King of the Local Maximum
Our command picnic was Wednesday, and our volleyball team whipped the young whippersnapper summer interns to win the crown (something like 15-5 and 15-5, with traditional scoring). We had three of four people from the research group and one of the guys from the instrument shop to replace our missing player, and picked up a free-agent (and it turned out she was a ringer).
We won the tournament three years ago, carried by one very good player making up for the rest of us, following the strategy of just getting the ball over the net and letting the other team make the mistakes, and at this level of play, that was a pretty good strategy. That time we were aided by a quirk of the schedule that gave us a bye and our finals opponents (seabees) had to play three matches in a row. (we kept muttering “water’s for wimps!” in the short interlude before the final match, and kept reminding them that we were just a bunch of geeks) (We didn’t enter a team the last two years — our good player was injured and then absent, so we opted out)
This time the aid was having several good potential opposing players on vacation or opting for disc golf, and our free-agent addition having a nasty overhand serve that’s just too much for some of the players at the picnic level of play. There was some mumbling from one or two of our opponents about being on sand affecting their play. Sadly, my game is not noticeably impacted by the surface; I think I contributed more to scoring than to losing points. We showed that youth and enthusiasm is no match for age and treachery. Ha!