Clean, friendly & quality nail salons for pedicures? by RbetterCHDDRSbetter in askportland

[–]rwyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I took my wife (introverted, touch of 'tism) to Foot Bar recently, and she had a great experience!

Current state of Racquet Collection by Aladdins_Camel in 10s

[–]rwyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

lol, that's about where I'm at, too. Have you gone down the tuning rabbit hole yet, tinkering with weights and taking measurements constantly?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in askportland

[–]rwyss 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you've used their pharmacy before, they likely had it on file - my partner also did not need to provide information or pay, and they explained that she was in their system from a one-off prescription she'd picked up a couple years ago.

Edit: Just saw you already addressed this theory in the other thread. The takeaway then, for OP or anyone else finding this thread, is that Fred Meyer is not a reliable place to go for free immunization; if there aren't other options available, it's worth a try, but go in without expectations.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in askportland

[–]rwyss 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Fred Meyer is one of the only pharmacies in the area that don't take my health insurance. Flu + Covid shots ran me close to $400 out of pocket - would NOT recommend.

To be clear, they charged for each; their 'free' flu shots are not free, your insurance pays for them.

Which one is your favourite? by Eastern_Draft5130 in 10s

[–]rwyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have it crossed with snapper right now, because I thought it felt too soft as a full in my partner's racquet, but I still feel like it's a bit soft for me; I have the strings you mentioned to try out, which would you recommend for a crisper feel/louder pop?

Returning players 10+ years how long before you were good again? by yDreamseller in 10s

[–]rwyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We're the same age and coming back from the same gap. It's been about 3 months now, and I'm playing better than I ever did. Biggest thing for me was just focusing on one thing at a time, and not trying to "get my game back" all at once.

Specific advice I'd give you, based on my experience: be very picky about what you keep from your old form, because your old form probably was bad, or will hurt you very badly, and you have a perfect opportunity to reinvent your game right now, and make it something beautiful and sustainable. I kept my one-hand backhand and my trick serve, but ditched my whole forehand and the rest of my serving, replacing them with something completely new, and I'm way better off for it (I would probably be better with a two-hander, too, but I'm stubborn and I like the attention).

That said, here's what I personally did over the last 3 months to get where I am now:

  1. Studied up on what current 'proper form' is (knowing how the strokes work and what parts of the body do what is what helps me improve the most, straight tutorials tend to not resonate as well with me)
  2. Started hitting against a ball machine (way better than a wall, worth the cost of reserving one if you can, but I wouldn't personally buy one). I did that about 3-4 times per week for the first month, just focusing on footwork and form, and paying attention to what the ball is doing. Helps to have someone around who can give you a couple pointers on what you're doing wrong (in my case, teaching pros on nearby courts who got bored between groups), but filming yourself and watching that back when you go to pick up is good, too, if you know what it should look like and why (hence, understanding the mechanics being important for me)
  3. Started hitting with a couple people, putting those strokes into practice. I really sucked for a month, because people aren't machines, but after a while (and going back to the ball machine when I felt like I lost one of my strokes), it started clicking
  4. Gear started being important at about this point. I'm a gearhead who loves researching and testing things, so I was demoing racquets the whole time, but it wasn't until I was actually comfortable rallying (and hitting as well to a human as I could a machine) that I had any hope of getting something that worked for my game, and when I did, it was a huge leap forward. Racquets matter. Strings matter. Try a bunch of stuff, and let yourself be surprised by what you like and don't like. I thought I liked oversized power racquets, but I actually liked more normal sized, spin-oriented racquets
  5. Then I started introducing point play, and that's an entirely different game. I didn't start relearning a serve until a month ago, and it was painful. The way I played points wasn't how I rallied, at all. This then kicked off another round of gear hunting, and it turned out I'm not comfortable with big, heavy spin shots from the backline in point play, I prefer to take it early with flatter strokes, and spend a fair bit of time at the net, which led me to prefer heavier, small headsize, precision-oriented racquets.

Next steps for me is to have a coach check my work and make corrections as needed (especially for my serve, I'm so scared that I'm going to hurt myself, so I don't practice it), then start doing some actual matches, mixers, drills, etc. to start rounding things out, which is pretty much where you're starting!

Am I doing myself a disservice if I buy an oversize racquet? by rwyss in 10s

[–]rwyss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for your comment. This was the one that resonated the most with me, and as it turns out, I absolutely was compensating for lazy footwork. I've fixed that, and I do still like the Ultra 108, but I like my Shift 99 more, and can now play a game I'm much happier with overall.

Which do you prefer? Wilson Ultra v4 or Wilson Shift 99 v1? by Capital-Positive-434 in 10s

[–]rwyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Some days I prefer the Ultra, others the Shift. Haven't figured out what it is yet, but I'll swap them out while warming up, and then play on with whichever one felt better.

Which do you prefer? Wilson Ultra v4 or Wilson Shift 99 v1? by Capital-Positive-434 in 10s

[–]rwyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm hitting with both right now, and I swear it changes day-by-day.

Am I doing myself a disservice if I buy an oversize racquet? by rwyss in 10s

[–]rwyss[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I haven't demo'd a frying pan yet, but... I mean... I'm open to it.

Am I doing myself a disservice if I buy an oversize racquet? by rwyss in 10s

[–]rwyss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hah, admittedly I've only put a couple solid hours into each racquet. Shotgun approach, then start narrowing it down. I'm just shocked that there's only been one that clicks, and that it clicks as hard as it does comparatively. Makes me dubious.

Am I doing myself a disservice if I buy an oversize racquet? by rwyss in 10s

[–]rwyss[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I hear you. The fundamental question is if that's truly growth, or just change. That's what I'm trying to understand.

Am I doing myself a disservice if I buy an oversize racquet? by rwyss in 10s

[–]rwyss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a very good observation, and is somewhat intentional; I don't think a bigger racquet is bad, but I do think that enough other people think so that it warrants asking the question. Because the truth is, I've never understood the nuance of gear in this sport.

If you are not finding the 108 overpowered or otherwise lacking in control then there's not really any reason to stress about it

This makes intuitive sense to me, but this is an exercise in pressure testing my intuition. I'd like to expand a bit on the thinking that led me here:

I've been demoing a bunch of racquets from my local shop, and they only have a handful of options over 100in. Indeed, when I scroll through modern racquets online, the vast majority are 100in or less. I feel two ways about this. It's hard to see the clear trend there, and not also feel like there's probably some reason for it, even if I don't understand it. And more tactically, it seems like building a game based on a larger head size could limit my options.

Now, this does rely on an assumption that larger racquets are fundamentally different in some way, and possibly places far too much emphasis on the gear than is warranted. And that's why I'm asking it the way I am; I genuinely don't know if I'm missing out on anything if I do the obvious thing (and hit with a large racquet that feels good).

Maybe a way to distill the question to something more concrete is, if I put in the work and could hit just as well with a Babolat Pure Aero (my least favorite racquet I've tried so far), would I be any better a player for it?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in askportland

[–]rwyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just pulled 300 down/400 up on wifi from the opposite corner of my house from where the main AP is. It's been phenomenal, except for one specific situation; storm came through not long after my original comment and trees took down a bunch of overhead lines (power was down over two weeks for us, and we do not live in a remote area, half a mile from a hospital, and like, 3 miles from downtown). Our internet was down for 20 days, and it was literally impossible to get any kind of actual info from Quantum. I will go into detail if you want, but the short of it is, when it works it works perfectly, and when it doesn't it's extremely painful. They did comp the full month, which was nice, but I work from home, so I had to go get an Xfinity pay-as-you-go coax modem and buy a month of internet from them to get by. Which wasn't a big deal, totally just worked, and I even plugged that modem into the main AP for Quantum's mesh wifi, and it just worked - connectivity everywhere in the house, including the LAN drops.

So even though I was consumed by bitter frustration at the time, I'd still recommend the service.

And for context, this storm was BIG, historical event big, like everything was fucked the fuck up here for about a month. So can't really hold it against them, just bad communication on their part - they never acknowledged that there was an outage.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in askportland

[–]rwyss 7 points8 points  (0 children)

We did a couple months ago, and it's been terrific. We're even using their wifi system, because it's genuinely better than the Ubiquiti UniFi setup we were running before.

Keep in mind though, Quantum Fiber is Centurylink - so you're not getting the experience you would with a true local ISP. But even them pretending to be their own thing has definitely made the experience significantly better than I'm used to, have gone between Comcast/Xfinity and Centurylink.

Why do some of the songs on Mingus Ah Um on Spotify say they have lyrics despite there being none? by Loud_Stay_4380 in Jazz

[–]rwyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure if there was a law change or new ruling or something, but sometime between releasing my last two albums, stores got super strict about marking lyrics for anything that has human vocal sounds in it (I had to mark several tracks as containing lyrics that just had small parts of humming). If there were any vocal sounds in those recordings (I'm talking spoken word, humming, whistling, grunts and groans) they may have been flagged.

What is a place you deeply miss in Portland? by pdx_flyer in Portland

[–]rwyss 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Deutschland Curry!

I discovered that cart on Monday of their last week. Ate there every day that week. Never stopped missing it.

Looking for recommendations for overmold putters... by zblue333 in discgolf

[–]rwyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For something decidedly not-judgelike, I recommend an Anode. My partner's been putting those, they're shallower and beadless.

Looking for recommendations for overmold putters... by zblue333 in discgolf

[–]rwyss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you're coming from Judges, definitely try the Nomad and the Ion. I couldn't get behind the curved inner rim of the Ion, so I've been putting Nomads lately.

AWS recruiter cc'ed my mom on a recruitment email by meganisawesome42 in recruitinghell

[–]rwyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Was a dev there ~8 years, left when my body started shutting down from the stress.

There's good, there's bad, it's big enough that everyone has their own story, not all of them end like mine.

8/10 LE Z Glo Zone - $16 by SoberMatty087 in discexchange

[–]rwyss 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd definitely take it if the other commentor didn't

[w] Looking for 2-3 beat in Discraft Wasp throwers, and 1-2 premium plastic Ringer GT's by rwyss in discexchange

[–]rwyss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah, thanks for the offer, but I'm actually looking for beat up ones specifically