First hike in over a year. We decided to head out to Lake Serene out on the way towards Steven's Pass. It turned out to be a great day for hiking, not too hot, not too cold or windy like Rachel Lake was at its summit. This hike was most definitely a lot harder than Rachel Lake. 8 Miles round trip, the first 2 miles being relatively flat w/ mossy trees and wide trails and a few waterfalls here and there. The next 2 miles were a pretty damn steady steep incline filled w/ both man-made steps and rock steps. The summit was worth the hike though. Incredibly clean deep blue lake with cliffs off in the distance and just an amazing view. We took 2 hrs on the way up the summit and took a nice long break before heading down. We had lunch on the "lunch rock" overlooking the water, popped a beer, and after eating we decided to take a dip into the freeeezing ass water. We took some time to dry off, and headed full speed down the mountain so Vy could make her plans. Tweaked my ankle on the way down on of those loose rocks slightly, but it wasn't a bad sprain at all. Managed to make the rest of my way down just fine on it w/o even having to limp and played ball on it this morning and it felt good. Anyway, long story short, this hike was great. A good group of friends, we made great time(4hrs15mins when the websites said it'd take about 5.5hrs for the trip including rest), and had some fun times doing it all. Here's some pics from the hike.

Hi Ho Hi Ho!

Waterfall on the way up

The fellas again climbing very dangerously steep boulders

Ummm, definitely almost died w/ that step you see in this picture. The rock I was stepping onto was hella jagged and I pretty much almost lost balanced and leaned too far forward when I hit it. Scary shit.

Group Pic! Btw, both Vy and Josh have ridiculous stamina and speed when they climb.

Josh and I keeping that huge log from falling down onto the trail.

View of the cliffs by the lake

1 of 2 awkward sketch bridges we crossed. This one was at the summit, crossing over a stream from the lake.

Lake Serene

"Lunch Rock" At the bottom of this rock there were a few people that had jumped in and convinced us that it was a good idea. Up until that point, I had wanted to jump in but was unsure if I'd actually do it.

WARNING!!! EBai's pasty thighs. Avert your eyes if you do not want to be blinded.

The Fellas, about to jump into the frigidly cold lake off of Lunch Rock.

Me and Lake Serene

So our season came to a premature end again. We lost in the finals in a very exhausting weekend of tennis. Gotta give props out to the other team, they came to play and took it legit. It sucks big time cause this year's team has become like a family to me. We kick it as a group, go out to eat after practices, eat, live and breath tennis when it matters. It's been quite the year and that didn't quite hit me until after the other team clinched the one spot to regionals for the 2nd time in a row. Thanks for those of you who came out and supported our team at Central Park this weekend, sorry we couldn't keep you all entertained the first two matches, but you guys missed out on the final. All five sets went to third set super tiebreakers and we ended up losing 4-1 overall. I played #2 doubles, #1 singles and finally #1 doubles in the final. My shoulder is aching like crazy and it sucks that our season is over yet again at the same spot as last year, but it was quite the year nonetheless.

I wanted to give a shoutout to my teammates this year for all the fun times and plenty more to come hopefully. Even if some of us get bumped, hopefully we'll all still kick it every so often. Thanks to our coaches, GM's and captain for doing all the work that you guys did this year. Thanks to Steve for the awesome idea of having mohawks for playoffs, I'll hit you guys up w/ pictures of that in the future (yall aint ready for that hotness). To an all around good season w/ a great team. Homer Domers AI AI AI!

So in case you guys didn't know, I'm a part of a USTA Tennis League. I'm playing at the NTRP rated 3.5 level with the team I played w/ last year. We're the Avanti Red Squad (Avanti is the name of the shop that our team's coach runs). Avanti is apparantly quite hated by others who aren't a part of the "Avanti Nation" because the level of our players is quite high for the teams they play in. People think we "sandbag" meaning that essentially we place people from high skill levels into lower ones just to win. In all honesty, Avanti just has a shitload of good players and if you were to want to compete, you'd probably have to compete down from your actual rating.

Over the past year and a half with this team, I've had the opportunity to not only get back into competitive tennis which was long passed due (last time was in HS), but I've had the opportunity to meet a whole wide range of people on my team and get to know them. It's been quite the diverse crowd, ranging from individuals into their 60's who are company board members, to people just outta school starting families and their jobs, to just younger folk who just love getting out there to play and compete. It's been a lot more of the latter this season in comparison to last. Last year we made the mistake of having people essentially almost picking members who wanted to be on whose team, given that they qualified to play at the level. It didn't work out too well for us because our top Avanti 3.5 team wasn't composed of all the best players in the 3.5 level. Instead, they were split up and when it came down to it, nobody got past sectionals. Our red squad last year actually got knocked out by another avanti 3.5 team at local playoffs last year and that was the end of that season's journey. But this year, they restructured and put the best players all on the red squad in hopes actually making nationals and winning as I predicted earlier this year.

This year's squad is a lot more young folk, most of the older guys from last year got put on the 3.5 Green Team or went elsewhere. We got a whole bunch of people in their early to mid twenties who have all pretty much played tennis since they were in HS. I'm probably 4th or 5th youngest on our team with the oldest member being probably around 50 years old and the youngest being 19 or 20 I wanna say? All around great guys, fun bunch to be around. A bunch of us are pretty close, hanging out on the weekends, playing poker, etc etc etc, having some beers as we cheer teammates on during matches and what not. It's been a lot of fun, much better than the team bonding experiences from years past. Most of our team is doubles guys, we're very doubles heavy and everybody who plays doubles on this team is pretty damn good at it too. The singles is a bit lacking in my opinion, but the team is restructuring quite a bit so we'll be more solid at both singles and doubles. We've got potentially to get really far in this year's competition and if all goes well, we'll at least make an appearance at the 3.5 National Competition in either Las Vegas or the Indian Wells courts in Cali where the pros often play.

So far into the season, we're 6-0 I believe. Including a big win against an "arch-rival" team who all used to be Avanti players but hate us cause they weren't good enough to make the squad or had team loyalty to their buddies on their team. That was a very close and very intense match with them with Avanti Red Squad pulling out a 3-2 win, with our top 2 doubles teams losing and our 2 singles actually winning, surprisingly enough. I was expecting the complete opposite with our singles having problems and doubles mowing them over. Anyway, we've got a few more matches and then we're off to playoffs at Central Park. The top 2 teams advance to sectionals down in Portland at which time the top team at sectionals goes down to Nationals to compete. Things are going well so with some hard work and practice we just might be going to VEGAS!

Individually, I've done well on this year's team. Last season I was a bit shaky at singles so they tried me at doubles and pretty much kept me there until this year. It's different making that transition from singles to a much more strategic game of doubles. I played most my matches w/ Ryan, one of the guys who I played tennis w/ at Newport. We did okay for ourselves, but not great. We lots of time lacked the drive to win when we got down on ourselves. Our mental game wasn't that great. So after the season passed, we tried switching things up a bit for the summer off season and I started playing w/ my buddy Steve. Things there worked out pretty well and the coaches saw that so they started us together earlier in the season. We won all our matches but due to the fact they're trying to find the best possible combinations of players to make doubs teams, they started mixing and matching people up w/ other people who haven't played with each other. I'm one of the more peculiar players on the team where I can play at nearly any position. I've gotten very comfortable playing doubs, learning the many strategies and techniques involved with the game. And playing doubs for most of the season has definitely helped my net game along with my defensive game as well. However, the coaches have recently tried to put me into singles cause I'm one of the more versatile and athletic players who can run for a long time and play both styles, singles and doubles. I think it's good for the team, I've always thought these year's singles players, minus the exception of 1 guy, mayyyybe 2, have been really shaky. I say that because even though I'm seen more as a doubles player on this team, I can beat all the singles guys rather easily. It's good to be playing singles again, I miss the athletism in tennis that doubs often lacks. Who knows how things will turn out though, maybe I'll be the lead singles or maybe I'll stay at doubles. All I know is, I'm ready to go make a run at nationals. It's been a season of my adjustments and trying new things, but I like what I'm seeing. Wish us luck! Playoffs are coming up soon if you guys are interested in watching!