Everything (Bumpian) old is new again, confound it!

The thing is, I’ve changed just about everything. Which means that my normal confidence level (hey, we’re doing this for the bazillionth time, what can go wrong) won’t be as high as usual. And meanwhile O’C will be hanging around saying, Oh, you really love this, and probably wearing that horrible sweater of his, and I might have to murder him just to keep on an even keel. There isn’t a jury in the world that would convict me…

For years it’s been policy in the high school, two divisions, and Varsity LD (the only LD division) in the grammar school. Figure 33 or so rooms in the HS, 27 or so in the GS. It always worked, for reasons that escaped me. The two policy divisions would simply balance each other out and take up 33 or so rooms, and LD took up 27 or so rooms. Never failed. Life was good. The first problem is, I have no idea how big the novice LD field will be (or PF, for that matter, given the addition of a TOC bid). I would prefer varsity in the HS, if for no other reason than that people wouldn’t have to sit on baby seats, but I know varsity works down at the GS (although last year we had a tad of spill-over-age into the gym). I also have access to some tables in the fairly large library, which can make perfectly good PF venues. So, it’s a tossup. Last year PF was 28 teams, which is 7 rooms, which is a piece of cake in the HS, with Varsity in 28 or so other rooms, including the library, and novices at the GS. As Joe V has pointed out, splitting a division would potentially wreak judge pool havoc, so that’s out. It all depends on the number of entrants in PF and Novice LD. I have no idea.

In any case, add to that the fact that my varsity will be used to judge novice LD. That means the tables are run by Speecho-Americans (but fortunately we have a good, reliable crew of upperclassfolk there, and this time out they won’t have to figure Policy ballots and LPWs, although there are the usual confusing PF ballots, but then again no one can figure them out so the S-As are at no particular disadvantage). Runners, as usual, are freshmen and sophomores. So the operations personnel are different, and there’s no longer the reward of growing up and ruling a table based on your vast LD experience. Now you grow up and you judge rounds. What’s the point of becoming a team leader? Bah!

I have all sorts of prepared materials that don’t make sense anymore, as I just noticed (they’re all in my master spreadsheet that runs the tournament). I’ve got to work out how we’ll train PF judges, how we’ll handle express check-in (although simply presenting my smiling face at the door should be enough for that), where I’m going to get PF ballots from (I think I’ll make up my own), what to do about white-sheeting (I’m definitely using my version of the NFL LD ballots, with labels this time). My remarks of greeting and get-lost awards need revision, my team assignment sheets are all moot, I can dump the idea of checking rooms (except at the end) because we won’t have Policians spewing their usual litter william-nilliam. I’ll probably still need runner wranglers, though. Candy? Oy. I’d give it away except these dogs eat the stuff, and buy the stuff, like it’s going out of style. Pure profit! Go figure.

Next week I’ll instruct my Engineer/Wrangler in the art of getting rooms from the two schools. I’ll meet with the parents who will run housing and food. I’ll line up tabulationists at Yale. I’ll think about ways of executing O’C. It will be a profitable week, one way or the other.