The Intersection of Supply Side Economics and Real Life

    One of the several magazines I receive comes from the Haslam School of Business at the University of Tennessee. In one of the last issues the graduate PhD program in Supply Side Management was featured. Now I had heard of this major, but did not know that the program had made it to the PhD level. It was not even heard about just a few years prior.

   Anyway, to begin this little story of the intersection of supply side economics and the real world of living, there is a little background. 

   Some few months back, Carolyn and I traded in her Buick Encore. One of us decided that we needed a tad more room, and so we opted for a new Buick Envision. It has been a great car. Good ride, good mileage and plenty of room for an old couple. 

   One Sunday, as we were coming home from church, the Envision had an altercation with an older Honda. Our passenger side front door was struck by a driver's side mirror, resulting in a fair sized dent in said door.

   The Good Hands people gave us the name of a fixer for our problem, and we made an appointment to have it looked at. The man at the shop, Chris by name, said they could repair it by replacing the dented door, just take the old one off and put a new one on, then paint to match.

   Then supply side economics came into play. We had bought an American car manufactured in China. Doors were apparently plentiful in China, but rather scarce on this side of the Pacific.

   We could get the door, but the question became, When?

   The only thing we could count on, according to Chris, was the fact that my door was on a ship somewhere, packed in a container, but with no date for arrival in the US. The only piece of information Chris could promise was that he would let us know when his supplier gave him a firm date for the arrival of my door.

   All of a sudden all those stories about the numbers of container ships sitting loaded in ports waiting for the go ahead to take to the seas, or those who had already made it to their destination and were awaiting a dock to unload, became important. 

   My door was being held captive by the logistics of the supply chain. I had been interrupted by Covid, and my dent was only a wounded statistic, unable to find restitution.

   But at least my Envision had company. 

   My lonely Ford Ranger, a 2007 Ford model, which I had purchased a couple of years back as is, also sported a dented passenger door, which we had decided not to repair as it did not compromise the use of the truck. 

   My truck has a friend now, and for how long, we do not know. These vehicles can commensurate with each other, but their owners are left holding onto a piece a paper written in Chinese.

More Pickleball @ TN Senior Olympics

    Day 2 at the Chattanooga Convention Center

      Friday was Men's and Women's Singles for all age groups.

      Saturday was Men's and Women's Doubles for all age groups

      Sunday will be Mixed Doubles for all age groups

   I wrote about the Friday session yesterday so today's will cover Saturday. My partner, Jack Painter and I were playing in the 80-84 age group, which consisted of 4 teams, playing a round robin, with the best record winning gold.

   Teams were designated ABCD, and Jack and I were A. We had three game sets, best 2 of 3 wins the set. We began play against B, then played D, then C. We looked to be evenly matched, except for D, whose 2 players were both rated at a higher skill level.

   We won a sloppily played first set against B, then dropped behind 1-9 in the second set, but rallied and won that set 12-10.

   Playing the second round robin against D, we lost in straight games, 2-0. Our scores were on par with the higher rated players as we lost 11-5, 11-6. We were fairly competitive but lost.

   At this point, the scores were:

      A 1-1

      B 0-2

      C 1-1

      D 2-0

   Moving on to the third round, we were matched against C. They beat us the first game 7-11, then we rallied again and won the last two games of the set, 11-4, 11-3.

   So the final scores and medal placement.

      First: D 3-0 Gold Medal

      Second: A 2-1 Silver Medal

      Third: C 1-2 Bronze Meda

      Fourth: B 0-3

   This was a fun day. Playing some good Pickleball against players from other areas of the state plus winning the Silver.

   Another thing, and this I think is the reasoning behind the senior events. The games are friendly competitions and challenge senior adults to stay in shape and keep moving.We had around 350 men and women registered for the games, and Pickleball is only one sport of many. By the times these games are completed in September, no telling how many people will have participated in the different sports.

   Unlike the just completed "Big" olympics in Tokyo, there is no formal team designations that players compete for. 

   But I want to give a shout out to the men and women who play at the BX center of Brainerd Baptist Church. We play Tuesday and Thursday from 8:30 to noon. We not only play together and fellowship together, but we support each other. 

   Maybe 15 or so of our people played in the event, but just as many came to support Team BX as they played their matches. It was not unusual for 15-20 people to be behind a court, cheering their friends and fellow Pickleball players. People  came early and stayed late. They could be heard all over the arena.

   It was great to see friendly faces around Court 2 as Jack and I scored the last point and won the match that gave us the Silver. As we looked around, I noticed there was only one other match still playing and everybody else had gone home except those 4 ladies, and the volunteers whose job it was to run the event on those 21 courts. 

   So it was a good day.We had played 7 games, won one medal, been there for over 5 hours with our wives, and got to watch, and cheer for our friends in many more matches.

   Doesn't get much better than that.

   

Back Story on Gold Medal

    When I left you yesterday with a really brief post about the TN Senior Olympics and my gold medal in the Singles competition, I did not have time to tell the complete story.

  

   We played at the Chattanooga Convention site in downtown, 21 courts in the Trade Center exhibit area:

   There were four singles players registered for the event in my playing category, three in the 80-84 group and one (me) in the 85-89. They put us all together, two players in Division 1 for the higher ranked individuals and two in Division 2. Each division would be awarded two medals, gold and silver for the winner and runner up (loser).

   When it came time to assign a court to each match, I found out that my opponent had failed to show and I would automatically win the forfeit game. That is the story of the gold medal, but there is another story here also.

   While waiting for the organizers to figure out what to do with me, I noticed another older man having the same problem. His opponent had failed to show also.

   After hearing this, and realizing that neither of us had to play a match, I asked him if he would like to play a few games, just to get some practice in. He agreed, and we approached the lady in charge to see if we could get a court. We did and moved to it to begin.

   As we readied ourselves to play, this 75 year old man, mentioned that this would be his first time to play Pickleball. How in the world had a person who had never played got in the Tennessee finals, I don't know?

   After we hit a few practice balls, I realized he was truly a novice. What to do now? 

   We were out there, we were ready to play, we even had a scorekeeper. Let's go.

   It was an interesting time:

      He had no backhand shot.

      He did not know the rules.

      I spent the 3 games we played playing to his forehand, and he even missed a bunch of these.

      He got one point in three games, and that was a shanked ball that barely cleared the net.

      The scores were: 11-0, 11-1, 11-0 and I never hit a hard ball.

   He said he enjoyed the games, but I seriously doubt either of us was happy about it.

   I never found out if I got the gold medal for the 85-89 grouping or for winning the lopsided one I had played. 

   I'll opt for the outright forfeit in my own age group. 

   Sounds better, anyway.

   Our scorekeeper, with the gold medal presentation. You might remember Sally from a blog post some weeks past. She was my employee back in the latter part of the 20th century who had come to play at the BX one day. We reunited there, after a long period of time, and here she was again at this tournament as a volunteer. 

   A strange day, all in all.

   And now you know the rest of the story!

Tennessee Senior Olympics

 Day One

   Men's Singles

      85-89 age group

Could be a story here..