Only saw you 1 time I think as I was on my way to sweat a match in the arena. I'm sure I will run into you at another event this year.
Derby has made some advancements in the tournament and also made some steps to the side (don't want to say that took any steps back). Not sure if the new stream was better or not and the fact some of the side streamers got shut down was a letdown.
Big issue I heard a lot of people talking about was the food especially during the week. The venue really needs to do something to have another option or 2 food wise. I know they had some issues with employees being able to get into work and that is out of their control. One of the blackjack dealers told me she had been there 9 days straight because they offered her all the hours she wanted. Blackjack was her normally job and then she worked the pizza shop when it was open on the weekends.
I normally only attend the last 5 days or so and always make a point of getting out of the building at least once. New Ablany is only a 10 minute ride and has some good restaurants a decent brewery and I would recommend to anyone that likes distilleries to check out Stitzel and Weller in Louisville.
Yes, the food was a huge issue. I had steak house reservations for each of my first three days, but they shut it down due to the storm. They also suspended housekeeping for two days during the storm. I was stuck having to eat the substandard food found at the hotel and, of course, I had to make my own bed. Once the storm had passed, I made it to New Albany once for dinner and once for breakfast, and I also found a nice Italian restaurant in Louisville. I also managed to go to the steak house in the hotel twice in the latter part of the week.
I heard some good reviews regarding the quality of the stream but, to be honest, I very rarely watch streamed pool when there is no shot clock in use, and there was no shot clock in the arena for the first nine days. which greatly reduced the entertainment value of the stream.
I haven't seen a cf shaft that is woven. Woven cf is mostly used in applications where the expected forces are in many directions or are unpredictable, or it is used for lower manufacturing cost of semi complex designs. Woven cf is weaker than the biased lay-up that products like golf clubs, fishing rods, pool cues, and airplane parts use. You won't see a weave on a 777 wing (I can say with absolute certainty, I helped design the machinery that builds the wings).
I can tell you this. In 2002, I built a new home and spent a pile for my first ever high end home pool room. Wooden I beams in the floor of the bonus room and bought what everyone said was the best. A diamond red label home version Arkansas model. They installed it. Played awful! Bouncy and bank short and was absolute junk. I’ve played on about every size and brand since then and before. If all I had to play on was a diamond I’d rather not even play. They are awful.
I like valleys for fun, olhausen for more serious fun and the gold crown if I played well.
I had the same type of cue case when I bought my first custom cue (a Meucci) in 1996. I noticed the hinge screws were popping out and put a couple of paper towels in front of them to protect my cue. I used that case off and on for 15 years and the towels worked perfectly.
Sounds like the buyer wasn't malicious in damaging the cue, just that he used a case that had a bad design.
This is a very plausible explanation, but the Buyer's behavior cuts against this being accidental. Perhaps the careless Buyer simply can't bring himself to accept the financial responsibility.
Edit:
Any way you cut it, the buyer ends up looking bad. Were the buyer a friend of mine, my advice would be to accept responsibility, pay Jay, and apologize but make no excuses. We are all human, so we all %&#* up, but being human does mean we have to stay %&#*ed up.
Since day 1, Diamond cushions have played like shit. They bounced the ball harder than every other table, and the rebound angle was more acute (shorter) than any other table. You may have seen my posts over the years calling Daimond tables pin-ball machines. This was from their start in about 1990 through about 2010.
After literally 20 years of players complaining, Diamond finally decided to do something about it. They got Glen from here (who was an employee/contractor of theirs at the time) to help the tables play better. He changed the bevel angle of the wood rail that the cushion glues to. The cushion was still the same, just its mounting was changed.
That made the tables play slightly less bouncy and slightly less short than before. (although not nearly enough, IMO).
To distinguish between the old design and the new design, the color of the logo on the foot rail was changed from red to blue.
The black and white speck is impossible to find. I started a search in 2015 and 2016 because I needed white with black speck for two cues underway with Bob Owen and Jerry Rauenzahn. Neither could locate any and I tried everywhere and posted in Az offering a bounty for any referrals. I said I’d pay $250-$300 for 50 yds. & it was more than 10 yrs ago.
Never could find any so I had Jerry use CL#9 for his cue and CL#9 was the wrong wrap for Bob’s cue design so I used gray elephant belly as the wrap which is smoother than elephant ear. Cortland Linen is on 5 of my cues and hard to find but the black speck version is the most challenging version CL to locate…….expect to pay a lot of $ too.
Stop practicing that stroke. You need to take a lesson with an instructor so you can learn how to practice good mechanics. Your practice is just ingraining terrible mechanics. It's good to get video of yourself so that you can see what you are actually doing--rather than what you think you are doing--but you have to have some knowledge of what good mechanics are so that you can try to correct what you are seeing in the video.
The cue HAS to move in a straight line, and your tip should not go up on the follow through, and your bridge hand should not lift off the table. Your tip should either remain level (the same height as when you address the ball) if your desire is to learn the piston stroke mechanics (harder), or your tip should finish on (or near) the cloth about 6 inches in front of the cue ball if you want to learn the pendulum stroke mechanics (easier and more widely taught).
Making the object ball SHOULD NOT be your indicator of good mechanics. You can put two stickers on the cloth about 6 inches apart and on the shot line. One is for the cue ball, and the other is to monitor your follow through to see if your cue is moving in a straight line. Stroke the cue ball and freeze after you follow through. Stay frozen for five seconds. While you are frozen, examine whether your cue is over both stickers, i.e. is your cue directly above the shot line? If not, your cue is not moving straight. Also, examine where your tip ends up: is it higher, the same, or lower than your tip when you addressed the cue ball?
Instead of stickers, some people draw a chalk line from one end of the table into the heart of a corner pocket at the other end of the table, then they can put the cue ball and object ball anywhere on that shot line, and when they freeze on their follow through they can compare where their cue is relative to the shot line. They might start their practice with the object ball 10" from the pocket and the cue ball 10" from the object ball, then they practice moving their cue straight along the shot line. Once they can successfully do that, they increase the distances. An indicator of good mechanics is when the cue ends up directly over the shot line on the follow through.
Jerry Briesath has a one handed drill to teach you what it should feel like when you stroke the cue ball. You put a ball 10", or so, off the end rail, then using one hand, you rest the cue on the end rail and you try to pocket a ball directly into a corner pocket (you are not hitting a cue ball into the object ball). Holding the cue loosely, you slowly take the cue back, you pause at the end of your backstroke, then you smoothly accelerate the cue at the object ball, and on your follow through your cue hand should hit your chest. You will notice that your cue ends up on the cloth on the follow through.
Compare video of your stroke to video of Fedor Gorst's stroke. Are you doing even one thing the same as him? If not, you need to start trying to figure out how to do one thing the same as him. Once you can do one thing the same as Fedor Gorst go on to another thing. Try to emulate exactly what he is doing with his cue. It does not take feats of strength or athleticism to move a 19 oz stick a distance of 14". You can do it.
Here's another stroke you can try to emulate:
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Video yourself from the side, then compare what you see to what Bai Yulu is doing when they show her stroke from the side. Bai Yulu weighs less than 100 lbs, and she effortlessly moves the cue ball around a 12' x 6' snooker table.
Our company recently won a contract to install devices that let you pay for coin-op machines with an app on your phone. Laundry machines, old jukes, vending machines, coffee machines, self-serve machines, and even pool tables. As a result, we're getting some of those coin-op devices in our training lab to play with and train the field team. I interpret that as a need for a coin-op Valley, which I'll get my procurement folks to buy. We'll dissect and reassemble the electronics and coin systems every couple of weeks, teaching techs how they work. And, yes, play some pool.
Anyway, I want some cues I can leave at the training lab. Ideally, really solid-playing cues but nothing to get spooled up over if they get a bit scratched up, and nothing good enough to get stolen. Budget is not a huge issue, but I'm not buying expensive stuff.
What would you suggest? Maybe one-pieces to make them less portable? Cheap carbon fiber to avoid dings? Bulletproof would be nice.
