I won! I won!

The finals of the Table Tennis Competition were held today at Visto Corporation's offices in Seattle. There were three divisions, A, B and C in descending order of skill level. I was in the A-group finals, played at 1p today.

I was unbeaten in the preliminary round, winning all of my matches, and compiling a 6-0 record. The top 2 players in each group faced off in the finals.

I beat Paja Stankov in 5 games: 8-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-3, 11-8.

The first game started pretty badly, and I was down 7-1 before fighting my way back to 9-7. A service mistake and a missed smash nailed me. I was missing everything left and right in that game, and I thought I was going to lose this match. Paja was making the ball do this weird sort of wobble that I am not accustomed to, and it bit me in the butt. I was also nervous, and my opponent played way better than I did. Better serves, few unforced errors, and better ball vision helped him. But things got better for me!

Other division winners were:
Division B: Joe Wang (beat Andy Litzinger)
Division C: Bobby Grant (beat John Herrema)

What's more, Bobby Grant is also a cyclist!

This was great fun, and winning it all was even greater fun!

A World without men ?

Hhmmn... I thought the journey was more enjoyable than the desination, but apparently, the journey is not gonna be needed for much longer, either! ;)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2444462.ece

Dixie Chicks Win!

Ok, I will be very honest - I am not a Dixie Chicks Fan. I don't even listen to their music that much. I have a hard time naming any of their hits. With that being said, I was quite gratified by The Grammys on Sunday night.

Their sweep of every category they were named in, was as a strong rebuke (can you spell understatement?) of their treatment by the Nashville-based Country Music establishment in general, and Radio in particular. I was quite pleased to see them come out swinging against Bush and his warmongering buddies (even if it was in the UK), and am quite happy that they won. Enough said.