We are the Mighty Mid-Hudson League, or, Rumble in the Byram Hills Jungle

This is the first time I’ve used CP’s tabroom.com from the back end. He offered it to the Mid-Hudson League, and I took him up on it. Everyone signs up and does their business all by themselves, and it closes when I say it closes, and there we are. I grabbed the data one way or the other (using the TRPC file data generated by tabroom and importing as delineated-by-semicolons for the judges, plus exporting a straightforward csv list of competitors) and plunked it all into my master Excel sheet that translates into TRPC language. With 5 (count ‘em, 5) divisions, the advisability of using E-TRPC (which tabroom.com automatically connects to) is about as high as the advisability of [insert your own humorous metaphor here for some really ill-advised thing]. Now I have to import the data into a couple of C-TRPC modules, one for policy and one for LD and PF (I’ll pass the tabbing of policy to someone else on Saturday; keep your head down, in other words, if you’re not interested). That’ll take about an hour or so, and I can do it Saturday morning, since the tournament doesn’t start till after lunch. In any case, we’re technically all set, or else all set to be all set. Same diff.

The point is, the MHL is off to a bounding start this year. We have over 150 contestants entered, the lion’s share in the first-timers divisions. The good news is that our venue, Byram Hills, has a spare cafeteria we can use for rounds. We’ll need it. There are two new programs signed up (and possibly a third, whom I’ve been corresponding with off-line), plus all the usual suspects in force. This is excellent. O’C, seeing that this was going to be a big tournament requiring a lot of work, immediately purchased a ticket to some $ircuit tournament in Texas where he could hide in the judges’ lounge (having no doubt been struck by everyone there), although he keeps threatening promising to bring his collection of Howard the Duck outtakes to Monticello. I think he thinks I have some odd secret desire to watch his collection of Howard the Duck outtakes. I don’t know how to break it to him…

I’ve also started the ball rolling on the NFL side, sending out the first broadcast message to the chapters/affiliates. What I’m cogitating over is a consolation event of the impromptu persuasion, because as the Rev B.A. pointed out in Rostrum, the judges from the big schools and all the eliminated are sitting around all day while the final rounds transpire, and we need to entertain them all. That’s my NFL-type entertainment. It also occurred to me that our Sailors’ signature trivia contests might translate well, but that remains to be seen. I’m trying to remember how we played Bean Trivia (not trivia about beans, but trivia scored by beans). If anyone recalls, please let me know. Anyhow, Districts is early this year, and I’ve put out a call for volunteers to host, and so far gotten one and a half. We’ll sort this out as we confirm/unconfirm the half.

So, finally, I feel like I’ve settled in for the year. This is the first week with only one meeting at the school, and last night I got around to watching this year’s premiere episode of Heroes. It’s about time. Next, when Bump is over, maybe I’ll be able to watch episode 2.