January 2, 2014

My Year in Review

I had a pretty busy year. Here's a review of my 2013.

I coached at nine MDTTC camps, six hours a day, totaling 44 days: March 25-29, June 17-21, 24-28, July 8-12, 15-19 (missed the last day), July 29-Aug. 2, Aug. 12-16, 19-23, Dec. 26-31 (missed the last day).

I ran approximately 120 junior training sessions, most of them 90 minutes long. I also did about 800 hours of private coaching. I was also a practice partner at about 80 training sessions - it would have been more except for various injuries. I also ran three table tennis birthday parties.

I had three more books come out, two on table tennis, one a humorous fantasy novel.

I also had 235 blog entries, exactly 50 Tips of the Week at TableTennisCoaching.com and PaddlePalace.com, 121 Tips of the Day at USATT.org, 10 articles in USATT Magazine, 1 article at Butterflyonline.com, 10 sold or published science fiction or fantasy stories, and 11 feature articles at OriolesHangout.com. I also created 12 MDTTC Newsletters and 1 Hall of Fame Program Booklet.

From Feb. 5-15, USATT Historian Tim Boggan stayed at my house as I did the page layouts and photo work (with him looking over my shoulder) for his History of U.S. Table Tennis, Volume 13. It was a mammoth job, totaling 448 pages with 918 photos. (We start Volume 14 on Jan. 13.) Here's the page where you can learn more about these books and buy them. (I created and maintain the page for him.)

I coached at 13 tournaments this year:

  • Mar. 2-3, MDTTC Open
  • Mar. 15-17, Cary Cup in Cary, NC
  • Apr. 6-7, MDTTC Open
  • Apr. 20-21, North American Hopes Trials at Westchester TTC in NY
  • June 8-9, Eastern Open in Princeton, NJ
  • July 2-6, U.S. Open in Las Vegas
  • Aug. 24-25, MDTTC Open
  • Sept. 21, Coconut Cup Under 1800 at MDTTC
  • Sept. 28, Coconut Cup Over 1800 at MDTTC
  • Oct 26-27, South Shore Open at South Shore, IN
  • Nov. 9-10, Potomac Open in Maryland
  • Nov. 29 - Dec. 1, North American Teams in Washington D.C.
  • Dec. 17-21, USA Nationals in Las Vegas

Early in the year I gave regular coaching sessions to U.S. Olympic Figure Skating Coach Audrey Weisiger, who was training to beat the other coaches at an upcoming summer gathering. Here are some blog entries on her sessions: Jan. 17, Feb. 7, May 16, Apr. 26 (where I convert her to long pips on the backhand), and May 3.

On May 13, JJ Hardy and Brady Anderson from the Baltimore Orioles visited MDTTC, and I gave both of them lessons. Here's my blog entry on it. I later coached pitcher Darren O'Day at MDTTC four times.

On Aug. 21, I visited the Baltimore Orioles clubhouse with our top junior players, and stayed for three hours. Here's my blog entry on it.

From Sept. 2-7, I attended the ITTF Level 2 Coaching Course at the Lily Yip TTC in NJ, and achieved ITTF Level 2 Coaching Certification, the highest level available right now in the U.S.  I had the only perfect score on the test. Here's my blog entry on it, and here's the ITTF article on it.

On Oct. 9, I spent the day on the set of the TV show Veep, which was doing an episode that features table tennis that should come out around March. Here's my blog entry on it.

I'm essentially retired as a player, but did play a couple of hardbat events this year, getting second place in Hardbat Singles at the Cary Cup in North Carolina (May 15-17), and winning Over 50 Hardbat Doubles with Jay Turberville at the U.S. Open in Las Vegas (July 2-6). (Here's a picture of Jay and I with our trophies, with "coach" Derek Nie.)

I was a panelist at two science fiction conventions: Balticon, May 24-26, in Baltimore, MD, and Capclave, Oct. 11-13 in Gaithersburg, MD.

From July 19-27 I attended the Never-Ending Odyssey Writers Workshop in Manchester, NH, which is an annual program for graduates of the Odyssey Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Workshop, which I attended in 2006.

I was interviewed twice this year, but strangely both times it was by science fiction magazines rather than in table tennis. Here's my interview in Weird Tales Magazine, and here's my interview in New Myths Magazine.

I saw over 50 movies at the theater - I generally see at least one every week.

I read 32 book in 2013, which is somewhat of a low for me. I also read the Washington Post each day, plus USA Table Tennis Magazine, Scientific American, and Bulletin of SFWA. Here are the books I read in 2013:

TABLE TENNIS (1)

  • ITTF Advanced Coaching Manual

NON-FICTION (3)

  • The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins
  • Which President Killed a Man by James Humes
  • Vietnam, A History by Stanley Karnow

ON WRITING (5)

  • Writers Workshop of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Edited by Michael Knost
  • Words Fail Me by Patricia T. O'Conner
  • From Idea to Story in 90 Seconds: A Writer’s Primer by Ken Rand
  • Writing to the Point: A Complete Guide to Selling Fiction by Aldis Budrys
  • How to Write Funny edited by John Kachuba

FICTION (23)

  • Buffalito Buffet by Lawrence Schoen
  • Trial of the Century by Lawrence Schoen
  • The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF edited by Mike Ashley
  • Edison's Conquest of Mars by Garrett Serviss
  • Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson
  • Hounded by Kevin Hearne
  • Hexed by Kevin Hearne
  • Hammered by Kevin Hearne
  • Tricked by Kevin Hearne
  • Trapped by Kevin Hearne
  • Hunted by Kevin Hearne
  • Two Ravens and One Crow by Kevin Hearne
  • Grimoire of the Lamb by Kevin Hearne
  • Blockade Billy by Stephen King
  • Dawn of Dragons by James Maxey
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Spaceland by Rudy Rucker
  • The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
  • Apollo's Outcasts by Allen Steele
  • Red Planet Blues by Robert J. Sawyer
  • The Alien Within (Voyagers Series) by Ben Bova
  • Star Brothers (Voyagers Series) by Ben Bova
  • The Return (Voyagers Series) by Ben Bova

International Table Tennis

Want to read lots of articles on table tennis internationally? Then check out two places, TableTennista and the ITTF page. 

MDTTC Juniors Go Skiing

Here they are - L-R: Derek Nie, Darwin Ma, Amy Lu, and Crystal Wang. The four took a day off during our Christmas Camp. No broken legs.

ITTF to Ban Wood Rackets in 2015

Here's the article! (This is a satire on the ITTF's regularly changing the rules, including the upcoming ban of celluloid balls.)

Colorful Table

Here's the picture - imagine a club full of these!

Belated Happy New Year!

Here are some Table tennis Happy New Year images:

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