June 10, 2016

Day One: Tim Builds a Wall Around Me and Makes Me Pay For It
Tim arrived precisely at 9AM yesterday morning. I'd just put up my blog, and had about one minute of relaxation . . . and then it begins. Within one minute of arriving he's already handed me a stack of pictures that need scanning. 

Then we do the covers. The front are nice shots of the 1990 USA Nationals Men's and Women's Champions, Jim Butler and Wei Wang. The back cover is ten different pictures – Joe Ng, Eric Boggan, Bill Meiklejohn, David Zhuang, Lily Yip, Johnny Huang, Insook Bhushan and Pete May, Sean O'Neill, Diana Gee (with a Parisian backdrop), and Huazhang Xu.

Then we began the interior: Copyright, About the Author, Dedication (to Jim McQueen), and Acknowledgement pages. And then we did Chapter One, which ran from page 5 to 29, and was subtitled, "1990: USTTA Non-Tournament Potpourri." It started off with the political battle and exchanges between President Mel Eisner and (soon-to-be president) Dan Seemiller. There were a number of letters to the editor (published in the USATT magazine, then called Table Tennis Topics). Then came articles such as "Chinese Team Inspires Call for Renewed Ping Pong Diplomacy (by Sheri Soderberg Pittman); "Making Money at the Top" (by me!) and one on Confidence (also by me!); "What is Wrong with the USTTA and What Should We Do About It"; a column by Tom Wintrich where he criticized USTTA's lack of marketing; "Taking the High View"; "White Shirts, Anyone?"; Coaching Corner (by Richard McAfee); "Judge and Decide" (by Dr. Michael Scott); "Rub of the Green" (by Tim Boggan); "Celebrity Golf"; a few obituaries; and a lot more! My quick counts says we've placed 59 graphics so far – but believe me, Tim's barely gotten started!

So it's 29 pages down, about 420 to go….

Alas, I had to leave at 2:30 PM to pick up kids, and then the usual coaching and tutoring (mostly English tutoring this time). Then I went to the back room to work on setting up the MDTTC June Open I'm running this Saturday. (Deadline to enter is 5PM Friday; you can enter online.) Then I headed off to Roy Rogers for 90 minutes . . . to read and critique a short story for a writing workshop I'm attending this summer! (It was the last of the 25 critiques I'd be doing for the workshop.) The story was about seven brides marrying the various parts of a dismembered corpse – I'm not kidding!!!

Today I only have one hour of coaching tonight, so I'll be enslaved by working with Tim from 7AM to about 5PM. (I'm writing this blog on Thursday night – it's past midnight, and I have to be up at 6AM, and I've still got a few things on my todo list that must be checked off or the universe and all of table tennis will blink out.) Then I'm off to the club Friday night to finalize the tournament. Tim gets an off day on Saturday while I'm running the tournament, so perhaps he'll finally get to read one of my books?

My Table Tennis Books
Got some free time learn about table tennis? Here's my Books by Larry Hodges page! It's where you can learn about all eleven books – seven on table tennis, five science fiction and fantasy. And you can also find out there how seven TT and five SF books can add up to eleven! You can also visit my Amazon page and browse the books there.

MH Table Tennis Coaching Blog
Here's Coaching Blog page, with links to 29 coaching articles.

USA Nationals Deadline Approaching
The deadline to enter the USA Nationals is this Sunday, June 12. This is your LAST CHANCE!!! See you there.

USATT Insider
Here's the new issue that came out Wednesday.

Australian Open
Follow the action – it's in Melbourne, June 8-12.

ITTF Working Group Concludes Meeting on Format & Structure of Future Major Events with Deloitte
Here's the ITTF Press Release.

International Table Tennis
Here's my periodic note (usually every Friday) that you can great international coverage at TableTennista (which especially covers the elite players well) and at the ITTF home page (which does great regional coverage). Butterfly also has a great news page.

Killer Push
Here's the video (3 sec) – players these days just don't push like Waldner.

Opponent Surrenders to Around-the-Net Rolling Return of Net-Edge
Here's the video (23 sec including slo-mo replay).

Side of the Table with Two Paddles
Here's the video (18 sec) – can you do what A.J. Carney can do?

Commercial Starring Vladimir Samsonov
Here's the video ad (30 sec) for Oliva Si (an olive oil).

Mini-Pong?
Here's the mini-table, apparently made from scrap parts – and note the two paddles! (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

The Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall!
Here's the picture – that's one big opponent! (Here's the non-Facebook version.)

Epic Ping Pong Trick Shots
Here's the video (3:10)!

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