I may have mentioned my love of billiards at some point. My bud with the brunswick table and I have been playing steady lately… once a week, and now moving up to two, maybe three times a week. I intend to play more than that, and get in good again with the blokes at the local pool hall. At one point, I knew them and was liked well enough they’d let me play for free. I want back there. More than that, though, I want to get back to my old speed.

I say "back" b/c I sorta quit playing regularly… sorta in that "most definitely, and without doubt" way. But, before I all but dropped it in favor of other pursuits, I was keeping personal statistics on my performance. I’d play a game called Equal Offense, where you rack the balls, break and shoot until you miss. How many balls you pocket before missing is your score. A full game is 10 rounds, with each round composed of 10 racks… or 100 racks total. That’s a lot of racking, breaking and shooting. Keeping my score on notebook paper at the pool hall, I come home and transfer them to an Excel spreadsheet that would calculate totals and averages. By doing this, I hoped to see my improvement (or lack thereof) over time. Unfortunately, those "other pursuits" got in the way before sufficient time had passed… and I only recorded two games.

Now, however, I’ve been able to knock out that second data-entry step. I’ve put that Equal Offense spreadsheet, as well one for keeping track of 14:1 Continuous stats onto my Visor. I’m very much looking forward to hitting the pool hall with my Visor to watch the scores rack up. I’m also looking forward to renewing old friendships and improving my table skills, but that all goes without saying. ;)

Waxing philosophical…

Pool is fun. A lot. I can think of few things that I really enjoy as much, and in quite the same way as pool. Been that way for as long as I can remember. Before I was tall enough to really shoot properly, anyway. There’s something Zen about it for me. The common phrase for "in the groove" or "in the zone" in billiards is "dead stroke." Whatever phrase you like, it’s that feeling you get when everything falls away and all that’s left is you and what you’re focusing on… the world vanishes, lights dim, sounds fade, your mind clears and everything important falls into sharp focus. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out and you do what you came to do with purpose and deadly calm determination. For me, what gets me there in a way more pure then anything else I’ve found is billiards. I got a foot in that zone last night again, and now I want more.

P.S. I’m sure I have one or two books on pool and billiards in my wish list… ;)