THX2010 is here. Grab a shovel and start climbing!

All right. Back to business. And stop whining about having to go back to school. There’s a lot worse things in life. Think of this as a golden opportunity to learn everything there is to know, including what that special someone says about you when you’re not around to hear it. We here at CL don’t make annual resolutions (or, for that matter, honor very many other dumb holidays/traditions—in other words, don’t wait up nights longing for a Valentine card, a corsage for Great-grandfather Day, or a trip to the office on Take your Annoying Kid to Work Day), but if we did, we would resolve never to say anything behind one’s back that we wouldn’t say in front of their back, unless we never talk to them in the first place. Which is why we don’t make resolutions, because right away we’d be in the hole, and who needs that so early in January?

We’re now well into the season where tournament planning includes worrying about being snowed out. And forecasts aren’t particularly reliable until maybe a couple of days before an event, so you usually don’t even have an inkling of what’s coming up on you until it actually does. But we just gird our loins and hope for the best. And thank our lucky stars that our own tournament is back in early November. Whew!

Coming up on the agenda are A. L. Johnson (a local event down in NJ), Bigle X and the Lex RR, and then the Gem of Harlem. Those last two are 4 and 3 days of the old coachean life respectively, so expect to hear a lot about them. ALJ, on the other hand, is a nice easing back into the business, with about 70 VLD and 60 NLD, with the odd Pffter thrown in to spice things up. They’re running a novice PF division, which I like, given that it’s quite a rarity, and it allows first-years to compete against other first-years straight up, as compared to the occasional round of JV PF (a NY thing) open to first- and second-years. I’m a firm believer that novices need novice events, which is why I’ve worked so hard to replace almost all the JV divisions around here with novice divisions. JVers need to learn to play like the big kids, but novices need to learn how not to pick their nose during cross-ex. Different business altogether.

Of course, we may not be going anywhere, thanks to my crack Hardware Engineer, who suspects that she might not have submitted the bus forms. If repercussions result, I will be punishing her by putting her on a diet of bread and water. No, wait a minute. That wouldn’t work. I’m putting her on a diet of fruits and vegetables. Let’s see how she likes that!