Didn’t work enough.
When I went in on Monday to pay pro, Edward reminded me that I had told him I knew someone who wanted to drive a cab. Contacted Carlos. Plans were made Monday night to meet Tuesday around 10am at Northwest Plaza.
Tuesday
Woke up after 10 at Mary’s with several missed calls from Carlos, called him and told him I’d meet him there as soon as I could.
Showered first. I try to do this every day.
Went to the mall, met Carlos while getting food for S/A, took him to base, left almost immediately since days earlier(Saturday? no, it was Friday) Vroman had invited me over to his place Tuesday afternoon to get the remainder of my stuff which was there. Also, he had said that there would be time to hang out. As soon as he said that I felt lightened, like a friend had returned from a long journey far away, though he never left the city.
So I leave base, head to V’s. Call and say I’ll be a bit late. After I get there, he actually helped me move a bit of my stuff, which I found slightly surprising, but the important thing is that we hung out for a couple hours just chit-chatting. It was exactly like old times.
This rocked big time. I really enjoy talking to Vroman, and when it was time for me to go, he and I agreed that we would do this again sometime, hang out a bit more than we had in the past several months. I told him I’m basically free whenever, he said he’d be in touch.
Then I went back to Mary’s.
I seem to recall that other stuff happened that I wanted to write about, but it escapes me at the moment. Fast forward to Friday- Mary’s Party.
Friday
Woke up late, went to Nick’s to pick him up to go to the party with no real plan to do this from beforehand, other than a passing mention a few weeks before where Mary invited him while I was on the phone with her and hanging out with him. He wasn’t at home. I used his computer to check my email and find out what time I needed to be at the St. Charles convention center tomorrow morning to judge regionals. 8:30am seemed a bit early for a party that promised to go late. So I planned to leave Mary’s sometime before 8 so’s I could get S/A back to base on the way to the tourney. Called Nick, long story short, he didn’t feel like going. Met S/A at Stir Crazy(not totally sure how she got there, likely a bus) ate, then went to party.
Party
Wow. This was pretty fun. Ogre got terribly drunk, and I did assist a bit. I went to sleep a bit early(1? 2?) and learned after I woke up that Ogre spent quite a bit of time hurling in the bathroom around 4 before passing out in the tub. Early on, however, other stuff happened. I proposed that I could get into the larger of the coolers and go down the stairs, and that should be fun. Jen thought this was a TREMENDOUSLY good idea. It took a bit to convince her otherwise. I ultimately had to actually send the cooler down the stairs on an unmanned test mission to show her the danger. It tumbled and even came open at one point. It was pretty brutal. Then this guy decides it would still be a good idea and insists on taking the plunge. Why? I have no clue. He hurt himself, but not too terribly bad, he bailed and made it onto his feet and really only hurt his butt when he slid off the front of the cooler when it stalled on a stair. Other things happened, too many details to keep track. Shelli left kinda early.
Saturday(warning: technical magic speak within)
I woke at around 7(five hours sleep? six?) gathered my belongings, woke up those who would be riding with me, and departed for the regionals at about 7:45. Arrived to judge early for the first time maybe ever. Managed to do precious little of the preliminary work(like numbering tables) since we had more than enough staff and Turk had brought me a sausage mcmuffin and “I’m eating” is a good enough excuse to get one out of things like working, helping with lawn care, or even testifying in a murder case in which you are the only eyewitness. Where was I? When the time came to start we had only ~130 people. Well shy of the ~300 they wanted/expected. Great, now we’re overstaffed, anyone want to play? Hmm. I say that maybe I could, and run over to Joel Mangner and ask if he has another deck I could possibly use. He says he has R/U tron in the car, but it needs some cards for the sideboard. “Like what?” Pithing needles, uncommons. Doh on the needles, I own one and I already loaned it to someone. I tell Glenn(the acting TO) that I can play and he tosses me a free Dissension Pre-Release staff shirt to wear instead of the Moy Events Red gear I had arrived in. Now I’m snazzy and I really need a deck. I go with Joel to get it from his car, all the while planning and deciding what the sideboard really needed. After begging, borrowing and even buying until I had four copies of Spellsnare, I’ve got sixteen cards for a sideboard(wound up not using the one pithing needle Joel already had) and I really need to register my deck, since the players are already seated and they are collecting decklists.
Round one
[doesn’t matter. Did reasonably well. 4-2 or some such]