Tennis progress today

Focus on:

Watching the ball. Using one tip on watching the ball from Fundamental Tennis Why you keep framing your shots and how to fix it I say out loud, "one" when the other player/ball machine hits the ball, "two" when the ball crosses the net. "three" when the ball hits the ground, "hit" when I hit the ball. 

Seems to work really well for my volley "one, two, hit". Setup: Hitting volleys at sideline with target: opposite sideline 6-10' from the net. I had the camera record where the ball went--if I know I can see the ball going in/out later, I can focus more on ball impact.  "one, two, hit." Here's a few seconds of that video. I did miss about 7 of 44 balls.

The ball landing on opposite side of court

Almost a view of me hitting. A view of the ball landing

Focus on:

The kick serve.  Video from Crunch Time Coaching  

A really good video and I've watched a bunch! Pete helped me understand at 18:00 that the goal of the serve is top spin and a high bounce. A high speed serve isn't the main goal. I really started using my legs to enhance the spin today. I didn't shoot any video;  I put in a fresh battery and misread its energy level as zero. 

Focus on topspin: 

Many parts of both backhand and forehand. keep the grip relaxed. low to high swing path, have the backswing done by the time the ball bounces. the leading shoulder hides the chest from the ball. Non racket hand up and parallel to net to keep from turning early. racket lag. keep my distance from the ball (video link from Jeremy at Fundamental Tennis)

Backspin video. Trying to do it right

I wish I had a program that could show it in slo mo.

I do. It's Filmora9. right click on video on the track at the bottom and choose "speed and duration" see track below.

OH, OH. Tennis nut.

The last time I played competitively: 1971? 72? at Garside Junior High School in Las Vegas, Nevada.. . Wish I could remember more details, like teammates, what racquet I used, etc. The coach Jensen took us around town to play other teams. We played hard, won hard, lost hard. Overall, we had the best time. 

My brother Tom started hitting balls 2-3 years ago. Last fall 2019, on a visit to Vegas, I bought a $20 racquet (a cheap light racquet for beginners) and hit some balls with him.. I hit right handed, but a bike accident a few months earlier made me hit left handed.  I gave the racquet to Tom just before leaving Vegas. Next visit to Vegas, I bought another cheap racquet. Gave that racquet to Tom (he then gives the racquets to people he teaches--not that he's that good; he's just a nice guy) 

At the House of Tennis in Vegas I bought a Yonex Ezone 98 for $135 (ouch! closeout price, new cost $229). 11 months in, I finally broke a string. I made a mistake by cutting away only the cross strings. The racquet could have collapsed except for the low tension in the remaining main strings. Having bought a stringing machine (Klippermate) I replaced the strings. I decided to replace the strings regularly (3 months) or on a 10-15% reduction in string tension per a string tension tester.

YouTube is my teacher. Channels: Essential Tennis, Feel Tennis Instruction, Fundamental Tennis. Often played at 1.25 or 1.5 speed. I'm learning to use my core to lead the arm and racquet. I've tuned the forehand some and I enjoy hitting the twohanded backhand. Learning to hit serves, both slice and kick, with the help of the video, but putting in mindful repetition is the only thing that really helps me progress.

 A Lobster Elite Liberty ($949! ouch) tennis ball machine is my playing partner. I got it before the introduction of a competitor, the Slingerbag at $600 or so.  I'm not really ready to play other people as I get more experience hitting balls, learning to watch the ball and learning to gauge force of impact and racquet face angle.

Water heater: Replacing the dip tube. The wh-a-a-at?

I've had my Kenmore Powermiser 12 electric water heater since 2004. Lately, my hot showers went from hot to a cool version of warm. After checking the internet, I learned how to assess the heating elements and the thermostats; all tested OK. I adjusted the thermostats to make the water hotter, with no improvement. Additional research uncovered a detail of water heaters that few people know of. 

Hot water flows from a pipe at the top of the water heater. The cold water supply attaches to the top of the water heater. But the cold water doesn't stop at the top of the water heater. Water heaters have a tube attached to the cold water pipe at the top and run down to the bottom half or third of the water heater to make the cold water bypass the water at the middle and the top. This is the dip tube.  It keeps the cold water from chilling the hot water that's about to flow to your shower, tubs and sinks. If the dip tube breaks or cracks, cold water will mix with the hot water at the top of the tank and result in tepid showers.

I ordered a dip tube from Amazon. It was a 54" long 3/4" diameter tube with a flare at one end.  Home Depot had a dip tube with a 2.5" long 3/4" threaded tube attached--I ordered that, too, because I wanted to have one part that fit. 

I turned off the power to the water heater and turned off the water going into the heater. Next, I removed the flexible water supply pipe and the 3/4" pipe (this 5" long pipe with threads on both ends is called a nipple) that connected it to the water heater. The dip tube, or what remained of it, would be below that. Looking down into the hole from which I removed the nipple, I saw a mangled rubber/plastic washer, which came out with slight effort. I poked around below that with a thin long rod and felt nothing; the old dip tube had broken off and was sitting in the tank somewhere. The dip tube from Amazon wouldn't go down that hole. Just below the threads of that hole was some kind of fitting with an opening just slightly smaller than the outside of the dip tube. I widened that opening with a a round file until it was large enough for me to slide the dip tube through it. I cut the dip tube to fit inside the water heater so that the bottom end would be at about the level of the lower heating element. 

When I bought the water heater, the hype said that its coiled dip tube would make incoming cold water stir up the sediment on the bottom and prolong its life. I flushed a gallon of water out of the heater and saw very little sediment. The coiled dip tube worked, but I couldn't find one online and the local Sears store had closed. Installing a straight dip tube will obligate me to flush the tank annually. 

Learning to play tennis with my left hand

 Bike crash in November (?) of 2019. That hurt my right hand--I'm right handed. Trip to Vegas to visit family. A tennis racket and brother Tom's friend Greg, on the other side. Ow, that right hand hurts. Better learn to play with my left until the right heals. 

Fast forward to August 2020. The COVID 19 coronavirus pandemic has the world in a vise grip. Finally, a month ago, the tennis courts opened up again. My left handed LH forehand FH has improved some over 9 months ago. I want it to get better, but don't have a regular partner to feed me balls, which would be pretty boring anyway for that nonexistent person. I can hit dropped balls with a forehand, but the backhand has special needs, a higher toss and two bounces instead of one before I hit. That doesn't simulate play with another person. Still, I hit against a wall to work on finer points of the form. I hit balls on an empty court and orient my racket face to keep the ball in the court. Still, it isn't the same as having someone send the ball from the other side. 

Other players have said they would like to play me, but I don't feel I'm ready to keep them entertained. I don't want to waste their time and respectfully decline. I can volley and hit forehand, but I don't have a backhand and serve. I want to develop some basic strokes before playing can make my fragile strokes fall apart.

Now I'm working on a LH serve. The ball toss poses problems. Mine lacks consistency. YouTube videos abound. YouTube tips are great but don't have much effect beyond frustrating me. Then,  I had my own Aha moment today (I hope) which was: keep my eye on the ball starting from before the toss to racket contact.  Having my eye on the ball from waist-level to strike is like watching the ball going from the other player's racket to where I hit the ball. In other words, not watching the ball from waist-level is like shutting my eyes before the other player hits the ball, waiting a half second he hits to open them and trying to prepare for it. In the fifteen minutes I had to try that before darkness made me quit, I had a better ball position and a better connection with the ball--this with my non-dominant hand. Going back for more tomorrow, hoping to confirm this basic (for me) part of the serve. I have to train myself to watch the ball, the most basic principle of playing tennis.

I'm getting a ball machine so I can improve my strokes. 

Three Mile Island was a nuclear disaster in 1979.
Trump is 2020's Three Mile Island nuclear disaster. He's built a mere three miles of new wall on the southern border. He's becoming more and more isolated, more like an island that no one wants to visit. The economy is in shambles, infrastructure rebuilding is less than a wisp in the memory banks, his poll numbers have plummeted, he separated and caged immigrant children, he tried to blackmail Ukraine to get "dirt"on his political opponent, he embraced autocratic rulers of Russia, North Korea, China and the Philippines, he defiled the Bill of Rights by having protesters tear gassed and beaten for a photo op with a Bible and over 120,000 Americans have died in a pandemic so poorly mismanaged that while countries like Cambodia (Cambodia?) and New Zealand have triumphed, the numbers of afflicted in America are still rising as fast as before.

Letters to president trump

Oh boy, Donald. Give yourself a 10.
10 out of 100,000. 100,000: the number of people killed in this pandemic because of your incompetence and stupidity. You ignorant buffoon. You're a carnival barking orange clown.
You should quit now. It would be much less complicated than declaring bankruptcy, which you've done multiple times. Look, just sign one of your hats with a sharpie pen and walk away.
You could play lots of golf and advance conspiracy theories until far into the next week, without any consequences. CNN and MSNBC wouldn't attack you, if you weren't president. Really, now, did they attack you much before you became POTUS? They didn't.
Oh, yeah watch out for Steven Miller. He wants badly to be you. Watch out.

Steven Miller is young and has a healthy body and is probably already immune to COVID-19. You should exchange bodies with him. Just take your hairpiece with you. Steven would die for you. You know that. But he won't really die from the body switch, not right away. He'll just die when you would die if you keep your KFC bucket corpse.

I'll bet Twitter is thinking about cancelling your account. You will die. The hormones that surge while you're tweeting are the only thing that keep you alive. You don't have a substitute for Twitter. You will die.

June 6, 2020
Dear Conman 1
I was thinking about how presidents die. Considering how you've hurt a great number of people, by your words or your presidential orders, I didn't have pretty visions of how you'd meet your end.  .

1. From Wikipedia, how Benito Mussolini met his maker:
"tried to escape to the Swiss border. He and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were captured on 27 April 1945 by local partisans near the village of Dongo on Lake Como. Mussolini and Petacci were shot the following afternoon, two days before Adolf Hitler's suicide.

"The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Milan and left in a suburban square, the Piazzale Loreto, for a large angry crowd to insult and physically abuse. They were then hung upside down from a metal girder above a service station on the square. The bodies were beaten, shot at, and hit with hammers. "

2. You didn't die. Instead, an atherosclerotic plaque broke off from your carotid sinus and lodged in your brain, killing your speech center and leaving you unable to walk or use your hands.

Tesla Model S Roof Rack Version 1.0

I've published this blog, even though I haven't quite finished the project (a few bolts, primer, paint). I thought, right or wrong, that some folks who viewed the YouTube video I uploaded, might like to see the process of puddle of consciousness. Check back sometimes to maybe see another picture of the "ready for prime time" product. Here goes:

I have this inclination to DIY just about everything. Mom thinks I got it from my late Uncle Freddy, who used to build radios back in the 1930's and also work the electrical lines so as to get power without paying the power company in China.

I made a wooden rack to carry my canoe for my previous car, a Toyota Avalon, because the Yakima clips that held the Yakima rack to the roof edges slipped enough to put two canoes at risk. The wood rack for the Toyota was sturdy--not welded steel sturdy, but epoxied wood sturdy. I made it of 2x4 runners on each side with 1 x 6 x 4' load boards--a big rectangle that was a touch heavy and cumbersome. I'd glued and screwed it and it always felt rock solid. I don't have a picture of that rack--I've already scavenged parts for a rack for my new car. Can't keep this stuff around. I have enough clutter around here.

Why build a rack? I have the $ but I didn't like how the Tesla rack attached, where you slip a clip under the glass in four locations--online forums indicate the clip can bend or the glass can break if bolts or nuts are turned too tight. Neither Thule nor Yakima make a rack for my car.  I could make another wooden rack or I could make it of steel, which I'd learned to weld recently. Questions I had: could I design one strong enough to withstand 60 mph with a canoe on top?

Well, I bought some 1/8" steel, but I thought using it as a 48" load bar, it wouldn't have sufficient rigidity. I bolted to it, the wood board scavenged from the rack for the Toyota.
Here we go with the process.

Buy steel for load bar, uprights (towers), and clips.
Decide where on the car I wanted the mount the racks.
Decide what other materials to use besides steel. Wood from the Toyota rack to stiffen the load bars,
Measure the angle of the roof at the attachment locations for the rack's uprights (towers). Cut tower pieces of 3/16" steel. (I bought more steel)

Cut bars of 1/4" or 1/8" steel. Weld to towers. Bolt to wood load boards scavenged from previous Wood rack. For future iterations consider load bar of:
angle iron
or 1/2 in. x 1-1/2 in. x 36 in. Plain C-Channel of 1/8" thickness
or 1/2 in. x 1 in. x 36 in. Plain C-Channel of 1/8" thickness below:

I've already welded for the rear, uprights of 1/8" x 2" to a 1/8" x 2"x 48" bar, too floppy by itself and
therefore bolted to the wood 1x6 used on the Toyota . Also, already welded for the front, uprights of 3/16"x2" to a 1/4 x 1.5" x 36" bar
(stiffer than 1/8" but still needs the wood).
Below: the first version of my design for the attachment hardware.

Below: A simpler, easier-to-build design.

I'm excited about my design. It's not pretty, but it'll work. The Toyota rack connected to the car more like the first picture above, but without the bolt G to pull the plate C up against the roof edge. Likely, the lower lip stayed up against the roof edge because the hole for the bolt was in the right place.

What I've done so far:
I've welded a 1/8" x 2" x 2.75" long arm/wing to each of the rear towers, extending laterally 1.75" above a bolt.
The clip.  A 3/16" x 2" x 7" long plate with a hole that slips over the bolt. The bottom end of the plate has an 8 mm lip that wraps under the roof overhang. The top end of the plate extends up past the the wing and includes a 1" lip that hangs over the 2.75" arm.
I welded a similar arm to the sides of the front towers.

The front rack with the two inch deep base. Most people looking at this wouldn't think it very stable. If I had drawn before building it, would I have thought it stable? Probably not, considering my excitement at just being able to do it.

April 27, 2020. I finished with the clip and bolted the racks to the car. It had two problems. 

1. The 1/8" steel clips deflected when tightening the nut

2. It felt stable laterally but wiggled fore and aft--makes sense, with only a 2 inch base for a 6 inch tall tower.

For problem #1, I welded a 1/8 x 1/2" piece of steel to reinforce the plate. It took 4-5 hours to weld, clean up and drill a hole. Things just take longer. Maybe they'd have happened faster if I'd written a list of actions instead of relying on a puddle of consciousness. Later, I concluded that laying a few beads of weld might have sufficed.


For problem #2, I placed a piece of cardboard edgewise to the roof where I wanted a front rack, drawing a line to match the roof line and made a custom plywood base for each end that would expand the fore and aft dimension of the base to 8 inches.

 

April 28th 2020. I made a custom plywood base for each end of the rear rack.

I wanted maximum contact between the rack base and the car roof to minimize stress and wear on the car. I didn’t want to make the bases by just cutting a rectangular block of wood and bolting it to the rack uprights. I would have to consider the changing angles in the fore and aft axis and the left-right axis. The first picture below shows how the roof climbs going from the side of the car to the center. The second picture gives a side view.

The difference in slope (from front to back) between locations 1 and 2 may differ by 5 degrees, enough that a straight cut base will not have optimal contact with the roof. 

In version 2 of the rack I’d make the base in steel and attach a base plate (maybe 1/8" x 3/4" x 1.5") wherever the base touches the roof. To attach the base, I would have to either use a hinge or tack weld it on the car. Welding it on the car could be done if I took special care to properly drape the car to protect the car's finish from the heat or from weld spatter. The heat from even a tack weld could melt the paint. Conceivably I could use a large cotton tarp and put a piece of aluminum, foam or rubber inner tube under the base to protect the paint.

Next task: rout the top edges of both bases except where they touch the tower. Bolted the base to the tower. Add a rubber foot made of bike inner tube sections. The clips need to have their holes redrilled, because after adding the strips of reinforcing steel, I must have made the holes in the wrong places. Even without having bolted the clips on the rack seemed quite stable. It still bothers me that the back section sits on the painted part of the car instead of on the glass, which will never need repainting. A future task might be to cut and reweld where I want it.

Also done today: I cut a cardboard pattern for the base for the front towers. I’ll make the base of 3/4" plywood and will have a 10" length overall. I measured the angles between the front and rear contact surfaces and level--the difference was 5 degrees.

I quit at 4 p.m. to take a walk. No marathon session in the garage today. More tomorrow.

April 29, 2020

Next, extend the holes in the rear clips. Use the plasma cutter. Done
Mount the rack to the car and wiggle it around. Done. I've made something good here.



.One helpful thing about hybrid construction: screw holes slightly bigger than the thread diameters allow for some movement. One foot didn’t fully contact the roof--after loosening one screw, I improved the contact.

Cut the bases for the front

and measure the angle of tilt left to right on the roof (smartphone app Clinometer works really well for that). Cut a bevel per that measurement.


I got lucky doing this for the rear rack, but for the front, the right side turned out OK but not great. For the left side, I didn’t get the side to side bevel right and I didn’t get the angle difference between the front and back right either. After a few tries at cutting the bevel for the side to side angle, I redid the left side .

The bottom part of the cardboard pattern wasn't very accurate. I redid it in paper. I drew a straight line about an inch away from the edge of a sheet of paper and marked the midpoint  

using a protractor set at the center of the line, I marked 2.5 degrees below each side (the angle between contact lines differed by 5 degrees for my car).

Tracing the top part of the cardboard pattern onto my new pattern

I cut the paper pattern out and traced it on 3/4" plywood. I cut the front top and rear of the base square to the face of the wood. I cut the bottom at the right-left angle of the roof at the rack location. In my case, 12 degrees.



Bolt the bases to the towers. Attach the clips and check stability: excellent.

I laid down those weld beads to add some steel to stiffen the clip.

Buy t-nuts for rack accessories. At least four of them for one canoe accessory.

Almost bought: compression springs to keep the clips away from the towers during installation and therefore the car's roof edge, to ease tower installation. Instead, a ghetto solution, open cell foam.

May 8, 2020. I moved each tower in the rear 1.75 inches inboard.  The bases will now be on the glass.

New (better) configuration for the attachment hardware

 This move forced a few changes, including extending the wing that allows me to raise the clip. I've also moved the horizontal part of the clip to below the tower wing, with plans to weld a bolt, threads up. I'll have to drill a hole in the tower wing for the bolt to go through, where I can turn a lock-nut to raise or lower the clip. I worry that a bolt will work its way up over 50 or 100 miles. This will also permit adjustment of the hardware with one tool: a 1/2" wrench. I had to extend the bolt holding the clip using a coupling nut, because they just don't make a 6.5" carriage bolt. The best part of this is that I got to use the welder again, but it did delay the project finish.

May 17, 2020. For version 2.0. use of shock cord/bungee cord to raise the clip.  If it works, yay.  Keep it Simple.

May 19, 2020. For version 2.0. The bolt sticking out from the towers doesn't always match the holes/slots on the clips. I bent the bolts rather than extend the slot on the clips. Maybe replace part of that bolt with chain/cable plus bolt or with eye bolt plus a hook bolt.

May 21, 2020. A note on the location of the racks. The front rack is where a Tesla made rack would go. The rear rack is pretty close to where Tesla locates theirs. My design adds an inch or so to place the tops of the racks at the same height from the ground. The separation between the centers of the bases is 37.5" (95.25 cm). The glass roof has subtle marks for Tesla's locations for a separation of about 35" (88.9 cm) between front/back.

June 6.
I have a 20' canoe. The racks are 37" apart; having the canoe on cradles 37" apart would leave me to divvy up 17' past each rack. Vern said having 8-9' hanging out like that would stress the canoe, and risk damage. He said to put the canoe cradles on an 8' rail. I welded two 4' steel tubes end to end, added two mounting plates and drilled holes to match threads welded to the rack. I welded t-nuts to the end of the rails for the canoe cradles