We're Pro Shufflers Now!

Golden Village Palms here in Hemet, CA is the home for the California Shuffleboard Association Hall of Fame and is the site of many tournaments for the Southern California teams and chapters. On a recent evening, they welcomed all comers to an introductory session and taught us how to play.

This is NOT the shuffleboard that we used to play on the sidewalks or aboard cruise ships where you pushed the disk as hard as you could and hoped it would stop on a pointer. These shuffleboard "boards" are finely tuned. Before you are allowed to begin play, you must sweep the board, then put down a thin coat of wax. There is actually practice wax or tournament wax. We were using practice wax so the boards wouldn't be too slick. There is a great deal of finesse required when it is your turn to "shoot" your disk.

You barely push the disk with your stick and release it when you think it will clear the "dead zone" and stop without being on a line. It goes flying down the board. The professional players were incredible, being able to stop their disk right where they wanted. Some were able to put English on the disk and have it come in from a side angle. The real professionals have their own sticks adjusted for their height and the amount of pressure they want to exert.

The competition was pretty fierce, even among the beginners. Tim was the only one that was able to finish in the money. It turned out that last place paid $4.00. We had a wonderful, fun time learning and, if it starts to rain here, we will probably try it again.

Diane played today in the 2009 GVP Can-Am Volleyball tournament. She was first scheduled to play on the Canadian team, but, was later recruited by the American team when not enough Americans showed up. The weather was perfect and everyone had a great time and played a lot of volleyball. The Canadians won by a score of 16-6. There is now a move afoot to close the border at Vancouver, BC in the future.

This will give you a small idea of the things there are to do here to stay busy. We found we were missing out on some activities so we had to put the calendar of events on the fridge and highlight the ones in which we wanted to participate. As it turns out, there is a dance here every Saturday night in February. That should keep us busy.

You probably can't read the fine print, but, at the top they list all the things that happen every week. Then, down below are events that are out of the ordinary.

Diane has her collage of all the children and grandchildren on the freezer in the kitchen area, so that we can see them often. The only bad part of being down here for three months, is not seeing the family.

Diane is getting all excited about playing in the CanAm volleyball tournament here at the park. This is the Canadian players versus the American players. This situation does create a dilemna for Diane, since she was born in Manitoba, Canada, but is a US citizen. So she told the organizers that she would play on whatever team needed another player. So, tomorrow (Friday, 1/30) she will be a Canadian volleyball player. There is a total of six teams and only five women on those six teams.