In which we reorient

Tabroom is a labyrinthine construct. I’m one of its biggest users, and I find that it takes me quite a while to get back into it for a new season. This isn’t so much in the pairings, as in all the little details of how the data is organized for registration and general information. If you don’t poke around a program for a while, you forget where to poke. Normally I find it a process of annual reorientation. I dive into the Pups and it all becomes clear again. This year, though, I was not Pupping, and little Byram Hills hardly counts as a full immersion. So that means the season’s high gear is hit with Rather Large Bronx. But, alas, I’m certainly not running it. I mean, I’m running LD, and marginally helping with the other debate tabbers, but the TDs are Bronxwegian. So they’re the ones banging around in tabroom, and it’s interesting to watch, because they’re banging around in places I never go. The thing is, I really do trust that the program is doing things right. And I certainly trust the registration side of things, since that’s the oldest part of the system. On top of that, the registration side of things is just fields of data with various points of access, as compared to pairings, which juggle data. The juggling is something we always keep an eye on, and probably always will, because you need a little of the human touch in almost any program, even if it’s only to confirm that everything is okey-dokey. Storage is one thing; algorithms are something else entirely. Anyhow, when I’m pulling the levers behind the scenes during the registration phase, I know how to quickly scope out legit entries, how to track judge requests and obligations, how to make things work for everyone, all that sort of thing that the person who does it once a year is a little less at home with. Given that most people probably only do it once a year—I mean, how many dedicated practically-every-week tabbers are there out there? Ten? Twenty?—it’s even more labyrinthine than it is to practiced hands.

So I try to help out the B-wegians, but occasionally they stump me because they’re going at it in a way that wouldn’t occur to me. Fortunately Prime Numbers Palmer has been readily available to point things out and help me get my bearings again, so I can help them out. Considering that in a couple of weeks we open the Tiggers, and with that one I will be pulling all the levers, I would like to feel confident that I am back in the saddle again, as compared to being in the situation CP always comments on with, “Are you sure you’ve done this before?”

And it’s up to Monticello tomorrow. Regional debate struggles along, while the $ircuit keeps on getting more bizarre. Don’t look at me. You only have yourselves to blame.

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