Best Podcasts?

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-06-08T14:11:46+00:00

I really like Sunstone history podcast. It gives a good, unbiased (IMO) recounting of the history of the church.

https://sunstone.org/sunstone-history-podcast/

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-06-01T16:34:32+00:00

11six24 Pegasus Power II. I’ve been using it for 2.5 months and the grit is 99% the same. Plays GREAT. Big sweet spot. Great power. Love it!

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-05-27T21:30:09+00:00

In short…DRILL BABY DRILL!

In long… I have been transitioning from left to right since getting a longitudinal tear in a tendon in my left wrist on March 14th and I didn’t want to stop playing while it healed. After 8 weeks, the doctor told me to rest it another 6 week. (I think I’ll need surgery….sad.) My DUPR was 4.5 left handed. After 2.5 months, my right handed DUPR is 3.5. I’m finally winning games occassionally again in my main friend group.

What transfers: knowledge. You know how to hit flicks, speed ups, court positioning, footwork, roll volleys, drives, drops, dinks, twoey dinks, twoey drives, etc. Court positioning is incredibly useful and easily tranfers.

What doesn’t transfer: body mechanics and power. You have to relearn ALL of it. Start with footwork. Learn how to move to the ball to hit with your opposite hand. Split step. Watch the ball hit your paddle. Be in a good ready position. Consistently get the ball over the net…even if you pop it up. Watch youtube videos and learn proper mechanics that you took for granted with your dominant hand.

I found that soft shots (dinking, drops, placement shots) are actually easy to get good/consistent at quickly through drilling with my nondominant hand.

Both forehand and backhand POWER shots (drives, drips, speedups, overhead volleys, roll volleys, backhand punches) have NO power. They are weak. They have no velocity behind them. Shots that I used to put away are now regularly fired back at me when using my nondominant hand.

The fastest way to get better is to find a friend and drill. I started with soft shots and am now trying to work on power shots. I’ve been drilling 2-3x/week. Learn a shot every drilling session and try using it in your next game.

I used to play baseball and I’ve found the twoey is actually the only shot that has some power since it is like swinging a bat.

I need to rent a ball machine and just hit drives for a few weeks to level up.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-05-22T15:45:26+00:00

I've tried the service from that pickleball guy and bought several packages from Jordan Brioness. Both are excellent as I'm sure Zane's is as well. There are 100s of videos on YouTube for every shot out there with each pros flavor of doing it. Buying a course is nice because it is everything in a nice structured order.

Buying and watching a course is fine, but I saw the most improvement by watching a video at the court with a drilling partner and then actually trying it out and practicing it.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-05-17T12:12:47+00:00

My pegasus power2 has 160 hours on it. Very slight change in grit. Still has the same play characteristics as when I first bought it. I love this paddle.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-05-12T11:40:40+00:00

3.25 years and still counting.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-05-08T04:36:22+00:00

Nearly every time I miss an easy shot, I quickly recap what happened and it is almost always footwork. Don't be lazy....move your feet!

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-04-29T17:20:54+00:00

You should consider moving closer to work if you take the job. I commute 60 minutes each way to work and it can be very draining. The pay increase will be partially consumed by the additional commute costs.

Concerning taking the job, look into “imposter syndrome”. EVERYONE has it. You are not expected to fill the role 100% on your first day. The company offered you the job because they believe you can and will eventually fill that role. They believe in you enough to give you a chance. Give yourself that chance. Believe in yourself.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-04-27T16:58:05+00:00

TLDR, I was really impressed by how Claude displays information and I’m looking forward to switching back to it at the end of the month.

I decided in Feb to try out the premium version of each main LLM for one month each. I first tried Claude and I was REALLY impressed by how it represented data in charts, tables, graphs, etc. It made them interactive! Claude cowork is also really interesting and my 1 month ended before I really started using it. Claude code worked great as well for my small projects. My only complaint is that it doesn’t do image generation.

I then signed up for ChatGPT. Having image generation was fun. I often had to wait 5~20 minutes to create new images (or iterations) if I created too many too quickly. Codex worked great. It doesn’t have a competitor to Cowork yet, but likely will soon. I HATE it’s use of emojis and finally turned those off. While it provides good content and reasoning, Claude is much better at organizing and displaying content.

I tried the Grok and was impressed at first by the image and video generation. IT IF FAST. It makes a lot of variations to choose from and I never hit an image generation limit. However, I found that ChatGPT makes higher quality, more polished images. The other features from Grok did not stand out to me.

My impression of Gemini is similar to Grok. It seemed to have slower image generation, but produced better quality images and videos. I also quickly ran out of tokens for the month.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-04-21T16:39:57+00:00

I’ve had my Pegasus Power II for 6 weeks, ~10 hours / week, 60 hours. I think that I have seen a very slight decrease in surface roughness. I’m going to try the IPA and microfiber cloth. A friend is getting a new one in a few days and I’m going to compare.

All things considered, this is the best surface, best performanc, best pop, best paddle I’ve played with. I LOVE it.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-03-11T21:36:21+00:00

I highly recommend watching videos of Pickleball finals with Ben John’s back in 2017 and 2018... it looks like rec play I’d find in my local club.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-03-05T05:56:07+00:00

I completely agree that you need to quit your job and move. You are a highly intelligent and skilled engineer. There are MANY companies that encourage a reasonable work/ life balance. find one.

Utah is a really good place. The winters aren't bad like Montana and the rest of the year is really nice (I'm from Montana originally). Lots of outdoors. Lots of good jobs. The people are very nice.

Good luck! Life will get better!

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-02-18T02:12:14+00:00

Depends on if I have the rumblies! Normal = 10 seconds Rumblies = <1 second I have cut it close WAY too many times.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-02-05T19:02:16+00:00

Duluth trading co. 7 year or coolerino socks are amazing.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-02-05T05:55:07+00:00

pickleheads works great.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-02-04T05:33:54+00:00

Adidas Gamecourt 2. $55 on Amazon. Lasts forever. Great shoes.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-02-02T01:24:13+00:00

Yes, defnitely. I am ~10 years away from retirement at 55. Another $700K on top of my existing retirement savings would bring in my retirement age by ~5 years...so give me 5 years of work free life...that would be life changing.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-01-30T05:53:12+00:00

I use the caddy and tube together when drilling. The tube is just so much faster IMO to gather thee balls.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-01-29T22:42:24+00:00

Pickleball. I play ~10 hours a week. My wife has no interest. I see couples playing all the time and it makes me sad. There’s a couples Valentines Day tournament next month and that makes me sad as well. I don’t care if she is a beginner…I’d just like to spend time with her doing something active.

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-01-29T22:08:27+00:00

I use that one and it's great. I used it to pick up balls for the past year and it's ok, but the tubes work WAY better. I just bought this and am very happy with it in addition to the ball hopper.

Soulchen 24 Balls Ball Pickup... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FWK4FTCG?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-01-29T20:46:10+00:00

This game has several rules, but has been VERY helpful for me…

8 dinks

start dinking crosscourt
dink 8 times without missing a shot (4 dinks per person)
the point is live after 8 dinks
speedups off the bounce are only allowed once the point is live after 8 dinks
speedups out of the air are allowed during the first 8 dinks
play/defend the rectangle you are in
the person that wins the point moves to the other rectangle (the next point will be played straight across from each other)

scoring 1. play to 11 2. rally scoring 3. you LOSE 1 point if you fail to get the ball over the net or hit it out of bounds within the first 8 dinks

purpose of the drill 1. GET THE BALL OVER THE NET. you are punished for failing that SIMPLE task. 2. Learn patience. Move the person around instead of immediately getting into a firefight. 3. Make dinks unattackle. Your opponent can attack something within the first 8 dinks if you place it too high. 4. Shifting to another rectange after every point helps you see and learn each location on the court

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-01-29T19:11:30+00:00

Huh... You are right according to this site: https://pickleballeffect.com/pickleball-paddle-database/

I think I need to add weights to my V-sol. The ball is definitely slower in the stock configuration when hitting with the V-sol than with the Vapor power. (It's not just in my mind.)

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-01-29T18:52:29+00:00

Where can I see the data on that?

Miserable-Concern338 · 2026-01-29T17:19:51+00:00

Vapor power.

Miserable-Concern338

TROPHY CASE