind and the real work begins afterward. It's been a couple of years since I attended Fran's camp and I miss it. I start to stray from the path, so it's good to reinforce the fundamentals.

Print out the Application sign up and take your racquetball to the next level. I know there's a tournament next weekend, but this is an investment you'll can use for the rest of your life. Use Coupon Code "Post 4th of July Special 2008" and save $100 and get in for $399.00.

07/09/08 ELO Calculator Up
I've used the ELO Ranking System for years for my leagues and other matches here. I've always wondered how much my ranking would improve against certain people and I've seen some keyword hits on my site stats, so thought why not offer an ELO calculator based on my Racquetball Database code for the public. Enjoy.

06/29/08 Racquet for the Cure In Florida
Kim Roy sent me an email about an IRT Pro-Stop Tournament in Port Riche, Florida from July 11 to 13. Can get more information from www.racquetforthecure.com, apply online at R2 Sports, or read the flyer as PDF.

06/17/08 The Finals Have Been Decided
Finished the Semi-Finals tonight. Read the League News for full details.

06/15/08 NJAR Thank You Dinner
Too many racquetball events yesterday, a NJAR meeting in the morning, people playing at Woodbridge, a Hillsborough BBQ, and a NJAR Thank you Dinner. They were all pretty good and my family had a fun at the BBQ. At the Dinner we presented Jon Clay with a plaque shaped like New Jersey to note his accomplishments as President last Season. There's some people that would like to be President and probably most say they can do a better job. Perhaps, perhaps not, but there's more people that help make it a success. The President just keeps it all together and I think Jon did a great job in that regard.

I've been one of Jon's toughest critics in the past, especially at the start when Bill Serafin was stepping down, but I give Jon a lot of respect for what he did for Jersey. In the past couple of issues of Racquetball magazine, Jersey has been mentioned more than any other point I can remember. So good job Jon, keep up the good work.

05/24/08 New Article: Playing Not to Lose.
It's an interesting concept and it's pretty much shaped my entire life in a negative way. Playing it safe doesn't always yield safe results. Check out the article or other articles.

05/22/08 Racquet Service Page
With a new stringing machine, a DBA to collect Sales Tax, and a desire to expand my business. I finally started a racquet stringing page. There's some of my advice on racquet stringing and a little about myself and business.

04/30/08 Player Profiles Fixed
Spent the last couple of nights learning some stuff about C#, yeah I know yet another programming language, to get the Player Profiles operational again. Anyway it was fun and utilized a lot of existing stuff that I already have. It's kind of a blast from the past, but it's a relief to have this fixed. I even updated the rankings lists to take you to the right profile.

04/30/08 League Semi-Finals Set
Abe and Dave Pollak played out their match last night, so the Semi-Finals for the league are all set. Check it out in League News.

04/25/08 USAR New Jersey Player Rankings
Matthew Hills sent me a cool link for all of USAR New Jersey's Ranked Players.

04/14/08 Dropped Messages
Went through about three hundred messages in one of my email accounts. There were three messages that needed my attention. I decided not to setup Outlook and just use the web interface to get to them. Sorry about the delay, I'll check the account more often.

04/12/08 New Article on Anger
A short Article on Anger and how it affects you and/or your opponent. We all get angry sometimes and we're all a little timid admitting how good it feels, but there's some severe costs to that rush even if you are not the one being angry.

03/28/08 Cook League Heating Up
There's five matches left and they will decide the top four players going into the tournament. Check out the League News for full draw run down.

02/28/08 Stage 6 Shutting Down
Pretty sure Stage 6 is going to shutdown today and there's goes all the videos I have posted. I'll look for another solution and get the section back up soon. Sucks! DivX is such a great format.

02/25/08 Quarter and Power Rankings Also Return
Decided tonight I don't need a lot of elaborate programming and routines to make things better around here. I took my XML file that my Racquetball database produces and my XSL files that help format the data and just dumped them into my pages using JavaScript. Ultimately it saves me time, since I only need to upload one file to update all the rankings. I also got rid of all the Doubles teams I had in there that only served to mess things up.

Check out the latest Power and Quarter Rankings from the current league.

02/07/08 ELO Rankings Return
Well everything is not as it once was. A lot of things are still broken, but I was able to pull out the ELO Rankings from my database and post them. I know a lot of league players are itching to see where they are ranked.

01/28/08 League Schedule Started
Well no turning back now. Check out the League News for FAQs and Schedules. It finally give me some motivation to fix up the rankings and other broken stuff on the site. Good luck in the League!

01/16/08 Record Setting Numbers at Hillsborough
There were a lot of people at Hillsborough on Saturday, so much so the desk actually ran an hour behind and that's with spreading out the divisions an hour or so apart. I went there about 10 AM and didn't start to go home until 5:30. I had a lot of fun and played about nine games on Saturday and came back on Sunday for five more Open Doubles.

There was a big upset in the Open Singles Division. Wayne Storch takes first place over Jonathan Clay! Jon and Joe Camiolo were kidding around that Wayne's done. "You never beat the tournament director." Believe everyone had a great time and chalk up another gold star for Hillsborough for competition and value.