In which we enjoy the winter weather

This is the point where all is done for a tournament, and all you can do is stare out the window at the snow and read your book and be happy that it will end later today so that you’ll have no trouble getting to Philadelphia tomorrow. It’s that whole idea of freezing fees a few days before the tournament that finally slows things down, halting people in their tracks even though they really want to keep changing everything up through the final round. As a species, forensics coaches aren’t exactly at the top of the organization game. They're even more skinflinty than they are disorganized, meaning they really don't want to pay for non-existent entries. But you knew all of that already.

After a lot of backing and forthing yesterday about the storm, Kaz took off late last night to head to the chez and did pretty well, making it as far as Danbury, about an hour away, before giving in to sleepiness and checking into the Trump Danbury Days Holiday Inn Express Western Ramada. Or something like that. She claims they have food and drink, so maybe it’s a step up from the usual debate venue, which usually only has those tiny corn muffins in the morning and that watery orange juice in those shot glasses and CNN fake news on the overhead screen. In any case, tomorrow morning we should be on the road as planned. Round 1 is at five o’clock for 4 divisions. Piece of cake.

I’m beginning to realize that this is my last major tournament of the year. It’s been a satisfactory lead-up, with lots of waitlist management and the like, but after this, it’s just Lakeland and CFL Grands and out. Sigh. By the way, for those of you who update their IOS (and I’ve noticed that is not everybody), the good old Debate Mobile app is not going to work in the next upgrade. Nor will any other app where you’ve been getting that notice about that particular app slowing you down. I polished up my old Excel pyramid, since that’s the most important part of the app, i.e., how many people will break into what. I’ll post that on my tournament director’s page. It’s a useful thing to have handy.