Never one to settle for letting things work smoothly and easily, I had to create a little tension in my life. I came back to the house for lunch, as usual, and got the driveway when I realised that I didn't grab my house key from my backpack. So I went back down to the office, grabbed the key and went back to the house for lunch.

I got back to the driveway a few hours later, thinking about what to make for dinner, and I once again found myself without a key. My first thought was that I had dropped it somewhere, but after some thinking, I realised that I just didn't grab it from the kitchen counter before I left for work after lunch.

I needed to get ahold of Annikki before I needed to run off for volleyball, and she didn't seem to be home. I tried calling the house from work, and left a message. If I could get to my email from work, I could have grabbed her mobile number, but work is useless in that regard. So I found a net café and paid a dollar for 2 minutes of text-only bandwidth usage. As I was writing down the number, I realised that I already had it written down in a book that was in my backpack at the time. (Where's my dumbass shirt when I need it?) I tracked her down at a pub down the street and was saved from missing volleyball. I had 13 glorious minutes to get to Waitakere.

That's when I saw the traffic jam...

In the end, I was only 5 minutes late, and there was still no ref at the time, so I wasn't really late after all. But I did learn a lesson. Teleportation is the right way to go.

Update

Sorry about the spelling. I'm hoping to not have to edit entries again after initial submission.

I currently play volleyball on Tuesday nights at Waitakere and on Friday on the North Shore. I was a bit bummed at first because the teams that I'm playing with are playing at a lower level than I want to be playing at. But I was glad to be playing.

On Friday, things seemed to be looking up a bit. A few different people were there, and the quality of the game was a bit higher. There are always things that I would do differently, but that will always be the case. And tonight, we had an honest sporty guy filling in. He never played volleyball before, but he took to it quite well. I gave him a few pointers and he just absorbed it all, and his game kept improving. Of course, I was thrilled when he set me a ball nice and tight to the net. It was the best hit I've had for a while.

I don't remember the totals for the games, but we played well in the first set and swept the second set.

So with that base, I head off towards friday again, full of hope and vigor.